Honeymoon - James Patterson [88]
“Please help me,” she begged. “Please, Lizzie?”
Nora couldn’t make out Connor’s sister’s face anymore, but she heard her words.
“Not a chance in hell, which is where you’re going, Nora.”
Chapter 116
SOMEONE HAD CALLED in a mysterious message to the Briarcliff Manor police: “I caught Connor Brown’s murderer for you. She’s at his house now. Come and get her.”
The police contacted me in New York City, and I got up to Westchester in record time, about forty minutes of daredevil driving through the city, then the Saw Mill Parkway, and finally treacherous Route 9A.
There were half a dozen local police and state trooper cars parked in the circular driveway at the Brown house. Also an EMS van from the Westchester Medical Center. I took a deep breath, let it out slowly, then hurried inside. Man, I was shaking like a leaf.
I had to show my badge to a patrolman in the foyer. “They’re in the kitchen. It’s straight—”
“I know where it is,” I said.
I realized that I wasn’t ready for this as I walked past the living room and formal dining area on the way to the kitchen. Everything in the room was familiar to me, and maybe that made it harder, I don’t really know. I was there but I kind of wasn’t, like watching yourself in a bad, bad dream.
The forensic technicians were already at work, which meant that the investigators were finished. I recognized Stringer and Shaw from the White Plains field office. I’d worked with them briefly when we set up the insurance scam to get Nora.
Her body was still there, lying beside the kitchen counter. A broken water bottle was near it, shards of glass all over the floor. A police photographer was starting to take pictures, and the flashes seemed like explosions to me.
“Well, somebody got to her.” Shaw came up and stood next to me. “She was poisoned. Have any bright ideas?”
I shook my head. I didn’t have anything close to a bright idea. “I don’t. But somehow I don’t think we’ll look too hard to try and solve this one.”
“Got what she deserved, eh?”
“Something like that. Bad way to go, though.”
I walked away from Shaw because I was feeling a need to shove him, or maybe punch out his lights, which he didn’t really deserve.
Then I went to see Nora.
I waved off the photographer. “Give me a minute here.”
I crouched down, readied myself as best I could, and looked at her face. She had suffered at the end, that much was clear, but she was still beautiful, still Nora. I even recognized the white linen blouse she was wearing, and a favorite diamond bracelet on her wrist.
I don’t know what I was supposed to feel, but I was incredibly sad for her and I was starting to choke up. I was also a little sad for myself, and for Susan, and our kids. How the hell had all of this happened? I don’t know how long I stared down at Nora’s body, but when I finally stood up again I saw that the kitchen had gone quiet, and everybody was watching me.
Inappropriate, I knew. Ought to be my middle name.
Chapter 117
I DROVE BACK to Manhattan that afternoon. The radio was on pretty loud, but it didn’t much matter. My mind was someplace else. I knew exactly what I wanted to do now, what I needed to do. Nora’s death had brought things into clear focus for me. I was even certain that I had never loved her. We’d used each other, and the result had been just terrible.
I returned to my office and stayed there just long enough to grab a file. There was another office I had to visit right away. Upstairs, where the big boys roam.
“He’ll see you now,” said Frank Walsh’s secretary.
I walked in and took a seat in front of Walsh’s imposing oak desk.
“John, to what do I owe the pleasure?” he asked.
“I need to talk to you about some things. Nora Sinclair is dead, by the way.”
Walsh looked surprised and I wondered if it was genuine. Not much got past him, which was probably how he’d survived all these years with the Manhattan Bureau.
“Simplifies things, I guess,” he said. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, Frank.”
He tented his thin, gnarled fingers. “But not too fine, am I right? What