“Thanks.”
With another nod, to Sachs, the large man walked into the hallway and out the door.
“I checked him out,” she said.
“Assumed you would. What’s his story?”
“Not sure,” Sachs said. “Something happened. Not the military, I think — he was a SEAL. Something more recent. PD in Albany, I’d guess.” She told him that he’d been trying to leave the Bechtel Building, armed with a brain-beating pipe, when she’d lit him up. “It was odd. I targeted him center mass. Identified myself. Had him blinded by the flashlight on my phone. But he didn’t drop his weapon. He just stood there.”
“Deer in the headlights.”
“Nope. I thought he was thinking of coming at me. Never seen anybody looking so relaxed with muzzle gaze.”
“Any idea why?”
“Scar on his head. You see it?”
“No.”
“I’d guess he was in a bad firefight. PTSD.”
Rhyme, a lab man, a crime scene man, had occasionally experienced violence in the line of work. But ironically the only serious injury he’d experienced had come from an outright accident, not a gunshot. A beam had fallen onto his neck in a construction site he was searching. He could not imagine the panic, the noise, the chaos, the horror of a firefight. Sachs — no stranger to combat — had told him that the average length was three to seven seconds, though it seemed like long minutes.
She said, “I don’t think he wants to be a security guard.”
“A well-paid one, I’ll bet.”
“He mentioned a family, so I’m sure he needs the money. But he’s like us. Blue is in his blood. He misses it.”
Then Lyle Spencer and his inner angels or demons vanished like morning mist as Rhyme’s eyes scanned the file.
“No other P.E. to analyze.” A sour glance toward the sterile portion of the lab. “Let’s read the complaints and threats. How many are there? Two million? Three? Thom! Thom! I need you to scan some documents. Let’s go!”
39
Don’t worry, there’ll be consequences.
My father might have gotten me into treatment. Lord knew, he had the money.
But instead he hired a locksmith and had three of the most expensive locks in the craftsman’s stock installed on each of the two basement doors — one into the house and the other into the garden.
They were, however, installed backward.
Anyone outside simply could use the latch to open the door; the person inside, though — which would be me — would need keys, the only copies of which my father kept with him. The locksmith was perplexed and, before he started the job, asked a few questions.
He stopped his inquiries when handed ten one-hundred-dollar bills, on top of his fee.
Our mansion was large but the cellar was not — about twenty by thirty feet with a finished bathroom and wood floors and paneling, though there was no ceiling. Just black painted beams and pipes overhead.
A bed. A three-legged dresser, propped against the wall. A television, with basic cable. No computer. Father was afraid I’d email someone for help and I would have. Food would be set at the top of the stairs three times a day. There was a bag for laundry.
My father was serious about my being a prisoner and told me to pack up clothes, books, games, whatever I wanted. I was going to be taken out of school for “health” reasons but I would read my lessons and take tests at the end of the semester.
I did as ordered and collected two boxfuls of items and clothing from my room and descended into the prison.
“You ruin your life, that’s your choice. But when you threaten my life’s work, that’s the end of it.”
He added that he was sorry it had come to this. But actions have consequences. The first sentence was a lie. The second, obviously, he passionately believed in.
The air was either too chill or too warm and always damp. The solitude was a worm. The quiet was a scream. The boredom was like pepper in my throat. The mindless television killed my spirit and, I was convinced, my brain cells. I’d start books. I’d lose interest.
I would scream at times, cry, sit in a dark corner huddled for hours. Think about killing myself. What would be the most efficient way to die?
What saved my sanity — and my life — were locks.
The DeWalt 345, the Morgan-Hill, the Stoddard. The elegant impregnable devices became the center of my subterranean world. I found a safety pin in one of my boxes and tried to pick each one. I had no idea what I was doing and thus had no success. I remembered the satisfaction of opening the bedroom door with a modified coat hanger key but, with these devices, I was unable to duplicate that warm, marvelous sensation of the latch clicking home and freeing me.
I would stare at them for hours — the ones on the back door were just past the foot of my bed. After some hours, they appeared to begin to move, to swell in size, to shrink into dark holes, to sway or to shine with sparkling, swirling light.
I began to talk to them, and I believed they replied to me. They had three different personalities.
After five months, my father released me, I’m sure at the behest of my mother, who was largely cowed by him but had argued strongly against my imprisonment. I could hear them upstairs — the tone and the give-and-take, if not the actual words. He issued a stern warning that I’d go back inside if I ever peeped again.
I nodded, agreeing submissively, but felt no contrition whatsoever.
My solitary had let me see who I truly was. The deprivation — and the ensuing ordeal — convinced me that only peeping could bring me comfort.
Those terrible months had also taught me I had to be smarter. And to make sure I would never be imprisoned again.
At a secondhand bookstore I bought the Ultimate Guide to Lock-picking, 10th Edition, the most comprehensive tome on the subject ever written. At a home improvement store I bought a set of lock-picking tools, surprised they were available over the counter.
What better locks to hone my skill on than the three models that had kept me imprisoned? I still remember that day when I raked open the Morgan-Hill pin tumbler, which was described in the book as a nearly unpickable lock. I was in heaven. After a few weeks I was able to open all three locks on the doors in minutes.
Nothing could keep me in.
I began making Visits once more, now far smarter and more careful. I only went out late at night, when Father and Mother were asleep. I would dress in black and choose only the houses that I could approach under cover.
What I saw made little difference. Sometimes it was mundane, girls sipping soda. A grandmother knitting. Boys at a computer game. Sometimes men and women together, coupling, sweaty and lost to the world. The occasional fight.
Sometimes I did more than spy. One night I left a condom in the backseat of the car owned by the wife of the lawyer who had been responsible for the imprisonment. Let the couple make sense of that but whatever happened I think it didn’t end well for either of them.
Consequences...
Other people who had crossed me would get a Visit too. I’d leave knives outside their doors. A doll in their window. Once I painted a swastika on the right rear fender of a Mercedes owned by a man who’d yelled at me about something. The man would probably get all the way to work before he’d begin to wonder about the staring.
Those Visits were about justice. The others? They just made me feel good.
Then, finally, I was away to college, a good one, given my father’s money, and into the real world.
I made half-hearted attempts to get well. All I wanted was meds, to get the peeping under control. I’d tell the doctors a variation of a story, substituting an addiction to video games for peeping but describing in detail my imprisonment, which raised a shrink eyebrow or two.