Murder Beyond the Grave Read online

  CONTENTS

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by James Patterson

  Title Page

  Author’s Note

  Murder Beyond the Grave

  James Patterson with Andrew Bourelle

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Murder in Paradise

  James Patterson with Christopher Charles

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Epilogue

  Extract from NYPD Red 5

  Copyright

  ABOUT THE BOOK

  Two true-crime cases from the hit TV series Murder is Forever

  MURDER BEYOND THE GRAVE. Stephen Small has it all – a Ferrari, fancy house, loving wife and three sons. But the only thing he needs right now is enough air to breathe. Kidnapped, buried in a box, and held for ransom, Stephen has forty-eight hours of oxygen. The clock is ticking …

  MURDER IN PARADISE. High in the Sierra Nevada mountains, developers Jim and Bonnie Hood excitedly tour Camp Nelson Lodge. They intend to buy and modernise this beautiful rustic property, but the locals don’t like rich outsiders changing their way of life. After a grisly shooting, everybody will discover just how you can make a killing in real estate …

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  JAMES PATTERSON is one of the best-known and biggest-selling writers of all time. His books have sold in excess of 365 million copies worldwide. He is the author of some of the most popular series of the past two decades – the Alex Cross, Women’s Murder Club, Detective Michael Bennett and Private novels – and he has written many other number one bestsellers including romance novels and stand-alone thrillers.

  James is passionate about encouraging children to read. Inspired by his own son who was a reluctant reader, he also writes a range of books for young readers including the Middle School, I Funny, Treasure Hunters, House of Robots, Confessions and Maximum Ride series. James has donated millions in grants to independent bookshops and he has been the most borrowed author in UK libraries for the past ten years in a row. He lives in Florida with his wife and son.

  Also by James Patterson

  MURDER IS FOREVER TRUE CRIME

  Murder, Interrupted (with Alex Abramovich and Christopher Charles)

  Home Sweet Murder (with Andrew Bourelle and Scott Slaven)

  A list of more titles by James Patterson can be found at the back of this book

  Dear Reader,

  Above all else I’m a storyteller. I craft stories for insatiable readers. And though my books may seem over-the-top to some, I find that I am most often inspired by real life. After all, truth is stranger than fiction.

  The crimes in this book are 100% real. Certain elements of the stories, some scenes and dialogue, locations, names, and characters have been fictionalized, but these stories are about real people committing real crimes, with real, horrifying consequences.

  And as terrifying and visceral as it is to read about these crimes gone wrong, there’s something to remember: the bad guy always gets caught.

  If you can’t get enough of these true crimes, please watch the pulse-racing new television series Murder Is Forever, where you’ll see these shocking crimes come to life.

  I hope you’re as haunted by these accounts as I am. They’ll remind you that though humans have the capacity for incredible kindness, we also have the capacity for unspeakable violence and depravity.

  CHAPTER 1

  THE MAN GASPS for air and claws at the plywood siding of his prison. He’s inside a coffin that is six feet long and three feet wide.

  Rivulets of sweat pour from his brow. His shirt is soaked. His heart is thumping like he’s just run up a flight of stairs. His skull is throbbing with a nauseating headache.

  He has been buried alive.

  At gunpoint.

  A stranger, disguised with a ski mask and motorcycle helmet, had kidnapped him, had clipped handcuffs around his wrists, and later, when he forced him into the box, he cut the chain between the cuffs but left the circles of metal clasped tightly to his wrists.

  The kidnapper left three items in the coffin: a gallon jug of cloudy water, a pile of candy bars, and a car battery attached to a caged lightbulb. He has gulped half the water already but hasn’t touched the candy bars. He isn’t sure how long he’s been in here. The lightbulb is starting to dim.

  He looks up at a small piece of PVC pipe sticking through the plywood, and he puts his mouth over the tube, trying to draw big gulps of fresh air. But though he’s in good shape, his lungs strain. No matter how much air he pulls in, his chest is still heaving, still gasping for more.

  He knows what’s happening. He’s running out of oxygen. The pipe isn’t doing enough to circulate fresh air into the chamber.

  He pushes up against the plywood and pounds on the wood with his fists.

  “Help!” he screams.

  But his vocal cords are raw from yelling so much. And he can barely catch his breath as it is.

  He tries to calm his panicked breathing, taking long, slow breaths. His head is pounding.

  Keep it together, he tells himself. Calm down!

  He remembered what the masked man said when he put him in here, that this is all about money.

  Everything’s going to be fine. I’ve worked out all the details. You’re not going to die.

  But he is beginning to think his kidnapper is never coming back.

  The air smells of sour sweat, plywood, and caulk. And hidden behind those odors, barely noticeable, is the smell of freshly dug soil—the smell of his grave.

  He presses his trembling hands against the plywood again. This time, when he pushes upward, straining with all his strength, he feels some give in the earth. He feels a moment of hope. But when he releases the pressure, the board sags inward, like a mineshaft nearing its inevitable collapse.

  The light flickers. He takes deep breaths. Long inhalations. Slow exhalations. He tries to calm his nerves.

  He closes his eyes and, as he waits for the light to die and the darkness to envelop him, he thinks of the faces of his children and the woman he loves. He hopes they know how much he loves them.

  CHAPTER 2

  January 1987

  Eight month
s earlier

  DANNY EDWARDS WALKS down a sidewalk in Chicago, his head down, his fists buried in his coat. Flakes of snow drift in the air. Danny’s breath comes out in bursts of visible vapor. Cars drive by, slicing through gray slush.

  Danny is thirty years old, well dressed, and handsome. Under ordinary circumstances, he would seem like a friendly guy, but today he has a determined look on his face. He’s anxious.

  He pushes through the door into a steak house and is greeted by a rush of warm air, a cloud of cigarette smoke, and a barrel-chested host who lights up when he sees him.

  “Yo, Danny,” the man says, his Chicago accent thick. “Long time no see, eh?”

  When the man opens his arms to give Danny a hug, Danny awkwardly thrusts a hand out for a shake instead.

  “How’ve you been?” Danny says, feigning a smile.

  “Oh, you know,” says his longtime associate, who, unfazed by the rebuffed embrace, claps Danny on the shoulder. “Same ol’, same ol’.”

  Danny opens his mouth for more small talk, but the host cuts him off with a nod toward the kitchen.

  “He’s waiting for you in the back. Told me to send you in straightaway.”

  Danny makes his way toward the rear of the restaurant, walking through tendrils of cigarette smoke. The room is full of low-hanging lamps and checkerboard tablecloths. He enters a redbrick hallway and walks past the kitchen, where white-clad cooks shout over a flaming grill, and then past the dish room, where a kid with pimples on his face and a cigarette between his lips is blasting dirty plates with a high-powered spray nozzle.

  In the very back of the restaurant is an oak door, standing ajar, and Danny knocks gently and pokes his head inside.

  “Hey, Mitch,” Danny says, trying to sound nonchalant.

  “Sit down,” Mitch says to Danny without any of the good cheer the host displayed when Danny entered the restaurant.

  Danny sits in a leather chair across from Mitch, who is leaning over a white platter. There are no vegetables on the plate, no sides whatsoever. Just a sixteen-ounce porterhouse barely seared on the outside and as bloody as a bullet wound on the inside.

  Mitch, an intimidating sixtysomething man with silver-streaked hair and cold, dark eyes, saws into the meat and pops a dripping bite into his mouth.

  “How’s it going?” Danny says.

  “Cut the crap,” Mitch says, his voice like a garbage disposal filled with broken glass. “Where’s my money?”

  Danny’s façade breaks. He nervously glances around the room. “Here’s the thing, Mitch,” he says, and then hesitates to continue.

  Mitch stares at him. He holds his fork in one hand and a steak knife in the other, but his meal is forgotten. His attention is focused on Danny.

  Danny takes a deep breath and then rips the Band-Aid off.

  “The cops nabbed my cocaine,” Danny says. “The whole supply.”

  Mitch’s expression is unreadable.

  “I’m lucky they didn’t get me,” Danny says.

  Mitch continues to stare, saying nothing. Danny fidgets in his chair.

  “Listen,” Danny says. “I’ve got it all worked out. My buyers are still interested. They’re hungry for product. I just need another kilo. I’ll give all the profits to you. It will cover what I owe you and the new bag. You know I’m good for it.”

  Mitch returns to his steak without speaking. Danny waits. He can’t sit still. He pulls at the collar of his shirt and wipes a bead of sweat from his brow. Mitch takes his time cutting off another bloody hunk of steak.

  “So you’re going to pay me double?” Mitch says, without looking at Danny.

  “Of course.”

  “And a penalty fee?”

  Danny hesitates. “If that’s what it takes. I want to make things right.”

  “What’s up with you?” Mitch says, raising his eyes and fixing them on Danny. “You seem a little bit off. Why are you sweating so much?”

  CHAPTER 3

  OUTSIDE IN A nondescript panel van, two police officers listen with headphones.

  “Damn it,” says the first officer. “He’s been made.”

  “Wait,” says the other. “This guy Danny is a slick operator. Let’s see what he does.”

  High-tech equipment lines one side of the van’s interior, and the first officer adjusts a knob to try to hear the conversation better.

  “I seem a bit off?” Danny asks.

  “Yeah,” Mitch says, his gravelly voice particularly jumbled in the earphones. “Jumpy.”

  “Jumpy?”

  “Yeah,” Mitch says, getting frustrated now. “You gonna repeat everything I say?”

  “Sorry,” Danny says.

  “What I’m wondering is if the cops nabbed the cocaine you were selling, how is it that they didn’t nab you?”

  The two cops look at each other.

  “Get ready to call in the team,” the first one says. “I don’t want a dead informant on our hands.”

  The detectives spent weeks putting this operation together. After they busted Danny Edwards, they convinced him that they wouldn’t charge him if he wore a wire and helped them bring down his supplier.

  Danny Edwards is a little fish—they want the Big Kahuna.

  The plan is simple: once Mitch shows Danny the drugs, Danny is supposed to say a code phrase. Then the police will come rushing in. The only other reason they would come rushing in would be if Danny seemed to be in danger. Danny’s a low-level hoodlum, but they don’t want his blood on their hands.

  “I’m making the call,” the first officer says, picking up a walkie-talkie.

  “Wait!” the second says, and they both go quiet as they listen.

  “How is it that they didn’t nab me?” Danny whispers.

  “I swear to God you better stop repeating everything I say.”

  “Okay, okay,” Danny says. “Here’s what happened.”

  Danny explains how he’s been keeping his supply of drugs at a construction site down the road from where he does most of his deals, not in his own home. The house is a skeleton of two-by-fours and plywood flooring. Just now, the roof is getting shingled and the walls are being covered in drywall. But the central air ducts are installed, and it’s a convenient place to keep a brick of coke hidden and dry.

  “That part of the house has already been inspected, you see. No one looks in there.”

  “Why don’t you just keep your coke at your own house like a normal drug dealer?” Mitch asks.

  “Are you kidding?” Danny says. “My girlfriend would have a fit. I’d be sleeping on the street if she found out there were any drugs in the house.”

  Danny goes on to explain that he was selling to a couple guys he hadn’t seen before. They were asking for more than he had on him. He should have known better, he admits, but he told them to wait and he’d be back in thirty minutes. He walked to the construction site without realizing he was being followed. Once he’d reached into the vent and pulled out the brick, two other guys came running from the corner of the house waving guns and badges.

  Danny took off on foot and lost them when he hid in the rafters of another half-finished house at the construction site.

  “I saw them grab the coke,” Danny says, “and then I snuck off.”

  “And these cops don’t know who you are?” Mitch asks.

  “No way, man. That’s why I walked to the construction site. They don’t have my plate number. They don’t know the car I drive. They saw my face, but I never ended up selling them anything. Even if they found out who I was, they couldn’t do anything. They’ve got nothing.”

  The two police officers listen as the conversation in their headphones goes quiet for a moment.

  “You were right,” says the first officer.

  “Told you he was a slick operator.”

  “That was such a convincing story he almost fooled me,” says the first cop.

  “If I give you more,” they hear Mitch say, “are you going to be careful?”

&nbs
p; “Thank you so much,” Danny says. “I’m so happy I could kiss a pig.”

  “Did you hear that?” says the first police officer.

  The other officer nods and barks into his walkie-talkie, “Move! Move! Move! The drug deal is going down!”

  CHAPTER 4

  “DON’T GO KISSING any pigs just yet,” Mitch growls at Danny. “You’re still in hot water.”

  Danny dabs more sweat from his forehead.

  “This is your last chance.” Mitch points his knife toward Danny. “You know what happens if you mess this up?”

  A drop of red juice drips off the blade of the knife.

  Danny opens his mouth to answer, but then they hear a commotion going on outside the office door. There’s yelling, then the sound of pans clattering and glass breaking. Then comes an earsplitting crash, as if someone dropped a whole tray of dinner plates outside the office door.

  “What in the holy hell is going on out there?” Mitch snarls.

  Mitch stands to his feet just as the door bursts open, crashing against the wall with a bang. In seconds, the office is full of police officers pointing shotguns and pistols at Mitch and Danny.

  “Hands up!” a cop yells.

  Danny obliges. Mitch ignores the request.

  “What’s going on here?” he barks. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “You two are under arrest,” one cop says, leveling a pistol at Mitch’s forehead.

  Another cop grabs Mitch and shoves him against his desk. He kicks Mitch’s legs into a wide stance and begins patting him down. Another officer shoves Danny against the wall and begins patting him down as well.

  “Where are the drugs?” one of the officers asks Mitch.

  “What drugs?” Mitch says. “This is a family restaurant. It’s a law-abiding business.”

  The cop gets close to Mitch’s ear and says, “You’re the biggest drug dealer in the city. You know it. We know it. Everybody knows it. And now you’re finally going down for it.”

  “Where’s your evidence?”

  The cops glance around the room, as if they’re expecting to see a brick of coke sitting out in the open. There isn’t anything but Mitch’s half-eaten steak.

  “Don’t worry,” the cop says, pulling Mitch’s hands behind his back and cuffing them. “We’ll find the evidence, even if we have to tear this place apart.”