James Patterson - The 8th Confession

I wanted to hear her say it again – and then she did.

“He told me who he killed and why. Daddy hated those phonies who sucked up to him because he was rich. He loved my mother because she was real.”

Pet Girl reached into her blouse and pulled out a locket, opened it with shaking hands, and held it out to show Parisi the photo of Christopher Ross.

Parisi never shifted his eyes. He simply torched Johnson with his fearsome Red-Dog-will-rip-your-throat-out stare and said, “An allegation is worth nothing. You want the deal? I need proof.”

Pet Girl twisted her head toward me for the first time since Jacobi and Parisi entered the room.

“My keys are in my handbag,” she told me. “It’s red ostrich skin, and I think I left it on the console table in the foyer.”

I nodded, said, “Red bag. I’ll find it.”

“Look for a brass key with a round top, goes to a padlock on my storage unit,” she said. “Bay Storage, unit number twenty-two. I’ve got all of my father’s papers stored there. Inside one of the boxes is a file marked ‘Natajara.’ ”

“Is the box numbered? Labeled?”

“Should be right in front. I think second or third tier on the right-hand side -”

I was inside my head, thinking about how I would run upstairs to get a search warrant for Johnson’s apartment, when my cell phone rang – Brenda, our squad assistant, shouting into the mouthpiece, “Lindsay, two old guys -”

The interview-room door flew open, and two distinguished-looking gentlemen burst in.

Bill Tarbox was in blue seersucker and a red-and-white polka-dot bow tie, looking as if he’d left his Panama hat out in the Rolls. Fenn’s haircut was so sharp, you could cut yourself on his sideburns.

Fenn glared around the room, identified his client, and said, “Norma, stop talking. We’re your lawyers, and this interview is over.”

I WAS WITH CONKLIN in his private hospital room with its view of the parking lot. He looked pale, his hair lying damp across his forehead, but his smile was strong and he was cracking jokes, all very good signs.

I angled the reclining chair toward his bed.

“You’re not mad, are you, Rich?”

“Why? Because you cracked Pet Girl while I lay here like a sack of sand? Why would that make me mad? I mean, come on, Lindsay,” he said, turning his brown eyes on me. “Nailing that psycho, even if I wasn’t there at the triumphal moment – that’s what’s important. Nurse! I need a cyanide drip, stat.”

I laughed. Rich had stood up to frickin’ Pet Girl’s snake attack, and for that alone, he was a hero. He was alive – and both our shields, McCorkle’s, too, had been buffed to gleaming for teeing up Norma Johnson for the DA.

This was what we liked to call “a great day to be a cop.”

A nurse’s aide brought in an early-bird blue plate special for Conklin, and as he moved the mush around his dish, I told him about my return to Pet Girl’s apartment.

“Animal Rescue said that the place was clean, but seriously, how did they know they’d gotten every last snake? I walked on tiptoes, Rich, and I’m not even sure my tiptoes touched the ground.”

He grinned, said, “Yer a brave lass, Lindsay.”

“I grabbed that handbag, slammed the door behind me, found the keys. Fifty of the sixty-two were brass with a round top.”

“Did one of them fit the lock?”

“You in a hurry?” I asked him.

“No, no. Take your time.”

I laughed again, glad that Conklin would be out of this house of horrors as soon as Doc gave him the thumbs-up.

“I met McCorkle at Pet Girl’s storage unit,” I said. “He brought this big kid along with him from the lab.

“So we get the door open, and we’re staring at maybe ten yards of cardboard cartons. Big Kid starts taking the boxes down, and McCorkle and I flip through files for five hours looking for ‘Natajara,’ ” I said.

“Turns out Natajara is the name of an Indian god, wears a cobra around his shoulders. Natajara Exports sells poisonous reptiles.”

“Lindsay, you rock.”

“Yes, I do. I found the correspondence between a Mr. Radhakrishnan of Natajara Exports and Christopher Ross, CEO of Pacific Cargo Lines. And I found an invoice for a crate of kraits. Dated January nineteen eighty-two.”

“Asshole kept a record of his snake buy? But how do you figure he was the killer and also a victim?”

“McCorkle thinks his death was an accident, possibly a suicide. We’ll never know, but this is for sure: Norma Johnson is going away for six consecutive lifetimes – and McCorkle has stamped his cold case closed.”

I was high-fiving my partner when a curly-haired blond tornado blew into Conklin’s room with a gift-wrapped box and a bouquet of helium balloons.

“Hey, you,” Conklin said, clearly delighted.

“Hey, you, too.”

Grinning, Cindy said hi to me, kissed Conklin, hugged him, put the box on his stomach, and demanded he open it. “It’s a bathrobe,” she said. “I don’t want anyone seeing your buns but me.”

Conklin laughed, his face coloring. As he worked on the ribbon, I said, “Sounds like my cue to leave. Hope to see you at the Hall tomorrow, bud.”

I kissed Conklin on the cheek and hugged my irrepressible friend Cindy, and as I left the room, I had a thought: Cindy and Rich are good together.

They really are.

THAT NIGHT, just as Claire, Yuki, and I came through the door to Susie’s, the power went out, instantly plunging the place into a dusky giddiness. Strangers bumped into one another, ordering beer while it was still cold, and the steel drummer carried on without a microphone, ramping up his mellow voice and singing out, “Salt, tea, rice, smoked fish, are nice and the rum is fine any time of year…”

We three pressed on toward the back room, took our usual table, saving Cindy’s seat until she finished taking Conklin home with his new bathrobe.

“She is coming, though?” Yuki asked.

Claire and I shrugged dramatically in unison. Yuki laughed, and Lorraine put candles on the table. She brought us a pitcher of draft, a big basket of chips, and a bowl of salsa, saying, “This is dinner until the power goes back on.”

I hijacked Cindy’s time, used it to tell Claire and Yuki about Pet Girl’s confession and the wrap-up of McCorkle’s old cold case.

Claire jumped in to report on her newly revised autopsy of McKenzie Oliver’s body, purring, “The bite mark was just above his shoulder blade. No one would have found those pinpricks unless they were purely looking for them.”

Just then, Cindy breezed in and found our table. She was out of breath but glowing as she slid in beside Yuki. Lorraine brought over another sweating pitcher of beer, saying, “We’re closing up, ladies. This is the last, and it’s on Susie.”

I filled Cindy’s glass, and she lifted it to all of us.

“To you guys, for saving Richie’s life.”

“What?” Claire sputtered.

“You, Claire, for telling Doc about the kraits. Otherwise he wouldn’t have put the aquarium on standby. And you, Linds, for getting that belt around his arm, telling him what to do.”

“Are you planning to thank the Academy now? What I did for Conklin, he’d do for me. That’s what it means to be partners.”

“True, but you did it.”

“Don’t mind her. She’s full of L-U-V,” Claire told me.

“She’s full of something.”

“And you,” Cindy said to Yuki.

“I’m innocent. I had nothing to do with saving Conklin’s life.”

“You found Doc.”

“Well,” Claire said, “I guess we should all be thanking you, too, Cindy.”

“Come on.”