The Coffin Dancer

by Jeffery Deaver

  "We'll take the names anyway, you don't mind. Check 'em out."

  "Sally Anne, she's our office manager, 'll get you a list."

  "You'll have to seal the hangar," Rhyme said. "Keep everybody out."

  Percey was shaking her head. "We can't--"

  "Seal it," he repeated. "Everybody out. Every . . . body."

  "But--"

  Rhyme said, "We have to."

  "Whoa," Percey said, "hold up there." She looked at Hale. "Foxtrot Bravo?"

  He shrugged. "Ron said it'll take another day at least."

  Percey sighed. "The Learjet that Ed was flying was the only one outfitted for the charter. There's another flight scheduled for tomorrow night. We'll have to work nonstop to get the other plane ready. We can't close the hangar."

  Rhyme said, "I'm sorry. This isn't an option."

  Percey blinked. "Well, I don't know who you are to give me options . . . "

  "I'm somebody trying to save your life," Rhyme snapped.

  "I can't risk losing this contract."

  "Hold up, miss," Dellray said. "You're not understandin' this bad guy . . . "

  "He killed my husband," she responded in a flinty voice. "I understand him perfectly. But I'm not being bullied into losing this job."

  Sachs's hands went to her hips. "Hey, hold up there. If there's anybody who can save your skin, it's Lincoln Rhyme. I don't think we need an attitude here."

  Rhyme's voice broke into the argument. He asked calmly, "Can you give us an hour for the search?"

  "An hour?" Percey considered this.

  Sachs gave a laugh and turned her surprised eyes on her boss. She asked, "Search a hangar in an hour? Come on, Rhyme." Her face said: Here I am defending you and now you're pulling this? Whose side are you on?

  Some criminalists assigned teams to search crime scenes. But Rhyme always insisted that Amelia Sachs search alone, just as he'd done. A single CS searcher had a focus that couldn't be achieved with other people on the scene. An hour was an extraordinarily brief time for a single person to cover a large scene. Rhyme knew this but he didn't respond to Sachs. He kept his eyes on Percey. She said, "An hour? All right. I can live with that."

  "Rhyme," Sachs protested, "I'll need more time."

  "Ah, but you're the best, Amelia," he joshed. Which meant the decision had already been made.

  "Who can help us up there?" Rhyme asked Percey.

  "Ron Talbot. He's a partner in the company and our operations manager."

  Sachs jotted the name in her watch book. "Should I go now?" she asked.

  "No," Rhyme responded. "I want you to wait until we have the bomb from the Chicago flight. I need you to help me analyze it."

  "I only have an hour," she said testily. "Remember?"

  "You'll have to wait," he grumbled. Then asked Fred Dellray, "What about the safe house?"

  "Oh, we got a place you'll like," the agent said to Percey. "In Manhattan. Your taxpayer dollars be working hard. Yep, yep. U.S. marshals use it for the creme de la creme in witness protection. Only thing is, we need somebody from NYPD for baby-sitting detail. Somebody who knows and appreciates the Dancer."

  And just then Jerry Banks looked up, wondering why everybody was staring at him. "What?" he asked. "What?" And tried in vain to pat down his persistent cowlick.

  Stephen Kall, talker of soldier talk, shooter of soldier guns, had never in fact been a soldier.

  But he now said to Sheila Horowitz, "I'm proud of my military heritage. And that's the truth."

  "Some people don't--"

  "No," he interrupted, "some people don't respect you for it. But that's their problem."

  "It is their problem," Sheila echoed.

  "You have a nice place here." He looked around the dump, filled with Conran's markdowns.

  "Thank you, friend. Uhm, you, like, want something to drink? Oopsie, there I go using that old preposition the wrong way. Mom's always after me. Watching too much TV. Like, like, like. Shamie shamie."

  What the fuck is she talking about?

  "You live here alone?" he asked with a pleasant smile of curiosity.

  "Yep, just me and the dynamic trio. I don't know why they're hiding. Those silly-billy scamps." Sheila nervously pinched the fine hem of her vest. And because he hadn't answered, she repeated, "So? Something to drink?"

  "Sure."

  He saw a single bottle of wine, dust encrusted, sitting on top of her refrigerator. Saved for that special occasion. Was this it?

  Apparently not. She broke out the diet Dr Pepper.

  He strolled to the window and looked out. No police on the street here. And only a half block to a subway stop. The apartment was on the second floor, and though she had grates on the back windows they were unlocked and if he had to he could climb down the fire escape and disappear onto Lexington Avenue, which was always crowded . . .

  She had a telephone and a PC. Good.

  He glanced at a wall calendar--pictures of angels. There were a few notations but nothing for this weekend.

  "Hey, Sheila, would you--" He caught himself and shook his head, fell silent.

  "Uhm, what?"

  "Well, it's . . . I know it's stupid to ask. I mean, it's such short notice and everything. I was just wondering if you had plans for the next couple of days."

  Cautious here. "Oh, I, uhm, I was supposed to see my mother."

  Stephen wrinkled his face in disappointment. "Too bad. See, I have this place in Cape May--"

  "The Jersey shore!"

  "Right. I'm going out there--"

  "After you get Buddy?"

  Who the fuck was Buddy?

  Oh, the cat. "Right. If you weren't doing anything, I thought you might like to come out."

  "You have . . . ?"

  "My mom's going to be there, some of her girlfriends."

  "Well, golly. I don't know."

  "So, why don't you call your mother and tell her she'll have to live without you for the weekend?"

  "Well . . . I don't really have to call. If I don't show up it's, like, no big deal. It was like, maybe I'll go, maybe I won't."

  So she'd been lying. An empty weekend. Nobody'd miss her for the next few days.

  A cat jumped up next to him, stuck her face into his. He pictured a thousand worms spraying over his body. He pictured the worms squirming through Sheila's hair. Her wormy fingers. Stephen began to detest this woman. He wanted to scream.

  "Ooo, say hello to our new friend, Andrea. She likes you, Sam."

  He stood up, looking around the apartment. Thinking:

  Remember, boy, anything can kill.

  Some things kill fast and some things kill slow. But anything can kill.

  "Say," he asked, "you have any packing tape?"

  "Uhm, for . . . ?" Her mind raced. "For . . . ?"

  "The instruments I have in the bag? I need to tape one of the drums back together."

  "Oh, sure, I've got some in here." She walked into the hallway. "I send my aunties packages all the time. I always buy a new roll of tape. I can never remember if I've bought one before so I end up with a ton of them. Aren't I a silly-billy?"

  He didn't answer because he was surveying the kitchen and decided that was the best kill zone in the apartment.

  "Here you go." She tossed him the roll of tape playfully. He instinctively caught it. He was angry because he hadn't had the chance to put his gloves on. He knew he'd left prints on the roll. He shivered in rage and when he saw Sheila grinning, saying, "Hey, good catch, friend," what he was really looking at was a huge worm moving closer and closer. He set the tape down and pulled on his gloves.

  "Gloves? You cold? Say, friend, what're you . . . ?"

  He ignored her and opened the refrigerator door, began removing the food.

  She stepped farther into the room. Her giddy smile started to fade. "Uhm, you hungry?"

  He began removing the shelves.

  A look passed between them and suddenly, from deep within her throat, came a faint "Eeeeeeee."
/>   Stephen got the fat worm before she made it halfway to the front door.

  Fast or slow?

  He dragged her back into the kitchen. Toward the refrigerator.

  . . . Chapter Seven

  Hour 2 of 45

  Threes.

  Percey Clay, honors engineering major, certified airframe and power plant mechanic, and holder of every license the Federal Aviation Agency could bestow on pilots, had no time for superstition.

  Yet as she drove in a bulletproof van through Central Park on the way to the federal safe house in midtown, she thought of the old adage that superstitious travelers repeat like a grim mantra. Crashes come in threes.

  Tragedies too.

  First, Ed. Now, the second sorrow: what she was hearing over the cell phone from Ron Talbot, who was in his office at Hudson Air.

  She was sandwiched between Brit Hale and that young detective, Jerry Banks. Her head was down. Hale watched her, and Banks looked vigilantly out the window at traffic, passersby, and trees.

  "U.S. Med agreed to give us one more shot." Talbot's breath wheezed in and out alarmingly. One of the best pilots she'd ever known, Talbot hadn't driven an aircraft for years--grounded because of his precarious health. Percey considered this a horrifyingly unjust punishment for his sins of liquor, cigarettes, and food (largely because she shared them). "I mean, they can cancel the contract. Bombs aren't force majeure. They don't excuse us from performance."

  "But they're letting us make the flight tomorrow."

  A pause.

  "Yeah. They are."

  "Come on, Ron," she snapped. "No bullshit between us." She heard him light another cigarette. Big and smokey--the man she'd bum Camels from when she was quitting smoking--Talbot was forgetful of fresh clothing and shaves. And inept at delivering bad news.

  "It's Foxtrot Bravo," he said reluctantly.

  "What about her?"

  N695FB was Percey Clay's Learjet 35A. Not that the paperwork indicated this. Legally the twin-engine jet was leased to Clay-Carney Holding Corporation Two, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Hudson Air Charters, Ltd., by Morgan Air Leasing Inc., which in turn leased it from La Jolla Holding Two's wholly owned subsidiary Transport Solutions Incorporated, a Delaware company. This byzantine arrangement was both legal and common, given the fact that both airplanes and airplane crashes are phenomenally expensive.

  But everyone at Hudson Air Charters knew that November Six Nine Five Foxtrot Bravo was Percey's. She'd logged thousands of hours in the airplane. It was her pet. It was her child. And on the too-many nights Ed was gone just the thought of the aircraft would take the sting out of the loneliness. A sweet stick, the aircraft could cruise at forty-five thousand feet at speeds of 460 knots--over 500 miles per hour. She personally knew it could fly higher and faster, though that was a secret kept from Morgan Air Leasing, La Jolla Holding, Transport Solutions, and the FAA.

  Talbot finally said, "Getting her outfitted--it's going to be trickier than I thought."

  "Go on."

  "All right," he said finally. "Stu quit." Stu Marquard, their chief mechanic.

  "What?"

  "The son of a bitch quit. Well, he hasn't yet," Talbot continued. "He called in sick but it sounded funny, so I made some calls. He's going over to Sikorsky. Already took the job."

  Percey was stunned.

  This was a major problem. Lear 35As came equipped as eight-seat passenger jets. To make the aircraft ready for the U.S. Medical run, most of the seats had to be stripped out; shock-absorbed, refrigerated bays had to be installed, and extra power outlets had to be run from the engine's generators. This meant major electrical and airframe work.

  There were no mechanics better than Stu Marquard and he'd outfitted Ed's Lear in record time. But without him Percey didn't know how they could finish in time for tomorrow's flight.

  "What is it, Perce?" Hale asked, seeing her grimacing face.

  "Stu quit," she whispered.

  He shook his head, not understanding. "Quit what?"

  "He left," she muttered. "Quit his job. Going to work on fucking choppers."

  Hale gazed at her in shock. "Today?"

  She nodded.

  Talbot continued. "He's scared, Perce. They know it was a bomb. The cops aren't saying anything but everybody knows what happened. They're nervous. I was talking to John Ringle--"

  "Johnny?" A young pilot they'd hired last year. "He's not leaving too?"

  "He was just asking if we're closing down for a while. Until this all blows over."

  "No, we're not closing down," she said firmly. "We're not canceling a single goddamn job. It's business as usual. And if anybody else calls in sick, fire them."

  "Percey . . . "

  Talbot was dour but everybody knew he was the company's soft touch.

  "All right," she snapped, "I'll fire them."

  "Look, about Foxtrot Bravo, I can do most of the work myself," said Talbot, a certified airframe mechanic himself.

  "Do what you can. But see if you can find another mechanic," she told him. "We'll talk later."

  She hung up.

  "I can't believe it," Hale said. "He quit." The pilot was bewildered.

  Percey was furious. People were bailing out--the worst sin there was. The Company was dying. Yet she didn't have a clue how to save it.

  Percey Clay had no monkey skills for running a business.

  Monkey skills . . .

  A phrase she'd heard when she was a fighter pilot. Coined by a navy flier, an admiral, it meant the esoteric, unteachable talents of a natural-born pilot.

  Well, sure, Percey had monkey skills when it came to flying. Any type of aircraft, whether she'd flown it previously or not, under any weather conditions, VFR or IFR, day or night. She could drive the plane flawlessly and set it down on that magic spot pilots aimed for--exactly "a thousand past the numbers"--a thousand feet down the landing strip past the white runway designation. Sailplanes, biplanes, Hercs, seven three sevens, MiGs--she was at home in any cockpit.

  But that was about as far as Percey Rachael Clay's monkey skills extended.

  She had none at family relations, that was for sure. Her tobacco society father had refused to speak to her for years--had actually disinherited her--when she'd dropped out of his alma mater, UVA, to attend aviation school at Virginia Tech. (Even though she told him that the departure from Charlottesville was inevitable--six weeks into the first semester Percey'd KO'd a sorority president after the lanky blonde commented in an overloud whisper that the troll girl might want to pledge at the ag school and not on Greek Row.) Certainly no monkey skills at navy politics. Her awe-inspiring flight performance in the big Tomcats didn't quite tip the balance against her unfortunate habit of speaking her mind when everyone else was keeping mum about certain events.

  And no skills at running the very charter company she was president of. It was mystifying to her how Hudson Air could be so busy yet continue to skirt bankruptcy. Like Ed and Brit Hale and the other staff pilots, Percey was constantly working (one reason she shunned scheduled airlines was the asinine FAA pronouncement that pilots fly no more than eighty hours a month). So why were they constantly broke? If it hadn't been for charming Ed's ability to get clients, and grumpy Ron Talbot's to cut costs and juggle creditors, they never would have survived for the past two years.

  The Company had nearly gone under last month but Ed managed to snare the contract from U.S. Medical. The hospital chain made an astonishing amount of money doing transplants, which she learned was a business far bigger than just hearts and kidneys. The major problem was getting the donor organ to the appropriate recipient within hours of its availability. Organs were often flown on commercial flights (carried in coolers in the cockpit), but transporting them was dictated by commercial airline scheduling and routing. Hudson Air didn't have those restrictions. The Company agreed to dedicate one aircraft to U.S. Medical. It would fly a counterclockwise route throughout the East Coast and Midwest to six or eight of the Company's locations, circ
ulating organs wherever they were needed. Delivery was guaranteed. Rain, snow, wind shear, conditions at minimum--as long as the airport was open and it was legal to fly, Hudson Air would deliver the cargo on time.

  The first month was to be a trial period. If it worked out they'd get an eighteen-month contract that would be the backbone for the Company's survival.

  Apparently Ron had charmed the client into giving them another chance, but if Foxtrot Bravo wasn't ready for tomorrow's flight . . . Percey didn't even want to think about that possibility.

  As she rode in the police car through Central Park Percey Clay looked over the early spring growth. Ed had loved the park and had run here frequently. He'd do two laps around the reservoir and return home looking bedraggled, his grayish hair hanging in strands around his face. And me? Percey laughed sadly to herself now. He'd find her sitting at home, poring over a nav log or an advanced turbofan repair manual, maybe smoking, maybe drinking a Wild Turkey. And, grinning, Ed would poke her in the ribs with a strong finger and ask if she could do anything else unhealthy at the same time. And while they laughed, he'd sneak a couple of swigs of the bourbon.

  Remembering then how he'd bend down and kiss her shoulder. When they made love it was that juncture where he'd rest his face, bent forward, locked against her skin, and Percey Clay believed that there, where her neck flared onto her delicate shoulders, if only there, she was a beautiful woman.

  Ed . . .

  All the stars of evening . . .

  Tears again filling her eyes, she glanced up into the gray sky. Ominous. She estimated the ceiling at one five hundred feet, winds 090 at fifteen knots. Wind shear conditions. She shifted in the seat. Brit Hale's strong fingers were encircling her forearm. Jerry Banks was chatting about something. She wasn't listening.

  Percey Clay came to a decision. She unfolded the cell phone again.

  . . . Chapter Eight

  Hour 3 of 45

  The siren wailed.

  Lincoln Rhyme expected to hear the Doppler effect as the emergency vehicle cruised past. But right outside his front door the siren gave a brief chirrup and went silent. A moment later Thom let a young man into the first-floor lab. Crowned with a spiffy crew cut, the Illinois state trooper wore a blue uniform, which had probably been immaculate when he put it on yesterday but was now wrinkled and streaked with soot and dirt. He'd run an electric razor over his face but had made only faint inroads into the dark beard that contrasted with his thin yellow hair. He was carrying two large canvas satchels and a brown folder, and Rhyme was happier to see him than he'd been to see anybody in the past week.