Jeffery Deaver - The Deliveryman

Inside, the dark church was largely deserted, only a few worshipers were present, scattered around the space, lost in prayer or contemplation. Morales was wondering how to search for the key and not make anyone suspicious. But then he realized that Rinaldo would have thought of this; he’d hide the key in a place that was easy to get to naturally.

Not the holy water font. Not the altar. Even under a pew or kneeler would have been too risky; an exploring child might find it, or a parishioner who dropped a wallet or coin.

Ah, but then he saw what might be the answer.

A votive candle rack.

No unsupervised children. And no one would think twice about someone reaching into the rack to light a candle to the Lord or the Virgin.

He told the others his theory, and he, Ortiz and his wife approached the three racks — one in front of a statue of Jesus, one before Mary, and one in front of a simple cross.

Coelho stayed with the child. Morales got the impression he was already anticipating, with some pleasure, killing the boy.

Morales found nothing under his rack. Ortiz too came up empty handed. But as he looked across the pews he noticed his wife nodding and smiling. Something small and silver disappeared into her pocket.

He inhaled deeply and, in thanks, lit a candle himself. And slipped a hundred dollar offering in the box chained to a radiator by the door.

As the entourage left the church, Connie whispered to him. “Saf-Storage in Queens. He even wrote the address.”

Morales whispered, “We’ll get somebody over there now. And I want to go back to the Abbotts and wait for that cop, the woman, Sachs. Take her out and the bodyguard too.”

Connie said absently “She had such nice hair. Didn’t you think?”

Morales said nothing. He was then vaguely aware of some people walking behind them, presumably the parishioners who’d left, though he hadn’t seen any of them stand and head out the door.

They were just at the SUV when it happened.

From behind him came a woman’s voice, sternly shouting: “Police! Hands where we can see them! Get down on your knees! Now, now, now!”

A dozen tactical police officers appeared from hiding places between parked cars in front of the church, and four squad cars and three unmarkeds skidded to a stop around them.

Connie screamed and flung her hands in the air. Ortiz, who’d been arrested several times, knew he’d end up on the ground eventually and simply flopped onto his belly, hands outstretched. Morales sighed and lifted his hands. He turned to see the woman whose death he’d just been planning — Detective Sachs — leading the tactical operation. He gave a faint laugh, observing that all of the cops wore two bullet-proof vests, and he realized that, since they knew about the special armor-piercing bullets, they probably knew everything.

His whole plan, so brilliant, in ruins.

“Now!” Detective Sachs shouted.

Morales turned to his wife. “Do what they say. Get on your knees.”

“My stockings, my shoes!”

“Go ahead,” he said kindly. “And don’t do anything quickly. You’ll be all right.”

Then the redhead was shouting, “You, Coelho! Let go of the boy. On the ground. Now!”

Morales glanced back. And saw the ATF agent, angry resolve in his fat face, looking about. Suddenly he gripped the boy by the chest and lifted him, drawing his gun and aiming it toward the police, who scattered for cover. The redhead stayed where she was, but crouched, trying to find a target. But Javier was not a tiny boy and he proved to be a decent human shield, despite the agent’s girth.

“Coelho,” she said. “You know the drill. You’ll never get out of here. Put the weapon down.”

“Have the woman throw me the key to the Lexus. Now!”

“No,” Detective Sachs said. “It won’t happen.”

“Then I’ll kill the boy.” He tapped Javier’s forehead with the gun.

Morales said, “No, Stan. Let him go!” He in truth didn’t care about the boy’s safety, but if Coelho killed him, it would be another count of homicide — felony murder — against all of those present, even if not directly involved in Javier’s death.

But the agent ignored him.

“Keys! I’m not asking again.”

The policewoman: “You shoot him, you die one second later.”

“Keys,” he roared.

“No.”

Suddenly a huge crack of gunshot and the pistol in Coelho’s hand jumped.

Morales’s wife cried out and even the redheaded cop, so cool a moment ago, gasped in horror.

Morales, not daring to move much, craned his neck further around so he could see Coelho and the boy. Javier was slipping through the big man’s arms to the ground.

The pistol fell from Coelho’s grip and he looked down at a blossoming red wound in his own chest.

“I... I... ”

The gunshot, Morales noted, hadn’t come from the agent’s Glock. The gun had merely jerked as Coelho had reacted. No, it had been Javier who’d fired. He looked at the boy, who was holding a very small pistol in his hand. On the ground was his pencil box, unzipped. Pencils had fallen out, a pencil sharpener, too. And so had another magazine of ammunition for the weapon.

A present from his father...

The redheaded officer walked slowly to the boy and whispered something Morales could not hear. Javier nodded and handed her the gun, while a dozen other cops got to Coelho, pulled him down and secured his weapon. A medic appeared a moment later and began administering first aid.

Officers descended on Connie and Morales, cuffing and frisking. They began reading Miranda rights. Detective Sachs joined them a moment later and began reciting a laundry list of what they were being arrested for.

The litany went on for some time.

The answer to uncovering Morales’s deception, fronting that he and his wife were the Abbotts, derived, Rhyme regretted admitting, not so much from finely parsed evidence but from a good old-fashioned street detective’s deduction.

Rhyme was at his computer, writing up the report on the case for the NYPD, the FBI and the ATFE, who would be running the joint prosecution against Morales, his wife, Constance, Raphael Ortiz and the wounded, but very much alive, Stan Coelho, as well as assorted associates in the 128 Lords.

Rhyme’s deduction had been this: When Sachs had called Javier to ask if he’d been with his father at the armory when the transfer took place yesterday morning, the woman purporting to be Sally Abbott, the temporary foster parent, had helped clarify the location of the armory; the boy wasn’t sure what Sachs was referring to.

But in describing the armory to Javier, she referred to McDonald’s — which was across the street from the back entrance of the armory, a small service portal, not the main doorways on the opposite side of the building a block away. Why would that entrance be first in her thoughts to describe the place?

The implication was that she’d known Echi Rinaldo used that door to get inside.

It wasn’t conclusive proof that Sally Abbott knew about the delivery. But it raised in Rhyme’s mind the possibility that he — and therefore his wife — were not who they seemed to be. Sachs got pictures of the Abbotts from the foster family licensing organization and confirmed that they were not the people she’d left the boy with.

They immediately sent a tactical and surveillance team to the town house — just in time to see the couple, along with several other men and the boy, fleeing over the roof.

Rhyme and Sachs reasoned that it was likely they were taking the boy to lead them to the arms stash and so the surveillance officers followed, while a tactical team secured the town house... and made the unfortunate but not unexpected discovery of the Abbotts’ bodies, in the basement.