Jeffery Deaver - The Bone Collector

Everybody except Lincoln Rhyme.

He shook his head to Sellitto and drank a long swallow of Scotch. His eyes slid back to the computer screen, recalling the goodbye letter to Elaine he’d been composing when Sellitto and Banks had interrupted him that morning. There were some other letters he wanted to write as well.

The one he was putting off writing was to Pete Taylor, the spinal cord trauma specialist. Most of the time Taylor and Rhyme had talked not about the patient’s condition but about death. The doctor was an ardent opponent of euthanasia. Rhyme felt he owed him a letter to explain why he’d decided to go ahead with the suicide.

And Amelia Sachs?

The Portable’s Daughter would get a note too, he decided.

Crips are generous, crips are kind, crips are iron…

Crips are nothing if not forgiving.

Dear Amelia:

My Dear Amelia:

Amelia:

Dear Officer Sachs:

Inasmuch as we have had the pleasure of working together, I would like to take this opportunity to state that although I consider you a betraying Judas, I’ve forgiven you. Furthermore I wish you well in your future career as a kisser of the media’s ass…

“What’s her story, Lon? Sachs.”

“Aside from the fact she’s got a ball-buster temper I didn’t know about?”

“She married?”

“Naw. A face and bod like that, you’da thought some good-lookin’ hunk woulda snagged her by now. But she doesn’t even date. We heard she was going with somebody a few years ago but she never talks about it.” He lowered his voice. “Lipstick lesbos’s what the rumor is. But I don’t know from that – my social life’s picking up women at the laundromat on Saturday night. Hey, it works. What can I say?”

You’ll have to learn to give up the dead…

Rhyme was thinking about the look on her face when he’d said that to her. What was that all about? Then he grew angry with himself for spending any time thinking about her. And took a good slug of Scotch.

The doorbell rang, then footsteps on the stairs. Rhyme and Sellitto glanced toward the doorway. The sound was from the boots of a tall man, wearing city-issue jodhpurs and a blue helmet. One of NYPD’s elite mounted police. He handed a bulky envelope to Sellitto and returned down the stairs.

The detective opened it. “Lookit what we got here.” He poured the contents onto the table. Rhyme glanced up with irritation. Three or four dozen plastic evidence bags, all labeled. Each contained a patch of cellophane from the packages of veal shanks they’d sent ESU to buy.

“A note from Haumann.” He read: “ 'To: L. Rhyme. L. Sellitto. From: B. Haumann, TSRF.' ”

“What’s 'at?” Cooper asked. The police department is a nest of initials and acronyms. RMP – remote mobile patrol – is a squad car. IED – improvised explosive device – is a bomb. But TSRF was a new one. Rhyme shrugged.

Sellitto continued to read, chuckling. “ 'Tactical Supermarket Response Force. Re: Veal shanks. Citywide search discovered forty-six subjects, all of which were apprehended and neutralized with minimal force. We read them their rights and have transported same to detention facility in the kitchen of Officer T. P. Giancarlo’s mother. Upon completion of interrogation, a half-dozen suspects will be transferred to your custody. Heat at 350 for thirty minutes.' ”

Rhyme laughed. Then sipped more Scotch, savoring the flavor. This was one thing he’d miss, the smoky breath of the liquor. (Though in the peace of senseless sleep, how could you miss anything? Just like evidence, take away the baseline standard and you have nothing to judge the loss against; you’re safe for all eternity.)

Cooper fanned out some of the samples. “Forty-six samples of the cello. One from each chain and the major independents.”

Rhyme gazed at the samples. The odds were good for class identification. Individuation of cellophane’d be a bitch – the scrap found on the veal bone clue wouldn’t of course exactly match one of these. But, because parent companies buy identical supplies for all their stores, you might learn in which chain 823 bought the veal and narrow down the neighborhoods he might live in. Maybe he should call the Bureau’s physical-evidence team and -

No, no. Remember: it’s their fuck-ing case now.

Rhyme commanded Cooper, “Bundle them up and ship them to our federal brethren.”

Rhyme tried shutting down his computer and hit the wrong button with his sometimes ornery ring finger. The speakerphone came on with a loud wail of squelch.

“Shit,” Rhyme muttered darkly. “Fucking machinery.”

Uneasy with Rhyme’s sudden anger, Sellitto glanced at his glass and joked, “Hell, Linc, Scotch this good’s supposed to make you mellow.”

“Got news,” Thom replied sourly. “He is mellow.”

He parked close to the huge drainpipe.

Climbing from the cab he could smell the fetid water, slimy and ripe. They were in a cul-de-sac leading to the wide runoff pipe that ran from the West Side Highway down to the Hudson River. No one could see them here.

The bone collector walked to the back of the cab, enjoying the sight of his elderly captive. Just like he’d enjoyed staring at the girl he’d tied in front of the steam pipe. And the wiggling hand by the railroad tracks early this morning.

Gazing at the frightened eyes. The man was thinner than he’d thought. Grayer. Hair disheveled.

Old in the flesh but young in the bone…

The man cowered away from him, arms folded defensively across his narrow chest.

Opening the door, the bone collector pressed his pistol against the man’s breastbone.

“Please,” his captive whispered, his voice quavering. “I don’t have much money but you can have it all. We can go to an ATM. I’ll -”

“Get out.”

“Please don’t hurt me.”

The bone collector gestured with his head. The frail man looked around miserably then scooted forward. He stood beside the car, cowering, his arms still crossed, shivering despite the relentless heat.

“Why are you doing this?”

The bone collector stepped back and fished the cuffs from his pocket. Because he wore the thick gloves it took a few seconds to find the chrome links. As he dug them out he thought he saw a four-rigger tacking up the Hudson. The opposing current here wasn’t as strong as in the East River, where sailing ships had a hell of a time making their way from the East, Montgomery and Out Ward wharves north. He squinted. No, wait – it wasn’t a sailboat, it was just a cabin cruiser, Yuppies lounging on the long front deck.

As he reached forward with the cuffs, the man grabbed his captor’s shirt, gripped it hard. “Please. I was going to the hospital. That’s why I flagged you down. I’ve been having chest pains.”

“Shut up.”

And the man suddenly reached for the bone collector’s face, the liver-spotted hands gripping his neck and shoulder and squeezing hard. A jolt of pain radiated from the spot where the yellow nails dug into him. With a burst of temper, he pulled his victim’s hands off and cuffed him roughly.

Slapping a piece of tape on the man’s mouth, the bone collector dragged him down the gravel embankment toward the mouth of the pipe, four feet in diameter. He stopped, examined the old man.

It’d be so easy to take you down to the bone.

The bone… Touching it. Hearing it.

He lifted the man’s hand. The terrified eyes gazed back, his lips trembling. The bone collector caressed the man’s fingers, squeezed the phalanges between his own (wished he could take his glove off but didn’t dare). Then he lifted the man’s palm and pressed it hard against his own ear.