Roses Are Red - James Patterson [92]
Francis turned away from his coffee making and let out a harsh, unpleasant laugh. “Oh, that’s very compelling evidence, Detective. I’d like to hear you present it to the district attorney in Washington. I’ll bet the D.A. would get a good belly laugh out of it, too.”
I smiled back at him. “We already have talked to the D.A. She didn’t laugh. By the way, Kathleen McGuigan has talked to us, too. Since you didn’t return her call, we went to see her. You’re under arrest for robbery, kidnapping, and murder. Dr. Francis, I see that you aren’t laughing anymore.”
I sensed that his mind was racing way ahead of the conversation. “You notice that I’m not rushing to call my lawyer, either.”
“You should,” I told him. “There’s something else you should know. Szabo finally talked this morning. Frederic Szabo kept a diary of your sessions, Doctor. He kept notes. He wrote about your interest in his plans. You know how efficient Frederic can be. How thorough. He said you asked more questions in his therapy sessions about the robberies than you asked about him. He showed you his blueprints for everything.”
“We want the money, the fifteen million dollars,” Betsey told Francis. “If we recover the money then everything will go easier for you. That’s the best offer you’re going to get.”
Francis’s disdain was blossoming. “Let’s suppose for a moment that I was this Mastermind you speak of. Don’t you think I’d have a stunning escape plan figured? You couldn’t just barge in here and capture me. The Mastermind wouldn’t allow himself to be caught by two peons like you.”
It was finally my turn to smile. “I don’t know about that, Francis. We peons might surprise you. I think you’re on your own now. Did Szabo give you an escape plan, too? He probably didn’t.”
Chapter 122
“ACTUALLY, HE DID,” Francis said, and his voice was at least an octave lower than it had been. “There was always a slim, slim possibility that you’d catch me. That I’d be faced with life in jail. That’s totally unacceptable, you understand. It isn’t going to happen. You do understand that?”
“No, actually, it is going to happen,” Betsey said with a firmness to match Francis’s statement. Meanwhile, my hand was already reaching for my gun.
Suddenly, Francis broke for the glass door that led out onto the rooftop deck. I knew there was nowhere for him to go out there. What was he doing?
“Francis, no!” I shouted.
Betsey and I pulled our guns simultaneously, but we didn’t fire. There was no reason to kill him. We rushed out through the door and followed Francis in a sprint across the weathered wooden deck.
When he reached the far wall of the roof deck, Francis did something I wouldn’t have ever imagined, not in a hundred lifetimes of police work.
He dived off the deck — which was five floors above the street. Bernard Francis went down headfirst. He’d break his neck for sure. There was no way he’d live.
“I don’t believe it!” Betsey screeched as we got to the edge of the deck and looked down.
I didn’t believe what I saw, either. Francis had made a dive five stories down to a shimmery blue swimming pool. He surfaced and began to stroke rapidly toward the pool’s far wall.
I had no choice and I didn’t hesitate. I jumped off the high roof deck after Dr. Francis.
Betsey was no more than half a step behind me.
We both yelled as we cannonballed all the way down to the pool.
I hit the surface of the water with my backside first, and I was punished severely. My body went splat. My insides felt as if they’d been hastily rearranged.
I shot to the bottom, hit it pretty hard, but then I was paddling to the surface, swimming as fast as I could toward the far wall. I was trying to clear my head, to focus my eyes, to think clearly about stopping the Mastermind’s escape.
I climbed out of the pool and saw Francis running onto the property of the bordering condominiums. He was throwing off water like a duck.
Betsey and I started after him. Our shoes were squeaking and sloughing water. Nothing mattered except that we