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 highprofile 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 creamcolored Lexus SUV parked out front two days earlier. He wasn’t sure.