NYPD Red 4 by James Patterson Read Free Book Online

it even more when I’m wrong.
    Her office is the desk directly behind mine. I swiveled my chair. “It sounds like you have something to gloat about,” I said.
    “Me?” she asked, gloating. “I just thought you’d want to hear the latest on the hospital robberies. I did a little research, and it seems your favorite risotto lady volunteered at four of the nine hospitals that were robbed.”
    “Does she have a rap sheet?”
    “She’s clean as a whistle. In fact, three of the volunteer coordinators I spoke to said she was one of the best they’ve ever worked with, and they wished they had a dozen more like her.”
    I waited for the but.
    “But,” she said, “I did find something interesting. Her father was a petroleum engineer. As a kid she moved around the Middle East. After college, she went to India for three years and worked for a charity that provided medical treatment for street children.”
    “And that’s interesting because…?”
    “You heard what Gregg Hutchings said. Where do you think all this high-tech equipment is going to wind up? Lyon is a do-gooder, and she spent years surrounded by third world deprivation. My guess is she’s not even getting paid. She’s not only doing volunteer work for the hospitals; she’s doing volunteer work for the people who are ripping them off.”
    “That’s brilliant police work, Detective MacDonald. The woman has no criminal record, but she’s seen poverty, so she’s decided to do her part for the underprivileged by helping a bunch of black marketeers traffic stolen goods,” I said. “Why don’t you run that by Mick Wilson at the DA’s office and see how long it takes him to kick you out on your ass?”
    “That’s not the apology I was hoping for,” she said.
    “So she worked in four of the hospitals. If I were a lawyer, I’d call it more circumstantial evidence. But as a cop, I’m willing to admit there’s more to like about Ms. Lyon than her porcini-asparagus risotto.”
    “Are you willing to go back and bring her in for some serious questions?”
    “No.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because I’d rather let her think we’ve lost interest, then put a tail on her and see if she can lead us to someone higher up the food chain.”
    “That’s the first intelligent thing you’ve said since you were suckered in by that teary-eyed Martha Stewart act. There’s hope for you yet, Jordan.”
    My cell rang, and I picked it up. It was Cheryl.
    “Hey, what are you doing tonight?” she asked.
    “You tell me,” I said.
    “How do you feel about Italian food?”
    “Fantastico.”
    “Can you be home by seven?”
    “You bet,” I said.
    “Great. Love you.”
    “Love you back.”
    I hung up the phone and let what I’d just heard wash over me. My brain was thinking about the night ahead when Kylie violated my reverie.
    “Zach, did you hear what I said?”
    “Sorry. Run it by me again.”
    “I said we can’t tail Lyon. I know the mayor wants us on these hospital robberies, but they’re sucking up time we need for the Travers homicide. Let’s talk to Cates and see if she can drum us up another team to do the legwork.”
    “Sure.”
    She got up from her desk and headed toward Cates’s office. My body followed, but my head was still wrapped up in the phone call from Cheryl.
    It was the first time I’d ever heard her refer to my apartment as home. It felt incredible.

CHAPTER 14
    Captain Delia Cates is third-generation NYPD. She grew up in Harlem, and if you ask her where she went to college, she’ll smile and say, “Oh, there was a good school a mile from my house.” The school, as those of us in the know can tell you, is Columbia University.
    She graduated at eighteen, got a master’s in criminal justice from John Jay College, and did four years in the marine corps before joining the department. She rose through the ranks like a comet, and when our previous mayor created NYPD Red, his consigliere, Irwin Diamond, tapped Cates to run it.
    “It’s not