The Steel Kiss

Chapter 39

Eight a.m.

Amelia Sachs yawned. She was tired, and her head was throbbing. She’d had, to put it mildly, a restless night. No. Turbulent.

She had left Nick’s apartment an hour before and was now in the war room at One PP, where for the second time in a few days, she was reviewing the file of a case that was not on her docket.

First, it had been Nick’s.

And now this, a much smaller file, unrelated to his situation.

The hour was early but she’d read it three times already since she’d downloaded it from the archives not long ago. Looking for some positive nuggets that might explain what she suspected. Finding none.

She looked out the window.

Back to the file, which wasn’t cooperating in the least.

No gold nuggets. No salvation.

Goddamn it.

A figure appeared in the doorway.

“Got your message,” Ron Pulaski said. “Got down here as soon as I could.”

“Ron.”

Pulaski walked inside. “Empty. Different.” He was glancing around the war room. The evidence charts were in the corner but they were incomplete, now that the two cases — Sachs’s and Rhyme’s — were in fact just one and this facility was no longer part of the Unsub 40 operation.

Pulaski looked uneasy. Sometimes he was uncertain — mostly because of the head injury. It had robbed him of confidence and, yes, a little cognitive skill, which he more than made up for in persistence and street instinct. After all, the solutions to most crimes were pretty obvious; police work was built on sweat more than Holmesian deduction. But today? Sachs knew what the issue was.

“Sit down, Ron.”

“Sure, Amelia.” He gazed at the file open on the table in front of her. He sat.

She turned the folder around and pushed it forward.

“What’s this?” the young blond officer asked.

“Read it. The last paragraph.”

He scanned the words. “Oh.”

She said, “The Gutiérrez case was closed six months ago. Because Enrico Gutiérrez died of a drug overdose. If you’re going to lie, Ron, couldn’t you at least have checked the facts?”

The phone woke him.

Humming, not ringing or trilling or playing music.

Just humming as it sat on his JCPenney bedside table. The dream helped, having kept him near waking; inside, he had dreams about being out; outside he dreamed about his cell. So sleep was watchful, busy as water spiraling down a drain.

“Hello? Uhm, hello?”

“Yes, hi. Is this Nick?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“I didn’t wake you, did I?”

“Who’s this?”

“Vito. Vittorio Gera. The restaurant.”

“Oh, sure.”

Nick swung his feet around, sat up. Rubbed his eyes.

“I wake you?” Gera asked again.

“Yeah, you did. But that’s okay. I’ve gotta get up anyway.”

“Ha, honest. Most people woulda said no. But you can always tell, right? They sound groggy.”

“Do I sound groggy?”

“Sort of. Listen, speaking of, you know, being honest. I’ll get right to it, Nick. I’m not going to sell the restaurant to you.”

“You had a better offer? I can work on that. What’re we talking?”

“It’s not the money, Nick. I just don’t want to sell to you. I’m sorry.”

“The record?”

“What?”

“Me being in jail.”

Gera sighed. “Yeah, the record. I know you were saying you were innocent. And, you know, I believe that. You don’t seem like a crook. But still word’ll get out. You know how that works. Even rumors, even they’re lies. You know.”

“I do, Vito. Okay. If that’s the way it is. Hey, you had the balls to call me yourself. It wasn’t your lawyer calling my lawyer. A lotta people would’ve handled it that way. Appreciate it.”

“You’re an okay guy, Nick. I know things’ll work out for you. I got a feeling.”

“Sure. Hey, Vito?”

“Yeah?”

“Does this mean I can ask your daughter out?”

A pause.

Nick laughed. “I’m messing with you, Vito. Oh, and by the way, that take-out order the other day? My friends said it was the best lasagna they’d ever had.”

A pause. A guilty pause, probably. “You’re okay, Nick. You’ll do all right. Take care.”

They disconnected.

Hell.

Sighing, Nick rose and walked stiffly to his dresser, on which his pants lay in a pile. He tugged them on, swapped yesterday’s T-shirt for a new one and brushed his hair. More or less.

Amelia Sachs had left the apartment an hour before, the footsteps and closing door waking him briefly.

He walked into the living room, thoughts of her prominent in his mind as he made a pot of coffee, poured a cup and sat at the kitchen table to wait for it to cool. But then, looking over the files she’d given him, images of Amelia, disappointment about the failed restaurant deal were replaced by memories of his days as a cop.

Now, like back then, something clicked in his mind when he was starting an investigation. Like turning on a switch, snap, he was in a different mode. Suspicious, for one thing. Sifting, picking out what could be believed and letting the rest sprinkle away. This wasn’t hard for Nick Carelli.

And, more important, making leaps. His mind making those weird leaps. That’s what nailed the perps.

“You told me you drove out to Suffolk.”

“Right, Detective Carelli. That’s where I was. Seeing my friend. He vouched for me. You talked to him.”

“It’s a hundred and ten miles round trip.”

“So?”

“Your gauge when I stopped you? Showed nearly full.”

“So again. Here’s where I say, I refilled.”

“You drive a turbo diesel. Here’s where I say there’s no diesel along the route you say you took.”

“Oh. Ah. I wanna talk to my lawyer.”

Making that leap — calling the stations and checking for diesel pumps — was just something that occurred to him naturally.

Detective then, detective now.

He pulled the list of J names toward him, the people from Flannigan’s that Von had said were regulars — one of whom, Nick prayed, could help him turn his life around.

Jack Battaglia, Queens Boulevard Auto and Repair

Joe Kelly, Havasham General Contracting, Manhattan

JJ Steptoe

Jon Perone, J&K Financial, Queens

Elton Jenkins

Jackie Carter, You Stor It Self Storage, Queens

Mike Johnson, Emerson Consulting, Queens

Jeffrey Dommer

Gianni “Jonny” Manetto, Old Country Restaurant Supply, Long Island City

Carter Jepson Jr., Coca-Cola distribution

He’d never heard of any of them. Though he was amused to speculate that one in particular surely had had a tough time growing up, with a name close enough to a serial killer’s for the kids to torment him mercilessly.

The cop mind was firing on all cylinders but that wasn’t enough. He needed input, research. So get to work. Nick went online and began to check out the names. Google and Facebook and LinkedIn. He also logged onto the People Finder site Freddy had told him about. Jesus, there was a lot of information. When he was on the force, it would’ve taken him weeks, not hours, to get all this stuff. And he was astonished too at how much people posted about themselves. One guy, JJ Steptoe, was shown proudly smoking pot in a Facebook picture. A link led to a YouTube video that showed Jepson in the Caribbean, staggering around drunk and falling into a pool. Then climbing out and puking.

As for the wife of “J,” Nanci, no luck there, for any of them.

But maybe Mr. “J” was divorced from Nanci. Or Nanci was a girlfriend. There were probably ways to find out, maybe programs at the NYPD that linked people even if not married or related. If “J” had done time, there might be a record of a Nanci coming to visit him in prison.

But he didn’t have access to anything like that and he sure wasn’t going to ask Amelia to search for him. He was already pushing the limits there.

He skimmed the data he’d downloaded. Nick had been hoping “J” was somebody involved in law enforcement, with a knowledge of the hijacking operations back when he’d been arrested. But none of the men were law enforcement. The next best thing — somebody with underworld ties (even though he knew he’d need to be very, very careful about contacting them). That didn’t pan out either, though. Jenkins had been arrested — misdemeanor and a long time ago. Two others had been the subject of civil investigations — SEC in one case, IRS in the other — but nothing came of these.

Nick sat back and sipped his lukewarm coffee. A glance at the clock. The work had taken three hours. A ton of info but nothing to show for it.

Okay. Think better. Think like a gold shield. Sure, the list could be useless and Stan Von had pulled together enough random names to buy himself an over-breaded chicken Parmesan. But it’s all you got, the lists, so work it. Just like the flimsiest lead on the street, the way you used to do. Turn it to something sweet.

He decided to look more carefully into the businesses the men operated or were employed by; were any of them more likely than others to have a potential connection to hijacking or receiving stolen? Von’s list didn’t have all of their outfits but Nick was able to find most of the others. Transportation and wholesale companies were the heart of hijacking operations but there were none of those. (Battaglia’s operation was used car sales and repair.) Jackie Carter, who owned a franchise of self-storage facilities, seemed like a possibility. And Jon Perone’s J&K Financial Services intrigued him; they might’ve lent money to any number of people involved in shady deals. And Johnson’s consulting business? Who knew what they were up to?

Nick took a long slug of tepid coffee. The cup froze in midair. He set it down and sat forward, staring at the list. He laughed. Oh, man. How did I miss it? How the hell did I miss it?

He read: Jon Perone, J&K Financial, Queens.

Fi NANCI al.

“Nanci” wasn’t a wife or girlfriend. It was from the name of his company. The detective’s faded notes were to blame for his misreading.

Nick was suddenly filled with the thrill he remembered from his days running cases, when you had a breakthrough like this.

Okay, Mr. Perone, who exactly are you? He’d found no suggestion of any criminal activity. Perone seemed to be upstanding, a legit businessman, generous, a giver-back to the community, active in the church. Still, Nick would have to be careful. He couldn’t risk linking his own name with the man’s if Perone were, in fact, involved in any underworld activity. He remembered his promise to Amelia.

If there’s anybody who can help me and there’s any risk, or even it looks like they’re connected, I’ll use, you know, an intermediary to contact them, a friend...

He found his phone and called Freddy Caruthers.

Chapter 40

Ron Pulaski stared at the Gutiérrez file sitting between him and Amelia Sachs.

He fidgeted in the chair across the table from her in their war room.

Hell. Why hadn’t he checked to see if Gutiérrez was still around? There was an answer to that: Mostly because he believed nobody would know or care what he was up to.

Got that one wrong, didn’t I?

Hell.

“Ron. Work with me here. What’s going on?”

“Have you talked to IA?”

“No. Not yet. Of course not.”

But he knew that if she found he’d committed a crime, she’d report him to Internal Affairs in an instant. That was something about Amelia. She’d bend regs. But when you stepped over the razor wire of the New York Penal Code, that was a sin. Unforgivable.

And so he sat back, sighed and told her the truth. “Lincoln shouldn’t quit.”

She blinked, not understanding where this was going.

He could hardly blame her. “He shouldn’t. It’s just wrong.”

“I agree. What does that have to do with anything?”

“Everything. Let me explain. You know what happened. He pushed the Baxter case too far.”

“I know the facts. What—?”

“Let me finish. Please.”

Funny about beauty, Pulaski was thinking. Amelia Sachs was no less beautiful than yesterday but now it was the beauty of ice. He looked past her out the window, unable to stand the beam of her eyes.

“I checked out the Baxter file. I’ve read it a thousand times, been through every word of testimony, every sentence of forensic analysis, all the detectives’ notes. Over and over. I found something that didn’t make sense.” Pulaski sat forward, and despite the fact that his cover was blown and his mission in peril — Amelia by rights should put an end to it immediately — he felt the rush of being on a hunt that wasn’t yet over. “Baxter was a criminal, yes. But he was just a rich man screwing over other rich men. At the end of the day: He was harmless. His gun was a souvenir. He didn’t have bullets in it. The gunshot residue had ambiguous sources.”

“I know all this, Ron.”

“But you don’t know about Oden.”

“Who?”

“Oden. I’m not sure who he is, black, white, age, other than that he’s got some connection with the crews in East New York. There was a reference to him in the notes of one of the detectives that ran the Baxter case. Baxter was tight with Oden. I talked to the detective, and he never followed up on Oden because Baxter was killed, and the case was dropped. The gang unit and Narcotics haven’t heard the name. He’s a mystery man. But I asked on the street and at least two people said they’d heard about him. He’s connected with some new strain of drugs. Called Catch. You ever hear of it?”

She shook her head.

“Maybe he was smuggling it in from Canada or Mexico. Maybe financing. Maybe even fabricating it. I was thinking that might be the reason he was killed. It wasn’t a random prison fight. He was targeted because he knew too much about this stuff. Anyway, I’ve been working undercover... No, not sanctioned, just on my own. I told people I needed this stuff Oden was making. I was claiming my head injury was really bad.” He felt he was blushing. “God’ll get me for that. But I’ve got the scar. People’d believe I needed this stuff, whatever it was.”

“And?”

“My point was to prove to Lincoln that Baxter wasn’t innocent at all. He was working with Oden, financing the fabrication or importing of Catch. That maybe Baxter did use his gun. That people were dying because of the shit he was involved in.” Pulaski shook his head. “And Lincoln would realize that he didn’t screw up so bad — and he’d un-quit.”

“Why—?”

“—didn’t I tell anyone, why make up the story? What would you have said? To give it up, right? An unauthorized undercover op, using my own money to score drugs—”

“To what?”

“Only once. I bought some Oxy. I dumped it in the sewer five minutes later. But I needed to make the buy. I had to build some street cred. I dropped a weapons charge to get some banger to vouch for me. I’m walking line here, Amelia.”

He looked at the Gutiérrez file. Stupid. Thinking: Why didn’t I check it?

“I’m close, I’m really close. I paid two thousand bucks for a lead to this Oden. I’ve got a feeling it’s going to work out.”

“You know what Lincoln would say about feelings.”

“Has he said anything, now he’s helping on Unsub Forty, getting back to work for the NYPD?”

“No. He told me nothing’s changed.” She grimaced. “He’s working with us mostly to make a civil case for Sandy Frommer.”

Pulaski’s own face remained stony. “I wish you hadn’t found out about this, Amelia. But now you know. Only I’m not stopping. I’ll tell you right up front. I’ve got to play this out. I’m not letting him retire without a fight.”

“East New York, that’s where this Oden hangs?”

“And Brownsville and Bed-Stuy.”

“The most dangerous parts of the city.”

“Gramercy Park is just as dangerous if that’s where you get shot.”

She smiled. “I can’t talk you out of this?”

“No.”

“Then I’ll forget all about it on one condition. You don’t agree, I’ll report you and get your ass suspended for a month.”

“What condition?”

“I don’t want you on this alone. You go to meet Oden, I want somebody with you. Anybody you know who can back you up?”

Pulaski thought for a moment. “I’ve got a name in mind.”

Lincoln Rhyme dialed Sachs’s mobile.

No response. He’d called twice already this morning, once early — at 6 a.m. She hadn’t picked up then either.

He was in the lab with Juliette Archer and Mel Cooper. The hour was early but they were already looking over the evidence chart and kicking ideas back and forth like players in a soccer game. A simile Rhyme had used coyly, given the sedentary nature of two of the participants.

Cooper said, “Got something here.”

Rhyme wheeled over to him, his chair nearly colliding with Archer’s.

“Sorry.” He looked at the screen.

“It’s the varnish that Amelia found at one of the earlier scenes. It just came in from the bureau’s database.”

Braden Manufacturing, Rich-Cote.

“Took their sweet time.”

Cooper continued, “Used in fine furniture making. Not for floors or general carpentry. Expensive.”

“Sold in how many stores?” Archer asked.

The appropriate question.

“That’s the bad news,” Mel Cooper offered. “It’s one of the most common varnishes on the market. I make it a hundred twenty retail locations in the area. And they sell it in bulk direct to furniture operations. Big ones and small. And — not to brighten everyone’s day — they also sell it online through a half-dozen resellers.”

“Write it up on the chart, would you?” a discouraged Lincoln Rhyme muttered to Archer.

Silence filled the parlor.

“I, uh.”

“Oh, right,” Rhyme said. “Sorry. Forgot. Mel, write it up.”

The officer added the brand and manufacturer in his fine penmanship.

Archer said, “Even if there’re a lot of outlets I’ll start canvassing stores that sell it. See if anybody recognizes our unsub.”

Rhyme said, “There’s also a chance that the unsub—”

Archer continued, “—works for the store. I’ve thought of that. I figured I’d do some preliminary. Check out the shops and see if they have employee pictures. Their websites, Facebook, Twitter. Maybe softball teams. Charities, blood drives.”

“Good.” Rhyme wheeled again to the charts and examined them. He felt prodded by urgency. Now that they’d confirmed that the People’s Guardian, their Unsub 40, was a serial performer, they had every reason to suspect that he would move again soon. That was often the nature of multiple criminals. Whatever motivated them, sexual pleasure or terrorist statement, lust tended to accelerate the frequency of their kills.

There came the sound of a key in the lock, the door opening and footsteps in the front hall.

Sachs and Pulaski had arrived. Sometimes the kid was in uniform, sometimes street clothes. Today he was dressing down. Jeans and a T-shirt. Sachs looked tired. Her eyes were red and her posture slumped.

“Sorry I’m late.”

“I called.”

“Busy night.” She walked to the charts and looked over them. “Well, where are we?”

Rhyme gave her a synopsis of the varnish, what Archer was doing — canvassing stores for customers who’d bought the substance. Sachs asked, “Anything more on the napkins?”

“Didn’t hear from HQ,” Mel Cooper replied.

She grimaced. “Still missing.”

Rhyme too was scanning the charts.

The answer’s there...

Except that it wasn’t. “There’s something we’re missing,” Rhyme snapped.

A man’s voice boomed from the doorway. “Of course there is, Linc. How many times I have to tell you, you gotta look at the big picture. Do I always need to hold your goddamn hand?”

And with that, rumpled NYPD detective Lon Sellitto limped slowly into the room, assisted by a dapper cane.

Chapter 41

Waiting for his ride, looking at the sheets on the couch of his apartment, Nick Carelli smiled. Not to himself, an actual full-faced smile.

He’d been the gentleman last night, when Amelia was over. They’d sat together on the couch — the dining table was cluttered Operation I’m Innocent paperwork — and eaten the curried chicken and finished the wine, down to the last bit, a good bottle he’d bought knowing she was coming over.

Sitting close to her, yes, but a gentleman. When she said, a bit woozy, that she couldn’t drive home and should call a cab, he’d said, “You want the couch? Or the bed, and I’ll take the couch? Don’t worry. I’m not hitting on you. You just look, well, you look like you needed to fall asleep an hour ago.”

“You don’t mind?”

“Nope.”

“Couch.”

“I’ll even make it up right.”

He hadn’t. But neither had she minded the sloppy job. In five minutes she’d been asleep. Nick had just stared at her beautiful face for two or three minutes. Maybe longer. He didn’t know.

Nick now pulled the sheets off the couch, took them into the bedroom and pitched them into the laundry hamper. He got the pillowcase too, lifted it to his face and smelled it, feeling a thud in his gut at the aroma of her shampoo. He’d been going to launder this too but changed his mind and set it on the dresser.

His mobile beeped with a text. Freddy Caruthers had arrived. He rose, pulled on his jacket and left the apartment. In front of the building he jumped into his friend’s SUV — an Escalade, an older one but well taken care of. He gave Freddy an address in Queens. Freddy nodded and started off. He turned this way and that, a dozen times. He wasn’t using GPS. Freddy seemed to know the area cold. The guy looked tiny behind the big wheel of the Caddie, but less toady this morning, for some reason.

Nick sat back in the crinkly leather and watched the urban vista mellow as they headed east. The ambience morphed from bodega and walk-up to 7-Eleven to bungalows to larger single-families surrounded by plots of lawn grass and gardens. You didn’t have to drive far in Queens to see the change.

Freddy gave him the folder. “Everything I could get on Jon Perone and his company. His contacts. Man is brilliant.”

Nick read. Took some notes. Compared what Freddy’d found to what he himself had pieced together. His heart tapped solidly. Yes, this could be just what he needed.

Salvation. Another smile.

He slipped the papers into his inner jacket pocket and the two men made small talk. Freddy said he was going to take his sister’s kids to the ball game this weekend.

“The Mets. They’re twelve and fifteen.”

“The Mets?”

“Ha. The boys. Attitude some but not with me so much. And you’re fifteen without an attitude, something’s way wrong.”

“Remember when Peterson caught us with that pint in the gym?”

Freddy laughed. “What’d you say to him? It was... I don’t remember. But it didn’t go over good.”

Nick said, “He was like what the hell’re you doing with booze? Don’t you know it’s bad for you? And I just went: Then why’d your wife give it to me?”

“Jesus, that’s right! What a line. He decked you, didn’t he?”

“Shoved me, is all... And suspended me for a week.”

They drove in silence for a few blocks, Nick relishing the memories of school. Freddy asked, “What’s the story with you and Amelia? I mean, she’s with that guy now, right?”

Nick shrugged. “Yeah. She’s with him.”

“That’s kinda weird, don’t you think? He’s a cripple. Wait. Can you say that?”

“No, you can’t say that.”

“But he is, right?”

“Disabled. I looked it up. You can say disabled. They don’t like handicapped either.”

“Words,” Freddy said. “My dad, he called blacks coloreds. Which you weren’t supposed to. But now you’re supposed to say ‘persons of color.’ Which is a lot like coloreds. So, I don’t get it. You guys made a nice couple, you and Amelia.”

Yeah, we did.

Nick glanced in the side-view mirror and stiffened. “Shit.”

“What?” Freddy asked.

“You see that car behind us?”

“The—”

“Green, don’t know. Buick, I think. No, Chevy.”

“Got a look. What about it?”

“It’s been making the same turns as us.”

“No shit. What’s that about? Nobody after me I know about.”

Nick looked in the mirror again. He shook his head. “Goddamn it.”

“What?”

“I think it’s Kall.”

“Is—”

“Vinnie Kall. That asshole detective hassling us at the Bay View with Von.”

“Shit, staking out your place. That’s low. I ditched the gun. They’ll never find it. And you didn’t do nothing. You could say you didn’t know he had a piece, even if it comes up. And Von didn’t give his real name. What’s he’s about?”

“He’s a dick, that’s what it’s about. Just riding me maybe. Man, I don’t want him to screw this up, with Perone. It’s too important. It’s the only way I’m going to prove I’m innocent.”

He looked around. “Look, Freddy. He’s got nothing on you. He doesn’t know you called in that false alarm. Do me a favor.”

“Sure, Nick. You got it.”

He looked around. “Pull into that garage.” Pointing ahead.

“Here?”

“Yeah.”

Freddy spun the wheel fast. Tires squealed. It was a four-story parking garage attached to an enclosed shopping center.

“I’m getting out here. Just hang for a half hour, forty minutes.”

“What’re you going to do?”

“I’ll go through the stores, get a cab to talk to Perone. Meet you back here. I’m sorry about this.”

“No, it’s cool. I’ll get some breakfast.”

Freddy pulled to a stop near one of the entrances to the mall. Nick asked, “You saw him at the restaurant, right? Kall?”

“Yeah, I remember him.”

“If he comes up and wants to know about me—”

“—I’ll tell him I can’t talk. I’m waiting for his wife.” Freddy winked.

Nick grinned and slapped the little man on the shoulder. He jumped out of the SUV and vanished into the mall.

There was no security — no human security — in the lobby of J&K Financial, only a mundane intercom. Nick pressed a button and announced himself.

A pause.

“Do you have an appointment?” a woman’s voice asked.

“No. But I’d appreciate a chance to speak to Mr. Perone.” He recalled something in the notes that Freddy had tracked down and given him an hour ago. “It has to do with Algonquin Transportation.”

Another pause. Longer.

The door lock buzzed with what Nick thought was a jarringly loud sound.

He stepped into a small elevator and on the third floor he entered a surprisingly nice office, given the neighborhood and the scruffy façade of the building. Jon Perone did okay for himself, it seemed. The receptionist was a beautiful woman with deep mocha skin.

Behind her two offices were visible through open doors. Both occupied by men, large men with short brownish hair. Their large torsos were encased in pressed dress shirts. One was lost in a phone call. The eyes of the other, in the near office, swiveled to Nick. The bigger of the two, he wore yellow suspenders over a pale-green shirt. His stare was cool.

The receptionist set down her landline. “Mr. Perone will see you now.”

Nick thanked her. He walked inside the largest office in the suite, filled with books and spreadsheets and business documents, along with memorabilia and photos. Hundreds of photos. On the wall, on the desk, on the coffee table. A lot of them appeared to be of family.

Jon Perone rose. He wasn’t a tall man and was solidly built. Like a column. Wearing a gray suit, white shirt and tie the color of the sea surrounding a Greek island. Black hair, slicked back. He’d cut himself shaving and Nick wondered if he used a straight razor. He seemed the sort who might. A gold bracelet encircled his right wrist.

“Mr. Carelli.”

“Nick.”

“I’m Jon. Have a seat.”

Both men lowered themselves into supple leather chairs. Perone eyed him carefully.

“You mentioned Algonquin Transportation.”

“I did. You’ve heard of it?”

“It’s not in business anymore but I believe it was a private trucking company.”

“That’s right. It transported drugs and cigarettes in unmarked semis for big brand manufacturers — unmarked because, of course, hijackers would target trucks with Philip Morris or Pfizer logos on them.”

“I’m aware of that practice. What does that have to do with me?”

“Fifteen years ago an Algonquin semi carrying two million dollars’ worth of prescription drugs was hijacked near a bridge over the Gowanus Canal.”

“Was it?”

“You know it was. The hijacker stashed the drugs in a warehouse in Queens but before he could get back and fence them to his buyers he got busted. Somebody in a Brooklyn crew found out about the ’jacked merchandise and stole the whole shipment from the warehouse. It took me a while but I found out those guys worked for you.”

“I don’t know anything about that.”

“No? Well, I do.”

Perone said nothing for a moment. Then: “How’re you so sure?”

“Because I was the hijacker.” Nick let that sit for a minute. “Now. My take from the job was going to be seven hundred K. Which you robbed me of. Inflation and interest? Give me a million and we’re square.”

Chapter 42

Well, look at this.” Mel Cooper was grinning, running a hand through his thinning hair.

Stepping into the parlor, moving slowly, Lon Sellitto nodded to those present. He’d been Rhyme’s partner for some years when the criminalist was on the NYPD. Of recent years the Sellitto had fed Rhyme consultancy work, helping Major Cases with forensics and other investigative services.

“Lon!” Pulaski was on his feet and pumping the detective’s hand.

“All right, all right. Take it easy on an old man.” In fact, Sellitto was comfortably lounging somewhere in middle age.

Thom, who’d let the officer in, said, “Anything for you, Lon?”

“Hell yes. If you baked it, I’m all over it.”

The aide smiled. “Anyone else?”

The others declined.

Sellitto was a Cliffs Notes version of himself, having been sidelined for a long time thanks to a perp who’d poisoned him. He’d nearly died and had undergone a great deal of treatment and therapy. He had dropped, Rhyme guessed, forty pounds over the past year. His thinning hair was graying. With his lithe new physique he looked even more rumpled than usual. The clothes didn’t fit and some of the newly emptied skin was baggy too.

Sellitto walked farther into the room, eyes on Juliette Archer. “What is this...” His voice faded.

Rhyme — and Archer — laughed. “You can say it.”

“I...”

Archer cocked her head. “A wheelchair showroom?”

Sellitto, blushing one of the few blushes Rhyme had ever seen on his cheeks, said, “I was gonna say convention. But yours is funnier.”

Rhyme introduced them.

She said, “I’m an intern.”

Sellitto cut a glance toward Rhyme. “You? Are a mentor? Jesus, Juliette, good luck with that.”

Sachs hugged Sellitto. She and Rhyme saw the detective and his girlfriend Rachel with some frequency but, now that Rhyme wasn’t doing criminal work and Sellitto had been on medical leave, they hadn’t worked together for a long time.

“Ah.” His eyes glowed as Thom brought a tray of Danish into the parlor. Sellitto scarfed. Thom handed him a coffee.

“Thanks.”

“You don’t want sugar? Right?”

“Yeah, I do. A couple.” Sellitto’s idea of losing weight had been to choose black coffee to accompany the doughnuts. Now, slim and freed, he was indulging.

The Major Cases detective looked over the parlor with a critical eye, half the equipment covered with plastic. The dozen whiteboard, turned against a far wall. “Jesus, I take a break and everything goes to hell.” Then he smiled. “And you, Amelia, heard about your big-game hunting, escalators in BK malls.”

“What exactly do you hear? I got the incident report to the team on time.”

“All good,” the detective added. “They’re holding you up as Miss Ingenuity. And better’n good. Madino’s got cred — he just got tapped for a spot at One PP — so you’ve got a power hitter rooting for you.”

Rhyme said sourly, “Fans root for hitters, Lon, not the other way around.”

“Jesus. Did kids in school regularly beat the crap out of you, Mr. Hand-Up-First-With-The-Right-Answer?”

“Let’s get caught up later on irrelevant issues, shall we? Lon, you were saying, big picture?”

“I read what you sent.”

Sellitto was the expert Rhyme had uploaded the Unsub 40 case file to. He smiled to himself at the man’s laconic response.

Yah, yah. Tomorrow...

“First, this is one sick fuck.”

Accurate but irrelevant. Rhyme said with subdued impatience, “Lon?”

“So. What we have. He’s got this thing for products, for consumer products that we get into our houses and turn on us. Now, my take? He’s agendizing in two ways.”

“What did you say?” Rhyme started, reflexively.

“I’m fucking with you, Linc. Couldn’t resist. Been months without you breaking my balls with a grammar lesson. Pardon my French.” Directed at Archer.

She smiled.

Sellitto continued: “Okay. He’s got two agendas. Using the controller things to make a statement or to target rich people who buy expensive shit or whatever. That’s his weapon of choice. Fucked up but there it is. Agenda two: self-defense. He needs to stop people who’re after him. I.e., us. Well, you. He’s been at the scenes to type in the code to work the controller, right?”

“Right,” Archer said. “You can hack into the cloud server from anywhere in the world. But he seems to want to be close. We think he may have some moral element — making sure he doesn’t hurt kids or maybe poorer folks who don’t spend lots of money on indulgent products.”

“Or,” Sachs said, “he gets turned on by watching.”

“Well, that means he might’ve stayed around to see who was after him. The Evidence Collection Team, you — Amelia and Ron.”

“I was at a scene too,” Rhyme said. “When he destroyed the office of the man who taught him how to hack the controllers.” He grimaced. “And he saw Evers Whitmore there. The lawyer.”

“He on the force?” Sellitto asked.

“No, a lawyer. I was working with him — the civil case, the escalator accident. Before we knew it was a homicide.”

Sellitto sipped coffee, then added another sugar. “Wouldn’t be hard for your unsub to ID him. And you, you’re too public, Linc. Easy to track you down and all your little chickies. I’d get protective details on everybody. I can handle that.”

Rhyme ordered the computer to print out Whitmore’s address and phone. Sellitto reminded that he had Cooper’s and Sachs’s personal information and he’d get a detail to their residences. Archer said it was unlikely she was at risk but Rhyme was emphatic. “I want somebody at your brother’s anyway. Unlikely doesn’t mean impossible. From now on, we all have to assume we’re in his sights.”

On the agenda for today: The People’s Guardian has more mischief planned.

And a beautiful day for it too.

I’ve spent some time with Alicia, comforting her. She’s off to do some work (she’s a bookkeeper, a sort-of accountant, though I couldn’t tell you where she works or exactly what she does. Fact is, she’s not excited about it and therefore I’m not either. We’re not a typical couple; our lives do not, of course, completely coincide). I’m enjoying first one then a second breakfast sandwich at the window of my place in Chelsea. Tasty, full of salt. My blood pressure is so low that a doctor asked joking during a checkup if I was still alive. I smiled, though it was not really funny coming from a medico. I was inclined to crack his skull but I didn’t.

I chew the second sandwich down fast and get ready to go out.

Not quite ready for PG’s full-on assault, though; I have an errand first.

New outfit today — no cap for a change, my blond crew cut is there for the world to see. A running suit, navy blue, stripes along the legs. My sizable shoes. Nothing to do about them. I need a special size. My feet are long, like my fingers, the way my skinny body is tall. The condition is Marfan syndrome.

Hey, Vern, sack of bones...

Hey, Bean Boy...

Can’t reason with people, can’t say: Wasn’t my choice. Can’t say, God blinked. Or He played a joke. Doesn’t work to point out that Abraham Lincoln was one of us. Doesn’t work to say what’s the big deal?

So you let it go, the taunts. The punches. The pictures slipped in your locker.

Until you choose not to let it go. Red’s partner, this Lincoln Rhyme, his body’s betrayed him and he copes. A productive member of society. Good for him. I’m taking a different path.

Backpack over my shoulder, I head out onto the street, radiant on this glorious spring day. Funny how beauty fills the world when you’re a mission.

So. I go west toward the river and the closer I get to the gray Hudson the farther back in time I go. Chelsea east and central, near me, is apartments and boutiques and chic and New York Times — reviewed restaurants. To the far west it’s industrial — like it was in the 1800s, I imagine. I see the building I’m looking for. I pause, pull on cloth gloves and on the prepaid I make a call.

“Everest Graphics,” a voice answers.

“Yes, Edwin Boyle, please. It’s an emergency.”

“Oh. Hold on.”

Three minutes, three solid minutes, I wait. How long would it be if this weren’t an emergency — which it isn’t but never mind.

“Hello, this is Edwin Boyle. Who’s this?”

“Detective Peter Falk. NYPD.” Not so much into TV, no, but I loved Columbo.

“Oh. What’s wrong?”

“I’m sorry to report your apartment’s been broken into.”

“No! What happened? Druggies? Those kids hanging out on the street?”

“We don’t know, sir. We’d like you take a look and tell us what’s missing. How soon can you be here?”

“Ten minutes. I’m not that far away... How did you know I work here?”

I’m prepared. “Found some business cards on the floor of your place. It was ransacked.”

Such a great word.

“Okay. I’ll be right there. I’m leaving now.”

I disconnect and examine the sidewalk. Other companies and commercial operations squat here. One pathetic ad agency, striving to be cool. Sidewalks pretty deserted. I step into the loading dock of an abandoned warehouse. It’s no more than three minutes before a figure steams past, sixty-ish Edwin Boyle, eyes forward, concern on his face.

Stepping forward fast, I grab his collar and yank him into the shadows of the loading dock.

“Oh, Jesus...” He turns toward me, eyes wide. “You! From up the hall! What the hell?”

We’re neighbors, two apartments away, or three, though we don’t say much to each other. Just a nod hello occasionally.

I don’t say anything now. What’s the point? No quips, no chance for last words. People can get snaky at times like that. I just bury the round end of the ball-peen hammer in Edwin’s temple. Like with Todd Williams while we were on our way to have a drink commemorating our joint venture in making the world safe from smart products too smart for our own good.

Crack, crack.

Bone separates. Blood appears.

On the ground, he’s squirming, eyes unfocused. Pull the hammer out — it’s not easy — and do the same thing again. And again.

The squirms stop.

I look onto the street. No pedestrians. A few cars but we were deep in obscuring shadow.

I drag poor Edwin to a supply cabinet of the abandoned warehouse’s abandoned loading dock and open the warped plywood door. Muscle him inside. Then crouch down and get his phone. It’s passcode-protected but that doesn’t matter. I recognize it from last night. Alicia and I were making love on the couch, beside the fish tank. I glanced up at the security monitor and saw Edwin, returning home drunk, like most nights, outside my door, recording the sounds. Didn’t tell her, didn’t say anything. It would upset her, a woman whose resting state is upset.

But I knew I’d have to crack Edwin’s bones for what he did. Just knew it. Not that there was any evidence that could be used to track me down. Just because doing that — recording us — was cruel. It was the act of a Shopper.

And that was reason enough for the man to die. Wish it had been with more nociceptive pain but you can’t have everything.

Crack the bones of his mobile too — can’t take the battery out very easily on these models — and I’ll dispose of it later.

I notice a few intrigued rats nearby. Cautious but sniffy. Nice way to eliminate evidence, it occurs to me, hungry rodents, digesting trace evidence from the corpse.

Stepping out onto the sidewalk, I inhale deeply. Air is a bit ripe, this part of town. But invigorating.

A good day...

And soon to get better. It’s time for the main event.

“Stand up,” Jon Perone said, smoothing his jet-black hair. Was a bottle involved? Probably.

Nick knew the drill. Pulled up his shirt and spun around slowly. Then dropped his pants too. And underwear. Perone glanced down. Impressed, dismayed? A lot of men were.

Nick buttoned and zipped and tucked.

“Shut your phone off. And battery out.”

Nick did this too. Set them on Perone’s desk.

He glanced at the door. The man in suspenders was there. Nick wondered how long he’d been present.

“It’s okay, Ralph. He’s clean.”

Nick stared into Ralph’s eyes until the man turned and left the room. Back to Perone. “Just to connect the dots, Jon. A friend of mine tracked down a friend of yours — Norman Ring, presently guest of the state, doing five to eight up in Hillside. He earned himself serious time because he agreed to keep quiet when he could’ve rolled over on you. I’ve got enough, though, to put you two together.”

“Jesus, man. Fuck.” Perone’s complexion, ruddy from weekend golf and vacationing, Nick guessed, grew ruddier yet under the painted hair.

“It’s all in a letter to my lawyer, to be opened in the event of my getting fucked. You know the rest of it, right? So let’s not get indignant here. Or blustery. Or trigger-happy. Let’s just talk business. Didn’t you ever wonder where the merch you stole came from?”

“Algonquin?” Perone was calmer now. “I kept waiting for somebody to come out of the woodwork. But nobody did. What was I gonna do, take out an ad? Found: two million bucks’ worth of Oxy and Perc and propofol. Call this number.”

“No harm done. But time for my money.”

“You didn’t need to come on like the fucking Godfather.”

Nick screwed up his face. “All respect, Jon. What happened to the owner of the warehouse where I stored the shit? Stan Redman?”

Perone hesitated. “Accident. Construction site.”

“I heard you buried him alive after he tried to move the merch himself.”

“I don’t recall any such occurrence.”

Nick shot him a wry glance. “Now the money. I earned it. I need it.”

“I’ll go six.”

“We’re not negotiating, Jon. Even you went to the hardest-ass fence in the city, you cleared fifty-five points. That’s over a million. And I’ll bet you didn’t. You’re not a discount kind of guy at all. You sold it on the street. You probably walked away with three M. Pure profit.”

Perone shrugged. The equivalent of: Yeah, pretty much.

“So here’s the deal. I want a million. And I want paperwork shows it as a loan — from a company that can’t be traced to you or anybody with a record. Only we have a side agreement, written, that the debt’s forgiven. I’ll worry about the IRS if it comes to that.”

Perone’s grimace was more reluctant admiration. “Any other fucking thing you want, Nick?”

“As a matter of fact, yeah, there is. The Algonquin ’jacking, the Gowanus? I want you to put the word out on the street that it wasn’t me did it. It was my brother. Donnie.”

“Your brother? You’re diming him out?”

“He’s dead. He won’t give a shit.”

“Whatever people hear on the street, nobody’s reversing a conviction.”

“I know that. I just want some people who’re in the loop to hear it.”

Perone said, “I knew that merch’d come back to haunt me. Are we through?”

“Almost.”

“Oh, Christ.”

“Now, there’s a guy named Vittorio Gera. Owns a restaurant in BK. The place is his name. Vittorio’s.”

“Yeah?”

“I want you to have somebody visit him, tell him he’s going to sell the place to me. For half of what he’s asking.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

“Have that somebody lean on his wife and daughters. I think he’s got grandchildren too. Just get some pictures of them in the park and send them to him. That should do it. If not, have somebody visit his youngest daughter. Hannah. She’s the one looks like a slut. Just take her for a ride around the block.”

“You do have a style, Nick.”

“You robbed me, Perone. I don’t need any shit from you.”

“All right. I’ll get the paperwork put together.” Then Perone was frowning. “How’d you tip to me, Nick? Couldn’t’ve been that easy. I cover tracks real good. Always have.”

“A file from back in the day. Closed case. Don’t worry.”

“But there had to be something more recent. I been through four separate companies, five, since you went away.”

“A guy I know made inquiries. Freddy Caruthers.”

“So he could put me together with the Algonquin heist merch. And put you and me together.”

Nick said, “Which brings me to my last request.”

Perone was nodding slowly. His eyes remained on something behind Nick, on a hat on the coatrack or on a grease spot on the wall or a photo of him playing golf at Meadowbrook.

Or maybe on nothing at all.

“Freddy drove me partway today. I told him I was worried there was a cop after me and we ducked into the garage at Grand Central Center, the mall. I took a cab the rest of the way.”

“Cop?”

“No, no, I made it up. I just wanted Freddy to cool his heels.” Nick’d had an idea this was how it was going to shake out.

Perone said softly, “We can take care of that.” He made a call. A moment later Ralph, of the solid chest and flamboyant suspenders and icy glare, was back.

“Nick Carelli, Ralph Seville.”

A moment of mano eye lock, then hands were shaken.

“Got a job for you,” Perone said.

“Sure, sir.”

Nick pulled out his phone, slipped the battery in, turned it back on. He texted Freddy; he didn’t want to hear the man’s voice.

On way back. Any sign of Kall?

There wouldn’t be, of course.

Nope.

Nick typed and sent:

Where R U?

The reply was:

Purple level near Forever 21 door.

Nick’s next message was:

C U in 15.

From Freddy:

All good?

Nick hesitated then typed.

Gr8

Nick gave Ralph the information about Freddy’s location. “He’s in a black Escalade.” He then cut a glance toward Perone. “No buried-alive shit. Fast, painless.”

“Sure. I don’t need to send messages. This is just loose ends.”

“And I don’t want him to know it was me.”

Ralph gave a grimace. “I’ll do what I can. But.”

“Just try. The phone’s got my texts. And my prints’re in his SUV.”

“We’ll take care of everything.” Ralph nodded. And left the office. Nick caught sight of a large, nickel-plated automatic pistol in his waistband. Thinking one of those bullets would be in his friend’s brain in a half hour.

Nick rose and he and Perone shook hands. “I’ll get a cab back to the city.”

“Nick?”

The man paused.

“You interested in doing some work with me?”

“I just want to open my business and settle down and get married. But, sure, I’ll think about it.” Nick walked out of the office, lifting his phone and dialing a number.

Chapter 43

Rhyme was looking at Amelia Sachs when her phone rang.

She glanced away from him and stepped to the recesses of the parlor to take a call. Her back was to the room. He wondered if it was her mother. Her shoulders were slumped. Was all okay? He knew the troubled history of mother and daughter but also knew that it had improved with the years. Rose had mellowed. Sachs had too, with regard to her mother. Years go by, edges dull. Entropy. And now, of course, the woman’s illness. Someone’s physical condition, as he well knew, can change all.

He couldn’t hear or deduce much. Finally: “restaurant” and “worked out” and “congratulations.” She sounded enthusiastic. Then, after she’d listened for a time: “I have faith in you.”

Not Rose. Then who?

He turned back to the evidence charts, wheeled closer. His meditation was interrupted by Lon Sellitto. “Anything close in NCIC?”

“No,” Rhyme said. The fourteen people files and the seven property files in the National Crime database were geared toward individuals with outstanding warrants or who were otherwise suspects and toward stolen property; it was possible to run a profile of a crime or pattern of crimes and shoot out a few names but that wasn’t what the FBI’s system was designed for.

Juliette Archer said, “In the media and academic sites I found plenty of stories or reports of instances of hacking smart systems. Mostly for the sake of hacking. Nature of the hobby, my son tells me. The challenge. Nobody’s intentionally weaponized an appliance, though some hackers’ve taken control of cars and stoplights.”

“Stoplights. That’s a scary thought.” From Sellitto.

She continued, “It’s cheaper to use wireless controls in them — public works doesn’t have to dig and lay cables.”

Sellitto said, “Solid backgrounding. You’d make a good cop.”

“Passing the physical’d be a problem.”

Sellitto muttered, “Linc sits on his ass all day long. You can consult. Give him some competition. Keep him sharp.” The rumpled detective was once more scanning the charts. “The hell’s his profile? Maybe explosives but we ain’t had any bangs lately. Toxins but nobody’s been poisoned. He’s a fine woodworker. What’s he build, do you think? Cabinets or bookshelves? With the glass, maybe that’s it.”

“No,” Rhyme said, “the glass fragments were old. And Amelia found glazing compound. I don’t think furniture glass is mounted with glazing. That’s for residences. Besides, see the rubber? It was found with the ammonia. That told me he replaced a broken window and cleaned the new one with a squeegee and paper towel.” His voice faded as he looked at the chart. “Window.”

Pulaski said, “Even psycho killers need to do home repairs. Probably it’s not related to the case.”

Rhyme mused, “But he’d just recently repaired it. The trace was fresh and found with other evidence from the scene. Just speculating here but if you were going to break into somebody’s house or an office—”

“You could front you were a repairman,” Sellitto said.

Sachs “Put on coveralls. Carry a new piece of glass with you. Break in, get what you need inside, then replace the glass, clean it and leave. Anybody looking would think you were the super or’d been hired to do repairs.”

Archer added, “And he pretended to be a workman once before — in the Theater District.”

Sellitto said, “Maybe he broke in somewhere to find out if there was some device that had one of those controllers in it. That DataWise thing.”

“He doesn’t need to,” Archer pointed out. “His first vic, Todd Williams, downloaded the list of products with controllers and the people or companies who bought them.”

Did she actually say “vic”? Rhyme was amused.

“Yeah, yeah,” Sellitto said. “That’s right.”

Rhyme said, “I could see it if the shards of glass we found were frosted — he’d replaced the glass with clear so he could see his kill zone. But the broken pane was clear. Old or cheap but clear. I want to work with this. Assuming our window repairman scenario is valid and — let’s be bold here — he’s planning another attack, then it’s because there’s no embedded product at the target location.”

Sachs quickly said, “And that’s because he’s going after somebody who’s not on the list. A specific person, rather than a random consumer.”

“Good,” Rhyme said. “Let’s work with that.”

“But why?” From Archer.

Rhyme’s eyes closed momentarily. Then opened fast. “Somebody who’s a threat. What Lon was just suggesting. It’s his second mission. To stop those who’re after him or a threat to him. Us. Maybe a witness, somebody who knows him and might be growing suspicious. Anything on the charts that might suggest a victim unrelated to the products, nothing to do with his manifesto against consumers?”

He scanned the charts. Although the source for some items had not been isolated (Queens??), everything had been identified — except one thing.

“Damn it, Mel. What the hell is the plant? We asked the Horticultural Society ages ago.”

“It was yesterday.”

“Ages, like I said,” Rhyme snapped. “Call. Find out.”

Cooper looked the number up once more and placed the call. “Professor Aniston? This is Detective Cooper. NYPD. I sent you that sample of vegetation trace evidence we found at a crime scene. Have you had any luck? We’re under some time pressure... Sure.” Cooper glanced toward them. “He’s looking it up now.”

“Which suggests it wasn’t a particularly burdensome request in the first place,” Rhyme muttered, probably louder than he should have.

Cooper’s body language changed as the call resumed. He wrote on a pad beside him. “Got it, thanks, Professor.” He disconnected. “It’s rare. You don’t find it very often.”

“That’s what rare means, Mel. What the hell is it?”

“It’s a fragment of leaf from a hibiscus. But what’s rare is that it’s a blue one. There’ll be limited sources—”

“My God!” Sachs pulled her phone out, hit speed dial. “This is Detective Five Eight Eight Five. Sachs. I need officers at Four Two One Eight Martin Street, Brooklyn. Possible ten thirty-four in progress. Suspect is white male, six two to six four, weight one fifty. Possibly armed... I’m en route.”

She hung up, grabbed her jacket. “My mother’s house. I got her a blue hibiscus for her birthday. It’s in her backyard, right by a window to the basement. He rigged something there.”

Sachs sprinted for the door, making a call.

A circuit breaker had popped.

Rose Sachs was now in her Brooklyn town house’s the dank basement, the place redolent of mold. She was making her way slowly to the panel. Slowly not because of her cardiac condition, but because of the clutter.

Looking over the boxes, the shelves, the racks of plastic-wrapped clothing.

Even here she felt good — the “even” because she was dodging a spider’s elaborate web.

Good.

Spending some time in her own house for a change.

She loved her daughter, appreciated everything Amie did for her. But the girl — the woman — had been such a, well, mother hen about the surgery. Stay at my house, Mom. Come on. No, I’ll drive you. No, I’ll pick up dinner.

Sweet of her. But the fact was Rose wasn’t going to break apart in the days leading up to the operation. No, it was obvious what Amie was thinking — that Rose might not wake up from the deep sleep while the surgeon was slicing out components of her heart and replacing them with little tubes from a lesser part of her body.

Daughter wanted to spend as much time with mother as possible — just in case Part A didn’t get along with Part B, which, by the way, God never did intend.

Upstairs her mobile phone was ringing.

They could leave a message.

Or maybe Amelia’s persistence — and insistence — was simply her uncompromising nature.

And for this, Rose thought smiling, she herself was to blame. She was thinking of the turbulent days with her daughter. What had been the source of Rose’s moods, her paranoia, her suspicion? Thinking that father and daughter were conspiring to get away from Mom?

But that wasn’t paranoia at all. They were conspiring.

As well they should have. What a shrew I was. Who knew what was the reason... There were probably meds I could have taken, probably therapists I could have shared with. But that would have been a weakness.

And Rose Sachs had never done well with weakness.

At this moment, lost in these reflections, she felt a burst of pride. Because the upside of that attitude was that she’d created a strong daughter. Herman had given the girl heart and humor. Rose had given her steel.

Uncompromising...

The lights here in the cellar were working — it was on the second floor that the lamp had gone out. She wondered why the breaker had popped. She hadn’t turned anything on, no iron or hair dryer. She’d been reading. And pop, out went the lights. But the house was old; maybe one of the breakers was bad.

Now the home line was ringing — an old-fashioned ring, ring, ring.

She paused. Well, there was voice mail on that one too. Telemarketer on the landline probably. She didn’t use that phone much anymore, just her cell phone.

Welcome to the twenty-first century. What would Herman have thought?

Moving aside a few boxes to clear a path to the breaker box, she thought of Nick Carelli.

Rose supposed that the story was true, that he’d taken the blame for his brother. That seemed good, that seemed noble. But, as she’d told her daughter, if he’d really loved Amie, wouldn’t he have found a better way to handle it? A cop had to accept that you did things the right way when it came to the law. Her husband had been a lifelong policeman, a portable — a foot patrolman — walking the beat in a number of places, mostly in Times Square. He’d done his job with calm determination and was never confrontational, defusing conflicts, not fanning flames. Rose could never see Herman taking the fall for anybody. Because, even if for a good cause, that would have been a lie.

A tightening of her lips. Another matter: Her daughter was wrong, wrong, wrong to have any contact with Nick at all. Rose had seen his eyes. He wanted them to get back together, clear as day. Rose wondered what Lincoln knew about it. Rose’s advice would have been for Amie to drop Nick instantly, even if the mayor himself gave him a big, fat blue ribbon saying Pardon.

But such was the nature of children. You bore them, shaped them as best you could and then turned them out into the world — bundles that contained all your gold stars and all your cinders.

Amie would do the right thing.

Rose hoped.

Continuing toward the breaker box. She noticed the window next to it was quite clean, for a change. Maybe the gardener had washed it. She’d have to thank him when he came next week.

Rose passed some old boxes labeled A’s High School. Rose laughed softly, remembering those crazy years, Amie spending her free hours on car repair and fielding modeling jobs for some of the top agencies in Manhattan (remembered how one time the seventeen-year-old girl had had to wear black polish at a fashion shoot not because the scene involved gothic chic but because it had proven impossible to dig out the General Motors grease out from under her nails).

Rose decided she’d take one of the boxes upstairs. What fun to look through it. They could do that together. Maybe tonight, after dinner.

And began to slide boxes out of the way to clear a path to the breaker box.

Chapter 44

Sitting on a doorstep, in overalls and cap, I’m a workman taking a workman’s break. Newspaper and coffee at hand, lingering before I have to get back to the job.

And glancing through the basement window of Mrs. Rose Sachs’s town house in idyllic Brooklyn. Ah, there she is, coming into view.

It’s worked well, my plan. The other day, staking out Red’s town house, just six blocks away, I’d spotted an elderly woman stepping from the police girl’s doorway and locking the dead bolt. A clear resemblance. Aunt or mother. So I followed her here. A little touch of Google... and the relationship became clear.

Hi, Mom...

Red needs to be stopped and needs to be taught a lesson. Killing this woman will do the trick nicely.

Rose, a lovely name.

Soon to be a dry, dead flower.

I would have liked to use one of my trusted controller exploits again but the other day I scanned diligently and found no embedded circuits begging to be let into the network or shooting data heavenward. But, as I know from woodworking, sometimes you must improvise. Brazilian rosewood, short supply? So go with Indian. Not as rich. Not as voluptuously purple. Cuts differently. Smooths differently. But you make do.

And occasionally the pram, the dresser, the gingham-dressed bed works out better than you’d planned.

So. Let’s see now if my improv here works out. It really was quite simple. I rigged a circuit from a garage door opener to short out a light in Rose’s living room. A few minutes ago I pressed the opener button on the remote, which popped the breaker. And Rose started downstairs to find the box and reset it.

Normally she’d have an easy job of simply flicking the switch back into the on position.

Let there be light...

Except that won’t happen. Because I diverted the main line from the incoming wire to the circuit breaker box itself. The metal door is, in effect, a live wire, carrying 220 volts and many wonderful heart-stopping amps. Even if she’s inclined to do the wise thing, the safe thing and cut off the main power before resetting the breaker, she’ll still have to open the door to do that.

And zap.

Now she’s feet away from the breaker box. Then, unfortunately, she moves out of view.

But it’s clear where she is. And she’ll be reaching for the handle now...

Yes!

Anticlimactic. But I see it’s worked perfectly.

When she completed the circuit with her body the main line shorted out, extinguishing all the electricity to the house — the upstairs and basement and front door lights went dark.

I imagine I heard a growling buzz but that would have to be in my mind’s ear. I’m too far away for that.

Goodbye, Rose.

Rising and hurrying away.

A block down this pleasant street I hear sirens. Getting louder. Curious. Are they coming here? Could it be they’re en route to me?

Has Red figured something out? That I was about to visit the wrath of Edison upon Momma?

No, impossible. It’s just a coincidence.

I can’t help but be delighted with the handiwork. Have you learned your lesson, Detective Red? I am not someone to bully.

What a day, what a day.

He was so looking forward to getting home.

Dr. Nathan Evers eased the big sedan through traffic in Brooklyn, Henry Street in the Heights. Not too congested. Good. He stretched, heard a joint pop. The fifty-seven-year-old surgeon was tired. He’d been in operating suites for six hours today. Two gallbladders. One appendectomy. A couple of others. Didn’t need to. But the kid with the scalpel needed some help. Some medicine was about diagnostics and referrals and business. Some was about slicing open the human body.

That young resident wasn’t that sort.

Nathan Evers was.

Exhausted. But more or less content. He felt good, he felt purged. Nobody scrubbed and buffed as much as doctors, surgeons especially. You ended your shift — and it was a shift, just like an assembly-line worker’s — you ended your shift with the hottest of hot showers. The most astringent of soaps. Your body tingling, a humming sound in your ear.

The memory of the bile and blood washed away, he was now in his husband-and-parent frame of mind. Enjoying the pleasant drive through a pleasant part of the city he loved. Soon he’d see his wife and, later tonight, his daughter and his first grandchild. A boy named Jasper.

Hm. Jasper.

Not his first choice when his daughter told him. “Jasper, really? Interesting.”

But then, seeing the wrinkled little blob before him and touching his tiny, tiny fingers and toes and delighting in the perplexed infant grin, he decided any name was wonderful. Balthazar, Federico, Aslan. Sue. It didn’t matter. Heaven was here on earth and he remembered at that moment, eye-to-eye with his grandson, why he had taken the Hippocratic oath. Because life is precious, life is astonishing. Life is worth devoting yours to.

Evers clicked on satellite radio and hit a preselect button, one of the NPR channels, and began listening to Terry Gross’s wonderful show.

“This is Fresh Air...”

Which was when his car went insane.

Without warning, the engine began to scream, as if he’d floored the accelerator; the cruise control light blinked on spontaneously — his hands hadn’t been anywhere near the switch! — and the system must’ve been instructing the engine to accelerate to a hundred!

“Jesus, no!”

The tachometer redlined and the car surged forward, tires smoking, rear end wobbling like a drag racer’s.

Evers cried out in panic as he wove into the oncoming traffic and, at the moment, empty lane. The vehicle hit fifty, sixty — his head bouncing back against the rest, his eyes unfocused. He slammed his foot on the brake but the engine surge was so unrelenting that the car slowed hardly at all.

“No!” The panic was on him completely. He let up on the brake and jammed down again over and over. He felt a metatarsal in his foot snap. Now at sixty mph and climbing, his auto continued to skid and weave. Cars veered from his path, horns blaring.

He jammed the start/stop button for the engine but the motor kept up its demonic roar.

Think!

The gearshift! Yes! Neutral. He shoved the lever to the central position, and, thank God, that did the trick. The engine still howled but the transmission was disengaged. He pitched forward as the car slowed, dropping to sixty-five, sixty.

Now the brakes.

Which were not working at all.

“No, no, no!” he cried.

Consumed with panic, paralyzed, he could only stare forward as the car raced against a red light and toward the intersection ahead, noting the vehicles stopped or slowly crawling in the cross-traffic lane, perpendicular to him. Cars, a garbage truck, a school bus. He would strike one of them broadside at close to fifty mph.

A splinter of rational thought: You’re dead. But save who you can. Hit the truck, not the bus! Go right, just a bit! But his hands couldn’t pace his mind, and tweaking the wheel sent the car veering directly toward a Toyota sedan. He gaped at the panicked face of the driver of the tiny car he was speeding directly for. The elderly man was as frozen as Nathan Evers.

Another twitch of the wheel and the doctor’s car struck the rear driver’s side of the Japanese vehicle, a few feet behind the man at the wheel.

The next thing that Evers knew he was coming around, after the air bag had knocked him unconscious. He was frozen in position, embraced by bones of steel from the crumpled car. Trapped. But alive, he thought. Jesus, I’m alive.

Outside, people running. Mobile phones were filming the accident. Pricks... Had at least one person had the decency to call 911?

Then, yes, he heard a siren. Would he end up in his own hospital? That would be rather ironic, maybe the same ER doctor he’d helped out...

But wait. I feel so cold. Why?

Am I paralyzed?

Then Nathan Evers realized that, no, he had complete sensation; what he was feeling was liquid cascading over his body from the mangled rear portion of the Toyota he’d virtually cut in half.

Gasoline was drenching every inch of his body from the waist down.

Chapter 45

Amelia Sachs hit eighty on the FDR.

This was not easy to do. Incurring horns blares and extended fingers, Sachs ignored the protests and concentrated on finding gaps between cars, braking furiously, zipping through lane changes. Keeping the revs high, high, high. Fifth gear at the most. Fourth — she called it the gutsy gear — was better. And the meat and potatoes, third.

When you move they can’t getcha.

And the corollary: When you move they can’t get away.

“No,” she was saying into the hands-free, speaking to the patrolman from the precinct near her mother’s town house. “He’s there somewhere nearby. It’s his MO. He... oh, shit.”

“What’s that, Detective?” the officer asked.

She controlled the skid as she swept past the car that had braked hard to make an sudden exit that neither its driver, nor she, had been planning on. The Torino and the Taurus, distant relatives, missed a potentially deadly kiss by two inches, tops.

Sachs continued, “His MO is he’s nearby when there’s an attack. He could rig an accident and leave but he doesn’t. He probably flipped the switch and waited to make sure the vic” — her voice choked — “to make sure my mother would get to the trap. He’s only had a ten-minute start and we don’t think he’s got a car. Gypsies a lot.”

“We’re sweeping, Detective. Just—”

“More bodies. I want more bodies out there. He can’t get that far!”

“Sure, Detective.”

She missed what else he said, if anything. Concentrating on fitting between two vehicles in a space no third vehicle was meant to pass through. Over the roar of the Torino’s engine she couldn’t tell if contact was made. Horns blared. Sue me, sue the city, she thought. And, irritated that she’d lost seconds braking, she downshifted hard and explored the redline zone once again.

“More people on site,” she repeated to the patrolman and disconnected. Then said into the mobile: “Call Rhyme.”

He answered immediately. “Sachs. Where are you?”

“Just onto the Brooklyn Bridge... Hold on.”

She veered around an idiot on one of those low bicycles you recline upon, a flag fluttering over your head. It wasn’t much of a skid; the surface of the bridge gripped her tires well, and she turned sharply into it. The Ford righted itself. Then she had a clear field ahead of her and sped up again.

“Lon’s already called COC. Nothing yet. Checking subways too.”

“Good. And... Oh, Jesus Christ.”

Clutch in, brake full, shift to second just in case you need it, hand brake up, take a skid to buy some space...

“Sachs!”

The Torino stopped two feet behind a taxi, forty-five degrees in the lane — well, lane and a half, since she was, yes, at an angle. A massive traffic jam extended past the cab she’d nearly slammed into.

“Traffic’s stopped, Rhyme. Damn it. Completely stopped. And I’m in the middle of the bridge. Can you have Mel or Ron get me a route once I get off? One without traffic?”

“Hold on.” Rhyme shouted, “Lon, I need traffic from the east end of the Brooklyn Bridge to Amelia’s mother’s place.”

She climbed out of the car and peered ahead. A sea of vehicles. Motionless.

“Why now?” she muttered. “Why the hell now?”

Her phone hummed with a number she recognized. The patrolman she’d been speaking with not long before. She put Rhyme on hold and took the call. “Officer, what’ve you got?”

“I’m sorry, Detective. Got a dozen RMPs en route and ESU’s sending a truck. Only weird. Traffic’s totally fucked up. Sorry. Totally screwed up. The Heights, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill. Nobody’s moving.”

She sighed. “Keep me posted.” She flipped back to Rhyme’s call.

...you there, Sachs? Can you—?”

“I’m here, Rhyme. What’s the story?”

“You’re going to be stuck for a while. Looks like five bad accidents all around the same time. Near your mom’s place.”

“Shit,” she spat out. “I’ll bet it’s him. Unsub Forty. Remember what Rodney said? He can fuck up cars with the controller. That’s what he did. I’m parking here and getting a train. Tell Lon to have a crew pick up my wheels. Keys’ll be under the back floor mat.”

“Sure.”

Not bothering with the walkway, Sachs started east along the bridge. Two trains and a jog later — a half hour — she was at her mother’s town house, charging into the living room, nodding to the officers, the medics. Then she paused.

“Mom.”

“Honey.”

The women embraced. The mother’s flesh and bones troublingly frail under the daughter’s grasp.

But she was all right.

Sachs stepped back and examined her. Rose Sachs was pale. But that was probably from the fright. She’d suffered no physical harm from Unsub 40 — the medics were here because of her heart condition. A precaution.

It had been, however, such a very close call. Rhyme had explained to Sachs that when they’d realized Rose was a possible target, he and the team had speculated that the unsub had — possibly — rigged some kind of electrical trap in her house since they’d found evidence of stripped electrical wires.

At first they hadn’t known how to handle it — other than telling Rose to get out. But the woman still wasn’t picking up the phone. And the neighbor Sachs had called wasn’t home. They’d been trying to guess exactly what the perp had done to attack Rose, when Juliette Archer had blurted, “We have to do what Amelia did with that saw in the Theater District. Cut the power. The grid! Just cut the entire grid for her block.”

Rhyme had ordered Lon to do just that.

And they’d been in time — but barely. The respondings found that the unsub had sabotaged the circuit breaker box, which Rose had been reaching for at the instant the grid went down. The power was back on in the neighborhood now — Sachs didn’t want to think of the complaints, lost computer data and communications. But they’d have to deal with it; her mother was alive.

“I’m sorry this happened, Mom.”

“Why would he want to hurt me?”

“To get to me. I’m the one. It’s become like a chess game between us. Move for move. He must’ve thought we wouldn’t consider you’d be a target. Now one of these officers is going to take you to my house and stay with you. I’ve got to run the scene here, in the basement, where he broke in. Maybe he was in the rest of the house too. Will you be okay without me for a while?”

Rose took her daughter’s hands. The woman’s fingers were not, Sachs noticed, trembling in the least. “Of course, I’ll be fine. Now get going. Catch that son of a bitch.”

Drawing smiles from both Sachs and one of the patrol officers present. Daughter embraced mother, and Sachs walked outside to see her into a squad car and await the arrival of the CSU bus.

Back in the Toy Room now. For the comfort of it. Working on the Warren skiff for my brother.

I’m making it of teak, a difficult wood. Therefore it’s more challenging. Therefore the end result will make me particularly proud.

The news is on and I’ve learned that I did not in fact incinerate Red’s mother. I know this not because she was mentioned but because of the story that the electric grid in that part of Brooklyn went down briefly. Of course Red the Shopper did that. She or her police friend figured out what I was going to do and pulled the plug.

Smart. Oh, they are so very smart.

The other story, being reported to death (I call TV news Humpty Dumpty; every report is “breaking”), was about a string of serious car accidents, surely a co-inkydink — one of my brother’s favorite words — that had nothing to do with the grid glitch; the accidents weren’t related to the stoplights going out. No, the carnage was thanks exclusively to moi and the lovely DataWise5000s.

I’m surprised no clever reporters have brought up everybody’s favorite target: the smart controller.

I wasn’t sure my escape plan would work. I’d never tried hacking a car. Todd taught me how but it wasn’t helpful for my mission at the time. I’d thought the cloud system in vehicles was used just for diagnostics — or you lose your key and need to start it, you call an 800 number the car company provides and tell them what happened, give them a code. They can start your car and disable the steering wheel lock. But, oh, no, you can do all sorts of wonderful things. Cruise control, brakes.

The problem was that I had no way of knowing which cars in Brooklyn had a DataWise. Maybe a lot, maybe few.

Few, it turned out. Walking quickly away from Rose’s town house, hearing sirens, I decided they might signal visitors coming just for me. So I began running the automotive controller software. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

Until finally: From about a block away from where I was I heard the huge roar of an auto engine revving high followed ten seconds later by a massive crunch.

Traffic began backing up immediately.

Wonderful. I’m actually smiling.

A few blocks farther along I heard another hit — literally! It turned out to be a lovely rear-ender. I stopped a car mid-block. One Japanese import versus one cement truck. Guess who won?

A quarter mile east, one more.

Nothing for a few minutes but finally another car on the Brooklyn Queens Expressway. A stretch limo, I later learned.

So. A nice new trick I’ve learned. A shame Red drives such an antique car. Would be fitting for her to break her bones in an auto crash. Well, there’ll be other options for my friend.

Now, peering through the loupe, I examine the Warren skiff. The boat is done. I wrap it carefully. And set it aside. Then I turn back to the diary — working up the courage to transcribe a passage that has been radiating pain the way a loose tooth does.

I click on the recorder, then hesitate and begin to transcribe.

Chapter 46

Amelia Sachs entered the parlor, set down the evidence cartons gathered at her mother’s town house, and walked straight up to Juliette Archer. Threw her arms around the surprised woman, nearly dislodging the wrist strapped to the Storm Arrow’s armrest.

“I—” the woman began.

“Thank you. You saved my mother’s life.”

“We all did,” Archer said.

“But,” Rhyme said, “she’s the one who came up with the blackout strategy.”

“I don’t know how to thank you.”

A shrug, similar to the ones Rhyme was capable of.

Sachs looked from the intern to Rhyme. “You two make a good team.”

Rhyme, with typically little patience for the sentimental, or the irrelevant, asked Mel Cooper, “What’s the latest?” The tech was just hanging up the phone from a conversation with someone in the Traffic Division.

He explained that there had been no fatalities. The closest brush with death had been a doctor whose sedan crashed into the rear end of a Toyota and ruptured the gas tank. He and the other driver were inundated with fuel but pulled out by a passersby before the two cars vanished in flames. (To be doubly safe the doctor had stripped naked in the middle of the street, flinging his incendiary clothing away.)

A half-dozen people, however, had been badly injured.

Rhyme now called Rodney Szarnek to ask about the incident. “Any way to trace the signal?”

The computer cop went into a long explanation about cell towers, public Wi-Fi and VPNs.

“Rodney.”

“Sorry. The answer’s no.”

He disconnected. “One hell of a weapon,” Sachs said to Rhyme and Archer.

Sellitto, downtown, called and reported that everyone on the team — and their family members — was now under protective detail. “It’s UAC-prioritized,” he muttered.

Rhyme had given up trying to stay on top of New York City Police Department shorthand. “Which is?”

“It’ll be in place Until the Asshole is Caught,” Sellitto said.

Archer laughed.

Sachs and Cooper were unpacking evidence she’d collected from her mother’s house — the garden, the house itself and the steps across the street, where witnesses had seen a skinny worker taking a break, reading the paper, sipping coffee.

Rhyme looked around the parlor. “Where the hell’s the rookie?” he grumbled. “That other case?”

“That’s right.” Sachs was nodding. But offered nothing more.

“Somebody just find this Gutiérrez and shoot him, please.”

For some reason Sachs smiled at this. Rhyme was not amused.

Sachs itemized the evidence. “Not much. Wire, electricians’ tape on the circuit breaker panel. He rigged a lamp with this.” She held up a plastic bag with a small electric circuit board inside. “When he triggered it, two wires in the lamp crossed and that blew the breaker. It was to get Mom downstairs to the box. Ambient trace. Naturally, no friction ridges or hairs other than mine or Mom’s. Some fibers. He’s wearing flesh-colored cotton gloves.”

“You found copper bits earlier but now we have the actual wire,” Cooper said.

It was eight-gauge, according to the American wire gauge standard, about 0.128 inch in diameter.

Rhyme said, “Can carry pretty high voltage. What, Mel? Forty amps?”

“That’s right, at sixty degrees Celsius.”

“What about the manufacturer?”

There were, Rhyme could see, letters on the black insulation.

Cooper looked up the initials. “Hendrix Cable. Popular brand. Sold a lot of places.”

Rhyme scoffed. “Why don’t perps shop at unique stores?... And he used a razor knife again to strip it?”

“Right.”

“And electricians’ tape?”

“Probably good quality,” the tech said, touching part of it with a steel needle probe. “Good adhesive, strong. Cheaper tape tends to have uneven coverage and it’s thin.”

“Burn a bit. See if we can get a brand name.”

After the gas chromatograph worked its magic, Cooper looked over the results and displayed them to the room on a monitor.

Archer said, “They seem generic. Aren’t those ingredients found in every brand of electrical tape?”

“Quantity,” Rhyme said. “Quantity is everything.”

Cooper explained further, “I’m running the amounts of each of those substances through a database. Micrograms make all the difference. It should give us an answer in... Ah, here we go now. It’s one of these.”

On the screen:

“Good, good,” Rhyme muttered.

Sachs was examining the bag she’d held up earlier. The remote relay that had shorted out Rose’s lights. Cooper mounted the device on the reflecting stage of a low-power microscope. They examined the monitor. He said, “Antenna here.” He pointed. “Signal comes in and closes the switch here. It’s not an off-the-shelf switch. It’s a component part of something else. See? The base? He fatigued through the circuit board. Got a code number on it,” he announced. Rhyme hadn’t been able to see it.

Keeping his eyes on the monitor, Cooper touch-typed as fast as falling marbles. A moment later they turned to the screen.

“Home-Safe Products Atlas garage door opener, extended-reach model. Opens the door from fifty yards. He took the switch out and threw the rest away, I’d guess.”

The remaining trace revealed more walnut sawdust, some glass fragments from Rose’s town house, more glue associated with adhesive from an earlier scene, but nothing else new.

“Put everything up on the boards.”

“Everything common, Mel?” Rhyme asked.

“Yep. Sold in a hundred stores in the area. Not very helpful.”

Two voices: “But he was improvising the attack at your mother’s town house, Sachs.” At the same time Archer said, “But he didn’t plan your mother’s attack ahead of time, Amelia.”

Rhyme laughed at their tripping over each other’s words yet again. He explained to Sachs, “The unsub’s planned out all the other attacks against his victims ahead of time. But he made a last-minute decision to attack your mom. He hadn’t figured you to be so persistent, so much of a risk to him. Which means he bought the tape, the electric wire, the glass and glazing compound and the garage door opener around the same time. Likely some or all at the same place. It would have been smart to buy them separately over a period of days or weeks but he didn’t have a choice. He had to stop you.”

Archer looked over the chart. “Maybe the parts for the gas bomb that he used downtown too — to destroy Todd Williams’s office.”

“Very possibly,” Rhyme said. “Let’s start with the garage door opener, don’t you think? Sachs?” He’d been speaking to her.

“What’s that?” She’d been distracted, reading a text.

“The garage door opener. Get a list of retail locations, then canvass to see if anybody bought the other items there.” Rhyme added, “Start with Queens. Expand from there.”

Sachs called Major Cases and put together a canvass team to start searching for the purchases. She then disconnected and emailed them a list of the items Unsub 40 would have bought. Rhyme noted she looked out the window for a moment. Then turned and walked close to him.

“Rhyme. You have a minute?”

One of those useless expressions. Why not just say: I want to talk to you. Let’s lose the bystanders. But of course he nodded. “Sure.”

He wheeled toward her and together they headed into the parlor across the hallway. She remained silent for a moment. He knew her well. When someone is your lover and your professional partner there’s very little psyche that remains hidden. She was not being dramatic. She was weighing what she wished to say the way one would carefully measure a drug found in a bust to most accurately describe the charges against the suspect. Sachs was certainly given to impulse in some things. But matters close to her heart were swathed in thick deliberation.

She sighed and turned. Then sat. “There’s something I have to talk to you about.”

“Yes. Go ahead.”

“I could have told you a few days ago. I didn’t. I’m not sure why I didn’t. Nick is out.”

“Carelli? Your friend.”

“My friend, yes. He was released from prison. He contacted me.”

“And he’s well?”

“Pretty much. Physically. I’d think being inside would change you more.” She shrugged and it was clear to Rhyme she didn’t want to go down this path. “There’s something I debated about telling you. I didn’t. But now I have to.”

“A preface like that, Sachs? Pray continue.”