Sunday, 5:45 a.m., to Monday, 7:00 p.m. 5 page

“You’re alone?” Polling asked.

“My assistant—”

“The cop downstairs said he wouldn’t be back for a while.”

Rhyme hesitated. “That’s right.”

Polling was slight but strong, sandy-haired. Terry Dobyns’s words came back: Someone helpful, upstanding. A social worker, counselor, politician. Somebody helping other people.

Like a cop.

Rhyme wondered now if he was about to die. And to his shock he realized that he didn’t want to. Not this way, not on somebody else’s terms.

Polling walked to the bed.

Yet there was nothing he could do. He was at this man’s complete mercy.

“Lincoln,” Polling repeated gravely.

Their eyes met and the feeling of electrical connection went through them. Dry sparks. The captain looked quickly out the window. “You’ve been wondering, haven’t you?”

“Wondering?”

“Why I wanted you on the case.”

“I figured it was my personality.”

This drew no smile from the captain.

“Why did you want me, Jim?”

The captain’s fingers knitted together. Thin but strong. The hands of a fisherman, a sport that, yes, may be genteel but whose purpose is nonetheless to wrench a poor beast from his home and slice through its smooth belly with a thin knife.

“Four years ago, the Shepherd case. We were on it together.”

Rhyme nodded.

“The workers found the body of that cop in the subway stop.”

A groan, Rhyme recalled, like the sound of the Titanic sinking in A Night to Remember. Then an explosion loud as a gunshot as the beam came down on his hapless neck, and dirt packed around his body.

“And you ran the scene. You yourself, like you always did.”

“I did, yes.”

“Did you know how we convicted Shepherd? We had a wit.”

A witness? Rhyme hadn’t heard that. After the accident he’d lost all track of the case, except for learning that Shepherd had been convicted and, three months later, stabbed to death on Riker’s Island by an assailant who was never captured.

“An eyewitness,” Polling continued. “He could place Shepherd at one of the victims’ homes with the murder weapon.” The captain stepped closer to the bed, crossed his arms. “We had the wit a day before we found the last body—the one in the subway. Before I put in the request that you run the scene.”

“What’re you saying, Jim?”

The captain’s eyes rooted themselves to the floor. “We didn’t need you. We didn’t need your report.”

Rhyme said nothing.

Polling nodded. “You understand what I’m saying? I wanted to nail that fuck Shepherd so bad. ... I wanted an airtight case. And you know what a Lincoln Rhyme crime scene report does to defense lawyers. It scares the everlovin’ shit out of them.”

“But Shepherd would’ve been convicted even without my report from the subway scene.”

“That’s right, Lincoln. But it’s worse than that. See, I got word from MTA Engineering that the site wasn’t safe.”

“The subway site. And you had me work the scene before they shored it up?”

“Shepherd was a cop-killer.” Polling’s face twisted up in disgust. “I wanted him so bad. I woulda done anything to nail him. But ...” He lowered his head to his hands.

Rhyme said nothing. He heard the groan of the beam, the explosion of the breaking wood. Then the rustle of the dirt nestling around him. A curious, warm peace in his body while his heart stuttered with terror.

“Jim—”

“That’s why I wanted you on this case, Lincoln. You see?” A miserable look crossed the captain’s tough face; he stared at the disk of spinal column on the table. “I kept hearing these stories that your life was crap. You were wasting away here. Talking about killing yourself. I felt so fucking guilty. I wanted to try to give you some of your life back.”

Rhyme said, “And you’ve been living with this for the last three and a half years.”

“You know about me, Lincoln. Everybody knows about me. I collar somebody, he gives me any shit, he goes down. I get a hard-on for some perp, I don’t stop till the prick’s bagged and tagged. I can’t control it. I know I’ve fucked over people sometimes. But they were perps—or suspects, at least. They weren’t my own, they weren’t cops. What happened to you ... that was a sin. It was just fucking wrong.”

“I wasn’t a rookie,” Rhyme said. “I didn’t have to work a scene I thought wasn’t safe.”

“But—”

“Bad time?” another voice said from the doorway.

Rhyme glanced up, expecting to see Berger. But it was Peter Taylor who’d come up the stairs. Rhyme recalled that he was coming by today to check on his patient after the dysreflexia attack. He supposed too that the doctor was planning to give him hell about Berger and the Lethe Society. He wasn’t in the mood for that; he wanted time alone—to digest Polling’s confession. At the moment it just sat there, numb as Rhyme’s thigh. But he said, “Come on in, Peter.”

“You’ve got a very funny security system, Lincoln. The guard asked if I was a doctor and he let me up. What? Do lawyers and accountants get booted?”

Rhyme laughed. “I’ll only be a second.” Rhyme turned back to Polling. “Fate, Jim. That’s what happened to me. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It happens.”

“Thanks, Lincoln.” Polling put his hand on Rhyme’s right shoulder and squeezed it gently.

Rhyme nodded and, to deflect the uneasy gratitude, introduced the men. “Jim, this is Pete Taylor, one of my doctors. And this is Jim Polling, we used to work together.”

“Nice to meet you,” Taylor said, sticking out his right hand. It was a broad gesture and Rhyme’s eyes followed it, noticing for some reason the deep crescent scar on Taylor’s right index finger.

“No!” Rhyme shouted.

“So you’re a cop too.” Taylor gripped Polling’s hand tightly as he slid the knife, held firmly in his left hand, in and out of the captain’s chest three times, navigating around the ribs with the delicacy of a surgeon. Undoubtedly so he wouldn’t nick the precious bone.

THIRTY-SIX

IN TWO LONG STEPS TAYLOR WAS BESIDE THE BED. He grabbed the ECU controller from beneath Rhyme’s finger, flung it across the room.

Rhyme took a breath to shout. But the doctor said, “He’s dead too. The constable.” Nodding toward the door, meaning the bodyguard downstairs. Taylor stared with fascination as Polling thrashed like a spine-cracked animal, spraying his blood on the floor and walls.

“Jim!” Rhyme cried. “No, oh, no ...”

The captain’s hands curled over his ruined chest. A repugnant gurgling from his throat filled the room, accompanied by the mad thudding of his shoes on the floor as he died. Finally he quivered once violently and lay still. His glazed eyes, dotted with blood, stared at the ceiling.

Turning to the bed he kept his eyes on Lincoln Rhyme as he walked around it. Slowly circling, the knife in his hand. His breathing was hard.

“Who are you?” Rhyme gasped.

Silently Taylor stepped forward, put his fingers around Rhyme’s arm, squeezed the bone several times, perhaps hard, perhaps not. His hand strayed to Rhyme’s left ring finger. He lifted it off the ECU and caressed it with the dripping blade of the knife. Slipped the sharp point up under the nail.

Rhyme felt faint pain, a queasy sensation. Then harder. He gasped.

Then Taylor noticed something and froze. He gasped. Leaned forward. Staring at the copy of Crime in Old New York on the turning frame.

“That’s how ... You actually found it. ... Oh, the constables should be proud to have you in their ranks, Lincoln Rhyme. I thought it’d be days before you got to the house. I thought Maggie’d be stripped down by the dogs by then.”

“Why’re you doing this?” Rhyme asked.

But Taylor didn’t answer; he was examining Rhyme carefully, muttering, half to himself, “You didn’t used to be this good, you know. In the old days. You missed a lot back then, didn’t you? In the old days.”

The old days ... What did he mean?

He shook his balding head, gray hair—not brown—and glanced at a copy of Rhyme’s forensic textbook. There was recognition in his eyes and slowly Rhyme began to understand.

“You read my book,” the criminalist said. “You studied it. At the library, right? The public library branch near you?”

Eight twenty-three was, after all, a reader.

So he knew Rhyme’s CS procedures. That’s why he’d swept up so carefully, why he’d worn gloves touching even surfaces most criminals wouldn’t’ve thought would retain prints, why he’d sprayed the aftershave at the scene—he’d known exactly what Sachs would be looking for.

And of course the manual wasn’t the only book he’d read.

Scenes of the Crime too. That’s what had given him the idea for the planted clues—Old New York clues. Clues that only Lincoln Rhyme would be able to figure out.

Taylor picked up the disk of spinal column he’d given to Rhyme eight months ago. He kneaded it absently between his fingers. And Rhyme saw the gift, so touching back then, for the horrific preface that it was.

His eyes were unfocused, distant. Rhyme recalled he’d seen this before—when Taylor’d examined him over the past months. He’d put it down to a doctor’s concentration but now knew it was madness. The control he’d been struggling to maintain was disappearing.

“Tell me,” Rhyme asked. “Why?”

“Why?” Taylor whispered, moving his hand along Rhyme’s leg, probing once more, knee, shin, ankle. “Because you were something remarkable, Rhyme. Unique. You were invulnerable.”

“What do you mean?”

“How can you punish a man who wants to die? If you kill him you’ve done what he wants. So I had to make you want to live.”

And the answer came to Rhyme finally.

The old days ...

“It was fake, wasn’t it?” he whispered. “That obituary from the Albany coroner. You wrote it yourself.”

Colin Stanton. Dr. Taylor was Colin Stanton.

The man whose family had been butchered in front of him on the streets of Chinatown. The man who stood paralyzed in front of the bodies of his wife and two children as they bled to death, and could not make the obscene choice about which of them to save.

You missed things. In the old days.

Now, too late, the final pieces fell into place.

His watching the victims: T.J. Colfax and Monelle and Carole Ganz. He’d risked capture to stand and stare at them—just as Stanton had stood over his family, watching as they died. He wanted revenge but he was a doctor, sworn never to take a life, and so in order to kill he had to become his spiritual ancestor—the bone collector, James Schneider, a nineteenth-century madman whose family had been destroyed by the police.

“After I got out of the mental hospital I came back to Manhattan. I read the inquest report about how you missed the killer at the crime scene, how he got out of the apartment. I knew I had to kill you. But I couldn’t. I don’t know why. ... I kept waiting and waiting for something to happen. And then I found the book. James Schneider ... He’d been through exactly what I had. He’d done it; I could too.”

I took them down to the bone.

“The obituary,” Rhyme said.

“Right. I wrote it myself on my computer. Faxed it to NYPD so they wouldn’t suspect me. Then I became someone else. Dr. Peter Taylor. I didn’t realize until later why I picked that name. Can you figure it out?” Stanton’s eyes strayed to the chart. “The answer’s there.”

Rhyme scanned the profile.

· Knows basic German
“Schneider,” Rhyme said, sighing, “It’s German for ‘tailor.’ ”

Stanton nodded. “I spent weeks at the library reading up on spinal cord trauma and then called you, claimed I’d been referred by Columbia SCI. I planned to kill you during the first appointment, cut your flesh off a strip at a time, let you bleed to death. It might’ve taken hours. Even days. But what happened?” His eyes grew wide. “I found out you wanted to kill yourself.”

He leaned close to Rhyme. “Jesus, I still remember the first time I saw you. You son of a bitch. You were dead. And I knew what I had to do—I had to make you want to live. I had to give you purpose once more.”

So it didn’t matter whom he kidnapped. Anyone would do. “You didn’t even care whether the victims lived or died.”

“Of course not. All I wanted was to force you to try to save them.”

“The knot,” Rhyme asked, noticing the loop of clothesline hanging beside the poster. “It was a surgical suture?”

He nodded.

“Of course. And the scar on your finger?”

“My finger?” He frowned. “How did you ... Her neck! You printed her neck, Hanna’s. I knew that was possible. I didn’t think about it.” Angry with himself. “I broke a glass in the mental hospital library,” Stanton continued. “To cut my wrist. I squeezed it till it broke.” He madly traced the scar with his left index finger.

“The deaths,” Rhyme said evenly, “your wife and children. It was an accident. A terrible accident, horrible. But it didn’t happen on purpose. It was a mistake. I’m so sorry for you and for them.”

In a sing-songy voice, Stanton chided, “Remember what you wrote? ... in the preface of your textbook?” He recited perfectly, “ ‘The criminalist knows that for every action there’s a consequence. The presence of a perpetrator alters every crime scene, however subtly. It is because of this that we can identify and locate criminals and achieve justice.’ ” Stanton grabbed Rhyme’s hair and tugged his head forward. They were inches apart. Rhyme could smell the madman’s breath, see the lenses of sweat on the gray skin. “Well, I’m the consequence of your actions.”

“What’ll you accomplish? You kill me and I’m no worse off than I would’ve been.”

“Oh, but I’m not going to kill you. Not yet.”

Stanton released Rhyme’s hair, backed away.

“You want to know what I’m gong to do?” he whispered. “I’m going to kill your doctor, Berger. But not the way he’s used to killing. Oh, no sleeping pills for him, no booze. We’ll see how he likes death the old-fashioned way. Then your friend Sellitto. And Officer Sachs? Her too. She was lucky once. But I’ll get her the next time. Another burial for her. And Thom too of course. He’ll die right here in front of you. Work him down to the bone ... Nice and slow.” Stanton’s breathing was fast. “Maybe we’ll take care of him today. When’s he due back?”

“I made the mistakes. It’s my—” Rhyme suddenly coughed deeply. He cleared his throat, caught his breath. “It’s my fault. Do whatever you want with me.”

“No, it’s all of you. It’s—”

“Please. You can’t—” Rhyme began to cough again. It turned into a violent racking. He managed to control it.

Stanton glanced at him.

“You can’t hurt them. I’ll do whatever—” Rhyme’s voice seized. His head flew back, his eyes bulged.

And Lincoln Rhyme’s breath stopped completely. His head thrashed, his shoulders shivered violently. The tendons in his neck tightened like steel cords.

“Rhyme!” Stanton cried.

Sputtering, saliva shooting from his lips, Rhyme trembled once, twice, an earthquake seemed to ripple through his entire limp body. His head fell back, blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.

“No!” Stanton shouted. Slamming his hands into Rhyme’s chest. “You can’t die!”

The doctor lifted Rhyme’s lids, revealing only whites.

Stanton tore open Thom’s medicine box and prepared a blood-pressure hypodermic, injected the drug. He yanked the pillow off the bed and pulled Rhyme flat. He tilted back Rhyme’s lolling head, wiped the lips and placed his mouth on Rhyme’s, breathing hard into the unresponsive lungs.

“No!” Stanton raged. “I won’t let you die! You can’t!”

No response.

Again. He checked the unmoving eyes.

“Come on! Come on!”

Another breath. Pounding on the still chest.

Then he backed up, frozen with panic and shock, staring, staring, watching the man die in front of him.

Finally he bent forward and one last time exhaled deeply into Rhyme’s mouth.

And it was when Stanton turned his head and lowered his ear to listen for the faint sound of breath, any faint exhalation, that Rhyme’s head shot forward like a striking snake. He closed his teeth on Stanton’s neck, tearing through the carotid artery and gripping a portion of the man’s own spine.

Down to ...

Stanton screamed and scrabbled backwards, sliding Rhyme off the bed on top of him. Together they fell in a pile on the floor. The hot coppery blood gushed and gushed, filling Rhyme’s mouth.

... the bone.

His lungs, his killer lungs, had already gone for a minute without air but he refused to loosen his grip now to gasp for breath, ignoring the searing pain from inside his cheek where he’d bit into the tender skin, bloodying it to give credence to his sham attack of dysreflexia. He growled in rage—seeing Amelia Sachs buried in dirt, seeing the steam spew over T.J. Colfax’s body—and he shook his head, feeling the snap of bone and cartilage.

Pummeling Rhyme’s chest, Stanton screamed again, kicking to get away from the monster that had socketed itself to him.

But Rhyme’s grip was unbreakable. It was as if the spirits of all the dead muscles throughout his body had risen into his jaw.

Stanton clawed his way to the bedside table and managed to grab his knife. He jabbed it into Rhyme. Once, twice. But the only places he could reach were the criminalist’s legs and arms. It’s pain that incapacitates and pain was one thing to which Lincoln Rhyme was immune.

The vise of his jaws closed harder and Stanton’s scream was cut off as his windpipe went. He plunged the knife deep into Rhyme’s arm. It stopped when it hit bone. He started to draw it out to strike again but the madman’s body froze then spasmed violently once, then again, and suddenly went completely limp.

Stanton collapsed to the floor, pulling Rhyme after him. The criminalist’s head slammed onto the oak with a loud crack. Yet Rhyme wouldn’t let go. He held tight and continued to crush the man’s neck, shaking, tearing the flesh like a hungry lion crazed by blood and by the immeasurable satisfaction of a lust fulfilled.

V

WHEN YOU MOVE

THEY CAN’T

GETHCHA

“A physician’s duty is not just to extend life,

it is to end suffering.”

—DR. JACK KEVORKIAN

THIRTY-SEVEN

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 805