Lifeguard: A Novel by James Patterson

Author:James Patterson [Patterson, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General, Fiction, Mystery & Detective, Suspense, Suspense fiction, Thrillers, Psychological, Lifeguards
ISBN: 9780316057851
Publisher: Hachette Digital, Inc.
Published: 2005-07-11T17:41:55+00:00

Part Five ART’S BOOMING

Chapter 78

THEY FED ME a meal. They gave me blankets and a sheet. I sat down on the cot and passed a lonely night in a cell. I figured this would be the first of many. There was a lot of noise down the hall — the clang of cell doors, someone throwing up.

It wasn’t until the next morning that somebody finally came for me. A heavyset black cop from the day before. With two others.

“Free to go, I guess?” I said with a fatalistic smile.

“Oh, yeah, right,” he chuckled. “They’re waiting for you up in the spa. Don’t forget your robe.”

They took me upstairs to a small interview room. Just a table and three chairs, a mirror on the wall that I figured was two-way. I waited alone for about ten minutes. The nerves were starting to go. Finally the door opened and two cops stepped in.

One was the tall white-haired detective who was there when I surrendered at Stratton’s. Lawson. Palm Beach PD. The other was a short, barrel-chested guy in a blue shirt and tan suit. He flicked me his card as if I were supposed to be impressed by the initials.

Special Agent in Charge George Moretti. FBI.

Ellie’s boss.

“So, Mr. Kelly,” Lawson said, squeezing into a wooden chair across from me. “What are we going to do with you?”

“What am I being charged with?” I asked.

He spoke in a slow, relaxed drawl. “What do you think we should charge you with? You left us about the whole criminal statutes book to choose from. The murder of Tess McAuliffe? Or your friends?” He consulted a sheet. “Michael Kelly, Robert O’ Reilly, Barnabas Flint. Diane Lynch?”

“I didn’t do any of that. . . .”

“Okay, plan B, then,” Lawson said. “Burglary. Interstate traffic of stolen goods, resisting arrest . . . The death of one Earl Anson, up in Brockton . . .”

“He killed my brother,” I shot back. “And he was trying to kill me. What would you have done?”

“Me, I wouldn’t have gotten into this mess in the first place, Mr. Kelly,” the cop replied. ”And just for the record, it was your prints off that knife, not his. . . .”

“You’re in a shitload of trouble,” the FBI man said, pulling up a chair. “You got two things that can save your ass. One, where are the paintings? Two, how was Tess McAuliffe connected to any of this?”

“I don’t have the paintings,” I said. “And Tess wasn’t connected. I met her on the beach.”

“Oh, she was connected,” the FBI man said, and nodded knowingly, leaning close, “and, son, you don’t come straight with us now, your whole life as you knew it is going to be a memory from this point on. You know what it’s like in a federal prison, Ned. No beaches there, son, no pools to tend.”

“I am being straight with you,” I interrupted. “You see a lawyer here? Did I ask for one? Yes, I got involved to steal those paintings.

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