“Then I was told I’d been selected because the case was merely administrative at that point. A cartel was behind the death — as I told you before. Probably from Señor Moreno’s home country of Venezuela. Certainly the sniper had already left the country, returned to Caracas. I was to gather the evidence, take some statements at the inn where Señor Moreno died and send the file to the Venezuelan national police. I would be the liaison if they wished to come to Nassau to investigate further. Then I was to assist some senior detectives running the case of the other murder I mentioned.”
The prominent lawyer.
More clanging, shouting. What was it, a slot machine payoff?
There was a pause and then Poitier called to someone nearby. “No, no, they’re drunk. Just watch them. I’m busy. I must make this call. Escort them out if they get belligerent. Call Big Samuel.”
Back to Rhyme: “You are suspecting conspiracy at the top, dark intrigues, to quash the Moreno investigation. In a way, yes. First, we must ask, why would the cartels want to kill him? Señor Moreno was well liked in Latin America. The cartels are businessmen first. They would not want to alienate the people they need for workers and mules by killing a popular activist. My impression — from some research I have done — is that the cartels and Moreno tolerated each other.”
Rhyme told him, “Like I told you, we feel the same.”
The corporal paused. “Señor Moreno was very outspoken against America. And his Local Empowerment Movement, with its anti-U.S. bias, was growing in popularity. You know that?”
“Yes, I do.”
“And he had connections with organizations that had terrorist leanings. This is no surprise either, I’m sure.”
“We’re aware of that, as well.”
“Now, it occurred to me that perhaps—” His voice lowered. “—your government wished this man dead.”
Rhyme realized he’d been selling the corporal short.
“And so you see the situation my superiors — in fact the entire Ministry of National Security and our Parliament — found themselves in.” Nearly whispering now. “What if our investigation shows that this was true? The CIA or the Pentagon sent a sniper down here to shoot Señor Moreno? And what if a police investigation finds that man and identifies the organization he works for. The implications could be great. In retaliation for that embarrassing revelation, there might be decisions made in the U.S. to change the immigration policy regarding the Bahamas. Or to change Customs’ policy. That would be very hard for us. The economy is not good here. We need Americans. We need the families who come here so their children can play with the dolphins and grandmother can do aerobics in the pool and husband and wife slip back to the room for their first romance in months. We can’t lose our tourists. Absolutely. And that means we can’t ruffle the feathers of Washington.”
“Do you think there would be that retribution if you conducted a more rigorous investigation?”
“It’s a reasonable explanation for the otherwise inexplicable fact that the lead investigator in the Moreno case — that is, myself — was, only two weeks ago, making certain proper fire exits existed in new buildings and that Jet Ski rental companies had paid all their fees on time.”
Poitier’s voice rose in volume and there was some steel in it. “But I have to tell you, Captain: I may have been assigned to Business Inspections and Licensing but there wasn’t a single inspection or license I handled that was not completed in a timely, thorough and honest manner.”
“I don’t doubt it, Corporal.”
“So it is troublesome for me to be given this case and yet not be given this case, if you understand my meaning.”
Silence, broken by a slot machine clattering loudly into Rhyme’s ear.
When the noise stopped, Mychal Poitier whispered, “The Moreno case is in dry dock here, Captain. But I assume yours is steaming ahead.”
“Correct.”
“And you are, I assume, pursuing a conspiracy charge.”
Selling him short indeed. “That’s right.”
“I looked for that name, Don Bruns. You said it was a cover.”
“Yes.”
“There was nothing in any of our records here. Customs, Passport Control, hotel registers. He could easily have slipped onto the island, though, unseen. It’s not difficult. But there are two things that might help you. I will say I didn’t neglect the case entirely. I interviewed witnesses, as I said. A desk clerk at the South Cove Inn told me that someone called the front desk two days before Robert Moreno arrived to confirm his reservation. A male caller, an American accent. But the clerk thought this was odd because Moreno’s guard had called just an hour or so before, also to check on the reservation. Who was the second caller — the one in or from America — and why was he so interested in Moreno’s arrival?”
“Did you get the number?”
“I was told it was an American area code. But the full number was not available. Or, to be frank, I was told not to dig further to find the number. Now, the second thing is that the day before the shooting, someone was at the inn, asking questions. This man spoke to a maid about the suite where Señor Moreno was staying, if there were groundskeepers regularly outside, did the suite have curtains, where did his guard stay, about the men’s comings and goings. I’m assuming this was the man who called, but I don’t know, of course.”
“Did you get a description?”
“Male, Caucasian, mid-thirty years of age, short-cut hair, light brown. American accent too. Thin but athletic, the maid said. She said too he seemed military.”
“That’s our man. First, he called to make sure Moreno was still arriving. Then he showed up the day before the shooting to check out the target zone. Any car? Other details?”
“No, I’m afraid not.”
Beep.
Rhyme heard the sound over the line and he thought: Shit, NIOS’s tapping us.
But Poitier said, “I only have a few minutes left. That’s the tone warning me the time on my card is expiring.”
“I’ll call you back—”
“I must go anyway. I hope this—”
Rhyme said urgently, “Please, wait. Tell me about the crime scene. I asked you earlier about the bullet.”
That’s key to the case…
A pause. “The sniper fired three times from a very far distance, more than a mile. Two shots missed and those bullets disintegrated on the concrete wall outside the room. The one that killed Moreno was recovered largely intact.”
“One bullet?” Rhyme was confused. “But the other victims?”
“Oh, they were not shot. The round was very powerful. It hit the windows and showered everyone with glass. The guard and the reporter interviewing Moreno were badly cut and bled to death before they got to the hospital.”
The million-dollar bullet.
“And the brass? The cartridges?”
“I asked a crime scene team to go search where the sniper had to shoot from. But…” His voice dimmed. “I was, of course, very junior and they told me they didn’t want to bother.”
“They didn’t want to bother?”
“The area was rugged, they said, a rocky shoreline that would be hard to search. I protested but by then the decision had been made not to pursue the case.”
“You yourself can search it, Corporal. I can tell you how to find the place he shot from,” Rhyme said.
“Well, the case is suspended, as I said.”
Beep.
“There are simple things to look for. Snipers leave a great deal of trace, however careful they are. It won’t take much time.”
Beep, beep…
“I’m not able to, Captain. The missing student still hasn’t been found—”
Rhyme blurted: “All right, Corporal, but please — at least send me the report, photos, the autopsy results. And if I could get the victims’ clothing. Shoes particularly. And…the bullet. I really want that bullet. We’ll be very diligent about the chain of custody.”
A
pause. “Ah, Captain, no, I’m sorry. I have to go.”
Beep, beep, beep…
The last that Rhyme heard before the line went silent was the urgent hoot of a slot machine and a very drunken tourist saying, “Great, great. You realize it just cost you two hundred bucks to win thirty-nine fucking dollars.”
CHAPTER 23
That night Rhyme and Sachs lay in his SunTec bed, fully reclined.
She had assured him that the bed was indescribably comfortable, an assessment for which he would have to take her word, since his only sensation was the smooth pillowcase. Which in fact was quite luxurious.
“Look,” she whispered.
Immediately outside the window of Rhyme’s second-story bedroom, on the ledge, was a flurry of movement, hard to discern in the dusk.
Then a feather rose and drifted out of sight. Another.
Dinnertime.
Peregrine falcons had lived on this sill, or one of the others outside the town house, ever since Rhyme had been a resident. He was particularly pleased they’d chosen his abode for nesting. As a scientist, he emphatically did not believe in signs or omens or the supernatural, but he saw nothing wrong with the idea of emblems. He viewed the birds metaphorically, thinking in particular of a fact that most people didn’t know about them: that when they attack they are essentially immobile. Falling bundles of muscle with legs fixed outward and wings tucked, streamlined. They dive at over two hundred miles per hour and kill prey by impact, not rending or biting.
Immobile, yet predatory.
Another feather floated away as the avian couple bent to their main course. The entrée was what had until recently been a fat, and careless, pigeon. Falcons are generally diurnal and hunt until dusk but in the city they are often nocturnal.
“Yum,” said Sachs.
Rhyme laughed.
She moved closer to him and he smelled her hair, the rich scent. A bit of shampoo, floral. Amelia Sachs was not a perfume girl. His right arm rose and he cradled her head closer.
“Are you going to follow up?” she asked. “With Poitier?”
“I’ll try. He seemed pretty adamant that he wouldn’t help us anymore. But I know he’s frustrated he hasn’t been allowed to go further.”
“What a case this is,” she said.
He whispered, “So how does it feel to be repurposed into a granular-level player, Sachs? Are you pivoting to it or not?”
She laughed hard. “And what exactly is that outfit he’s working for, Captain Myers: Special Services?”
“You’re the cop. I thought you’d know.”
“Never heard of it.”
They fell silent and then, in his shoulder, normal as anyone’s, he could feel her stiffen.
“Tell me,” he said.
“You know, Rhyme, I’m not feeling any better about this case.”
“You’re talking about what you said before, to Nance? That you’re not sure if Metzger and our sniper are the kinds of perps we want to go after?”
“Exactly.”
Rhyme nodded. “I can’t disagree, Sachs. I’ve never questioned an investigation before, in all these years. They haven’t been gray. This one’s real gray.
“There’s one thing, though, to keep in mind, Sachs. About us.”
“We’re volunteers.”
“Yep. We can walk away if we want. Let Myers and Laurel find somebody else.”
She was silent and she was motionless, at least according to those places where Rhyme could sense motion.
He continued, “You weren’t happy with the case in the first place.”
“No, I wasn’t. And part of me does want to bail, yeah. There’s too much we don’t know about the players and what they have in mind, what their motives are.”
“My motive queen.”
“And when I say players, I mean Nance Laurel and Bill Myers, as much as Metzger and Bruns — or whatever the hell his name is.” After a moment: “I have a bad feeling about this one, Rhyme. I know, you don’t believe in that. But you were crime scene most of your career. I was street. There are hunches.”
This sat between them for a minute or two as they both watched the male falcon rise and lift his wings in a minor flourish. They’re not large animals but, seen from so close, the preening was regally impressive, as was the bird’s momentary but intense gaze into the room. Their eyesight is astonishing; they can spot prey miles away.
Emblems…
“You want to keep at it, don’t you?” she asked.
He said, “I get what you’re saying, Sachs. But for me it’s a knot that needs unraveling. I can’t let it go. You don’t need to, though.”
There was no delay as she whispered, “No, I’m with you, Rhyme. You and me. It’s you and me.”
“Good, now I was—”
And his words stopped abruptly because Sachs’s mouth covered his and she was kissing him hungrily, almost desperately, flinging blankets back. She rolled on top of him, gripping his head. He felt her fingers on the back of his head, his ears, his cheek, fingers firm one moment, soft the next. Strong again. Stroking his neck, stroking his temple. Rhyme’s lips moved from hers to her hair and then a spot behind her ear, then down to her chin and seated on her mouth again. Lingering.
Rhyme had used his newly working arm on the controls of a Bausch + Lomb comparison microscope, with phones, with the computer and with a density gradient device. He had not used it yet for this: drawing Sachs closer, closer, gripping the top of her silk pajama top and smoothly drawing it over her head.
He supposed he could have finessed the buttons, if he’d tried, but urgency dictated otherwise.
III
CHAMELEONS
TUESDAY, MAY 16
CHAPTER 24
Rhyme wheeled from the front sitting room of his town house into the marble entryway near the front door.
Dr. Vic Barrington, Rhyme’s spinal cord injury specialist, followed him out, and Thom closed the doors to the room and joined them. The idea of physicians’ making house calls was from another era, if not a different dimension, but when the essence of the injury makes it far easier to come to the mountain, that’s what many of the better doctors did.
But Barrington was untraditional in many ways. His black bag was a Nike backpack and he’d bicycled here from the hospital.
“Appreciate your coming in this early,” Rhyme said to the doctor.
The time was six thirty in the morning.
Rhyme liked the man and had decided to give him a pass and resist asking how the “emergency” or the “something” had gone yesterday when he’d had to postpone their appointment. With any other doc he would have grilled.
Barrington had just completed a final set of tests in anticipation of the surgery scheduled for May 26.
“I’ll get the blood work in and look over the results but I don’t have any indication that anything’s changed over the past week. Blood pressure is very good.”
This was the nemesis of severely disabled spinal cord patients; an attack of autonomic dysreflexia could spike the pressure in minutes and lead to a stroke and death if a doctor or caregiver didn’t react instantly.
“Lung capacity gets better every time I see you and I swear you’re stronger than I am.”
Barrington was no-bullshit all the way and when Rhyme asked the next question, he knew he’d get an honest response. “What’re my odds?”
“Of getting your left arm and hand working again? Close to one hundred percent. Tendon grafts and electrodes’re pretty surefire—”
“No, that’s not what I mean. I’m talking about surviving the operation or not having some kind of cataclysmic setback.”
“Ah, that’s a little different. I’ll give you ninety percent on that one.”
Rhyme considered this. Surgery couldn’t do anything about his legs; nothing ever would fix that, at least not for the next five or ten years. But he’d come to believe that with disabilities hands and arms were the key to normal. Nobody pays much attention to
people in wheelchairs if they can pick up a knife and fork or shake your hand. When someone has to feed you and wipe your chin, your very presence spreads discomfort like spattered mud.
And those who don’t look away give you those fucking sympathetic glances. Poor you, poor you.
Ninety percent…reasonable for getting a major portion of your life back.
“Let’s do it,” Rhyme said.
“If there’s anything that bothers me about the blood work I’ll let you know but I don’t anticipate that. We’ll keep May twenty-sixth on the calendar. You can start rehab a week after that.”
Rhyme shook the doctor’s hand and then, as he turned toward the front door, the criminalist said, “Oh, one thing. Can I have a drink or two the night before?”
“Lincoln,” Thom said. “You want to be in the best shape you can for the surgery.”
“I want to be in a good mood too,” he muttered.
The doctor appeared thoughtful. “Alcohol isn’t recommended forty-eight hours before a procedure like this…But the hard-and-fast rule is nothing in the stomach after midnight the day of the operation. What goes in before that, I’m not too concerned about.”
“Thank you, Doctor.”
After the man had left, Rhyme wheeled into the lab, where he regarded the whiteboards. Sachs was just finishing writing what Mychal Poitier had told him last night. She was editing, using a thicker marker to present the most recent information.
Rhyme stared at the boards for some time. Then he shouted, “Thom!”
“I’m right here.”
“I thought you were in the kitchen.”
“Well, I’m not. I’m here. What do you want?”
“I need you to make some phone calls for me.”
“I’m happy to,” the aide replied. “But I thought you liked making them on your own.” He glanced at Rhyme’s working arm.
“I like making the calls. I dislike being on hold. And I have a feeling that’s what I’d be doing.”
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