Eckert? The Dep Com? How was he involved?
And with one glance at Sachs, at the evasive blue eyes, framed by strands of mussed red hair, he knew how.
Rhyme nailed her with a look, which she promptly avoided, and he said to Dellray, “Let’s see… Peretti? Wasn’t he the one opened up traffic on the spot where the unsub’d stood to watch the first vic? Wasn’t he the one released the scene before we’d had a chance to pick up any serious trace? The scene my own Sachs here had the foresight to seal off. My Sachs had it right and Vince Peretti and everybody else had it wrong. Yes, she did.”
She was gazing at her thumb, a look that bespoke seeing a familiar sight, and slipped a Kleenex from her pocket, wrapped it around the bloody digit.
Dellray summarized, “You shoulda called us at the beginning.”
“Just get out,” Polling muttered. Something snapped in his eyes and his voice rose. “Get the hell out!” he screamed.
Even cool Dellray blinked and eased back as the spittle flew from the captain’s mouth.
Rhyme frowned at Polling. There was a chance they might salvage something of the case but not if Polling had a tantrum. “Jim…”
The captain ignored him. “Out!” he shouted again. “You are not taking over our case!” And startling everyone in the room, Polling leapt forward, grabbed the agent by his green lapels and shoved him against the wall. After a moment of stunned silence Dellray simply pushed the captain back with his fingertips and took out a cellular phone. He offered it to Polling.
“Call the mayor. Or Chief Wilson.”
Polling eased instinctively away from Dellray – a short man putting some distance between himself and a tall one. “You want the case, you fucking got it.” The captain strode to the stairs and then down them. The front door slammed.
“Jesus, Fred,” Sellitto said, “work with us. We can nail this scumbag.”
“We need the Bureau’s A-T,” said Dellray, now sounding like reason itself. “You’re not set up for the terrorist angle.”
“What terrorist angle?” Rhyme asked.
“The UN peace conference. Snitch o’ mine said word was up that something was gonna go down at the airport. Where he snatched the vics.”
“I wouldn’t profile him as a terrorist,” Dobyns said. “Whatever’s going on inside him’s psychologically motivated. It’s not ideological.”
“Well, fact is, Quantico and us’re pegging him one way. ’Preciate that you feel different. But this’s how we’re handling it.”
Rhyme gave up. Fatigue was spiriting him away. He wished Sellitto and his scar-faced assistant had never shown up this morning. He wished he’d never met Amelia Sachs. Wished he wasn’t wearing the ridiculous crisp white shirt, which felt stiff at his neck and felt like nothing below it.
He realized that Dellray was speaking to him.
“I’m sorry?” Rhyme cocked a muscular eyebrow.
Dellray asked, “I mean, couldn’t politics be a motive too?”
“Motive doesn’t interest me,” Rhyme said. “Evidence interests me.”
Dellray glanced again at Cooper’s table. “So. The case’s ours. We all together on that?”
“What’re our options?” Sellitto asked.
“You back us up with searchers. Or you can drop out altogether. That’s about all that’s left. We’ll take the PE now, you don’t mind.”
Banks hesitated.
“Give ’em it,” Sellitto ordered.
The young cop picked up the evidence bags from the most recent scene, slipped them into a large plastic bag. Dellray held his hands out. Banks glanced at the lean fingers and tossed the bag onto the table, walking back to the far side of the room – the cop side. Lincoln Rhyme was a demilitarized zone between them and Amelia Sachs stood riveted at the foot of Rhyme’s bed.
Dellray said to her, “Officer Sachs?”
After a pause, her eyes on Rhyme, she responded, “Yes?”
“Commissioner Eckert wants ya t’come with us for debriefing ’bout the crime scenes. He said something about starting your new assignment on Monday.”
She nodded.
Dellray turned to Rhyme and said sincerely, “Don’tcha worry, Lincoln. We’re gonna git him. Next you hear, his head gonna be on a stake at the gates to the city.”
He nodded to his fellow agents, who packed up the evidence and headed downstairs. From the hallway Dellray called to Sachs, “You coming, officer?”
She stood with her hands together, like a schoolgirl at a party she regretted she’d come to.
“In a minute.”
Dellray vanished down the stairs.
“Those pricks,” Banks muttered, flinging his watchbook onto the table. “Can you believe that?”
Sachs rocked on her heels.
“Better get going, Amelia,” Rhyme said. “Your carriage awaits.”
“Lincoln.” Walking closer to the bed.
“It’s all right,” he said. “You did what you had to do.”
“I have no business doing CS work,” she blurted. “I never wanted to.”
“And you won’t be doing it anymore. That works out well, doesn’t it?”
She started to walk to the door then turned and blurted, “You don’t care about anything but the evidence, do you?”
Sellitto and Banks stirred but she ignored them.
“Say, Thom, could you show Amelia out?”
Sachs continued, “This is all just a game to you, isn’t it? Monelle -”
“Who?”
Her eyes flared, “There! See? You don’t even remember her name. Monelle Gerger. The girl in the tunnel… she was just a part of the puzzle to you. There were rats crawling all over her and you said, ‘That’s their nature’? That’s their nature? She’s never going to be the same again and all you cared about was your precious evidence.”
“In living victims,” he droned, lecturing, “rodent wounds are always superficial. As soon as the first li’l critter drooled on her she needed rabies vaccine. What did a few more bites matter?”
“Why don’t we ask her opinion?” Sachs’s smile was different now. It had turned pernicious, like those of the nurses and therapy aides who hated crips. They walked around rehab wards with smiles like this. Well, he hadn’t been happy with the polite Amelia Sachs; he’d wanted the feisty one…
“Answer me something, Rhyme. Why did you really want me?”
“Thom, our guest has overstayed her welcome. Would you -?”
“Lincoln,” the aide began.
“Thom,” Rhyme snapped, “believe I asked you to do something.”
“Because I don’t know shit,” Sachs blurted. “That’s why! You didn’t want a real CS tech because then you wouldn’t be in charge. But me… you can send me here, send me there. I’ll do exactly what you want, and I won’t bitch and moan.”
“Ah, the troops mutiny…” Rhyme said, lifting his eyes to the ceiling.
“But I’m not one of the troops. I never wanted this in the first place.”
“I didn’t want it either. But here we are. In bed together. Well, one of us.” And he knew his cold smile was far, far icier than any she could muster.
“Why, you’re just a spoiled brat, Rhyme.”
“Hey, officer, time out here,” Sellitto barked.
But she kept going. “You can’t walk your crime scenes anymore and I’m sorry about that. But you’re risking an investigation just to massage your ego and I say fuck that.” She grabbed her Patrol hat and stormed out of the room.
He expected to hear a slamming door from downstairs, maybe breaking glass. But there was a faint click and then silence.
As Jerry Banks retrieved his watchbook and thumbed through it with more concentration than was needed, Sellitto said, “Lincoln, I’m sorry. I -”
“Nothing to it,” Rhyme said, yawning excessively in the false hope that it would calm his stinging heart. “Nothing at all.”
The cops stood beside the half-empty table for a few moments, difficult silence, then Cooper said, “Better get packed up.” He hefted a black ’scope case onto the table and began to unscrew an eyepiece with the loving care of a musician disassembling his saxophone.
“Well, Thom,” Rhyme said, “it’s after sunset. You know what that tells me? Bar’s open.”