Джеймс Паттерсон - The Black Book

I squeeze my eyes shut, as if the memory of it all will just vomit into my brain. But there is nothing but fog.

“Take a look at Amy’s back,” he says. “See the blood spatter?”

I open my eyes. I see it, of course, along the middle and small of her back.

“That’s your blood, Harney,” he says. “You know what that means, don’t you?”

Of course I do. It means that Amy was already rolled over, probably dead, before I was shot and spattered blood. Otherwise the blood would have hit her in the front.

“You see how the sequencing shakes out,” he says. “You shot Amy first. Then Kate shot at you, and you returned fire. She died; you survived. So that bullshit story that everyone’s trying to get me to swallow—that Kate walked in on you and Amy having sex and went into some jealous rage—it’s a load of crap,” he says. “You shot first. You started the shooting.”

What he’s saying makes sense. But it can’t be true.

I need my memory back.

Wizniewski comes around the table, stands over me, hovering, one hand planted on the table next to me, the tobacco smell overwhelming the aftershave.

“Kate confronted you,” he says. “Amy was there; she heard everything, so she was just as much of a liability as Kate. You had to kill ’em both. Me, I would’ve shot Kate first. She was the one with the gun. You gave her time to draw her weapon and shoot you back. That was a mistake. But people make mistakes, don’t they?”

“It didn’t happen that way,” I say.

“I thought you had no memory of this, Harney.”

“It couldn’t have happened that way.”

He leans down, speaking almost directly into my ear. “Kate made you. She figured out what you were doing.”

“And what was I doing, Wiz?”

He lets out a small chuckle, like we both know the answer. “You were selling your badge,” he says. “You were offering protection. And you were about to be exposed.”

“No,” I say.

Wizniewski stands up straight, takes a breath. “No?”

“No,” I repeat.

“Y’know, we never recovered Kate’s cell phone. You know that.”

“I know that.”

“And yours was smashed to pieces on the carpet.”

I look down at the crime-scene photos. Next to the bed, by the side where I was shot, lay my phone, the screen broken badly, the phone itself cracked in half.

“I know that, too,” I say.

“So—what?—you tossed her phone out the window or something? And you smashed your own phone? You figured you’d destroy the evidence?”

“Evidence of what?” I ask.

“You must have been really desperate, Harney. You had to know we would eventually recover all the text messages. Even if the physical phones were destroyed. It’s called technology.”

I shake my head, but inside me, something sinks into my gut.

“Text messages?” I ask.

Wizniewski lets out a bitter chuckle. “Like you don’t know.”

“I don’t know. I don’t remem—”

“Well, you do know that the coroner places the shootings at around ten o’clock that night, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Right.”

“Well, just get a load of this exchange of text messages between you and Detective Kate Fenton just minutes before that.”

Wizniewski drops down a sheet of paper, a log of text messages generated by some computer. The log breaks down the time, the sender, the recipient, and the content of the messages. My eyes move down to the day of the shootings at 9:49 p.m.

Kate, to me: Need to talk to u

My reply: Not now

Kate: I’m right outside her door open up

My reply: You’re outside Amy’s apt?

Kate: Yes open door right now

My reply: Why would I do that

And then, finally, Kate’s last text to me:

Bc she knows u idiot. She knows about u and so do I

I throw down the log and jump from my chair. Wizniewski takes a protective step backward.

“No,” I say. “That’s not possible. Something’s…that can’t be right.”

Lasers shooting through my brain, everything upside down, shaking out words and facts and blips of memories and dumping them into a black hole—

“Still think this was a jealous-rage shooting?” Wizniewski sneers. “Doesn’t sound like one to me. Nope, it sounds to me like Amy Lentini figured you out, and so did Kate.”

“No…no.” I feel myself falling, literally, to the floor. Figuratively, I feel everything slipping from my grasp. I need it back. I need my memory.

It’s not that you can’t remember, my shrink said to me. You don’t want to remember.

“Billy Harney,” says Wizniewski, “you’re under arrest.”

The Past

Fifty-Four

I WALKED out of Ramona Dillavou’s house, now a crime scene, now the site of a brutal torture-murder. In the time I was inside the house, fighting off questions from Wizniewski and staring down my sister, the press arrived, gathering in droves outside, running their cameras and tossing out questions to anyone who would respond. I could hardly blame the media for assembling here. The madam, the manager of the brownstone brothel, the same week that the sex-club trial was to begin, was permanently silenced.

Patti, who slipped out before I did, was walking quickly down the sidewalk past the media horde toward her car. I picked up my pace and called out to her. She didn’t respond. So I started walking faster. She wasn’t going to start running; that would look too strange, especially in front of the reporters. Eventually I caught her. I grabbed her arm and pushed her toward the walkway of another house, more than half a block away from the crime scene.

She looked at me, her eyes wide and intense, her mouth opening slightly, air slithering out of her mouth like smoke.

“Looks like the woman with the little black book is out of the picture now,” she said to me, a hint of accusation.

“Yeah, it sure does. You have something to say to me, Patti?”

Her eyes narrowed, her jaw tight.

“You were looking pretty messed up when I saw you last night,” she said. “Drunk and upset. Crying in your daughter’s room. You’re not a crier, Billy.”

“And just why were you there?” I asked. “Why did you come to my house last night? What—just in the neighborhood?”

She nodded her head, not saying yes, just taking in what I said, thinking about it. “You should be glad I did,” she said.

“Why’s that?”

“Because I’m your alibi,” she said. “I can say you were at home last night. That you didn’t kill Ramona Dillavou.”

I stepped back from her. “What?”

“People are going to think that,” she said. “Don’t be naive, Billy. Everyone’s on your case about the little black book, and suddenly the person who kept that book is dead? I saw the way Wizniewski was looking at you in there. He thinks you killed her.”

I felt heat throughout my body.

“So you’re my alibi?” I asked.

She nodded. “Damn straight I am.”

“I guess that works both ways,” I said.

“What does that mean?”

“It means,” I say, “that I’m your alibi, too.”

Her eyes lit up, her body tensing. She looked to her right, at the glut of cameras and microphones.

“Is that why you came to my house?” I asked. “So I could cover for you? So I could say, ‘Gee, Patti was with me most of the night, tucking me into bed, cleaning up the mess I made, singing lullabies to me and holding my hand’?”

Patti angled her head, as though she were trying to get a better look at me.

“You’re tired,” she said. “Strung out. Saying things you don’t mean.”

“Well, here’s something I do mean,” I say. “The other night, I followed Ramona Dillavou. Just basic surveillance to see what I might find. And guess what I found, Patricia, at Tyson’s, on Rush Street. I saw Ramona Dillavou having drinks with you .”