Saturday, 10:15 p.m., to Sunday, 5:30 a.m. 3 page

“That liquid ... in the underwear,” she said to Rhyme. “Could it be salt water?”

“Salt water?” Cooper pored over the GC-MS chart. “Of course! Water and sodium and other minerals. And the oil, phosphates. It’s polluted seawater.”

Her eyes met Rhyme’s and they said simultaneously, “High tide!”

She held up the paper, open to the weather map. It contained a phases-of-the-moon diagram identical to the one found at the scene. Below it was a tidal chart. “High tide’s in forty minutes.”

Rhyme’s face curled in disgust. He was never angrier than when he was angry with himself. “He’s going to drown the vic. They’re under a pier downtown.” He looked hopelessly at the map of Manhattan, with its miles of shoreline. “Sachs, time to play race-car driver again. You and Banks go west. Lon, why don’t you take the East Side? Around the South Street Seaport. And Mel, figure out what the hell that leaf is!”

A fluke of wave slapped his sagging head.

William Everett opened his eyes and snorted the shivery water from his nose. It was icy cold and he felt his questionable heart stutter as it struggled to send warming blood through his body.

He almost fainted again, like when the son of a bitch’d broken his finger. Then he floated back to waking, his thoughts on his late wife—and for some reason, on their travels. They’d been to Giza. And to Guatemala. Nepal. Teheran (one week before the embassy takeover).

Their Southeast China Airlines plane had lost one of two engines an hour out of Beijing and Evelyn had lowered her head, the crash position, preparing to die and staring at an article in the in-flight magazine. It warned that drinking hot tea right after a meal was dangerous for you. She told him about it afterwards, at the Raffles bar in Singapore, and they’d laughed hysterically until tears came to their eyes.

Thinking of the kidnapper’s cold eyes. His teeth, the bulky gloves.

Now, in this horrid wet tomb the unbearable pain rolled up his arm and into his jaw.

Broken finger or heart attack? he wondered.

Maybe a little of both.

Everett closed his eyes until the pain subsided. He looked around him. The chamber where he was handcuffed was beneath a rotting pier. A lip of wood dipped from the edge toward the churning water, which was about six inches below the bottom of the rim. Lights from boats on the river and the industrial sites of Jersey reflected through the narrow slit. The water was up to his neck now and although the roof of the pier was several feet above his head the cuffs were extended as far as they’d go.

The pain swept up from his finger again and Everett’s head roared with the agony and dipped toward the water as he passed out. A noseful of water and the racking cough that followed revived him.

Then the moon tugged the plane of water slightly higher and with a sodden gulp the chamber was sealed off from the river outside. The room went dark. He was aware of the sounds of groaning waves and his own moaning from the pain.

He knew he was dead, knew he couldn’t keep his head above the greasy surface for more than a few minutes. He closed his eyes, pressed his face against the slick, black column.

TWENTY-ONE

“ALL THE WAY DOWNTOWN, SACHS,” Rhyme’s voice clattered from the radio.

She punched the accelerator of the RRV, red lights flashing, as they screamed downtown along the West Side Highway. Ice-cool, she goosed the wagon up to eighty.

“Okay, whoa,” said Jerry Banks.

Counting down. Twenty-third Street, Twentieth, the skidding jog at the Fourteenth Street garbage-barge dock. As they roared through the Village, the meatpacking district, a semi pulled out of a side street directly into her path. Instead of braking she nudged the wagon over the center curb like a steeple-chaser, drawing breathless oaths from Banks and a wail from the air horn of the big White, which jackknifed spectacularly.

“Oops,” said Amelia Sachs and swung back into the southbound lane. To Rhyme she added, “Say again. Missed that.”

Rhyme’s tinny voice popped through her earphones. “Downtown is all I can tell you. Until we figure out what the leaf means.”

“We’re coming up on Battery Park City.”

“Twenty-five minutes to high tide,” Banks called.

Maybe Dellray’s team could get the exact location out of him. They could drag Mr. 823 into an alley somewhere with a bag of apples. Nick had told her that was the way they talked perps into “cooperating.” Whack ’em in the gut with a bag of fruit. Really painful. No marks. When she was growing up she wouldn’t have thought cops did that. Now she knew different.

Banks tapped her shoulder. “There. A bunch of old piers.”

UNSUB 823

Appearance

Residence

Vehicle

Other

• Caucasian male, slight build

•Dark clothing

• Old gloves, reddish kidskin

• Aftershave; to cover up other scent?

• Ski mask? Navy blue?

• Gloves are dark

• Aftershave = Brut

• Hair color not brown

• Deep scar, index finger

• Casual clothes

• Prob. has safe house

• Located near:

B’way & 82nd,

ShopRite

B’way &96th,

Anderson Foods

Greenwich & Bank,

ShopRite

2nd Ave., 72nd-73rd,

Grocery World

Battery Park City,

J&G’s Emporium

1709 2nd Ave.,

Anderson Foods

34th & Lex.,

Food Warehouse

8th Ave. & 24th,

ShopRite

Houston & Lafayette,

ShopRite

6th Ave. & Houston,

J&G’s Emporium

Greenwich & Franklin,

Grocery World

• Old building, pink marble

• Yellow Cab

• Recent model sedan

• Lt. gray, silver, beige

• Rental car; prob. stolen

• knows CS proc.

• possibly has record

• knows FR prints

• gun = .32 Colt

• Ties vics w/ unusual knots

• “Old” appeals to him

• Called one vic “Hanna”

• Knows basic German

• Underground appeals to him

• Dual personalities

• Maybe priest, soc. worker, counselor

• Unusual wear on shoes, reads a lot?

Rotten wood, filthy? Spooky places.

They skidded to a stop and climbed out, running toward the water.

“You there, Rhyme?”

“Talk to me, Sachs. Where are you?”

“A pier just north of Battery Park City.”

“I just heard from Lon, on the East Side. He hasn’t found anything.”

“It’s hopeless,” she said. “There’re a dozen piers. Then the whole promenade ... And the fireboat house and ferry docks and the pier at Battery Park ... We need ESU.”

“We don’t have ESU, Sachs. They’re not on our side anymore.”

Twenty minutes to high tide.

Her eyes darted along the waterfront. Her shoulders sagged with helplessness. Hand on her weapon, she sprinted to the river, Jerry Banks not far behind.

“Get me something on that leaf, Mel. A guess, anything. Wing it.”

Fidgeting, Cooper looked from the microscope to the computer screen.

Eight thousand varieties of leafy plants in Manhattan.

“It doesn’t fit the cell structure of anything.”

“It’s old,” Rhyme said. “How old?”

Cooper looked at the leaf again. “Mummified. I’d put it at a hundred years, little less maybe.”

“What’s gone extinct in the last hundred years?”

“Plants don’t go extinct in an ecosystem like Manhattan. They always show up again.”

A ping in Rhyme’s mind. He was close to remembering something. He both loved and hated this feeling. He might grab the thought like a slow pop-up fly. Or it might vanish completely, leaving him with only the sting of lost inspiration.

Sixteen minutes to high tide.

What was the thought? He grappled with it, closed his eyes ...

Pier, he was thinking. The vic’s under a pier.

What about it? Think!

Pier ... ships ... unloading ... cargo.

Unloading cargo!

His eyes snapped open. “Mel, is it a crop?”

“Oh, hell. I’ve been looking at general-horticulture pages, not cultivated crops.” He typed for what seemed like hours.

“Well?”

“Hold on, hold on. Here’s a list of the encoded binaries.” He scanned it. “Alfalfa, barley, beets, corn, oats, tobacco ...”

“Tobacco! Try that.”

Cooper double clicked his mouse and the image slowly unfurled on the screen.

“That’s it!”

“The World Trade Towers,” Rhyme announced. “The land from there north used to be tobacco plantations. Thom, the research for my book—I want the map from the 1740s. And that modern map Bo Haumann was using for the asbestos-cleanup sites. Put them up there on the wall, next to each other.”

The aide found the old map in Rhyme’s files. He taped them both onto the wall near his bed. Crudely drawn, the older map showed the northern part of the settled city—a cluster on the lower portion of the isle—covered with plantations. There were three commercial wharves along the river, which was then called not the Hudson but the West River. Rhyme glanced at the recent map of the city. The farmland was gone of course, as were the original wharves, but the contemporary map showed an abandoned wharf in the exact location of one of the tobacco exporter’s old piers.

Rhyme strained forward, struggling to see the street name it was near. He was about to shout for Thom to come hold the map closer when, from downstairs, he heard a loud snap and the door crashed inward. Glass shattered.

Thom started down the stairs.

“I want to see him.” The terse voice filled the hallway.

“Just a—” the aide began.

“No. Not inaminute, not in a hour. But right. Fucking. Now.”

“Mel,” Rhyme whispered, “ditch the evidence, shut the systems down.”

“But—”

“Do it!”

Rhyme shook his head violently, dislodging the headset microphone. It fell onto the side of the Clinitron. Footsteps pounded up the stairs.

Thom did the best he could to stall but the visitors were three federal agents and two of the three were holding large guns. Slowly they backed him up the stairs.

Bless him, Mel Cooper pulled apart a compound microscope in five seconds flat and was calmly replacing the components with meticulous care as the FBI crested the stairs and stormed into Rhyme’s room. The evidence bags were stuffed under a table and covered with National Geographics.

“Ah, Dellray,” Rhyme asked. “Find our unsub, did you?”

“Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Tell you what?”

“That the fingerprint was bogus.”

“No one asked me.”

“Bogus?” Cooper asked, mystified.

“Well, it was a real print,” Rhyme said, as if it were obvious. “But it wasn’t the unsub’s. Our boy needed a taxi to catch his fish with. So he met—what was his name?”

“Victor Pietrs,” Dellray muttered and gave the cabbie’s history.

“Nice touch,” Rhyme said with some genuine admiration.

“Picked a Serb with a rap sheet and mental problems. Wonder how long he looked for a candidate. Anyway, 823 killed poor Mr. Pietrs and stole his cab. Cut off his finger. He kept it and figured if we were getting too close he’d leave a nice obvious print at a scene to throw us off. I guess it worked.”

Rhyme glanced at the clock. Fourteen minutes left.

“How’d you know?” Dellray glanced at the maps on Rhyme’s wall but, thank God, wasn’t interested in them.

“The print showed signs of dehydration and shriveling. Bet the body was a mess. And you found it in the basement? Am I right? Where our boy likes to stow his victims.”

Dellray ignored him and nosed around the room like a giant terrier. “Where you hidin’ our evidence?”

“Evidence? I don’t know what you’re talking about. Say, did you break my door? Last time you walked in without knocking. Now you just kicked it in.”

“You know, Lincoln, I was thinking of apologizing to you for before—”

“That’s big of you, Fred.”

“But now I’m a inch away from collaring your ass.”

Rhyme glanced down at the microphone headset, dangling on the floor. He imagined Sachs’s voice bleating from the earphones.

“Gimme that evidence, Rhyme. You don’t realize what kind of pissy-bad trouble you’re in.”

“Thom,” Rhyme asked slowly, “Agent Dellray startled me and I dropped my Walkman headset. Could you hook it on the bedframe?”

The aide didn’t miss a beat. He rested the mike next to Rhyme’s head, out of Dellray’s sight.

“Thank you,” Rhyme said to Thom. Then added, “You know, I haven’t had my bath yet, I think it’s about time, wouldn’t you say?”

“I’ve been wondering when you were going to ask,” said Thom, with the ability of a natural-born actor.

“Come in, Rhyme. For Christ’s sake. Where are you?”

Then she heard a voice in her headset. Thom’s. It sounded stilted, exaggerated. Something was wrong.

“I’ve got the new sponge,” the voice said.

“Looks like a good one,” Rhyme answered.

“Rhyme?” Sachs blurted. “What the hell’s going on?”

“Cost seventeen dollars. It ought to be good. I’m going to turn you over.”

More voices sounded through the earphone but she couldn’t make them out.

Sachs and Banks were jogging along the waterfront, peering over the wharves into the gray-brown water of the Hudson. She motioned to Banks to stop, leaned away from the cramp below her breastbone, spit into the river. Tried to catch her breath.

Through the headset she heard: “... won’t take long. You’ll have to excuse us, gentlemen.”

“... we’ll just wait, you don’t mind.”

“I do mind,” Rhyme said. “Can’t I get a little privacy here?”

“Rhyme, can you hear me?” Sachs called desperately. What the hell was he doing?

“Nup. No privacy for them that steal evidence.”

Dellray! He was in Rhyme’s room. Well, that’s the end of it. The vic’s as good as dead.

“I want that evidence,” the agent barked.

“Well, what you’re going to get is a panoramic view of a man taking a sponge bath, Dellray.”

Banks started to speak but she waved him quiet.

Some muttered words she couldn’t hear.

The agent’s angry shout.

Then Rhyme’s calm voice again. “... You know, Dellray, I used to be a swimmer. Swam every day.”

“We’ve got less than ten minutes,” Sachs whispered. The water lapped calmly. Two placid boats cruised past.

Dellray muttered something.

“I’d go down to the Hudson River and swim. It was a lot cleaner then. The water, I mean.”

A garbled transmission. He was breaking up.

“... old pier. My favorite one’s gone now. Used to be the home of the Hudson Dusters. That gang, you ever hear of them? In the 1890s. North of where Battery Park City is now. You look bored. Tired of looking at a crip’s flabby ass? No? Suit yourself. That pier was between North Moore and Chambers. I’d dive in, swim around the piers ...”

“North Moore and Chambers!” Sachs shouted. Spinning around. They’d missed it because they’d gone too far south. It was a quarter mile from where they were. She could see the brown scabby wood, a large drainpipe backing up with tidal water. How much time was left? Hardly any. There was no way they could save him.

She ripped the headset off and started sprinting to the car, Banks close behind.

“Can you swim?” she asked.

“Me? A lap or two at the Health and Racquet Club.”

They’d never make it.

Sachs stopped suddenly, spun around in a fast circle, gazing at the deserted streets.

The water was nearly to his nose.

A small wave washed over William Everett’s face just as he inhaled and the foul, salty liquid streamed into his throat. He began to choke, a deep, horrible sound. Racking. The water filled his lungs. He lost his grip on the pier piling and sank under the surface, stiffened and rose once more, then sank again.

No, Lord, no ... please don’t let—

He shook the cuffs, kicked hard, trying to get some play. As if some miracle might happen and his puny muscles could bend the huge bolt he was cuffed to.

Snorting water from his nose, swiping his head back and forth in panic. He cleared his lungs momentarily. Neck muscles on fire—as painful as his shattered finger—from bending his head back to find the faint layer of air just above his face.

He had a moment’s respite.

Then another wave, slightly higher.

And that was it.

He couldn’t fight anymore. Surrender. Join Evelyn, say goodbye ...

And William Everett let go. He floated beneath the surface into the drecky water, full of junk and tendrils of seaweed.

Then jerked back in horror. No, no ...

He was here. The kidnapper! He’d come back.

Everett kicked to the surface, sneezing more water, trying desperately to get away. The man shone a brilliant light into Everett’s eyes and reached toward him with a knife.

No, no ...

It wasn’t enough to drown him, he had to slash him to death. Without thinking Everett kicked out toward him. But the kidnapper vanished under the water ... and then, snap, Everett’s hands were free.

The old man forgot his placid goodbyes and kicked like hell to the surface, sucking sour air through his nose and ripping the tape from his mouth. Gasping, spitting the foul water. His head banged solidly into the underside of the oak pier and he laughed out loud. “Oh, God, God, God ...”

Then another face appeared ... Also hooded, with another blindingly bright lamp attached, and Everett could just make out the NYPD emblem on the man’s wetsuit. They weren’t knives the men held but metal cutters. One of them thrust a bitter rubber mouthpiece between Everett’s lips and he inhaled a dazzling breath of oxygen.

The diver slipped his arm around him and together they swam to the lip of the pier.

“Take a deep breath, we’ll be out in a minute.”

He filled his narrow lungs to bursting and, eyes closed, sailed with the diver deep into the water, lit eerily by the man’s yellow light. It was a short but harrowing trip, straight down then up again through cloudy, flecked water. Once he slipped out of the diver’s hands and they separated momentarily. But William Everett took the glitch in stride. After this evening, a solo swim in the choppy Hudson River was a piece of cake.

She hadn’t planned on taking a cab. The airport bus would’ve been fine.

But Pammy was wired from too little sleep—they’d both been up since five that morning—and she was getting restless. The little girl needed to be in bed soon, tucked away with her blanket and her bottle of Hawaiian Punch. Besides, Carole herself couldn’t wait to get to Manhattan—she was just a skinny Midwest gal who’d never been farther east than Ohio in all her forty-one years, and she was dying for her first look at the Big Apple.

Carole collected her luggage and they started toward the exit. She checked to make sure she had everything they’d left Kate and Eddie’s house with that afternoon.

Pammy, Pooh, purse, blanket, suitcase, yellow knapsack.

Everything accounted for.

Her friends had warned her about the city. “They’ll hustle you,” Eddie’d said. “Purse snatchers, pickpockets.”

“And don’t play those card games on the street,” maternal Kate had added.

“I don’t play cards in my living room,” Carole reminded her, laughing. “Why’m I going to start playing on the streets of Manhattan?”

But she appreciated their concern. After all, here she was, a widow with a three-year-old, heading to the toughest city on earth for the UN conference—more foreigners, hell, more people than she’d ever seen at one time.

Carole found a pay phone and called the residence hotel to check on their reservations. The night manager said the room was ready and waiting for them. He’d see them in forty-five minutes or so.

They walked through automatic doors and were socked breathless by the scalding summer air. Carole paused, looking around. Gripping Pammy firmly with one hand, the handle of the battered suitcase with the other. The heavy yellow knapsack was snug on her shoulder.

They joined the line of passengers waiting at the taxi starter’s booth.

Carole glanced at a huge billboard across the highway. Welcome U.N. Delegates! it announced. The artwork was terrible, but she stared at it for a long moment; one of the men on the billboard looked like Ronnie.

For a time, after he died, two years ago, virtually everything reminded her of her handsome, crew-cut husband. She’d drive past McDonald’s and remember that he liked Big Macs. Actors in movies who didn’t look a thing like him might cock their heads the way he used to. She’d see a flyer for a lawn-mower sale and remember how much he loved to. cut their tiny square of grass in Arlington Heights.

Then the tears would come. And she’d go back on Prozac or imipramine. She’d spend a week in bed. Reluctantly acquiesce in Kate’s offer that she stay with her and Eddie for a night. Or a week. Or a month.

But no tears anymore. She was here to jump-start her life. The sorrow was behind her now.

Tossing her mass of dark-blond hair off her sweaty shoulders, Carole ushered Pammy forward and kicked the luggage ahead of them as the taxi queue moved up several places. She looked all around, trying to catch a glimpse of Manhattan. But she could see nothing except traffic and the tails of airplanes and a sea of people and cabs and cars. Steam rose like frantic ghosts from manholes and the night sky was black and yellow and hazy.

Well, she’d see the city soon enough, she guessed. She hoped that Pammy was old enough to keep her first memory of the sight.

“How do you like our adventure so far, honey?”

“Adventure. I like adventures. I want some ’Waiin Punch. Can I please have some?”

Please ... That was new. The three-year-old was learning all the keys and buttons. Carole laughed. “We’ll get you some soon.”

Finally they got their cab. The trunk popped open and Carole dumped the luggage inside, slammed the lid. They climbed into the back seat and closed the door.

Pammy, Pooh, purse ...

The driver asked, “Where to?” And Carole gave him the address of the Midtown Residence Hotel, shouting through the Plexiglas divider.

The driver pulled into traffic. Carole sat back and settled Pammy on her lap.

“Will we go past the UN?” she called.

But the man was concentrating on changing lanes and didn’t hear her.

“I’m here for the conference,” she explained. “The UN conference.”

Still no answer.

She wondered if he had trouble with English. Kate had warned her that the taxi drivers in New York were all foreigners. (“Taking American jobs,” Eddie grumbled. “But don’t get me started on that.”) She couldn’t see him clearly through the scuffed divider.

Maybe he just doesn’t want to talk.

They swung onto another highway—and, suddenly, there it was in front of her, the jagged skyline of the city. Brilliant. Like the crystals that Kate and Eddie collected. A huge cluster of blue and gold and silver buildings in the middle of the island and another cluster way to the left. It was bigger than anything Carole had ever seen in her life and for a moment the island seemed like a massive ship.

“Look, Pammy, that’s where we’re going. Is that beeaaautiful or what?”

A moment later, though, the view was cut off as the driver turned off the expressway and made a fast turn at the bottom of the ramp. Then they were moving through hot, deserted streets, lined with dark brick buildings.

Carole leaned forward. “Is this the right way to the city?”

Again, no answer.

She rapped hard on the Plexiglas. “Are you going the right way? Answer me. Answer me!”

“Mommy, what’s wrong?” Pammy said and started to cry.

“Where are you going?” Carole shouted.

But the man just kept driving—leisurely, stopping at all the red lights, never going over the speed limit. And when he pulled into the deserted parking lot behind a dark, abandoned factory he made sure he signaled properly.

Oh no ... no!

He pulled on a ski mask and climbed from the cab. Walking to the back, he reached for the door. But he hesitated and his hand dropped. He leaned forward, face against the window, and tapped on the glass. Once, twice, three times. Getting the attention of lizards in the reptile room at a zoo. He stared at the mother and daughter for a long moment before he opened the door.

TWENTY-TWO

“HOW’D YOU DO IT, SACHS?”

Standing beside the pungent Hudson River, she spoke into her stalk mike. “I remembered seeing the fireboat station at Battery Park. They scrambled a couple divers and were at the pier in about three minutes. Man, you should’ve seen that boat move! I want to try one of those someday.”

Rhyme explained to her about the fingerless cabbie.

“Son of a bitch!” she said, clicking her tongue in disgust. “The weasel tricked us all.”

“Not all of us,” Rhyme reminded her coyly.

“So Dellray knows I boosted the evidence. Is he looking for me?”

“He said he was heading back to the federal building. Probably to decide which one of us to collar first. How’s the scene there, Sachs?”

“Pretty bad,” she reported. “He parked on gravel—”

“So no footprints.”

“But it’s worse than that. The tide backed out of this big drainpipe and where he parked’s underwater.”

“Hell,” Rhyme muttered. “No trace, no prints, no nothing. How’s the vic?”

“Not so good. Exposure, broken finger. He’s had heart problems. They’re going to keep him in the hospital for a day or two.”

“Can he tell us anything?”

Sachs walked over to Banks, who was interviewing William Everett.

“He wasn’t big,” the man said matter-of-factly, carefully examining the splint the medic was putting on his hand. “And he wasn’t really strong, not a muscle man. But he was stronger’n me. I grabbed him and he just pulled my hands away.”

“Description?” Banks asked.

Everett recounted the dark clothes and ski mask. That was all he could remember.

“One thing I should tell you,” Everett held up his bandaged hand. “He’s got a mean streak. I grabbed him, like I said. I wasn’t thinking—I just panicked. But he got real mad. That’s when he busted my finger.”

“Retaliation, hm?” Banks asked.

“I guess. But that’s not the strange part.”

“No?”

“The strange part is he listened to it.”

The young detective had stopped writing. Looked at Sachs.

“He held my hand against his ear, real tight, and bent the finger until it broke. Like he was listening. And liking it.”

“Did you hear that, Rhyme?”

“Yes. Thom’s added it to our profile. I don’t know what it means, though. We’ll have to think about it.”

“Any sign of the planted PE?”

“Not yet.”

“Grid it, Sachs. Oh, and get the vic’s—”

“Clothes? I’ve already asked him. I—Rhyme, you all right?” She heard a fit of coughing.

The transmission was shut off momentarily. He came back on a moment later. “You there, Rhyme? Everything okay?”

“Fine,” he said quickly. “Get going. Walk the grid.”

She surveyed the scene, lit starkly by the ESU halogens. It was so frustrating. He’d been here. He’d walked on the gravel just a few feet away. But whatever PE he’d inadvertently left behind was lying inches below the surface of the dim water. She covered the ground slowly. Back and forth.

“I can’t see anything. The clues might’ve been washed away.”

“No, he’s too smart not to’ve taken the tide into account. They’ll be on dry land somewhere.”

“I’ve got an idea,” she said suddenly. “Come on down here.”

“What?”

“Work the scene with me, Rhyme.”

Silence.

“Rhyme, did you hear me?”

“Are you talking to me?” he asked.

“You look like De Niro. You can’t act as good as De Niro. You know? That scene from Taxi Driver?”

Rhyme didn’t laugh. He said, “The line’s ‘Are you looking at me?’ Not ‘talking to me.’ ”

Sachs continued, unfazed, “Come on down. Work the scene with me.”

“I’ll spread my wings. No, better yet, I’ll project myself there. Telepathy, you know.”

“Quit joking. I’m serious.”

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 567