The man posed the question. The answer was 4.2 milligrams per deciliter.
“Low normal.” The criminalist smiled. “I knew it. She wasn’t drinking recreationally. If she’d mixed Coke and rum the level would be higher. Her killer forced her to swallow some rum straight and then just left the soft drink bottle open to make it look like she’d been mixing them.” Rhyme turned back to the assistant commissioner again. “Drug screen?”
Again the question was posed.
“Negative for everything.”
“Good,” Rhyme said enthusiastically. “We’re getting somewhere. Now we need to look into her job.”
Poitier said, “She was a part-time salesclerk in Nassau.”
“No, not that job. Her job as a prostitute, I mean.”
“What? How do you know?”
“The pictures.” He glanced at Poitier. “The pictures that you showed me on your iPad. She had multiple injection marks on her arm. Her blood was negative for narcotics or other drugs, we just learned, so why the tracks? Can’t be insulin; diabetics don’t inject intravenously there. No, it was probably — probably, mind you, not for certain — that she had regular blood tests for sexually transmitted disease.”
“A prostitute.” The assistant commissioner seemed pleased by this. The American who’d died under his watch wasn’t an innocent student after all.
“You can hang up now.” Rhyme’s eyes dipped to the phone, hanging like a motionless pendulum.
McPherson did, after an abrupt goodbye to the medical examiner.
“So, our next step?” Poitier asked.
“To find out where the woman worked,” Pulaski said, “and picked up her johns.”
Rhyme nodded. “Yes. That’s probably where she met her killer. The gold jewelry was expensive and tasteful. She was in very good shape, healthy. Her face pretty. She wouldn’t’ve been a streetwalker. Check her purse for credit card receipts. We’ll see where she bought her cocktails.”
The assistant commissioner nodded to Mychal Poitier, who made a call, apparently to the evidence room or someone in the Detective Unit.
The young officer had an extended conversation and eventually hung up. “Well, this is interesting,” Poitier said. “Two receipts for the bar in the—”
Something in his tone deposited a fast thought in Rhyme’s mind. “The South Cove Inn!”
“Yes, that’s right, Captain. How did you know?”
Rhyme didn’t answer, he gazed out the window for a full minute. The thoughts were coming quickly. “What’s her name?” he asked.
“Annette. Annette Bodel.”
“Well, I have good news for both of us, Commissioner McPherson. For you: Ms. Bodel’s killer was not Bahamian but American — that’s a public relations coup for your country. And for me, I think we’ve found a connection to the Moreno case. I was wrong about one thing — she was tortured, yes. But I think he used a knife, not his fists, cutting her cheek or nose or tongue.”
“How do you know this?” McPherson asked.
“I don’t know it, not yet. But I think it’s likely. My associate in New York told me that a man who’s eliminating witnesses in the case specializes in using knives. He’s not the sniper. My guess is that he’s the sniper’s backup or spotter and was the American who was at the inn on May eighth, learning what he could about suite twelve hundred and Moreno and his guard. He probably picked Annette up in the bar, used her to get information and then left the Bahamas with the sniper after the shooting. But when he heard about the investigation he came back two days ago, Monday, tortured her to find out if she’d told anyone about him and then killed her.”
Pulaski said, “We should take a look at the beach where she was found, search it again — this time as a crime scene.”
The assistant commissioner looked at Poitier but the corporal shook his head. “This man was smart, sir. He killed her at low tide. The site is under three feet of water.”
“Smart indeed.” Rhyme’s eyes held the assistant commissioner’s steadily. He said, “The evidence we’re looking at doesn’t leave a lot of doubt that Robert Moreno was killed by a U.S. government sniper and that his partner or at least somebody in his organization is cleaning up afterward, including murdering Ms. Bodel in Nassau. That information is going to be public pretty soon. You can stick to the story that the Venezuelan cartel is behind the shooting and ignore the American connection. But then it’ll look like you were part of the cover-up. Or you can help us find the shooter and his backup man.”
Pulaski broke in: “You ought to know, Commissioner, that it looks like the man who ordered the killing probably acted outside the scope of his authority. If you help us find the perps, it’s not going to upset Washington as much as you might think.”
Excellent call, Rhyme reflected.
“I’ll order the forensics unit to the spit of land to look for the sniper’s nest.” McPherson turned his broad face to Mychal Poitier. “Corporal, you will escort Captain Rhyme and his associates to the South Cove Inn for a second search of the Moreno crime scene. Assist him in any other way you can. Is that understood?”
“It is, sir.”
Speaking now to Rhyme: “And I’ll arrange to have the full crime scene report and autopsy information released. Oh, and the evidence too. I assume you’ll want that, won’t you, Captain?”
“Evidence, yes. I would very much like that.” And, with some difficulty, refrained from adding that it was about goddamn time.
CHAPTER 48
Back on SW road.
With Thom driving, Poitier, Pulaski and Rhyme were in the accessible van, taking the same route to South Cove Inn they’d been on yesterday for the illicit, and nearly fatal, visit to the outcropping of land in Clifton Bay.
The sun was behind them, high even at this early hour, and the vegetation glowed green and red and rich yellow. A few white flowers, which Rhyme knew Sachs would love to see.
Miss you…
She’d disconnected just as he’d drawn a breath to say the same. He smiled at the timing.
They’d stopped briefly to pick up basic evidence collection equipment at the Royal Bahamas Police Force crime scene facility. The gear was high quality and Rhyme was confident that Pulaski and Poitier could find something in the Kill Room that would help them indisputably link Barry Shales to the shooting and, possibly, find clues to Unsub 516’s identity.
Soon they were at the inn and pulled up to the front of the impressive but subdued place, in an architectural style that Rhyme supposed was nouveau colonial. Thom steered Rhyme, in the manual wheelchair, down the sidewalk at the entryway, surrounded by beautifully tended gardens.
They entered the lobby and Mychal Poitier greeted the pleasant desk clerk. She was more curious at the presence of a man in a wheelchair than the police officer; the hotel had surely had its share of those recently. The inn seemed accessible, being on one level, but Rhyme supposed the resort — primarily a beach club and golf course — didn’t get many disabled guests.
The manager was busy at the moment but the clerk didn’t hesitate to prepare a key card for suite 1200.
Pulaski, who’d met her yesterday, nodded a greeting and displayed the picture of Barry Shales that Sachs had emailed. Neither she nor anyone else had ever seen Shales.
Which just about confirmed what Rhyme believed: that it was Unsub 516 who was at the inn on May 8 as Shales’s backup man.
With Pulaski and Poitier carrying the collection equipment, the entourage headed down the corridor the clerk had indicated.
After a walk of several minutes — the inn was quite large — Thom nodded at a sign.