21st Birthday by Patterson, James (mystery books to read txt) 📗

“Oh. Is that you, sergeant? I asked for you.”

“And here I sit.”

He pressed a gadget within reach of his cuffed hand, and the back of his bed rose.

“Could you?” he asked, tipping his chin to the table near the bed. There was a glass of water with a straw. I moved the glass toward him so he could reach it and sip, and then he returned the glass.

“Thanks. They don’t know what I’ve got, but it’s pneumonia and something else that I couldn’t fight off and it’s supposedly not contagious.”

I said, “How’s your arm?”

“It’s been better.”

“Well. I flew in to see you, Burke, because you asked to see me. What do you want to tell me?”

“I want to tell you that I’ve killed people in my life. Quite a few. Quite. A few.”

What was this now? False confession for leverage? Or braggadocio?

“So, you want to give some families closure? Is that it?”

“I told you back at the cabin, sergeant. My son, Lucas, is also a murderer,” Burke said. “He’s a killer who started very young. His first victims were small animals, and years later, I’m pretty sure he took out Corinne and Jodie. He came home from school without telling anyone. Corinne and Jodie were never seen or heard from again.”

“Still, not proof, Evan. Why are you telling me this?”

“Because. I don’t know how much time I have left. I want to make sure that the story is told right.”

“Got it,” I said.

I didn’t. These two Burkes were twisted and they’d twisted me. Senior didn’t sound repentant for the girl he’d killed in front of me. What did he want?

I said, “Why don’t you start at the beginning.”

“All in good time,” he said. “I’m thinking about what —”

Without warning, he jerked, coughed, inhaled noisily, and was seized with a terrible-sounding coughing fit. The wheeze alone sounded like an accordion with pleurisy. He couldn’t grab at his chest or even roll because he was cuffed at the wrist and chained at the ankles.

I stood up to get help, but help had seen through the glass walls and came through in the form of a nurse, an aide, and the ICU doctor.

The nurse pulled a mask over Burke’s face and I heard the hiss of oxygen. The doctor asked me to please leave.

She said please, but it was a direct order and I followed it.

Evan Burke had accused his Lucas Burke of killing Corinne and Jodie Burke, but he hadn’t shed any light on the triple homicide for which Lucas was now standing trial. As much as Yuki wanted to depose Evan Burke, that was not going to happen.

CHAPTER 107

NEWT GARDNER SAT with Lucas Burke in the seventh-floor client-attorney conference room, killing time until the jurors came in with their verdict.

The room was a cage the size of a cell, furnished with a small table and four straight chairs. Gardner sat across from Luke and put his hand on his client’s arm. Luke was depressed, down and deep in the darkest part of himself, and Gardner hadn’t been able to help him out of the hole. He’d told Luke that he’d been right to testify. He’d said that his delivery had been very moving. “Tell me I’m wrong, but I thought my closer was almost as good as yours,” Gardner joked.

Luke couldn’t crack a smile.

Gardner placed a shopping bag on the table.

“This’s for you. Open it,” he said.

Luke did so with no enthusiasm and took out a new shirt and a silk tie in reds and yellows, which Gardner thought would warm up his client’s sallow complexion.

“Thanks. Put this on my tab, will you, Newt?”

“It’s a gift. And I have something else for you.”

Luke had asked him to find out where Misty was buried, and Newt had learned that she was in the Fogarty family plot in a cemetery in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Gardner contacted a friend who lived in the suburbs and asked him to go and take a picture of Misty’s headstone.

Gardner took a photo from his briefcase and passed it to Luke, saying, “I hope this is what you want.”

Luke stared at the photo of Melissa’s headstone. It read “Beloved Daughter.”

“She’s home,” said Luke. “In the family plot. She loved her father. Thanks, Newt. This is good.”

“It’s yours,” Gardner said. “But don’t get morbid. I fully expect the jury to find in your favor.”

“It looks peaceful,” Luke said. “Like being in your own bed, forever.”

Gardner said, “May I remind you that you’re only in your forties.”

“Tara and Lorrie are in Kathleen’s plot in Colman?”

“That’s right. Will you please make an effort to look like the innocent man you are, a man who has been put through hell, for having had a spat with his wife.”

Luke nodded. “How long before the jury comes in?”

“One never knows, but it’s only been an hour.”

“Thanks again, Newt. You’ve been great. I need to lie down.”

After Luke had been escorted back to his cell, Gardner had a hallway meeting with the head guard, Sergeant Holmes.

Newt said, “Keep a watch on him, Larry.”

“Will do.”

“He’s despondent.”

“Gotcha.”

“Here’s my card,” he said. “Call anytime.”

Gardner believed in Lucas and that belief never wavered. He went to the elevator and pressed down.

CHAPTER 108

DA LES PARISI CALLED Yuki two hours after she and Nick Gaines had left the courtroom to tell them that the jury was back.

Yuki’s stomach churned and fluttered as she strode up the corridor from the DA’s suite to the courtroom where Gaines was already waiting at the counsel table.

Often a jury’s quick return signaled a guilty verdict. But it wasn’t always true. There was every chance that Lucas Burke’s bawling that his father had set him up had worked on a juror or two. Yuki was thinking about other killers who looked pitiable when testifying when she heard her