Jeffery Deaver - The Bone Collector

Carole leaned forward. “Is this the right way to the city?”

Again, no answer.

She rapped hard on the Plexiglas. “Are you going the right way? Answer me. Answer me!”

“Mommy, what’s wrong?” Pammy said and started to cry.

“Where are you going?” Carole shouted.

But the man just kept driving – leisurely, stopping at all the red lights, never going over the speed limit. And when he pulled into the deserted parking lot behind a dark, abandoned factory he made sure he signaled properly.

Oh no… no!

He pulled on a ski mask and climbed from the cab. Walking to the back, he reached for the door. But he hesitated and his hand dropped. He leaned forward, face against the window, and tapped on the glass. Once, twice, three times. Getting the attention of lizards in the reptile room at a zoo. He stared at the mother and daughter for a long moment before he opened the door.

“HOW’D YOU DO IT, SACHS?”

Standing beside the pungent Hudson River, she spoke into her stalk mike. “I remembered seeing the fireboat station at Battery Park. They scrambled a couple divers and were at the pier in about three minutes. Man, you should’ve seen that boat move! I want to try one of those someday.”

Rhyme explained to her about the fingerless cabbie.

“Son of a bitch!” she said, clicking her tongue in disgust. “The weasel tricked us all.”

“Not all of us,” Rhyme reminded her coyly.

“So Dellray knows I boosted the evidence. Is he looking for me?”

“He said he was heading back to the federal building. Probably to decide which one of us to collar first. How’s the scene there, Sachs?”

“Pretty bad,” she reported. “He parked on gravel -”

“So no footprints.”

“But it’s worse than that. The tide backed out of this big drainpipe and where he parked’s underwater.”

“Hell,” Rhyme muttered. “No trace, no prints, no nothing. How’s the vic?”

“Not so good. Exposure, broken finger. He’s had heart problems. They’re going to keep him in the hospital for a day or two.”

“Can he tell us anything?”

Sachs walked over to Banks, who was interviewing William Everett.

“He wasn’t big,” the man said matter-of-factly, carefully examining the splint the medic was putting on his hand. “And he wasn’t really strong, not a muscle man. But he was stronger’n me. I grabbed him and he just pulled my hands away.”

“Description?” Banks asked.

Everett recounted the dark clothes and ski mask. That was all he could remember.

“One thing I should tell you,” Everett held up his bandaged hand. “He’s got a mean streak. I grabbed him, like I said. I wasn’t thinking – I just panicked. But he got real mad. That’s when he busted my finger.”

“Retaliation, hm?” Banks asked.

“I guess. But that’s not the strange part.”

“No?”

“The strange part is he listened to it.”

The young detective had stopped writing. Looked at Sachs.

“He held my hand against his ear, real tight, and bent the finger until it broke. Like he was listening. And liking it.”

“Did you hear that, Rhyme?”

“Yes. Thom’s added it to our profile. I don’t know what it means, though. We’ll have to think about it.”

“Any sign of the planted PE?”

“Not yet.”

“Grid it, Sachs. Oh, and get the vic’s -”

“Clothes? I’ve already asked him. I – Rhyme, you all right?” She heard a fit of coughing.

The transmission was shut off momentarily. He came back on a moment later. “You there, Rhyme? Everything okay?”

“Fine,” he said quickly. “Get going. Walk the grid.”

She surveyed the scene, lit starkly by the ESU halogens. It was so frustrating. He’d been here. He’d walked on the gravel just a few feet away. But whatever PE he’d inadvertently left behind was lying inches below the surface of the dim water. She covered the ground slowly. Back and forth.

“I can’t see anything . The clues might’ve been washed away.”

“No, he’s too smart not to’ve taken the tide into account. They’ll be on dry land somewhere.”

“I’ve got an idea,” she said suddenly. “Come on down here.”

“What?”

“Work the scene with me, Rhyme.”

Silence.

“Rhyme, did you hear me?”

“Are you talking to me?” he asked.

“You look like De Niro. You can’t act as good as De Niro. You know? That scene from Taxi Driver?”

Rhyme didn’t laugh. He said, “The line’s ‘Are you looking at me?’ Not ‘talking to me.’”

Sachs continued, unfazed, “Come on down. Work the scene with me.”

“I’ll spread my wings. No, better yet, I’ll project myself there. Telepathy, you know.”

“Quit joking. I’m serious.”

“I -”

“We need you. I can’t find the planted clues.”

“But they’ll be there. You just have to try a little harder.”

“I’ve walked the entire grid twice.”

“Then you’ve defined the perimeter too narrowly. Add another few feet and keep going. Eight twenty-three’s not finished yet, not by a long shot.”

“You’re changing the subject. Come on down and help me.”

“How?” Rhyme asked. “How’m I supposed to do that?”

“I had a friend who was challenged,” she began. “And he -”

“You mean he was a crip ,” Rhyme corrected. Softly but firmly.

She continued, “His aide’d put him into this fancy wheelchair every morning and he drove himself all over the place. To the movies, to -”

“Those chairs…” Rhyme’s voice sounded hollow. “They don’t work for me.”

She stopped speaking.

He continued, “The problem’s how I was injured. It’d be dangerous for me to be in a wheelchair. It could” – he hesitated – “make things worse.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

After a moment he said, “Of course you didn’t.”

Blew that one. Oh, boy. Brother…

But Rhyme didn’t seem any the worse for her faux pas. His voice was smooth, unemotional. “Listen, you’ve got to get on with the search. Our unsub’s making it trickier. But it won’t be impossible… Here’s an idea. He’s the underground man, right? Maybe he buried them.”

She looked over the scene.

Maybe there… She saw a mound of earth and leaves in a patch of tall grass near the gravel. It didn’t look right; the mound seemed too assembled.

Sachs crouched beside it, lowered her head and, using the pencils, began to clear away leaves.

She turned her face slightly to the left and found she was staring at a rearing head, bared fangs…

“Jesus Lord,” she shouted, stumbling backwards, falling hard on her butt, scrambling to draw her weapon.

No…

Rhyme shouted, “You all right?”

Sachs drew a target and tried to steady the gun with very unsteady hands. Jerry Banks came running up, his own Glock drawn. He stopped. Sachs climbed to her feet, looking at what was in front of them.

“Man,” Banks whispered.

“It’s a snake – well, a snake’s skeleton,” Sachs told Rhyme. “A rattlesnake. Fuck.” Holstered the Glock. “It’s mounted on a board.”

“A snake? Interesting.” Rhyme sounded intrigued.

“Yeah, real interesting,” she muttered. She pulled on latex gloves and lifted the coiled bones. She turned it over. “ ‘Metamorphosis.’ ”

“What?”

“A label on the bottom. The name of the store it came from, I’d guess. 604 Broadway.”

Rhyme said, “I’ll have the Hardy Boys check it out. What’ve we got? Tell me the clues.”

They were underneath the snake. In a Baggie. Her heart pounded as she crouched down over the bag.