The Chef - James Patterson Page 0,42

bit rattled by whatever is inside that house is a very, very bad sign.

“Too early to move the body?” I ask, gesturing to his assistants loading the empty stretcher into a white van parked on the curb. “Forensics hasn’t released the scene?”

Quincy shakes his head. “Not their call anymore. Word just came down. This one’s gone federal. I can’t move a hair on his head until they say so. A real mess, too.”

I lean in a bit and say quietly, “Between us, Quincy, I’m working an angle on this one. I’m trying to clean that mess up, too. Any chance I could get a peek?”

Quincy raises a skeptical eyebrow above the frames of his tortoiseshell glasses. I continue pleading my case.

“Just for a minute,” I say. “You know I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important. Very important.”

Quincy purses his lips. “What did you have for breakfast, Killer Chef?”

Breakfast? His bizarre question throws me.

“Nothing,” I say. “Why? I came straight here as soon as I got word. But now that you mention it, I’m starving.”

Quincy glances around, then lifts up a section of crime-scene tape and beckons me underneath.

“You won’t be for long.”

Chapter 33

TOGETHER WE walk up the porch’s rickety wooden steps. Before crossing the threshold, Quincy hands me a paper face mask, disposable gloves, and a pair of felt booties. He doesn’t have to say a word; I remember the drill well. I slip them on, nod, and we enter.

I’m hit right away with the stench of stale urine. Padding through the dim entryway, I see soiled clothes and moldy fast-food containers strewn all around. Plenty of drug paraphernalia, too. Blackened spoons, charred crack pipes, dirty needles. This house might have been abandoned, but clearly, certain people still called it home.

When we step into the living room, I detect a different aroma. One I encountered plenty of times in my career, but hoped I’d never smell again.

The putrid tang of a rotting human corpse.

The small living room feels even more cramped since it’s packed with people, forensic equipment, and activity. Set up in each corner are portable three-legged fluorescent lamps that cast harsh light across the room’s stained walls and filthy carpet. Yellow plastic evidence markers have been placed all around the floor. One forensic tech is snapping pictures. A second is dusting a grimy glass coffee table for prints.

Two other techs are examining and taking swabs of Farzat’s body. Their own bodies are blocking my view, but his corpse appears to be lying in an old recliner. His bare feet are dangling over the footrest at a stiff, unnatural angle.

Quincy calls to the pair, “Bryant, De Soto, give us a look?”

The two techs step away from the body—to reveal a stomach-churning sight.

Farzat isn’t just lying in the recliner. He’s lashed to it, naked, his bare arms and legs wrapped multiple times with thick strips of silver duct tape, resembling an unfinished mummy. The chair’s upholstery is stained black-brown, soaked through with his blood. Strange circular wounds the size of quarters—and deep enough to expose muscle and bone—pockmark his torso and extremities. His head hangs limply to one side. His face is frozen in a visage of sheer terror. And his lips and bearded chin are covered with dried blood, like the snout of a wild animal that’s just fed on fresh meat.

This was no ordinary murder.

Farzat was abducted. Held against his will, for God knows how long.

And tortured. Horrifically. Until his dying breath.

Whatever information his captors were trying to get out of him, it had to be pretty damn important. And they had to be pretty damn cruel.

“Told you it was a mess,” Quincy says softly.

I swallow hard, and slowly step closer to Farzat’s body to get a better look. It takes everything I’ve got to fight the temptation to turn away, lift my mask, and retch.

“Where did these round wounds come from?” I ask, puzzled.

Quincy answers dryly, “You’ve heard of a contract killer? Try a killer contractor.”

I follow his gaze to a blood-dappled electric drill lying nearby, with a circular, serrated metal bit about an inch long. It’s a tool normally used to bore holes in drywall.

Or in this case, human flesh. I step back. My breathing quickens, my eyes water.

“Have an approximate time of death yet?” I ask.

“Based on his body temp and state of decomp, our current estimate is between six and nine hours ago.”

“Any idea how long he was tortured?”

Quincy slowly shrugs, like the weight of the whole parish is on his shoulders. “What I