Джеймс Паттерсон - NYPD Red 6

I flipped to another page, then another. It was all the same. Bobby Dodd was in love with someone who wasn’t there, and he had journaled their life together as if they actually had one.

Kylie had a second volume, and I watched her face as she flipped through it, waiting for her expression to turn from cold to compassionate as she read a few of the entries. But it never did.

“Well, this sucks,” she said, finally putting the diary down.

“Granted, it’s not Shakespeare,” I said.

“I’m not talking about the writing. I’m talking about the fact that it’s all fiction. Our job is to read everything Bobby wrote and find out how he planned all the crimes he committed. Was he a loner, or did he have accomplices? What if we read for a week, and we finally get to the part where he says he was in cahoots with Mrs. Speranza? Or the Brockways? Or the Rockettes? How do we know what’s real and what’s crazy? How do we know what to believe, what to follow up on?”

They were smart questions, but I had no answers.

“Zach, you and I have great bullshit detectors when we’re sitting across the table from a suspect, studying his word choices, watching his body language. But it’s hard to find the truth when you’re wading through a thousand pages written by a delusional man.”

And then the answer came to me. “You’re right,” I said. “We’re going to need professional help, and I just happen to know someone who’s extremely adept at deciphering the thoughts of a delusional man.”

Kylie tapped herself on the forehead, that classic gesture you make when someone else comes up with the obvious answer before you do.

“I know Dr. Robinson too,” she said. “In fact, I know her so well, I think she might actually enjoy reading this crap.”

CHAPTER 65

AS SOON AS I got back to the station I went directly to Cheryl’s office. “Please tell me you’re free tonight,” I said.

“I could be,” she said, giving me one of those seductive smiles that made me wish I had more than police work to offer her. “What did you have in mind?”

“A foursome—you, me, Kylie, and the insane ramblings of a psycho stalker-rapist-kidnapper-murderer-badass. Bobby Dodd left behind his diaries. Kylie and I have to make sense out of them. We thought it might be more productive if we brought along a trained psychologist. For the record, you were our first choice.”

“I’m flattered.”

“But wait, there’s more,” I said. “If you act now, we’ll throw in an all-expenses-paid dinner from the Chinese takeout joint of your choice.”

“It’s hard to say no to an evening of insane ramblings and General Tso’s chicken. Sign me up.”

Twenty minutes later, Kylie, Cheryl, and I were sitting in a conference room with the diaries.

“Logic might dictate that each of us start from the beginning,” Cheryl said. “But we’re not going to be able to read it all in one night, and it’s better to get at least one pair of eyes on every page. So let’s break it up into thirds. I’ll take the first third, Kylie the next, and Zach the last.”

The time flew as I got sucked into the strange world of Robert Allen Dodd. Kylie had been wrong. It wasn’t all fiction. It was filled with fantasies about Erin, but there was also page after page about his father, all of which sounded heartbreakingly genuine. Bobby, at least the way he told the story, was a good son, and when his father was dying of cancer, Bobby was at his bedside around the clock. And then I turned to a page that punched me in the gut.

“Hey, guys,” I said, “can you take five? I want to read you something.”

They put their books down, grateful for the break. I read it word for word, just as Bobby had written it.

September 8, 2014

Two days ago my father, Jody Elias Dodd, died peacefully in his sleep. When the funeral director brought me the urn from the crematorium, he also gave me this little box that he said was from Dad .

There was a note. It said, Dear Bobby, Being your father is the best thing that ever happened to me. I’m sorry I won’t be around to watch your six, but keep this close, and I will always be with you. Love, Dad .

Inside the box was a .357 Magnum bullet on a gold chain and inside the bullet were some of Dad’s ashes. Then I read the engraving on the back: Succeed, or die trying. Semper Fi .

I could barely breathe and as soon as the funeral guy left I bawled like a baby. I love you, Dad. Miss you. And don’t you worry. I’m not going to fail .

“That’s not delusional,” I said. “That’s not a fantasy. The date matches up with the date of his father’s death in McMaster’s file. And the bullet—we saw the bullet. It was around his neck when he died.”

Kylie and Cheryl had also found pockets of truth throughout Bobby’s prose and had marked each one with a Post-it note. We decided to transcribe the important points onto a large whiteboard. We drew a line down the middle and labeled one side rants, the other realities.

After four hours we’d gone through less than half of the journal entries, some of them real, most of them make-believe, none of them helping us come up with the answers Chief Doyle was looking for.

Cheryl had an early-morning meeting and left at about ten. Kylie and I plugged away at it, determined to work as long into the night as our brains and bodies would allow.

I was back in Bobby’s world when the call came in from the NYPD Transit special investigations unit.

“Detective Jordan, I’ve got a hit on the MetroCard you’re tracking,” the cop on the other end said. “It was swiped at nine forty-seven at the Sixty-First Street Woodside station in Queens. Video shows a white female, blond hair, midthirties, wearing lavender hospital scrubs.”

“You clocked her at nine forty-seven? ” I said. “Jesus, man, it’s ten fifty-three. What part of priority did we not make clear?”

“Take it easy. Ninety percent of the requests we get are stamped priority .”

“How many of them are connected to a homicide? If the card gets swiped again, I need to know it real time. I also need a screenshot of the blonde in the lavender scrubs.”

“You’ll have it in two minutes,” he said.

We ran the picture through facial-recognition software. No hit. Meaning the woman with Edith Shotwell’s stolen MetroCard had no arrest history in New York City.

Kylie and I went back to the diaries and stayed at it until three a.m. We found nothing of value. All in all, it was not a great night for the good guys.

CHAPTER 66

I SLEPT AT the station house. Soundly, but not long. My cell rang and jarred me awake at 6:50. I answered and mmph ed some semblance of my name into the phone.

It was the same cop from Transit, the one I’d chewed out the night before. “Sorry to wake you, Detective,” he said, not sounding remotely apologetic, “but you said you wanted this in real time.”

“No problem. What’ve you got?”

By now, Kylie, who had been sleeping in the next bed, was sitting up. I put the call on speaker.

“I’ve got another hit on your stolen MetroCard,” Transit said. “It was swiped at booth four eighty-two on the downtown six line at Seventy-Seventh Street and Lexington three minutes ago. I just pulled the video. Same woman as yesterday, same lavender scrubs.”

“Shoot me the best screenshots you’ve got. And thanks.”

“Any time, Detective,” he said. “Transit is always happy to come to the assistance of the elite Red Squad.”

His voice was rife with the attitude of someone who feels like he’s just won a pissing contest, but I didn’t care. We were closing in on a suspect.