Jeffery Deaver - The Bone Collector

“Well?”

“Hold on, hold on. Here’s a list of the encoded binaries.” He scanned it. “Alfalfa, barley, beets, corn, oats, tobacco…”

“Tobacco! Try that.”

Cooper double clicked his mouse and the image slowly unfurled on the screen.

“That’s it!”

“The World Trade Towers,” Rhyme announced. “The land from there north used to be tobacco plantations. Thom, the research for my book – I want the map from the 1740s. And that modern map Bo Haumann was using for the asbestos-cleanup sites. Put them up there on the wall, next to each other.”

The aide found the old map in Rhyme’s files. He taped them both onto the wall near his bed. Crudely drawn, the older map showed the northern part of the settled city – a cluster on the lower portion of the isle – covered with plantations. There were three commercial wharves along the river, which was then called not the Hudson but the West River. Rhyme glanced at the recent map of the city. The farmland was gone of course, as were the original wharves, but the contemporary map showed an abandoned wharf in the exact location of one of the tobacco exporter’s old piers.

Rhyme strained forward, struggling to see the street name it was near. He was about to shout for Thom to come hold the map closer when, from downstairs, he heard a loud snap and the door crashed inward. Glass shattered.

Thom started down the stairs.

“I want to see him.” The terse voice filled the hallway.

“Just a – ” the aide began.

“No. Not inaminute, not in a hour. But right. Fucking. Now.”

“Mel,” Rhyme whispered, “ditch the evidence, shut the systems down.”

“But -”

“Do it!”

Rhyme shook his head violently, dislodging the headset microphone. It fell onto the side of the Clinitron. Footsteps pounded up the stairs.

Thom did the best he could to stall but the visitors were three federal agents and two of the three were holding large guns. Slowly they backed him up the stairs.

Bless him, Mel Cooper pulled apart a compound microscope in five seconds flat and was calmly replacing the components with meticulous care as the FBI crested the stairs and stormed into Rhyme’s room. The evidence bags were stuffed under a table and covered with National Geographics .

“Ah, Dellray,” Rhyme asked. “Find our unsub, did you?”

“Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Tell you what?”

“That the fingerprint was bogus.”

“No one asked me.”

“Bogus?” Cooper asked, mystified.

“Well, it was a real print,” Rhyme said, as if it were obvious. “But it wasn’t the unsub’s. Our boy needed a taxi to catch his fish with. So he met – what was his name?”

“Victor Pietrs,” Dellray muttered and gave the cabbie’s history.

“Nice touch,” Rhyme said with some genuine admiration.

“Picked a Serb with a rap sheet and mental problems. Wonder how long he looked for a candidate. Anyway, 823 killed poor Mr. Pietrs and stole his cab. Cut off his finger. He kept it and figured if we were getting too close he’d leave a nice obvious print at a scene to throw us off. I guess it worked.”

Rhyme glanced at the clock. Fourteen minutes left.

“How’d you know?” Dellray glanced at the maps on Rhyme’s wall but, thank God, wasn’t interested in them.

“The print showed signs of dehydration and shriveling. Bet the body was a mess. And you found it in the basement? Am I right? Where our boy likes to stow his victims.”

Dellray ignored him and nosed around the room like a giant terrier. “Where you hidin’ our evidence?”

“Evidence? I don’t know what you’re talking about. Say, did you break my door? Last time you walked in without knocking. Now you just kicked it in.”

“You know, Lincoln, I was thinking of apologizing to you for before -”

“That’s big of you, Fred.”

“But now I’m a inch away from collaring your ass.”

Rhyme glanced down at the microphone headset, dangling on the floor. He imagined Sachs’s voice bleating from the earphones.

“Gimme that evidence, Rhyme. You don’t realize what kind of pissy-bad trouble you’re in.”

“Thom,” Rhyme asked slowly, “Agent Dellray startled me and I dropped my Walkman headset. Could you hook it on the bedframe?”

The aide didn’t miss a beat. He rested the mike next to Rhyme’s head, out of Dellray’s sight.

“Thank you,” Rhyme said to Thom. Then added, “You know, I haven’t had my bath yet, I think it’s about time, wouldn’t you say?”

“I’ve been wondering when you were going to ask,” said Thom, with the ability of a natural-born actor.

“Come in, Rhyme. For Christ’s sake. Where are you?”

Then she heard a voice in her headset. Thom’s. It sounded stilted, exaggerated. Something was wrong.

“I’ve got the new sponge,” the voice said.

“Looks like a good one,” Rhyme answered.

“Rhyme?” Sachs blurted. “What the hell’s going on?”

“Cost seventeen dollars. It ought to be good. I’m going to turn you over.”

More voices sounded through the earphone but she couldn’t make them out.

Sachs and Banks were jogging along the waterfront, peering over the wharves into the gray-brown water of the Hudson. She motioned to Banks to stop, leaned away from the cramp below her breastbone, spit into the river. Tried to catch her breath.

Through the headset she heard: “… won’t take long. You’ll have to excuse us, gentlemen.”

“… we’ll just wait, you don’t mind.”

“I do mind,” Rhyme said. “Can’t I get a little privacy here?”

“Rhyme, can you hear me?” Sachs called desperately. What the hell was he doing?

“Nup. No privacy for them that steal evidence.”

Dellray! He was in Rhyme’s room. Well, that’s the end of it. The vic’s as good as dead.

“I want that evidence,” the agent barked.

“Well, what you’re going to get is a panoramic view of a man taking a sponge bath, Dellray.”

Banks started to speak but she waved him quiet.

Some muttered words she couldn’t hear.

The agent’s angry shout.

Then Rhyme’s calm voice again. “… You know, Dellray, I used to be a swimmer. Swam every day.”

“We’ve got less than ten minutes,” Sachs whispered. The water lapped calmly. Two placid boats cruised past.

Dellray muttered something.

“I’d go down to the Hudson River and swim. It was a lot cleaner then. The water, I mean.”

A garbled transmission. He was breaking up.

“…old pier. My favorite one’s gone now. Used to be the home of the Hudson Dusters. That gang, you ever hear of them? In the 1890s. North of where Battery Park City is now. You look bored. Tired of looking at a crip’s flabby ass? No? Suit yourself. That pier was between North Moore and Chambers. I’d dive in, swim around the piers…”

“North Moore and Chambers!” Sachs shouted. Spinning around. They’d missed it because they’d gone too far south. It was a quarter mile from where they were. She could see the brown scabby wood, a large drainpipe backing up with tidal water. How much time was left? Hardly any. There was no way they could save him.

She ripped the headset off and started sprinting to the car, Banks close behind.

“Can you swim?” she asked.

“Me? A lap or two at the Health and Racquet Club.”

They’d never make it.

Sachs stopped suddenly, spun around in a fast circle, gazing at the deserted streets.

The water was nearly to his nose.

A small wave washed over William Everett’s face just as he inhaled and the foul, salty liquid streamed into his throat. He began to choke, a deep, horrible sound. Racking. The water filled his lungs. He lost his grip on the pier piling and sank under the surface, stiffened and rose once more, then sank again.