The Broken Window, Page 2

  Via encrypted satellite calls and e-mails flying around several continents, Rhyme and an Inspector Longhurst of the Metropolitan Police had set up a trap to catch the perp. Worthy of the precise plots that Logan himself crafted, the plan involved look-alikes and the vital assistance of a larger-than-life former arms broker from South Africa who came with a network of curried informants. Danny Krueger had made hundreds of thousands selling weapons as efficiently and dispassionately as other businessmen sell air conditioners and cough syrup. But a trip to Darfur last year had shaken him badly, seeing the carnage his toys caused. He'd given up the arms trade cold and had resettled in England. Others on the task force included officers from MI5, as well as personnel from the London office of the FBI and an agent from France's version of the CIA: La Direction Generale de la Securite Exterieure.

  They hadn't known even the region of Britain in which Logan was in hiding, planning his hit, but the boisterous Danny Krueger had heard that the killer would be making his move in the next few days. The South African still had many contacts in the international underground and had put out hints about a "secret" location where the meetings between Goodlight and the authorities would take place. The building had an exposed courtyard that was a perfect shooting zone for the killer to assassinate the minister.

  It was also an ideal place to spot and take down Logan. Surveillance was in place and armed police, MI5 and FBI agents were on twenty-four-hour alert.

  Rhyme was now sitting in his red battery-powered wheelchair on the first floor of his Central Park West town house--no longer the quaint Victorian parlor it had once been, but a well-equipped forensic laboratory, larger than many labs in medium-size towns. He found himself doing what he'd done frequently over the past several days: staring at the phone, whose number-two speed-dial button would call a line in England.

  "The phone's working, right?" Rhyme asked.

  "Is there any reason for it not to be?" Thom, his caregiver, asked this in a measured tone, which Rhyme heard as a belabored sigh.

  "I don't know. Circuits overload. Phone lines get hit by lightning. All kinds of things can go wrong."

  "Then maybe you should try it. Just to make sure."

  "Command," Rhyme said, getting the attention of the voice-recognition system hooked to his ECU--the computerized environmental control unit that substituted in many ways for his physical functioning. Lincoln Rhyme was a quadriplegic; he had only limited movement below the place where his neck was broken in a crime-scene accident years before--the fourth cervical vertebra, near the base of the skull. He now ordered, "Dial directory assistance."

  The dial tone filled the speakers, followed by beep beep beep. This irritated Rhyme more than a non-performing phone would have. Why hadn't Inspector Longhurst called? "Command," he snapped. "Disconnect."

  "Seems to be fine." Thom placed a coffee mug in the cup holder of Rhyme's wheelchair and the criminalist sipped the strong brew through a straw. He looked at a bottle of Glenmorangie eighteen-year-old single-malt whisky on a shelf--it was nearby but, of course, always just out of Rhyme's reach.

  "It's morning," Thom said.

  "Obviously it's morning. I can see it's morning. I don't want any . . . It's just . . ." He'd been waiting for a reason to ride the young man on the issue. "I seem to recall being cut off rather early last night. Two tumblers. Virtually nothing."

  "It was three."

  "If you were to add up the contents, the cubic centimeters, I'm speaking of, it was the same as two small ones." Pettiness, like liquor, could be intoxicating in its own right.

  "Well, no scotch in the morning."

  "It helps me think more clearly."

  "No, it doesn't."

  "It does. And more creatively."

  "Doesn't do that either."

  Thom was wearing a perfectly ironed shirt, tie and slacks. His clothes were less wrinkled than they used to be. Much of the job of a quadriplegic's caregiver is physical. But Rhyme's new chair, an Invacare TDX, for "total driving experience," could fold out into a virtual bed, and had made Thom's job much easier. The chair could even climb low stairs and speed along as fast as a middle-aged jogger.

  "I'm saying I want some scotch. There. I've articulated my desire. How's that?"

  "No."

  Rhyme scoffed and stared at the phone again. "If he gets away . . ." His voice faded. "Well, aren't you going to do what everybody does?"

  "What do you mean, Lincoln?" The slim young man had been working with Rhyme for years. He'd been fired on occasion and had quit too. But here he still was. A testament to the perseverance, or perverseness, of both principals.

  "I say, 'If he gets away,' and you say, 'Oh, but he won't. Don't worry.' And I'm supposed to be reassured. People do that, you know: They give reassurance when they have no idea what they're talking about."

  "But I didn't say that. Are we having an argument about something I didn't say but could have? Isn't that like a wife being mad at her husband because she saw a pretty woman on the street and thought he would have stared at her if he'd been there?"

  "I don't know what it's like," Rhyme said absently, his mind mostly on the plan in Britain to capture Logan. Were there holes in it? How was security? Could he trust the informants not to leak information the killer might pick up on?

  The phone rang and a caller-ID box opened on the flat-screen monitor near Rhyme. He was disappointed to see the number wasn't a London exchange but closer to home--in the Big Building, cop-speak for One Police Plaza in downtown Manhattan.

  "Command, answer phone." Click. Then: "What?"

  From five miles away a voice muttered, "Bad mood?"

  "No word from England yet."

  "What're you, on call or something?" Detective Lon Sellitto asked.

  "Logan's disappeared. He could make a move at any time."

  "Like having a baby," Sellitto said.

  "If you say so. What do you need? I don't want to keep the line tied up."

  "All that fancy equipment and you don't have call waiting?"

  "Lon."

  "Okay. Something you oughta know about. There was a burglary-murder a week ago Thursday. Vic was a woman lived in the Village. Alice Sanderson. Perp stabbed her to death and stole some painting. We got the doer."

  Why was he calling about this? A mundane crime and the perp in custody. "Evidence problem?"

  "Nope."

  "So I'd be interested why?"

  "The supervising detective just got a call a half hour ago?"

  "The chase, Lon. The chase." Rhyme was staring at the whiteboard that detailed the plan to catch the killer in England. The scheme was elaborate.

  And fragile.

  Sellitto brought him out of his reflection. "Look, I'm sorry, Linc, but I gotta tell you, the perp's your cousin, Arthur Rhyme. It's murder one. He's looking at twenty-five years, and the D.A. says it's an airtight case."

  Chapter Three

  "It's been quite a while."

  Judy Rhyme sat in the lab. Hands together, face ashen, she fiercely avoided looking at anything except the criminalist's eyes.

  Two responses to his physical condition infuriated Rhyme: when visitors struggled agonizingly to pretend his disability didn't exist, and when they considered it a reason to be his best friend, joking and slinging around tough talk as if they'd been through the war together. Judy fell into the first category, measuring her words carefully before she set them delicately in front of Rhyme. Still, she was family, of sorts, and he remained patient as he tried to keep from glancing at the telephone.

  "A long time," the criminalist agreed.

  Thom was picking up the social details to which Rhyme was forever oblivious. He'd offered Judy coffee, which now sat untouched, a prop, on the table in front of her. Rhyme had glanced at the whisky once more, a longing peek that Thom had no trouble ignoring.

  The attractive, dark-haired woman seemed in better shape, solid and more athletic, than the last time he'd seen her--about two years before his accident. Judy r
isked a look at the criminalist's face. "I'm sorry we never got here. Really. I wanted to."

  Meaning not a social visit before he was injured but a sympathy call after. Survivors of catastrophes can read what is unsaid in conversations as clearly as the words themselves.

  "You got the flowers?"

  Back then, after the accident, Rhyme had been dazed--medication, physical trauma, and the psychological wrestling match with the inconceivable: the fact that he would never walk again. He didn't remember any flowers from them but he was sure the family had sent them. A lot of people had. Flowers are easy, visits are hard. "Yes. Thanks."

  Silence. An involuntary, lightning-fast glance at his legs. People think if you can't walk there's something wrong with your legs. No, they're fine. The problem was telling them what to do.

  "You're looking good," she said.

  Rhyme didn't know whether he did or not. Never really considered it.

  "And you're divorced, I heard."

  "That's right."

  "I'm sorry."

  Why? he wondered. But that was a cynical thought and he gave a nod, acknowledging her sympathy.

  "What's Blaine up to?"

  "She's out on Long Island. Remarried. We don't stay in touch much. Without kids, that usually happens."

  "I enjoyed that time in Boston, when you two came up for the long weekend." A smile that wasn't really a smile. Painted on, a mask.

  "It was nice, yes."

  A weekend in New England. Shopping, a drive south to Cape Cod, a picnic by the water. Rhyme remembered thinking how lovely the place was. Seeing the green rocks by the shore, he'd had a brainstorm and decided to start a collection of algae from around the New York City area for the NYPD crime lab database. He'd spent a week driving around the metro area, taking samples.

  And, on the trip to see Arthur and Judy, he and Blaine hadn't fought once. Even the drive home, with a stop at a Connecticut inn, was nice. He remembered making love on the back deck of their room, the smell of honeysuckle overwhelming.

  That visit was the last contact with his cousin in person. They'd had one other brief conversation but only via the phone. Then came the accident, and silence.

  "Arthur kind of fell off the face of the earth." She laughed, an embarrassed sound. "You know we moved to New Jersey?"

  "Really?"

  "He was teaching at Princeton. But he got laid off."

  "What happened?"

  "He was an assistant and a research fellow. They decided not to offer him a full professor's contract. Art says politics was behind it. You know how that is in colleges."

  Henry Rhyme, Art's father, was a renowned professor of physics at the University of Chicago; academia was an esteemed pursuit in that branch of the Rhyme family. In high school Arthur and Lincoln would debate the virtues of university research and teaching versus a private-sector job. "In academia, you can make a serious contribution to society," Art had said as the boys shared two somewhat illegal beers, and managed to keep a straight face when Lincoln supplied the requisite follow-up line: "That, and the teaching assistants can be pretty hot."

  Rhyme wasn't surprised that Art had gone for a university job.

  "He could've continued to be an assistant but he quit. He was pretty angry. Assumed he'd get another job right away, but that didn't happen. He was out of work for a while. Ended up at a private company. A medical-equipment manufacturer." Another automatic glance--this time at the elaborate wheelchair. She blushed as if she'd committed a Don Imus. "It wasn't his dream job and he hasn't been real happy. I'm sure he wanted to come see you. But probably he was ashamed he hadn't done so well. I mean, with you being a celebrity and all."

  Finally, a sip of coffee. "You both had so much in common. You two were like brothers. I remember Boston, all the stories you told. We were up half the night, laughing. Things I never knew about him. And my father-in-law, Henry--when he was alive he'd talk about you all the time."

  "Did he? We wrote quite a bit. In fact, I had a letter from him a few days before he died."

  Rhyme had dozens of indelible memories of his uncle, but one particular image stood out. The tall, balding, ruddy-faced man is rearing back, braying a laugh, embarrassing every one of the dozen or so family members at the Christmas Eve dinner table--embarrassing all, that is, except Henry Rhyme himself, his patient wife and young Lincoln, who is laughing right along. Rhyme liked his uncle very much and would often go to visit Art and the family, who lived about thirty miles away, on the shores of Lake Michigan in Evanston, Illinois.

  Now, though, Rhyme was in no mood for nostalgia and was relieved when he heard the door open and the sound of seven firm footsteps, from threshold to carpet, the stride telling Rhyme who it was. A moment later a tall, slim redhead wearing jeans and a black T-shirt under a burgundy blouse entered the lab. The shirt was loose and the stern angle of a black Glock pistol was visible high on her hip.

  As Amelia Sachs smiled and kissed Rhyme on the mouth, the criminalist was aware, in his periphery, of Judy's body language response. The message was clear and Rhyme wondered what had dismayed her: that she'd made the slip of not asking if he was seeing someone, or that she'd assumed a crip couldn't have a romantic partner--at least not one as disarmingly attractive as Sachs, who'd been a model before going to the police academy.

  He introduced them. Sachs listened with concern to the story of Arthur Rhyme's arrest, and asked how Judy was coping with the situation. Then: "Do you have children?"

  Rhyme realized that while he'd been noting Judy's faux pas, he'd committed one himself, neglecting to ask about their son, whose name he'd forgotten. And, it turned out, the family had grown. In addition to Arthur Junior, who was in high school, there were two others. "A nine-year-old, Henry. And a daughter, Meadow. She's six."

  "Meadow?" Sachs asked in surprise, for reasons Rhyme couldn't deduce.

  Judy gave an embarrassed laugh. "And we live in Jersey. But it's got nothing to do with the TV show. She was born before I'd ever seen it."

  TV show?

  Judy broke the brief silence. "I'm sure you're wondering why I called that officer to get your number. But first I have to tell you Art doesn't know I'm here."

  "No?"

  "In fact, to tell you the truth, I wouldn't have thought of it on my own. I've been so upset, not getting any sleep, not thinking straight. But I was talking to Art a few days ago in the detention center and he said, 'I know what you're thinking, but don't call Lincoln. It's a case of mistaken identity or something. We'll get it straightened out. Promise me you won't.' He didn't want to burden you. . . . You know how Art is. Just so kind, always thinking of everybody else."

  Rhyme nodded.

  "But the more I got to thinking about it, the more sense it made. I wouldn't ask you to pull strings or do anything that wasn't right, but I thought maybe you could just make a call or two. Tell me what you thought."

  Rhyme could imagine how that would go over at the Big Building. As a forensic consultant for the NYPD, his job was getting to the truth, wherever that journey led, but the brass definitely preferred him to help convict, not exonerate, defendants.

  "I went through some of your clippings--"

  "Clippings?"

  "Art keeps family scrapbooks. He has clippings about your cases from the newspapers. Dozens. You've done some amazing things."

  Rhyme said, "Oh, I'm just a civil servant."

  Finally Judy delivered some unvarnished emotion: a smile, as she looked into his eyes. "Art said he never believed your modesty for a minute."

  "Is that right?"

  "But only because you never believed it either."

  Sachs chuckled.

  Rhyme snorted a laugh that he thought would pass for sincere. Then he grew serious. "I don't know how much I can do. But tell me what happened."

  "It was a week ago Thursday, the twelfth. Art always takes off early every Thursday. He goes for a long run in a state park on the way home. He loves to run."

  Rhyme recalled doz
ens of times when the two boys, born within months of each other, would race along sidewalks or through the green-yellow fields near their Midwestern homes, grasshoppers fleeing, gnats sticking to their sweaty skin when they stopped for breath. Art always seemed to be in better shape but Lincoln had made his school's varsity track team; his cousin hadn't been interested in trying out.

  Rhyme pushed aside the memories and concentrated on what Judy was saying.

  "He left work about three-thirty and went for his run, then came home about seven, seven-thirty. He didn't seem any different, wasn't acting odd. He took a shower. We had dinner. But the next day the police came to the house, two from New York and a New Jersey trooper. They asked him questions and looked through the car. They found some blood, I don't know . . ." Her voice conveyed traces of the shock she would have felt on that difficult morning. "They searched the house and took away some things. And then they came back and arrested him. For murder." She had trouble saying the word.

  "What was he supposed to have done exactly?" Sachs asked.

  "They claimed he killed a woman and stole a rare painting from her." She scoffed bitterly. "Stole a painting? What on earth for? And murder? Why, Arthur never hurt a single soul in his life. He isn't capable of it."

  "The blood that was found? Have they run a DNA test?"

  "Well, yes, they did. And it seemed to match the victim. But those tests can be wrong, can't they?"

  "Sometimes," Rhyme said, thinking, Very, very rarely.

  "Or the real killer could have planted the blood."

  "This painting," Sachs asked, "did Arthur have any particular interest in it?"

  Judy played with thick black and white plastic bracelets on her left wrist. "The thing is, yes, he used to own one by the same artist. He liked it. But he had to sell it when he lost his job."

  "Where was the painting found?"

  "It wasn't."

  "But how did they know it was taken?"

  "Somebody, a witness, said they saw a man carrying it from the woman's apartment to the car around the time she was killed. Oh, it's all just a terrible mix-up. Coincidences . . . That's what it has to be, just a weird series of coincidences." Her voice cracked.