James Patterson - 12th of Never

“No, Your Honor.”

The judge told the clerk to strike Goodfriend’s last comment from the record. Then he instructed the jury that the witness’s characterization of Mr. Herman and his further opinion that his life was in danger were not evidence and that the jurors were not to consider it during their deliberations.

Yuki controlled herself, but she was elated. Nicky Gaines nudged her. He was grinning like a jack-o’-lantern. Another point for the prosecution. Hey: Team Yuki was on a roll.

Chapter 25

I LEFT BRADY’S office and crossed the fluorescent-lit, twenty-by-thirty-foot bull pen/obstacle course, getting hugs and high fives from cops I’d known for a long time. At the front of the room were two gray metal desks butted head-to-head. One of those desks was mine. The other belonged to my partner.

A cute young woman with dark wavy hair, wearing a white T-shirt and tight jeans, was sitting in my chair. She was in deep conversation with Conklin, who got to his feet when he saw me.

“Boxer, hey . Good to see you.”

He gave me a gender-neutral hug, but a good one, and then said, “Meet Mackie Morales, our summer intern. Mackie, my partner, Sergeant Lindsay Boxer.”

Morales got out of my chair and reached out to shake my hand. She said she’d heard so much about me, and then she told Conklin she’d be in the file room.

He said, “Wait, Mackie. I’m going to bring the sergeant up to speed on the Faye Farmer case. Stick around for that.”

“Sure,” I said. “Stay.”

It’s rare to meet someone you like immediately, but I felt good about Mackie Morales. She had an open smile, a good handshake, and apparently Conklin approved of her.

“Thanks,” she said. She pulled a spare chair up to our desks, and I asked Conklin what he had on Faye Farmer.

“I was just on my way to notify her parents. Ask them about my list of her friends, her devotees, and her detractors,” Conklin said. “CSIU is down in the ME’s office now, going over the premises for trace after the body went missing.”

“The Chronicle just broke the story online,” Morales told me. “We’ve got phone calls, tweets, e-mail, and our website is swamped.”

Conklin said, “While Mackie runs down the phone leads—”

He never got to finish his sentence. Brady came out of his office, strode toward us, and then loomed over our desks. He said to Conklin, “Remember that weirdo professor, dreamed about a murder?”

“Dr. Perry Judd,” said Morales.

“The woman he described yesterday was gunned down in Whole Foods an hour ago. Same woman, down to the green-bead necklace and the roots growing out of her blond hair. Conklin, you and Boxer check out the scene. Then go pick up the professor. Talk to him again.”

Morales leaned over my shoulder and pulled up the professor’s contact info on my computer while I called Joe.

I didn’t like the sound of his voice when he answered.

“Joe, what’s wrong?”

“It’s going to be okay, honey, but Julie has a little fever.”

My stomach clenched and the blood left my head. I thought I might be sick all over my desk.

“How little is little?”

“It’s a hundred and three. It’s not unusual for a baby to have a fever, so I’m just letting you know. Don’t worry about this. I’ll see you later.”

“Joe, you’ll see me in twenty minutes. I’m leaving now.”

“Lindsay, no. I’ve got her. Everything is under control.”

“How do you know that?”

Conklin said, “Boxer, you okay?”

Joe said, “I’ve seen this before. I looked it up online, and I also put in a call to Dr. Gordon. Please, Lindsay. Let me handle this. I’ll call you if we need you.”

I had to say, “Okay,” and I did. I hung up, and the blood returned to my head. I told Conklin that I was ready, and the two of us headed downstairs to the parking lot behind the ME’s office.

I got into the passenger seat of the squad car and tried to get my mind on my two cases.

But I kept hearing my little girl cry.

Chapter 26

BY THE TIME Conklin and I arrived on 4th Street, the CSIU van and half a dozen squad cars had blocked a lane of traffic and run up on the hundred-foot stretch of sidewalk in front of Whole Foods. Morning commuters beat on their horns and shouted out their car windows, but no amount of yelling moved the stalled traffic.

Conklin double-parked and we exited the car into the wall of bystanders who were packed behind the barrier tape, sending a gale of tweets and snapshots out to the Web.

Officer Tom Forcaretta was at the front door. He was new on the force, but appeared to be coping well with the chaos. I signed the log and asked him to tell me what he knew about the crime.

“The shooting happened between seven thirty and seven thirty-five,” he said. “The vic is Harriet Adams, white female, thirty-eight, looks like she took three bullets—right arm, neck, right chest. She was alive, but barely conscious when I got here. She told me her name. That was all. Ambulance took her to Metropolitan but she was DOA.”

“How many witnesses?” I asked.

“Two semiwitnesses. A stock boy and a customer, but neither of them got a look at the shooter. They heard breaking glass and saw the victim go down. Both of them were interviewed and released.”

“And where are the other customers?”

“The ones we could stop from leaving are in the stock-room. A team from Robbery is interviewing them, then releasing them through the rear door.”

“How many customers are we talking about?”

“Too many to count, Sergeant. Over a hundred, prob’ly.”

“And the people who work here? Could be an employee went postal.”

“Yes, ma’am. Employees are in the manager’s office. Bambi Simmons, that’s the manager, said our vic was a regular customer and maybe a pain in the butt. She returned opened cans and so forth.”

“I take it the weapon hasn’t been recovered.”

“No, ma’am.”

“And the surveillance tape?”

“Yes, ma’am. We’ve got it, such as it is.”

Automatic doors slid open and Conklin and I stepped into the thirty-thousand-square-foot crime scene. It wasn’t Columbine, but it was freaking overwhelming, anyway. Crime techs were all over the place, putting down markers, snapping photos. If they didn’t turn up two million unique fingerprints, it would be amazing.

Conklin and I were directed to the far right-hand side of the store, where Charlie Clapper, head of our crime lab, was shooting pictures. He did a double take when he saw me.

“Good God, Lindsay. Aren’t you on leave?”

“I was. This is my welcome-back party.”

“Good to see you, kiddo,” he said. “And here’s what we’ve got for you: a violent death in a humongous haystack. No idea if there’s a needle in here or even what a needle would look like. Did you hear? No witnesses, no weapon, no robbery. Just ‘bang, bang, bang.’ It’s a real who-freakin’-dunit.”

Chapter 27

THE DAPPER CHARLIE Clapper was a homicide cop before he became director of forensics, and we were lucky to have him. He was thorough, insightful, and after he pointed out the evidence, he got out of the way.

Now he led us to the frozen-foods section, and Conklin and I got our first look at the primary scene.

Blood spatter, mostly of the arterial kind, had sprayed the contents of the freezer and the doors on both sides of the shattered glass. There was a long smear of blood on the unbroken bottom half of one door, showing where Harriet Adams had slid down after taking those shots.

An open handbag lay at the edge of a puddle made up of water, blood, and ice cream. The pool had been entirely corrupted by the EMTs’ attempt to save Harriet Adams’s life.