“That sounds good to me.”
Whittaker opened a good Rhône, a Châteauneuf-du-Pape, House of the Pope, and poured two glasses of the spicy wine.
He began cracking eggs into a bowl and then coaxing out the few bits of shell that had gotten in. It was a tricky job. Kitt made toast, buttered the slices with a rasp of blade and put them on a serving plate.
Soon the shell-free eggs sizzled and spattered in the skillet, and Averell Whittaker’s son walked to the buffet in the dining room to hunt for placemats and silverware for the table.
69
Defensive wounds.
Or, more accurately, the lack of defensive wounds.
There were only three knife slashes in the body of Alekos Gregorios — the man slashed to death in the backyard of his large Queens home.
Rhyme had earlier noted the wounds but, as he’d been asked only to analyze some trace evidence, hadn’t paid much attention to them. Then Richard Beaufort had inadvertently ignited Rhyme’s interest when he flashed his picture of the brag board.
The Locksmith was still at large, but once a mystery arose in an investigation, even one that was technically closed, Lincoln Rhyme could not let it go. He now gazed up at the whiteboard devoted to the case and considered the question.
Yes, one reason for the lack of defensive cuts could be that the killer had surprised him, as Rhyme had earlier speculated. But, after more thought, he asked himself: How could a stumbling, incoherent homeless man like Xavier get close enough to murder someone with three strokes of a knife and the victim not hold his hands up, fighting to grab the blade?
It was possible, certainly, but a more likely explanation was that Gregorios knew the killer, who was physically close to him, probably because they were having a conversation. Then, in a flash, out came the knife and the slaughter began.
Known to the victim.
Could be a friend, neighbor... or a family member.
Well, they had the name of one such person who’d seen the victim that day. His son. They’d had dinner at about six — at which time father had reported to son about the encounter with the homeless man.
Or, more accurately, the son had told the police that’s what his father had said.
What if the man’s son, whose first name was Yannis, had been lying, setting up the homeless man?
Had the son returned later, met his father in the garden and stabbed him? Then taken his wallet and dabbed his slacks with Miracle Sav medicine, a unique and therefore damning bit of evidence? And then planted the evidence in the homeless shelter, turning Michael Xavier into a fall guy for the killing?
Rhyme thought for a moment. “Mel?”
The detective glanced his way from the sterile portion of the lab.
“I need you to do something. It’s a little... odd.”
“Odder than conducting a postmortem on a fly?”
“Only a bit.”
“Detective Tye Kelly?”
“That’s right.”
“Hey, this’s Detective Mel Cooper. I’m out of the Queens lab.”
“Okay.”
“I worked with Lincoln Rhyme.”
“What’s the story about that, somebody at OnePP sidelining him? That sucks.”
“Sure does. He did some work on the Gregarios case, right?”
“Yeah, he helped us close it.”
“About that. I was looking over the file, just happened to see it, and I was having some doubts.”
Kelly chuckled. “You’re not sure about something Lincoln Rhyme concluded about a case? You really want to go there?”
They were on speaker and Cooper and Rhyme shared a glance. Cooper, it seemed, was struggling to keep a straight face.
“Hear me out.” He recited what Rhyme had told him about the lack of defensive wounds and the theory that the son had set up the homeless man.
“But we checked out Yannis — that’s the Greek version of John, by the way. I never knew that. Got him on security video nearby, getting out of his car around five thirty, walking toward his father’s house, then walking back around seven and leaving.”
Rhyme was thinking. He scrawled a note and pushed it in front of Cooper, who read and nodded.
“Detective,” he said, “where did he park?”
A pause. Computer keys typed. “It was the Arbor Vale Convenience Mall, about a block away from his dad’s house.”
“His father had a driveway, didn’t he?” Cooper was catching on. Rhyme hadn’t needed to prompt.
“Yeah, he did, but the son said he wanted to stop into a grocery store and pick up something for dinner.”
“Did he?”
“Yeah.”
Rhyme wrote and Cooper delivered the lines.
“Seems a little odd he just left the car there and walked.”
“I guess, maybe. One-way streets. Probably faster to hoof it.”
Cooper read another of Rhyme’s notes.
Kelly asked, “You there, Detective?”
“Yes. But you could also argue that he left it there to leave some proof of when he arrived and when he left. The video, you know.”
“Give you that.”
Another note.
“You have the whole night’s video from the mall?”
“Yeah, we were looking for a homeless guy around the time of the killing, after what the son told us. But we didn’t see anyone in the mall tape.”
Rhyme jotted.
“Where was the camera?” Cooper asked.
“Across the street, pointed at the stores.”
“Can you call it up?”
“Where’s this going?”
Cooper improvised. “Just a few loose ends.”
“All right.” Kelly typed.
Rhyme wrote out his theory. Cooper shook his head and laughed.
“What’s that?” Kelly asked.
“Buddy here just showed me a present he got his girlfriend.” A chuckle. “Only I don’t know whether it’s more for her or for him.”
“One of those presents, yeah. All right, I’ve got the video.”
“Run it from a half hour before the killing to a half hour after. Scrub it. But look at what’s in front of the camera. Look at what’s reflected back toward it, in the windows of the vehicles driving past.”
“Reflected,” Kelly said absently. “Okay, I’m not seeing much, just the street at the base of the pole the security camera’s mounted — Christ.”
Again, the two men in Rhyme’s town house glanced each other’s way.
Cooper said, “Is it Yannis’s car pulling up, and him getting out?”
“It fucking well is. I can see him in some bus window’s reflections. Eight forty-eight. About ten minutes before his father died.”
Cooper gave him Rhyme’s explanation. “Yannis couldn’t park in his father’s driveway when he came back to kill him. Neighbors would see. He knew he could park on the street near the mall but wanted to be out of sight of the camera. The only place he could do that was directly underneath it.
“Later the son got into the shelter and planted the evidence implicating Xavier. I checked security and it’s basically nonexistent. Anybody could walk in and out.”
It had been Ron Pulaski who’d determined this.
“Damn. It’s a whole new case. My partner and me’ll jump on it...” There was some typing. “Okay, just got Yannis’s DMV picture. We’ll do some canvassing, check into his history with his father.”
Cooper read what would be the final note. “You want to send me the full file, I’ll take a look at the rest of the evidence. See if I can help shore up anything.”
“Hell, yes.” They heard some more typing. “Okay, it’s on its way. Hey, I can’t thank you enough. Clearing a case with the wrong suspect’s worse than not clearing it at all.” His voice drew conspiratorial. “Listen, Detective, I don’t know how this thing with Lincoln Rhyme’s going to fall out, but don’t worry, I won’t say a word you’re the one second-guessing him.”