Cross Fire - James Patterson [58]
“Actually, we’ve got a teenage news service sitting on the stairs inside,” Bree said. She put out her hand, ever the peacemaker. “I’m Bree Stone.”
“Detective Stone,” he said. “Of course. Good to meet you. I’m Max Siegel, Alex’s nightmare from the Bureau. We occasionally see things a little differently.”
“So I’ve heard,” she said, and they both laughed. It was a little surreal actually. This was a side of Siegel I’d never seen before, the friendly, interested-in-anyone-but-himself side. And it seemed to have come out of nowhere.
“Max was just dropping this off,” I said, showing her the bottle of scotch.
“Right.” Siegel took a step down toward the sidewalk. “So, anyway, mission accomplished. Nice to meet you, Detective.”
“Stay for a quick drink,” she said, and gave my hand a squeeze. “It’s the afternoon. I’m sure we could all stand to wind down a little.”
There was no pretense here; we all knew what she was trying to do. Siegel looked up at me and shrugged. This was my call, and honestly I would have liked to have said no, but that seemed as if it could just create more trouble than it was worth.
“Come on in,” I said, and led the way. “Mi casa es su casa, Max.”
Inside, Jannie had fallen back as far as the kitchen table. Nana and Ali were there, too, in the middle of a game of Go Fish. It was Ali’s latest obsession these days, but they all stopped and looked up as we came in.
“Max, this is everyone. Regina, Jannie, Ali, this is Agent Siegel.”
Ali’s eyes bugged out at the motorcycle helmet, and Siegel put it down in front of him. “Go ahead, little guy. Try it on if you want to.”
“It’s fine,” I said to Ali.
I took out some glasses and ice, and a couple of SmartWaters for the kids. Nana went to open the cabinet where we keep the chips and crackers, but I shook my head no just enough for her to see.
“You’ve got a nice place here,” Siegel said, looking out the window at the backyard. “Great setup in the middle of the city.”
“Thanks.” I handed him a short pour of the scotch, and then one for Bree and myself, and one with water for Nana.
“So here’s to fresh starts,” Bree said pointedly, and raised her glass.
“Here’s to summer coming!” Ali chimed in.
Siegel smiled down at him and put a hand on his shoulder.
“And here’s to this good family,” he said. “It’s really nice to meet you all.”
Chapter 76
SOMETIMES THE BREAKS in a murder case come out of the blue — like a phone call on a Sunday morning, from somewhere you never expected.
“Detective Cross?”
“Yes?”
“This is Detective Scott Cowen from Brick Township PD, in New Jersey. I think we may have a line on your sniper problem up here.”
MPD had been fielding literally hundreds of tips every week on a newly dedicated sniper hotline. More than 99 percent of those calls were fantasy fiction or dead ends, but whatever Cowen was sitting on, it had gotten him past Dispatch. He now had my attention.
I turned my newspaper sideways and started writing in the margin next to the crossword. Cowen. Brick Township.
“Go ahead,” I said.
“Yesterday afternoon, we pulled a white ninety-two Suburban out of the water over at Turn Mill Pond near here. The plates were already gone, no surprise, but I don’t think whoever put it there expected us to find it, at least not this fast. The thing was, we had an ultralight air show going on at the airport this weekend, and a couple of guys flying over saw something down there and called it in —”
“Yes?” I said. Cowen seemed to talk without taking any breath at all.
“Yeah, so it couldn’t have been in the water more than forty-eight hours, I’m thinking, because we still managed to pull some damn good prints off of it. Six of them had a dozen or more points each, which was great in theory, until none of them came up on my first pass through IAFIS —”
“Detective, I’m sorry, but can you explain to me how this connects to my case?”
“Well, this is the thing. I’m thinking we’ve got a dead end here, too, but then this morning I get a call from the state — apparently one of those six prints is a match for