1st to Die - James Patterson [47]
The sound of the outer door opening and echoes of the distant party rushing in went right through him.
“That you, Vosk?” a woman’s voice called out.
It was her. The bride.
“What’re you smoking in there, tar?” Kathy giggled. She went over to the sinks, and he heard the sound of running water.
Campbell could see her through a crack in the stall. She was at the sink, thrashing a comb through her hair. A vision came to him. How he would set this up. What the police would find.
It took everything he had to control himself—to let her come to him.
“You better save me a hit or two, mister,” the bride called out.
He watched her dance over to the stall. So close now. So unbelievably delicious. What a moment.
When she opened the door, it was her look that meant everything to him.
The sight of James, red drool leaking from his mouth. The startled recognition of the killer’s face suddenly clicking in; the gun aimed right at her eyes.
“I like you better in white, Kathy,” was all the killer said.
Then he squeezed the trigger—and a blinding white flash exploded through the cat-eye lenses.
Chapter 52
I WAS IN EARLY Monday morning, feeling a little nervous about my first contact with Raleigh after our dancing-and-dining experience, wondering where all this was going to go, when one of the task force inspectors, Paul Chin, rushed up to me. “Lindsay, there’s a woman in Interrogation Room Four I think you should check out.”
Ever since a physical description of the assailant had hit the airwaves, people had been calling in with fake sightings and dead-end leads. One of Chin’s jobs was to follow them up, no matter how unlikely.
“This one a psychic or a police buff?” I asked with a skeptical smile.
“I think this one’s the genuine article,” said Chin. “She was at the first wedding.”
I almost leaped out of my chair after him. At the front of the squad room, I spotted Raleigh coming in. Chris.
For a moment, a tingle of pleasure rushed through me. He’d left about eleven, after we ended up polishing off both bottles of wine. We ate, chewed over our separate stints on the force, and the ups and downs of being married or single.
It had been a sweet evening. Took the heat off from the case. It even got my mind off Negli’s.
What scared me a little was the tremor inside that it could be something more. I had caught myself staring at him Friday night, while he helped out with the dishes, thinking, If times were different…
Raleigh ran into me, carrying coffee and a paper. “Hey.” He smiled. “Nice vest.”
“Chin’s got a live one in four,” I said, grabbing his arm. “Claims to have a physical sighting. You want to come along?”
In my haste, I was already by him, not even giving him a second of recognition. He put down his paper on our civilian clerk’s desk and caught up on the stairs.
In the cramped interrogation room sat a nicely dressed, attractive woman of about fifty. Chin introduced her to me as Laurie Birnbaum. She seemed tight, nervous.
Chin sat down next to her. “Ms. Birnbaum, why don’t you tell Inspector Boxer what you just told me.”
She was frightened. “It was the beard that made me remember. I didn’t even think of it until now. It was so horrible.”
“You were at the Brandts’ wedding?” I asked her.
“Yes, as guests of the bride’s family,” she replied. “My husband works with Chancellor Weil at the university.” She took a nervous sip from a cup of coffee. “It was just a brief thing. But he gave me the chills.”
Chin pushed down the record button of a portable recorder.
“Please, go ahead,” I told her soothingly. Once again, I felt close to him—the bastard with the red beard.
“I stood next to him. He had this graying red beard. Like a goatee. The kind they wear in Los Angeles. He looked older, maybe forty-five, fifty, but there was something about him. I’m not saying this right, am I?”
“You spoke to him?” I asked, trying to communicate that even though she didn’t do this every day, I did. Even the male detectives admitted that I was the best at Q and A on the floor. They joked that it was “a girl thing.”
“I had just come