James Patterson - Murder House

I park my beater in the back and walk into the substation, my bag over my shoulder and a general wariness in my gut. I get some mock applause from a couple of detectives who welcome me back after my one-month vacation. Isaac Marks isn’t there, the weasel. He probably has his nose up the chief’s ass right now.

Somebody tidied up my desk during my absence. Not that there’s much to it, other than a photograph of my parents, and one of my brother, Ryan. There was a particularly nice shot of the entire family with Uncle Langdon and Aunt Chloe at Coney Island that I used to have on my desk at the NYPD, but I didn’t want to emphasize the familial relationship here, with my uncle being the top dog. There’s some resentment already, some whispers of nepotism about my hiring, though nobody could accuse the chief of favoritism after my suspension.

“Chief wants to see you, Murph.” One of the administrative assistants, Margaret, drops a bunch of papers on my desk, mail and assorted paperwork.

“The chief’s here?” Lang doesn’t usually spend time at the substation, generally working out of headquarters on Old Riverhead Road.

When I enter his office, he seems to be expecting me, wiggling his fingers for me to come in and pointing to the seat opposite the desk while he finishes up a phone call. He finishes barking out directions to one of his deputies before hanging up and looking me over, a hand straying over his mouth.

“Sit,” he says.

“I’m fine standing.”

He folds his hands together. “When an uncle tells his niece to sit, she can say she’s fine standing. But when the chief tells one of his detectives to sit, she sits. And right now, Detective, I’m your chief.”

I look away, biting my tongue. He’s right. Whatever else, he’s right about this.

I take a seat.

“At least you didn’t quit,” he says. “I thought you might.”

I toss my shoulders, like the statement is irrelevant. I’m not going to quit. That’s the one thing I learned from the month I spent in Matty’s condo in Greenwich Village, dining out and going for long runs, sleeping in and watching old movies, catching some theater and Yankees games. I love living in Manhattan, but I love being a cop more. And if I lose this job with the STPD, nobody will ever give me another chance.

Lang riffles through some paper on his desk. “There’s a joint task force tracking heroin coming out of Montauk. You’re joining it today.”

My mouth comes open, but I don’t speak. Look, it’s not like I’m too good to work narcotics. My last assignment with the NYPD was working undercover on a major heroin ring. But I volunteered for that, because undercover work was a new challenge, and I’d come from Robbery-Homicide. Your basic narcotics task force — that’s below my experience level. It’s a clear step backward. And the chief, my dearest uncle, would know that better than anybody.

“Yes, sir,” I say. “Anything else?”

“That’s it.”

I nod and push myself from the chair. When I reach the doorway, he calls out to me. I turn back and look at him.

“I’m having a salad for lunch today,” he says. “And I’ve been walking a mile and a half every day for the last two weeks.”

I don’t smile. I’m not going to give him the satisfaction. “Why would a detective care what her chief has for lunch? Or what his exercise regimen is?”

He winks at me without smiling. “You’re still my favorite niece.”

I’m his only niece. But I won’t take the bait.

“Don’t worry, your favorite niece still loves you,” I say. “But your favorite detective still thinks you’re a horse’s ass.”

“The supreme Court of Suffolk County is back in session,” calls the bailiff. “People versus Noah Lee Walker.”

Noah shakes his head quietly. He hates it when they announce the case name. It’s hard to feel like you have a fighting chance when it’s the entire State of New York against you. And his full name — nobody’s ever called him Noah Lee. It makes him sound like a presidential assassin or a mass murderer.

He’s probably starting to look like one, too. In the three months since his arrest, Noah has not cut his hair, which was on the longer side to begin with. Now it falls in waves around his unshaven face. USA Today was the first to use the nickname Surfer Jesus, but now even the Times and Nancy Grace have adopted it.

“Mr. Akers?” The judge, an intimidating, steely-faced, silver-haired man named Robert Barnett, looks over his glasses at the prosecutor, Assistant District Attorney Sebastian Akers. Akers is a tall man with thick dark hair and the clean-cut good looks of a varsity quarterback or presidential candidate. But it’s not just his looks; his presence, too, the confidence, the performance adrenaline; he’s a man who seems to grow a few inches, whose voice lowers an octave, as he stands before a courtroom bursting at the seams with spectators and reporters.

“May it please the court,” Akers says, buttoning his suit coat and positioning himself before the jury box. Fifteen sets of eyes — twelve jurors and three alternates — are fixed on the prosecutor. “Melanie Phillips was one of ours, born and raised in Bridgehampton. She didn’t graduate at the top of her class and she hadn’t yet attended college. But she had dreams. At age twenty, she worked day shifts at a seafood hut and took drama classes at night to realize that dream, the dream of becoming an actress. It may have been unrealistic. Sometimes dreams are. But this is America, and we all have the right to pursue our dreams, don’t we? But Melanie — Melanie never got that chance. Her life, her dreams were cut short when she was brutally murdered, stabbed and slashed over and over again in a rental house by the beach three months ago.”

Akers sits on that thought a moment, shaking his head with sadness. “Zachary Stern,” he says, and the jurors pop to attention again. “Long time ago, Zach had the same dream. He was an actor. Never made it big, but did it for years, a few commercials here, a couple of television appearances there. And when he finally realized that being a movie star wasn’t in the cards for him, he decided to help other people fulfill their dreams. He became an agent, one of the most successful in Hollywood. And one day, while vacationing in the Hamptons, he met Melanie Phillips. He was going to sign her. Would he have made Melanie famous? Maybe. But we’ll never know. Because Zach was murdered along with Melanie.”

Akers turns sideways, so that the jurors can clearly see Noah at the defense table. Akers turns his head toward Noah and raises his arm. “That man, Noah Lee Walker,” says Akers, jabbing his finger at him, “savagely killed Melanie Phillips and Zach Stern in a fit of rage, in the most brutal of ways. He sliced them open and left them for dead.”

Noah shakes his head and locks eyes with the jurors. His defense lawyer said not to respond, to look composed and dignified, but he can’t listen to that accusation without responding.

“It was a crime of passion, a crime of rage,” says Akers. “A crime of jealousy. You see, Noah Walker was in love with Melanie. He didn’t want to lose her to Zach Stern or to Hollywood. No, if you try to leave Noah Walker, this is the price you pay.”

Akers nods to his assistant, who pushes a button. Noah’s lawyer had argued desperately to keep this out of the trial, but the judge ruled against him.

The slide show that pops on the screen shows crime-scene photographs of Melanie, close-ups and full-body shots, her vacant eyes staring into space, her mouth barely open, a dozen cuts from a knife, some of them deeper, some superficial. The photos of Zach Stern aren’t much better, perhaps less graphic but still horrific. The jury recoils at them, audibly gasping and murmuring.