The Vanished Man

by Jeffery Deaver

  Marlow glanced up from the file he'd been reading and eyed her impeccably pressed blue navies. "Oh, sit down, Officer. Sorry. Sit down. . . . So, Herman Sachs's daughter."

  Sitting, she noted a faint hesitation between the last two words of his sentence. Had the word "girl" been quickly replaced?

  "That's right."

  "I was at the funeral."

  "I remember."

  "It was a good one."

  As funerals go.

  Eyes on hers, posture upright, Marlow said, "Okay, Officer. Here it is. You're in some trouble."

  It hit her like a physical blow. "I'm sorry, sir?"

  "A crime scene on Saturday, by the Harlem River. Car went into the water. You ran it?"

  Where the Conjurer's Mazda took out crack-head Carlos's shack and went for a swim.

  "Yes, that's right."

  "You placed somebody under arrest at the scene," Marlow said.

  "Oh, that. Not really arrest. This guy went under the tape and was digging around in a sealed area. I had him escorted out and detained."

  "Detained, arrested. The point is he was in custody for a while."

  "Sure. I needed him out of my hair. It was an active scene."

  Sachs was starting to get her bearings. The obnoxious citizen had complained. Happened every day. Nobody paid attention to crap like that. She began to relax.

  "Well, the guy? He was Victor Ramos."

  "Yeah, I think he told me that."

  "Congressman Victor Ramos."

  The relaxation vanished.

  The captain opened a New York Daily News. "Let's see, let's see. Ah, here." He lifted the paper and held up a centerfold, which featured a large picture of the man in cuffs at the scene. The headline read: "TIME-OUT" FOR VICTOR.

  "You told the officers on the scene to put him in time-out?"

  "He was--"

  "Did you?"

  "I believe I did, sir, yes."

  Marlow offered, "He claimed he was looking for survivors."

  "Survivors?" she barked, laughing. "It was a ten-by-ten squatter's shack that got clipped when the perp's car went into the river. Part of a wall fell over and--"

  "You're getting a little hot here, Officer."

  "--and I think a bag of goddamn empties got ripped open. That was the only damage. EMS cleared the shack and I sealed it. The only living things left to rescue in that place were the lice."

  "Uh-huh," Marlow said evenly, uneasy with her temper. "He said he was simply making sure anybody living there was safe."

  She added with uncontrolled irony, "The home owners walked out on their own. Nobody was hurt. Though I understand one of them later got a bruised cheek when he resisted arrest."

  "Arrest?"

  "He tried to steal a fireman's flashlight and then urinated on him."

  "Oh. Brother . . ."

  She muttered, "They were unharmed, they were stoned and they were assholes. And those were the citizens Ramos was worried about?"

  The captain's grimace, containing shreds of both caution and sympathy, faded. The emotion was replaced by his rubbery bureaucratic facade. "Do you know for a fact that there was any evidence Ramos destroyed that would've been relevant to collaring the suspect?"

  "Whether there was or not doesn't make a bit of difference, sir. It's the procedure that's important." She was struggling to keep calm, keep the edge out of her voice. Marlow was, after all, her boss's boss's boss.

  "Trying to work things out here, Officer Sachs," he said sternly. Then repeated, "Do you know for a fact that evidence was destroyed?"

  She sighed. "No."

  "So his being in the scene was irrelevant."

  "I--"

  "Irrelevant?"

  "Yessir." She cleared her throat. "We were after a cop killer, Captain. Does that count for anything?" she asked bitterly.

  "To me. To a lot of people, yeah. To Ramos, no."

  She nodded. "Okay, what kind of firestorm're we talking?"

  "There were TV crews there, Officer. You watch the news that night?"

  Nup, she thought, I was pretty busy trying to collar a murderer. Sachs chose a different answer: "Nosir."

  "Well, Ramos was prominently featured, being led off in cuffs."

  She said, "You know the only reason he was in the scene in the first place was to be filmed risking his goddamn life to look for survivors. . . . I'm curious, sir: Ramos running for reelection anytime soon?"

  Even confirming comments like that can get you early retirement. Or no retirement at all. Marlow said nothing.

  "What's the . . . ?"

  "Bottom line?" Marlow's lips tightened. "I'm sorry, Officer. You've washed out. Ramos checked on you. Found out about the sergeant's exam. He pulled strings. He got you flunked."

  "He did what?"

  "Flunked. He talked to the examining officers."

  "I had the third highest exam in the history of the department," she said, laughing bitterly. "Isn't that right?"

  "Yes--on the multiple choice and the orals. But you need to pass the assessment exercise too."

  "I did fine on it."

  "The preliminary results were good. But in the final report you flunked."

  "Impossible. What happened?"

  "One of the officers in the exercise wouldn't pass you."

  "Wouldn't pass me? But I . . ." Her voice faded as she pictured the handsome officer with the shotgun stepping out from behind the Dumpster. The man she'd snubbed.

  Bang, bang . . .

  The captain read from a piece of paper, "He said you didn't quote 'display proper respect for individuals in a supervisory position. And she exhibited disrespectful behavior with regard to peers, leading to situations of endangerment.' "

  "So Ramos tracked down somebody willing to dime me out and fed him those lines. I'm sorry, Captain, but you really think a street cop talks that way? 'Situations of endangerment'? Come on."

  Well, Pop, she thought to her father, how's this for sticking in the craw? Feeling heartsick.

  Then she looked carefully at Marlow. "What else, sir? There is something else, isn't there?"

  To his credit he held her eye as he said, "Yes, Officer. There is. It gets worse, I'm afraid."

  Let's hear how exactly it could be worse, Pop.

  "Ramos is trying to get you suspended."

  "Suspended. That's bullshit."

  "He wants an inquest."

  "Vindictive . . ." The "prick" didn't get spoken as she saw in Marlow's gaze the reminder that it was this sort of attitude that had gotten her into trouble in the first place.

  He added, "I have to tell you that he's mad enough to . . . Well, he's going for suspension without pay." This punishment was usually reserved for officers accused of crimes.

  "Why?"

  Marlow didn't answer. But he didn't need to, of course. Sachs knew: to bolster his credibility Ramos had to show that the time-out woman who'd embarrassed him was a loose cannon.

  And the other reason was that he was a vindictive prick.

  "What'd the grounds be?"

  "Insubordination, incompetence."

  "I can't lose my shield, sir." Trying not to sound desperate.

  "There's nothing I can do about your flunking the exam, Amelia. That's in the board's hands and they've already made their decision. But I'll fight the suspension. I can't promise anything, though. Ramos's got wire. All over the city."

  A hand rose into her scalp. She scratched until she felt pain. Lowered her hand, feeling slick blood. "Can I speak freely, sir?"

  Marlow slumped slightly in his chair. "Jesus, Officer, sure. You have to know I feel bad about this. Say what you want. And you don't have to sit at attention. We're not the army, you know."

  Sachs cleared her throat. "If he tries for suspension, sir, my next call'll be to the PBA lawyers. I'll light this one up. I'll take it as far as I have to."

  And she would. Though she knew how non-rank cops who fought discrimination or suspensions through the Patrolmen's Benevolent As
sociation were unofficially red flagged. Many of them found their careers permanently sidetracked even if they won technical victories.

  Marlow held her steady gaze as he said, "Noted, Officer."

  So it was knuckle time.

  Her father's expression. About being a cop.

  Amie, you have to understand: sometimes it's a rush, sometimes you get to make a difference, sometimes it's boring. And sometimes, not too often, thank God, it's knuckle time. Fist to fist. You're all by your lonesome, with nobody to help you. And I don't mean just the perps. Sometimes it'll be you against your boss. Sometimes against their bosses. Could be you against your buddies too. You gonna be a cop, you got to be ready to go it alone. There's no getting around it.

  "Well, for the time being you're still on active duty."

  "Yessir. When will I know?"

  "A day or two."

  Walking toward the door.

  She stopped, turned back. "Sir?"

  Marlow glanced up as if he was surprised she was still there.

  "Ramos was in the middle of my crime scene. If it'd been you there, or the mayor, or the president himself, I would've done exactly the same thing."

  "That's why you're your father's daughter, Officer, and why he'd be proud of you." Marlow lifted his phone off the cradle. "We'll hope for the best."

  Chapter Fifty Thom let Lon Sellitto into the front hallway, where Lincoln Rhyme sat in his candy-apple red chair, grumbling at construction workers to mind the woodwork as they carted refuse downstairs from the repair work currently going on in his fire-damaged bedroom.

  Passing by on his way to the kitchen to fix lunch, Thom grumbled back, "Leave 'em alone, Lincoln. You couldn't care less about the woodwork."

  "It's the principle," the criminalist replied tautly. "It's my woodwork and their clumsiness."

  "He's always this way when a case's over," the aide said to Sellitto. "Have you got some really thorny robbery or murder for him? A good pacifier?"

  "I don't need a pacifier," Rhyme snapped as the aide vanished. "I need people to be careful with the walls!"

  Sellitto said, "Hey, Linc. We've got to talk."

  The criminalist noted the tone--and the look in Sellitto's eyes. They'd been working together for years and he could read every emotion the cop broadcast, especially when he was troubled. What now? he wondered.

  "Just heard from the head of Patrol. It's about Amelia." Sellitto cleared his throat.

  Rhyme's heart undoubtedly gave an extra slam in his chest. He never felt it, of course, though he did sense a surge of blood in his neck and head and face.

  Thinking: Bullet, car crash.

  He said evenly in a low voice, "Go on."

  "She washed out. The sergeant's exam."

  "What?"

  "Yup."

  Rhyme's hot relief turned instantly to sorrow for her.

  The detective continued, "It's not official yet. But I know."

  "Where'd you hear?"

  "Cop radar. A fucking bird. I don't know. Sachs's a star. When something like this happens, word gets out."

  "What about her score on the exam?"

  "Despite her score on the exam."

  Rhyme wheeled into the lab. The detective, looking particularly rumpled today, followed.

  The explanation was pure Sachs, it turned out. She'd ordered somebody out of an active crime scene and, when he wouldn't leave, had him cuffed.

  "Bad for her, the guy turned out to be Victor Ramos."

  "The congressman." Lincoln Rhyme had virtually no interest in local government but he knew about Ramos: an opportunistic politico who'd abandoned his Latino constituents in Spanish Harlem until recently, now that the politically correct climate--and size of the electorate--meant he could push for Albany or a spot in Washington.

  "Can they wash her out?"

  "Come on, Linc, they can do what they fucking want. They're even talking suspension."

  "She can fight it. She will fight it."

  "And you know what happens to street cops who take on brass. Odds're, even if she wins, they'll send her to East New York. Hell, even worse, they'll send her to a desk in East New York."

  "Fuck," the criminalist spat out.

  Sellitto paced around the room, stepping over cables and glancing at the Conjurer case whiteboards. The detective dropped into a chair that creaked under his weight. He kneaded a roll of fat around his waistband; the Conjurer case had seriously sidetracked his diet. "One thing," he said softly, a whiff of conspiracy in his voice.

  "Yeah?"

  "There's this guy I know. He was the one cleaned up the Eighteen."

  "When all that crack and smack kept disappearing from the evidence locker? A few years ago?"

  "Yeah. That was it. He's got serious wire all over the Big Building. The commissioner'll listen to him and he'll listen to me. He owes me." Then he waved his arm toward the Conjurer case evidence boards. "And, fuck, lookit what we just did. We nailed one hell of a doer. Lemme give him a call. Pull some strings for her."

  And Rhyme's eyes too took in the charts, then the equipment, the examining tables, books--all devoted to the science of analyzing the evidence that Sachs had teased or muscled out of crime scenes over the past few years they'd been together. "I don't know," he said.

  "Whatsa problem?"

  "If she made sergeant that way, well, she wouldn't be the one making it."

  The detective replied, "You know what this promotion means to her, Linc."

  Yeah, he did.

  "Look, all we're doing is playing by Ramos's rules. He wants to take it down a notch we'll do the same. Make it a, you know, even playing field." Sellitto liked his idea. He added, "Amelia'll never find out. I'll tell my guy to keep the lid on it. He'll do it."

  You know what this promotion means to her. . . .

  "So what do you think?" the detective asked.

  Rhyme said nothing for a moment, looking for the answer in the silent forensic equipment surrounding him and then in the green mist of spring buds crowning the trees in Central Park.

  *

  The scuffs on the woodwork had been scrubbed away and all traces of the fire in the bedroom had been "vanished," as Thom had put it, rather cleverly, Rhyme thought. A rich scent of smoke lingered but that reminded Lincoln Rhyme of good scotch and was therefore not a problem at all.

  Now, midnight, the room dark, Rhyme lay in his Flexicair bed, staring out the window. Outside was a flutter of motion as a falcon, one of God's most fluid creatures, landed on the ledge. Depending on the light, and their degree of alertness, the birds seemed to shrink or grow in size. Tonight they seemed larger than in the daylight, their forms magnificent. Menacing too; they weren't pleased with the noises radiating from the Cirque Fantastique in Central Park.

  Well, Rhyme wasn't very happy about them either. He'd dozed off ten minutes ago only to be awakened by a loud burst of applause from the tent.

  "They should have a curfew on that," Rhyme grumbled to Sachs, lying beside him in bed.

  "I could shoot out their generator," she replied, her voice clear. She apparently hadn't gotten to sleep at all. Her head was on the pillow next to his, lips against his neck, on which he could feel the faint tickle of her hair and the smooth cool plane of her skin. Also: her breasts against his chest, belly to hip, leg over leg. He knew this only by observation, of course; there was no sensate proof of the contact. He relished that closeness all the same.

  Sachs always adhered to Rhyme's firm rule that those walking the grid not wear scent because they might miss olfactory evidence at crime scenes. But she was off duty at the moment and he detected on her skin a pleasant, complex smell, which he deduced to be jasmine, gardenia and synthetic motor oil.

  They were alone in the apartment. They'd shipped Thom off to the movies with his friend Peter and had spent the night with some new CDs, two ounces of Sevruga caviar, Ritz crackers, and copious Moet, despite the inherent difficulties in drinking champagne through a straw. Now, in the darkness, he was thi
nking again about music, about how such a purely mechanical system of tones and pacing could consume you so completely. It fascinated him. The more he thought about it, the more he decided that the subject might not be as mysterious as it seemed. Music was, after all, firmly rooted in his world: science, logic and mathematics.

  How would one go about writing a melody? If the physical therapy exercises he was doing now eventually had some effect . . . could he actually press his fingers on a keyboard? As he was considering this he noticed Sachs looking up at his face in the dim light. "You heard about the sergeant's exam?" she asked.

  A hesitation. Then: "Yep," he replied. He'd scrupulously avoided bringing up the matter all night; when Sachs was prepared to discuss something she would. Until then the subject didn't exist.

  "You know what happened?" she asked.

  "Not all the details. I assume it falls into the category of a quasi-corrupt, self-interested government official versus the overworked heroic crime scene cop. Something like that?"

  A laugh. "Pretty much."

  "I've been there myself, Sachs."

  The music from the circus kept thudding away, engendering mixed responses. Somehow you felt you should be irritated that it was intruding but you couldn't resist enjoying the beat.

  She then asked, "Did Lon talk to you about pulling some strings for me? Making calls to city hall?"

  Amelia'll never find out. I'll tell my guy to keep the lid on it. . . .

  He chuckled. "He did, yeah. You know Lon."

  The music stopped. Then applause filled the night. The faint yet evocative sound of the MC's voice followed.

  She said, "I heard he could've made the whole thing go away. Bypassed Ramos."

  "Probably. He's got a long reach."

  Sachs asked, "And what'd you say about that?"

  "What do you think?"

  "I'm asking."

  Rhyme said, "I said no. I wouldn't let him do it."

  "You wouldn't?"

  "No. I told him you'd make rank on your own or not at all."

  "Goddamn," she muttered.

  He looked down at her, momentarily alarmed. Had he misjudged her?

  "I'm pissed at Lon for even considering it."

  "He meant well."

  He believed that her arm around his chest gripped him tighter. "What you told him, Rhyme, that means more to me than anything."

  "I know that."

  "It could get ugly. Ramos's going for suspension. Twelve months off duty, no pay. I don't know what I'll do."

  "You'll consult. With me."

  "A civilian can't walk the grid, Rhyme. I have to sit still, I'll go crazy."

  When you move they can't getcha. . . .