Джеймс Паттерсон - Cross the Line

“We’ll need warrants,” she said.

“The Feds are filing,” I said. “Ned promised we’ll be part of any search, but it’s not going to be today.”

I yawned. So did Sampson.

“You two look like hell,” Bree said. “Go home. Get some sleep.”

Sampson got up and left without any argument.

I held up my hands. “No, I’m good. Nothing a cup of coffee won’t fix.”

“That’s a direct order, Detective Cross. Home, nap, and then I’d bet Nana Mama would appreciate you going to Ali’s interview for the Washington Latin charter school this afternoon.”

“Is that today?”

“It is. Five o’clock.”

“Then heading home as ordered, Chief Stone. See you at dinner?”

“If I’m lucky,” she said. “Love you.”

“Love you too,” I said, and I went out her door fantasizing about my bed and a two-hour coma.

Bree watched Alex leave, feeling a little cheated not to be an active part of Tommy McGrath’s murder investigation, or not really, anyway.

If Alex and Sampson were right about the Phoenix Club, the case was essentially in the FBI’s hands now. Even though Mahoney had promised that DC Metro would be part of any search, the FBI would be calling the shots.

Bree tried to put it out of her mind and deal with the barrage of paper that now dominated her working life. But after ten minutes of scanning a series of administrative memos, she couldn’t take it anymore.

She had to do something that engaged her mind, that wasn’t mundane, that would do some good. Wasn’t that what being a cop was? Doing some good?

Bree pushed the paper pile aside and found copies of the murder books for Tommy McGrath, Edita Kravic, and Terry Howard. She started back through them, trying to suppress any preconceived ideas she had about the case, trying to see it all anew, with a beginner’s mind.

As she reviewed the investigative notes and forensics reports, she realized that they’d all been looking at the case as a revenge killing of some kind, done by Howard or someone else who had a beef with McGrath, and maybe with Edita Kravic too.

Bree consciously tried to erase that filter from her mind and played with possible other motives. Bree started by asking herself who would benefit from Tommy McGrath dying. Or from Edita Kravic dying, for that matter.

Someone inside the Phoenix Club, she supposed. Karl Stavros? He was the owner. If Stavros thought Tommy was onto him, maybe he’d had Tommy and Edita killed to protect himself and the alliance.

She started down through a list of the evidence gathered at their apartments and, after the encryption codes were broken, from their computer hard drives. For almost an hour and a half, she studied each item in turn and tried to see it as a benefit or a loss to a killer. She ran a search for the Phoenix Club on McGrath’s hard drive and got nothing. She ran a search on Edita Kravic and got the same.

Then she started through McGrath’s financial affairs. The late COD had had $325,000 in his retirement account, $12,000 in his checking account, and zero debt. McGrath didn’t own a home, had paid cash for his car, and paid off his credit cards every month.

His will was brief, drafted four years before. To Bree’s surprise, it named Terry Howard as his sole heir. If Howard was not alive at the time of McGrath’s death, the modest estate was to go to McGrath’s wife, Vivian.

Bree thought about that. Tommy McGrath still cared about his old partner enough to leave him his money. Could Howard have known and killed him to collect? Or could Vivian have...

She dismissed that out of hand. McGrath’s estranged wife was loaded, worth multimillions. Why would she kill Tommy for a measly three hundred grand and change?

She turned to the last page of the will and saw a reference to a document in the appendix that caused her to pause. Bree dug deeper into the financial files and found the document she was looking for. She flipped through it and then stopped at one item, thinking: Now that might be something worth killing or dying for.

Bree took the document out and went down the hall to Muller’s cubicle. She found the senior detective not looking like his ordinary disheveled self; he was sharply dressed in a nice suit and freshly polished shoes.

“Kurt,” she said, showing him the document. “Did we ever look into this?”

Muller took it, scanned it, and nodded. “It’s unclaimed, at least as of two days ago. I check that kind of thing regularly.”

Some of the wind went out of Bree’s sails. She’d thought she was really onto something, something they’d missed, and she’d briefly felt like she was doing some good.

But Muller had things under control.

Some of her disappointment must have shown because he said, “We’ll figure it out, Chief. We always do. But for now, I have to skip out. Got a date.”

Bree smiled. “You haven’t had a date in years.”

“Don’t I know it,” Muller said, adjusting his tie.

“Who’s the lucky lady?”

“The divine Ms. Noble,” Muller said, and he winked.

Bree laughed and clapped her hands, feeling better than she had all day. “I thought there was a spark between you two there in the FBI lab.”

“A crackling spark,” Muller said, walking past her with a grin smeared across his face. “Just crack-crack-crackling.”

Nana Mama beamed at Ali.

“You want your dessert before dinner?” my grandmother asked him. “Blueberry pie and ice cream?”

Unnerved by this break in the routine, Ali glanced at me. I smiled and held up my hands. “You heard her.”

“Yes, please, Nana,” Ali said. “And less Brussels sprouts at dinner?”

“Don’t push your luck,” my grandmother said, fetching the pie from beneath a fine-mesh cage. “Brussels sprouts are a superfood.”

“Kind of bitter,” Ali said.

Nana Mama squinted hard at him.

“Just saying,” Ali said.

My grandmother sighed, cut a thick slice of blueberry pie, plopped a scoop of French vanilla ice cream beside it, then set the plate in front of Ali.

“Any boy who can charm the pants off the admissions board of a fine school deserves this,” Nana Mama said, and then she handed him a spoon.

It was true. The principal and the math, science, and English teachers at Washington Latin had been waiting when we walked in. The principal introduced herself and the teachers and then asked Ali what he had been up to outside of school, on his own time. That set him off on a description of his epic quest to talk to Neil deGrasse Tyson.

“I could tell they were going to admit him about two minutes after he opened his mouth,” Nana Mama said. “I think they were most impressed at how many drafts of that letter he’s already written.”

“Though at some point he needs to just send it,” I said.

“Soon,” Ali said, his mouth full of blueberry pie and ice cream.

“You do me a favor, sugar?” my grandmother said to me. “Take a twenty from my purse and go on down to Chung’s and play my numbers?”

“The next drawing’s not for two days,” I said.

“Those jackpots are getting big,” she said. “I’d rather get in on the action before the stampede.”

“Get in on the action?” I said, smiling.

“Just laying my bets early, that’s all. Now, are you going to help an old lady out or not, Alex Cross?”

“You knew the answer the second you asked,” I said, and I got the money from her purse.

I went outside, feeling pretty good. The two-hour nap had helped. And it was only early September, but a front had come in and cooled things off. It felt nice to walk, and I did my best to focus on nothing but putting one foot in front of the other.