Patterson, James - Womans Murder Club 4 - 4th of July

At last, the silly-ass woman exited her house in her shopping outfit du jour and locked the door behind her. She gunned her little red Mercedes down Ocean Colony Road without looking back.

The Watcher got out of his car. He was wearing a blue sport jacket and slacks, dark sunglasses—what a field supervisor from the telephone company might wear. He walked quickly toward the house.

As he had before, the Watcher stooped at the basement window well and pulled on gloves. Then, slicing through the caulking with the blade of his hunting knife, he removed the pane of glass and dropped into the basement.

He moved swiftly through the house, up the stairs to the O’Malleys’ bedroom. Once there, he opened the closet, pushed aside a raft of dresses, and examined the video camera on the shelf attached to the back wall.

The Watcher took the tape out of the camera and slipped it into a pocket. He took another tape at random from a messy stack of tapes on the same shelf, resisting the impulse to tidy the rest. Then he took a packet of photos from the nightstand drawer.

He’d only been in the house for two minutes and twenty seconds when he heard the front door slam.

His mouth went dry. In all his days of watching this house, no one had ever come back after leaving for the morning. The Watcher went to the closet and crouched beneath a shimmying curtain of skirts. He reached up and closed the door.

The carpet dampened the sound of footsteps, and the Watcher was startled when the doorknob turned. He had no time to think. The closet door opened, the clothing parted—and the Watcher was revealed, crouching like a thief.

Lorelei O’Malley gasped out loud and clutched at her breast, then her face darkened.

“I know you,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

The knife was already in his hand. Lorelei saw it and let out a piercing scream. The Watcher felt he had no choice. He lunged forward, the long blade popping buttons off her blue silk dress as it slid into her belly.

Lorelei twisted, trying to escape the knife, but the Watcher held her tightly in what could have passed for a lover’s embrace.

“Oh. God. Why are you doing this?” she moaned, her eyes rolling back, her voice fading to a sigh.

Pressing his hand against the small of her back, the Watcher sliced the blade up through the soft tissues of Lorelei’s abdominal cavity, severing her aorta. The blood didn’t spray; it poured from the woman’s body like water from a bucket until her knees gave and she fell onto the shoes lining the closet floor.

The Watcher knelt and touched two fingers to her carotid artery. Her eyelids flickered faintly. She would be dead in seconds.

He had just enough time to do what needed to be done. He pushed up her blue skirt, took off his belt, and whipped Lorelei O’Malley’s buttocks until she was dead in her clothes closet.

Womans Murder Club 4 - 4th of July

Chapter 40

IT COULD ONLY GET worse, and it did. The Watcher sat in the van in a parking lot on Kelly Street across from the two-story house the doctor used as his office.

He flicked his eyes over to the Seeker, who looked dazed and confused in the seat beside him. Then he surveyed the parking lot again. He nervously noted the shoppers, the few cars entering and leaving.

When Dr. Ben O’Malley stepped outside, the Watcher jostled the Seeker. They locked eyes. “Get ready.”

Then the Watcher got out of the van. He sprinted toward the doctor, overtaking him before he reached his SUV.

“Doc, Doc, thank God! I need help.”

“What is it, son?” the doctor asked, looking both startled and annoyed.

“It’s my friend. Something’s happened. I don’t know if it’s a seizure or a heart attack or what!”

“Where is he?”

“Over there,” he said, pointing to the panel van fifty feet away. “Hurry, okay? Please?”

The Watcher jogged ahead, looking back to make sure that the doctor was following. When he reached the van, he wrenched open the passenger-side door, stepping aside so the doctor could see the Seeker slumped across the front seat.

The doctor peered into the interior, reached in, and lifted one of the Seeker’s eyelids. He jerked in surprise as he felt the sharp point of a blade piercing the nape of his neck.

“Get in,” said the Watcher.

“Don’t say a word,” said the Seeker, charming, disarming, unflappable, “or we’ll kill your whole family.”

Womans Murder Club 4 - 4th of July

Chapter 41

THE WATCHER HEARD THE doctor’s bound body bump and roll in the back of the van as they climbed the steep road.

“What about here?” he asked the Seeker. He checked the rearview mirror, then turned off the roadside into a niche between clumps of trees. He applied the brakes.

The Seeker leaped out of the van, hauled back on the sliding door, and propped the doctor into a sitting position.

“Okay, Doc, time to go,” he said, ripping the duct tape from his mouth. “Any last words? Or forever hold your peas.”

“What do you want me to say?” Dr. O’Malley gasped. “Just tell me. Do you want money? I can get money for you. Drugs? Anything you want.”

“That’s really stupid, Doc,” said the Seeker. “Even for you.”

“Don’t do this. Help me,” he pleaded. “Help me, please.”

“Help me, please,” mocked the Watcher.

“What did I do to you?” Dr. O’Malley sobbed.

A rough shove sent the doctor out of the van and into the grit on the side of the road.

“It’s easier than you think,” the Seeker said kindly, leaning close to the doctor’s ear. “Just fill your mind with things you love . . . and say good-bye.”

The doctor never saw the rock that caved in the back of his skull.

The Seeker opened his knife and lifted the doctor’s head by a handful of salt-and-pepper hair. As neatly as if he were slicing a melon, he slit the man’s throat.

Then the Watcher used his belt as a lash, striking hard, leaving brownish stripes on the bright white skin of O’Malley’s buttocks.

“Feel that?” he said, panting over the dying man.

The Seeker wiped his prints off the knife using the doctor’s shirttail. Then he hurled the knife and the rock far down the hillside, where they were swallowed by trees, brush, and tall rasping grasses.

Together the two men lifted the doctor’s body by his arms and legs and carried him to the cliffside edge of the road. They swung the limp body and on the count of three launched it over the side. They listened as the body crashed into the underbrush, tumbling downhill to a place so remote it would lie hidden, they hoped, until coyotes dragged off the worthless carcass.

Womans Murder Club 4 - 4th of July

Chapter 42

I WAS ON THE front porch picking out notes on my Seagull when a god-awful clanking mangled my concentration. It was a tow truck, of all things, rattling along the peaceful curves of Sea View Avenue. I scowled until I noticed that it was towing a 1981 Bonneville.

My 1981 Bonneville.

The driver waved when he saw me.

“Hey, lady. I’ve got a special delivery for you.”

Ah. The man in the moon. The gas station guy. I grinned as Keith worked the gears that let the car down. When it was on all fours, he got out of the cab and came toward me with a little swagger in his walk.

“So what makes you think you can make this jalopy go?” he asked, taking a seat on the step.

“I’ve tinkered around with a few engines,” I told him. “Patrol cars, mostly.”

“You’re a mechanic?” He whistled through his teeth. “Holy shit. I knew there was something neat about you.”

“Not exactly a mechanic. I’m a cop.”