Private: #1 Suspect (28 page)

SUPERVISING INSPECTOR ELAINE Pottersfield was one of the finest detectives working for the London Metropolitan Police, a twenty-year veteran of the force with a prickly, know-it-all style that got results. Pottersfield had solved more murders in the past two years than any other inspector at Scotland Yard. She was also the only person Knight knew who openly despised his presence.

An attractive woman in her forties, the supervising inspector always put Knight in mind of a borzoi dog, with large round eyes, an aquiline face, and silver hair that cascaded about her shoulders. When he entered Sir Denton Marshall’s kitchen, Pottersfield eyed him down her sharp nose, looking ready to bite at him if she got the chance.

“Peter,” she said coldly.

“Elaine,” Knight said.

“Not exactly my idea to let you into the crime scene.”

“No, I imagine not,” replied Knight, fighting to control his emotions, which were heating by the second. Pottersfield always seemed to have that effect on him. “But here we are. What can you tell me?”

The Scotland Yard supervising inspector did not reply for several moments, grew disgusted, and finally said, “The maid found him, or what’s left of him anyway, an hour ago out in the garden.”

Flashing on Sir Denton, the learned and funny man he’d come to know and admire over the past two years, Knight felt his legs go wobbly, and he had to put his vinyl-gloved hand on the counter. “What’s left of him?” he repeated.

Pottersfield grimly gestured at the open French door.

Knight absolutely did not want to go out into the garden. He wanted to remember Sir Denton as he was the last time he’d seen him, two weeks before, with his shock of startling white hair, scrubbed pink skin, and easy, infectious laugh.

“I understand if you’d rather not,” Pottersfield said. “Captain Casper said your mother was engaged to Sir Denton. When did that happen?”

“New Year’s past,” Knight said. He swallowed and moved toward the door, adding bitterly, “They were to be married on Christmas Eve. Another tragedy. Just what I need in my life, isn’t it?”

Pottersfield’s expression twisted in pain and anger, and she looked at the kitchen floor as Knight went by her and out into the garden.

The air in the garden was still, growing hotter, and stank of death and gore. On the flagstone terrace, five quarts of blood, the entire reservoir of Sir Denton’s life, had run out and congealed around his decapitated corpse.

“The medical examiner thinks the job was done with a long curved blade with a serrated edge,” Pottersfield said.

Knight again fought off the urge to vomit as he tried to take in the entire scene, to burn it into his mind as if it were a series of photographs and not reality. Keeping everything at arm’s length was the only way he knew to get through something like this.

Pottersfield said, “And if you look closely, you’ll see some of the blood’s been sprayed back toward the body with water from the garden hose. I’d expect the killer did it to wash away footprints and such.”

Knight nodded and then, by sheer force of will, moved his attention beyond the body, deeper into the garden, bypassing forensics techs gathering evidence from the flower beds, to a crime scene photographer snapping away near the back wall.

Knight skirted the corpse by several feet and from that new perspective saw what the photographer was focusing on. It was ancient Greek and one of Sir Denton’s prized possessions: a headless limestone statue of an Athenian senator cradling a book and holding the hilt of a busted sword.

Sir Denton’s head had been placed in the empty space between the statue’s shoulders. His face was puffy, lax. His mouth was twisted to the left, as if he were spitting. And his eyes were open, dull, and, to Knight, shockingly forlorn.

For an instant, the Private detective wanted to break down. But then he felt himself swell with outrage. What kind of barbarian would do such a thing? And why? What possible reason could there be to behead Denton Marshall? The man was more than good. He was…

“You’re not seeing it all, Peter,” Pottersfield said behind him. “Go look at the grass in front of the statue.”

Knight closed his hands into fists and walked off the terrace onto the grass, which scratched against the paper booties he wore over his shoes, making a sound like fingernails on a chalkboard. Then he saw it and stopped cold.

Five interlocking rings, the symbol of the Olympic Games, had been spray-painted on the grass in front of the statue.

Over the top of the symbol, an
X
had been smeared with blood.

JAMES PATTERSON has had more
New York Times
bestsellers than any other writer, ever, according to
Guinness World Records
. Since his first novel won the Edgar Award in 1977, James Patterson’s books have sold more than 240 million copies. He is the author of the Alex Cross novels, the most popular detective series of the past twenty-five years, including
Kiss the Girls
and
Along Came a Spider
. Mr. Patterson also writes the bestselling Women’s Murder Club novels, set in San Francisco, and the top-selling New York detective series of all time, featuring Detective Michael Bennett.

James Patterson also writes books for young readers, including the Maximum Ride, Daniel X, Witch & Wizard, and Middle School series. In total, these books have spent more than 220 weeks on national bestseller lists.

His lifelong passion for books and reading led James Patterson to launch the website ReadKiddoRead.com to give adults an easy way to locate the very best books for kids. He writes full-time and lives in Florida with his family.

MAXINE PAETRO is the author of three novels and two works of nonfiction, and the coauthor of nine books with James Patterson. She lives in New York with her husband.