The prepaid anonymous cell phone, whose number he’d given Annie earlier, was now scrubbed of his own prints and marked with Hardwick’s; it rested in the dead man’s pocket. The police would find only one message, from Annie — the call he hadn’t picked up earlier. It was “John, hey, it’s me, Annie. If you want to get together tonight, I’d love to. Only if you’re up for it.”
Ransom had told her his first name was “John.”
He stood for a minute and surveyed the house, deciding it was a righteous set.
It was easy to kill someone, of course. What was difficult was setting up a credible scenario so that the police stopped looking for suspects. In the thirty-five killings Ransom was responsible for, he usually found a person to take the rap. The police, forever overworked, were generally happy to take the obvious explanation, even if there were a few holes as to the truth of the incident.
Murder/suicide was always good.
The police would conclude that John Hardwick had been having an affair with Annie Colbert and had told her it was over. She’d gone to his house tonight when he got home from work, shot him and his wife and then returned home, taking her own life with the same gun she’d used to kill the couple.
There were a few people who’d seen Annie and Ransom together. The drunk kid wouldn’t remember anything. The bartender might but the young man had been busy and Ransom had introduced himself as John to him as well.
Besides, Ransom Fells had a solid cover: a traveling salesman for GKS Tech, based in New Jersey. It was a front, of course, but a very elaborately documented one. And in any case Ransom would be out of this area in twenty minutes.
Then he was out the door and, sticking to bushes in the backyards of the properties here, he made toward the car, parked several blocks away.
Ransom’s boss would be pleased. The clients would, too — a money-laundering operation on the East Coast trying to expand into the Midwest and meeting resistance from John Hardwick, who had his own financial game set up here.
Ransom was pleased, too. And about more than the success of the job.
Learning what he had about his father had removed one of the biggest draws in his career, one he’d wrestled with ever since joining the operation: the troubled feelings about making a living at murder, so to speak, and the guilt at killing the innocent to enhance your goal.
Could a death — violent death — ultimately (and ironically) lead to something positive, a reconciliation of sorts?
Apparently the answer was yes. Not his father’s own death but the killing that was his father’s profession.
Knowing what he’d learned from the scrawny bar owner had worked a miracle. Now it was clear. He’d been born this way, his father’s son, and there was nothing he could do to change.
And then another thought struck him like the shockwave from an IED.
My name!
Stan’s first job had been the kidnapping of the Mafioso’s wife in the western suburbs of Chicago, at which he’d made his own career…and made Bobby Doyle $500,000—in ransom.
His father had named his firstborn son after his big break.
Ransom grinned like he hadn’t done for years.
He was halfway through Ohio when he received an encrypted email and pulled over; he didn’t want to read it while driving and risk a ticket. His other weapons were carefully hidden under the computer tools, but why tempt fate?
The message was from his boss at GKS Tech, thanking him for the Indiana job and asking if he was able to take on another assignment — back in his own territory of the New York area. A whistleblower was going to testify against a client — a government contractor, who’d been delivering shoddy military equipment and overcharging for it. The employee had not gone to the authorities yet but was going to do so on Monday. The client needed him dead right away.
Ransom answered that he’d handle the job.
A moment later he received another message. It said that Ransom ought to know that the target was presently at home with his wife and two teenage children and would be there all weekend until he left for the DA’s office. It was possible that the entire family would be present when he killed the man. There’d probably have to be collateral damage.
Ransom typed: That’s not a problem.
And cut and pasted the address of his victims into his GPS.
THE OBIT
A Lincoln Rhyme story
Memorandum
From: Robert McNulty, Chief of Department, New York City Police Department
To: Inspector Frederick Fielding
Deputy Inspector William Boylston
Captain Alonzo Carrega
Captain Ruth Gillespie
Captain Sam Morris
Sergeant Leo Williams
Lieutenant Detective Diego Sanchez
Lieutenant Detective Carl Sibiewski
Lieutenant Detective Lon Sellitto
Detective Antwan Brown
Detective Eddie Yu
Detective Peter Antonini
Detective Amelia Sachs
Detective Mel Cooper
Police Officer Ronald Pulaski
CC: Sergeant Amy Mandel
Re: Lincoln Rhyme News Release
In light of the recent tragic events, our Public Information Department has prepared the following release for news organizations around the country. As you are someone who has in the past worked with Lincoln Rhyme, we are sending you a draft of this document for review. If you wish to make any changes or additions, please send them by 1030 hours Friday to Sgt. Amy Mandel, the office of the Deputy Commissioner of Public Information, One Police Plaza, Room 1320.
Please note the time and place of the memorial service.
* * * FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE * * *
New York City — Capt. Lincoln Henry Rhyme (Ret.), internationally known forensic scientist, died yesterday of gunshot wounds following an attack by a murder suspect he had been pursuing for more than a year.
The assailant, whose name is unknown but who goes by the nickname The Watchmaker, gained entrance to Capt. Rhyme’s Central Park West townhouse, shot him twice and escaped. He was believed to be wounded by NYPD Detective Amelia Sachs, who was present at the time. The assailant’s condition is unknown. An extensive manhunt is under way in the Metropolitan area.
Capt. Rhyme was pronounced dead at the scene.
“This is a terrible loss,” said Police Commissioner Harold T. Stanton, “one that will be felt throughout the department, indeed throughout the entire area. Capt. Rhyme has been instrumental in bringing to justice many criminals who would not have been apprehended if not for his brilliance. The security of our city is now diminished due to this heinous crime.”
For years Capt. Rhyme had been commanding officer of the unit that supervised the NYPD Crime Scene operation.
It was, in fact, while he was searching a scene in a subway tunnel undergoing construction work that he was struck by a falling beam, which broke his spine. He was rendered a C-4 quadriplegic and paralyzed from the neck down, able to move only one finger of his left hand and his shoulders and head. Though initially on a ventilator, his condition stabilized and he was able to breathe without assistance.
He retired on disability but continued to consult as a private “criminalist,” or forensic scientist, working primarily for the NYPD, though also for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Central Intelligence Agency, among others, as well as many international law enforcement agencies.
Lincoln Rhyme was born in the suburbs of Chicago. His father was a research scientist who held various positions with manufacturing corporations and at Argonne National Laboratory. His mother was a homemaker and occasional teacher. The family lived in various towns in the northern Illinois area. In high school, Capt. Rhyme was on the varsity track and field team and president of the Science Club and the Classics Club. He was valedictorian of his high school graduating class. Capt. Rhyme was graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, receiving dual degrees in chemistry and history. He went on to study geology, mechanical engineering and forensic science at the graduate level.