Liar Liar - James Patterson Page 0,3

5

CHIEF TREVOR MORRIS sat at his cluttered desk and gripped his head, looking at the report from two patrol officers in Lidcombe. In the early hours of the morning, the pair had briefly encountered his rogue detective, Harriet Blue, and predictably failed to bring her in. In five weeks, it had been the only confirmed contact.

Oh, Harry, he thought. I’m so sorry.

He should have been the one to tell her that her brother was dead. He had a special kind of relationship with the unpredictable, hotheaded officer he’d found in his local boxing gym fifteen years earlier. The new kid on the block in Sex Crimes, his only female detective in that department. Chief Morris had agreed to train her in the boxing ring. She’d started calling him Pops, and yes, he’d felt almost like her father. He’d found she could already hold her own in a fight. It had been her fury he’d had to tame, her fast, clumsy rage.

It hadn’t been much of a leap for Harry’s rage to evolve into a need for revenge.

He turned in his chair and perused a collection of articles he’d pinned to a nearby corkboard detailing the city’s reaction to Regan Banks’s escape.

Police bungle Regan Banks arrest, deadly serial killer still at large.

Two found dead; scene suggests Regan Banks alive and well.

Where is Harriet Blue? Speculation rife detective is in league with killer.

The public had never liked Harry. Had never believed that a Sex Crimes detective didn’t know her brother was a serial killer. Sam Blue had been in the middle of his trial when Regan Banks had surfaced. Harry and her few supporters had been claiming Sam was being framed by a tall, broad-shouldered man with a shaved head. They knew Regan was a killer. He’d killed as a teen, and now a woman had only barely escaped his clutches, telling investigators Regan had spoken about Sam Blue. Had Sam been innocent all along, the victim of a setup? Or was the Georges River Killer actually a two-man team? The answers weren’t coming anytime soon.

“What a mess.” Morris shook his head as he turned and looked at another corkboard, the various crime scenes touched by Regan’s hand. The pictures of his pretty victims, pale and still on morgue tables. “What a fucking mess.”

“Yes, it is an incredible mess,” someone said.

Pops looked toward the doorway. Deputy Police Commissioner Joseph Woods stood there with his hat in hand, the various buckles and attachments to his jacket gleaming in the harsh overhead light.

Pops stood, smoothing down his tie, feeling sweat already beading beneath his shirt. Before he could begin the necessary greetings, Woods cut over him.

“Get your things together,” Woods said. “You’re out, Morris. I’m taking over.”

Chapter 6

THERE WERE NO WORDS. Pops eased the air from his lungs.

“I’ll need this office as an operations center for the Banks case,” Woods continued. “You can start working on that after we brief the crew about the command change.”

“Deputy Commissioner Woods,” Pops said finally, “this is my investigation. You can’t take it over without approval from—”

“All the approvals have been given, Morris.” Woods patted the smaller man on the shoulder, the gesture stiff and devoid of warmth. “You’ve done your best, I’m sure. But this”—he waved at the corkboard—“this isn’t just a mess. It’s a fucking catastrophe. It has to be taken in hand immediately by someone with suitable experience.”

Pops’s eyes widened. “Joe, nothing like this has ever—”

“You’ve got a vicious killer on the loose.” Woods leaned on the edge of the desk. “Eight dead. A rogue policewoman running amok, refusing to come in. Another rogue officer in a coma. Am I missing anyone?”

“Detective Barnes is out of his coma,” Pops said. “And he never—”

“Don’t try to defend him, Morris. Tox Barnes is a lunatic. Always has been. He wanted to play with Regan a bit before handing him in—be a hero. He almost became a casualty. Well, that’s not how we do things in this job. We don’t take matters into our own hands, no matter how good it feels. I’m here to make sure that Blue woman doesn’t do the same as Barnes and add herself to the already numerous body count.”

The two men glared at each other. Morris and Woods had been at the academy together, more than thirty years earlier. It was precisely these interactions that had got Woods to the rank of Deputy Commissioner while Morris remained at Chief Superintendent. Woods railroaded people. When he spoke. When he acted. When he went