No one recalled seeing a customer fitting the description of Unsub 40. And neither of them sold ball-peen hammers. So for the past hour Amelia Sachs had pounded the sidewalk, canvassing the other shops along the windblown, littered sidewalks of this workaday ’hood: the body shops, auto parts stores, phone card outlets, gypsy cab operations, wig stores, taquerias, dozens of other places. One clerk in a drugstore was “pretty sure” he’d seen, on the street, a man matching the description of Unsub 40 but couldn’t remember exactly where he’d been, what he’d been wearing, if he’d been carrying anything.
The sighting at least confirmed White Castle Charlotte’s belief that he’d come in this direction. But as to a destination—that was still a mystery. And of course there were bus stops and subway stations he might have walked to, or garages where he might park his car—even if he hadn’t used the hamburger joint’s lot. She also checked for CCTVs in the commercial outlets but none of the lenses were focused on the sidewalk, just on the doors, parking lots and interiors. Besides, there were scores of cameras and even if the unsub had stepped inside a surveilled store or taken a shortcut through a parking lot, she didn’t have the manpower or time to go through hundreds of hours of video. Todd Williams’s killing was a terrible crime but it wasn’t the only terrible crime within the five boroughs of New York City. And in this business you always had to balance.
And the balance rule applied to your personal life too.
Mobile phone out. She made a call.
“Amie.”
“Mom. How you feeling?”
“Good,” Rose Sachs said, which, from Rose Sachs, might mean good or might mean bad or might mean any stop in between. The woman didn’t let a lot out.
“Be there soon,” Sachs told her.
“I can get a cab.”
Sachs chuckled. “Mom.”
“All right, dear. I’ll be ready.”
Looping back, she canvassed stores and shops on the opposite side of the boulevard.
And finally had a solid hit: at a gypsy cab company. She gave the hirsute, lanky manager a description of their unsub and the man immediately frowned and said in a thick Middle Eastern accent, “Yes, I think so. Very skinny man. Had big bag of White Castle hamburgers. Big bag. For skinny man, funny.”
“You remember when?”
He couldn’t exactly, but agreed it might have been two weeks ago—possibly the day Todd Williams was murdered. Nor could he recall who the driver was and the service kept no records of destinations but he said he’d query his employees and find out more.
She lowered her eyes to him. “This is important. The man is a killer.”
“I will start now. Yes, I will do that.”
She believed him. Mostly because of his uneasy eyes when he had glanced at her proffered shield, which told her that not all his licenses were in seamless order and he would be certain to cooperate, in exchange for her tacit agreement not to send the Taxi and Limousine Commission to visit.
Turning south, she began walking back toward her car, parked at the White Castle lot. A few stops at locations that seemed like unlikely ones for leads: a wig shop, a nail salon, a windowless computer repair operation. Then onto the sidewalk again. Suddenly Sachs noted something from the corner of her eye. Movement. Not unusual here, though on this blustery day the sidewalks were largely deserted. But it had been a special sort of movement. Fast, deflecting. As if somebody didn’t want to be seen.
She unbuttoned her jacket and, right hand lounging near her Glock, was looking around. This was an auto repair operation with a number of vehicles, from motorcycles to box trucks, all parked helter-skelter, many of them dismantled to varying degrees. The person who’d moved in close by, if a person it was and not a shadow or swirl of trash or dust, had slipped between two of the larger trucks, a bright-yellow Penske rental and a twenty-foot white van whose only logo was two massive breasts in spray paint, bold red.
Running the odds that Unsub 40 had been coming for his multi-burger lunch once more and had recognized her from the mall and begun to follow.
Not likely but not impossible either. She tapped her Glock and moved closer to the trucks. No further sign of the shadow. Sachs continued into the lot, weaving through the vehicular graveyard. The wind snapped her jacket tail up and down and fanned her hair dramatically. Bad shooting mode. She pulled a rubber band from her pocket and bound the strands into a ponytail. A look around once more. The only living things visible were seagulls and pigeons, a curious and bold rat. No, two. Were the birds or rodents the movement she’d seen? Paper trash skidded along sidewalk and street, then soared. Maybe that was the intruder, yesterday’s New York Post.
No sign of threat.
Her phone hummed, startling her. She looked down. The ID showed Thom’s name. As always, when he, not Rhyme, called, she felt a tap in her heart that there might be bad medical news. She answered quickly. “Thom.”
“Hey, Amelia. Just wondering if you’re going to be staying here tonight. Having dinner?”
She relaxed. “No, I’m taking my mom to an appointment. And she’s staying over at my place.”
“Can I make a care package?”
She laughed, knowing it would be a very good care package indeed. But the logistics of collecting it—driving all the way to Rhyme’s—were problematic. “No, thanks. But really appreciate it. I . . .”
Her voice faded as, in the background she heard words spoken by someone who sounded familiar.
No. Couldn’t be.
She heard it again.
“Thom, is Mel there? Mel Cooper?”
“Yes, he is. You want to talk to him?”
I sure as hell do. She said politely, “Please.”
A moment later: “Hi, Amelia.”
“Hey, Mel. Uhm, what’re you doing at Lincoln’s?”
“He vacationed me. Though that’s a verb I can see he’s not very happy I used. I’m helping him with the Frommer case.”
“Goddamn it,” she said.
A silence.
Cooper put an end to it with, “I . . . Well.”
“Put Lincoln on.”
“Oh-oh,” the tech whispered. “Look, Amelia, the thing is—”
“And not speaker. Headsets.”
Her finger disappeared into her hair and she scratched. A sign of the tension—frustration at the case. And anger. Rhyme. It was bad enough he’d quit the business; now she had to deal with fucking interference?
There was a rustle through her speaker as Cooper or Thom placed the headset on Rhyme. Most conversations with him, of course, occurred via speakerphone. Not much chance for privacy. She didn’t want anyone else to hear what she was about to say.
“Sachs. Where—?”
“What’s Mel doing there? I needed him for the Unsub Forty case. You stole him.”
“I asked if he’d help me on the Frommer litigation,” Rhyme countered. “There’s lab work we have to do. I didn’t know you wanted him.”
She snapped, “Queens HQ wasn’t doing everything it should have.”
“I didn’t know that. How would I know? You never said anything.”
And why would the subject even come up with you? she thought. Then she muttered, “How could you just move him to a civilian case? I’m not even sure you can do that.”
“He took some time off. He’s not on duty.”
“Oh, bullshit, Rhyme. Vacation? I’m running a murder.”
“You were at the mall, Sachs. You saw what happened. My victim’s as dead as yours.” Lincoln Rhyme didn’t play defense well.
“The difference is your escalator’s not going to kill anyone else.”
No response to that.
“Well, I don’t think I’ll need him for much longer.”
“How much is that? In terms of hours? Minutes preferably.”
He sighed. “We have to come up with a defendant in the next day or so.”
“So, days then,” she muttered. “Not hours.”
Minutes were off the table.
He tried conciliation, though it dripped insincerity. “I’ll make a call or two. Who’re you working with at Crime Scene?”
“Who I’m working with is not Mel. That’s the problem.”
“Look, I—” This was from Mel Cooper, who had surely deduced what was happening.
“It’s okay,” Rhyme said to him.
No, it wasn’t. She fumed silently. Professional and personal partners for years, they never fought about matters close to the heart. But when it came to cases, tempers could flare.
“I’m sure you can run some questions by him. He’s nodding. See. He’s happy to do that.”
“I can’t run questions by him. He’s not a clerk at Pep Boys.” She added, “On speaker.”
There was a click.
Cooper was saying, “Amelia—”
“Okay, Mel. Listen. Ron will give you the details. I need some napkins analyzed for friction ridges and DNA. And we need the brand name of some varnish. And the type of wood from sawdust samples.” She added firmly, for Rhyme’s sake, not Cooper’s, “I need somebody really good. As good as you.”
The last was a bit petty, sure. She didn’t care one iota.
“I’ll make a call, Amelia.”
“Thanks. Ron will send you the case number.”
“Sure, of course.”
Then Sachs heard a woman’s low voice: “Is there anything I can do?”
Rhyme was saying, “No, keep going with that analysis.”
Who was that? Sachs wondered.
Then he said, “Sachs, look—”
“I have to go, Rhyme.”
She disconnected. Reflecting that it had been years since she’d hung up on him. She remembered when. During their first case.
At that moment Sachs realized that she’d been so focused on the phone call—and on her anger at Rhyme’s “vacationing” the technician she needed—that she’d lost awareness of her surroundings: a mortal sin for any street cop—especially since she’d seen what might have been a hostile.
Then she heard them. Gritty footsteps coming up behind her, close. Her hand went to her Glock but it was too late to draw the weapon. The assailant was by then only a yard or so away.
CHAPTER 12
So. Didn’t work.” Juliette Archer was speaking of the experiment to pour Coca-Cola into the escalator, mimicking a clumsy shopper, and short-circuit the switch, opening the access panel.
“Yes, it did,” Rhyme said, drawing a frown from her and Cooper. The experiment was successful. “It simply proved a supposition contrary to what we were hoping for: that Midwest Conveyance built an escalator that was not defective in regard to spilled liquids.”
The manufacturer had considered that riders might spill drinks on their upward or downward journey and had protected the electronics and motor with a piece of plastic that turned out to be a runoff shield. The liquids would flow into a receptacle, nowhere near the servo motor that released the pin to open the access panel.
“Onward, upward.”
Rhyme ordered Cooper to continue experimenting: He was to physically strike the switch and servo motor with various objects to simulate mechanical interference: broom handle, hammer.
No response. The deadly access panel would not open.
Archer suggested the tech jump on the panel over and over again. Not a bad thought, and Rhyme told Cooper to do so, though with Thom standing by on the floor below to spot the man if he fell.
No effect. The locking pin wouldn’t retract. The bracket would not shift in position. Nothing they could do would open the door, except pressing the button intended for that purpose, the button tucked safely away in a recessed receptacle, behind a locked cover.
Thinking, thinking . . .
“Bugs!” Rhyme called.
“You can’t put microphones in the Department of Investigations office, Lincoln,” Cooper said uneasily.
“My mistake. ‘Bugs’ is not correct; that’s a very limited biological order. Hemiptera. Aphid or cicada, for instance. I should have been more accurate. The broader ‘insect,’ of which ‘bug’ is a subcategory. So I want insects. Although a bug would do.”
“Oh.” Cooper was relieved, though obviously confused.
“Good, Lincoln,” Archer said. “A roach could have gotten inside and shorted out the switch or the motor, sure. Midwest Conveyance should have taken that into account and built in screens. They failed to do that, so the escalator’s defective.”
“Thom! Thom, where are you?”
The aide appeared. “More soda?”
“Dead insects.”
“You found a bug in your soda? Impossible.”
“ ‘Bugs’ again,” Rhyme said with a scowl.
After the explanation Thom prowled the town house for critters—he was such a fastidious housekeeper that he had to extend the search to the storage area above the top-floor ceiling and the basement to come up with a few pathetic fly corpses and a desiccated spider.
“No roaches? I’d love a roach.”
“Oh, please, Lincoln.”
“There’s that Chinese place on the cross street . . . Could you just find me one or two roaches. Dead is fine.”
With a grimace, Thom went off on his small-game hunt.
But even rehydrated, the various creatures he came back with couldn’t make the switch engage, or short out the servo motor, when they were placed against the contacts in the receptacle containing the plug.
As Cooper and Archer discussed other possible reasons the escalator could be considered legally defective, Rhyme found himself staring at the coatrack on which was hung one of Sachs’s jackets. His mind wandered back to her hard words earlier. What the hell was she so upset about? She had no particular claim on Mel Cooper. And how was he supposed to know she was having trouble with the lab?
Then his anger skidded around to himself for wasting time thinking about the frisson between him and Sachs.
Back to work.
Rhyme ordered Cooper to clean all the lubricant off the pin and bracket and then close it again, to see if the pin would not fully extend to the locking position because the fitting was dry and therefore would be more likely to open because of random motion. Even without the grease, though, it secured the door perfectly when closed.
Goddamn it. What had happened? Whitmore had said the product need not have been negligently—carelessly—built but it did have to be defective. They had to find some reason it had opened when it shouldn’t have.
He muttered, “It’s insect-proof, it’s waterproof, it’s shockproof . . . Was there lightning when the accident happened?”
Archer checked the weather. “No. Clear day.”
A sigh. “Okay, Mel. Write down our paltry finds on the chart, if you would.”
The tech did so.
The doorbell sounded and Rhyme looked at the monitor. “Ah, our barrister.” He opened the door.
A moment later lawyer Evers Whitmore entered, walking perfectly upright, in a sharp navy-blue suit, every button occupying every hole. He carried his anachronistic briefcase in one hand and a shopping bag in the other.
“Mr. Rhyme.”
He nodded. “This is Juliette Archer.”
“I’m an intern.”
“She’s helping on the case.”
Whitmore didn’t even glance at her wheelchair or seem to be curious that the woman was as disabled as her mentor—or how her condition might help or hinder the investigation. He nodded a greeting then turned to Rhyme. “I have this. Mrs. Frommer asked me to deliver it to you. By means of thanks. She made it herself.” From the shopping bag he extracted a plastic-wrapped loaf, tied with a red ribbon and displayed it as if he were proffering Plaintiff’s Exhibit One. “She said it was zucchini bread.”
