James Patterson - 10th Anniversary

The motive to kill was there.

Her going ballistic had demonstrated to the jury that she could have lost her cool and gunned him down.

The judge banged his gavel once more, and at last the ruckus died down. He straightened his glasses, peered down at Yuki, and said, “Anything else, Ms. Castellano? Or have you done enough for one day?”

Yuki said, “I have nothing further for the witness.”

Hoffman said, “Redirect, Your Honor.”

But the judge wasn’t listening anymore. His attention had gone to his cell phone. His face was pale.

A second time Hoffman told the judge that he wanted to reexamine the witness.

“It’ll have to wait,” said Judge LaVan. “I have to visit someone at the hospital, immediately.

“Dr. Martin, you may step down. Court is adjourned for the day. Ms. Castellano. Mr. Hoffman. Be in my chambers at eight a.m. tomorrow morning. Don’t be late.

“We’ll pick up the pieces then.”

I WALKED INTO Brady’s office first thing in the morning, hoping to have the quickest meeting on record.

Brady put down his phone and said, “Boxer, I’m going to have to pull you off Richardson and send it down to Crimes Against Persons. Look at what’s come in in the past week,” he said, tilting his chin toward the whiteboard in the center of the squad room, legible through the glass walls of his office.

Six open cases were listed in black letters. Closed cases were always written in red. There were no closed cases.

“Lieutenant, we’re getting some real movement on Richardson,” I said, pulling out a chair, sitting down across from the big guy. His sunny hair was pulled back, but there was no wedding band on his ring finger. I thought about Yuki, no bigger than a bird, wrapped in the arms of this cop I barely knew, and I was afraid for her.

Yuki was a brilliant, gutsy prosecutor — and at the same time an absolute loser at picking men.

Brady was staring back at me, waiting for me to speak.

“Quentin Tazio found a connection that could crack this case,” I said.

“QT’s our computer consultant, right?”

“He’s the best.”

I told Brady that through the wizardry of telephony and electronic databases, QT had tracked a phone call to Jordan Ritter from the Lake Merced area during the time Avis Richardson was delivering her baby.

“According to Avis, she asked one of the two women who had assisted in the delivery to lend her a phone so she could call her boyfriend.

“The phone used to call Jordan Ritter belongs to Antoinette Burgess, age forty, used to be a schoolteacher. She lives in Taylor Creek, Oregon. Population three thousand forty-two.”

Brady said, “You think Burgess may have the baby?”

“Avis says Burgess was there when the baby was born.”

“I’m starting to feel a little hopeful. Seem okay to be hopeful, Boxer?”

I nodded and told Brady that Burgess didn’t have a record and that I wanted to meet her. If she had the baby, I would get him out of Taylor Creek before sirens and helicopter and SWAT made an intervention dangerous.

“Conklin is going to stay here and work on locating Avis and her boyfriend,” I told Brady. “Claire Washburn is coming with me. We’re both working off the meter.”

“Work on the meter,” Brady said. “Let’s wrap this up. I’ll contact the local authorities in whatever the largest town is near Taylor Creek. I’ll do it now.”

“Lieutenant. With all due respect, I think we should get a feel for the situation first.”

Brady and I went a few rounds about the logistics, but I could tell he was excited. After I assured him that I would call him as soon as I reached Taylor Creek and give him postings throughout the day, he gave me the green light.

I got out of Brady’s office, relieved that I was still on the case. I knew that this one lead to a woman who lived in Oregon was probably my last chance to find Avis Richardson’s missing child.

And it might be the baby’s last chance, too.

I MET CLAIRE in the parking lot outside the Medical Examiner’s Office. She piled in next to me in the front seat of the Explorer with a diaper bag doing duty as a picnic carryall.

Like me, Claire hadn’t gone on a road trip in more than a year. Unlike me, Claire was in a cheery mood.

I punched “Main Street, Taylor Creek, Oregon” into the Explorer’s nav system and set out toward the Bay Bridge and 1–80 East. It was a four-hundred-and-thirty-mile trip, and I planned to make it all in one day.

By this time tomorrow, I hoped to have Baby Boy Richardson in my care. I could almost see him all bundled up, lying in his car seat.

“I brought you a fried-egg sandwich,” Claire told me as we passed the Berkeley exit and got a foggy-morning Bay view across the marina to the west. “I had the deli man put a slice of ham in there. And here’s your coffee. Extra milky.”

“You’re a sweetie, ya know?”

“I do know,” Claire said, chuckling. Man, she was glad to be getting out of town. By the time we hit the interstate, Claire was in full throat about her baby and my goddaughter, Ruby Rose Washburn.

She spared no detail in singing out stories about Ruby’s adventures in the pots-and-pans cabinet, her first taste of hot dog with relish, and how Ruby’s daddy was her favorite person.

“Edmund plays the cello for her,” Claire told me as I got in the Fas Trak lane. We crossed the Carquinez Bridge. I took in the view of San Pablo Bay and Mare Island, the site of the old Mare Island shipyard and the sugar refinery in the town of Crockett to the east.

“She lies in the puffy chair when he practices and coos along with the music. She loves Vivaldi, Edmund says. It’s all so delicious, Lindsay.”

“Uh-huh,” I said. I couldn’t say more. I love Ruby Rose. I was looking for a missing baby. And I had babies on my mind.

I ached to have a baby with Joe. I wanted what Claire had — hot dogs and pots and pans and cooing babies. I wanted to hear Joe singing amazing arias to our child in Italian.

I didn’t even know they were there, but salty tears leaked out of my eyes and rolled down my cheeks. I palmed them away, but Claire caught me in the act.

“What is it, Lindsay? What’s wrong?”

“Just tired,” I said.

“After all these years, you still think you can get away with lying to me?”

“No. No, I don’t.”

“So, what is it?”

I told my best bud, “Once a month I get body-slammed by the loss of another opportunity, you know? Getting married makes me want a baby more than ever. It’s come over me like a freakin’ baby-love tsunami,” I said.

“You and Joe have been trying?”

I nodded.

“For how long?”

“A little while. Three or four months.”

“That’s nothing,’” Claire said.

By then we were on Interstate 5 about one hundred miles north of San Francisco. Knee-high thickets of scrub flanked both sides of the freeway, and wire fences separated the road from the plains of parched grass that stretched to the horizon.

The word “barren” came to mind.

“You having PMS right now?” Claire asked me.

“Yuh-huh,” I said.

Claire reached over and gave my shoulder a shake. “You’re getting a chocolate bar at the next gas station,” she said.

I croaked, “What is that? Doctor’s orders?”

Claire laughed. “Yes, it is, smarty-pants,” she said. “It most definitely is.”

ANY COP WOULD SAY that emotional attachment messes with your objectivity. You just have to accept that innocent people get hurt, raped, scammed, kidnapped, and murdered every day.