James Patterson - 10th Anniversary

“May I take a look anyway? It shouldn’t take long.”

“Knock yourself out.”

Wysocki told Cindy that the garage had three levels — the main floor, which she was on, and two subterranean levels. Two of the vans were on the first floor down, and the third was on the second floor down.

Cindy thanked the man and began her tour of the parked taxis in the dark, grimy, stinking-from-gas-fumes underground garage. Twenty minutes later, she’d located all three vans, none of which had a movie ad on its side.

She took the stairs back to the main floor and left her card with the dispatcher, taking his card in return.

“Okay if I call you again?”

“Feel free,” said Wysocki, who grabbed his microphone and barked a street address to a cabbie.

Cindy left the garage through the front door on Turk and found Richie waiting for her on the street corner.

“You were suppposed to wait for me in the coffee shop,” he said.

“I’m sorry, Rich. I was a bit early so I thought I’d follow up on something. Honey, this is just legwork. And this is just a cab company.”

“A cab company, and you suspect a cabbie of being the last person to see a woman who was drugged and raped.”

“Well, none of the cabs here is the one.”

“I don’t like the chances you take to get a story, Cindy,” Rich said, opening the passenger-side door for her. “This is mugger’s alley. I’m dropping you home. Then I’ve got to meet Lindsay.”

Cindy looked up at her fiancé, stretched up onto her toes, and kissed him. She said, “You’re very damned overprotective, Richie. And this is the weird part: I kind of like it.”

CONKLIN AND I met with the Richardsons once again in their pricey suite at the Mark Hopkins, with its billion-dollar nightscape of Nob Hill and Union Square. The view embraced the Transamerica Pyramid and skyscrapers of the Financial District, San Francisco Bay, and the western span of the Bay Bridge, reaching to Treasure Island.

I’ve lived in San Francisco my whole life, and I’ve rarely seen the city from a vantage point like this.

I stared out at the lights while Conklin told the Richardsons that we needed an uninterrupted hour with Avis. He said it would be easier on Avis if we talked to her here rather than down at the Hall. And he said that being with her alone might produce more truth-telling than talking with her while her parents were present.

Sonja Richardson said, “I don’t think she has anything left to tell,” but both parents agreed to let us talk to Avis alone.

Now the parents were having “light dining” upstairs at Top of the Mark, and Avis was in the kitchenette, looking at me over her shoulder with fierce antipathy.

“How many times do I have to tell you,” she groused. She opened the refrigerator and took out a bowl of dip, then rummaged in the cupboard and put her hand on a bag of chips. “I told you everything I know.”

“Come over here and sit down, Avis,” Conklin said.

She looked surprised at the tone Conklin had taken with her, which was actually mild compared with the images I was having of grabbing her by the scruff of her neck and throwing her against a wall.

Avis took a defiant minute to gather her snack, along with a bottle of soda, and bring it into the sitting area, where she spread everything out on the coffee table.

“Tell us about your English teacher,” I said.

“Mr. Ritter?”

“You’ve got more than one English teacher?”

“Mr. Ritter is okay. Not my favorite, but I get good grades in English. I have a talent for writing.”

“Is Jordan Ritter the father of your child?”

“That’s insane! I hardly know him.”

I was sitting in a chair at her level, my hands clasped, my elbows resting on my knees. I leaned over the coffee table and said to the teenager, “Do you think I’m stupid?”

“What?”

“I said, Do you think I’m stupid?”

“What difference does it make who the father is anyway?”

I said, “That’s it. Avis, stand up. Inspector Conklin, cuff her. Avis Richardson, you’re under arrest for conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and child endangerment. If we find his body, we’ll change that charge to murder.”

“Oh my God, what are you doing?” she said as the cuffs closed around her wrists. “My baby’s not dead. He’s not dead .”

“Tell us about it at the station. Let’s go,” I said.

“Here. I’ll talk here ,” she said.

I nodded to Rich and he took off the cuffs. The girl threw herself back onto the couch, and then she started telling a version of the story that I hadn’t heard before. I didn’t know if she was telling the truth.

But truly, her story was taking a turn for the weird.

“IF YOU TELL ME A FIB,” I said to Avis Richardson, “or a half-truth or even an exaggeration — if you tell me any kind of lie at all — I will know it. And when that happens, you’re going to jail.”

“I’ll tell you the truth,” she said. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. I can’t stand it anymore.”

“Start talking,” I said.

“You’re right about Jordan. He is the father of my baby. He has great genes.”

Genes? Jeans? This kid was criminally deluded. I was afraid that if I opened my mouth, I’d lash out at her.

I put my hands through my hair and took a moment to get a grip on my anger. I couldn’t remember when I’d felt so frustrated, but I didn’t want to shut this kid down by letting her see the fury in my eyes. It was the time to let Conklin work his magic with women.

Conklin said, “Is the baby alive, Avis? Do you know where he is?”

“He’s alive. I don’t know where he is, though.”

Conklin said, “Okay, Avis. Let’s see if we can figure it out together.”

“A lot of what I said before was true. I hid my pregnancy. I didn’t even tell Jordan about it for five months. Then I told him, and he started to go asshole on me. ‘How do I know it’s even mine?’”

“Men can be jerks,” Conklin said.

Avis nodded. “I went out to Prattslist and found an ad.”

“There was no ad,” I said.

“It wasn’t the ad I told you about,” Avis said. “It was a different ad and it was only three weeks ago. I contacted these two women. A couple. They were looking for a baby and they would pay twenty-five thousand dollars.”

“Names?” I said.

“Toni and Sandy.”

“That’s it?” I said.

“You contacted two women,” Conklin said to the teenage idiot on the couch. I looked at the door. With luck, the kid would tell us everything we needed to know before her parents came home.

Right now, Jordan Ritter was facing jail time. Avis Richardson was looking at juvie. And the last thing we needed was a thousand-dollar-an-hour lawyer sticking his fingers in the pie.

“They picked me up a block from the school, but — but they didn’t drug me or anything. They said they had a place where I could give birth in peace. I fell asleep in the back of the car.”

“When you woke up,” Conklin said, “did you know where you were?”

“Not at all. It was dark. It was remote. I was in labor. I got into bed and for about six hours, I screamed my head off. I gave birth to the baby. I held him. He was absolutely the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. And then I gave him to Toni and Sandy. They were nice and they really wanted him.”

I’d reached my limit. Did this child care at all about her son? No.

I shouted, “That’s the last you saw of that baby? You have nothing else to tell us? Is any of what you told us true? If you gave birth with these nice women in attendance, explain to us why you were found bleeding out near the lake.”