“Linc, got a question. Why’d you pick the Watchmaker to do the deed?”
“Because he’s the only credible perp I could think of.” Rhyme had recently foiled an elaborate murder plot by the professional killer, who’d threatened Rhyme’s life before disappearing. “Everybody on the force knows he wants to kill me.” The criminalist took a long sip of the smoky liquor. “And he’s probably one of the few men in the world who could.”
An uneasy silence followed that sobering comment and Pulaski apparently felt the need to fill it. “Hey, Detective Rhyme, is this all accurate?” A nod at the memo that contained his obituary.
“Of course it is,” Rhyme said as if the comment was absurd. “It had to be — in case the killer knew something about me. Otherwise he might guess something was up.”
“Oh, sure. I guess.”
“And by the way, do you always get your superior officers’ attention with ‘hey’?”
“Sorry. I—”
“Relax, rookie. I’m a civilian, not your superior. But it’s something to ponder.”
“I’ll keep it in mind, sir.”
Sachs sat next to Rhyme and put her hand on his — the right one, which had some motion and sensation. She squeezed his fingers. “Gave me kind of a pause.” Looking down at the sheet. “Lon and I were talking about it.”
It had given Rhyme some pause, too. He felt the breeze from death’s wings nearly every day, closer than to most people. He’d learned to ignore the presence. But seeing the account in black and white was a bit startling.
“Whatta you gonna do with it?” Sellitto said, glancing down at the paper.
“Save it, of course. Such beautiful prose, such pithy journalism…Besides, it’s going to come in handy someday.”
Sellitto barked a laugh. “Hell, Linc, you’re gonna live forever. You know what they say. Only the good die young.”
FOREVER
Mathematics is not a careful march down a well-cleared highway, but a journey into a strange wilderness, where the explorers often get lost.
An old couple like that, the man thought, acting like kids.
Didn’t have a clue how crazy they looked.
Peering over the boxwood hedge he was trimming, the gardener was looking at Patsy and Donald Benson on the wide back deck of their house, sitting in a rocking love seat and drinking champagne. Which they’d had plenty of. That was for sure.
Giggling, laughing, loud.
Like kids, he thought contemptuously.
But enviously, too, a little. Not at their wealth — oh, he didn’t resent that; he made a good living tending the grounds of the Bensons’ neighbors, who were just as rich.
No, the envy was simply that even at this age they looked like they were way in love and happy.
The gardener tried to remember when he’d laughed like that with his wife. Must’ve been ten years. And holding hands like the Bensons were doing? Hardly ever since their first year together.
The electric hedge trimmer beckoned but the man lit a cigarette and continued to watch them. They poured the last of the champagne into the glasses and finished it. Then Donald leaned forward, whispering something in the woman’s ear, and she laughed again. She said something back and kissed his cheek.
Gross. And here they were, totally ancient. Sixties, probably. It was like seeing his own parents making out. Christ…
They stood up and walked to a metal table on the edge of the patio and piled dishes from their lunch on a tray, still laughing, still talking. With the old guy carrying the tray, they both headed into the kitchen, the gardener wondering if he’d drop it, he was weaving so much. But, no, they made it inside all right and shut the door.
The man flicked the butt into the grass and turned back to examine the boxwood hedge.
A bird trilled nearby, a pretty whistle. The gardener knew a lot about plants but not so much about wildlife and he wasn’t sure what kind of bird made this call.
But there was no mistaking the sound that cut through the air a few seconds later and made the gardener freeze where he stood, between two flowering trees, a crimson azalea and a purple. The gunshot, coming from inside the Bensons’ house, was quite distinctive. Only a moment later he heard a second shot.
The gardener stared at the huge Tudor house for three heartbeats, then, as the bird resumed its song, he dropped the hedge trimmer and sprinted back to his truck, where he’d left his cell phone.
The county of Westbrook, New York, is a large trapezoid of suburbs elegant and suburbs mean, parks, corporate headquarters and light industry — a place where the majority of residents earn their keep by commuting into Manhattan, some miles to the south.
Last year this generally benign-looking county of nearly 900,000 had been the site of 31 murders, 107 rapes, 1423 robberies, 1575 aggravated assaults, 4360 burglaries, 16,955 larcenies and 4130 automobile thefts, resulting in a crime rate of 3223.3 per 100,000 population, or 3.22 % for these so-called “index crimes,” a standardized list of offenses used nationwide by statisticians to compare one community to another and each community to its own past performance. This year Westbrook County was faring poorly compared with last. Its year-to-date index crime rate was already hovering near 4.5 % and the temper-inflaming months of summer were still to come.
These facts — and thousands of others about the pulse of the county — were readily available to whoever might want them, thanks largely to a slim young man, eyes as dark as his neatly cut and combed hair, who was presently sitting in a small office on the third floor of the Westbrook County Sheriff’s Department, the Detective Division. On his door were two signs. One said, Det. Talbot Simms. The other read, Financial Crimes/Statistical Services. The Detective Division was a large open space, surrounded by a U of offices. Tal and the support services were on one stroke of the letter, dubbed the “Unreal Crimes Department” by everybody on the other arm (yes, the “Real Crimes Department,” though it was officially labeled Major Crimes and Tactical Services).
This April morning Tal Simms sat in his immaculate office, studying one of the few items spoiling the smooth landscape of his desktop: a spreadsheet — evidence in a stock scam perpetrated in Manhattan. The Justice Department and the SEC were jointly running the case but there was a small local angle that required Tal’s attention.
Absently adjusting his burgundy-and-black-striped tie, Tal jotted some notes in his minuscule, precise handwriting as he observed a few inconsistencies in the numbers on the spreadsheet. Hmm, he was thinking, a .588 that should’ve been a .743. Small but extremely incriminating. He’d have to—
His hand jerked suddenly in surprise as a deep voice boomed outside his door, “It was a goddamn suicide. Waste of time.”
Erasing the errant pencil tail from the margins of the spreadsheet, Tal saw the bulky form of the head of Homicide — Detective Greg LaTour — stride through the middle of the pen, past secretaries and communications techs, and push into his own office, directly across from Tal’s. With a loud clunk, the detective dropped a backpack on his desk.
“What?” somebody called. “The Bensons?”
“Yeah, that was them,” LaTour called. “On Meadowridge in Greeley.”
“Came in as a homicide.”
“Well, it fucking wasn’t.”
Technically, it was a homicide; all nonaccidental deaths were, even suicides, reflected Tal Simms, whose life was devoted to making the finest of distinctions. But to correct the temperamental Greg LaTour you had to either be a good friend or have a good reason and Tal fell into neither of these categories.