Jeffery Deaver - The Twelfth Card

That was bad enough but the worst was the sitting. Amelia Sachs hated to sit still.

When you move they can’t getcha …

No small crime scenes, Rhyme? Brother…

She started to leave.

But at the door, she paused, looking back over the material, thinking: A few sentences in one of these musty books or yellowing newspapers could make the difference between life and death for Geneva Settle – and the other innocents that Unsub 109 might one day kill.

Rhyme’s voice came back to her. When you’re walking the grid at the scene, you search it once and then again and when you’re finished, you search it once more. And when you’re done with that, you search it again. And…

She glanced at the last book – the one that had defeated her. Sachs sighed, sat back down, pulled the 504-pager toward her and read through it properly and then flipped through the photographs in the middle.

Which, it turned out, was a good idea.

She froze, staring at a photograph of West Eightieth Street, taken in 1867. She gave a laugh, read the caption and the text on the opposite page. Then pulled her cell phone off her belt and hit speed-dial button 1.

“I found Potters’ Field, Rhyme.”

“We know where it is,” he snapped into the microphone near his mouth. “An island in the -”

“There’s another one.”

“A second cemetery?”

“Not a cemetery. It was a tavern. In Gallows Heights.”

“A tavern?” Well, this was interesting, he thought.

“I’m looking at the photo, or daguerreotype, whatever it is. A bar named Potters’ Field. It was on West Eightieth Street.”

So, they’d been wrong, Rhyme reflected. Charles Singleton’s fateful meeting may not have been on Hart’s Island at all.

“And, it gets better – the place burned down. Suspected arson. Perpetrators and motive unknown.”

“Am I right in supposing that it was the same day Charles Singleton went there to – what did he say? To find justice?”

“Yep. July fifteenth.”

Forever hidden beneath clay and soil …

“Anything else about him? Or the tavern?”

“Not yet.”

“Keep digging.”

“You bet, Rhyme.”

They disconnected the call.

Sachs had been on the speakerphone; Geneva had heard. She asked angrily, “You think Charles burned that place down?”

“Not necessarily. But one of the major reasons for arson is to destroy evidence. Maybe that’s what Charles was up to, covering up something about the robbery.”

Geneva said, “Look at his letter…he’s saying that the theft was set up to discredit him. Don’t you think he’s innocent by now?” The girl’s voice was low and firm, her eyes bored into Rhyme’s.

The criminalist returned her gaze. “I do, yes.”

She nodded. Gave a faint smile at this acknowledgement. Then she looked at her battered Swatch. “I should get home.”

Bell was concerned that the unsub had learned where Geneva lived. He’d arranged a safe house for her, but it wouldn’t be available until tonight. For the time being, he and the protection team would simply have to remain particularly vigilant.

Geneva gathered up Charles’s letters.

“We’ll have to keep those for the time being,” Rhyme said.

“Keep them? Like, for evidence?”

“Just until we get to the bottom of what’s going on.”

Geneva was looking at them hesitantly. There seemed to be a longing in her eye.

“We’ll keep them in a safe place.”

“Okay.” She handed them to Mel Cooper.

He looked at her troubled expression. “Would you like copies of his letters?”

She seemed embarrassed. “Yeah, I would. Just…they’re, you know, from family. That makes ’em kind of important.”

“No problem at all.” He made copies on the Xerox machine and handed them to her. She folded them carefully and they disappeared into her purse.

Bell took a call, listened for a moment and said, “Great, get it over here as soon as you can. Much appreciated.” He gave Rhyme’s address, then hung up. “The school. They found the security tape of the school yard when the unsub’s partner was there yesterday. They’re sending it over.”

“Oh, my God,” Rhyme said sourly, “you mean there’s a real lead in the case? And it’s not a hundred years old?”

Bell switched to the scrambled frequency and radioed Luis Martinez about their plans. He then radioed Barbe Lynch, the officer guarding the street in front of Geneva’s house. She reported the street was clear and she’d be awaiting them.

Finally the North Carolinian hit the speakerphone button on Rhyme’s phone and called the girl’s uncle to make sure he was home.

“‘Lo?” the man answered.

Bell identified himself.

“She’s okay?” the uncle asked.

“She’s fine. We’re headed back now. Everything all right there?”

“Yes, sir, sure is.”

“Have you heard from her parents?”

“Her folk? Yeah, my brother call me from th’ airport. Had some delay or ’nother. But they’ll be leaving soon.”

Rhyme used to fly to London frequently to consult with Scotland Yard and other European police departments. Travel overseas had been no more complicated than flying to Chicago or California. Not so anymore. Welcome to the post-9/11 world of international travel, he thought. He was angry that it was taking so long for her mom and dad to get home. Geneva was probably the most mature child he’d ever met but she was a child nonetheless and should be with her parents.

Then Bell’s radio crackled and Luis Martinez’s staticky voice reported, “I’m outside, boss. The car’s in front, door open.”

Bell hung up the phone and turned to Geneva. “Ready when you are, miss.”

“Here you be,” said Jon Earle Wilson to Thompson Boyd, who was sitting in a restaurant in downtown Manhattan, on Broad Street.

The skinny white guy with a mullet haircut and wearing beige jeans, none too clean, handed the shopping bag to Boyd, who glanced inside.

Wilson sat down in the booth across from him. Boyd continued to study the bag. Inside was a large UPS box. A smaller bag sat beside it. From Dunkin’ Donuts, though the contents most definitely were not pastries. Wilson used the chain shop’s bags because they were slightly waxed and protected against moisture.

“Are we eating?” Wilson asked. He saw a salad go past. He was hungry. But although he often met Boyd in coffee shops or restaurants they’d never actually broken bread together. Wilson’s favorite meal was pizza and soda, which he’d have by himself in his one-room apartment, chockablock with tools and wires and computer chips. Though he sort of felt, for all the work he did for Boyd, the man could stand him to a fucking sandwich or something.

But the killer said, “I’ve got to leave in a minute or two.”

A plate of lamb shish kebab sat half eaten in front of the killer. Wilson wondered if he was going to offer it to him. Boyd didn’t. He just smiled at the waitress when she came to collect it. Boyd smiling – that was new. Wilson’d never seen it before (though he had to admit it was a pretty fucking weird smile).

Wilson asked, “Heavy, huh?” Glancing toward the bag. He had a proud look in his eyes.

“Is.”

“Think you’ll like it.” He was proud of what he’d made and a little pissed that Boyd didn’t respond.

Wilson then asked, “So how’s it going?”

“It’s going.”

“Everything’s cool?”

“Little set-back. That’s why…” He nodded toward the bag and said nothing else. Boyd gave a faint whistle, trying to match the notes of ethnic music coming out of the speaker above them. The music was bizarro. Sitars or something from India or Pakistan or who knew where. But Boyd hit the notes pretty good. Killing people and whistling – the two things this man knew how to do.