James Patterson - 11th hour

I moved the blanket aside.

I could see the trophy garden and the back of the Ellsworth mansion, including the door that led from the kitchen and out to the brick patio where six days ago I’d seen a pair of skulls displayed like a monstrous art project.

The former tennis star was speaking to Conklin. “I watched you take charge of the crime scene, of course. I enjoyed that very much. I know you’re trying to help Harry.”

There was standing room only in Connie Kerr’s little flat, but she had the air of a Nob Hill dowager holding a tea party.

“May I get you refreshments?” she said.

We turned down the offer of refreshments and arrayed ourselves around the small room.

I leaned against the kitchenette counter, Cindy grabbed the only chair, and Conklin took up a position against the door. Connie Kerr stood like a flagpole at the center of the room.

“How can I help you?” she said.

“Harry Chandler,” I said. “How do you know him?”

“Oh, well. Harry. I was his girlfriend a long time ago. He was a star and I was blinded by his light. It was just a fling,” she said, laughing, “but I really had fun and I have no regrets.”

“When did you see him last?”

“Don’t hold me to the exact day, but I’m sure I haven’t seen him in twenty years or more.”

“But Harry lets you live here?”

“He doesn’t know that I’m here. But he wouldn’t mind. I’m no trouble. I live like a little mouse.” She laughed again, a shrill, crazy kind of laugh. “I’m working on a book, you know. I’ve written ten novels so far and I’ve just started another. They’re thrillers. Murder mysteries.”

“Do you use your real name?”

Cindy asked. “Cindy, is it? I’ll use my name when I’m published. I think the story I’m working on now has a real chance of getting into print.”

Connie Kerr took us on a tour of her fairly wild imagination, showing us loosely connected plot diagrams that she’d drawn on brown butcher’s paper and taped to the walls.

As she talked about her characters, she used broad gestures, did pirouettes, clasped her hands to her chest as though she were still a young girl and not a fifty-year-old squatter in someone’s abandoned digs.

Had this eccentric mystery writer witnessed a crime through her window? Or had she gone beyond writing about murder and actually committed it?

“What can you tell us about the heads we found in the garden?” I asked.

“I know that they make a whopping good mystery,” she said.

She was grinning and clapping her hands when my partner broke her mood.

“We don’t like mysteries,” Conklin said. “Ms. Kerr, here’s the thing. We’re going to need you to come with us down to the Hall and make a statement. Officially.”

Kerr’s radiant smile left her face. “Oh no. I really can’t leave the house. I never do.”

“You never go outside?” Conklin asked.

Kerr shook her head vigorously.

“How do you get food?”

“A friend brings me what I need and leaves it for me on the back steps.”

“Who is this friend?”

“I don’t have to say.”

“Let me put it another way. Can this friend vouch for your whereabouts last weekend?” I asked her.

“You don’t understand. I live alone. Nobody ever sees me. You’re the first guests I’ve had here — ever.”

Conklin said, “We’ve got seven dead people, Ms. Kerr. Not fiction. Truth. I think you know what happened to them.”

“I did nothing. I saw nothing. What can I say to make you believe me? I’m the last person you should ever suspect, Mr. Conklin.”

Conklin said, “Do you have a coat?”

“A coat?”

“Here,” he said, taking off his jacket and putting it over her shoulders. “It’s raining outside.”

Constance Kerr sat at the table in the interrogation room. She was tense, had her arms wrapped across her chest; she seemed like a trapped cat waiting for the door to crack open so that she could dart the hell out.

We knew very little about Kerr. She’d left the world stage long ago and could be anybody now: a certifiable dingbat, a witness, a killer, or all of the above.

I didn’t believe that she knew nothing about the crimes committed at the Ellsworth compound, and we were going to try to hold her until she told us something we could believe.

Conklin had a rapport with Kerr, so I just sat back and watched, thinking what a good guy he was and also that he was a really good cop.

He said, “Connie, look at me. I know you want to help us find out who did this heinous stuff at the Ellsworth compound.”

“If only I could. Honestly. The first time I knew anything was wrong was when the police showed up. But, Inspector Conklin, I read on the Internet about the index cards and I was struck by the number. Six hundred thirteen!”

“Did you write that number, Connie? If you did and can tell me what it means, that would be tremendous.”

“No, no, but six hundred and thirteen is verging on a Guinness world record for a serial killer. Elizabeth Bathory, the bloody lady of Cachtice, had over six hundred girls killed in her castle in Hungary. The exact number is uncertain. Well, it happened in the early sixteen hundreds…”

“Interesting. But I’m thinking four-hundred-year-old murders aren’t that relevant to our current investigation.”

He gave her a nice smile and she responded earnestly.

“No, really. This could be the clue you’ve been waiting for. Please check it out.”

I couldn’t get a handle on Kerr’s mental state. Was she crazy? Or crazy like a fox? I needed to know.

I told Conklin that I’d be back in a minute, and when I was outside the room, I called psychologist Dr. Frank Cisco. Cisco answered his phone, said he was in the building and that he’d come upstairs. A few minutes later, we met in the stairwell.

Frank Cisco was a consultant to the SFPD, on call when a cop was in trouble, and he advised the DA’s office as well. He was a big man with a lot of thick white hair. Today he was wearing a busy plaid sports jacket, gray slacks, and pink orthopedic shoes.

Frank was a sweet man, gave you the feeling you could say anything to him in confidence. He hugged me and said, “What’s new, Lindsay?”

“A ton,” I said, hugging him back.

A few days ago, I had called Cisco and asked him to review our short list of cops who were considered possible suspects in the vigilante-cop case. I didn’t ask him to leak confidential information, just to look at the personnel files and let us know which cops, in his opinion, were likely to go on a shooting spree.

He’d said it would be unethical for him to finger suspects based on a hunch. Fine. I got it.

Now I said, “Frank, this isn’t about the shooter cop. I need your help on a different case altogether.”

He looked relieved, and as we walked back to the interrogation rooms, I told him what little I knew about Constance Kerr.

I knocked on the door to Interview 1 and when Conklin stepped outside, I asked him to get Kerr to go through the whole story again for Frank’s benefit.

Frank and I went into the observation room and watched the interview.

Connie asked Conklin, “When can I go home?”

Conklin said, “I just want to make sure I’ve got your story straight.”

Kerr told the story again, but this time she added new details about the morning the heads were found: her routine on awakening, her rituals and habits, how she’d made up the wall bed and brewed a special Manchurian tea. Finally she got to the part where she heard the sirens and peeked through her back window.