“Where’s the evidence you collected at Vernon’s apartment?”
She’d be afraid he’d collected some articles about the U.S. Auto case or that he had some other evidence of what the real motive was, which could ultimately lead to her.
“I tell you, you’ll kill us.”
A wrinkle of brow. “Of course. But I give you my word I’ll leave everyone else alive. Your friend Amelia—Vernon was pretty obsessed with her. I was almost jealous. She’ll be fine, Amelia. And her mother. And the others on your team. But you’re dead. Obviously. Both of you.”
“What you’re asking isn’t that easy. Some of the evidence’s in processing in Queens, the main Crime Scene Unit. And—”
“My other option is to burn this place down. But that’ll attract a lot of attention and I might miss some things. Just tell me.”
Rhyme was silent.
Looking around the parlor: at the file cabinets, boxes of paper and plastic bags, shelves, instruments. She walked to a cabinet, opened it and peered in. Closed the drawer. Tried another. Then she perused the broad, white examination tables, and flipped through the boxes that contained plastic and paper bags of the evidence. She unfurled a garbage bag, the deep green of a body bag from the coroner, and tossed some notebooks and clippings inside.
She continued collecting evidence that seemed likely to have references to her and the litigation and then extracted a paper bag from her purse and began depositing the contents carefully, just as he’d thought: hairs, Griffith’s, of course. A scrap of paper; it undoubtedly held his friction ridge prints. And then—well, she’d certainly thought this out carefully—one of Vernon’s shoes. She didn’t leave it; she left several impressions on the floor near Rhyme’s chair.
Rhyme said, “It’s terrible what happened to you and your husband. But none of this will fix that.”
She snapped, “The cost-benefit analysis. I think of it as the who’s-it-cheaper-to-screw analysis.” When she bent forward at one point to press the shoe to the floor, her blouse fell away and he could see clearly the leathery and discolored scar on her chest.”
“You won your case, the article said.”
Rhyme noted, in a detached state, that several of the evidence bags had come open when she’d tossed them into the garbage bag. Even facing death, Lincoln Rhyme was riled by the contamination.
“I didn’t win. I settled. And I settled before the memo came to light. Michael, my husband, had been drinking before the accident happened. That had nothing to do with the fuel injector hose splitting. But the alcohol would’ve worked against us at trial. And there was evidence that he made my injuries worse—he broke my arm pulling me from the burning car before he died. And my lawyer said they’d spin that . . . and the drinking. The jury might give us nothing. So I took a settlement.
“But it’s never been about money. It was about two companies who murdered my husband and scarred me forever and never came to justice. Nobody was ever indicted. The company paid out a lot of money to plaintiffs but the executives went home to see their families that night. My husband didn’t. Other husbands and wives and children didn’t either.”
“Greg Frommer quit the company and went on to do volunteer work,” Rhyme said. “He was guilty about what happened with the fuel injectors.”
The sentence tripped leadenly off his tongue and deserved the Oh-please look that Alicia gave him.
“The People’s Guardian. That was all nonsense, right?”
Alicia nodded. “Vernon isn’t the most attractive man in the world. It wasn’t hard to get him to do what I wanted. I needed people responsible for Michael’s death to die the way he and the others had. Because of products. Because of greed. Vernon was happy to go along and we decided to turn it into a political issue as a cover. To keep people from thinking about U.S. Auto and maybe making a connection to me.”
“Why The Steel Kiss, the name for his manifesto?”
“He came up with that. Thinking of his tools, saws and knives and chisels, I think.”
“How did you find him?”
“I’ve been planning this for four years, of course. The hardest part was finding a fall guy. I was one of the parties to a suit against the automaker, so I couldn’t kill anyone myself. But one night I was in Manhattan having dinner, and I happened to see Vernon get in a fight with a man. Some Latino guy. He’d made fun of Vernon—he’s very skinny, you know. Vernon just snapped. Went crazy. He ran and the man chased him. But Vernon had it planned. He spun around and killed the man, used a knife or razor. I’ve never seen anybody more frenzied. Like a shark. Vernon jumped into a gypsy cab and vanished.
“I couldn’t really take in what I’d just seen. A murder right in front of me. I kept thinking about it for days. Finally I realized he was someone who might be able to help me. I checked with the restaurant it seemed he’d been eating in. They didn’t know his name but told me that, yes, he ate there about once a week. I kept coming back and finally saw him.”
“And you seduced him.”
“Yes, I did. Then the next morning I told him I’d seen him kill that Latino. It was a risk but I had my hook in by then. I knew he’d do whatever I wanted. I told him I understood why he’d killed him. He’d been bullied. I told him I’d been bullied too, in a way—the car company taking my husband away from me and ruining my body with the scars from the accident. I wanted to get even.”
“The man who taught Vernon how to hack the DataWise controllers, the blogger he killed, also got him a list of customers who’d bought embedded products. You searched them for the names of people connected to U.S. Auto. Right?”
She nodded. “I couldn’t kill everybody connected to the companies. I just wanted a half dozen or so. Frommer, Benkoff, Heady . . . that leech of an attorney, Valerie Mayer.”
“So,” Rhyme asked, almost nonchalantly, “how are you going to kill Vernon Griffith?”
She didn’t seem surprised he’d deduced this. “I don’t know yet. Probably have to burn him alive. Make it look like he was creating some booby trap or another. Gasoline. He’s oddly strong for such a skinny man.”
“So you do know where he is?”
“No, after he left my place, he wasn’t sure where he was going. A transient hotel somewhere. He’d be in touch, he said. And he will be.”
Rhyme said, “It was tragic what happened to you and your family. But what does this get you?”
“Justice, comfort.”
“You will be found out.”
“I don’t think so.” A glance at her watch, then Alicia stepped closer to Rhyme and turned the blade up, eyeing his jugular. She had the steady hand of a butcher or surgeon.
Rhyme looked away from the blade, lifted his head and said, “Yes, go ahead. But hard. It has to be hard. You’ll only have one chance.”
Alicia paused. Frowned in confusion.
But Rhyme wasn’t speaking to her. His eyes were focused on Juliette Archer, unsteadily walking up behind the woman, holding an examination lamp, which had a heavy iron base. She nodded, acknowledging Rhyme’s instruction, and swung the fixture, hard indeed, directly into the base of Alicia’s skull.
CHAPTER 54
The medics reported that the injuries the two women had sustained were not life threatening, though Alicia Morgan’s were more severe by far.
She was presently in the hospital wing of Manhattan’s detention center, close by Central Booking and the courthouse downtown.
Juliette Archer was sitting in one of Rhyme’s rattan chairs in his parlor, her face bandaged, with an impressive bruise peeking out from under the gauze, similar to Alicia’s when she’d arrived. An EMS tech was finishing up his artistry on a second wound to her jaw.
“Is it ready yet?” Rhyme asked Thom, who was reassembling the controller that Alicia had ripped from his wheelchair. “I mean, it’s been ten minutes.”
You ever get impatient . . .
“I volunteered to get the service people here,” the aide replied languidly. “Do you remember that? But do we think that might’ve taken, oh, until tomorrow?”
“It looks finished to me. Just turn it on. I have phone calls to make.”
At the younger man’s glare, Rhyme fell silent.
Three minutes later he was functional again.
“Seems to be working pretty well.” He tooled around the parlor. “Turns are off slightly.”
“I’ll be in the kitchen.”
“Thank you!” Rhyme called to the aide’s receding back.
Stepping back and eyeing the intern’s face, the EMT said to Archer, “Mostly superficial. Dizzy?”
She rose from the rattan chair where she’d been sitting and paced up and down the parlor. “A little but not any worse than what I usually have.” She returned and lowered herself into her Storm Arrow wheelchair. Then she restrapped her left arm to the rest of the chair by herself.
The tech said, “Okay. Stable. Good. You’re moving pretty good there. Got to say.” He regarded the power chair. He was understandably confused.
Neither Rhyme nor Archer explained to the man how she had come to use as her sole means of conveyance a wheelchair rigged for someone who was a full quad when she in fact was not. Not yet, in any event. As she’d explained to Rhyme in class the first week—and to Thom when she’d started her internship here—she was only partially disabled at this point. Yes, there was a tumor embracing her spinal cord. But the consequences of the condition were not, at this point, complete debilitation. However, she had decided to prepare for the day when, after her surgery, she would most likely be rendered a full quad, C4, just as Rhyme was.
Thom had indeed played the role of caregiver, but only up to a point; she returned to the non-disabled world for bathroom detail at home and at Rhyme’s, and she would dress herself. Rhyme had noted too that her golden bracelet, with the runic characters, might appear on one arm in the morning and the other in the afternoon; she would swap the accessory from time to time if it was irritating her skin. The jewelry had been a present from her son and, accordingly, she insisted on wearing it constantly.
The only other time she had forsaken the playacting was, of course, just moments ago to rise to her unsteady feet and save Rhyme’s and her own life.
After the EMT signed off and left, she piloted closer to Rhyme.
“You didn’t miss a beat,” he said, of her performance in front of Alicia. When he’d mentioned to Alicia Morgan that Archer’s condition was worse than his and suggested she should get some rest, she’d deduced immediately that something was wrong regarding their visitor—since, of course, she had no condition, at least not one as grave as Rhyme had suggested.
Archer nodded. “I was going to call the police as soon as I was out of the parlor.”
Rhyme sighed. “I didn’t think she’d tackle you. I knew she was here to kill me—and anyone else—but I thought we could buy some time.”
Archer added, “I saw where Amelia keeps that guns on your shelf, but I don’t really know how to use one. And, with the tumor, my hands aren’t very steady.”
“And you don’t need to cock a lamp or make sure it’s loaded,” Rhyme conceded.
Archer said, “But we still have one more perp.”
“You like that word, don’t you?”
“Nice feel to it. Perp.” Archer added, “Alicia said she didn’t know where Griffith is. He was going to contact her. I suppose we could monitor her phone.”
Rhyme shook his head. “He’ll use a burner phone. And in a few hours he’ll know she was busted. He’ll go to ground.”
“So where do we look to find him?”
“Where else?” Rhyme asked, nodding toward the evidence boards.
The answer is there . . .
CHAPTER 55
He wasn’t going to propose.
Nick Carelli was tempted to, felt that draw, that urge within. Just say it, fast. And, if Ame said no, which of course she would, back off.
But he’d keep at it. If it took a long time then it would take a long time. But one way or the other he’d ease his way back into Amelia’s heart.
Thinking of Freddy’s words:
Find a lady, Nick. Man needs a woman in his life.
Oh, I’m working on that . . .
Nick was heading home, walking down the tree-lined sidewalk in BK, his gym bag over his shoulder. Odd, but he was pretty close to whistling. He didn’t; actually he didn’t know many people who whistled (though when he was inside he read in the papers about a case Amelia had run in which a professional killer was an accomplished whistler).
The bag contained a small painting, wrapped in gold gift paper. It was a landscape, no, a cityscape it was called , since it showed the Brooklyn Bridge with the early-morning sun making the metal glow and casting shadows toward Manhattan. The artwork, which he’d found in a small gallery on Henry Street, was similar to a painting Amelia had liked when they’d been together. It had been in a Manhattan gallery and they’d discovered it on a cold Sunday after brunch. That one, on the pure-white wall of the pretentious space (SoHo; enough said), was expensive as shit. No way could he afford it. He’d thought about blustering his way into the gallery around closing time, flashing his shield and claiming he had to take it into evidence on suspicion of its being stolen. It would then “disappear” from the evidence room, and it’d be sorry, sorry, to the gallery owner. But Nick couldn’t figure out a way to make it work.
Well, the one in his gym bag was just as nice. Better, actually. Bigger and the colors were brighter.
She’d love it. Yeah, Nick was feeling good.
Whistling . . .
Jon Perone had left a message that he was getting Nick’s money together, writing up the fake loan documents. Nick would look them over carefully. He had to make sure the deal appeared legitimate, so that anyone close to him—well, mostly his parole office and Amelia—would believe he came by the cash legitimately. He’d convince them. And he knew Ame would accept it. He knew this because he’d seen in her eyes that she wanted to accept it.
Then Vittorio, the restaurant owner, would accept the offer, because Perone and his minder Ralph Seville, the suspender guy, would make sure he did. He’d get the place up and going—red paint, better uniforms—secure a liquor license waiver and rename the joint Carelli’s Café. Nick would slip into legitimacy. His past buried. No one the wiser.
As for his quest to prove his innocence, Nick would just let it peter out. Tell Amelia and her mother and their friends that the leads had dried up, that one witness from back then was dead, that another had Alzheimer’s and couldn’t remember anything. He’d get a long face and look sad that the search wasn’t working. Hell, and I tried so hard . . .
Ame would take his hand and say it was all right. She knew in her heart he was innocent—and she’d already been hearing the word on the street, thanks to Perone, that Nick hadn’t been guilty after all. He felt bad lying to her—making up that crap about Delgado, who couldn’t have run a ’jacking operation if his life depended on it—but some sacrifices had to be made.
A half block later he thought of Freddy Caruthers again.
Ralph Seville, Perone’s minder, had called Nick and told him that Freddy’s corpse was in Newtown Creek, wrapped in chain link and decorated with thirty-pound barbells. Nick supposed Seville knew what he was doing but he’d picked a hell of a resting place for Freddy. That body of water, separating Brooklyn and Queens, was one of the most polluted in the country and had been the site of the infamous Greenpoint oil spill, worse than that from the Exxon Valdez.
