The Steel Kiss

Chapter 6

Mr. Rhyme, an honor.”

Not sure how to respond to that. A nod seemed appropriate. “Mr. Whitmore.”

No nudge to first names. Rhyme had learned, however, that his was Evers.

The attorney might have been transplanted from the 1950s. He wore a dark-blue suit, gabardine, a white shirt whose collar and cuffs were starched to plastic. The tie, equally stiff, was the shade of blue that couldn’t quite give up violet and was narrow as a ruler. A white rectangle peeked from the jacket’s breast pocket.

Whitmore’s face was long and pallid and so expressionless Rhyme thought for a moment that he had Bell’s Palsy or some paralysis of the cranial nerves. Just as that conclusion was reached, though, his brow furrowed ever so slightly as he took in the parlor and its CSI accoutrements.

Rhyme realized that the man seemed to be waiting for an invitation to sit. Rhyme told him to do so and, smoothing his trousers and unbuttoning his jacket, Whitmore picked a chair close by and lowered himself onto it. Perfectly upright. He removed his glasses, cleaned the round lenses with a dark-blue cloth and replaced both, on nose and in pocket respectively.

Upon meeting Rhyme, visitors generally reacted in one of two ways. The majority were stricken nearly dumb, blushing, to be in the company of a man 90 percent of whose body was immobile. Others would joke and banter about his condition. This was tedious, though preferable to the former.

Some — Rhyme’s partiality — upon meeting him would glance once or twice at his body, and move on, undoubtedly the same way they would assess potential in-laws: We’ll withhold judgment till we get to the substance. This is what Whitmore now did.

“Do you know Amelia?” Rhyme asked.

“No. I’ve never met Detective Sachs. We have a mutual friend, a classmate of ours from high school. Brooklyn. Fellow attorney. She called Richard initially and asked him to consider the case but he doesn’t do personal injury law. He gave her my number.”

The narrowness of his face accentuated its pensive expression, and Rhyme was surprised to hear that he and Sachs were roughly the same age. He’d have thought Whitmore a half-dozen years older.

“When she called me about taking on a possible case and told me that you were free to be an expert witness, I was surprised.”

Rhyme considered the time line implicit in his comment. Apparently Sachs had committed Rhyme to be a consultant before she’d confessed to him this was the reason she’d driven from the widow’s house in Brooklyn to the parlor here last night.

I came by to ask you something. I need a favor...

“But of course I’m pleased that you’re available. All wrongful death litigation involves thorny evidentiary matters. And I know that will be particularly true in this case. You have quite the reputation.” He looked around. “Is Detective Sachs here?”

“No, she’s downtown. Working a homicide case. But last night she told me about your client. Sandy, that’s her name?”

“The widow. Mrs. Frommer, yes. Sandy.”

“Her situation’s as bad as Amelia told me?”

“I don’t know what she told you.” A precise correction of Rhyme’s imprecision. He doubted Whitmore would be fun to share a beer with but he would be a good man to have as your counselor, especially when cross-examining the other side. “But I’ll confirm that Mrs. Frommer is facing some very difficult times. Her husband had no life insurance and he hadn’t worked full-time for some years. Mrs. Frommer works for a housecleaning service but only part-time. They’re in debt. Significant debt. They have some distant family but nobody is in a position to help much financially. One cousin can provide temporary shelter — in a garage. I’ve been practicing personal injury law for years and I can tell you that for many clients a recovery is a windfall; in Mrs. Frommer’s case, it’s a necessity.

“Now, Mr. Rhyme... Excuse me, you were a captain on the police force, right? Should I call you that?”

“No, Lincoln is fine.”

“Now, I would like to tell you what our situation is.”

There was a robotic element to him. Not irritating. Just plain odd. Maybe juries liked it.

Whitmore opened his old-fashioned briefcase — again, circa the 1950s — and withdrew some unlined white sheets. He uncapped a pen (not a fountain pen, Rhyme was mildly surprised to see) and in the smallest handwriting that was still possible for the unaided eye to read, he wrote what seemed to the date and the parties present, the subject of the meeting. Unlined paper, yes, but the ascenders and descenders of the characters were as even as if they butted into a ruler.

He looked at the sparse notes, seemed satisfied and lifted his gaze.

“I intend to file suit in New York trial court — the Supreme Court, as you know.”

The forum, the lowest in the state, despite the lofty name, handled criminal cases as well as civil suits; Rhyme had testified there a thousand times as an expert witness for the prosecution.

“The complaints will be for wrongful death on the part of the widow, Mrs. Frommer. And their child.”

“A teenage boy, right?”

“No. Twelve.”

“Ah, yes.”

“And for pain and suffering on behalf of Mr. Frommer’s estate. My understanding is that he survived for perhaps ten minutes in extreme agony. That recovery will, as I say, go into his estate and enure to the benefit of whoever is mentioned in his testamentary documents or according to determination of the probate court if he had no will. In addition, I will be filing suit on behalf of Mr. Frommer’s parents, whose support, to the extent he was able, he was contributing to. That will also be a wrongful death action.”

This was perhaps the least flamboyant, if not the most boring, attorney Rhyme had ever met.

“The ad damnum in my complaint — the demand for damages — is, frankly speaking, outrageously high. Thirty million for the wrongful death, twenty million for pain and suffering. We could never recover that. But I picked those sums merely to get the defendants’ attention and to create a little publicity for the case. I don’t intend to go to trial.”

“No?”

“No. Our situation is a little unusual. Because of the absence of insurance and any other financial support for Mrs. Frommer and her son, they need a settlement quickly. A trial could take a year or more. They’d be destitute by then. They’ll need money for shelter, the youngster’s education, to buy health insurance, for necessaries. After we present a solid case against the defendants, and I indicate a willingness to reduce the demand considerably, I believe they’ll write some checks that are minuscule to them but sizable to Mrs. Frommer, and roughly in the amount that sees sufficient justice done.”

He’d be at home in a Dickens novel, Rhyme decided. “Seems like a reasonable strategy. Now, can we talk about the evidence?”

“A moment, please.” Evers Whitmore was going to steam forward true to the course he’d set, no matter what. “First, I would like to explain to you the intricacies of the relevant law. Are you familiar with tort law?”

It was obvious that whether he said yes, no or maybe was irrelevant. Attorney Whitmore was going to make him familiar.

“Not really, no.”

“I’ll give you an overview. Tort law deals with harm caused by the defendant to the plaintiff, other than a breach of contract. The word comes from—”

“Latin for ‘twisted’? Tortus.” Rhyme had an affection for the classics.

“Indeed.” Whitmore was neither impressed at Rhyme’s knowledge nor disappointed that he’d missed an opportunity to expound. “Car accidents, libel and slander, hunting accidents, lamps catching fire, toxic spills, plane crashes, assault — threatening to hit a person — and battery — actually hitting them. Those are often conflated. Even intentional murder, which can be both criminal and civil.”

O. J. Simpson, thought Rhyme.

Whitmore said, “So a tortious action for wrongful death and personal injury. The first step is to find our defendant — who exactly is responsible for Mr. Frommer’s death? Our best hope is that it’s the escalator and not some outside party. Under tort law anyone injured by a product — anything, an appliance, car, drug, escalator — has a much easier time proving the case. In nineteen sixty-three a justice on the California Supreme Court created a cause of action called strict products liability — to shift the burden of loss from an injured consumer to the manufacturer even when it wasn’t negligent. In strict liability all you need to show is that the product was defective and injured the plaintiff.”

“What constitutes a defect?” Rhyme asked, finding himself reluctantly intrigued by the lecture.

“A key question, Mr. Rhyme. A defect can be that it was badly designed, that it had a weakness or flaw in the manufacturing or that there was a failure to adequately warn the consumer of dangers. Have you seen a baby stroller lately?”

Why would I? Rhyme’s lips formed a faint smile.

Whitmore seemed immune to irony and continued, “You’d appreciate the sticker: Remove infant before folding stroller closed. I’m not making that up. Of course, yes, it’s called strict liability but not absolute. There does have to be a defect. Someone who uses a chain saw to attack a victim, for instance, is an intervening cause. The plaintiff can’t sue the saw manufacturer for an assault like that.

“Now, to our case: The first question is, Whom do we sue? Was there a design or manufacturing flaw in the Midwest Conveyance escalator itself? Or was it in good working order and the mall management company, a cleaning crew or a separate maintenance company was negligent in repairing or maintaining it? Did a worker not latch it closed last time it was opened? Did someone manually open the panel while Mr. Frommer was on it? Did the general contractor who built the mall render the unit dangerous? The subcontractor who installed the escalator? What about component parts manufacturers? What about the mall cleaning staff? Were they working for an independent contractor or employees of the mall? This is where you come in.”

Rhyme was already thinking of how to proceed. “First, I’ll need to have someone inspect the escalator, the controls, the crime scene photos, trace, and—”

“Ah. Now, I must tell you our situation has a slight wrinkle. Well, several wrinkles.”

Rhyme’s brow rose.

Whitmore continued, “Any accident involving an escalator, elevator, moving sidewalk, et cetera, is investigated by the Department of Buildings and the Department of Investigation.”

Rhyme was familiar with the DOI. One of the oldest law enforcement agencies in the country — going back to the early nineteenth century — the division was charged with overseeing government employees, agencies and anyone who contracted or worked with the city. Because he himself was rendered a quad while investigating a crime scene in a subway construction site, the DOI was involved with the investigation into how that accident happened.

Whitmore continued, “We can use the findings in our suit, but—”

“It’ll take months to get their report.”

“Exactly the problem, Mr. Rhyme. Six months, a year more likely. Yes. And we can’t wait that long. Mrs. Frommer will be homeless by then.”

“Wrinkle one. And two?”

“Access to the escalator. It’s being, removed and impounded in a city warehouse, pending investigation by the DOI and DOB.”

Hell, already major evidence contamination, Rhyme thought instinctively.

“Get a subpoena,” he said. This was obvious.

“I can’t at this point. As soon as I file suit — that’ll be within the next few days — I can serve a duces tecum. But a judge will quash it. We won’t get access until DOI and DOB have finished their investigation.”

This was absurd. It was the evidence, possibly the only evidence, in the case and he couldn’t get his hands on it?

Then he remembered: Of course, it’s a civil, not a criminal, matter.

“We can also subpoena design, manufacturing, installation and maintenance records from the possible defendants: the mall, the manufacturer — Midwest Conveyance — the cleaning company, anyone else with any connection to the unit. Those we might get copies of but it’ll be a fight. And the motions’ll go back and forth for months before they’re released. Finally, the last wrinkle. I mentioned that Mr. Frommer wasn’t working full-time any longer?”

“I recall. A midlife crisis or some such.”

“That’s correct. He quit a high-pressure corporate position. Lately he worked jobs that he didn’t have to take home at night — deliveryman, telemarketer, order taker in a fast-food restaurant, a shoe salesman at the mall. Most of his time was spent volunteering for charities. Literacy, homelessness, hunger. So for the past few years he’s had minimal income. One of the hardest parts of our case will be convincing a jury that he would have gotten back into the workforce in a job like the one he had.”

“What did he used to do?”

“Before he quit he was director of marketing. Patterson Systems in New Jersey. I looked it up. Very successful company. Number one fuel injector maker in America. And he made solid six figures. Last year his income was forty-three thousand. The jury awards wrongful death damages based on earnings. The defendants’ attorneys will hammer home that, even if their clients are liable, the damages were minimal since he was making basically minimum wage.

“I will be trying to prove that Mr. Frommer was going through a phase. That he was going to get back into a high-paying job. Now, I may not succeed at that. So this is your second task. If you can make the case that the defendant, whoever it or they turn out to be, engaged in wanton or reckless behavior in building the escalator or a component part, or in failing to maintain the device, then we’ll—”

“—add a punitive damage claim. And the jury, which feels bad that they can’t award the widow much by way of future earnings, will compensate with a big punitive award.”

“Well observed, Mr. Rhyme. You should have gone to law school. So, there we have our situation in a nutshell.”

Rhyme said, “In other words, find out how a complex device failed and who’s responsible for that failure without having access to it, the supporting documentation or even photographs or analysis of the accident?”

“And that is well put too.” Whitmore seemed to be debating a matter. He added, “Detective Sachs said you were rather creative when it came to approaching a problem like this.”

How creative could one be without the damn evidence? Absurd, Rhyme thought again. The whole thing was completely...

Then a thought occurred. He turned toward the doorway. “Thom! Thom! Where are you?”

Footsteps and a moment later the aide appeared. “Is everything all right?”

“Fine, fine, fine. Why wouldn’t it be? I just need something.”

“And what’s that?”

“A tape measure. And the sooner the better.”

Chapter 7

Ironic.

One Police Plaza is considered to be among the ugliest government structures in New York City, yet it offers some of the finest views in downtown Manhattan: the harbor, the East River, the soaring “Let the River Run” skyline of New York at its most muscular. By contrast, the original police headquarters on Centre Street is arguably the most elegant building south of Houston Street, but, in the day, officers stationed there could look out only on tenements, butchers, fishmongers, prostitutes, ne’er-do-wells and muggers lying in wait (police officers were, at the time, prime targets for thieves, who valued their wool uniforms and brass buttons).

Walking into her office now in the Major Cases Division at One PP, Amelia Sachs was gazing out the speckled windows as she reflected on this fact. Thinking too: She couldn’t have cared less about either the building’s architectural aesthetics or the view. What she objected to was that she plied her investigative skills here and not from Lincoln Rhyme’s town house.

Hell.

Not happy about his resigning from the police consulting business, not happy at all. Personally she missed the stimulation of the give-and-take, the head-butting, the creativity that flourished from the gestalt. Her life had become like studying at an online university: The information was the same but the process of loading it into your brain was diminished.

Cases weren’t progressing. Homicides, in particular, Rhyme’s specialty, were not getting solved. The Rinaldo case, for instance, had been on her docket for about a month and was going nowhere. A killing on the West Side south of Midtown. Echi Rinaldo, a drug dealer in a Latino Harlem crew, had been slashed to death, and slashed vigorously. The street had been filthy, so the inventory of trace was voluminous and therefore not very helpful: cigarette butts, a roach clip with a bit of pot still clinging, food wrappers, coffee cups, a wheel from a child’s toy, beer cans, a condom, scraps of paper, receipts, a hundred other items of effluvia common to New York City streets. None of the fingerprint or footprint evidence she’d found at the scene had panned out.

The only other lead was a witness — the deceased’s son. Well, witness of sorts. The eight-year-old hadn’t seen the killer himself but had only heard the assailant jump into a taxi or gypsy cab and give an address, which included the word “Village.” A male voice. More likely white than black or Latino. Sachs had exhausted her interview skills to get the boy to recall more but he was, understandably, upset, seeing his father stagger from the alley, cascading with blood. A canvass of cabs and gypsy drivers revealed nothing. And Greenwich Village covered dozens of square miles.

But she was convinced that Rhyme could have reviewed the mass of evidence and come to a conclusion about where, in that quaint portion of Manhattan, the perp had most likely gone.

He’d said no. And had reminded coolly that he was no longer in the criminal business.

Sachs smoothed her charcoal-gray skirt, just past the knees. She’d thought she’d selected a lighter-gray blouse, to complement, but had realized on the sidewalk in front of her town house as she left that it was the taupe one. Those were her typical mornings. Much distraction.

She now reviewed emails and phone messages, decided they were neglectable and then headed up the hall, toward the conference room she’d commandeered for the Unsub 40 case.

Thinking again about Rhyme.

Resigned.

Hell...

She glanced up and noted the head of a young detective, walking the opposite way, turn toward her suddenly. She realized she must have uttered the word aloud.

She gave him a smile, to prove she wasn’t deranged, and dodged into her war room, small, set up with two fiberboard tables, twin computers, one desk and a whiteboard on which details of the case were jotted in marker.

“Any minute,” said the young blond officer inside, looking up. He was in dark-blue NYPD uniform, sitting at the far table. Ron Pulaski was not a detective, as were most officers in the Major Cases Division. But he was the cop Amelia Sachs had wanted to work the Unsub 40 case with. They’d run scenes for years, always — until now — from Rhyme’s parlor.

Pulaski nodded at the screen. “They promised.”

Any minute...

“How much did they get?”

“Not sure. I wouldn’t expect his address and phone number. But the ECT said they had some hits. It was a good call, Amelia.”

After the disaster — the word applied in several senses: the victim’s death as well as losing Unsub 40 — at the mall in Brooklyn, Sachs had methodically examined the area behind the loading dock and debated where to send the Brooklyn Evidence Collection Teams; you can’t search everywhere. One place that particularly intrigued her was a cheap Mexican restaurant whose back door opened onto a cul-de-sac near the loading dock. It was the only food venue nearby. There were other, faster ways for their unsub to have fled but Sachs concentrated the canvassing there, on the perhaps far-fetched theory that the restaurant would be more likely than other stores to have undocumented employees who’d be less cooperative, not wanting to give their names and addresses as witnesses.

As she’d guessed, no one, from manager to dishwasher, had seen the rather recognizable suspect.

Which didn’t mean he hadn’t been there, however; in the refuse bin for customers the search team had found the Starbucks cup, along with cellophane sandwich wrappers and napkins from the chain, which he’d been seen carrying as he fled.

They’d collected all the trash from that container at La Festiva, which may or may not have been a real Spanish word.

The analysis of this evidence was what they were presently awaiting.

Sachs dropped into the chair she’d wheeled here from her minuscule office. Reflecting that if they had been working out of Rhyme’s parlor, the data would have been in their hands by now. Her phone sang with an email tone. It was good news from the captain at the 84, Madino. He said there was no hurry on her shooting incident report; it was taking some time to get the Borough Shooting Team together. He added that, as she and Rhyme had discussed earlier, a few reporters had called, inquiring about the wisdom of firing a weapon in a crowded mall but Madino deflected them by saying the matter was being investigated according to department procedures and didn’t release her name. None of the journalists followed up.

All good news.

Now Pulaski’s computer offered up a ship’s-bell ding. “Okay, here it is. Evidence analysis.”

As he read, the young man’s hand went to his forehead and rubbed briefly. The scar wasn’t long but it was quite obvious today, from this angle, in this light. In the first case that he’d run with Sachs and Rhyme he’d made a mistake and the perp, a particularly vicious professional killer, had clocked him in the head. The resulting injury, which had affected his brain as well as his pride and appearance, had nearly ended his career. But determination, encouragement from his twin brother (also a cop) and Lincoln Rhyme’s persistence had kept him in blue. He still had moments of uncertainty — head injuries poison self-confidence — but he was one of the smartest and most dogged officers Sachs knew.

He sighed. “Not a whole lot.”

“What is there?”

“Trace from the Starbucks shop itself, nothing. From the Mexican restaurant: DNA from the rim of the Starbucks cup but no CODIS match.”

It’s rarely that easy.

“No friction ridges,” Pulaski said.

“What? He wore gloves in the Starbucks?”

“Looks like he used the napkin to hold the cup. The tech at CSU used vacuum and ninhydrin but only a partial showed up. From the tip. Too narrow for IAFIS.”

The national fingerprint database was comprehensive but could analyze only prints that came from the pads of fingers, not the very end.

But again she wondered: Had the evidence gone to Rhyme for analysis and not to the CSU lab in Queens, would he have been able to raise a fingerprint? The lab facility at headquarters was state-of-the-art but it wasn’t, well, it wasn’t Lincoln Rhyme’s.

“Shoeprint from Starbucks, probably his,” Pulaski read, “since it was superimposed over others and matched one on the loading dock and at the Mexican restaurant. Similar trace found in tread from the dock and restaurant. It’s a size thirteen Reebok. Daily Cushion Two Point Oh. The trace chemical profile’s here.”

She looked at the screen and read out a list of chemicals she’d never heard of. “Which is?”

Pulaski scrolled down. “Probably humus.”

“Dirt?”

The blond officer continued to read the fine print. “Humus is the penultimate degree of decomposition of organic matter.”

She recalled an exchange between Rhyme and Pulaski years ago when the rookie had used “penultimate” to mean “final,” as opposed to the proper meaning — next to last. The memory was more poignant than she wished.

“So soon-to-be dirt.”

“Pretty much. And it came from somewhere else. It doesn’t match any of the control samples that you or the ECT collected in and around the mall, loading dock and restaurant.” He continued to read. “Well, not so good here.”

“What’s that?”

“Dinitroaniline.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Number of uses, dyes, pesticides, for instance. But the number one: explosives.”

Sachs pointed to the chart from the murder scene itself, the construction site where Unsub 40 beat Todd Williams to death near the club a couple of weeks ago. “Ammonium nitrate.”

Fertilizer — and the major explosive ingredient in home-made bombs, like the one that destroyed the Oklahoma City federal building in the ’90s.

“So,” Pulaski said slowly, “you think there’s more to it than a robbery? The unsub was, I don’t know, buying bomb ingredients near Forty Degrees North or the construction site and Williams saw it?” He tapped the computer screen. “And look at this.” In trace collected near a footprint at the mall loading dock was a small amount of motor oil.

The second ingredient in a fertilizer bomb.

Sachs sighed. Were there terrorist dimensions to this unsub? “Keep going.”

“More phenol. Like we found at the first murder scene.”

“If it’s shown up twice it’s significant. What’s that used for?”

Pulaski called up a profile of the chemical. “Phenol. A precursor in making plastics, like polycarbonates, resins and nylon. Also in making aspirin, embalming fluid, cosmetics, ingrown toenail cures.”

He has big feet. Maybe nail problems.

“Then this.” He was transcribing a long list of other chemicals onto a whiteboard evidence chart.

“Mouthful,” she said.

“Profiles as makeup. Cosmetics. No idea of the brand.”

“Need to know who makes it. Have somebody in HQ track it down.”

Pulaski sent the request.

Then they returned to the evidence. He said, “Have a tiny shaving of metal. From the footprint in the hallway leading to the loading dock.”

“Let me see it.”

Pulaski called up the photos.

Hard to make out to the eye — whether naked or stylishly covered with drugstore-bought reading glasses, which Sachs had had to resort to lately.

She cranked up the magnification and studied the shiny bit. Then turned to the second laptop, typed her way into an NYPD database of metal trace, which, as it turned out, Lincoln Rhyme had established several years earlier; a recollection snapped its figurative fingers within her mind.

Together they scanned the database. “Something similar there,” said Pulaski, standing over her shoulder, as he pointed at one of the photos.

Yes, good. The tiny fleck was from the process of sharpening a knife, scissors or razor.

“It’s steel. He likes a sharp blade.” He’d beaten the victim to death outside 40° North but that didn’t mean he wasn’t interested in dispatching victims with other weapons as well.

On the other hand, he might recently have done nothing more than carved up the family’s chicken dinner with a knife he’d just dramatically edged first, tableside.

Pulaski continued, “And some sawdust. Want to see?”

She looked at the microscopic images. The grains were very fine.

“From sanding, you think?” she mused. “Not sawing?”

“I don’t know. Makes sense.”

She clicked a finger against a thumbnail. Twice. Tension rippled through her. “The analyst in Queens didn’t tell us the type of wood. We need to find that out.”

“I’ll request it.” Rubbing his forehead with one hand, Pulaski scrolled through more analyses with the other. “Looks like hammers and bombs aren’t enough. This guy wants to poison people too? Significant traces of organochlorine and benzoic acid. Toxins. Typical of insecticides but they’ve been used in homicides. And more chemicals that...” He regarded a database. “...profile as varnish.”

“Sawdust and varnish. He’s a carpenter, construction worker? Or somebody putting his bombs in wooden boxes or behind paneled walls.”

But since there’d been no reports of improvised explosive devices in the area, encased in wood or otherwise, Sachs put this possibility low on the likelihood scale.

“I want the manufacturer,” Sachs said. “The varnish. The type of sawdust too.”

Pulaski said nothing.

She glanced his way and noted that he was looking at his phone. A text.

“Ron?”

He started and slipped the phone away. He’d been preoccupied lately. She wondered if there was an illness in the family.

“Everything okay?”

“Sure. Fine.”

She repeated, “I want the manufacturer.”

“Of the... oh, the varnish.”

“Of the varnish. And wood.”

“I’ll get on it.” He sent another request to the crime lab.

They turned to the secondary category of evidence — that which might or might not have come from the unsub. The ECTs had collected the entire contents of the bin where they found the Starbucks trash, on the theory that the rubbish from the coffee chain might not have been the only things the perp discarded. There were thirty or forty items: napkins, newspapers, plastic cups, used Kleenex, a porn magazine probably ditched before hubby returned home to the family. Everything had been photographed and logged, but nothing, the analysts in Queens reported, seemed relevant.

Sachs, however, spent twenty minutes looking at each item, both individual shots of the evidence in the bin and wide-angle images before the bin’s contents were collected by the ECTs.

“Check this out,” she said. Pulaski walked closer. She was indicating two napkins from a White Castle fast-food restaurant.

“Home of the slider.” Pulaski added, “What is that, by the way?”

Sachs knew it was a small hamburger. No idea where the name had come from. One of the earliest fast-food franchises in America, White Castle specialized in burgers and milk shakes.

“Any friction ridges?”

Pulaski read the report. “None.”

How hard did they try? she wondered. Recalling that Rhyme’s two nemeses were incompetence and laziness, Sachs stared at the napkins. “Odds they came from him?”

Pulaski enlarged the wide-angle shots. The rumpled White Castle napkins were directly beside the Starbucks discards.

“Could be. Our boy likes chain food, we know.”

A sigh. “Napkins’re one of the best sources for DNA. The analyst could’ve run them, compared it with Starbucks.”

Lazy, incompetent...

Then she relented.

Or he was just overworked? The story of policing.

Sachs called up the images of the opened napkins. Each contained stains.

“What do you think?” Sachs asked. “One’s brown, the other reddish?”

“Can’t tell. If we had our hands on them ourselves, we could do a color temperature to be sure. At Lincoln’s, I mean.”

Tell me about it.

Sachs said, “I’m thinking, on one napkin, chocolate and strawberry milk shakes. Reasonable deduction. And the other? That stain is definitely chocolate. Another stain too, less viscous, like a soft drink. From two different visits. One, he has two shakes. The other, a shake and a soda.”

“Skinny guy but he can sure pack the calories away.”

“But more important, he likes White Castle. A repeat customer.”

“If we’re lucky, he lives nearby. But which one?” Pulaski was online, checking out the restaurant chain in the area. There were several.

A click in her thoughts: the motor oil.

“Maybe the oil’s a bomb or maybe he goes to the White Castle in Queens,” she said. “It’s on Astoria Boulevard, Automotive Row. My dad and I used to buy auto parts there Saturday morning, then go back home and play amateur mechanics. Maybe he picked up the oil trace getting lunch. Long shot, but I’m going to go talk to the manager there. You call the lab in Queens and have somebody go over those napkins again. Fine-tooth cliché. Friction ridges. DNA too. Maybe he ate with a friend and the buddy’s DNA is in CODIS. And stay on the sawdust, I want the type of wood. And keep after them for the manufacturer of the varnish. And I don’t want the analysts who did this report. Call Mel.”

Quiet, self-effacing Detective Mel Cooper was the best forensic lab man in the city, perhaps in all of the Northeast. He was also an expert at human identification — friction ridge prints, DNA and forensic reconstruction. He had degrees in math, physics and organic chemistry and was a member of the prestigious International Association for Identification and the International Association of Bloodstain Pattern Analysts. Rhyme had hired him away from a small-town police department to work the NYPD Crime Scene Unit. Cooper was always a part of the Rhyme team... when they were working criminal cases.

As Sachs pulled on her jacket and checked her weapon, Pulaski made a call to the CSU to request Cooper’s assistance.

She was at the door when he disconnected and said, “Sorry, Amelia. Have to be somebody else.”

“What?”

“Mel’s on vacation. All week.”

She exhaled a fast laugh. In all the years they’d worked together she’d never known the tech to take more than a day off.

“Find somebody good then,” she said, walking briskly into the hallway and thinking: Rhyme retires and everything goes to hell.

Chapter 8

Is that... That’s an escalator. Yes, it is. Well, a portion of one. The top part. Sitting in your hallway. But I guess you know that.”

“Mel. Come on in. We’ve got work to do.”

Cooper, diminutive, slim and with a perpetual faint smile on his face, walked into the parlor of Rhyme’s town house, shoving his dark-rimmed glasses higher on his nose. He moved silently; he wore his standard footgear, Hush Puppies. The men were alone; Whitmore had returned to his Midtown law firm.

When no immediate explanation for the partial escalator, which was encased in a scaffolding, was forthcoming, he slipped off his brown jacket, hooked it and set down a gym bag. “I wasn’t really planning on a vacation, you know.”

Rhyme had suggested — in Lincoln Rhyme’s inimitable way — that Cooper take some time off. That is, time off from his official job at Crime Scene headquarters and come in to help on the civil case of Frommer v. Midwest Conveyance.

“Yes, well. Appreciate it.” Rhyme’s thanks were subdued, as always. He didn’t have much interest in, or skill at, social niceties.

“Is it... I mean, I thought I should check. Are there any ethical problems with me being here?”

“No, no, I’m sure there aren’t,” Rhyme said, eyes on the escalator, which reached to the ceiling. “As long as you don’t get paid.”

“Ah. So. I’m volunteering.”

“Just a friend helping in a good cause, Mel. A noble cause. The victim’s widow has no money. She has a son. Good boy. Promising.” Rhyme assumed this was likely. He didn’t know a thing about young Frommer, whose name he’d forgotten. “If we can’t get her a settlement, she’ll be living in a garage in Schenectady for the immediate future. Maybe the rest of her life.”

“Nothing so terrible about Schenectady.”

“The operative word is ‘garage,’ Mel. Besides, it’ll be a challenge. You like challenges.”

“To a point.”

“Mel!” Thom said, stepping into the parlor. “What’re you doing here?”

“Abducted.”

“Welcome.” Then the aide scowled. “Can you believe it. Look at that.” A disappointed nod toward the scaffolding and escalator. “The floors. I hope they’re not ruined.”

“They’re my floors,” Rhyme said.

“You charge me with keeping them pristine. Then undermine it with two tons of mechanical device.” To the forensic tech: “Food, drink?”

“Tea would be lovely.”

“I’ve got your favorite.”

Cooper liked Lipton’s. He had simple tastes.

“And how’s your girlfriend?”

Cooper lived with his mother but had a tall, gorgeous Scandinavian paramour, a professor at Columbia. She and Cooper were champion ballroom dancers.

“She’s—”

“We’re just getting to work here,” Rhyme interrupted.

Thom lifted an eyebrow to the tech, ignoring his boss.

“Fine thanks,” Cooper replied. “She’s fine. We have the regional tango competition next week.”

“And speaking of beverages.” Rhyme looked at the bottle of single-malt scotch.

“No,” Thom said bluntly. “Coffee.” And returned to the kitchen.

Rude.

“So. What’s the caper? Love that word.”

Rhyme explained about the escalator accident and the suit that would be filed by Evers Whitmore on behalf of the widow and her son.

“Ah, right. In the news. Terrible.” Cooper shook his head. “Never felt really comfortable getting on and off those things. I’ll take the stairs, or even an elevator, though I’m not so crazy about them either.”

He walked to the computer monitor, on which were dozens of photographs of the accident site, taken by Sachs, unofficially, since she hadn’t been involved in the mishap investigation. They were of the open access panel to the pit, showing the motor and gears and walls, all covered with blood.

“Died from hemorrhaging?”

“And trauma. Cut mostly in half.”

“Hm.”

“Is that the actual unit?” Cooper returned to the scaffolding and began examining it closely. “No blood. It’s been scrubbed?”

“No.” Rhyme explained about the impossibility of getting access to the actual escalator for several months. But he hoped they could determine a likely cause of the failure from this mock-up. Rhyme’s idea was to pay to borrow a portion of an identical model from a contractor in the area. Thom had found the tape measure Rhyme had requested and they’d determined there was enough clearance to get the machinery through the front door, disassembled, and put it back together in the hallway. The price for the rental was five thousand, which Whitmore would add to his legal fee and deduct from whatever they recovered from the defendant.

Workers had built a scaffolding and mounted the top plate — the access panel that had opened to swallow up Greg Frommer — along with its supporting pieces, hinges, and portions of the railing and control switches. On the floor were the motor and the gears, identical to those that had killed the victim.

Cooper was walking silently around the device, looking up, touching pieces. “Won’t be evidentiary.”

“No. We just need to find out what went wrong, why the panel at the top opened when it shouldn’t have.” Rhyme wheeled closer.

The tech was nodding. “So, I deduce that the escalator was going up at the time and just as the victim got to the top floor panel it popped up. How far open was it?”

“Amelia said about fourteen inches.”

“She ran the scene?”

“No, she just happened to be there at the time, tracking an unsub. She lost him when the accident happened and she tried to save the vic. Couldn’t.”

“And the perp got away?”

“Yes.”

“She wouldn’t have been happy about that.”

“She went to see the widow and found out she’s in a pretty bad way. Had the idea to hook her up with a lawyer. That’s how it all ended up in our laps.”

“So, the access panel pops up — yes, I see it’s on a spring. Must be heavy. The vic gets dragged underneath and then falls onto the motor and gears.”

“Right. The teeth on the front edge of the panel cut him too. That’s all the blood on the walls in the pictures.”

“I see.”

“Now I want you to get inside, poke around, find out how the damn thing works. How the access panel at the top opens, switches, levers, hinges, safety mechanisms. Everything. Get pictures. And we’ll try to piece together what happened.”

Cooper looked around. “The place hasn’t changed much since you resigned.”

“Then you know where the camera equipment’s located,” Rhyme said, his voice taut with impatience.

The tech chuckled. “And you haven’t changed much either.” He went to the shelves on a back wall of the parlor and selected a camera and flashlight with a headband. “Coal miner’s son,” he joked, mounting it on his forehead.

“Shoot away. Go!”

Cooper climbed up inside the mockup. Silent flashes began to flare.

The doorbell sounded.

Who could this be? The stiff attorney, Evers Whitmore, was back in his office talking to friends and family of Greg Frommer. He was trying to marshal evidence to prove that, although presently underemployed, Frommer would have gone back to being a successful marketing manager in the near future, allowing the damage claim to be much higher than one based on his recent income.

Was the visitor one of his doctors? Rhyme’s quadriplegic condition necessitated regular exams by neuro specialists, as well as physical therapists, but he had no sessions scheduled.

He wheeled to the closed-circuit security camera screen to see who it might be.

Oh, hell.

Rhyme typically was irritated when people arrived unannounced (or announced, for that matter).

But today the dismay was far more intense than usual.

“Yes, yes,” the man was assuring Amelia Sachs, “I know who you’re talking about. Quiet guy.”

She was speaking to the manager of the Queens White Castle hamburger joint in Astoria.

“Very tall, very skinny. White. Pale.”

The manager was, in contrast, an olive-skinned man, with a round, cheerful face. They were at the front window. He had been cleaning it himself, seeming proud of the establishment in his care. The smell of Windex was strong, as was the aroma of onions. Appealing too, the latter. Sachs’s last meal was supper yesterday.

“Do you have a name?”

“I don’t, no. But...” He looked up. “Char?”

A counterwoman in her twenties looked over. If she ate the restaurant’s specialty, she did so in moderation. The slim woman finished an order and joined the two.

Sachs identified herself and, protocol, showed the shield. The woman’s eyes shone. She was tickled to be part of a CSI moment.

“Charlotte works a lot of shifts. She’s our anchor.”

A blush.

“Mr. Rodriguez thought you might know a tall man who comes in some,” Sachs said. “Tall, very thin. He might have worn a green checkered or plaid jacket. A baseball cap.”

“Sure. I remember him!”

“Do you know his name?”

“No, just, he’s hard to miss.”

“What can you tell me about him?”

“Well, like you said. Thin. Skinny. And he eats a lot. Ten, fifteen sandwiches.”

Sandwiches... Burgers.

“But he could be buying them for other people, couldn’t he?”

“No, no, no! He eats them here. Most of the time. There’s this word my mother says about eating, scarfs them down. And two milk shakes. So skinny but he eats like that! Sometimes a milk shake and a soda. How long have you been a detective?”

“A few years.”

“That’s so neat!”

“Was he ever with anyone?”

“Not that I saw.”

“He comes here often?”

“Maybe once a week, every two weeks.”

“Any impression that he lives around here?” Sachs asked. “Anything he might’ve said?”

“No. Never said anything to me. Just ordered, always kept his head down. Wears a hat.” Her eyes narrowed. “I’ll bet he was afraid of security cameras! Do you think?”

“Possibly. Could you describe him, his face?”

“Never paid any attention, really. Long face, kind of pale, like he didn’t get out much. No beard or mustache, I think.”

“Any idea where he was coming from or where he might be going?”

Charlotte tried. But nothing came to mind. “Sorry.” She was nearly cringing that she couldn’t answer the question.

“A car?”

Again, a defeat. “Well, I don’t... Wait. No, probably not. He turns away from the parking lot when he leaves, I think.”

“So you watched him go.”

“You’d kind of want to look at him, you know? Not that he’s a freak or anything. Just, so skinny. Eating all that and so skinny. Totally unfair. We have to work at it, right?”

The two women present, Sachs supposed she meant. A smile.

“Every time? He went that way every time he left?”

“I guess. Pretty sure.”

“Did he carry anything?”

“Oh, a couple of times he had a bag, plastic bag. I think once, yeah, he put it on the counter and it was heavy. Kind of clanked. Like metal.”

“What color bag?”

“White.”

“No idea what was inside?”

“No. Sorry. I really wish I could help.”

“You’re doing great. Clothes?”

She shook her head. “Other than the jacket and hat, no.”

Sachs asked Rodriguez, “Security video?” Guessing the answer.

“It loops every day.”

Yep, like she’d thought. It would’ve already overwritten any footage of their perp.

Turning back to Charlotte. “You’ve been a big help.” Sachs directed the next comment to both of them. “I need you to tell everybody who works here that we’re looking for this man. If he comes back, call nine one one. And add that he’s suspect in a homicide.”

“Homicide,” Charlotte whispered, looking both horrified and delighted.

“That’s right. I’m Detective Five-Eight-Eight-Five. Sachs.” She handed cards to the manager and to Charlotte. The woman gazed at it as if the tiny bit of cardboard were a huge tip. She wore a wedding band and Sachs supposed she was already relishing the dinner table conversation tonight. Sachs looked from one to the other. “But don’t call me. Call nine one one and mention my name. There’ll be a squad car here faster than I could get here. You’re going to have to act like nothing’s going on. Just serve him like normal, then when he sits down, call us. Okay? Don’t do anything other than that. I can rely on you?”

“Oh, you bet, Detective,” Charlotte said, a private acknowledging a general’s orders.

“I’ll make sure of it,” Rodriguez, the manager, said. “That everybody knows.”

“There are other White Castles in the area. He might go there too. Could you tell the managers the same thing?”

“Sure.”

Sachs looked out of the window, free of grime, and surveyed the wide street. It was lined with shops, restaurants and apartments. Any one of the stores could have sold things that clanked and stowed them in white plastic bags for customers to take home... or to a murder site.

Rodriguez offered, “Hey, Detective... Take some sliders. On me.”

“We can’t take complimentary food.”

“But doughnuts...”

Sachs smiled. “That’s a myth.” She glanced at the grill. “But I’ll pay for one.”

Charlotte frowned. “You better get two. They’re pretty small.”

They were. But they were also damn good. And so was the milk shake. She finished her breakfast/lunch in all of three minutes. And stepped outside.

From her pocket she extracted her cell phone then called Ron Pulaski. There was no answer on the landline at the Unsub 40 war room at One PP. She tried his mobile. Voice mail. She left a message.

Okay, we canvass solo. Sachs started onto the sidewalk, swept by punchy wind from the overcast sky.

Tall man, pale man, skinny man, white bag. He’d been shopping. Start with hardware stores. Sawdust, varnish.

Ball-peen hammers.

Blunt force trauma.

Chapter 9

Lincoln Rhyme had forgotten completely that Juliette Archer, his forensic student, was arriving today to begin her informal internship.

She was the visitor who’d come a-calling. Under other circumstances he might have enjoyed her company. But now his immediate thought was how to get rid of her.

Archer directed her Storm Arrow chair around the escalator and into the parlor, braking smartly in front of the lattice of wires covering the floor. She apparently wasn’t used to tooling over snaky cables but then, probably concluding that Rhyme would have driven over them regularly without damage, she did the same.

“Hello, Lincoln.”

“Juliette.”

Thom nodded to her.

“Juliette Archer. I’m a student in Lincoln’s class.”

“I’m his caregiver. Thom Reston.”

“Pleased to meet you.”

A moment later came a second buzzer and Thom went to answer the door. He and a burly man in his thirties entered the parlor. The second visitor was dressed in a business suit, pale-blue shirt and tie. The top button of the shirt was undone and the tie pulled loose. Rhyme never understood that look.

The man nodded a greeting to all but directed his gaze at Archer. “Jule, you didn’t wait. I asked you to wait.”

Archer said, “This is my brother, Randy.” Rhyme recalled she was staying with him and his wife because her loft downtown was being modified to make it more accessible. The couple also happened to live conveniently near John Marshall College.

Randy said, “It’s a steep ramp out front.”

“I’ve done steeper,” she said.

Rhyme knew the tendency of people to mother, or baby, those with severe disabilities. The practice drove him crazy, as it apparently did Archer, as well. He wondered if she’d eventually grow immune to coddling; he never had.

Well, he thought, the brother’s presence settled the matter. No way were two people — amateurs no less — hanging out here while he and Mel Cooper struggled to make a case against the manufacturer or the mall or whoever had been responsible for the death of Sandy Frommer’s husband.

“Present, as promised,” Archer said, eyes taking in the parlor-cum-lab. “Well. Look at this. The equipment, instruments. And a scanning electron microscope? I’m impressed. Power problems?”

Rhyme didn’t answer. Any words might discourage their rapid exit.

Mel Cooper swung from scaffolding to floor, looking toward Archer. She blinked as the beam of his flashlight stabbed her eyes.

“Oh, so sorry. Mel Cooper.” A nod, rather than an offered hand, considering the wheelchair situation.

Archer introduced her brother and then, returning her attention to Cooper, said, “Oh, Detective Cooper. Lincoln said some nice things about you. He holds you up as a shining example of a forensic lab—”

“Okay,” Rhyme said quickly, ignoring the inquiring but pleased glance from Cooper. “We’re in the midst of something here.”

She eased forward, looking over other equipment. “When I was doing epidemiology, we used a GC/MS sometimes. Different model. But still. Voice-activated?”

“Uhm. Well. No. Mel or Amelia usually run it. But—”

“Oh, but there’s a voice system that works well. RTJ Instrumentation. Based in Akron.”

“Is there?”

“Just mentioning it. An article in Forensics Today about hands-free in the lab. I could send it to you.”

“We subscribe,” Cooper said. “I’ll look forward to—”

Rhyme muttered, “As I was saying, this case we’re working on, very time-sensitive. Came up suddenly.”

“Involving, let me guess, an escalator to nowhere.”

Rhyme was irritated at the humor. He said, “Probably would have been best to call. Could have saved you both the trouble—”

Archer said evenly, “Yes. Well, we did agree for me to be here today. You never got back to me about the exact time. I emailed.”

The corollary was that if anyone was to have called it should have been he. He tried a new tack. “My error. Entirely. I apologize for your wasted trip.”

Drawing a dry gaze from Thom at the rampant insincerity. Rhyme pointedly ignored him.

“So, we’ll have to reconvene. A different time. Later.”

Randy said, “So, Jule, let’s head back. Wait for me in the hallway. I’ll guide you down the ramp and—”

“Oh, but everything’s scheduled. Will Senior’s got Billy for the next few days. And Button’s got a playdate with Whiskers. I’ve changed all my doctors’ appointments. So.”

Button? Whiskers? Rhyme thought. Jesus H. Christ. What’ve I got myself into? “See, when I agreed you could come, there was a lull. I could be more... instructive. Now, I wouldn’t be able to be very helpful. So much going on. This is really a very pressing matter.”

Pressing matter? I actually said that? Rhyme wondered.

She nodded but was staring at the escalator. “This would have to be that accident. In Brooklyn, right? The mall. A civil case. There didn’t seem to be any thinking it was criminal. That means, I’d guess, lawsuits against a number of defendants. Manufacturer, real estate company owning the mall, maintenance crews. We know what those are like.” She wheeled about. “Who doesn’t love Boston Legal? And The Good Wife?”

Who know what the hell they are?

“I really think it’s best—”

Archer said, “And this is a mock-up. You couldn’t have the actual escalator here? Off limits to civil lawyers?”

“Removed and impounded,” Cooper said, drawing a glare from Rhyme.

“Again, I apologize, but—”

Archer continued. “What’s so pressing? Other plaintiffs clamoring for a piece of the pie?”

Rhyme said nothing. He simply watched her wheel closer to the scaffolding. Now his eyes took her in more closely. She was dressed quite stylishly. A long forest-green hounds tooth skirt, a starched white blouse, short sleeved. Black jacket. An elaborate gold bracelet of what seemed to be runic characters was on her left wrist, the one that was strapped, immobile, to the arm of her wheelchair. She maneuvered the Storm Arrow with a touchpad, using her right hand. The chestnut hair was up in a bun today. Archer had apparently already begun to learn that when your extremities are out of commission, you do all you can to minimize tickles and irritations from hair and sweat. Rhyme presently used far more mosquito repellent — organic, at Thom’s insistence — than he had before his accident.

“Jule,” Randy said. “Mr. Rhyme is busy. Don’t overstay your welcome.”

Already have, he thought. But his smile was smeared with regret. “Sorry. Really would be best for everybody concerned. Next week, two weeks.”

Archer herself was staring at Rhyme, eyes unwavering. He stared right back as she said, “Don’t you think another body would be helpful? Sure, I’m a newbie at forensics but I’ve done epidemiologic investigation for years. Besides, without any real evidence, doesn’t look like fingerprints and density gradient analysis’ll be called for. You’ll be doing a lot of speculative work on issues of mechanical failure. We did that all the time in sourcing infections — speculation, not mechanics, of course. I could do some of the legwork.” A smile. “So to speak.”

“Jule,” Randy said, blushing. “We talked about that.”

Referring, Rhyme guessed, to a prior conversation on joking about her disability. Rhyme himself delighted in baiting the condescenders, the overly sensitive and the politically correct, even — especially — within the disabled community. “Gimp” was a favorite noun of his; “cringe” a verb.

When Rhyme didn’t respond to Archer’s persistence, her lips tightened. “But,” she said breezily, “if you’re not interested, that’s fine. We can take a rain check.” There was an edge to her voice, and this solidified his decision. He hardly needed attitude. He was doing her a favor taking her on as an intern.

“It is best, I’m afraid.”

Randy said, “I’ll get the car, bring it around. Really, Jule. And wait at the top of the ramp.” Turning to Rhyme: “Thanks,” he said, nodding effusively. “Appreciate all you’re doing for her.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“I’ll see you out,” Thom said.

“Mel, get back to work,” Rhyme grumbled.

The tech climbed into the scaffolding once more. The camera flashes resumed.

Archer said, “See you in class next week, Lincoln.”

“You can come back, of course. Intern here. Just a different time.”

“Sure,” she said flatly. And wheeled into the hallway with Thom. A moment later Rhyme heard the door close. He wheeled to the video screen and watched Archer, in defiance of her brother, tool easily down the ramp and park on the sidewalk. She looked back and up at the town house.

Rhyme wheeled back to the computer monitor, on which were displayed the pictures Amelia Sachs had taken. He studied them for a few minutes.

Then exhaled a long sigh.

“Thom! Thom! I’m calling you! Where the hell are you?”

“About eight feet away, Lincoln. And, no, I haven’t gone deaf recently. What are you so politely requesting?”

“Get her back in here.”

“Who?”

“That woman who was just here. Ten seconds ago. Who else would I be talking about? I want her back. Now.”

Ron Pulaski was on a sidewalk that was cracked into trapezoids and triangles of concrete rising like bergs in an ice floe. The chain link he stood beside was topped with razor wire and was grafitti’d, defaced with letters and symbols more cryptic than usual because the tagger’s canvas was mesh. Who would deface chain link? he wondered. Maybe all the good brick walls and concrete abutments were taken.

Listening to his voice mail.

Amelia Sachs wanted him. He’d snuck away from their war room in One PP, believing that she’d follow up on the White Castle lead and return to Manhattan in a few hours. But apparently she’d found something to move the case forward. He listened to the message again. Decided she didn’t need him immediately. Not like there was an emergency. She wanted him to aid in a canvass of an area where Unsub 40 had been spotted a few days ago and to which he returned from time to time. Maybe he lived there, maybe shopped.

Pulaski didn’t want to talk to her. He texted. Lying was easier when your thumbs, not your voice, communicated. He’d get there as soon as he could, he said. He was out of the office briefly.

Nothing more than that.

His message, though, when he thought about it, wasn’t exactly lying. He wasn’t in the office and as soon as his business was completed he’d join her for the canvass. Still, when he was on the street, patrolling, his approach was: Failure to disclose is deception too.

Phone duty finished, the young officer was back to being vigilant. Extremely so. He was in the 33, after all, and so he had to be.

Pulaski had just hit the sidewalk from the transit complex of Broadway Junction and was walking along Van Sinderen Avenue. This part of Brooklyn was a mess. Not particularly filthy, no more so than other parts of the city, just chaotic. Canarsie and Jamaica trains rattling overheard. The IND underground. Autos and trucks aplenty, edging past, honking, cutting in and out. Hordes of people on the sidewalks. Bicycles.

The officer stood out — his race was represented by about 2 percent of the residents here, where Ocean Hill, Brownsville and Bed-Stuy merged. Nobody hassled him, nobody seemed even to notice him, everyone being on their own missions, which in New York City always seemed urgent. Or they were focused on their mobiles or conversations with their friends. As in most ’hoods, the majority, vast majority, of locals just wanted to get to and from work, hang with people they knew in bars or coffeehouses or restaurants, go shopping, take walks with the kids and dogs, get home.

But that didn’t mean he could ignore those here who might take more than a casual interest and wonder why this scrubbed white boy with a suburban haircut and a baby-smooth face was sauntering down the broken pavement in a hard, black and brown part of town. The 33, as in the last digits of its ZIP code, was statistically the most dangerous part of New York City.

After Amelia Sachs had left One PP, Pulaski had given it a few minutes and then lost his NYPD uniform and dressed down. Jeans, running shoes, combat-green T-shirt and black leather jacket, shabby. Head down, he’d left headquarters. He’d hit a nearby ATM, cringing mentally as he saw the bills flip out into his hands. Am I really fucking doing this? he thought, using a modifier that would only rarely, and in extreme situations, escape his rosy lips.

Over the river and through the woods... to bad guys we will go...

Leaving behind the transit hub now, he walked to Broadway, past the car repair garages, building supply outfits, real estate offices, check cashing and salary advance storefronts, bodegas, cheap diners with flyblown, handwritten menus on cards in windows. As he moved farther away from the commercial streets, he passed apartment blocks, mostly three- or four-story. Lots of red brick, lots of painted stone in beige and brown, lots of graffiti. On the horizon were the towering projects of Brownsville, not far away. On the sidewalk were cigarette butts, trash, malt liquor cans and a few condoms and needles... and even crack tubes, which seemed almost nostalgic; you didn’t see that scourge much anymore.

The 33...

Pulaski was walking fast.

One block, two blocks, three blocks, four.

Where the hell is Alpho?

Ahead, on the same sidewalk, two kids — yeah, young but together weighing four Pulaskis — eyed him hostilely. He had his Smith & Wesson Bodyguard on his ankle, his private weapon. But if they wanted to perp him, they’d perp him and he’d be on the ground and bleeding before he could snag the punchy gun from its holster. But they turned back to their joints and grave conversation, letting him pass without another look.

Two more blocks and, finally, he spotted the young man he’d been searching for. Back at One PP he’d taken a furtive look at a precinct activity report from the 73 and had a rough idea of where to go, where Alpho might be hanging. The kid was on his mobile and smoking, a cigarette not weed, in front of GW Deli and Phone Card store.

GW. George Washington? Then Pulaski thought, for some reason: Gee Whiz?

The skinny Latino was in a wife-beater T-shirt, exposing arms that didn’t see a lot of pushups. Street Crimes surveillance had gotten some solid pix of him, which was why Pulaski recognized him immediately. Alpho had been brought in, questioned and released a few times. But he’d never been busted and was still, Narcotics believed, in business. Had to be true. You could tell. From the posture, from the wariness, even while concentrating on the phone call.

Pulaski looked around. No obvious threats.

So get this over with. Pulaski strode toward Alpho, glanced his way and slowed.

The young man, a grayish tint to his dark skin, lifted his head. Said something into the mobile by way of farewell and slipped the cheap flip phone away.

Pulaski eased closer. “Hey.”

“Yo.”

Alpho’s eyes scanned up and down the street, like skittish animals. Didn’t spot anything worrisome. Then back to Pulaski.

“Nice day, huh?”

“S’all right. Guess. I know you?”

Pulaski said, “Alphonse, right?”

A stare in response.

“I’m Ron.”

“So who?”

“Kett. At Richie’s in Bed-Stuy.”

“He cool. How you know him?”

Pulaski said, “Just know him. Hang with him some. He’ll vouch.”

Eddie Kett would vouch for Ron Pulaski, not because they were buddies but because a few days ago, while breaking up a fight, off duty, Pulaski had found out that Eddie had been carrying a pistol when he shouldn’t’ve been, which was never. He also had some pills on him. The meds had interested Pulaski, who’d suggested he could forget about the weapon and Oxy charges in return for a favor, provided Kett never said a word about it. Kett had wisely chosen that route and had pointed him in Alphonse’s direction and was happy to play character reference.

Looking up and down the street, both men now.

“Kett, he okay.” Repeating. Stalling. Alphonse was his name but on the street it was mostly Alpho or, to cops and gangbangers, Alpo, after the dog food.

“Yeah, he’s okay.”

“I’ma call him.”

“Why I mentioned him, why I came to you. He said you could hook me up.”

“Why not him? Help you, I mean.” Alpho wasn’t calling Eddie Kett, Pulaski noticed. Probably believes me. You’d have to be an idiot to come to the 33 without somebody vouching.

“Eddie doesn’t have what I need.”

“I’ma say, brother, you ain’t lookin’ fuckin’ strung out. Whatchu want?”

“No brown. No C. Nothing like that.” Pulaski shook his head, looking around too. Looking for threats from anyone. Male or female. Girls were just as dangerous.

Pulaski scanned for uniforms and plainclothes and unmarked Dodges. He sure didn’t want to run into any compatriots.

But the streets were clear.

He said in a low voice, “There’s some new shit I heard about. It’s not Oxy but it’s like Oxy.”

“I ain’t hear about that, brother. I hook you up with weed, with C, with speed, methballs.” Alpho was relaxing. This wasn’t the way undercover busts worked.

Pulaski pointed to his forehead. “I got this thing happened to me. Crap beat out of me, a couple years ago. I started getting these headaches again. They came back. I mean, big time. They’re crap, totally. You get headaches?”

“Cîroc, Smirny.” Alpho smiled.

Pulaski didn’t. He whispered, “These are so bad. I can’t do my job right. Can’t concentrate.”

“What you do?”

“Construction. Crew in the city. Ironwork.”

“Man, those skyscrapers? How you fuckers do that? Climb up there? Fuck.”

“Almost fell a couple times.”

“Shit. Oxy fuck you up too.”

“No, no, this new stuff’s different. Just takes the pain away, doesn’t mess with your mind, doesn’t make you woozy, you know?”

“Woozy?” Alpho had no clue. “Why you ain’t get a prescription?”

“This stuff they don’t write paper for. It’s new, underground labs. Heard you could get it here, in BK. East New York, mostly. Guy named Oden? Something. He makes it himself or runs it in from Canada or Mexico. You know him?”

“Oden? No. Ain’t hear of him. What’s this new shit called?”

“Heard a name. Catch.”

“It’s called Catch?”

“What I’m saying.”

Alpho seemed to like the name. “Like it grabs you, you know, catches you, it’s so strong.”

“Fuck. I don’t know. Anyway, I want some. Bad, man. I need it. Gotta get these headaches under control.”

“Well, I ain’t got none. Never hear of it. But hook you up a dozen. Regular, I mean. One bill.”

Little lower than the general street price. Oxy went for about ten bucks per. Alpho was grooming for future sales.

“Yeah, okay.”

The exchange happened fast. As they always should. The plastic bag of OxyContin swapped for a handful of bills. Then the dealer blinked as he looked at the wad Pulaski had slipped him. “Brother, I telling you: one bill. That five right there.”

“Tip.”

“Tip?”

“Like a tip at a restaurant.”

Confused.

Pulaski smiled. “Keep it, man. I’m just asking, can you check around? See if you can find this new shit for me. Or, at least, who this Oden guy is, where I can get some Catch from him.”

“Dunno, brother.”

A nod at Alpho’s pocket. “Bigger tip next time, you point me the right way. I mean bigger. M and half. Maybe more, it’s righteous information.”

Then the skinny man gripped Pulaski’s forearm. Leaned close, radiating the smell of tobacco, sweat, garlic, coffee. “You ain’t no fuckin’ cop?”

Looking him back in the eyes, Pulaski said, “No. I’m a guy gets headaches so bad I can’t get it up sometimes, and who lies in the bathroom and pukes for hours. That’s what I am. Talk to Eddie. He’ll tell you.”

Alpho looked once more at the scar on Pulaski’s forehead. “I’ma call you, brother. Digits?”

Pulaski punched in Alpho’s number, and the gangbanger reciprocated.

Burner phone to burner. The age of trust.

Then Pulaski turned and, head down, walked back in the direction of the Broadway Junction transit complex.

Thinking it was pretty funny that he could very well have said to Alphonse Gravita that yeah, I am a cop, but it doesn’t matter because this isn’t an undercover operation at all. Not a soul in the NYPD — or in the world — knows about it. That wasn’t buy money I just handed over but my own, which Jenny and I can’t afford to give away.

But sometimes when you’re desperate, you do desperate things.

Chapter 10

Not good. Not good at all.

She’s ruined it. Red, the cop, the Shopper.

She’s taken it away from me. My wonderful White Castle. Stolen it.

And she’s walking here and there in Astoria, looking for clues — to me.

A little luck here, just like in the mall — when she was right next to the deadly escalator. Here I was fortunate too, spotting her first, a half block away from White Castle.

Red, walking inside, like a hunter.

My White Castle...

Two minutes later and I’d’ve pushed in, hungry, mouthwatering. Tasting burger and shake. Then eye-to-eye with Red. She could draw her gun faster than I could get my bone cracker out of my backpack, or my razor saw.

Luck saved me again.

Did her luck get her here?

No, no, no. I was careless. That’s it.

I am furious.

Remembering, yes: I threw away trash when the Shoppers came after me in the mall. I dumped the Starbucks litter nowhere near Starbucks but somehow they must’ve found it. And that means they found the other things I’d thrown out too. In the trash bin of that Mexican place behind the mall. I thought the help would grow blind and mute, or get shipped back to Juarez. It didn’t occur to me that Red would stoop to garbage. She’d have nabbed a White Castle napkin or receipt. Fingerprints? I’m pretty careful. When I’m in public I try to use far ends of fingers (the top quarter of tips are pretty useless for prints, oh, I know my stuff) or I dunk napkins in soda or coffee, turn them to mush.

But I didn’t think that time.

Speaking of hands: My palms’re nice and sweaty now, fingers — my long, long fingers — shaking a little. I’m mad at myself but mad at her mostly. Red... Taking my White Castle away, making me finish up too fast with Alicia.

Now, watching her at some distance, I see her move sveltely down the street. Into and out of stores. I know what she’s done: asked a server at White Castle or all the servers and customers too, Hey, did you see the bean boy? The praying mantis? Long John, Slim Jim? Oh, sure we did. Funny, funny looking. Hard to miss.

Now, the good news is that she won’t find my favorite store where I often go before or after my burgers, not on this street, not nearby. It’s a subway stop away. Still, there are other connections she might make.

Have to take care of this.

Everything good in my mind’s now knocked aside: the visit to my brother later today, fun fun fun with Alicia tonight, the next death on my schedule.

Plans have changed.

So has your luck, Red. Get yourself red-y. The joke sours, I’m so angry. When she steps into a bodega to ask some questions about the bean boy I step out onto the sidewalk. Moving wide around the White Castle, where they know about me now.

My wonderful White Castle. Where I can never go again.

I hike my backpack higher on my shoulder. And move fast.

“You were right,” Rhyme was saying. “Your deductions.”

Though he reflected he hardly needed to tell her this. Juliette Archer, he’d decided, was somebody who wouldn’t draw conclusions unless she had a good — no, extremely good — basis for knowing they were accurate.

She wheeled closer.

Rhyme continued, “Though the reason we have to sue right away isn’t other plaintiffs. Or only that. It’s that the victim’s widow and her son are in a bad way.” He explained about the lack of insurance, their debt. About the garage in upstate New York, their soon-to-be — perhaps long-term — home.

Archer offered no opinion about Schenectady but the stillness in her face suggested she appreciated the hardship that loomed. He described the additional issue of Frommer’s complicated employment history. “The attorney’s building the case to prove that this was a temporary slump. But that might be hard to do.”

Archer’s eyes shone. “But if you can prove the defendant did something particularly egregious or careless, there may be punitive damages.”

Maybe, as Whitmore suggested of Rhyme himself, Archer should have gone to law school as well.

Boston Legal...

“To threaten them with punitive damages,” Rhyme reminded. “We want to settle, and settle quickly.”

Archer asked, “When can we have access to the real deal? And all the evidence?”

“Could be months.”

“But can we make a case for liability from just the mock-up?”

Rhyme said, “We’ll see.” He explained what Whitmore had told him about strict products liability and negligence, the possibility of an intervening cause that would shift liability away from the manufacturer.

“Our job, first, is to pinpoint the defect.”

“And find a very careless and a very rich defendant,” she said wryly.

“That’s the strategy. Thom!”

The aide appeared.

Rhyme said to Archer, “Why don’t you explain your situation to him?”

She did. Unlike Rhyme, she had not suffered a trauma to her spine; doctors had discovered a tumor that wound around the fourth and fifth cervical vertebrae (Rhyme’s injury had been at the fourth). Archer explained about the series of treatments and surgery that would ultimately render her as disabled as Rhyme, if not more so. Her life at the moment was consumed with adapting to the condition by changing careers to one more suitable to a quadriplegic and learning from an experienced patient — Lincoln Rhyme — what to expect and how to cope.

Thom said, “I’m happy to play the role of your caregiver too if you like, while you’re here.”

“Would you?”

“Delighted to,” he said.

She wheeled about and faced Rhyme. “Now what can I do?”

“Research escalator accidents, particularly this model. See if similar accidents have ever happened before. Whitmore said that might be admissible. And get the maintenance manuals. A contractor leased us a part of the escalator but they haven’t delivered the documents yet. I want to know everything about it.”

“Let’s see if the company or the city is ordering inspections of similar models.”

“Yes, good.” He hadn’t thought of this.

“Computer I can use?”

Rhyme pointed out a desktop nearby. He knew she could use her right hand on the controller but keyboarding was not a possibility. “Could you set Juliette up with a headset and microphone. For computer three.”

“Sure. Over here.”

Her self-confidence suddenly dimmed and for the first time since he’d met her, Archer seemed uneasy, presumably for having to rely on someone else’s help, other than her brother’s. She was looking at the computer as if it were a stray dog whose tail was not wagging. Arguing with Rhyme about starting her internship had been different. They were equals. Here she was having to rely on an able-bodied person. “Thank you. I’m sorry.”

“This is the least of my trials and tribulations.” Thom fitted her with the headset and a touchpad for her right hand. Then he booted up the computer. “You can print out anything you find. But we don’t do that much. Easier for everybody to use the monitors.” Rhyme used a page-turning frame but that was mostly for books, magazines or documents that arrived already in hard-copy form.

“Those are some of the biggest screens I’ve ever seen.” Archer’s good cheer had returned in part. She murmured something into the headset and Rhyme saw the screen change as a search engine popped up. “I’ll get to work. First, everything I can find about the escalator itself.”

Mel Cooper called, “Do you want the model and serial number?”

“Model is MCE-Seventy-Seven,” Archer said absently, staring at the screen, “I’ve got the serial too. Memorized them from the manufacturer’s info plate when I came in just now.”

And she slowly recited the lengthy numbers into the microphone. The computer responded dutifully to her low, melodic voice.

Chapter 11

Still playing infrastructure paparazzo with his digital camera, Mel Cooper continued to prowl about within the scaffolding enshrouding the escalator.

“How did they get it in?” he called. “This thing is huge.”

“Removed the roof, cut holes in all the floors, lowered it in by helicopter. Or maybe it was angels or superheroes. I forget.”

“Legitimate question, Lincoln.”

“Irrelevant question. Therefore illegitimate. What are you seeing?”

“Give me a minute.”

Rhyme sighed.

Speed. They needed to move fast. To help Sandy Frommer, of course. But also, as Archer had thought and Whitmore had confirmed, to get a settlement before spurious plaintiffs appeared, hoping for a windfall. He had explained: “The other passengers on the escalator who leapt off. The injuries were minor — or nonexistent — but that doesn’t mean they won’t sue. And then,” the lawyer had added, “there’ll be those who claim emotional distress because they simply saw a gruesome accident and their lives will be changed forever. They’ll never get on an escalator again... Nightmares. Eating disorders. Loss of income from taking workdays off. Yes, it’s true. Nonsense, but true. This is the world of personal injury law.”

Archer now called from the computer station she was parked in front of: “The city’s suspended the operation of all MCE-Seventy-Seven models pending inspection. Reading from the Times. There are fifty-six installed in New York City. No other reports of malfunctions.”

Interesting. Rhyme wondered if an inspection might find something beneficial to their case. He wondered how fast it would be concluded.

Finally Cooper joined Rhyme and slipped the SD memory card out of the Sony camera. He loaded it into a computer slot and called up the pictures on a high-def monitor. The screen was big enough that dozens of images fit side by side.

Rhyme moved closer.

“Here’re the parts that seem relevant.” The tech stepped to the screen and pointed. “The panel that popped up. It serves as both a step — the top, immobile step — and an access panel for maintenance and repairs. Hinged on the far side, away from the escalator stairs. I’d guess the weight about forty or so pounds.”

Archer called, “Forty-two.” She’d found specifications, she explained, in a Midwest Conveyance installation and maintenance manual.

Cooper continued, “And it’s assisted by a spring so when the catch is released the door pops up about sixteen inches.”

Consistent with Sachs’s observation and photos.

“A worker can lift it all the way from there and use a rod to keep it open — like the sort used to support car hoods.” Pointing, Cooper indicated images he’d taken. “To close the door workers lower it by pushing it down or, I’d guess, standing on it, until a triangular bracket on the bottom of the door meets a spring-fed pin on a fixed bar. Here. The bracket pushes the pin in until the panel’s all the way down and the pin snaps into a hole to lock it closed.”

“How is it released?” Rhyme asked.

“Push-button switch in a receptacle behind a locked cover on the side of the escalator. Here. Circuit runs to the servo motor here. It retracts the pin, releasing the access panel.”

“So,” Rhyme mused. “What could have caused it to pop? Ideas? Come on, think.”

Archer: “The latching bracket broke off.”

But an examination of Sachs’s pictures seemed to show that it was still attached to the bottom of the access panel.

“Maybe the pin snapped,” Rhyme said. “The de Havilland Comet. Nineteen fifties.”

Both Archer and Cooper looked his way.

He explained: “First commercial jetliner. Three of them exploded in midair because metal fatigue — a window failed at high altitude. Fatigue is one of the main mechanical failure modes. Other modes are buckling, corrosion, fouling, fracture, impact, stress, thermal shock, a few more. Fatigue occurs when a material — could be metal or anything else — is subject to cyclical loading.”

“The jetliner,” Archer offered. “Pressurization over and over.”

“That’s what happened. Right. In that case, there were square windows or doors where the stress was concentrated in the corners. The redesigned planes had round ports and windows. Less stress and fatigue. So the question here is, did the opening and closing of the access panel on the escalator lead to fatigue on the part of the latching pin?”

Cooper highlighted the latch. “No signs of wear on this one but it’s new. I wonder how old the original was, how many times the door had been opened and closed.”

Rhyme felt once more the frustration at not having the actual evidence before him.

He heard a sound of a jostled table as Juliette Archer maneuvered closer to him, again clumsily manipulating the chair’s controller with her right finger; handling a two-hundred-pound wheelchair deftly took considerable practice.

New to the game...

“The one that failed, in the mall, was six years old,” she said.

“How did you find that out?”

“Press releases from Midwest Conveyance, announcing they’d been awarded the contract for the escalators at the mall. Seven years ago. Construction occurred the next year. According to maintenance recommendations, the unit is inspected and lubricated five times a year. Allowing for breakdowns and unplanned repairs, I’d say the door was opened and closed fifty times.”

Rhyme looked at Cooper’s picture of the pin holding the triangular bracket that kept the panel shut. It was only about an inch long but thick. It seemed unlikely that the pin would fatigue with that limited number of openings.

Archer added, “And one of the maintenance steps is to examine the pin for excessive wear. Presumably for fatigue too.”

“What’s it made of? Steel?”

Archer said, “That’s right. All the parts are steel, except for a few housings that had nothing to do with the accidents. And the exterior pieces. They’re aluminum and carbon fiber.”

She certainly had attacked the manual and specification sheet quickly.

Rhyme said, “Even if it was in good shape, the latch might have come loose and the pin might not have fully reseated itself. Vibrations could have worked it loose.”

Maybe... Lot of speculation in this case.

“Who made the locking mechanism?”

Without looking at the documents she’d loaded onto her screen she said, “The manufacturer. Midwest Conveyance. Wasn’t a separate company.”

Rhyme said, “Possibly metal fatigue and maintenance issues. What else might’ve caused it to open?”

“Could somebody,” Archer asked, “have hit the switch accidentally or as a prank?”

Cooper called up some pictures. “Here’s the switch. It’s on the outside of the unit, on the bottom, near the emergency cutoff.” He pointed. “But it’s behind a small locked door.”

“Was it open or closed in the mall itself?” Archer asked.

Rhyme said, “Amelia looked over the CCTV of the mall, trying to find out where her perp had gone. She said nobody was near the access switch when the panel opened.”

Archer’s face screwed up with an ironic frown. “And that video?”

“The Department of Investigations impounded it.”

She cocked her head as her eyes slipped to Cooper. “We’re civilians but you’re NYPD, right?”

“I’m not here,” he said quickly.

“You’re—”

“I’m unofficial. On vacation. If I were to get official investigative material now I’ll be sent on permanent vacation.”

Scanning the photographs. “What else could be the culprit?” Rhyme mused.

“Let’s say no one pushed the button intentionally. Maybe a short circuit or other electrical problem activated the switch. It tripped the motor — it’s called a servo — and that retracted the pin and popped the door.”

“Let’s look at the wiring.”

Mel expanded the pictures he’d taken inside the escalator. Rhyme noted that a wire ran along the interior wall from the push-button switch on the outside. The switch wire ended in a plug inserted in one of the outlets on the side of the servo unit inside.

“The connections’re exposed,” Cooper said.

“They are indeed,” Rhyme said. He gave a brief smile.

An instant later Archer too grinned. “I get it. A bit of metal or foil or something conductive might’ve drifted onto the plug and completed the connection. The servo pulled the pin back and the door popped up.” She added, “I couldn’t find any similar incidents involving this model escalator. Escalators can be dangerous. But usually it’s getting clothes or shoes caught in the mechanism. That happens more than you’d think. A hundred and thirty-seven people died last year in escalator accidents around the world. The worst single disaster was an explosion in the London Underground. Dust and particles accumulated and then caught fire and blew up. Like a grain elevator explosion. Have you ever seen those?”

“They don’t happen in New York very often,” Rhyme said absently, mulling over what she’d told him.

“I have,” offered Mel Cooper. “Seen one.”

Rhyme grimaced at the irrelevance. “And the defect is—”

“That Midwest Conveyance didn’t shield the plugs,” Archer said. “Would have been easy. Recess them, put them under a covering. Something like that.”

Cooper offered, “Or they shouldn’t use plugs at all. Hardwire the switch and the servo motor. Maybe the manufacturer wanted to save money.”

The first hint there might have been punitive-level behavior on the part of the manufacturer.

“Who—?”

Archer answered his question before he finished it. “Just like the locking mechanism. Both the servo motor and the switch were made by Midwest Conveyance. Their component parts unit. And a division. Not a subsidiary. They can’t hide behind the corporate veil.”

Cooper said, “I thought you were an epidemiologist.”

“Boston Legal. Believe me. It’s really very good. I also like Better Call Saul.”

Cooper said, “L.A. Law too.”

“Oh, it’s good.”

Please...

Rhyme was puzzling out how foreign substances could have tricked the servo motor into opening the door.

“I have an idea,” Archer said.

“What’s that?”

“You’re a scientist. You like empirical evidence.”

“The highest deity in my pantheon,” Rhyme said, not much caring how pretentious it sounded.

She nodded toward the escalator. “Does it work?”

“The drive motor, gears, servo motor and switch do. And it’s plugged in.”

“So let’s experiment. Turn it on and try to get the panel to open.”

Rhyme had a thought. He turned toward the kitchen and shouted, “Thom! Thom! I need a drink.”

The aide appeared in the doorway. “A little too early, as I recently pointed out.”

“Too early for a Coke?”

“You never drink soda. There isn’t any in the house.”

“But if I recall, there’s a deli right around the corner.”

The hardware stores — there were two of them within hoofing distance of the White Castle — had been a bust.

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.”

Rhyme wasn’t sure what to make of the gift. Until recently his clients had primarily been the NYPD, FBI and other assorted law enforcers, none of whom sent him baked goods in gratitude. “Yes. Well. Thom. Thom!”

The aide appeared a moment later. “Oh, Mr. Whitmore.” The reluctance to use first names seemed to be contagious.

“Mr. Reston. Here’s a loaf of bread,” the lawyer said, handing it over. “From Mrs. Frommer.”

Rhyme said, “Refrigerate it or something.”

“Zucchini bread. Smells good. I’ll serve it.”

“That’s all right. We don’t need any—”

“Of course I will.”

“No, of course you won’t. We’ll save it for later.” Rhyme had an ulterior motive for being contrary. He was thinking that the only way Juliette Archer would be able to eat any of the pastry was to have Thom feed her, and this would make her feel self-conscious. She was using the fingers of her right hand but not her arm. The left, with its intricate bracelet, was, of course, strapped immobile to the wheelchair.

However, Archer, who seemed to get Rhyme’s strategy and not much care for it, said in a firm voice: “Well, I’d like some.”

And Rhyme realized that he’d broken one of his own rules; he’d been coddling her. He said, “Good. I will too. And coffee. Please.”

Thom blinked at the reversal... and the politeness.

“I would care for some coffee, as well. Black please.” From Whitmore. “If not inconvenient.”

“Not at all.”

“Any chance of a cappuccino?” Archer asked.

“One of my specialties. And I’ll bring some tea, Mel.” The aide disappeared.

Whitmore walked to the chart. He and the others looked it over.

Archer explained to Whitmore that she’d found no other similar accidents — in escalators made by any company, not just those in the product line of Midwest Conveyance. Then Mel Cooper gave the lawyer the details of their attempts to get the door to pop open spontaneously due to some outside factor or a flaw in the manufacturing of the unit.

“None of the theories of getting the door to open worked on the mock-up,” Rhyme told him.

“It doesn’t look very promising, I must say,” Whitmore offered. His voice sounded no more discouraged at this bad news than it would be enthusiastic had the conclusions gone in their favor. Still, Rhyme knew he would be troubled. Whitmore wouldn’t be a man who took setbacks easily.

Rhyme’s eyes were scanning the scaffolding, up and down. He wheeled closer, staring, staring.

He was vaguely aware of Thom arriving with a tray: the baked goods and beverages. Vaguely aware of conversation among Cooper and Archer and Whitmore. Vaguely aware of the lawyer’s monotonous voice replying to something Archer had asked.

Then silence.

“Lincoln?” Thom’s voice.

“It’s defective,” Rhyme whispered.

“What’s that?” his aide asked.

“It is defective.”

Whitmore said, “Yes, Mr. Rhyme. The problem is we don’t know how it’s defective.”

“Oh, yes we do.”

“Scared me a bit there,” Amelia Sachs snapped, her voice sharp as the wind. “Possibility the perp might’ve been around.” She removed her hand from the grip of her Glock.

The person who’d come up behind her just after her mobile call to Rhyme was Ron Pulaski, not Unsub 40 or any other assailant.

The young officer said, “Sorry. You were on the phone. Didn’t want to interrupt.”

“Well, next time circle wide. Wave. Or something... You see anybody looking like our unsub nearby, a few minutes ago?”

“He’s here?”

“Well, he does like his White Castle. And I saw somebody shadowing me. You see anything?” she repeated impatiently.

“Nobody like him. Just a couple kids. Looked like drug trans going down. I headed for ’em but they took off.”

They might’ve been what she’d seen. Dust. Seagull. Gangbangers swapping bills for C.

“Where were you? Tried the office and your mobile.” She noted he’d changed clothes, swapping his uniform for street.

He was looking around too. “After you left I got a call. I had to talk to a CI, Harlem. The Gutiérrez case.”

Took her a moment. Enrico Gutiérrez. Wanted in a homicide — possibly murder, more likely low-grade manslaughter — that had been one of the first cases Pulaski had run, with another detective in Major Cases. One drug dealer had killed another, so there was little energy to close the case. She guessed the confidential informant had stumbled on some leads and called Pulaski. She said, “That old thing? Thought the DA’d given up. Hardly worth the time.”

“Got the word to clean the docket. Didn’t you see the memo?”

Sachs didn’t pay attention to a lot of memos that circulated through One Police Plaza. Public relations, useless information, new procedures that would be rescinded next month. Reinvigorating cases like Gutiérrez’s didn’t make a lot of sense but, on the other hand, it wasn’t for line detectives or patrol officers to question. And if Pulaski wanted to move up in the world of policing, word from on high had to be heeded. And memos taken seriously.

“Okay, Ron. But lean toward Unsub Forty. If our boy’s got fertilizer bombs and poisons he’s playing with, in addition to hammers, this’s our priority. And answer your damn phone.”

“Got it. Sure. I’ll fit in Gutiérrez best I can.”

She explained what Charlotte and the manager at White Castle had said. Then added, “I’ve canvassed most of the stores around here and gotten to half of the streets he’d take to subways, buses or apartment complexes.” She gave him the locations she’d been to and told him to keep going another few blocks. She told him too about the gypsy cab service where the unsub had possibly been spotted. “I want you to follow up with them. We need that driver. Keep up pressure.”

“I’ll handle it.”

“I’ve got to get my mother to an appointment.”

“How’s she doing?”

“Hanging in there. Operation’s in a few days.”

“Give her my best.”

A nod, then she returned to her Torino and fired up the big engine. In twenty minutes she was cruising along the streets of her neighborhood. She felt a comfort as she headed into the pleasant residential ’hood of Carroll Gardens. The place had been much scruffier when she’d grown up here. Now it was the bastion of PWSM. People With Some Money. Not enough to afford this kind of square footage in Manhattan and not willing to flee the city limits. Gentrification didn’t bother Amelia Sachs. She spent plenty of time in the bad parts of town and was glad to return home to a well-tended enclave with gardenias in unmolested flowerpots on the street, families bicycling through the parks and a high saturation of aromatic coffee shops (though she wouldn’t mind banishing hipsters to SoHo and TriBeCa).

Well, look at this: a legitimate parking space. And only a block from her house. She could park practically anywhere if she left her NYPD placard on the dash. But she’d found this wasn’t a wise practice. One morning she’d returned to her car to find Pig spray-painted on the windshield. She didn’t think the word was much in use anymore and pictured the perpetrator as an unfortunate, aging anti-Vietnam-War protestor. Still, the cleaning had cost her four hundred bucks.

Sachs parked and walked along the tree-lined street to her town house, which was classic Brooklyn: brown brick, window frames painted dark green, fronted by a small verdant strip of grass. She let herself in, locked the door behind her and went into the front hallway, stripping off her jacket and unweaving the Glock holster embracing the weapon from her belt. She was a gun person, in her job and as a hobby, a champion in handgun competitions on police and private ranges, but at home, around family, she was discreet about displaying weapons.

She set the Glock in the closet, on a shelf near her jacket, then stepped into the living room. “Hi.” She nodded a smile to her mother, who said goodbye to whomever she was speaking to on the phone and set the handset down.

“Honey.”

Slim, unsmiling Rose Sachs was a contradiction.

This, the woman who would not speak to her daughter for months when she quit her fashion modeling job to go to the police academy.

This, the woman who would not speak to her husband for even longer for believing he’d encouraged that career change (he had not).

This, the woman whose moods would drive father and daughter out into the garage on Saturday mornings and afternoons to work on one of the muscle cars they both loved to soup up and drive.

This, the woman who was there every minute for her husband, Herman, as he faded to cancer and who made sure her daughter never wanted for a single thing, attended every parent-teacher conference, worked two jobs when necessary, overcame her uncertainty about Rhyme’s and her daughter’s relationship and quickly accepted then fully embraced him.

Rose made her decisions in life according to immutable rules of propriety and logic that were often beyond anyone else’s comprehension. Yet you couldn’t help but admire the steel within her.

Rose was contradictory in another way too. Her physical incarnation. On the one side, pale of skin from the weak stream of blood struggling through her damaged vessels, but fiery of eye. Weak yet with a powerful hug and vise grip of a handshake. If she approved of you.

“I was serious, Amie. You don’t have to take me. I’m perfectly capable.”

Yet she wasn’t. And today she seemed particularly frail, short of breath and seemingly incapable of rising from the couch — a victim of the body’s betrayal, which was how Sachs thought of her condition, since she was slim, rarely drank and had never smoked.

“Not a problem. After, we’ll stop at Gristedes. I didn’t have a chance on the way here.”

“I think there are things in the freezer.”

“I need to go anyway.”

Then Rose was peering at her daughter with focused and — yes — piercing eyes. “Is everything all right?”

The woman’s perceptive nature was undiminished by her physical malady.

“Tough case.”

“Your Unsub Forty.”

“That’s right.” And made tougher by the fact that her partner had goddamn stolen the best forensic man in the city out from underneath her — for a civil case, no less, which wasn’t nearly as urgent as hers. It was true that Sandy Frommer’s life and her son’s would be drastically altered without some compensation from the company who’d changed their lives so tragically. But they wouldn’t die, they wouldn’t be living on the street, while Unsub Forty might be planning to kill again. Tonight. Five minutes from now.

And more galling: She was the one who’d convinced him to help the widow, setting him on his typically obsessive-compulsive trail of the defendant who’d been responsible for Greg Frommer’s death.

Your initial reaction is going to be to say no but just hear me out. Deal?...

Sachs was examining the contents of the fridge and making a grocery list when the doorbell chimed, the first tone high, the second low.

She glanced at her mother, who shook her head.

Neither was Sachs expecting anyone. She walked toward the front hall, not bothering to collect her weapon, on the theory that most doers don’t ring doorbells. Also: she kept a second Glock, a smaller one, the model 26, in a battered, faded shoe box beside the front door, one round chambered and nine behind it, a second mag nestling nearby. As she approached the door she removed the lid, turned the box to grabbing position.

Sachs looked out through the peephole. And froze to statue.

My God.

She believed a gasp issued from her throat. Her heart was pounding fiercely. A glance down and she replaced the lid on the camouflaged weapon case, then stood completely still for a moment, staring at her hollow eyes in a convex mirror set in a gilt frame on the wall.

Breathing deeply, once twice... Okay.

She unlatched the door.

Standing on the small stone porch was a man of about her age. Lean, his handsome face had not seen sun for a long time. He was wearing jeans and a black T-shirt under a denim jacket. Nick Carelli had been Sachs’s lover before Rhyme. They’d met on the force — both cops, though in different divisions. They’d lived together, they’d even talked about getting married.

Sachs had not seen Nick in years. But she remembered vividly the last time they’d been together in person: a courthouse in Brooklyn. They’d exchanged brief glances and then the bailiffs had led him away, shackled, for transfer to state prison to begin his sentence for robbery and assault.

Chapter 13

It is an exciting concept,” said Evers Whitmore in a tone that belied the descriptive participle.

Which didn’t mean he wasn’t truly ecstatic; it was just so very hard to read him.

He was referring to Rhyme’s theory of the escalator’s defect: It didn’t matter whether the access panel opened because of metal fatigue, bad lubrication, a curious roach shorting out the servo motor, even someone’s pushing the switch accidentally. Or an act of God. The defect was in the fundamental design of the unit — that if the door opened for any reason, the motor and gears should have stopped immediately. An automatic cutoff switch would have saved Greg Frommer’s life.

“Had to be cheap to install,” Juliette Archer said.

“I would imagine so,” Whitmore said. Then he tilted his head and looked at the unit in Rhyme’s hallway carefully. “I have another theory. What does the access panel weigh?”

From Rhyme and Archer in unison: “Forty-two pounds.”

“Not that heavy,” the lawyer continued.

“The spring was a convenience, not a necessity.”

Rhyme liked this one too. Double-barrel legal theories. “They should never have added a spring. Workmen could unlatch the panel and use a hook to pull it up, or just lift it. Good.”

The attorney got a call on his mobile and listened for some time, asking questions and jotting notes in his perfectly linear handwriting.

When he disconnected he turned to Rhyme, Archer and Cooper. “I think we may have something here. But to understand it fully, you need some background in the law.”

Not again...

Rhyme nonetheless lifted a please-continue eyebrow and the lawyer launched into yet another lecture.

“Law in America is a complicated creature, like a platypus,” Whitmore said, removing and cleaning his glasses once again (Rhyme could only think of them as spectacles). “Part mammal, part reptile, part who knows what else?”

Rhyme sighed; Whitmore missed the impatience waft and kept up the narrative. Eventually he got to his point: The Frommer case would be largely determined by “case law,” not legislative statutes, and the court would look to precedent — prior similar decisions — to decide if Sandy Frommer could win a judgment against Midwest.

With what hovered near enthusiasm in his voice, Whitmore said, “My paralegal, Ms. Schroeder, found no cases where escalators were considered defective because of the lack of interlocks. But she did unearth several cases of heavy industrial machinery — printing presses and die stampers — in which liability was found when the devices continued to work after safety guards were moved or access panels opened. The facts are close enough to support a finding that Mr. Frommer’s injury occurred because of a design defect.”

Archer asked, “Is it possible to find escalators made by other companies that do have an interlock switch?”

“A good question, Ms. Archer. Also researched by Ms. Schroeder. I’m afraid, though, that the answer is no. Because Midwest Conveyance seems to be the only escalator manufacturer on earth that makes a product with the ill-chosen feature of a pop-up access panel. However, she did find an elevator manufacturer whose cars have a cutoff — to apply the brakes in the event the car moves when a worker is in the shaft with the access panel open.”

“And that would be a good case to cite,” Archer said, “since ‘escalator’ sounds a lot like ‘elevator.’ ”

Impressing Whitmore once again. “It does indeed. I’ve found there’s an art to subliminally guiding the jury to favor your client. Now, again, I don’t intend to go to trial but I’ll include a reference to those cases when I contact Midwest Conveyance about settlement. Now we have our theory. A sound one. A good one. I’ll spend the next few days preparing the complaint. After we file I’ll subpoena the company’s engineering records, history of complaints, safety reports. If we’re lucky we might find a CBA memo that shoots them in the foot.”

Archer asked what that was; apparently her TV show legal education had failed her on this point. As for Rhyme, he had no clue either.

Whitmore added, “Cost-benefit analysis. If a company estimates that ten customers a year will die because of its carelessness in building a product and that it will have to pay out wrongful death judgments of ten million dollars in compensation but that it will cost twenty million dollars to fix the problem ahead of time, the manufacturer may choose to release the product anyway. Because it’s economically more sound.”

“Companies actually make that calculus?” Archer asked. “Even though they’re signing death certificates for those ten people?”

“You may have heard of U.S. Auto. Not too long ago. An engineer wrote an internal memo that there could be gasoline leaks, resulting in catastrophic fires, in a very small percentage of sedans. It would cost X amount to fix it. The management decided it was cheaper to pay the few wrongful death or personal injury judgments. And they went with that decision. Of course the company’s out of business now. The memo came to light and they never recovered from the public relations disaster. The moral of the story, of course, is—”

Archer said, “To make the ethically right choice.”

Whitmore said, “—to never commit decisions like that to paper.”

Rhyme wondered if he was joking. But there was no smile accompanying the words.

Whitmore continued, “I’ll assemble information on Mr. Frommer’s earning potential — how he would have returned to a white-collar job like he used to have. Managerial. To increase our claim for future earning potential. I’ll take depositions from the wife and his friends, former fellow workers. Expert medical witnesses on the pain and suffering he experienced. I want to hit Midwest with everything we can. A case like this, I believe, they’ll do whatever they must to avoid trial.”

His phone hummed and he glanced at the screen.

“It’s Ms. Schroeder, in my office. Maybe some new cases we can use.” He answered. “Yes?”

Rhyme noticed that the attorney had stopped moving. Completely. Not a twist of neck, shift of weight. He stared at the floor. “You’re sure? Who told you?... Yes, they’re credible.” At last a splinter of emotion crossed the man’s face. And it wasn’t one of pleasure. He disconnected. “We have a problem.” He looked around the room. “Is there any way we could set up a Skype call? And I need to do so immediately.”

“You have a minute?” Nick Carelli asked Amelia Sachs.

She was thinking, manically because of her shock at his presence, how odd it was that he didn’t look much different, all these years later. All these years spent in prison. Really only his posture had changed. Still in good shape otherwise, he was now slouching.

“I... I don’t ...” Stammering and hating herself for it.

“I was going to call. Thought you’d hang up.”

Would she have? Of course. Probably.

“I came by, gave it a shot.”

“Are you ...?” Sachs began. And thought: Finish your goddamn sentences.

He laughed. That low, happy laugh she remembered. Took her right back, a wormhole to the past.

Nick said, “No, I didn’t escape. Good behavior. Called me a model prisoner. Parole board, unanimous.”

Summoning reason, at last. If she got rid of him fast, maybe he’d try to come back later. Hear him out now. Be done with it.

She stepped outside and closed the door. “I don’t have much time. I’ve got to get my mother to the doctor’s.”

Shit. Why say that? Why tell him anything?

His brow furrowed. “What’s wrong?”

“Some heart issues.”

“Is she—”

“I really don’t have a lot of time, Nick.”

“Sure, sure.” Looking her over fast. Then back to her eyes. “I read about you in the paper. You’ve got a partner now. The guy used to be head of IR.”

Investigation Resources, the old name of the division that Crime Scene was part of. “I met him a couple times. Legend. Is he really...?”

“He’s disabled, yes.” Silence.

He seemed to sense niceties were clinkers. “Look, I need to talk to you. Tonight, maybe tomorrow, could we get coffee?”

No. Gate closed, window shut, water over dam, under bridge.

“Tell me now.”

Money, a recommendation for a job? He was never getting back on the force; a felony conviction precluded that.

“Okay, I’ll make it fast, Ame...”

Using his pet name for her grated.

He took a breath. “I’ll just lay it all out for you. The thing is, about my conviction? The ’jacking, assault? You know all the details.”

Of course she did. The crime was a bad one. Nick had been busted for being behind a string of hijackings of merchandise and prescription drug shipments. In the last one, before he was caught, he’d beaten a driver with his pistol. The Russian immigrant, father of four, had been in the hospital for a week.

He leaned forward, eyes drilling into hers. He whispered, “I never did it, Ame. Never did a single thing I was arrested for.”

Her face flushed, hearing this, and her heart began throbbing. She glanced back through the curtained window that bordered the door. No sign of her mother. She’d also looked away to buy a moment to wrestle with what she’d just heard. Finally she turned back. “Nick, I don’t know what to say. Why is this coming up now? Why are you here?”

And her heart continued beat frantically, like the wings of a bird cupped in your hands. She thought: Could it be true?

“I need your help. Not a soul in the world is going help me but you, Ame.”

“Don’t call me that. That’s the old life. That’s not now.”

“Sure, sure. Sorry. I’ll tell you fast, I’ll explain. Donnie was the one working the hijackings. Not me.”

Nick’s younger brother.

She could hardly comprehend this. The quiet one of the two siblings was a dangerous criminal? She recalled that the hijacker had worn a ski mask and never identified by the truck driver.

Nick continued, “He had his problems. You know.”

“The drugs. Drinking, sure. I remember.” The two brothers were so very different, not even resembling each other. Donnie was almost rat-like in manner and nature, Sachs remembered thinking back then, feeling uneasy with the spontaneous image. In addition to the looks, Nick got the confidence, Donnie the uncertainty and anxiety — and the need to numb both of those. She’d tried to engage him in conversation when they went out to dinner, tell jokes, ask about his continuing-education classes but he’d grow shy and evasive. And occasionally hostile. Suspicious. She believed he was envious of his elder brother for having a former fashion model girlfriend. She remembered too how he would disappear into the men’s room and return buoyant and talkative.

Nick continued, “The evening it all went down, the bust... Remember, you were on night watch?”

She nodded. As if she could ever forget.

“I got a call from Mom. She thought Donnie’d started using again. I asked around and heard he might be meeting somebody near the Third Street Bridge. Had some deal going down.”

The ancient bridge, over a hundred years old, spanned the Gowanus, a sludgy canal in Brooklyn.

“I knew something bad was going to happen, if it hadn’t already. That ’hood? Had to be. I headed over there right away. I didn’t see Donnie but around the corner was the truck, the semi, parked, the doors open. The driver was on the ground, bleeding from his ears, the truck was empty. I called nine one one from a pay phone, anonymous, reported it. Then I went straight to Donnie’s apartment. There he was, stoned. And he wasn’t alone.” He was now staring into her eyes; his were fierce. She had to look down. “Delgado, remember him? Vinnie Delgado.”

Vaguely. A gangbanger in BK. Bay Ridge, maybe. Not really connected, not high up anyway. A piece of scum, acting like the Godfather, even though his base of operation was a dive of a magazine/tobacco store. Dead, she also believed — executed for encroaching on a serious crew’s turf.

“He got Donnie to work for him. Helping Delgado’s crew ’jack and move some stuff off trucks, get it to the fences, middlemen. Promised Donnie all the ’ludes and coke he wanted.”

Sachs was furiously assessing. Then told herself: Stop. Truth or lies, none of this was her business.

“Delgado and his minder told me there was a problem. Apparently one of the Five Families wasn’t happy about the ’jackings Delgado had been running, the Gowanus in particular. They’d had their eye on that truck. Huge score of prescription drugs, remember? Delgado said somebody needed to take the fall. He gave me two options. Point the finger at Donnie, in which case Delgado would have to take him out, since he’d spill everything in prison. Or... me. Who could do the time and keep his mouth shut.” A shrug. “How’s that for a choice?”

“You didn’t contact OCT?”

He laughed. The NYPD Organized Crime Task Force was good — but it was good at marshaling big cases against high-profile mobsters. They could have done little to keep Donnie Carelli alive.

“What did Donnie say?”

“When he sobered up I talked to him. I told him what Delgado had said. He was crying, gone all to pieces. What you’d think. He was desperate, begging me to save him. I said I’d do it for him and Mom. But it was his last chance. He had to get clean.”

“What happened then?”

“I took some of the merch Donnie had and some money, threw it in my car. Wiped the piece Donnie had, the one he’d beaten the driver with, and got my own prints on it. Then made another anonymous call, reported my tag number being at the scene.

“Detectives got me the next day at the station house. I just confessed. That was it.”

“You gave everything, your whole life? Your years on the force? Just like that?”

He whispered harshly, “He was my brother! I didn’t have any choice. Signing his death warrant?” Then his face softened. “You remember what we talked about then? About me being on the force, not sure about it?”

She did. Nick didn’t have blue in his soul. He wasn’t a cop the way she was, or her father was... or Lincoln Rhyme had been. He was biding his time until he could find something else — a business, a restaurant. He’d always wanted a restaurant.

“I wasn’t meant to be a cop. I was going to get out sooner or later. I could do the time and live with that.”

She thought back. “And Donnie did get clean, right?”

After he’d gone to jail Sachs had stayed in touch with the family, though not Nick. She’d attended Harriet Carelli’s funeral and Donnie had indeed been sober there and every other time she’d seen him. She and the younger brother fell out of touch, however, after she met Lincoln Rhyme.

“He did. For a while. But it didn’t stay that way. He didn’t do any more work for Delgado that I heard but he went back on C and then H. He died a year ago.”

“Oh, no. I’m sorry. I didn’t hear.”

“Overdose. He hid using pretty good. But they found him in a hotel in East Harlem. Been there for three days.” Nick’s voice caught.

“I did a lot of thinking inside, Amelia. I thought I did the right thing, and I guess I did. I kept Donnie alive for a few years. But I decided I want to prove I’m innocent. I don’t care about a pardon or anything like that. I just want to be able to tell people I didn’t do it. Donnie’s gone, Mom’s gone. I don’t have any more family might be disappointed to hear the truth. Delgado got capped years ago. His crew’s gone. And I want you to know I’m innocent too.”

She saw what was coming.

He continued, “There’s evidence in the case file that’ll exculpate me. Contacts, detectives’ notes, addresses, things like that. There’ll be people out there still who know I didn’t do it.”

“You want the file.”

“I do.”

“Nick...”

He touched her arm, lightly and fast. His hand receded. “You’ve got every right to walk right back inside and close the door. Never see me again. After what I did.”

And the sin wasn’t just the crime. What he also did was cut everything off from her, from the instant of his arrest. Yes, he’d done it to protect her. He was, by his admission, a crooked cop. And waves spread from people like that, lapping against anyone nearby. She, an ambitious, rising star on the force, might have been tainted if they’d remained in contact.

So? she asked herself. Walk right back inside and close the door?

She said, “I have to think about it.”

“That’s all I’m asking.”

She steadied herself for an embrace, or a kiss, prepared to resist, but all Nick did was stick his hand out and shake hers, as if they were business associates who’d just concluded a successful real estate deal. “Wish Rose the best... if you want to tell her it was me here.”

He turned and strode away.

She watched him go. After half a block, he looked back at her fast, and on his face was that boyish smile she remembered so clearly from so many years ago. A nod, then he was gone.

Chapter 14

Attorney Evers Whitmore logged onto one of Rhyme’s computers and loaded Skype.

He typed in an account and Skype’s electronic da-da-da tone of dialing filled the room. Rhyme moved closer so that both he and Whitmore were visible to the callee, as they could see in the bottom right-hand corner of the monitor.

“Juliette?” Rhyme asked. “Do you want to move closer?” She was out of view of the webcam.

“No,” she said. And remained where she was.

A moment later an image fluttered onto the screen. A balding man in a white shirt with rolled-up sleeves was glancing at some papers in front of him. The desk he sat behind was paved with stacks of documents.

He looked up at the webcam. “You’re Evers Whitmore?”

“That’s right. Attorney Holbrook?”

“Yes.”

“Now, I will tell you that also present are Lincoln Rhyme and to my right, though not visible, Juliette Archer, who are consultants working with me.”

Cooper and Thom were absent. Whitmore had thought it best an NYPD detective and a civilian with no connection to the case might hamper the conversation that was about to happen.

“Accordingly, I am invoking the work-product doctrine. Are you willing to accept that they are cloaked by the attorney-client privilege as well?”

Holbrook looked up, handed a document to someone who had fire-engine-red nails and then returned to the lens of the camera. “Sorry. What?”

Whitmore repeated his request.

“Yeah, sure,” Holbrook said. There was a tone of “Whatever” in his voice. Even though he was chief general counsel of Midwest Conveyance, maker of the deadly escalator, the man seemed far from either defensive or aggressive. Distracted mostly. And Rhyme knew why.

The attorney concentrated on his webcam once more. “Been expecting to hear from somebody who represented Greg Frommer and his family. You’re the attorney of record?”

“I am.”

“I’ve heard about you,” Holbrook said. “Your reputation, of course. Trans Europe Airlines, B and H Pharmaceuticals. You brought them to their knees.”

Whitmore gave no response. “Now, Attorney Holbrook...”

“Damien’s fine.”

Good luck with that, Rhyme thought.

Whitmore: “Yes. You understand why I’m calling?”

“The press conference was a half hour ago. I assumed the attorney representing Frommer’s family would hear. And therefore I’d hear.” Holbrook turned to the side and said, “I’ll be right there. A few minutes. Get them some coffee.” Back to the camera. “Do you have any theories of defect?”

“We do.”

Holbrook offered, “Design flaw, no interlock to shut off the motor if the access panel opened accidentally?”

Whitmore glanced toward Rhyme then returned to the webcam. “I’m not prepared to discuss our theories.”

“Well, that’s a good one. And I’ll go one further. The spring-loaded access panel.” The lawyer actually chuckled. “Our design department added that because of workers’ comp claims from maintenance people who claimed lifting the door pulled out their backs. Probably spurious... But we went with a spring anyway. And you’ll probably find out, after the accident, our safety team went to every location that had escalators with spring-loaded access panels installed and detached the springs — before the city inspection. I know, sir, this’s a case made in heaven for your client. You could have introduced post-accident modification to show admission of defect on our part. Under other circumstances we would’ve written a check, and a big one. Mrs. Frommer’s going through a rough time, I’m sure. And my heart goes out to her. But, well, you did hear the news. I’m sorry.”

“My paralegal hasn’t gotten to bankruptcy court yet. We haven’t read the filings.”

“It’s Chapter Seven. Full liquidation. We’ve been in trouble for a while. Chinese competitors. Germans too. Way of the world. The accident, your client’s husband, well, that accelerated our decision, sure. But our bankruptcy was going to happen in the next month or the month after anyway.”

Whitmore said to Archer and Rhyme, “In filing for bankruptcy Midwest is protected by an automatic stay. That means we can’t sue unless we go to court and have the stay lifted.” Back to the screen and Holbrook. “I’m hoping for some courtesy information here.”

Holbrook shrugged. “I’m not going to throw up walls if I don’t have to. What do you need to know?”

“Who’s your insurer?”

“Sorry. Don’t have one. We’re self-insured.”

Whitmore’s face might have registered dismay at this. Rhyme couldn’t tell.

The in-house counsel continued, “And I have to tell you, there’s nothing left, asset-wise. We’ve got probably a million in receivables and forty million in hard assets. Zero cash. Zero stock. Versus nine hundred million debt, most of it secured. Even if you get the bankruptcy stay lifted and the judge agrees you can file the suit and you win — which, I’m sure you know, the receiver’ll fight tooth and nail — you’ll walk away with a judgment that won’t even cover your photocopy costs, sir. And that’d be two or three years from now.”

Whitmore asked, “Who would have maintained the escalator?”

“I’m afraid to say — for your sake — we did. Our parts and service division. No outside maintenance company for you to bring an action against.”

“Was the mall involved at all with the unit?”

“No. Other than superficial cleaning. And as to the contractors who installed the units, I can tell you our safety team inspected every unit carefully and signed off on them. It all falls on our shoulders... Look, sir, I truly am sorry for your client. But there’s nothing here for you. We’re gone. I’ve worked for Midwest Conveyance my whole life. I was one of the founders. I rode the company down to the end. I’m broke.”

But you and your loved ones are alive, Rhyme thought. He asked, “Why do you think the door opened?”

The lawyer shrugged. “Take ten thousand car axles. Why do they work fine, except one, which cracks at eighty miles an hour? Why are twenty tons of lettuce perfectly harmless but a few heads from the same field are contaminated with E. coli? In our escalator? Who knows? Something mechanical about the latch, most likely. Maybe the bracket on the access panel was mounted with a screw made in China of substandard steel. Maybe the retracting pin missed tolerance but wasn’t rejected by the quality-control computer because of a software hiccup. Could be a thousand things. Fact is, the world’s not perfect. You know, sometimes I’m amazed that things we buy and put in our homes and stake our lives on work as well as they do.” A pallid smile. “Now our outside counsel’s arrived. I have to meet with them. It’s no consolation, sir, but there are a lot of people here who will have many a sleepless night about Greg Frommer.”

The screen went dark.

Archer snapped, “Was that bullshit?”

“No. It’s an accurate statement of the law.”

“There’s nothing we can do?”

The lawyer, completely unemotional, was jotting notes in his microscopic writing, all block letters, Rhyme noted. “I’ll check the filings and court documents but he’s not going to lie to us about confirmable information at hand. Under bankruptcy law a judge will sometimes lift a stay if there’s an outside insurance company — one that could pay a liability claim like ours. Being self-insured, though, no stay. The company’s immune. Judgment-proof.”

“He said we could try other defendants,” Archer said.

Rhyme pointed out, “Though he wasn’t very damn encouraging about that.”

Whitmore said, “I’ll keep looking but” — a nod at the blank screen — “Mr. Holbrook had every incentive to try to blame someone else, for his company’s reputation, if nothing else. He didn’t see a likely cause of action, and I don’t either. This is a classic product liability situation, and we’re helpless to pursue it. I’ll go see Mrs. Frommer and give her the news in person.” The lawyer rose. Fixed both buttons on his suit jacket. “Mr. Rhyme, please submit a bill for your hours. I’ll pay that myself. I thank you all for your time and effort. It was almost a fruitful experience.”

Sachs, here’s the thing. I’m out of the business. Well, the criminal business.

After dropping her mother back at the town house, following her doctor’s appointment, Sachs had driven to Manhattan and was alone in their war room at One PP, her task to make sense of the evidence in the Unsub 40 case and to prod the new officer at the Crime Scene Unit (an older woman technician who was not as good as Mel Cooper) to complete the analysis she needed: the examination of the White Castle napkins that might contain their perp’s friction ridges and additional DNA, and to identify the sawdust and varnish from the earlier scenes.

Well, that was her ostensible mission.

In fact, she was staring out the window, recalling Rhyme’s words to her of a month ago.

I’m out of the business...

She’d argued with him, tried to pry open the clamshell of his determination. But he’d been adamant, irritatingly deaf to the bullet points of her side of the debate.

“Everything comes to an end,” her father had told her one crisp, glary Saturday afternoon as he took a breather from their joint project of installing a rebuilt carburetor in their Camaro. “It’s the way of the world and it’s better to accept that. Dignify, don’t demean.” Herman Sachs was, at the time, on a leave of absence from the NYPD, undergoing a series of cancer treatments. Sachs accepted almost everything the calm, shrewd and humorous man had taught and told her, but she furiously declined to buy either of those points — the ending and the acceptance — despite the fact that he proved himself right, at least as to the first, by dying six weeks later.

Forget it. Forget Lincoln.

You’ve got work to do. Staring at the evidence charts.

From what was found at the scenes, Sachs and Pulaski had concluded Unsub 40 might be a tradesman. But even if so, did workers carry around tools late at night, especially a rare one like the ball-peen hammer he’d used to kill Todd Williams? And if a tool like that had nothing to do with his job, his carrying it suggested design — a perp on the hunt for a victim. But why? What the hell are you up to, Mr. Forty? How much money could Todd Williams’ve had on him to justify killing? You didn’t use any of his credit or debit cards, or sell them — they would have shown up by now. Stolen plastic has a very short shelf life. You didn’t try to suck his bank account dry. Williams had been straight, for the most part, but she’d learned from friends of a few gay encounters. There was a rough-trade club about three blocks from the construction site where he was killed, yet extensive canvassing of the place uncovered no evidence that Williams had ever been there.

Any other reasons for the unsub to kill you?

Williams had been a former programmer by profession and now he wrote about social issues on his blog but there was nothing controversial that she’d seen. Environment, privacy. Nothing anyone could take offense at. And as for the bomb making and poisoning theories — related to terrorism possibly — the evidence was sketchy and her instinct said those were dead ends.

Maybe the motive was that which was the least helpful to investigators: Williams had witnessed some other crime and the lean perp — maybe a hit man, maybe a professional burglar — had seen him and clipped him. And yet... and yet...

Come on, Rhyme...

She needed somebody to brainstorm with. But it can’t be you now, can it?

Out of the business...

And what was up with Ron Pulaski? He’d been acting particularly odd. He’d questioned the wisdom of Rhyme’s retirement, firmly calling his boss on the decision. (“It’s crazy!” To which he received back: “I’ve decided, Rookie. Why bring it up for the thousandth time. Quit. Asking.”)

Was this his distraction? Though maybe Ron’s mood had nothing to do with Rhyme. She again considered illness in the family. Or the officer himself. His head injury. Then too: He was a husband and father, trying to make ends meet on a patrolman’s salary. God bless...

Her phone buzzed. She looked down and felt a prickle along her scalp.

Nick.

Sachs didn’t hit answer. She closed her eyes.

After the humming stopped, she glanced at the phone. He’d left no message.

What to do, what to do?

In days past, Sachs might have wandered down to the file room at One PP or, depending on where the People of the State of New York v. Nicholas J. Carelli files were stored, driven to the archives in New Jersey. In either case she might have dawdled outside the room downstairs — or spent the drive — pondering Nick’s request. Yes or no?

Now, with every case file for the past twenty-five years scanned and sitting in a big fat database somewhere, this debate occurred here, at her desk, as she looked over a sliver of vessel-filled New York Harbor. Leaning back in lazy posture, staring at the screen.

The propriety of downloading the file? No objections she could see. Sachs was an active-duty officer, so she had legitimate access to all files and there were no regulations about sharing them with civilians in closed cases. And if Nick found something that proved his innocence, he could come to her and she could tell the brass she’d decided to look into the matter on her own initiative. And then — this was non-negotiable in her heart — hand the matter over to an Internal Affairs investigator and step away entirely.

No, legality wasn’t really the issue. Some endeavors, of course, could be completely legal yet stunningly bad ideas.

Nick’s other options would be to find a lawyer to reopen the case and petition the court for review. Though, Sachs had to admit, her handing him the file would make his quest a thousand times easier.

Yet why had it fallen to her to help him?

Their years together — not so many in number but intense, consuming — flashed past. She couldn’t deny that the memories were tugging her in the direction of doing what he’d asked of her. But there was a broader issue. Even if she hadn’t known him, his story was compelling. Earlier this evening she’d looked up Vincent Delgado. Unlike high-level organized crime figures, who were essentially businessmen, Delgado was a megalomaniac, probably borderline psychotic. Vicious, prone to torture. He would have killed Donnie Carelli without blinking an eye, might even have threatened to kill their mother, Harriet, if Nick didn’t roll over to the Gowanus ’jacking. Yes, if everything he said was true, he was guilty of obstructing justice, though the statute of limitations would have run out a long time ago. So he was in all ways innocent.

Yes, no?

What bad could come of it?

Sachs turned from the computer to the evidence boards on the Unsub 40 case.

And what would you say, Rhyme, if you were here? What insights?

But you’re not here. You’re hanging with the ambulance chasers.

Then her eyes slipped to the unblinking cursor.

Yes, no?

What bad could come of it? she asked herself again.

Sachs removed her hands from the keyboard, closed her eyes and leaned back in the chair once more.

Chapter 15

Juliette Archer and Lincoln Rhyme were alone in the parlor.

The notes from the now-defunct Frommer v. Midwest Conveyance — the hard copies of the pictures Sachs and Cooper had snapped, the printouts from Archer’s research — sat in ordered rows. Even in defeat Mel Cooper was as organized as an operating room nurse.

Earlier today, upon hearing that the case was over, Rhyme indulged himself with an encouraging thought: that he was relieved of the burden of mentoring his student. Yet now he wasn’t as buoyed by that idea as he initially was. He found himself saying to her, “There are a few things you could help with, if you’re interested, a couple of other projects I’m working on. Not as intriguing as a case. Research. Esoteric elements of forensics. Academia. But still.”

She maneuvered her chair to face him and her countenance suggested she was surprised. “You didn’t think I was going to leave, did you?”

“No. I was just saying.” An expression he detested when coming from someone else’s lips and he liked it no more now that he’d uttered it.

“Or you were hoping?” Her smile was coy.

“Your presence was helpful.”

His highest compliment, though she wouldn’t know that.

“It’s unfair what happened. No money, no recourse for Sandy Frommer.”

Rhyme said, “But that’s your situation.” A nod at the wheelchair. Because her disability stemmed from the tumor, not an accident, she had no one to recover settlement money from. “I was lucky. I got a large settlement from the construction company that built the scaffolding the pipe fell from.”

“Pipe? Is that what happened?”

He laughed. “I was playing rookie. At the time I was head of the Crime Scene Unit but I couldn’t keep from searching a scene myself. A killer was murdering police officers. I had to get down in the site and dig for evidence. I was sure I could find the clue that would lead to him, and no one else could. A good example of the adage: One’s character is one’s fate.”

“Heraclitus,” she said, her eyes amused. “They’d be so proud, the good sisters of Immaculata, my remembering something they taught me. Of course, fate sometimes has nothing to do with who you are and what you do. Two assassination attempts on Hitler. They both were perfectly planned and they both failed. There’s fate for you. No design, no justice. Sometimes you get the golden apple. Sometimes you’re screwed. Either way...”

“...you cope.”

Archer nodded.

“Something I’ve been wondering.”

“Yes, it’s true,” Rhyme announced in a bold voice. “ ‘A ninhydrin solution can indeed be prepared in a mixture of non-polar solvents. The exhibit is immersed in the working solution and allowed to develop in dark, humid conditions for two to three days, avoiding high temperatures.’ That’s a quotation from the Department of Justice’s fingerprint manual. I tested it. They’re accurate.”

She fell silent as she looked around the lab, congested with equipment and tools and instruments. Finally: “You’re avoiding the question that’s coming, aren’t you?”

“Why I quit working for the police.”

Archer smiled. “Answer or not. Just curious.”

He gestured with his working hand toward one of the whiteboards in the far corner of the room, snubbing them with their backs. He said, “That was a case about a month ago. There’s a notation at the bottom of the board. Suspect deceased. Prosecution terminated.”

“That’s why you quit?”

“Yes.”

“So you made a mistake and somebody died.”

Inflection is everything. Archer’s comment ended in a lazy question mark; she might have been asking legitimately if this was the case. Or she might have been dismissing what happened and chiding him for backing away from a profession in which death was a natural part of the process: A human’s ceasing to exist is, of course, the prime mover of a homicide case. A corollary is the possible death of the suspect during apprehension... or, occasionally, a lethal injection gurney.

But Rhyme gave a shallow laugh. “No. In fact, the opposite happened.”

“Opposite?”

He adjusted the chair slightly. They were now facing each other. “I didn’t make a mistake at all. I was one hundred percent accurate.” He sipped from the tumbler of Glenmorangie that Thom had poured ten minutes before. He nodded toward the liquor and then turned to Archer but again she declined a beverage. He continued, “The suspect — a businessman named Charles Baxter... You ever hear of him?”

“No.”

“The case was in the news. Baxter defrauded a few rich folks out of about ten million that, frankly, they would hardly’ve noticed. It’s all about the decimal point, of course. Who really cared? But that’s not the prosecutor’s — or my — call. Baxter broke the law and the assistant district attorney brought the case, got me on board to help find the cash and analyze the physical evidence — handwriting, ink, GPS logs that let us follow him to banks, trace evidence from where the meetings took place, false identity documents, soil from where money was buried. It was easy to run. I found plenty of admissible evidence to support grand theft, wire fraud, a few other counts. The ADA was happy. The perp was looking at three to five years, soft time.

“But there were some questions about the evidence that I didn’t find the answers to. Eating at me. I kept analyzing, getting more and more evidence. The prosecutor said don’t bother; she had all she needed for the conviction she was after. But I couldn’t stop.

“I found a very small amount of lubricant in his personal effects, oil that’s used almost exclusively in firearms. And some gunshot residue. And several different kinds of trace that led to a particular location in Long Island City. There was a big self-storage facility in the neighborhood. The detective I was working with found that Baxter had a unit there. Baxter didn’t tell us about it because there was nothing there that had to do with the financial fraud, just personal things. But we got a warrant and found an unregistered handgun. That moved the charge up to a different class of felony and, even though the ADA didn’t want to pursue it — Baxter had no history of violence — she didn’t have any choice. Firearms possession carries a mandatory sentence in New York. DAs have to prosecute it.”

Archer said, “He killed himself. Facing that.”

“No. He went to the violent felons’ wing on Rikers Island, got into a fight and was killed by another prisoner.”

The facts sat between them, in silence, for a moment.

“You did everything right,” Archer said, her voice analytical, not softened to convey reassurance.

“Too right,” Rhyme said.

“But the gun? He shouldn’t have had it.”

“Well, yes and no. True, it was unregistered so it technically fell within the law. But it was his father’s from Vietnam. He’d never shot it, he claimed. Didn’t even know he still had it. It was just stored away with a bunch of memorabilia from the sixties. The gun oil I’d found he said he probably picked up at a sporting goods store buying a present for his son a week before. The gunshot residue could have been transferred from the cash. The same with the drugs. Half the twenties in the New York metro area have traces of cocaine, meth and heroin on them and a lot also have GSR. Gunshot residue. He never tested positive for any controlled substances and he’d never been arrested on any drug charges. Never been arrested before at all.” Rhyme offered what he knew was a rare smile. “Gets worse. One of the reasons for the fraud — his daughter needed a bone marrow transplant.”

“Ah. I’m sorry. But... You were a cop. Isn’t that the cost of doing business?”

Exactly Amelia Sachs’s argument. She might have used those very words. Rhyme couldn’t remember.

“It is. And am I traumatized and lying — well, sitting — in a therapist’s office? No. But there comes a time when you get off the carousel. Everything comes to an end.”

“You needed to find the solution.”

“Had to have it.”

“I understand that, Lincoln. Epidemiology’s the same. There’s always a question — what’s the virus, where’s it going to hit next, how do you inoculate, who’s susceptible? — and I always had to find the answer.” She’d loved the field of epidemiology, she’d told him when first asking about being his intern. But she could hardly continue to be a field agent. And the office work in that endeavor was far too uniform and boring to hold her attention. Crime scene, even in the lab, she reasoned, would keep her engaged. As with Rhyme, boredom was a demon to Juliette Archer.

She continued, “I got dengue fever once. Pretty serious. I had to find out how the mosquitoes were infecting people in Maine, of all places. You know dengue’s a tropical disease.”

“Don’t know much about it.”

“How on earth could people in New England get dengue? I searched for months. Finally found the answer: a rain forest exhibit in a zoo. I traced the victims back to visits to the place. And, wouldn’t you know, I got bit while I was there.”

Character is fate...

Archer continued, “It’s a compulsion. You had to search the crime scene where you were injured and find out the answer to the gun oil and cocaine. I had to find those goddamn mosquitoes. An unanswered riddle is the worst thing in the world for me.” Her striking blue eyes lit up again. “I love riddles. You?”

“Games? Or life?”

“Games.”

“No. I don’t do that.”

“I’ve found they help you expand your thinking. I collect them. Want to try?”

“That’s all right.” Meaning absolutely not. His eyes were on the evidence boards whose backs were to them. Another sip of whisky.

Archer nonetheless said, “Okay. Two sons and two fathers go fishing. Each one catches a fish. They return from the trip with only three fish, though. How can that be?”

“I don’t know. Really, I—”

“Come on. Try.” She repeated it.

Rhyme grimaced but he found himself thinking: One got away? They ate one for lunch? One fish ate another?

Archer was smiling. “The thing about riddles is that you never need more information than you’re given. No fish sandwiches, no escapes.”

He shrugged. “Give up.”

“You’re not trying very hard. All right, the answer?”

“Sure.”

“The fishing party included a grandfather, his son and grandson. Two fathers, two sons, but only three people.”

Rhyme barked an involuntary laugh. Clever. He liked it.

“As soon as you got the idea of four people in your head, it’s almost impossible to dislodge it, right? Remember: The answers to riddles are always simple — given the right mind-set.”

The doorbell hummed. Rhyme looked at the video monitor. Archer’s brother, Randy. Rhyme was mildly disappointed she’d be leaving. Thom went to answer the door.

She said, “One more.”

“All right.”

“What one thing do you find at the beginning of eternity and at the end of time and space?”

“Matter.”

“No.”

“Black hole.”

“No.”

“Wormhole.”

“You’re guessing. Do you even know what a wormhole is?” she asked.

He did. But he hadn’t really thought that was the answer.

Simple...

“Give up?”

“No. I’m going to keep working at it.”

Thom appeared a moment later with Archer’s brother. They spoke for a few minutes, polite but pointless conversation. Then brief goodbyes and brother and sister headed out of the arched doorway of the parlor. Halfway through Archer stopped. She wheeled around. “Just curious about one thing, Lincoln.”

“What’s that?”

“Baxter. Did he have a big house or apartment?”

What was this about? He thought back to the case. “I suppose he did. Worth over a million. Nowadays, how much big does that buy you? Why do you ask?”

“Just wondering why he needed a storage unit in Long Island City — where the gun was found. You’d think he could store things in his house. Or at least in a storage place closer to home. Well, just a thought. Good night now.”

“Night,” he said.

“And don’t forget our riddle: eternity and time and space.”

She wheeled from sight.

Computers saved my life.

In several ways. In high school, I could excel at something not sports (tall is good for basketball but skinny bean isn’t). Computer club. Math club. Gaming. Role-playing online — I could be whoever I wanted to. Appear however I wanted to appear, thank you, avatars and Photoshop.

And now: Computers make my career possible. True, I don’t really look a lot different from many people on the street. But just some different can be enough. People say they like different but they don’t really — unless it’s to look at and laugh at and boost themselves up. So, running a business online, in the safety of my Chelsea womb, is perfect for me. I don’t have to see people, talk to them in person, endure the gawking, even if it’s with a smile on their faces.

And I make a tidy living to boot.

I’m now sitting at — yes — my computer, smarting from the loss of my White Castle. At the kitchen table, I type some more. Read the results of my search. Type another request. Zip, zip, I get more answers. I like the sound the keys make. Satisfying. I’ve tried to describe it. Not a typewriter, not a light switch. Closest I can come is the sound of fat raindrops on a taut camping tent. Peter and I went camping a half-dozen times, twice with our parents (not as much fun then; father listened to a game, mother smoked and turned magazine pages). Peter and I had fun, though, especially in the rain. I didn’t have to be embarrassed going swimming. The girls, you know. And the boys in good shape.

Tap, tap, tap.

Funny how time seems to work to your advantage. I heard some people say, oh, wish I’d been born in this time or that time. Romans, Queen Victoria, the ’30s, the ’60s. But I’m lucky for the here and now. Microsoft, Apple, HTML, Wi-Fi, all the rest of it. I can sit in my room and put bread on my table and a woman in bed occasionally and a bone-cracking hammer in my hand. I can outfit the Toy Room with everything I need for my satisfaction.

Thank you, computers. Love your raindrop keyboards.

More typing.

So. Computers saved my life by giving me a business of my own, safe from the Shoppers out there.

And they’ll save my life now.

Because I’m learning all I can about Red, Amelia Sachs, detective third-grade with the New York City Police Department.

I almost solved the problem of her earlier. Almost cracked her skull to splinters. I was following her near the White Castle, hand in my backpack, on the lovely hammer handle, smooth as a girl’s ankle. Moving close. When some other man showed up, who knew her. A cop, I had a feeling, one who worked for her, it seemed. Little white boy, skinny as me, okay, not quite, and shorter but he looked like trouble. He would have a gun and radio, of course.

I settled for getting Red’s license plate from that sexy car of hers.

All the helpful information I’m learning about her is pretty neat. Daughter of a cop, partner of a cop — well, former cop. Lincoln Rhyme, a famous guy. Disabled, which is what they call it, I’ve learned. In a wheelchair. So we have something in common. I’m not disabled exactly. But people look at me the way they look at him, I imagine.

Typing and typing hard. My fingers are long and big, my hands are strong. I break keyboards once every six months or more. And that’s not even when I’m angry.

Type, read, jot notes.

More and more about Red. Cases she’s closed. Shooting competitions she’s won (I’m keeping that in mind, believe me).

Now I am growing angry... Yes, you can buy White Castle burgers at grocery stores. I will do that. But it’s not the same as going into the place, the tile, the smell of grease and onions. I remember going to one near where we grew up. A cousin, Lindy, was visiting from Seattle. Middle schooler, like me. I’d never been out with girl before and I pretended she wasn’t a relative and I imagined kissing her and her kissing me. Went to lunch at White Castle. Gave her a present, for her shiny blond hair, to keep it dry: a clear plastic rain scarf, all folded up tight like a road map in a little pouch, deep blue and embroidered in a Chinese design. Lindy laughed. Kissed my cheek.

A good day.

That was White Castle to me. And Red has taken it away.

Mad, mad...

I come to a decision. But then: It’s not a decision if you don’t decide. I have no choice in the matter. As if on cue, the door buzzer blares. I jump at the sound. Save the file on the computer, slip the hard copies away. I click the intercom.

“Vernon, it’s me?” Alicia says/asks.

“Come on up.”

“You’re sure it’s okay?”

My heart is slamming, at the prospected of what’s coming. For some reason I glance back at the Toy Room door. I say into the intercom box, “Yes.”

Two minutes, here she is, outside the door. I check the camera. She’s alone (not brought here at gunpoint by Red, which I actually imagine happening). I let her in and close and lock the door. I think involuntarily of a stone closing onto a crypt.

No turning back.

“Are you hungry?” I ask.

“Not really.”

I was, not any longer. Considering what’s about to happen.

I stat to reach for her jacket, then remember, and let her hang it up. Tonight she’s in her thick schoolteacher blouse, high neck. She looks at the darting fish.

Red and black and silver.

The question is a knob, throbbing prominently in my brain, right where I would crack the bone of someone I wanted to kill.

And I think: Do I really want to do this?

My anger at Red oozes out to my skin and burns.

Yes, I do.

“What?” Alicia asks, looking at me with that wariness in her eyes. Must have said the word aloud.

“Come with me.”

“Uhm. Are you all right, Vernon?”

“Fine,” I whisper. “This way.”

We walk to the door of the Toy Room. She looks at the complicated lock. I know she’s seen it. And is curious. What would he want to hide? she’d be wondering. What’s in the den, the lair, the crypt? Of course she doesn’t say a word.

“Close your eyes.”

A hesitation now.

I ask, “Do you trust me?”

She doesn’t. But what can she do? She closes her eyes. I grip her hand. Mine is trembling. She hesitates and then grips back. Sweat mixes.

Then I’m guiding her through the door, the halogens shooting off the steel blades and blinding me. Not her. True to her word, Alicia keeps her eyes closed.

Lincoln Rhyme, lying in bed, near midnight, hoping for sleep.

He’d spent the last hour reflecting on Frommer v. Midwest Conveyance. Whitmore had called and in his somber, well, dull, voice reported that he’d discovered no other potential defendants. Attorney Holbrook was right. The cleaning crews could not possibly have done anything to cause the access panel to open, and the attorney’s private eye had tracked down the crew that had dismantled the escalator for the Department of Investigations. The worker had confirmed that the door covering the access panel switch had indeed been closed and locked, confirming what Sachs had learned: that no one could, accidentally or on purpose, have opened the panel and caused the accident.

So the case was officially dead.

Now Rhyme’s thoughts eased to Amelia Sachs.

He was particularly aware of her absence tonight. He could not, of course, feel much of her body beside him when she was here, but he found comfort in her regular breathing, the layered smells of shampoo and soap (she was not a perfumista). Now he sensed an edge to the silence in the room, somehow accentuated by the aroma of inanimate cleansers and furniture polish and paper from the rows of books against the wall nearby.

Thinking back to their harsh words earlier, his and Sachs’s.

They had always argued. But this had been different. He could tell from her tone. Yet he didn’t understand why. Cooper was his preferred tech, yes, and truly gifted. But the New York Police Department Crime Scene Unit was filled with brilliant evidence collection technicians and analysts, with expertise in hundreds of fields, from handwriting to ballistics to chemistry to remains reconstruction... She could have had any one of them. And, hell, Sachs herself was an expert at forensic analysis. She might need somebody to man the gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer or scanning electron microscope, but Rhyme himself didn’t run those. He left that to the technical people.

Maybe there was something else on her mind. Her mother, he supposed. Rose’s operation would be weighing on her. A triple heart bypass in an elderly woman? The medical world was nothing short of miraculous, of course. But considering the massively complex and vulnerable machine within our skin, well, you couldn’t help but think every one of our hours was borrowed.

Since Frommer v. Midwest Conveyance no longer existed, tomorrow Mel Cooper would be back in the CSU fold. And she could use him to her heart’s content.

Sleep crowded in, and Rhyme now found himself thinking of Juliette Archer, wondering about her life in the future. She seemed to have what it took to be a solid forensic scientist but at the moment his musings were about something else: her coping with disability. She still had not fully accepted her condition. She would have a long and dark way to go before she beat it. If, in fact, she chose to do so. Rhyme recalled his own early battle, which culminated in a fierce debate about assisted suicide. He’d faced that choice and chosen to remain among the living. Archer was nowhere near that confrontation yet.

How would she choose?

And what, Rhyme wondered, would he think about her decision? Would he support it or argue against finality?

But any debate within her was years off; most likely he wouldn’t even know her then. These ruminations, grim though they were, had the effect of lulling him to sleep.

It was perhaps ten minutes later that he started awake, his head rising as he heard, in his thoughts, Archer’s low, alto voice. What one thing do we find at the beginning of eternity and the end of time and space?

Rhyme laughed out loud.

The letter “e.”