64

FRIDAY, 6:15 PM

PATRICK SAT in Interview Room A. Eric Chavez and John Shepherd handled the interview while Byrne and Jessica observed. The interview was being videotaped.

As far as Patrick knew, he was merely a material witness in the case.

He had a recent scratch on his right hand.

When they could, they would scrape beneath Lauren Semanski’s fingernails, looking for DNA evidence. Unfortunately, according to the CSU, it probably wouldn’t yield much. Lauren was lucky to even have fingernails.

They had gone over Patrick’s schedule for the previous week, and, to Jessica’s chagrin, they had learned that there wasn’t a single day that would have prevented Patrick from abducting the victims, nor dumping their bodies.

The thought made Jessica physically ill. Was she really considering the notion that Patrick had something to do with these murders? With each passing minute, the answer was getting closer to yes. The next minute dissuaded her. She really didn’t know what to think.

Nick Palladino and Tony Park were on their way to the Wilhelm Kreuz crime scene with a photograph of Patrick. It was unlikely that old Agnes Pinsky would remember him—even if she did pick him out of a photo lineup, her credibility would be torn to shreds by even a public defender. Nick and Tony would canvass up and down the street nonetheless.

 

“I HADN’T BEEN KEEPING UP with the news, I’m afraid,” Patrick said.

“I can understand that,” Shepherd replied. He was sitting on the edge of the battered metal table. Eric Chavez leaned against the door. “I’m sure you see enough of the ugly side of life where you work.”

“We have our triumphs,” Patrick said.

“So, you’re saying that you were not aware that any of these girls had at one time been a patient of yours?”

“An ER physician, especially in an inner-city trauma center, works triage, Detective. The patient needing the most immediate care is treated first. After patients are patched up and sent home, or admitted, they are always referred to their primary care physician. The concept of patient doesn’t really apply. People who come to an emergency room may only be a patient of any given doctor for an hour. Sometimes less. Quite often less. Thousands of people pass through St. Joseph’s ER every year.”

Shepherd listened, nodding at all the appropriate cues, absently straightening the already perfect creases in his pants. Explaining the concept of triage to a veteran homicide detective was wholly unnecessary. Everyone in Interview Room A knew that.

“That doesn’t really answer my question, though, Dr. Farrell.”

“It seemed that I knew the name Tessa Wells when I heard it on the news. I didn’t, however, make any immediate connection to whether or not St. Joseph’s had provided her with emergency care.”

Bullshit, Jessica thought, her anger growing. They had discussed Tessa Wells the night they had a drink at Finnigan’s Wake.

“You say St. Joseph’s as if it was the institution that treated her that day,” Shepherd said. “It’s your name on the file.”

Shepherd held up the file for Patrick to see.

“The record doesn’t lie, Detective,” Patrick said. “I must have treated her.”

Shepherd held up a second file. “And you treated Nicole Taylor.”

“Again, I really don’t recall.”

A third file. “And Bethany Price.”

Patrick stared.

Two more files in his face now. “Kristi Hamilton spent four hours in your care. Lauren Semanski five.”

“I defer to the record, Detective,” Patrick said.

“All five of these girls were abducted and four of them were brutally murdered this week, Doctor. This week. Five female, teenaged victims who just happened to pass through your office within the past ten months.”

Patrick shrugged.

John Shepherd asked, “You can certainly understand our interest in you at this point, can’t you?”

“Oh, absolutely,” Patrick said. “As long as your interest in me is in the nature of material witness. As long as that’s the case, I’ll be happy to help in any way I can.”

“By the way, how did you get that scratch on your hand?”

It was clear that Patrick had an answer well prepared for this. He wasn’t, however, going to blurt anything out. “It’s a long story.”

Shepherd looked at his watch. “I’ve got all night.” He looked at Chavez. “How about you, Detective?”

“I cleared my schedule just in case.”

They both turned their attention back to Patrick.

“Let’s just say that one should always beware of a wet cat,” Patrick said. Jessica saw the charm shine through. Unfortunately for Patrick, these two detectives were immune. At the moment, so was Jessica.

Shepherd and Chavez exchanged a glance. “Have truer words ever been spoken?” Chavez asked.

“You’re saying a cat did that?” Shepherd asked.

“Yes,” Patrick replied. “She was outside all day in the rain. When I got home tonight, I saw her shivering in the bushes. I tried to pick her up. Bad idea.”

“What’s her name?”

It was an old interrogation trick. Someone mentions an alibi-related person, you slam them immediately with a question regarding the name. This time, it was a pet. Patrick was not prepared.

“Her name?” he asked.

It was a stall. Shepherd had him. Shepherd then got closer, looking at the scratch. “What is it, a pet bobcat?”

“Excuse me?”

Shepherd stood up, leaned against the wall. Friendly, now. “See, Dr. Farrell, I have four daughters. They absolutely love cats. Love ’em. In fact, we have three of them. Coltrane, Dizzy, and Snickers. That’s their names. I’ve been scratched, oh, at least a dozen times in the last few years. None of the scratches looked anything like yours.”

Patrick looked at the floor for a few moments. “She’s not a bobcat, Detective. Just a big old tabby.”

“Huh,” Shepherd said. He rolled on. “By the way, what sort of vehicle do you drive?” John Shepherd, of course, already knew the answer to this question.

“I have a few different vehicles. I mostly drive a Lexus.”

“LS? GS? ES? SportCross?” Shepherd asked.

Patrick smiled. “I see you know your luxury cars.”

Shepherd returned the smile. Half of it, anyway. “I can tell a Rolex from a TAG Heuer, too,” he said. “Can’t afford one of them, either.”

“I drive a 2004 LX.”

“That’s the SUV, right?”

“I guess you could call it that.”

“What would you call it?”

“I would call it an LUV,” Patrick said.

“As in Luxury Utility Vehicle, right?”

Patrick nodded.

“Gotcha,” Shepherd said. “Where is that vehicle right now?”

Patrick hesitated. “It’s in the back parking lot here. Why?”

“Just curious,” Shepherd said. “It’s a high-end vehicle. I just wanted to make sure it was safe.”

“I appreciate it.”

“And the other vehicles?”

“I have a 1969 Alfa Romeo and a Chevy Venture.”

“That’s a van?”

“Yes.”

Shepherd wrote this down.

“Now, on Tuesday morning, according to records at St. Joseph’s, you didn’t go on duty until nine o’clock in the morning,” Shepherd said. “Is that accurate?”

Patrick thought about it. “I believe it is.”

“Yet your shift began at eight. Why were you late?”

“Actually, it was because I had to take the Lexus in for service.”

“Where did you take it?”

There was a slight rap on the door, then the door swung open.

In the doorway Ike Buchanan stood next to a tall, imposing man in an elegant Brioni pin-striped suit. The man had perfectly layered silver hair, a Cancún tan. His briefcase cost more than either detective made in a month.

Abraham Gold had represented Patrick’s father, Martin, in a high-profile malpractice suit in the late 1990s. Abraham Gold was as expensive as they come. And as good as they come. As far as Jessica knew, Abraham Gold had never lost a case.

“Gentlemen,” he began, using his best courtroom baritone. “This conversation is over.”

 

“WHAT DO YOU THINK?” Buchanan asked.

The entire task force looked at her. She searched her mind for not only the right thing to say, but the right words to say it. She truly was at a loss. From the moment that Patrick had walked into the Roundhouse an hour or so earlier, she knew this moment would arrive. Now that it was here, she had no idea how to deal with it. The notion that someone she knew might be responsible for such horror was bad enough. The notion that it was someone she knew intimately—or thought she did—seemed to immobilize her brain.

If the unthinkable was true, that Patrick Farrell was indeed the Rosary Killer, from a purely a professional standpoint, what would it say about her as a judge of character?

“I think it’s possible.” There. It was said out loud.

They had, of course, run a background check on Patrick Farrell. Except for a pot misdemeanor in his sophomore year in college, and a penchant for driving well above the speed limit, his record was clean.

Now that Patrick had retained counsel, they would have to step up the investigation. Agnes Pinsky had said that he could’ve been the man she saw knocking on Wilhelm Kreuz’s door. A man who worked at a shoe repair shop across from Kreuz’s apartment building thought he recalled a cream-colored Lexus SUV parked out front two days earlier. He wasn’t sure.

Regardless, there would now be a pair of detectives on Patrick Farrell 24/7.