The People vs. Alex Cross (Alex Cross #25)(19)

Bernie held the rod tight about two feet from the bottom, the butt still in the pipe. He leaned back, testing the weight of the fish and its strength.

“Oh, Jaysus,” Bernie said. “He’s gonna go forty minimum, maybe fifty!”

The reel started to whine. Aaliyah’s father reached down and adjusted the drag to let the unseen fish run. He let it tear out a hundred yards and saw the line slacken before he snatched up the pole from the PVC pipe and reset the drag.

“Bernie,” I began.

He barked, “I’ve been waiting on this quality of fish for two years running, Cross. So you can either leave or wait until I’m done here.”

I held up my hands. “Don’t let me get in your way.”

So I stood back and watched the retired homicide detective engage in an epic battle on the beach. Every time Bernie was able to pull and crank the fish closer to shore, it would make another run that left him gasping.

“He could go sixty,” Aaliyah’s father said with a grunt twenty minutes into the struggle. “Big, big striper.”

Thirty-five minutes into the fight, he said, “Maybe seventy pounds. My God, what a pig of a fish!”

Fifty-two minutes into the battle, Bernie had the striper in the surf thirty yards right in front of him. We saw the leader and a flash of a big fin before the pig of a fish rolled over and started to shake its head against the pressure of the line and the hook.

Then the fish ran, leaped up out of the water, head still shaking, and crashed sideways into the surf. I was shocked at the size of it. So was Bernie.

“Jaysus H,” he said in awe. “He has to be pushing the world rec—”

The striper thrashed once more. There was a twanging noise as the line snapped in two. Bernie staggered and fell back into the sand.

I felt bad and expected him to be mad, curse his luck, or at least cry out in dismay. But Aaliyah’s father just sat there in the sand, holding his fishing rod, staring at the surf and what could have been.

After several minutes, he said, “You get a chance at some things only once in this life, and sometimes they slip right through your hands. I’ll support you, Dr. Cross. One way or the other, I’ll see to it that Tess gets the help you say she needs.”





CHAPTER


22


JOHN SAMPSON KNOCKED on the door frame of Bree Stone’s office.

“Chief, we’ve got her in interrogation,” he said.

Bree looked up from a stack of papers, put her pen down, and got up.

She and Sampson went to a booth with a one-way mirror overlooking an interrogation room. A young woman with elaborate parrot tattoos on both arms, multiple face piercings, and half her jet-black hair shaved off sat at the table, staring at the mirror.

In an accent that sounded straight out of Appalachia, she said, “Sally Sweet doesn’t have all day. You either want to know or you don’t.”

Detective Ainsley Fox was also in the observation booth. She said, “Let me talk to her alone, Chief. Get her to relate to me.”

Sampson wondered whether that was possible, given that Fox was one of the most abrasive, obnoxious people he’d ever worked with.

Bree was skeptical too, and shook her head. “Detective Sampson will take the lead. He has years of experience at this kind of thing.”

Fox scowled but offered no argument as she trailed Sampson out into the hallway. Sampson stopped and said, “You listen. You study. You learn.”

His partner did not like that, but she nodded. She and Sampson entered the interrogation room and sat down in front of the woman.

“Sally Sweet?” he said after introducing himself.

“It’s what my driver’s license says,” she said, smiling. “For real. Approved by the court, even.”

“Taken in on charges of soliciting prostitution,” Fox said. “And possession of a controlled narcotic.”

Sampson had to fight not to ask Fox to leave right then.

Sweet shrugged. “Like I told the vice cop, the Oxy I got legit, cause of a herniated disk in my lumbar, and anyway, I got a get-out-of-jail-free card, and I want to use it.”

“Describe the card,” Sampson said.

“It’s a big one.”

Fox leaned across the table as if to speak. Sampson put his hand on his partner’s thigh and squeezed it hard. Fox sat back and looked at his hand and then at him in outrage.

Sampson squeezed harder, and then let go. He looked at Fox, then turned his head to Sweet, who couldn’t figure out what was going on.

“I can’t promise you a thing until I hear what you have,” Sampson said, ignoring the fact that Fox’s normally pale skin had gone beet red. “If it’s strong evidence, we’ll inform the prosecutor who draws your case. In return for testimony, you’ll get some kind of deal.”

Sweet’s lips curled as if she’d sniffed something foul. “I didn’t say nothing ’bout testifying. This is a tip. I give the tip to you. You let me go.”

Fox was about to open her mouth, but Sampson pushed back from the table, stood up, and said, “I guess we’re done, then. You’ll be taken back to central holding. Detective Fox?”

Fox didn’t move for a beat but then stood up stiffly.

“Wait, what?” the hooker said. “Shit, okay, then. I’ll talk, but Sweet Sal’s got to get some good out of this.”