The 19th Christmas - James Patterson Page 0,69

Christmas dinner, drinking coffee, and talking over our upcoming interview with Loman.

We had done our research.

Loman didn’t have a police record, and outwardly, everything about him spelled Mr. Average Guy. His house was of the cookie-cutter variety in a working-class neighborhood. He and his wife had an import business, and Loman sold gold chains to local stores. He had an old car. Wore big-box-store clothes.

We had a search warrant for his house, but so far nothing incriminating had turned up. And we were able to get a warrant to look into Lomachenko’s finances. The banks were closed today, but we did have a few facts to work with.

One, we had a positive ID on Lomachenko from the DMV photo on file.

Two, we had caught him red-handed at BlackStar, and he was in our seventh-floor lockup now.

I should have felt frickin’ elated, but we had to make a case against him or turn him loose. Right now, the man we called Loman hadn’t left his fingerprints on anything but the gun he’d been holding when we took him down. I would bet anything that Loman had used that gun on Russell, but even though we had a skeleton crew at our lab over Christmas, it might be days before forensics would process it and get back to us.

Conklin and I talked about how we were going to approach Loman: make him comfortable, befriend him, show him the way out and work from the outside in—or go straight at him hard. If we went at him wrong, he could stop talking. It was his right.

Rich and I were in agreement.

Finding David Bavar was critical and urgent. Getting Lomachenko’s confession to killing Richard Russell would hold him as we put the pieces of assorted murder and mayhem—Julian Lambert, deceased; Arnold Sloane, deceased; and the Keystone Cops caper at SFO this morning—into a believable whole.

We didn’t yet have proof that Loman had murdered anyone or kidnapped Bavar, but we were prepared to work on him until the sun came up—or until he said, “Get me my lawyer.”

Which wouldn’t be a good thing. With a good lawyer and a sympathetic judge, he might get bail. And then he might jump.

I balled up my brown bag of sandwich crusts and dunked it into the trash can.

Conklin said, “Ready?”

“After I brush my teeth.”

Minutes later we were in our chairs at the scarred gray metal table in Interview 1. With Loman facing the glass and the camera rolling, I took the lead.

I asked our suspect nicely, “Mr. Lomachenko, we don’t get it. Why were you at BlackStar VR this afternoon?”

“Tell ya the truth, I’m not entirely sure,” he said. “Dick Russell, friend of mine, asked me to come with him. I thought he just wanted company. Someone to talk to or hold his coat.”

“Why did you disguise yourself?”

Loman stared at me without answering for a long moment, then he said, “There were cops everywhere. I knew Russell was dead and you guys would try to pin it on me. I wanted to disappear. Saddest thing. That man has been my friend for twenty years. He was almost family.”

I said, “Okay. But why did you have a gun? What was that all about?”

“Ah. Well. Russell told me that the head of the company, Mr. Bavar, had stolen an invention of his, some kind of software hack. He said it could be worth millions. Dick wanted to scare Bavar into paying him for this intellectual theft. So he tracked down the information that Bavar would be alone in his office on Christmas. Apparently, it was a habit of his to go to his office and write seven-figure bonus checks for his inner circle.”

I listened, teeing up my next question.

I asked, “So how did this go wrong, Mr. Lomachenko? Why did you shoot Russell?”

“Me? No. You’ve got it all wrong, Sergeant Boxer. Bavar shot Dick. Not me. But it was understandable. Russell was out of control,” Lomachenko said. “He was getting madder and madder, threatening to shoot Bavar if he didn’t get a million bucks. Like I said. Dick was shaking him down. I was just standing there, watching, and then Bavar snatched Dick’s gun away from him and bang. Just like that, he shot him. Bang, bang, bang. I didn’t stick around to see what happened after that.”

“Yes, I see,” I said, thinking Loman didn’t seem or act nervous. No blinking, no tears. Lying came easily to him. I would even say he enjoyed the attention.

I went on. “So, do