Triple Threat - James Patterson Page 0,14

world of trouble. Got it?”

Delilah was obviously in pain, and finally nodded.

Bree eased up on the pressure while I used a tissue to wipe my face.

“I don’t know what this is about,” Delilah said. “I told you, I have a legitimate business, registered with the state and everything. Delilah Entertainment. Check it out.”

“You know exactly what this is about,” I said, grabbing one of her formidable biceps and marching her back toward her house. “You’re a member of The Soneji. You’re Gary’s Girl. You like to take selfies of you and Gary together. Isn’t that true?”

Delilah looked at me smugly and said, “Every single word of it, Cross. Every single word.”

“Where is Gary Soneji?” Bree asked.

“I have no idea,” Delilah said. “Gary comes and goes as he pleases. Our relationship is strong enough for that.”

“Yeah, I’m sure it is,” I said, rolling my eyes. “But you understand you’ve abetted a man who shot a police officer in cold blood?”

“How’s that?”

“You housed him,” Bree said. “You fed him. You dressed up goth and had sex with him, maybe even did one of your kinky shows for him.”

“Every night, darling,” Delilah said. “He loved it. So did I. And that’s where yours truly will shut up. I have the right to remain silent. And I have a right to an attorney. I’m taking both those rights, right here and right now.”

Chapter 19

Pale morning fog shrouded much of the cemetery from my view. The fog swirled on the wet grass, the melting snow that remained, and the gravestones. It left droplets on the pile of wilted flower bouquets and empty liquor bottles and remembrances that had to be moved before the backhoe could begin its work.

The last item was a baby doll, naked, with lipstick smeared on the lips.

Shivering against the dank March air, I zipped my police slicker higher and pulled on the hood. I stood off to one side of the grave with Bill Worden, the cemetery superintendent, alternately looking at the baby doll and watching the backhoe claw deeper into the soil. A baby doll, I thought, recalling a real baby tossed through the air with total indifference, if not cruelty.

Someone brought that doll here, I thought. In celebration. In reverence.

That’s just sick. How could you worship that?

I glanced at the headstone Worden dug from the ground after I’d brought him an order from a federal judge in Trenton. The grave marker was simple. Rectangular black polished granite.

“G. Soneji” was etched in the face, along with the date of his birth. The date of his death, however, had been chiseled away. That was it. No mention of his brutal crimes or his disturbing life.

The man six feet under the headstone was all but anonymous.

And yet they’d come. The Soneji. They’d chipped away at the gravestone. Spray-painted the grass to read “Soneji Lives.” I took pictures before the backhoe destroyed it.

“How many visit?” I asked over the sound of the digging machine.

Worden, the cemetery superintendent, tugged his hood over his head and said, “Hard to say. It’s not like we keep it under surveillance. But a fair number every month.”

“Enough to leave that pile of flowers,” I said, eyeing the baby doll again.

Worden nodded. “For some it seems almost like a pilgrimage.”

“Yeah, except Mr. Soneji was no saint,” I said.

Drizzle began to fall, forcing me deeper into the collar of my jacket. A few moments later, the backhoe turned off.

“There’s the straps, Bill,” the equipment operator said. “I’ll hand-dig the last of it.”

“No need,” Worden said. “Just hook up and lift, brush the dirt off later.”

The backhoe operator shrugged and got out cables, which he attached to the bucket. Then he got down into the grave and clipped the cables to the rings of stout straps that had been left after the casket was lowered.

“They’re not weakened by being in the dirt ten years?” I asked.

Worden shook his head. “Not unless something chewed through them.”

The superintendent was right. When the backhoe arm rose, the straps easily lifted the casket of a man I helped kill.

Wet dirt slid and cascaded off the top of the casket as it came free of the grave and dangled four feet above the hole. The wind picked up. The casket swayed.

“Put it down there,” Worden said, gesturing to one side.

I was fixated on the casket, wondering what was inside, beyond the charred remains I’d seen placed in a body bag beneath Grand Central Station a decade before. He was in there, wasn’t he?

Every instinct said yes.