The Bone Collector (31 page)
After a long moment she said, “When I was eighteen I got a ticket. Speeding. I was doing ninety in a forty zone.”
“Well.”
“Dad said he’d front me the money for the fine but I’d have to pay him back. With interest. But you know what else he told me? He said he would’ve tanned my hide for running a red light or reckless driving. But going fast he understood. He told me, ‘I know how you feel, honey. When you move they can’t getcha.’ ” Sachs said to Rhyme, “If I couldn’t drive, if I couldn’t move, then maybe I’d do it too. Kill myself.”
“I used to walk everywhere,” Rhyme said. “I never did drive much. Haven’t owned a car in twenty years. What kind do you have?”
“Nothing a snooty Manhattanite like you’d drive. A Chevy. Camaro. It was my father’s.”
“Who gave you the drill press? For working on cars, I assume?”
She nodded. “And a torque wrench. And spark-gap set. And my first set of ratcheting sockets—my thirteenth-birthday present.” Laughing softly. “That Chevy, it’s a wobbly-knob car. You know what that is? An American car. The radio and vents and light switches are all loose and cheesy. But the suspension’s like a rock, it’s light as an egg crate and I’ll take on a BMW any day.”
“And I’ll bet you have.”
“Once or twice.”
“Cars are status in the crip world,” Rhyme explained. “We’d sit—or lie—around the ward in rehab and talk about what we could get out of our insurance companies. Wheelchair vans were the top of the heap. Next are hand-control cars. Which wouldn’t do me any good of course.” He squinted, testing his supple memory. “I haven’t been in a car in years. I can’t remember the last time.”
“Got an idea,” Sachs said suddenly. “Before your friend—Dr. Berger—comes back, let me take you for a ride. Or is that a problem? Sitting up? You were saying that wheelchairs don’t work for you.”
“Well, no, wheelchairs’re a problem. But a car? I think that’d be okay.” He laughed. “A hundred and sixty-eight? Miles per hour?”
“That was a special day,” Sachs said, nodding at the memory. “Good conditions. And no highway patrol.”
The phone buzzed and Rhyme answered it himself. It was Lon Sellitto.
“We got S&S on all the target churches in Harlem. Dellray’s in charge of that—man’s become a true believer, Lincoln. You wouldn’t recognize him. Oh, and I’ve got thirty portables and a ton of UN security cruising for any other churches we might’ve missed. If he doesn’t show up, we’re going to do a sweep of all of them at seven-thirty. Just in case he snuck in without us seeing him. I think we’re going to nail him, Linc,” the detective said, suspiciously enthusiastic for a New York City homicide cop.
“Okay, Lon, I’ll send Amelia up to your CP around eight.”
They hung up.
Thom knocked on the door before coming into the room.
As if he’d catch us in a compromising position, Rhyme laughed to himself.
“No more excuses,” he said testily. “Bed. Now.”
It was after 3:00 a.m. and Rhyme had left exhaustion far behind long ago. He was floating somewhere else. Above his body. He wondered if he’d start to hallucinate.
“Yes, Mother,” he said. “Officer Sachs’s staying over, Thom. Could you get her a blanket, please?”
“What did you say?” Thom turned to face him.
“A blanket.”
“No, after that,” the aide said. “That word?”
“I don’t know. ‘Please’?”
Thom’s eyes went wide with alarm. “Are you all
right? You want me to get Pete Taylor back here? The head of Columbia-Presbyterian? The surgeon general?”
“See how this son of a bitch torments me?” Rhyme said to Sachs. “He never knows how close he comes to getting fired.”
“A wake-up call for when?”
“Six-thirty should be fine,” Rhyme said.
When he was gone, Rhyme asked, “Hey, Sachs, you like music?”
“Love it.”
“What kind?”
“Oldies, doo-wop, Motown . . . How ’bout you? You seem like a classical kind of guy.”
“See that closet there?”
“This one?”
“No, no, the other one. To the right. Open it up.”
She did and gasped in amazement. The closet was a small room filled with close to a thousand CDs.
“It’s like Tower Records.”
“That stereo, see it on the shelf?”
She ran her hand over the dusty black Harmon Kardon.
“It cost more than my first car,” Rhyme said. “I don’t use it anymore.”
“Why not?”
He didn’t answer but said instead, “Put something on. Is it plugged in? It is? Good. Pick something.”
A moment later she stepped out of the closet and walked over to the couch as Levi Stubbs and the Four Tops started singing about love.
It had been a year since there’d been a note of music in this room, Rhyme estimated. Silently he tried to answer Sachs’s question about why he’d stopped listening. He couldn’t.
Sachs lifted files and books off the couch. Lay back on it and thumbed through a copy of
Scenes of the Crime.
“Can I have one?” she asked.
“Take ten.”
“Will you . . .” Her voice braked to a halt.
“Sign it for you?” He laughed. She joined him. “How ’bout if I put my thumbprint on it? Graphoanalysts’ll
never give you more than an eighty-five percent probability of a handwriting match. But a thumbprint? Any friction-ridge expert’ll certify it’s mine.”
He watched her read the first chapter. Her eyes drooped. She closed the book.
“Will you do something for me?” she asked.
“What?”
“Read to me. Something from the book. When Nick and I were together . . .” Her voice faded.
“What?”
“When we were together, a lot of times Nick’d read out loud before we went to sleep. Books, the paper, magazines . . . It’s one of the things I miss the most.”
“I’m a terrible reader,” Rhyme confessed. “I sound like I’m reciting crime scene reports. But I’ve got this memory . . . It’s pretty good. How ’bout if I just tell you about some scenes?”
“Would you?” She turned her back, pulled her navy blouse off and unstrapped the thin American Body Armor vest, tossed it aside. Beneath it she wore a mesh T-shirt and under that a sports bra. She pulled the blouse back on and lay on the couch, pulling the blanket over her, and curled up on her side, closed her eyes.
With the environmental-control unit Rhyme dimmed the lights.
“I always found the sites of death fascinating,” he began. “They’re like shrines. We’re a lot more interested in where people bought the big one than where they were born. Take John Kennedy. A thousand people a day visit the Texas Book Depository in Dallas. How many you think make pilgrimages to some obstetrics ward in Boston?”
Rhyme nestled his head in the luxurious softness of the pillow. “Is this boring you?”
“No,” she said. “Please don’t stop.”
“You know what I’ve always wondered about, Sachs?”
“Tell me.”
“It’s fascinated me for years—Calvary. Two thousand years ago. Now,
there’s
a crime scene I’d like to’ve worked. I know what you’re going to say: But we know
the perps. Well, do we? All we really know is what the witnesses tell us. Remember what I say—never trust a wit. Maybe those Bible accounts aren’t what happened at all. Where’s the
proof?
The PE. The nails, blood, sweat, the spear, the cross, the vinegar. Sandal prints and friction ridges.”
Rhyme turned his head slightly to the left and he continued to talk about crime scenes and evidence until Sachs’s chest rose and fell steadily and faint strands of her fiery red hair blew back and forth under her shallow breath. With his left index finger he flipped through the ECU control and shut off the light. He too was soon asleep.
A faint light of dawn was in the sky.
Awakening, Carole Ganz could see it through the chicken-wire-impregnated glass above her head. Pammy. Oh, baby . . . Then she thought of Ron. And all her possessions sitting in that terrible basement. The money, the yellow knapsack . . .
Mostly, though, she was thinking about Pammy.
Something had wakened her from a light, troubled sleep. What was it?
The pain from her wrist? It throbbed horribly. She adjusted herself slightly. She—
The tubular howl of a pipe organ and a rising chorus of voices filled the room again.
That’s what had wakened her. Music. A crashing wave of music. The church wasn’t abandoned. There were people around! She laughed to herself. Somebody would—
And that was when she remembered the bomb.
Carole peered around the filing cabinet. It was still there, teetering on the edge of the table. It had the crude look of real bombs and murder weapons—not the slick, shiny gadgets you see in movies. Sloppy tape, badly stripped wires, dirty gasoline . . . Maybe it’s a dud, she thought. In the daylight it didn’t look so dangerous.
Another burst of music. It came from directly over her head. Accompanied by a shuffling of footsteps. A door closed. Creaks and groans as people moved around
the old, dry wood floors. Plumes of dust fell from the joists.
The soaring voices were cut off in mid-passage. A moment later they started singing again.
Carole banged with her feet but the floor was concrete, the walls brick. She tried to scream but the sound was swallowed by the gag. The rehearsal continued, the solemn, vigorous music rattling through the basement.
After ten minutes Carole collapsed on the floor in exhaustion. Her eyes were drawn back to the bomb again. Now the light was better and she could see the timer clearly.
Carole squinted. The timer!
It wasn’t a dud at all. The arrow was set for 6:15 a.m. The dial showed the time was now 5:30.
Squirming her way farther behind the filing cabinet, Carole began to kick the metal sides with her knee. But whatever faint noises the blows made immediately vanished in the booming, mournful rendition of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” filling the church basement from above.
Sunday, 5:45 a.m., to Monday, 7:00 p.m.
H
e awoke to a scent. As he often did.
And—as on many mornings—he didn’t at first open his eyes but just remained in his half-seated position, trying to figure out what the unfamiliar smell might be:
The gassy scent of dawn air? The dew on the oil-slick streets? Damp plaster? He tried to detect the scent of Amelia Sachs but could not.
His thoughts skipped over her and continued. What
was
it?
Cleanser? No.
A chemical from Cooper’s impromptu lab?
No, he recognized all of those.
It was . . . Ah, yes . . . marking pen.
Now he could open his eyes and—after a glance at sleeping Sachs to make certain she hadn’t deserted him—found himself gazing at the Monet poster on the wall. That’s where the smell was coming from. The hot, humid air of this August morning had wilted the paper and brought the scent out.
- knows CS proc.
- possibly has record
- knows FR prints
- gun = .32 Colt
- Ties vics w/ unusual knots
- “Old” appeals to him
- Called one vic “Hanna”
- Knows basic German
- Underground appeals to him
The wall clock’s pale numbers glowed: 5:45 a.m. His eyes returned to the poster. He couldn’t see it clearly, just a ghostly pattern of pure white against a lesser white. But there was enough light from the dawn sky to make out most of the words.
- Dual personalities
- Maybe priest, soc. worker, counselor
- Unusual wear on shoes, reads a lot?
- Listened as he broke vic’s finger
- Left snake as slap at investigators
The falcons were waking. He was aware of a flutter at the window. Rhyme’s eyes skipped over the chart again. In his office at IRD he’d nailed up a dozen erasable marker boards and on them he’d keep a tally of the characteristics of the unsubs in major cases. He remembered: pacing, staring at them, wondering about the people they described.
Molecules of paint, mud, pollen, leaf . . .
- Old building, pink marble
Thinking about a clever jewel thief he and Lon had collared ten years ago. At Central Booking the perp had coyly said they’d never find the loot from the prior jobs but if they’d consider a plea he’d tell them where he’d hidden it. Rhyme had responded, “Well, we
have
been having some trouble figuring out where it is.”
“I’m sure you have,” the snide crook said.
“See,” Rhyme continued, “we’ve narrowed it down to the stone wall in the coal bin of a Colonial farmhouse on the Connecticut River. About five miles north of Long Island Sound. I just can’t tell whether the house is on the east bank or the west bank of the river.”
When the story made the rounds the phrase everybody used to describe the expression on the perp’s face was: You had to fucking be there.
Maybe it
is
magic, Sachs, he thought.
- At least 100 years old, prob. mansion or institutional
He scanned the poster once again and closed his eyes, leaning back into his glorious pillow. It was then that he felt the jolt. Almost like a slap on his face. The shock rose to his scalp like spreading fire. Eyes wide, locked onto the poster.
- “Old” appeals to him
“Sachs!” he cried. “Wake up!”
She stirred and sat up. “What? What’s. . . ?”
Old, old, old . . .
“I made a mistake,” he said tersely. “There’s a problem.”
She thought at first it was something medical and she leapt from the couch, reaching for Thom’s medical bag.
“No, the clues, Sachs, the
clues
. . . I got it wrong.” His breathing was rapid and he ground his teeth together as he thought.
She pulled her clothes on, sat back, her fingers disappearing automatically into her scalp, scratching. “What, Rhyme? What is it?”
“The church. It might not be in Harlem.” He repeated, “I made a mistake.”
Just like with the perp who killed Colin Stanton’s family. In criminalistics you can nail down a hundred clues perfectly and it’s the one you miss that gets people killed.
“What time is it?” she asked.
“Quarter to six, a little after. Get the newspaper. The church-services schedule.”
Sachs found the paper, thumbed through it. Then looked up. “What’re you thinking?”
“Eight twenty-three’s obsessed with what’s old. If he’s after an old black church then he might not mean uptown. Philip Payton started the Afro-American Realty Company in Harlem in 1900. There were two other black settlements in the city. Downtown where the
courthouses are now and San Juan Hill. They’re mostly white now but . . . Oh, what the hell was I thinking of?”
“Where’s San Juan Hill?”
“Just north of Hell’s Kitchen. On the West Side. It was named in honor of all the black soldiers who fought in the Spanish-American War.”
She read through the paper.
“Downtown churches,” she said. “Well, in Battery Park there’s the Seamen’s Institute. A chapel there. They have services. Trinity. Saint Paul’s.”
“That wasn’t the black area. Farther north and east.”
“A Presbyterian church in Chinatown.”
“Any Baptist. Evangelical?”
“No, nothing in that area at all. There’s—Oh, hell.” With resignation in her eyes she sighed. “Oh, no.”
Rhyme understood. “Sunrise service!”
She was nodding. “Holy Tabernacle Baptist . . . Oh, Rhyme, there’s a gospel service starting at six. Fifty-ninth and Eleventh Avenue.”
“That’s San Juan Hill! Call them!”
She grabbed the phone and dialed the number. She stood, head down, fiercely plucking an eyebrow and shaking her head. “Answer, answer . . . Hell. It’s a recording. The minister must be out of his office.” She said into the receiver, “This is the New York Police Department. We have reason to believe there’s a firebomb in your church. Evacuate as fast as possible.” She hung up, pulled her shoes on.
“Go, Sachs. You’ve got to get there. Now!”
“Me?”
“We’re closer than the nearest precinct. You can be there in ten minutes.”
She jogged toward the door, slinging her utility belt around her waist.
“I’ll call the precinct,” he yelled as she leapt down the stairs, hair a red cloud around her head. “And Sachs, if you ever wanted to drive fast, do it now.”
The RRV wagon skidded into 81st Street, speeding west.
Sachs burst into the intersection at Broadway, skidded hard and whacked a
New York Post
vending machine,
sending it through Zabar’s window before she brought the wagon under control. She remembered all the crime scene equipment in the back. Rear-heavy vehicle, she thought; don’t corner at fifty.
Then down Broadway. Brake at the intersections. Check left. Check right. Clear. Punch it!
She peeled off on Ninth Avenue at Lincoln Center and headed south. I’m only—
Oh, hell!
A mad stop on screaming tires.
The street was closed.
A row of blue sawhorses blocked Ninth for a street fair later that morning. A banner proclaimed,
Crafts and Delicacies of all Nations. Hand in hand, we are all one.
Gaw . . .
damn
UN! She backed up a half block and got the wagon up to fifty before she slammed into the first sawhorse. Spreading portable aluminum tables and wooden display racks in her wake, she tore a swath through the deserted fair. Two blocks later the wagon broke through the southern barricade and she skidded west on Fifty-ninth, using far more of the sidewalk than she meant to.
There was the church, a hundred yards away.
Parishioners on the steps—parents, little girls in frilly white and pink dresses, young boys in dark suits and white shirts, their hair in gangsta knobs or fades.
And from a basement window, a small puff of gray smoke.
Sachs slammed the accelerator to the floor, the engine roaring.
Grabbing the radio. “RRV Two to Central, K?”
And in the instant it took her to glance down at the Motorola to make sure the volume was up, a big Mercedes slipped out of the alley directly into her path.
A fast glimpse of the family inside, eyes wide in horror, as the father slammed on the brakes.
Sachs instinctively spun the wheel hard to the left, putting the wagon into controlled skid. Come on, she was begging the tires, grip, grip, grip! But the oily asphalt was loose from the heat of the past few days and
covered with dew. The wagon danced over the road like a hydrofoil.
The rear end met the Merc’s front flat-on at fifty miles an hour. With an explosive boom the 560 sheared off the rear right side of the wagon. The black CS suitcases flew into the air, breaking open and strewing their contents along the street. Church-goers dove for cover from the splinters of glass and plastic and sheet metal.
The air bag popped and deflated, stunning Sachs. She covered her face as the wagon tumbled over a row of cars and through a newsstand then skidded to a stop upside down. Newspapers and plastic evidence bags floated to the ground like tiny paratroopers.
Held upside down by the harness, blinded by her hair, Sachs wiped blood from her torn forehead and lip and tried to pop the belt release. It held tight. Hot gasoline flowed into the car and trickled along her arm. She pulled a switchblade from her back pocket, flicked the knife open and cut the seat belt. Falling, she nearly skewered herself on the knife and lay, gasping, choking on the gas fumes.
Come on, girl, get out. Out!
The doors were jammed closed and there was no escape through the crushed rear end of the wagon. Sachs began kicking the windows. The glass wouldn’t break. She drew her foot back and slammed it hard into the cracked windshield. No effect, except that she nearly sprained her ankle.
Her gun!
She slapped her hip; the gun had been torn from the holster and tossed somewhere inside the car. Feeling the hot drizzle of gasoline on her arm and shoulder, she searched frantically through the papers and CS equipment littering the ceiling of the station wagon.
Then she saw the clunky Glock near the dome light. She swept it up and aimed at the side window.
Go ahead. Backdrop’s clear, no spectators yet.
Then she hesitated. Would the muzzle flash ignite the gas?
She held the gun as far away from her soaked uniform blouse as she could, debating. Then squeezed the trigger.