Ferguson explained that as a documentary TV producer he watched as many competitors’ programs as he could. “I saw the episode on A&E about that murder in Florida, where you were talking about evidence. I thought it was brilliant. I thought maybe my company could do something along those lines. So I ordered your book. But I never got around to doing the show. I went on to other things.”
“And your wife knew about the book?” Sellitto asked.
“I guess I mentioned the project to her and that I was reading it. She’s been in my apartment off and on over the past year. She must’ve stolen it sometime when she was over.” He regarded Rhyme. “But why didn’t you think I was the one, like she planned?”
Rhyme said, “I did at first. But then I decided it wouldn’t’ve been smart for somebody to use a book that could be traced to them as a template for murder. But it’d be very smart for someone else to use that book. And whoever put this together was brilliant.”
“He profiled you,” Sachs said with a smile.
Rhyme grimaced.
Sellitto had then spoken to Ferguson and learned of the nasty divorce, which gave them the idea that his ex might be behind it. They learned, too, that he’d just dropped off Vicki Sellick, the woman he was dating, at her apartment.
They’d tried to call the woman but, when she hadn’t picked up, Sachs and the team had sped there to see if she was in fact under attack.
“She was nuts,” Ferguson muttered. “Insane.”
“Ah, madness and brilliance — they’re not mutually exclusive,” Rhyme replied. “I think we can agree on that.”
Then Marko rubbed his close-cropped head and laughed. “I’m sort of surprised you didn’t suspect me. I mean, think about it. I was first on the scene at the Twenty-sixth Street homicide, I knew forensics, I’d taken your course and you could assume I’d read your book.”
Rhyme grunted. “Well, sorry to say, kid, but you were a suspect. The first one.”
“Me?”
“Sure. For the reasons you just mentioned.”
Sellitto said, “But Linc had me check you out. You were in the lab in Queens, working late, when the first vic was killed.”
“We had to check. No offense,” Rhyme said.
“It’s cool, sir…Lincoln.”
“All right,” Sellitto muttered. “I got paperwork to do.” He left with Ferguson, who would go downtown to dictate his statement. Marko, too, left for the night.
“That his first name or last?” Rhyme asked.
“Don’t know,” Sachs replied.
An hour later, she’d finished bundling up the last of the evidence collection bags and jars and boxes for transport to the evidence storage facility in Queens.
“We’ll definitely need to air the place out,” Rhyme muttered. “Smells like an alleyway in here.”
Sachs agreed. She flung open the windows and poured them each a Glenmorangie Scotch. She dropped into the rattan chair beside Rhyme’s Storm Arrow. His drink was in a tumbler, sprouting a straw. She placed it in a cup holder near his mouth. He had good movement of his right arm and hand, thanks to the surgery, but he was still learning the subtleties of control and didn’t want to risk spilling valuable single-malt.
“So,” she said, regarding him with a gleam in her eye.
“You’re looking coy, Sachs.”
“Well, I was just thinking. Are you finally going to admit that there’s more to policing than physical evidence?”
Rhyme thought for a moment. “No, I don’t think so.”
She laughed. “Rhyme, we closed this one because of deductions from witness statements and observations…and a little profiling. Evidence didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“Ah,” Rhyme said, “but there’s a flaw in your logic, Sachs.”
“Which is?”
“Those deductions and observations all came from the fact that somebody bought a textbook of mine, correct?”
“True.”
“And what was the book about?”
She shrugged. “Evidence.”
“Ergo, physical evidence was the basis for closing the case.”
“You’re not going to concede this one, are you, Rhyme?”
“Do I ever?” he asked and, placing his hand on hers, enjoyed a long sip of the smoky liquor.
PARADICE
A John Pellam story
On one side was rock, dark as old bone. On the other a drop of a hundred feet.
And in front, a Ford pickup, one of those fancy models, a pleasant navy-blue shade. It cruised down the steep grade, moving slow. The driver and passenger enjoying the Colorado scenery.
Those were his choices: Rock. Air. Pickup.
Which really wasn’t much of a choice at all as a means to die.
John Pellam jammed his left boot on the emergency brake again. It dropped another notch toward the floor. The pads ground fiercely and slowed the big camper not at all. He was going close to sixty.
He downshifted. Low gear screamed and the box threatened to tear apart. Don’t lose the gears, he told himself. Popped the lever back up to D.
Sixty mph…seventy…
Air. Rock.
Seventy-five.
Pickup.
Choose one, Pellam thought. His foot cramped as he instinctively shoved the useless brake pedal to the floor again. Five minutes ago he’d been easing the chugging camper over Clement Pass, near Walsenburg, three hours south of Denver, admiring the stern, impressive scenery this cool spring morning. There’d been a soft hiss, his foot had gone to the floor and the Winnebago had started its free fall.
From the tinny boom box on the passenger seat Kathy Mattea sang “Who Turned Out the Light?”
Pellam squinted as he bore down on the pickup, honking the horn, flashing his lights to warn the driver out of the way. He caught a glimpse of sunglasses in the Ford’s rearview mirror. The driver, wearing a brown cowboy hat, spun around quickly to see how close the camper really was. Then turned back, hands clasped at ten to two on the wheel.
Air, pickup…
Pellam picked mountain. He eased to the right, thinking maybe he could brush against the rock and brush and pine, slow down enough so that when he went head-on into a tree it wouldn’t kill him. Maybe.
But just as he swerved, the driver of the truck instinctively steered in the same direction — to the right, to escape onto the shoulder. Pellam sucked in an “Oh, hell” and spun the wheel to the left.
So did the driver of the Ford. Like one of those little dances people do trying to get out of each other’s way as they approach on the sidewalk. Both vehicles swung back to the right then to the left once more as the camper bore down on the blue pickup. Pellam chose to stay in the left lane, on the edge of the cliff. The pickup veered back to the right. But it was too late; the camper struck its rear end — red and clear plastic shrapnel scattered over the asphalt — and hooked on to the pickup’s trailer hitch.
The impact goosed the speed up to eighty.
Pellam looked over the roof of the Ford. He had a fine view of where the road disappeared in a curve a half mile ahead. If they didn’t slow by then the two vehicles were going to sail into space in the finest tradition of hackneyed car chase scenes.
Oh, hell. That wasn’t alclass="underline" a new risk, a bicyclist. A woman, it seemed, on a mountain bike. She had one of those pistachio-shell-shaped helmets, in black, and a heavy backpack.
She had no clue they were bearing down on her.
For a moment the pickup wiggled out of control then straightened its course. The driver seemed to be looking back at Pellam more than ahead. He didn’t see the bike.
Seventy miles an hour. A quarter mile from the curve.
And a hundred feet from the bicyclist.
“Look out!” Pellam shouted. Pointlessly.