Джеффри Дивер: A Textbook Case

Sellitto asked Marko, “You know any of the players yet?”

“Just, her boyfriend called it in. That’s all I know.”

The older detective said, “I’ll talk to him and get a canvass team going. You handle the scene, Amelia. We’ll rendezvous back at Lincoln’s.”

“Sure.”

“Detective Rhyme’s going to be on the case?” Marko asked.

Rhyme was decommissioned — he’d been a detective captain — but in policing, like the military, titles tended to stick.

“Yeah,” Sellitto muttered. “We’re running it out of there.” Rhyme’s townhouse was often the informal command post for cases that Sellitto drew or picked.

Marko said, “I missed my class already. At the academy. Any chance I could stay and help out?”

Apparently the horror of the scene wasn’t going to deter him.

Sellitto said, “Detective Sachs’s lead crime scene. Up to her.”

One of the biggest problems in law enforcement was getting enough people to help in an investigation. And you could never have enough crime scene searchers. She said, “Sure, appreciate it.” She nodded toward the entrance to the parking garage beneath the building. “I’ll take the ramp and the scene itself. You and those other teams handle the—”

Marko interrupted. “Secondary and tertiary scenes. Entrance and egress points. I took Detective Rhyme’s course.”

He said this proudly.

“Good. Now tell me exactly where the vic is.”

“Go down the ramp two levels. She’s on the bottom one at the back. The only car there.” He paused. “Can’t miss it.”

Worst…

“Okay. Now, get to those scenes.”

“Yes’m, Detective. We’ll get on the grid.”

Sachs nearly smiled. He’d slung the last word out like a greeting among initiates in a secret club. Walking the grid…. It was Rhyme’s coined phrase for searching a scene in the most comprehensive way possible, covering every square inch — twice.

Marko joined his colleagues.

“Hey, you’re a ma’am now, Amelia.”

“It was just an ‘m. Don’t make me older than I feel.”

“You could be his… older sister.”

“Funny.” Then Sachs said, “Get a bio on the vic, too, Lon. As much as you can.”

For some years now she had worked with Lincoln Rhyme and under his tutelage she’d become a fine crime scene searcher and a solid forensic analyst. But her first skill and love in policing was people — a legacy from her father, who was an NYPD patrol officer all his life. She loved the psychology of crime, which Lincoln Rhyme tended to disparage as the “soft” side of policing. But Sachs believed that sometimes the physical evidence didn’t lead you to the perp’s doorstep. Sometimes you needed to look closely at the people involved, at their passions, their fears, their motives. All the details of their lives.

Sellitto hulked off, gesturing Patrol Division officers to join him and they huddled to arrange for canvass teams.

Sachs opened a vinyl bag and withdrew a high-def video camera rig. As she’d done with her weapon, she wiped this down, too, with the alcohol swabs. She slipped the lightweight unit over the plastic cap encasing her head. The small camera sat just above her ear and a nearly invisible stalk mike arced toward her mouth. Sachs clicked the video and audio switches and winced when loud static slugged her eardrum. She adjusted it.

“Rhyme, you there?”

A moment of clatter. “Yes, yes, you there, you at the scene? Are you on the grid, Sachs? Time’s wasting.”

“Just got here. I’m ready to go. How are you feeling?”

“Fine, why wouldn’t I be?”

A three-hour microsurgery operation a couple of days ago?

She didn’t answer.

“What’s that light? Jesus, it’s bright.”

She’d glanced at the sky and a slash of morning sun would have blasted into the video camera and onto the high-def monitor Rhyme would be looking at. “Sorry.”

In a gloved hand Sachs picked up the evidence collection bag — a small suitcase — and a flashlight and began walking down the ramp into the garage.

She was glancing at her feet. Odd.

Rhyme caught it, too. “What’m I looking at, Sachs?”

“Trash.” The ramp was filthy. A nearby Dumpster was on its side and the dozen garbage bags inside had been pulled out and ripped open. The contents covered the ground.

It was a mess.

“Hard to hear you, Sachs.”

“I’m wearing an N-Ninety-five.”

“Chemical, gas?”

“That first responding told me it was a good idea.”

“It’s really dark,” the criminalist then muttered.

The video camera automatically went to low-light mode — that greenish tint from spy movies and reality TV — but there were limits to how much bits and bytes could convey.

Eyes, too, for that matter. It was dark. She noted the bulbs were missing. She paused.

“What?” he asked.

“The bulbs aren’t just missing, Rhyme. Somebody took them out and broke them. They’re shattered.”

“If our doer’s behind it, that means he probably isn’t from the building. He doesn’t know where the switch is and didn’t want to take the time to find it.”

Count on Rhyme to come to conclusions like that… from a mere wisp of an observation.

“But why broken?”

“Maybe just being cautious. Tough to get prints or lift other trace from a shattered bulb. Hm, he could be a smart one.”

Rhyme, Sachs was pleased to note, was in a good mood. The medical treatments — complicated, expensive and more than a little risky — were going well. He’d regained significant movement in both arms and hands. Not sensation; nothing would bring that back, at least not as medical science stood nowadays, but he was far less dependent than he had once been and that meant the world to a man like Lincoln Rhyme.

She finally had to resort to her flashlight. She clicked on the long Maglite and continued past a dozen parked cars, some of whose owners were undoubtedly furious that they had not been allowed to use their vehicles, because of the minor inconvenience of a murder near where they’d parked. But, on the other hand, there’d also be plenty who’d do whatever they could to help nail the suspect.

Nothing teaches you human nature like being a cop.

Sachs felt a ping of the arthritis pain that plagued her in her knees and slowed. She then stopped altogether, not because of joint discomfort, but because of noises. Creaks and taps. A door closed — an interior door, not a car. It seemed a long ways off, but she couldn’t tell. The walls muffled and confused sounds.

Footsteps?

She turned suddenly, nearly swapping flashlight for Glock.

No, just dripping water, from a pipe. Water dribbled down the incline, mixing with the papers and other trash on the floor; there was even more garbage here.

“Okay, Rhyme,” she said. “I’m almost at the bottom level. She and her car’re around that corner.”

“Go on, Sachs.”

She realized she’d stopped. She was uneasy. “I just can’t figure out all this garbage.”

Sachs began walking again, slowly making her way to the corner, paused, set down the suitcase and drew her gun. In the flashlight beam was a faint haze. She lifted the mask off, inhaled and coughed. There was pungency to the air. Paint maybe, or chemicals. And smoke. She found the source. Yes, some newspapers were smoldering in the corner.

That’s what Marko had been referring to.

“Okay, I’m going into the scene, Rhyme.”

Thinking of Marko’s words.

The worst…

Weapon up, she turned the corner and aimed the powerful wide-angle beam of the flashlight at the victim and her vehicle.

Sachs gasped. “Oh, Jesus, Rhyme. Oh, no…”