Jeffery Deaver - The Coffin Dancer

Hour 42 of 45

IT WAS AFTER 3 A.M., RHYME NOTED. Percey Clay was flying back to the East Coast on an FBI jet and in just a few hours she’d be on her way to the courthouse to get ready for her grand jury appearance.

And Rhyme still had no idea where the Coffin Dancer was, what he was planning, what identity he was now assuming.

Sellitto’s phone brayed. He listened. His face screwed up. “Jesus. The Dancer just got somebody else. They found another body – ID-proofed – in a tunnel in Central Park. Near Fifth Avenue.”

“Completely ID-proofed?”

“Did it up right, sounds like. Removed the hands, teeth, jaw, and clothes. White male. Youngish. Late twenties, early thirties.” The detective listened again. “Not a bum,” he reported. “He’s clean, in good shape. Athletic. Haumann thinks he’s some yuppie from the East Side.”

“Okay,” Rhyme said. “Bring him here. I want to go over it myself.”

“The body?”

“Right.”

“Well, okay.”

“So the Dancer’s got a new identity,” Rhyme mused angrily. “What the hell is it? How’s he going to come at us next?”

Rhyme sighed, looked out the window. He said to Dellray, “What safe house’re you going to put them in?”

“I been thinking ’bout that,” the lanky agent said. “Seems to me -”

“Ours,” a new voice said.

They looked at the heavyset man in the doorway.

“ Our safe house,” Reggie Eliopolos said. “We’re taking custody.”

“Not unless you’ve got -” Rhyme began.

The prosecutor waved the paper too fast for Rhyme to read it but they all knew the protective custody order would be legit.

“That’s not a good idea,” Rhyme said.

“It’s better than your idea of trying to get our last witness killed any way you can.”

Sachs stepped forward, angrily, but Rhyme shook his head.

“Believe me,” Rhyme said, “the Dancer’ll figure out that you’re going to take them into custody. He’s probably already figured it out. In fact,” he added ominously, “he may be banking on it.”

“He’d have to be a mind reader.”

Rhyme tipped his head. “You’re catching on.”

Eliopolos snickered. He looked around the room, spotted Jodie. “You’re Joseph D’Oforio?”

The little man stared back. “I – yes.”

“You’re coming too.”

“Hey, hold on a minute, they said I’d get my money and I could -”

“This doesn’t have anything to do with rewards. If you’re entitled to it you’ll get it. We’re just going to make sure you’re safe until the grand jury.”

“Grand jury! Nobody said anything about testifying!”

“Well,” Eliopolos said, “you’re a material witness.” A nod toward Rhyme. “ He may have been intent on murdering some hit man. We’re making a case against the man who hired him. Which is what most law enforcers do.”

“I’m not going to testify.”

“Then you’re going to do time for contempt. In general population. And I’ll bet you know how safe you’ll be there.”

The little man tried to be angry but was just too scared. His face shriveled. “Oh, Jesus.”

“You’re not going to have enough protection,” Rhyme said to Eliopolos. “We know him. Let us protect them.”

“Oh, and Rhyme?” Eliopolos turned to him. “Because of the incident with the plane, I’m charging you with interference with a criminal investigation.”

“The fuck you are,” Sellitto said.

“The fuck I am,” the round man snapped back. “He could’ve ruined the case, letting her make that flight. I’m having the warrant served Monday. And I’m going to supervise the prosecution myself. He -”

Rhyme said softly, “He’s been here, you know.”

The assistant U.S. attorney stopped speaking. After a moment he asked, “Who?”

Though he knew who.

“He was right outside that window not an hour ago, pointing a sniper rifle, loaded with explosive shells, into this room.” Rhyme’s eyes dipped to the floor. “Probably the very spot where you’re standing.”

Eliopolos wouldn’t have stepped back for the world. But his eyes flickered to the windows to make certain the shades were closed.

“Why…?”

Rhyme finished the sentence. “Didn’t he shoot? Because he had a better idea.”

“What’s that?”

“Ah,” Rhyme said. “That’s the million-dollar question. All we know is he’s killed somebody else – some young man in Central Park – and stripped him. He’s ID-proofed the body and taken over his identity. I don’t doubt for one minute that he knows the bomb didn’t kill Percey and that he’s on his way to finish the job. And he’ll make you a co-conspirator.”

“He doesn’t even know I exist.”

“If that’s what you want to believe.”

“Jesus, Reggie Boy,” Dellray said. “Get with the picture!”

“Don’t call me that.”

Sachs joined in. “Aren’t you figuring it out? You’ve never been up against anybody like him.”

Eyes on her, Eliopolos spoke to Sellitto. “Guess you do things different on the city level. Federal, our people know their places.”

Rhyme snapped, “You’re a fool if you treat him like a gangsta or some has-been mafioso. Nobody can hide from him. The only way is to stop him.”

“Yeah, Rhyme, that’s been your war cry all along. Well, we’re not sacrificing any more troops because you’ve got a hard-on for a guy killed two of your techs five years ago. Assuming you can get a hard-on -”

Eliopoloswas a large man and so he was surprised to find himself slammed so lithely to the floor, gasping for breath and staring up into Sellitto’s purple face, the lieutenant’s fist drawn back.

“Do that, Officer,” the attorney wheezed, “and you’ll be arraigned within a half hour.”

“Lon,” Rhyme said, “let it go, let it go…”

The detective calmed, glared at the man, walked away. Eliopolos climbed to his feet.

The insult in fact meant nothing. He wasn’t even thinking of Eliopolos. Or the Dancer for that matter. For he’d happened to glance at Amelia Sachs, at the hollowness in her eyes, the despair. And he knew what she was feeling: the desperation at losing her prey. Eliopolos was stealing away her chance to get the Dancer. As with Lincoln Rhyme, the killer had come to be the dark focus of her life.

All because of a single misstep – the incident at the airport, her going for cover. A small thing, minuscule to everyone but her. But what was the expression? A fool can throw a stone into a pond that a dozen wise men can’t recover. And what was Rhyme’s Me now but the result of a piece of wood breaking a tiny piece of bone? Sachs’s life had been snapped in that single moment of what she saw as cowardice. But unlike Rhyme’s case, there was – he believed – a chance for her to mend.

Oh, Sachs, how it hurts to do this, but I have no choice. He said to Eliopolos, “All right, but you have to do one thing in exchange.”

“Or you’ll what?” Eliopolos snickered.

“Or I won’t tell you where Percey is,” Rhyme said simply. “We’re the only ones who know.”