The phone rang and Rhyme noticed a 201 area code.
Judy Rhyme.
He took the call.
"Did you hear, Lincoln?" Her voice was unsteady.
"I did. Yes."
"Why would somebody do that? Why?"
"Jail's jail. It's a different world."
"But it's just a holding cell, Lincoln. It's detention. I could understand if he were in prison with convicted murderers. But most of those people are awaiting trial, aren't they?"
"That's right."
"Why would somebody risk his own case by trying to kill another prisoner there?"
"I don't know, Judy. It doesn't make sense. Have you talked to him?"
"They let him make a call. He can't speak very well. His throat was damaged. But it's not too bad. They're keeping him in for a day or two."
"Good," Rhyme said. "Listen, Judy, I wanted more information before I called but . . . I'm pretty sure we'll be able to show that Arthur's innocent. It looks like there's someone else behind it. He killed another victim yesterday and I think we can tie him to the murder of the Sanderson woman."
"No! Really? Who the hell is it, Lincoln?" No longer treading on ice, no longer carefully choosing words and worried about offending. Judy Rhyme had grown tough in the last twenty-four hours.
"That's what we're trying to find out now." He glanced at Sachs then turned back to the speakerphone. "And it doesn't look as if he had any connection with the victim. No connection at all."
"You . . . ?" Her voice faded. "Are you sure about that?"
Sachs identified herself and said, "That's right, Judy."
They could hear her inhaling. "Should I call the lawyer?"
"There's nothing he can do. As things stand now, Arthur's still under arrest."
"Can I call Art and tell him?"
Rhyme hesitated. "Yes, sure."
"He asked about you, Lincoln. In the clinic."
"Did he?"
He sensed Amelia Sachs was looking at him.
"Yes. He said whatever came of it, thank you for helping."
Everything would've been different. . . .
"I should go, Judy. We have a lot to do. We'll let you know what we find."
"Thank you, Lincoln. And everybody there. God bless you."
A hesitation. "Good-bye, Judy."
Rhyme didn't bother with the voice command. He disconnected with his right index finger. He had better control with the ring finger of his left hand but the right moved fast as a snake.
*
Miguel 5465 is a survivor of tragedy and a dependable employee. He regularly visits his sister and her husband on Long Island. He wires Western Union money to his mother and sister in Mexico. He's a moral man. Once, a year after his wife and child died, he got a precious $400 out of an ATM machine in an area of Brooklyn known for its prostitutes. The janitor, though, balked. The money went back into his account the next day. Unfair he had to pay the $2.50 service charge at the ATM.
I know a lot more about Miguel 5465, more than most other sixteens in the database--because he's one of my escape hatches.
Which I desperately need now.
I've been grooming him as a surrogate for the past year. After he dies the diligent police will begin to put the pieces together. Why, we've found the killer/rapist/art-and-coin thief! He confessed in his suicide note--despondent and driven to murder by the death of his family. And in a box in his pocket, a fingernail from the victim Myra Weinburg.
And look at what else we have here: Sums of money passed through his account and vanished inexplicably. Miguel 5465 looked into getting a large mortgage to buy a house on Long Island, with a half million down, despite his salary of $46,000 a year. He went on art-dealer Web sites, inquiring about Prescott paintings. In the basement of his apartment building is a five-pack of Miller beer, Trojan condoms, Edge shave cream and a photo of Myra Weinburg's realm from OurWorld. Also hidden are books on hacking and thumb drives containing passcode-cracking programs. He's been depressed and even called a suicide counseling service just last week to ask for a brochure.
And then there are his time sheets, revealing that he was out of the office when the crimes occurred.
Slam dunk.
In my pocket is his suicide note, a reasonable facsimile of his handwriting, from the copies of his canceled checks and loan applications, conveniently scanned and obscenely available online. It's written on paper similar to what he bought a month ago at his neighborhood drugstore and the ink is from the same type of pen he owns a dozen of.
And since the last thing the police want is an extensive investigation into their prime data contractor, SSD, that will be the end of the matter. He'll die. Case closed. And I'll go back to my Closet, survey the mistakes I made and work on how to be more clever in the future.
But isn't that just a life lesson for us all?
As for the suicide itself, I looked at Google Earth and ran a basic prediction program, which suggested how he would get home from the subway station after leaving SSD. Miguel 5465 will most likely take a path through a small urban park here in Queens, right next to the expressway. The irritating rush of traffic and the gassy atmosphere from diesel exhaust mean the park is usually deserted. I'll come up fast behind him--don't want him to recognize me and grow cautious--and deliver a half dozen blows to the head with the BB-filled iron pipe. Then I'll slip the suicide note and box containing the fingernail into his pocket, drag him to the railing and over he goes onto the highway, fifty feet below.
Miguel 5465 is walking slowly, glancing into storefronts. And I'm thirty, forty feet behind, head down, inconspicuously lost in after-work music, like dozens of other commuters returning home, though my iPod is off (music is one thing I don't collect).
Now, the park is one block away. I--
But wait, something's wrong. He's not turning toward the park. He pauses at a Korean deli, buys some flowers and turns away from the commercial strip, heading toward a deserted neighborhood.
I'm processing this, running the behavior through my knowledge base. The prediction's not working.
A girlfriend? A relative?
How the hell can there be something about his life I don't know?
Noise in the data. I hate it!
No, no, this isn't good. Flowers for a girlfriend don't fit the profile of a suicidal killer.
Miguel 5465 continues down the sidewalk, the air fragrant with the spring smell of cut grass and lilac and dog urine.
Ah, got it now. I relax.
The janitor walks through the gate of a cemetery.
Of course, the dead wife and kid. We're doing fine. The prediction holds. We'll just have a brief delay. His path home will still take him through the park. This might be even better, a last visit to the wife. Forgive me for raping and murdering in your absence, dear.
I follow, keeping a safe distance, in my comfortable shoes, rubber-soled, making no sound whatsoever.
Miguel 5465 makes a direct line to a double grave. There he blesses himself, kneels in prayer. Then he leaves the flowers beside four other bouquets, in varying degrees of wilt. Why haven't the cemetery trips shown up on the grid?
Of course--he pays cash for the flowers.
He stands up and starts to walk away.
I begin to follow, breathing deeply.
When: "Excuse me, sir."
I freeze. Then turn slowly to the groundskeeper, who is talking to me. He's come up silently, treading over the carpet of short, dewy grass. And he looks from my face toward my right hand, which I slip into my pocket. He might or might not have seen the beige cloth glove I'm wearing.
"Hi," I say.
"I saw you in the bushes there."
How do I respond to that?
"The bushes?"
His eyes reveal to me that he's protective of his dead folks.
"Can I ask who you're visiting?"
His name is on the front of his overalls but I can't see it clearly. Stony? What kind of name is that? I'm riddled wi
th anger. This is Their fault . . . Them, the people after me! They've made me careless. I'm addled by all the noise, all the contamination! I hate Them hate Them hate . . .
I manage a sympathetic smile. "I'm a friend of Miguel's."
"Ah. You knew Carmela and Juan?"
"Yes, that's right."
Stony, or is it Stanley, is wondering why I'm still here since Miguel 5465 is gone. A shift in posture. Yes, it's Stony. . . . His hand moves closer to the walkie-talkie riding on his hip. I don't recall the names on the tombstones. I'm wondering if Miguel's wife was named Rosa and the boy Jose and I've just waltzed into a trap.
Other people's cleverness is so tedious.
Stony glances at his radio and when he looks up the knife is already halfway into his chest. One, two, three punches, careful around the bone--you can twist a finger if you're not careful, as I've learned the hard way. It's very painful.
The shocked groundskeeper is more resilient than I'd expected, though. He lunges forward and grabs my collar with the hand not gripping the wound. We struggle, grappling and pushing and pulling, a macabre dance among the graves, until his hand falls away and he drops onto his back on the sidewalk, a snaky strip of asphalt that leads to the cemetery office. His hand finds the walkie-talkie at the same instant my blade finds his neck.
Zip, zip, two quiet slashes open the artery or vein or both and send a surprising torrent of blood into the sky.
I dodge it.
"No, no, why? Why?" He reaches for the wound, helpfully getting his hands out of the way and allowing me to do the same on the other side of his neck. Slash, slash, I can't stop myself. It's unnecessary but I'm mad, furious--at Them for throwing me off stride. They forced me to use Miguel 5465 as an escape. And now They've distracted me. I got careless.
More slashing . . . Then I stand back and in thirty seconds, after a few eerie kicks, the man is unconscious. In sixty, life becomes death.
I can only stand, numb from this nightmare, gasping from the effort. I'm hunched over and I feel like a miserable animal.
The police--They--will know I was the one, of course. The data are all there. The death happened at the grave site of an SSD employee's family, and, after the wrestling match with the groundskeeper, I'm sure there's some evidence the clever police can trace to the other scenes. I don't have time to clean up.
They'll understand that I'd followed Miguel 5465 to fake his suicide and was interrupted by the groundskeeper.
Then a clatter from the walkie-talkie. Someone is asking for Stony. The voice isn't alarmed; it's a simple inquiry. But with no response they'll come looking for him soon.
I turn and leave quickly, as if I'm a mourner overcome with sorrow and bewildered by what the future holds.
But then, of course, that's exactly who I am.
Chapter Thirty Another killing.
And there was no doubt that 522 had committed it.
Rhyme and Sellitto were on a hot list for immediate notification about any homicides in New York City. When the call arrived from the Detective Bureau, it took only a few questions to find out that the victim, a cemetery groundskeeper, had been murdered next to the grave of an SSD employee's wife and child, most likely by a man who'd followed the worker there.
Too much of a coincidence, of course.
The employee, a janitor, was not a suspect. He was talking to another visitor just outside the cemetery when they heard the groundskeeper's screams.
"Right." Rhyme nodded. "Okay, Pulaski?"
"Yes, sir."
"Call somebody at SSD. See if you can find out where everybody on the suspect list was in the past two hours."
"All right." Another stoic smile. He sure didn't like the place.
"And, Sachs--"
"I'll run the scene at the cemetery." She was already heading for the door.
After Sachs and Pulaski left, Rhyme called Rodney Szarnek at the NYPD Computer Crimes Unit. He explained about the recent killing and said, "I'm guessing he's hungry for information about what we've learned. Have there been any hits on the trap?"
"Nothing outside the department. Just one search. Somebody from a Captain Malloy's office in the Big Building. Read through the files for twenty minutes then logged off."
Malloy? Rhyme laughed to himself. Though Sellitto had been keeping the captain updated, as instructed, he apparently couldn't shake his nature as an investigator and was gathering as much information as he could--maybe intending to offer suggestions. Rhyme would have to call and tell him about the trap and that the bait files contained nothing helpful.
The tech said, "I assumed it was okay for them to look it over, so I didn't call you."
"It's fine." Rhyme disconnected. He stared at the evidence boards for a long time. "Lon, I've got an idea."
"What?" Sellitto asked.
"Our boy's always one step ahead of us. We've been going about this like he's any other perp. But he's not."
The man who knows everything . . .
"I want to try something a little different. I want some help."
"From who?"
"Downtown."
"Big area. Where exactly?"
"Malloy. And somebody at City Hall."
"City Hall? The fuck for? Why do you think they'll even take your phone call?"
"Because they have to."
"That's a reason?"
"You've gotta convince them, Lon. We need an edge on this guy. But you can do it."
"Do what exactly?"
"I think we need an expert."
"What kind?"
"Computer expert."
"We've got Rodney."
"He's not exactly what I have in mind."
*
The man had been knifed to death.
Efficiently, yes, but also gratuitously, stabbed in the chest and then viciously slashed--in anger, Sachs assessed. This was another side to 522. She'd seen injuries like these at other scenes; the energetic and ill-aimed cuts suggested that the killer was losing control.
That was good for the investigators; emotional criminals are also careless criminals. They're more public and they leave more evidence than perps who exercise self-control. But, as Amelia Sachs had learned from her days on the street, the downside is that they're much more dangerous. People as crazed and dangerous as 522 drew no distinction among their intended victims, innocent bystanders and the police.
Any threat--any inconvenience--had to be dealt with instantly and fully. And to hell with logic.
In the harsh halogen lamps set up by the crime-scene team, bathing the graveyard in unreal light, Sachs looked over the victim, on his back, feet splayed where they'd danced outward in his death throes. A huge comma of blood leading away from the corpse stained the asphalt sidewalk in Forest Hills Memorial Gardens and a fringe of grass beyond.
None of the canvassers could find any witnesses, and Miguel Abrera, the SSD janitor, couldn't add anything. He was badly shaken both because he'd been a potential target of the killer and because his friend had died; he'd gotten to know the groundskeeper in his frequent visits to the graves of his wife and child. That night he'd had a vague feeling that someone had followed him from the subway and he'd even stopped and glanced into a bar window to look for reflections of a mugger tailing him. But the trick hadn't worked--he'd seen no one--and he'd continued on to the cemetery.
Now, in her white overalls, Sachs directed two crime-scene officers from the main CS operation in Queens to photograph and video everything. She processed the body and began to walk the grid. She was especially diligent. This was an important scene. The killing had happened fast and violently--the groundskeeper had obviously surprised 522--and they had grappled, which meant more chances to find some evidence here that would lead to more information about the killer and his residence or place of work.
Sachs began on the grid--walking over the scene foot by foot in one direction and then turning perpendicular and searching the same area again.
Halfway through she stopped abruptly.
A noise.
She was sure it was the sound of metal against metal. A gun chambering a round? A knife opening?
She looked around quickly but saw only the dusk-blanketed cemetery. Amelia Sachs didn't believe in ghosts, and normally found resting grounds like this peaceful, even comforting. But now her teeth were clenched, her palms sweating in the latex gloves.
She'd just turned back to the body when she gasped, seeing a flash of light nearby.
Was it a streetlight through those bushes?
Or 522 moving closer, a knife in his hand?
Uncontrolled . . .
And she couldn't help but think he'd already tried once to kill her--the setup near DeLeon Williams's house with the federal agent--and failed. Maybe he was determined to finish what he'd started.
She returned to her task. But as she was nearly finished collecting evidence, she shivered. Movement again--this time on the far side of the lights, but still within the cemetery, which had been closed by patrol officers. She squinted through the glare. Had it been the breeze jostling a tree? An animal?
Her father, a lifer of a cop and a generous source of street wisdom, once told her, "Forget the dead bodies, Amie, they're not going to hurt you. Worry about the ones who made 'em dead."
Echoing Rhyme's admonition to "search carefully, but watch your back."
Amelia Sachs didn't believe in a sixth sense. Not in the way people think of the supernatural. To her, the whole natural world was so amazing and our senses and thought processes so complex and powerful that we didn't need superhuman skills to make the most perceptive of deductions.
She was sure somebody was there.
She stepped out of the crime-scene perimeter and strapped her Glock onto her hip. Tapped the grip a few times to orient her hand, in case she needed to draw fast. She went back to the grid, finished with the evidence and turned quickly in the direction where she'd seen the movement earlier.
The lights were blinding but she knew without doubt that a man was there, in the shadows of the building, studying her from the back of the crematorium. Maybe a worker but she wasn't taking any chances. Hand on her pistol, she strode forward twenty feet. Her white jumpsuit made a nice target in the failing light but she decided not to waste time stripping it off.
She drew her Glock and pushed fast through the bushes, starting a painful jog on arthritic legs toward the figure. But then Sachs stopped, grimacing, as she looked at the loading dock of the crematorium, where she'd seen the intruder. Her mouth tightened, angry at herself. The man, a silhouette against a streetlight outside the cemetery, was a cop; she could see the outline of the patrolman's hat and noted the slumped, bored posture of a man on guard duty. She called, "Officer? You see anybody over there?"
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