4th of July - James Patterson [79]
“Hang on, Lieutenant,” said the duty officer. “I’ll page him.”
I heard the sound of the police band sputtering in the background. I tapped my nails on the kitchen counter and counted to seventy-nine before the chief got on the line.
“Boxer.”
“That was a fast return on the lab report,” I said. “What have we got?”
“It was fast for a reason. There were no prints, not that that surprises me. But unless you count bovine DNA, there was nothing else, either. Lindsay, the bastards dripped a little beef blood on the buckle.”
“Aw, give me a break!”
“I know. Shit. Look, I gotta go. Our mayor wants a few words with me.”
The chief hung up, and, by God, I felt sorry for him.
I walked out to the deck, took a seat in a plastic chair, and hung my ankles over the railing as Claire had advised me to do. I stared out beyond my sandals and the neighbors’ backyards to the aqua blue line of the bay.
I thought again about that belt lying on the lawn this morning, and the bloodstain that had turned out to be nothing.
One thing was clear.
The killers hadn’t tried to kill me.
The belt was a warning meant to scare me away.
I wondered why they’d bothered.
I hadn’t solved John Doe’s murder and ten years later I was still sucking swamp water here.
Meanwhile, the killers were out there, and all the white hats had was a tantalizing handful of “what ifs” and “how comes” that went nowhere.
We didn’t know why.
We didn’t know who.
And we didn’t know where they would strike again.
Other than that, everything was the cat’s meow.
Chapter 124
FAMILIES, THE BANE OF modern civilization, where the scum of the past was kept alive, cultivated, and refined. At least that was the Watcher’s perspective tonight.
He opened the mudroom door and entered the pink stucco house high up on Cliff Road. The Farleys were out for the night, so secure in their cocoon of wealth and privilege that they never even bothered to lock the door.
The mudroom led into a glassed-in kitchen that was glowing with the last rays of sunset.
This is just surveillance, the Watcher reminded himself. Get in and out in under five. Same as always.
He took his camera from the inside pocket of his soft leather jacket and panned the room, taking a series of digital photos of the many tall glass panes, the mullions wide enough for a person to enter.
Zzzzt, zzzzt, zzzzt.
He moved quickly through the kitchen to the Farley family room, which cantilevered out over the mountainside. Amber light filled the woods, giving the shaggy eucalyptus bark an almost human presence, the trees like elderly men watching his movements. As though they understood and approved.
Just surveillance, he told himself again. Things were too complex, too hot right now to go forward with their plans.
He rapidly mounted the back stairs to the bedrooms, noting the steps that creaked the loudest, the solid banister. He proceeded down the hallway of the second floor, stepping inside each of the opened doors, taking his photos, memorizing the details. Frisking the rooms as if he were a cop patting down suspects.
The Watcher checked his watch as he entered the master bedroom. Nearly three minutes gone. He quickly opened the closets, sniffed the scents of Vera Wang and Hermès, closed the doors.
He ran down the steps to the kitchen and was about to leave when he thought of the basement. There was enough time for a quick look.
He opened the door and skittered down.
There was an extensive wine cellar to his left, and the laundry room was in front of him. But his eyes gravitated to a door on his right.
The door was in shadow, secured with a combination padlock. The Watcher was good with combination locks. He was very good with his hands. He turned the dial left until he felt the minute resistance, then right and left again. The lock sprung open, and the Watcher unlatched the door.
He identified the equipment in the basement’s half-light: the computer, the laser printer, and the reams of high-quality photo paper. The video and digital cameras with night