James Patterson: 12th of Never

“Sonoma,” he said thickly.

“What about Sonoma?”

“Dow off …”

Dow off? What was this? Had his mind veered to the stock market?

Fish’s head dropped forward even farther. He was blacking out, but I squeezed his arm and I think the pain brought him back. He tried hard to give me answers. He spoke in broken sentences punctuated by moans, and somehow, using the GPS on my phone, asking questions that required one-word answers, I was able to get Fish to string together enough words to give me a picture and a map.

There was an abandoned typewriter factory, Dow Office Machines, in Sonoma. Fish had dumped the girls in the woods behind the machine shop.

I named the murdered girls whose bodies had not been found and he nodded at each one, but when I said “Sandra Brody,” he shook his head no and then said, “Not mine.”

A week ago, about eight of us had bushwhacked through the woods with cadaver dogs, dug up old deer antlers, and had our hopes raised, then shattered, so that Fish could smell fresh air.

He’d been messing with us then.

Was he screwing with me now?

“Don’t lie to me. That girl is still missing. She’s just your type. You told us that you had killed her. I need to find her body, Randy. Give her back to us. I’m asking you, please.”

Deputy Chief Robbie Wilson appeared in the frame of the windshield. He said, “We’re getting you out, Mr. Fish. This could hurt, so brace yourself.”

Wilson gave me a look that seemed to say, “Sergeant, you brace yourself .”

The hydraulic cutters chomped through the passenger-door hinges. Heavily gloved hands wrenched the door away. A hook came in from above and Wilson positioned it under the engine block.

I heard Ron Parker calling, “Wait. Wait .”

He ran as if he were in a steeplechase, clearing hurdles of twisted metal as he galloped toward the car. The hydraulic winch whined. Metal clanked as the hook got purchase and five hundred pounds of steel began to rise.

Fish’s face stretched in pain. He looked at me, said, “Love you. Mackie.”

And then he died.

Parker was right outside the wreckage when it happened. He was panting, leaning forward, his hands on his knees.

“I had more questions for him.”

“Sorry,” I told him. “He took the express train to hell.”

“Shit. I didn’t get to wish him a good trip,” he said.

I put my fingers on Fish’s eyelids and closed them. The last person he’d seen in this life was me. I didn’t want him to look at me anymore.

I was done with Randolph Fish. Done.

Chapter 104

RICH CONKLIN BRACED himself inside the rear of the ambulance as it sped over the slick streets toward Metropolitan Hospital. He kept his eyes on Mackie Morales, who looked like she’d been catapulted into a brick wall.

Air bags deploy at about a hundred miles an hour, and Mackie had gotten the full blunt force of the bag. She had also been whipsawed during and after the collision as the car was dragged along 3rd Street.

She hadn’t regained consciousness, even though they were traveling in a stream of screaming sirens, the ambulance jerking and swerving around traffic.

Right now, she was immobilized by a C-Spine collar and strapped to a long board to protect her head, neck, and spine. She could have brain damage, internal bleeding, broken bones—all of it was possible.

Conklin reached over and squeezed her hand, got no response. He wanted to hold her, tell her she was going to be okay, and somehow make that be true.

But even as he worried about Mackie, he was completely mystified as to why she had been driving the killer’s getaway car. Had she fired the flashbang into the storage unit? Was she the cop who had bundled Fish into the passenger seat? Why would she do that?

What didn’t he know about Morales?

The ambulance took a hard right on Valencia, a sharp left on 26th Street, then blew into Metro’s ambulance bay. The EMTs had the back doors open the instant the vehicle braked to a stop. Rich jumped down, then ran with the EMTs as they transported Mackie’s gurney into the emergency room.

The ER was noisy and full. Victims of the multicar crash were being treated in curtained cubicles, and those who weren’t in danger of dying had been parked in wheelchairs and on gurneys wherever space permitted.

Mackie, on the board, was lifted onto an exam table in a trauma room. Medical personnel crowded in, began assessing the damage.

The attending physician was about forty, wiry, efficient. Her name was Emily Bruno and she and Conklin had met many times in circumstances like this one.

Bruno said to Conklin, “What’s the patient’s name? What happened to her? Do you know anything about her medical history?”

Conklin said, “This is MacKenzie Morales, twenty-six, single mother, and I don’t know her medical history. She drove the car into that semi outside the ballpark. Two fatalities so far. I’ve got to talk to her.”

Dr. Bruno threw a loud, exasperated sigh.

“Okay, you know the drill, Conklin. Stand back. Turn off your phone. Don’t get in anyone’s way.”

Conklin said, “Understood.”

He stood about eight feet back from the table as the nurses cut off Mackie’s blue cop uniform while she was still strapped to the board, checked her airway, her breathing, examined her head.

Conklin saw the great purple bruises on her torso, the angry abrasions on her arms and chest, a seat-belt bruise from shoulder to waist.

Dr. Bruno flashed a light into one of Mackie’s eyes and said, “Concussion,” but the rest of her words were lost as Morales batted the doctor’s hand away and opened her eyes on her own.

“What happened?” she said.

“You were in a car accident,” Bruno said. “Do you remember it?”

Conklin saw the memory light up Mackie’s eyes. And then the impact of the thought came to her in a rush. She heaved upward and tried to sit up, totally impossible to do, strapped as she was to the board.

“Where’s my baby? ” she screamed.

Conklin went to her and said, “Mackie, Ben’s okay. I saw him. He’s going to be fine.”

Did she recognize him?

“Mackie, it’s Richie. It’s me.”

“Oh, fuck,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

Chapter 105

CONKLIN TRIED TO keep the shock off his face. Mackie looked feral. She’d been severely traumatized. Maybe she actually didn’t know him.

He said it again. “Mackie, it’s me. Richie. Conklin.”

“Where’s Randy?”

Where’s Randy? The sexual predator? The homicidal maniac? That Randy?

Morales was highly agitated, trying to release herself from her restraints even as the nurses tried to soothe her, listen to her heart, hook her up to air and fluids.

“Oh, God ,” she screamed out. “Everything hurts. Give me something for the pain.”

Dr. Bruno was shouting, “I need CTs, stat,” when Conklin interrupted, said, “Emily, before you take her anywhere, give her anything, I need two minutes.”

“What are you asking me, Conklin? We’re not wasting the golden hour.”

“I’m asking for two minutes. This woman filled up your ER tonight. We’ve got bodies in the morgue. I need to talk to her while I can.”

Dr. Bruno said, “I’m walking out of the room to call radiology. When I come back, you’re done.”

Conklin returned to Morales, who was crying, her voice guttural, unrecognizable. “Oh, my God, oh, my God. Put me out, please, give me something.”

“Mackie,” Conklin said. “Talk to me.”

“You’re kidding,” she shouted. “I hurt like a son of a bitch. Tell them to put me out.”

“Why were you driving that car?”