She forced herself to calm.
Jacob Swann eased the Kai Shun forward – admiring the blade and handle. Cooking implements are often among the most stylishly designed of any object. The sunlight reflected off the upper half of the blade, pounded into indentations, as if flickering on waves. He carefully stroked the tip of her tongue with the point, drawing a streak in deeper pink but no blood.
Some sound. “Please” maybe.
Little butcher man…
He recalled scoring a duck breast just a few weeks ago, with this same knife, slicing three shallow slits to help render the fat under the broiler. He leaned forward. “Now, listen carefully,” he whispered. Swann’s mouth was close to her ear and he felt her hot skin against his cheek.
Just like last week.
Well, somewhat like last week.
CHAPTER 7
Captain Bill Myers had taken his grating verbiage and left, now that he’d handed off the baton of the case to Rhyme and crew.
While the Moreno conspiracy investigation was in some ways monumental, it was ultimately just another of the thousands of felony cases active in New York, and other matters surely beckoned the captain and his mysterious Special Services Division.
Rhyme supposed too that he’d want to distance himself. Myers had backed up the DA – a captain had to do that, of course; police and prosecutors were Siamese twins – but now was the moment for Myers to head to an undisclosed location. Rhyme was thinking of the political ambition he’d smelled earlier, and if that was true the brass would step back and see how the case unfolded. He’d then return to the podium in glory, in time for the perp walk. Or vanish completely if the case exploded into a public relations nightmare.
A very likely possibility.
Rhyme didn’t mind. In fact, he was pleased Myers was gone. He didn’t do well with any other cooks in the kitchen.
Lon Sellitto, of course, remained. Technically the lead investigator, he was now sitting in a creaky rattan chair, debating a muffin on the breakfast tray, even though he’d pecked half the Danish away. But he then squeezed his gut twice, as if hoping the message would be that he’d lost enough weight on his latest fad diet to deserve the pastry. Apparently not.
“What do you know about this guy running NIOS?” Sellitto asked Laurel. “Metzger?”
She again recited without the benefit of notes: “Forty three. Divorced. Ex wife’s a lawyer in private practice, Wall Street. He’s Harvard, ROTC. After, went into the army, Iraq. In as a lieutenant, out as a captain. There was talk of him going further but that got derailed. Had some issues I’ll tell you about later. Discharged, then Yale, master’s in public policy along with a law degree. Went to the State Department, then joined NIOS five years ago as operations director. When the existing NIOS head retired last year, Metzger got his job, even though he was one of the youngest on the management panel. The word is nothing was going to stop him from taking the helm.”
“Children?” Sachs asked.
“What?” Laurel replied.
“Does Metzger have children?”
“Oh, you’re thinking someone was pressuring him, using the children to force him to take on improper missions?”
“No,” Sachs said. “I just wondered if he had children.”
A blink from Laurel. Now she consulted notes. “Son and daughter. Middle school. He was disallowed any custody for a year. Now he’s got some visitation rights but mostly they’re with the mother.
“Now, Metzger’s beyond hawkish. He’s on record as saying he would’ve nuked Afghanistan on September twelve, two thousand one. He’s very outspoken about our right to preemptively eliminate enemies. His nemesis is American citizens who’ve gone overseas and are engaged in what he considers un American activities, like joining insurgencies or vocally supporting terrorist groups. But those’re his politics and’re irrelevant to me.” A pause. “His more significant quality is that he’s mentally unstable.”
“How so?” Sellitto asked.
Rhyme was beginning to lose patience. He wanted to consider the forensics of the case.
But since both Sachs and Sellitto approached cases “globally,” as Captain Myers might have said, he let Laurel continue and he tried to appear attentive.
She said, “He’s had emotional issues. Anger primarily. That’s largely what’s driving him, I think. He left the army with an honorable discharge but he had a half dozen episodes that hurt his career there. Fits of rage, tantrums, whatever you want to call them. Totally lost control. He was actually hospitalized at one point. I’ve managed to datamine some records and he still sees a psychiatrist and buys meds. He’s been detained by the police a few times for violent episodes. Never charged. Frankly, I think he’s borderline with a paranoid personality. Not psychotic but has definite issues of delusion and addiction – addicted to anger itself. Well, to be precise, the response to anger. From what I’ve studied up on the subject, the relief you feel in acting out during an episode of anger is addicting. Like a drug. I think ordering a sniper to kill somebody he’s come to detest gives him a high.”
Studied up indeed. She sounded like a psychiatrist lecturing students.
“How’d he get the job, then?” Sachs asked.
A question that had presented itself to Rhyme.
“Because he’s very, very good at killing people. At least, that’s what his service record indicates.” Laurel continued, “It’ll be hard to get his personality workup to a jury but I’m going to do it somehow. And I can only pray he takes the stand. I’d have a field day. I’d love for a jury to see a tantrum.” She glanced from Rhyme to Sachs. “As you pursue the investigation I want you to look for anything that suggests Metzger’s instability, anger and violent tendencies.”
Now a pause preceded Sachs’s response. “That’s a little fishy, don’t you think?”
The battle of the silences. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“I don’t know what kind of forensic evidence we could find showing that this guy has temper tantrums.”
“I wasn’t thinking forensics. I was thinking general investigation.” The ADA was looking up at Sachs – the detective was eight or nine inches taller. “You have good write ups in your file for psych profiling and witness interrogation. I’m sure you’ll be able to find something if you look for it.”
Sachs cocked her head slightly, eyes narrowed. Rhyme too was surprised that the ADA had profiled her – and presumably the criminalist himself too.
Studied up…
“So.” The word was delivered by Laurel abruptly. The matter was settled; they’d look for instability. Got it.
Rhyme’s caregiver rounded the corner. He was carrying a pot of fresh coffee. The criminalist introduced the man. He noted that Nance Laurel’s made up façade stirred briefly as she looked at Thom. An unmistakable focus was in her eyes, though as good looking and charming as he was, Thom Reston was not a romantic option for the woman – who wore no heart finger rings. But a moment later Rhyme concluded her reaction arose not from attraction to the aide himself but because he resembled somebody she knew or had known closely.
Finally looking away from the young man, Laurel declined coffee, as if it were some ethics breach to indulge on the job. She was digging in her litigation bag, whose contents were perfectly organized. Folder tabs were color coded and he noted two computers, whose eyes pulsed orange in their state of hibernation. She extracted a document.
“Now,” she said, looking up, “do you want to see the kill order?”
Who could say no to that?
CHAPTER 8
Of course they don’t call it that, a kill order,” Nance Laurel assured. “That’s shorthand. The term is ‘STO,’ a Special Task Order.”
“Almost sounds worse,” Lon Sellitto said. “Kind of sanitized, you know. Creepy.”