The Twelfth Card

by Jeffery Deaver

  Numb, as he'd watched the pendulum of the guard's corpse, twisting slowly to stillness. Numb, as he'd set the candles on the ground at Tucker's feet to make the murder look like some psycho, satanic thing and glanced up into the man's glazed eyes.

  Numb . . .

  But Thompson believed he could repair himself, just like he fixed the bathroom door and the loose stair railing at the bungalow. (They were both tasks, the only difference being where you put the decimal point.) Jeanne and the girls would bring the feelings back. All he had to do was go through the motions. Do what other people did, normal people, people who weren't numb: Paint the children's rooms, watch Judge Judy with them, go on picnics in the park. Bring them what they'd asked for. Grape, cherry, milk. Grape, cherry, milk. Try an occasional cuss word, fuck, fuck, shit . . . Because that's what people said when they were angry. And angry people felt things.

  This was also why he whistled--he believed music could transport him back to those earlier days, before prison. People who liked music weren't numb. People who whistled felt things, they had families, they'd turn the heads of strangers with a good trill. They were people you could stop on the street corner and talk to, people you could offer a french fry to, right off your Harleyburger plate, with giddy music pounding in the next room, ain't them musicians something, son? How 'bout that?

  Do it by the book and the numbness would go away. The feeling would return.

  Was it working, he wondered, the regimen he'd set up for himself to get the feeling back in his soul? The whistling, reciting the things he felt he should recite, grape and cherry, cussing, laughing? Maybe a little, he believed. He remembered watching the woman in white that morning, back and forth, back and forth. He could honestly say that he'd enjoyed watching her at work. A small pleasure, but it was a feeling nonetheless. Pretty good.

  Wait: "Pretty fucking good," he whispered.

  There, a cuss word.

  Maybe he should try the sex thing again (usually once a month, in the morning, he could manage, but truth was he just didn't want to--if the mood's not there, even Viagra won't do you much good). He now debated. Yes, that's what he'd do--give it a couple of days and try with Jeanne. The thought made him uneasy. But maybe he'd give it a shot. That'd be a good test. Yeah, he'd try it and see if he was getting better.

  Grape, cherry, milk . . .

  Thompson now stopped at a pay phone in front of a Greek deli. He dialed the voice-mail box number again and punched in the code. He listened to a new message, which told him that there'd nearly been a chance to kill Geneva Settle at the school but too many police had been guarding her. The message continued, giving her address, on 118th Street, and reporting that at least one unmarked police car and a squad car were parked nearby, changing positions occasionally. The number of officers guarding her seemed to vary from one to three.

  Thompson memorized the address and erased the message then continued on his complicated walk to a six-story apartment building that was considerably more dilapidated than Jeanne's bungalow. He went around to the back and opened the door. He climbed the stairs to the apartment that was his main safe house. He stepped inside, locked the door then disarmed the system he'd set up to stop intruders.

  This place was a little nicer than the one on Elizabeth Street. It was covered in blond paneling carefully tacked up and featured brown shag carpet that smelled just like what brown shag would smell. There were a half dozen pieces of furniture. The place reminded Thompson of the rec room he and his father had built weekends in the Amarillo bungalow, which had replaced the tornado-shredded trailer.

  From a large utility cabinet he carefully removed several jars and carried them to the desk, whistling the theme from Pocohantas. The girls had just loved that movie. He opened the toolbox, put on thick rubber gloves and a face mask and goggles and assembled the device that tomorrow would kill Geneva Settle--and anyone near her.

  Wssst . . .

  The tune became something else: no longer Disney. Bob Dylan's "Forever Young."

  When he finished the device he examined it carefully and was satisfied. He put everything away and then walked into the bathroom, stripped off the gloves and washed his hands three times. The whistling faded as he began mentally reciting the mantra for today.

  Grape, cherry and milk . . . Grape, cherry and milk.

  He never stopped getting ready for the day when the numbness would go away.

  *

  "How you doing there, miss?"

  "Okay, Detective."

  Mr. Bell stood in the doorway of her room and looked over her bed, which was covered with schoolbooks and papers.

  "My, I must say you do work hard."

  Geneva shrugged.

  "I'm going home to my boys now."

  "You have sons?"

  "That I do. Two of 'em. Maybe you'll meet them someday. If you'd like."

  "Sure," she said. Thinking: That'll never happen. "Are they at home with your wife?"

  "They're at their grandfolks right now. I was married but she passed on."

  These words flicked Geneva's heart. She could see pure pain behind them--in the way, oddly enough, that his expression didn't change as he spoke them. It was like he practiced saying this to people and not crying. "I'm sorry."

  "Oh, that was some years ago."

  She nodded. "Where's Officer Pulaski?"

  "He's gone home. He's got a daughter. And his wife's expecting."

  "Boy or girl?" Geneva asked.

  "I honestly couldn't tell you. He'll be back tomorrow early. We can ask him then. Your uncle's in the next room and Miss Lynch'll be staying here tonight."

  "Barbe?"

  "Yes'm."

  "She's nice. She was telling me about some of the dogs she owns. And about some of the new TV shows." Geneva nodded down at her books. "I don't have much time for TV."

  Detective Bell laughed. "My boys could use a bit of your influence, miss. I will sure as rain get y'all together. Now, you shout out for Barbe, any reason you want." He hesitated. "Even you have a bad dream. I know it's tough sometimes, your parents not home."

  "I do fine being alone," she said.

  "I don't doubt it. Still, holler if you need to. That's what we're here for." He walked to the window, peeked out through the curtains, made sure the window was locked and let the drapes fall back. " 'Night, miss. Don't you worry. We'll catch ourselves this fellow. Only a matter of time. There's nobody better than Mr. Rhyme and the people he's got working with him."

  " 'Night." Glad he was leaving. Maybe he meant well but Geneva hated to be treated like a child as much as she hated to be reminded of this terrible situation. She cleared her books off the bed and stacked them neatly by the door so that if she had to leave fast she could find them in the dark and take them with her. She did this every night.

  She now reached into her purse and found the dried violet that that illusionist woman, Kara, had given her. She looked at it for a long moment then put it carefully into the book that was on the top of the stack and closed the cover.

  A fast trip to the bathroom, where she cleaned the pearl-colored basin after washing up and brushing her teeth. She laughed to herself, thinking of the unholy mess that was Keesh's john. In the hallway Barbe Lynch said good night to her. Back in the bedroom, Geneva locked the door, then hesitated and, feeling foolish, propped the desk chair under the knob. She undressed and pulled on shorts and a faded T-shirt and got back into bed. She shut the light out and lay on her back, anxious and frenzied, for twenty minutes, thinking of her mother, then her father, then Keesh.

  Kevin Cheaney's image made an entrance; she shoved it angrily away.

  Then her thoughts ended up on her ancestor, Charles Singleton.

  Running, running, running . . .

  The leap into the Hudson.

  Thinking of his secret. What was so important that he'd risk everything to keep it hidden?

  Thinking of the love he had for his wife, his son.

  But the terrible man from the li
brary that morning kept barging into her mind. Oh, she talked big in front of the police. But of course she was scared. The ski mask, the thonk as the club hit the mannequin, the slap of his feet after her. And now the other one too, the black man at the school yard with the gun.

  Those memories killed sleep quickly.

  She opened her eyes and lay awake, restless, thinking of another sleepless night, years ago: Seven-year-old Geneva had crawled out of bed and wandered into the living room of their apartment. There she'd turned on the TV and watched some stupid sitcom for ten minutes before her father stepped into the living room.

  "What're you doing there, watching that?" He'd blinked at the light.

  "I can't sleep."

  "Read a book. Better for you."

  "I don't feel like reading."

  "All right. I will." He'd walked to the shelves. "You'll like this one. One of the best books ever."

  As he sat in his armchair, which creaked and hissed under his weight, she glanced at the limp paperback but couldn't see the cover.

  "You comfy?" he asked.

  "Yeah." She was lying on the couch.

  "Close your eyes."

  "I'm not sleepy."

  "Close your eyes so you'll picture what I'm reading."

  "Okay. What's--?"

  "Hush."

  "Okay."

  He'd started the book, To Kill a Mockingbird. For the next week, his reading it out loud to her at bedtime became a ritual.

  Geneva Settle decided it was one of the best books ever--and even at that age, she'd read, or heard, a lot of books. She loved the main characters--the calm, strong, widower father; the brother and sister (Geneva'd always wanted a sibling). And the story itself, about courage in the face of hatred and stupidity, was spellbinding.

  The memory of the Harper Lee book stayed with her. And funny, when she went back and reread it at age eleven, she got a lot more of it. Then at fourteen she understood even more. She'd read it again last year and wrote a paper on it for English. She got an A-plus.

  To Kill a Mockingbird was one of the books on the stack that sat beside the bedroom door at the moment, the in-case-of-fire-grab-this pile. It was a book that she tended to cart around in her book bag, even if she wasn't reading it. This was the book that she'd slipped Kara's good-luck-charm violet into.

  Tonight, though, she picked another one from the stack. Charles Dickens. Oliver Twist. She lay back, rested the book on her chest and opened it to her flattened straw bookmark (she'd never turn down the pages in any book, even a paperback). She began to read. At first the creaks of the town house spooked her, and the image of the man in the mask came back, but soon she lost herself in the story. And not long after that, an hour or so, Geneva Settle's eyes grew heavy and she was finally lulled to sleep--not by a mother's good-night kiss, or a father's deep voice reciting a prayer, but by the litany of a stranger's beautiful words.

  Chapter Nineteen

  "Time for bed."

  "What?" Rhyme asked, looking up from his computer screen.

  "Bed," Thom repeated. He was a bit wary. Sometimes it was a battle to get Rhyme to stop working.

  But the criminalist said, "Yep. Bed."

  He was, in fact, exhausted--discouraged too. He was reading an email from Warden J. T. Beauchamp in Amarillo reporting that nobody in the prison recognized the computer composite of Unsub 109.

  The criminalist dictated a brief thank-you and logged off. Then he said to Thom, "Just one call, then I'll go willingly."

  "I'll straighten up some," the aide said. "Meet you upstairs."

  Amelia Sachs had gone back to her place to spend the night, and to see her mother, who lived near her and had been sick lately--some cardiac problems. Sachs spent the night with Rhyme more often than not, but she'd kept her apartment in Brooklyn, where she had other family members and friends. (Jennifer Robinson--the patrolwoman who'd delivered the teenagers to Rhyme's that morning--lived right up the street.) Besides, Sachs, like Rhyme, needed solitude from time to time, and this arrangement suited them both.

  Rhyme called and talked briefly to her mother, wished her well. Sachs came on the line and he told her about the latest developments--few though they were.

  "You okay?" Sachs asked him. "You sound preoccupied."

  "Tired."

  "Ah." She didn't believe him. "Get some sleep."

  "You too. Sleep well."

  "Love you, Rhyme."

  "Love you."

  After he disconnected, he rolled toward the evidence chart.

  He wasn't, however, gazing at Thom's precise entries about the case. He was looking at the printout of the tarot card, taped to a board, the twelfth card, The Hanged Man. He reread the block about the meaning of the card. He studied the man's placid, inverted face. Then he turned and wheeled to the small elevator that connected the laboratory on the first floor to the bedroom on the second, instructed the elevator to ascend and then wheeled out.

  He reflected on the tarot card. Just like Kara, their illusionist friend, Rhyme didn't believe in spiritualism or the psychic. (They were both, in their own ways, scientists.) But he couldn't help but be struck by the fact that a card showing a scaffold just happened to be a piece of evidence in a case in which the word "Gallows" figured prominently. The word "Hanged" too was a curious coincidence. Criminalists must know about all methods of death, of course, and Rhyme understood exactly how hanging worked. It snapped the neck high, just below the base of the skull. (The actual cause of death in execution-style hangings was suffocation, though not from squeezing the throat shut, but from cutting off the neuron messages to the lungs.) This is what had nearly happened to Rhyme at the subway crime scene accident some years ago.

  Gallows Heights . . . The Hanged Man . . .

  The meaning of the tarot card, though, was the most significant aspect of the happenstance: Its appearance in a reading indicates spiritual searching leading to a decision, a transition, a change of direction. The card often foretells a surrendering to experience, ending a struggle, accepting what is. When this card appears in your reading you must listen to your inner self, even if that message seems to be contrary to logic.

  He was amused because he'd been doing plenty of seeking lately--before the Unsub 109 case and the appearance of the fortune-telling card. Lincoln Rhyme needed to make a decision.

  A change of direction . . .

  Now he didn't remain in the bedroom but instead drove to the room that was the epicenter of this churning debate: his therapy room, where he'd spent hundreds of hours hard at work on Dr. Sherman's exercise regimen.

  Parking the wheelchair in the doorway, he studied the rehab equipment in the dim room--the ergometer bike, the treadmill. Then he glanced down at his right hand, strapped at the wrist to the padded arm of his red Storm Arrow wheelchair.

  Decision . . .

  Go on, he told himself.

  Try it. Now. Move your hand.

  Breathing hard. Eyes riveted to his right hand.

  No . . .

  His shoulders slumped, to the extent they could, and he looked into the room. Thinking of all the grueling exercise. Sure, the effort had improved his bone density and muscle mass and circulation, reducing infections and the chance of a neurovascular episode.

  But the real question surrounding the exercise could be summed up in a two-word euphemism from the medical specialists: functional benefit. Rhyme's translation was less foggy: feeling and moving.

  The very aspects of his recovery he'd dismissed when speaking to Sherman earlier today.

  To put it frankly, he'd lied to the doctor. In his heart, not confessed to anyone, was the burning need to know one thing: Had those tortured hours of exercise let him regain sensation and given him the ability to move muscles that had not moved in years? Could he now turn the knob on a Bausch & Lomb microscope to bring a fiber or hair into focus? Could he feel Amelia Sachs's palm against his?

  As for the sensation, perhaps there had been some slight improvement. But a quadriplegic
with a C4 level of injury floats in a sea of phantom pain and phony sensation, all ginned up by the brain to taunt and confuse. You feel flies crawling on skin where no flies have landed. You feel no sensation whatsoever as you look down and realize that a spill of scalding coffee is burning off layers of your flesh. Rhyme believed, though, that he had a bit of improved sensation.

  Ah, but about the big payoff--movement? This was the jewel in the crown of spinal-cord-injury recovery.

  He looked down at his hand once again, his right hand, which he hadn't been able to move since the accident.

  This question could be answered simply and definitively. No phantom-pain issues, no I-think-maybe-I-feel-something responses. It could be answered right now. Yes or no. He didn't need MRI scans or a dynamic resistance gauge or whatever contraption the doctors had in their little black bags. Right now he could simply send tiny impulses shooting to the muscle along the highway of neurons and then see what happened.

  Would the messengers arrive and make the finger curl--which would be the equivalent of a world-record long jump? Or would they crash to a stop on a dead strand of nerve?

  Rhyme believed he was a brave man, both physically and morally. In the days before the accident, there was nothing he wouldn't do for the job. Protecting a crime scene once, he and another officer had held off a crazed mob of forty people trying to loot the store where a shooting had taken place, when the cops could easily have dodged to safety. Another time, he'd run a scene fifty feet from a barricaded perp taking potshots at him, in order to find evidence that might lead them to the location of a kidnapped girl. Then there was the time he'd put his entire career on the line by arresting a senior police officer who was contaminating a scene simply to grandstand for the press.

  But now his courage failed him.

  His eyes boring into the right hand, staring.

  Yes, no . . .

  If he tried to move his finger and wasn't able to, if he couldn't even claim one of Dr. Sherman's small victories in this exhausting battle he'd been fighting, he believed that it would be the end for him.

  The dark thoughts would return, like a tide rolling higher and higher on the shore, and finally he'd call up a doctor once more--oh, but not Sherman. A very different doctor. The man from the Lethe Society, a euthanasia group. A few years ago when he'd tried to end his life he hadn't been as independent as he was now. There'd been fewer computers, no voice-activated ECU systems and phones. Ironically, now that his lifestyle was better, he was also more self-sufficient at killing himself. The doctor could help him rig some contraption to the ECU, and leave pills or a weapon nearby.