Джеффри Дивер - The Midnight Lock

“Now, something you have to know. We’re pretty sure he’s done this before. Similar MO. Somebody at the Six House got a call. This was in February.”

Rhyme asked, “The Village?”

“Yeah. Greenwich Street. That one, a woman came home and found somebody’d been there. Moved things around. Pulled her bedsheets down. Ate some snack food.”

Rhyme asked, “And they were sure nobody had a key?”

“Correct.”

“Did he take any souvenirs or leave a message?”

“No.”

“Maybe a former romantic interest with a grudge,” Sachs suggested.

“The responding asked but there wasn’t anybody she could think of.”

Sachs asked, “Did the gold shield in that case send in ECTs?”

“No, Crime Scene wasn’t involved. The vic didn’t want to pursue it. And if you’re thinking of running it now, Amelia, the place’s been scrubbed. A while ago. She moved out a week after it happened — out of town in fact, she was so freaked. And it’s New York so there was a new tenant in, in about five seconds, freshly painted walls and steam-cleaned carpet.”

“Were those locks as tough as the ones this morning?” Rhyme asked.

“I don’t know. It was just an incident report, no follow-up, no investigation.” His eyes lowered and he read from a sheet of paper. “Now, the other one, March. Midtown South, off Ninth Avenue. This MO was closer to last night’s. A perp breaks into the vic’s apartment while she’s asleep. Rearranges her things, underwear and stuff. Get this, he made a goddamn sandwich and ate it. Well, ate half of it — to let her know what he’d done. Left the dirty plate on her bedside table.”

Sachs asked, “She slept through it too?”

“She was on some kind of mood drug, she said. And I’ll save you the breath. No ECTs, no investigation. And she was out of the place in three days. Only her sister had a set of keys, and they were accounted for. No exes as possible doers either.”

“Notice a trend?” Sellitto asked. “First victim, she wasn’t home. Second, she was but he didn’t play with knives and underwear. Last night: he left a newspaper with a possibly threatening message and he’s stepped up to flirting with sharp objects and lingerie.”

Rhyme asked, “You ever hear the nickname ‘the Locksmith’?”

“No, never.”

“That souvenir he left, the Daily Herald ,” Sachs asked, “does it mean anything in the lock community?”

“That rag? Can’t imagine what. Maybe he just needed some stationery.”

“Where could we start looking for somebody had these skills?” Lon Sellitto asked Morgenstern.

“It’s a guy in the trade, you’re thinking. But probably not. For one thing, all the commercial locksmiths know they’re the first ones we’d look to when a perp is as sophisticated as this. Also, there’s a thing about tradesmen locksmiths. Pride in profession and that means not using their skills for illegal crap.

“I can get you a list of a few who’ve strayed, but I’d say he does something else for work and got obsessed with picking separately. Studied it on the side, and I mean studied it. Probably hooked up with a mentor at a convention — and one hell of a mentor, at that.”

Sellitto asked, “Any trademark moves that might help?”

“No, there’s no signature, as it were. He’s just very, very good. The best I’ve seen. Basically, unless you’ve got guard dogs, a CIA-level alarm system and a door bar — you know, that rod from the door to the floor inside — you’re not going to be able to keep this guy out.”

Sachs said to the screen, “Thanks, Benny.”

“A last word? One thing about picking: the good ones’re brilliant. You have to outthink the lock maker, and outthink the lock. You’ve got to be a chess player. And you have to do it all with a clock ticking down. Your boy here, he’s got that intelligence and he’s got the skill. That’s a real bad combination for somebody with a playbook like his. You want my advice, devote resources. Find him. And fast. There’s some bad shit looming.”

Morgenstern ended the session.

Rhyme was staring out the window. He believed Sellitto was speaking to him but he wasn’t listening. What he was thinking of was another perp, a man who was as close as could be to the word “nemesis” — a characterization that Rhyme considered both profoundly unprofessional and yet completely accurate.

The Watchmaker and Rhyme had gone head-to-head several times over the years. In each instance, Rhyme had foiled his attempts at assassination or terror attacks, but the man had always escaped and gone on to commit more crimes outside of Rhyme’s jurisdiction. The last time they’d met, the Watchmaker had assured him that one of them would not survive their next encounter.

Not long ago, Rhyme had learned from an intelligence source in England that someone was targeting him for a hit. The matter was still under investigation, but Rhyme now suspected the Watchmaker was involved. Was it possible that the Locksmith was working for the “nemesis”? Or was he, in fact, the Watchmaker himself.

The Locksmith’s MO and obsession with mechanical devices echoed those of the Watchmaker. Had the man returned to the city to target Rhyme? But, on reflection, it seemed unlikely. His personal enemy’s passion was timepieces and it seemed unlikely that he would so compulsively take up the topic of locks this late in his career.

But one thing did resonate: the Watchmaker’s skills were those of a master illusionist. He kept the police and the public and the real victim of his crimes focused elsewhere.

Rhyme wondered if the same were true with the Locksmith.

What was actually going on?

Sellitto asked Rhyme and Sachs, “So. You’ll run it?”

The couple regarded each other and it was she who nodded their collective assent.

Then Rhyme said to her, “Check NCIC, Interpol and our own databases.”

With a parting glance at Annabelle — Rhyme had forgotten her last name — Sachs exited that page and logged on to a secure NYPD server. Her fingers, tipped in uncolored, close-cut nails, pounded hard. A moment later. “No references to ‘Locksmith’ as a proper name or nick or aka. Some perps were locksmiths by profession but picking skills had nothing to do with the crimes and they’re either long gone or nowhere near here.”

Rhyme mused, “So he’s created himself from whole cloth. Interesting.”

Sachs logged out of the server. “Did the page of the newspaper he left mean anything to her?”

“I don’t know,” Sellitto said. “They declared a crime scene and backed out, the uniforms did.”

Sachs asked, “The picture he posted, could Computer Crimes trace it?”

“No, it went to an underground image board — there’s no trail.”

Rhyme said to Sachs, “Okay, get to her apartment. Walk the grid.”

“I’ll interview her too and get some uniforms for a canvass.”

“Video in the building?” Rhyme asked.

Sellitto told him no.

Rhyme reflected: a canvass wouldn’t do much good then since the officers would have no description. All they could ask neighbors was if they’d seen anyone “suspicious” — a line out of a shamus movie from the ’40s. He didn’t care much, though. He was distrustful of witnesses and their accounts anyway.

He wanted the evidence.

Sachs asked, “Where’s Annabelle now?”

Sellitto said, “At her neighbors’. She won’t go back to the apartment alone.”

“Hardly blame her there.”

Rhyme said, “I’ll call Mel. Lon, can you get me Pulaski? Is he free?” Rhyme added, “I want him free.”

“He’ll be free.”

“Let’s get a board going.”