A blessedly short period of hold. “Poitier speaking.”
“Corporal?”
“That’s right. Who is this, please?”
“Lincoln Rhyme.”
Silence for a lengthy moment. “Yes.” The single word contained an abundance of uncertainty and ill ease. Casinos were far safer places for conversations than the man’s office.
Rhyme continued, “I would have given you my own credit card. Or called you back on my line.”
“I couldn’t speak any longer. And I’m quite busy now.”
“The missing student?”
“Indeed,” said the richly inflected baritone.
“Do you have any leads?”
There was a pause. “Not so far. It’s been over twenty four hours. No word at her school or part time job. She most recently had been seeing a man from Belgium. He appears to be very distraught but…” He let the lingering words fade to smoke. Then he said, “I’m afraid I’m unable to help you in regard to your case.”
“Corporal, I’d like to meet with you.”
The fattest silence yet. “Meet?”
“Yes.”
“Well, how can that be?”
“I’m in Nassau. I’d suggest someplace other than police headquarters. We can meet wherever you like.”
“But…I…You’re here ?”
“Away from the office might be better,” Rhyme repeated.
“No. That’s impossible. I can’t meet you.”
“I really must talk to you,” Rhyme said.
“No. I have to go, Captain.” There was a desperation in his voice.
Rhyme said briskly, “Then we’ll come to your office.”
Poitier repeated, “You’re really here?”
“That’s right. The case’s important. We’re taking it seriously.”
Rhyme knew this reminder – that the Royal Bahamas Police seemed not to be – was blunt. But he was still convinced that Poitier would help him if he pushed hard enough.
“I’m very busy, as I say.”
“Will you see us?”
“No, I can’t.”
There was a click as the corporal hung up.
Rhyme glanced at the lizard, then turned to Thom and laughed. “Here we are in the Caribbean, surrounded by such beautiful water – let’s go make some waves.”
CHAPTER 27
Odd. Just plain odd.
Dressed in black jeans, navy blue silk tank top and boots, Amelia Sachs walked into the lab and was struck again at how different this case was.
Any other week old homicide investigation would find the lab in chaos. Mel Cooper, Pulaski, Rhyme and Sachs would be parsing the evidence, jotting facts and conclusions and speculations on the whiteboards, erasing and writing some more.
Now the sense of urgency was no less – the leaked kill order taped up in front of her reminded that Mr. Rashid, and scores of others, were soon to die – but the room was quiet as a mausoleum.
Bad figure of speech, she decided.
But it was apt. Nance Laurel was not here yet and Rhyme was taking his first trip out of the country since his accident. She smiled. Not many criminalists would go to that kind of trouble to search a crime scene, and she was happy he’d decided to, for all kinds of reasons.
But not having him here was disorienting.
Odd…
She hated this sensation, the chill emptiness.
I have a bad feeling about this one, Rhyme…
She passed one of the long evidence examination tables, on which sat racks of surgical instruments and tools, many of them in sterile wrappers, for analyzing the evidence they didn’t have.
At her improvised workstation Sachs sat down and got to work. She called Robert Moreno’s regular driver for Elite Limousines, Vladimir Nikolov. She hoped he might know who the mysterious Lydia, possible escort, possible terrorist, might be. But, according to the company, the driver was out of town on a family emergency. She’d left a message at Elite and one on his personal voice mail too.
She’d follow up later if she didn’t hear back.
She ran a search for suspected terrorist or criminal activities in the vicinity of where Tash Farada had dropped Moreno and Lydia off on May 1, via the consolidated law enforcement database of state and federal investigations. She discovered a few warrants for premises and surveillance in the area but they related, not surprisingly given the locale, to insider trading and investor fraud at banks and brokerage houses. They were all old cases and she could see no connection whatsoever to Robert A. Moreno.
Then, finally, a break.
Her phone rang and, noting the incoming number, she answered fast. “Rodney?” The cybercrimes expert, trying to trace the whistleblower.
Chunka, chunka, chunka, chunka…
Rock in the background. Did he always listen to music? And why couldn’t it be jazz or show tunes?
The volume diminished. Slightly.
Szarnek said, “Amelia, remember: Supercomputers are our friends.”
“I’ll keep it in mind. What do you have?” Her eyes were on the empty parlor, in which dust motes ambled through a shaft of morning sun like hot air balloons seen from miles away. Again, she was painfully aware of Rhyme’s absence.
“I’ve got the location where he sent the email from. I won’t bore you with nodes and networks but suffice it to say that your whistleblower sent the email and the STO attachment from Java Hut near Mott and Hester. Think about it: A Portland, Oregon, coffee chain setting up shop in the heart of Little Italy. What would the Godfather say?”
She glanced at the header on the copy of the whistleblower’s messages taped to the board. “Is the date on the email accurate? Could he have faked it?”
“No, that’s when it was sent. He could write whatever date he wanted in the email itself but routers don’t lie.”
So their man was in the coffee shop at 1:02 p.m., May 11.
The cybercrimes detective continued, “I’ve checked. You can log onto Wi Fi there without any identifying information. All you have to do is agree to the three page terms of service. Which everybody does and not a single soul in the history of the world has ever read.”
Sachs thanked the tech cop and disconnected. She called the coffee shop and got the manager, explaining that she was trying to identify someone who had sent important documents via the Wi Fi on May 11 and she wanted to come in and talk to him about that. She added, “You have a security camera?”
“We do, yeah. They’re in all the Java franchises. In case we get stuck up, you know.”
Without expecting much, she asked, “How often does the video loop?” She was sure new footage would overwrite the old every few hours.
“Oh, we’ve got a five terabyte drive. It’s got about three weeks of video on it. The quality’s pretty crappy and it’s black and white. But you can make out a face if you need to.”
A ping of excitement. “I’ll be there in a half hour.”
Sachs pulled on a black linen jacket and rubber banded her hair back in a ponytail. She took her holstered Glock from the cabinet, checked it as she always did, a matter of routine, and clipped it to her jeans belt. The double mag holster went on her left hip. She was slinging her large purse over her shoulder when her mobile buzzed. She wondered if the caller was Rhyme. She knew he’d landed safely in the Bahamas but she was concerned that the trip might have taken a toll on his health.
But, no, the caller was Lon Sellitto.
“Hey.”
“Amelia. The Special Services canvass team is about halfway through the building where Moreno and the driver picked up Lydia. Nothing yet. They’re running into a lot of Lydias – who’da thought? – but none of ’em are the one. You know, how hard is it to name your kid Tiara or Estanzia? They’d be a fuck of a lot easier to track down.”
She told him about the lead to the coffee shop and that she was on her way there now.
“Good. A security cam, excellent. Hey, Linc’s really down in the Caribbean?”
“Yep, landed safe. I don’t know how he’s going to be treated. Interloper, you know.”