Jeffery Deaver: The Deliveryman

Sachs continued, “Came into the area by train. New Jersey. Coelho got a tip that it was being transferred at the armory but that was today. Rinaldo was long gone. They don’t have any other leads.”

“What was the source?”

“He said they think it came from Mexico or Canada, but intel there hasn’t been helpful.”

“This agent. Is he—”

“Legit. Yes.” Sachs was at that moment online with the secure database, reading. Coelho was in good standing. She looked over at Rhyme. “His boss, the regional agent in charge, gave him the orders to find the shipment. Or heads will roll.” She laughed. “This Coelho, he’s quite a piece of work. Right out of the movies. He said his boss has a hard-on the size of Maine to find the shipment. Coelho said, ‘Why Maine? I would’ve picked Texas.’ He seemed genuinely perplexed.”

“Any thoughts on who killed Rinaldo?”

“No. All ATF cares about is the shipment.”

It was true, Rhyme reflected, that the victim in the murder case, normally the hub of an investigation, was presently almost an afterthought.

“So they don’t have anything more than we do?”

“No. He’s been in touch with Homeland Security, FBI, CIA. There’s no terrorist connection that anybody knows about. ATF thinks it’s a for-profit thing. He said the BK gangs might be looking for firepower like this.”

Rhyme sighed. “Cop-killing rounds, big ones, two-twenty-threes. Fully silenced. Just what we need on the street.”

“I kept the rounds I dug up, but Coelho took some pictures. He’s going to check their database and see what he can find.”

Mel Cooper approached. “Hope they have better luck than I do. They’re homemade. No known brand. Though built to high tolerances. Professional. Oh, and no prints. Whoever loaded them into the mag wore gloves.”

Rhyme leaned his head back against the chair’s rest. “And the evidence doesn’t show any indication of where Rinaldo went after the transfer at the armory. Somehow we’ll have to reconstruct his whereabouts during the day.”

“You’re forgetting,” she said.

He looked at the evidence.

“Not that,” she chided. “Rinaldo wasn’t alone, remember. At least for a portion of the day.”

“Oh, the boy.”

“Javier.”

“Javier.” Rhyme grimaced. “An eight-year-old, though? Who’s undoubtedly traumatized? What would he know?”

“At least he won’t have a motive to lie.”

He conceded that. “Well, ask him.”

Sachs called the foster couple. Sally Abbott answered the phone.

“It’s Amelia Sachs. The detective that brought Javier over to you.”

“Sure. Yes. How are you?”

“Fine. You’re on speaker with my partner here. How’s Javier doing?”

Rhyme lifted his eyebrow, impatiently. Sachs ignored him.

“Quiet. Doesn’t want to talk. But adjusting pretty well, all things considered.” She was speaking softly and Sachs guessed that Javier wasn’t far away. “He’s drawing up a storm with those colored pencils of his and he and Peter watched some soccer.”

Rhyme cleared his throat.

“Do you have some idea who killed his father?” A very soft whisper.

“No, but it would be helpful if he could tell us a few things.”

“Sure.” There was a rustling of the phone and Rhyme heard the woman call, “Javier, I’ve got Miss Amelia on the phone. She wants to ask you a few questions.” She too hit the speaker button, Rhyme could hear.

“Hi. How’re you?”

“Good, Javier. How you doing?”

“Okay.”

“I’d like to know a few things.”

“Sure, I guess.”

“When did you meet your dad yesterday?

“I don’t know. He came by the school and picked me up. Maybe eleven or twelve. He said I didn’t have to go to school in the afternoon.”

Sachs continued, “Did you go with him to armory on the West Side? Right after school.”

“I don’t know. What’s that?”

“An old building near the river.”

“I don’t know. Building?”

The foster mother knew it. She said, “Javier, you know that big aircraft carrier on the river? That museum. Have you ever been there?”

“Yeah, I been.” He added quietly, “I been with my daddy.”

Sally added, “Well, where Ms. Amelia is talking about is a big building sort of near the ship. There’s a McDonald’s there.”

Sachs said, “With your father, yesterday? Did you go there? A big redbrick building. Takes up the whole block.”

“No. I never seen that.”

So Rinaldo picked up the guns before he collected his son.

“Now, you drove around with him all day.”

“Yeah.”

“And he dropped his deliveries off. Did you help him?”

“I’m just a kid.”

Sachs had to smile, and she heard Sally Abbott chuckle.

“You stayed in the truck.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you remember where he went to make his deliveries?”

“I don’t know. Sorta.”

“Tell you what: I know you like to draw, right?”

“Yeah. It’s okay.”

“Could you draw some pictures in your tablet where you and your father went? Maybe write down anything you remember too. I’ll come by later and we can look at it together.”

“I guess.”

She added, “Sally? Could you help him?”

The woman agreed that they would and she’d call Sachs when the boy had some thoughts.

“Javier? You need anything?”

“No.”

Sachs said goodbye and they disconnected. She looked at Rhyme with a coy smile. “You don’t seem to feel that’s a productive form of inquiry.”

“An eight-year-old drawing pictures of his recollections in crayon? In a word, no.”

“It’s colored pencil,” she corrected.

“Well, now, there’s a difference for you. Can we get back to the evidence, please and thank you?”

Studying the windows, the dancing shadows.

Hidden in the below-ground alcove of an apartment across the tree-lined street, Raphael Ortiz gazed at the town house on the Upper West Side, the home of foster parents Peter and Sally Abbott. This was the address that Miguel Ángel Morales had recited to him not long ago as they sat on the bench in windy Central Park. The arrangements for body disposal were complete and he was pleased to see he’d arrived here a few minutes early. It was 4:50 p.m. He imagined that Miguel Ángel would be pleased too. The man appreciated punctuality.

The shades of the town house were up, but lacy curtains, wafting in the breeze, obscured the view inside. Occasionally, he noted, there came a flicker of light, blue and gray and white, and he knew the television was on. He wondered if Rinaldo’s boy was watching the set, and what; was the kid interested in cartoons?

When Ortiz was Javier’s age he hadn’t watched much TV. The family had one — everybody in the Bronx neighborhood did — but cable was crappy and it went out frequently. Probably stolen by his old man. He envied the boys and girls at school who’d talk about episodes of Law and Order and Walker, Texas Ranger . The girls loved Blossom and Full House .

A car cruised past. Several more. Ortiz, though, stayed unseen. He was careful, watching the faint wisp of exhaust from the unmarked police SUV. He didn’t know if the cop inside was constantly studying the doorway and the traffic on the street, or was there merely as a deterrent and he was content to listen to the radio or read.

But he would assume the cop was vigilant as a wolf.

Miguel Ángel was never emotional, never raised his voice. But he was also a viper, known to kill easily, even those he seemed fond of. Thinking of the time Santos was smoking on a job at a warehouse in Hell’s Kitchen. He tossed out his cigarette carelessly and it set a small fire. That set off the alarm, which brought the fire department.