21st Birthday Read online

  Chapter 49

  My eyes opened Sunday morning to the sound of my phone ringing in the living room.

  The bedside clock read just after 5 a.m. This time, I had to pick up the call. I slipped out of bed, careful not to wake Joe, and found my phone in the dark. I looked at the caller ID.

  Brady.

  He said, “Sorry to wake you, Boxer, but I think you’d want to know.”

  “What? What’s happening?”

  “A red car, looks like a Volvo, was spotted a hundred yards out in the low tide off China Beach.”

  I knew the place, a large public parking area, five minutes off the tony Sea Cliff neighborhood and just south of Baker Beach. A curved tree-lined road led to the beach. The waters here could be brutal. When the storms whip up the surf, this was one of the most dangerous beaches in California. The tide gave no warning, no second chances as water poured in under the bridge, shifting dramatically with unpredictable undercurrents and deadly riptides. Daredevil swimmers had died at China Beach, a half dozen this year alone.

  I said, “Brady, you’re thinking it’s Tara’s car?”

  “Could be. I can just make out the roof. I’m on the lot overlooking the beach right now. Coast guards brought in a couple of small track cranes and tow trucks. Motorboats. CSU has a flatbed truck and—Uh-oh. The car slipped the cable. This is one tough whale to beach. They’ve been at it for hours.

  “Could be lost sleep for nothing. But I think you’ll want to see this.”

  I shook Joe awake very gently and told him I had to go, that I would call him later.

  “What time is it?”

  “Just past five.”

  “Be careful.”

  “I will be.”

  I kissed his face all over, picked up my shoes from under the chair, and tripped over Martha as I dashed for the door.

  “Sorry, Boo. Good girl.”

  I geared up in the living room and, out on the street, found my car and unlocked it without setting off the alarm. The engine started up easily and I drove up Lake Street to China Beach, arriving in about eight minutes. I took the access road to the overlook and parked next to Brady’s Tacoma and a coast guard van. He was standing at the edge of the lot looking at the police activity underway in the wild dark sea through his binoculars.

  A stiff salty breeze whipped my hair as I walked up behind him and shouted “Hello!”

  He said, “Look out there,” and handed me his glasses.

  The first light of dawn lit the scene as the vehicle in question surfaced and bobbed in the tide. A crane was lifting the front end, and two tow trucks had hooks into the undercarriage, ratcheting in cable, balancing the vehicle still in the surf. And now the red car was inching up the beach, getting dragged up and out of an ocean that was reluctant to give it up.

  I saw CSIs taking a tarp out of their van.

  “They’re going to wrap up the car?” I asked.

  “Let’s move,” said my lieutenant.

  Chapter 50

  Brady offered a muscular arm to help me down the stairs, and our timing was such that by the time we reached the beach, our badges in hand, the car was on four wheels.

  We identified ourselves to the coast guard officer, then ducked the tape and walked up on the red Volvo as water and fish and sand poured through the underside and out the open windows. Something pale caught my eye. An arm followed the flow of water and flopped out of the passenger-side window. It was a woman’s arm, abraded and bloated from soaking in seawater and mauled by sea animals.

  As we circled the car, I braced myself for the sight of the dead woman’s ruined face. She had been in the passenger seat when the car was driven into the ocean. She was still seated with the shoulder harness firmly locking her in place. Her head was flopped to the side and the gash across her throat was swollen nearly shut, no longer a clean cut. There was a large, flat stone on the accelerator that had caused the car to take flight. I was sure this was Tara Burke, but I couldn’t make a positive ID by looking at her. Still, I recognized the denim dress Tara had been wearing, the outfit that had been captured on video when she’d left her house with Lorrie on Monday morning. She wouldn’t have fingerprints any longer, but presumably dental work, if she’d had any, could identify her.

  Brady called my attention to the pink diaper bag jammed under the back seat, where there was also an unbuckled infant car seat. As I studied the woman, I noticed something inked onto the inside of her wrist: a small heart-shaped tattoo that confirmed her identity.

  My hand was shaking as I took a picture with my phone and walked around the car to show it to Brady.

  A CSI said, “’Scuse us, lieutenant. We’re going to wrap the car with the body inside. Take it all back to the lab.”

  “Uh-huh, uh-huh,” said Brady. “Good catch, Boxer. I say we leave this to Hallows and his crew. We’ll go wake up Burke and take him in. Time and tide wait for no man.”

  “What was that?”

  “Chaucer. I took English lit, too. It means ‘Let’s git.’”

  Chapter 51

  I trotted behind Brady up the stairs to his vehicle in the parking area. He opened the door, grabbed the mic, and requested backup to Burke’s address.

  “Three patrol cars. Code two,” he said.

  Urgent, no lights or sirens.

  Within minutes we’d parked on Persia Avenue, three hundred yards from Burke’s front door. The house was dark. The silver Audi was in the driveway and Reg Covington, SWAT commander, had blocked the driveway with his armored car. Two unmarked cars were parked at the curb, and cops wearing Kevlar jackets quietly disembarked and crept toward the house.

  Brady and I exited the Tacoma and with our BearCat backup only yards away and two teams surrounding the house, we moved in on 79 Dublin Street. Covington’s team of six used the hood, roof, and doors of the BearCat as shields and gun rests. We were covered.

  Brady unlatched Lucas Burke’s picket gate and we approached the dark blue front door with its fist-shaped brass knocker. I stood to the side. Brady stepped in, knocked and announced, then I got out of his way as he lifted his leg and kicked in the door.

  No alarms or lights came on, either inside or outside the house. Covington and two of his team rushed in, yelling.

  “SFPD! Speak out!”

  No one did. The advance team cleared the downstairs rooms and thundered up the stairs to the bedrooms.

  I heard Covington shout, “Hands up! Face the wall!”

  Burke’s voice. “What now? This is harassment.”

  Brady and I bounded up the staircase and found Lucas Burke standing beside the bed in a T-shirt and boxers. He showed us that his hands were empty and Brady turned him 180 and told him to put his hands on the wall. One after the other, Brady jerked Burke’s arms around to his back and cuffed him, then spun him back around to face us.

  I said, “Lucas, I’m sorry to tell you that we’ve recovered Tara’s car from the ocean. Her body was inside. You’re under arrest for suspicion in the murders of Tara Burke and Lorrie Burke.”

  He howled, “Noooooooooo!”

  I read him his rights; to remain silent. Anything he said could be used against him. Right to a lawyer and the state would provide an attorney if he couldn’t afford one.

  “Do you understand your rights?”

  He glared at me.

  “I haven’t killed anyone.”

  “Boxer, do it again, louder,” said Brady.

  I shouted what I’d just said, one sentence at a time, asking him after each, “Do you understand?”

  Burke hissed, “Yes, yes, yes, I understand.”

  “Let’s go,” said Brady, pushing Burke to and through the bedroom doorway. Covington’s team followed Brady, and Burke and I brought up the rear, helping Brady stuff the accused into the back seat of our unmarked.

  Burke would be charged with reasonable suspicion of homicide. Although we hadn’t caught him in the act, had no witness or physical evidence of any kind, by his own admission, Bur
ke had fought with his wife the morning she disappeared. It would be harder or even impossible, with what we had, to prove that he’d killed Misty Fogarty, Wendy Franks, and Susan Wenthauser. So the DA would go with our strongest cases, and if we found further evidence we would charge him for those crimes, too.

  But, what we had was compelling.

  One, Tara strapped into the passenger seat of her car, her throat slashed; and, two, the dead baby, evidence of manual asphyxiation, her diaper bag stuffed under the same back seat, infant car seat unbuckled. Burke had seen them last. There had been a history of spousal abuse. He had been having an affair. Three strikes.

  A good prosecutor would be able to convince a jury that Lucas Burke was a wolf dressed in a high school teacher’s tweeds. An impartial jury would buy it.

  That’s what I believed.

  Chapter 52

  It was Friday morning, ten past nine.

  Brady, Yuki, and I were with DA Len Parisi in his office with Lucas Burke and Newton Gardner, his publicity-grabbing hard-ass criminal defense attorney.

  I was rested and focused and eager to hear what Lucas Burke would say about the recovery of his dead wife.

  Lucas Burke was in jailhouse orange with flip-flops and a two-day beard. He looked bad, smelled bad, and I was guessing he hadn’t slept since we booked him two days ago. Whatever thoughts had kept him awake were surely compounded by the awful accommodations offered in our sixth-floor jail. It was dirty, bright lights were on all night, and the other guests were generally foulmouthed, pissed off, and bordering on violence.

  For his own safety, Burke had likely slept while leaning against the wall of his cell.

  I almost felt sorry for him.

  But now he had first-class representation in Newt Gardner and was paying a thousand bucks an hour for the privilege. I’d never met Gardner before, but I’d seen him in front of the courthouse and on late-night news standing with A-list clients, mesmerizing the press with his wit and showmanship and obvious ambition for an ever bigger stage.

  As morning rush traffic whooshed past the windows two stories above Bryant Street, Len Parisi sat at his super-sized desk. Above him loomed the red pit bull face of his wall clock. The rest of us, including Burke and his attorney, had pulled up chairs around the desk.

  Gardner was wearing a smart gray suit, starched white shirt, and classic black oxfords buffed to a high shine. His head was shaven, making his sharp black eyes his standout feature. He’d asked for this meeting and had one thing on his agenda: to convince Leonard Parisi to drop the “ridiculous” charges against his client before another day had passed, before the world media saw this as O.J. two-point-oh, and had implied that he would put the city of San Francisco through a humiliating trial that it would lose.

  Parisi said, “Mr. Gardner. It’s your meeting.”

  Gardner said, “Thanks, Mr. Parisi. It’s really very simple. Lucas Burke did not kill his wife and child, and I’m quite sure you know the SFPD has no evidence, none, not a hair or a fingerprint or a speck of DNA belonging to my client on the bodies of the victims. There’s no witness, no video, no nothing. I’m asking you to drop the charges for one simple reason. Lucas didn’t do it and you have zero probable cause to charge him.”

  “Okay. Thanks for coming in,” said Parisi, looking at his watch.

  Gardner got the slight as it was meant and he took umbrage. “I promise you,” he said, “I’m going to win, Mr. Parisi. I’m going to get my client out of this trap you’ve set for him.”

  “Do your worst, Mr. Gardner. That much I expect,” Parisi said, unmoved and unafraid. He knew our case cold.

  Gardner wasn’t done. He fixed his bullet eyes on Parisi.

  “About now, I should get up and say to my client, ‘Don’t lose any sleep over this, Luke. They have nothing. I’ll see you in a couple of days.’ But I want you to know that along with dismantling your circumstantial case, I’m going to introduce a few dozen character witnesses; educators and neighbors and even a man of the cloth. In short, Len, you have no case. Not a prayer of one. Do you really want to go through the wood chipper? Or would it be better for all concerned if your cops took a little more time and found the real killer?”

  Parisi crossed his hands over his large belly and smiled ever so slightly. I had a good idea that he was just fine with Newton Gardner laying out his case.

  “And here’s the bonus round,” Gardner continued. “Drop the charges and release my client, now, and we won’t sue the city for police harassment and I won’t get on a soapbox and mock the SFPD for their incompetence. How does that sound?”

  Parisi said, “Mr. Gardner. I’ll leave you to froth and wriggle alone. I’m not a stupid man. We’re charging your client with two counts of murder, and that’s a gift. We can prove that he killed his wife and daughter with malice aforethought. And that’s what we’ll be telling the judge at Mr. Burke’s arraignment. The charges stand. And now, I have to prepare for a meeting.”

  I wanted to cheer, but exhilaration was premature.

  Said Gardner, “I hate to tell you, my friend, but you can’t convict a man because you need to clear a nasty case.”

  Parisi said, “That’s enough, counselor. You’ve said more than enough.”

  Gardner didn’t turn to his client and say “Let’s go.” Instead he said, “We have something to offer that will unsnarl this whole big ball of nothing.”

  “You’ve got three minutes, sir. I have other business to attend to,” said Red Dog Parisi.

  What came next was almost beyond my comprehension.

  Chapter 53

  Newt Gardner leaned against the arm of his chair and whispered into his client’s ear.

  Burke nodded, and said, “Yes, yes. Okay.”

  Then, he looked up and spoke into an unfocused middle distance between Brady, Parisi, and me.

  “I’ve been holding something back.”

  Burke had all of our attention. Even Red Dog, who sat in his chair like a stone Buddha, leaned forward.

  What the hell was this? I tried to imagine what Burke could have kept from us, but nothing lit up. Not an idea in the world, but I was sure it was going to be bull.

  Burke said, “I know full well that what I’m going to tell you is going to sound like I made it up to mislead you. It’s not. I believe I know who killed Lorrie and Tara. And Misty. When I was in your office, sergeant, holding that paper with Misty’s picture, I wanted to scream it. But I can’t prove he did it. That’s why I’ve kept it to myself.”

  Brady said, “I’m going to record this. Any objection?”

  No one spoke. Brady pressed a button on his cell phone and put it down on Red Dog’s desk.

  He said to Burke, “Once again. From the top.”

  Burke sighed. But his face was full of emotion. I’d never seen him look like this. Furious, yes. Crushed by events, definitely. But this was different. He looked afraid.

  He spoke toward the phone, saying, “I’m Lucas Burke and I didn’t kill my wife and daughter or Misty Fogarty or the other women whose bodies you’ve found. But I think I know who did. I’ll cooperate fully and help you catch the killer if I can, and I’m willing to testify against him.”

  “Talk,” said Parisi. “We ran out of patience a week ago.”

  “Fifteen years ago, my mother, Corinne, and my sister, Jodie, disappeared. Maybe you remember the case. If not, look it up. Their bodies were never found. No one was ever arrested. I was already in my mid-twenties when they disappeared, and I wasn’t living at home. But while I’ve done everything a human being could do to convince myself that it isn’t true, I have reason to believe that my father, Evan Burke, killed them. I know my father. And you see? First my mother and sister. Then my wife and daughter, and a woman I loved. I can’t ignore what I know. My father is a true psychopathic serial killer—the real deal.”

  Yuki scoffed. But my attention was on Lucas Burke and Brady’s phone recording this frankly fantastic story. Burke asked for a tissue, for water, and
Parisi asked his assistant, Katie Branch, to come in.

  After a short intermission, Burke went on.

  “I had twelve years of therapy working to convince myself that my father couldn’t be a killer. But there’s one connection I can’t shake. My father has always been drawn to the water. He always had boats. I’ve done research and now it seems obvious. Women disappeared in Catalina where we lived. Women disappeared in Isla Vista near the campus of UC Santa Barbara. Women’s bodies have been found in coastal areas.

  “I can’t say that he killed them all, but many of those murders were never solved and often the bodies weren’t found. My father is smooth. And charming. And sly. And he likes to kill women. And maybe because he wants me to both suffer and bear witness. That’s why he made sure that Tara and Lorrie died in the water.”

  Lucas Burke seemed parched and worn out from his speech, but Parisi was unmoved. Same for Brady.

  Parisi said, “Mr. Gardner. Mr. Burke. This is your defense? ‘The other dude did it? And he’s my father?’”

  Gardner said, “My client can provide the names of possible victims, approximate dates when they disappeared. With fresh information and good police work, I’m confident proof exists that Evan Burke, not Lucas, killed Tara and Lorrie Burke.”

  I adjusted my chair so that I was right in Burke’s face and questioned him.

  “What’s your father’s full name?”

  “Evan William Burke.”

  “When did you speak with him last?”

  “When Tara and I got married. Three years ago. But before that? Maybe three times after my mother and sister disappeared.”

  “Where does he live?”

  “I got a birthday card from him on my fortieth. The return address was somewhere in Marin County. If I look at a map, I might remember. But logic tells me that he may have a place near where I live now. So that he could watch me, follow people in my life and kill other people to muddy the picture. Look. This man is a high genius. You have to be prepared—”