1st to Die - James Patterson [50]
“What was security like that night?” I asked.
McBride shrugged. “All exits except the main one were closed down. There was a guard at the front desk. Everyone from the wedding arrived at the same time. A couple of half-assed guards floating, but generally at these affairs they like to keep a low profile.”
“I saw cameras all around,” Raleigh pressed. “They must have some film.”
“That’s what I’m hoping,” said McBride. “I’ll introduce you to Sharp, head of security. We can go over that now.”
Andrew Sharp was a trim, wiry man with a square chin and narrow, colorless lips. He looked scared. A day ago he had a fairly cushy job, but now the police and the FBI were all over him.
Having to explain things to two outside cops from San Francisco didn’t help matters. He brought us into his office, popped a Marlboro Light out of a pack, and looked at Raleigh.
“I got a meeting with the executive director in about eight minutes.”
We didn’t even bother to sit down. I asked, “Did your guards notice anyone unusual?”
“Three hundred guests, madam detective. Everyone congregated in the entrance atrium. My staff doesn’t usually get involved in a whole lot except to make sure no one with too much to drink gets too close to the exhibits.”
“What about how he got out, then?”
Sharp wheeled around in his chair, pointing to a blowup of the museum layout. “Either the main entrance, here, where you came in, or one we left open off the back verandah. It leads down to the Lake Walk. There’s a café there during the summer. Mostly it’s blocked off, but the families wanted it open.”
“Two shots fired,” I said. “No one heard anything?”
“It was supposed to be a high-class crowd. You think they want my guards milling around? We keep two, three guys to make sure overzealous guests don’t wander into restricted areas. I should have guards patrolling the corridors down by the rest rooms? What ya gonna take, toilet paper?”
“Security cameras?” Raleigh asked.
Sharp sighed. “We’ve got the exhibition halls covered, of course. The main exits… a remote sweep of the Main Hall. But nothing on the corridor where the shooting took place. Nothing in the crapper. Anyway, the police are scanning tape with members of each family as we speak. It would make it a helluva lot easier if we knew who the hell we’re looking for.”
I reached into my briefcase and took out a copy of a bare-bones artist’s sketch. It showed a thin face with a jutting chin, hair combed back, and a lightly shaded goatee.
“Why don’t we start with him.”
Chapter 56
MCBRIDE HAD TO BE BACK in the office for a press briefing on the investigation. I needed to figure out why the killer had come to Cleveland, and what, if any, connections there were to our murders back in San Francisco. The next step was to talk to the parents of the bride.
Shaker Heights was a posh, upper-end suburb in the height of midsummer bloom. On every street, green lawns led up to graceful, tree-sheltered homes. One of McBride’s men drove me out while Raleigh went back to the Lakefront Hilton to meet with the family of the groom.
The Koguts’ home was a warm redbrick Normandy under a canopy of tall oaks. I was met at the door by the older sister of the bride, who introduced herself as Hillary Bloom. She sat me down in a comfy, picture-filled den: books, large-screen TV, pictures of the two of them as kids, weddings. “Kathy was always the rebellious one,” Hillary explained. “A free spirit. It took her a while to find herself, but she was just settling down. She had a good job—a publicist for a firm in Seattle. Where she met James. She was just coming around.”
“Coming around from what?” I asked.
“Like I said—she was a free spirit. That was Kathy.”
Her parents, Hugh and Christine Kogut, came into the room. I witnessed the glazed, bewildered shock of people whose lives had been shattered.
“She was always in and out of relationships,” her mother eventually admitted. “But she also had a passion for life.”
“She was just young,