Джеффри Дивер - The Midnight Lock

“I’m good, yes, but I wouldn’t have time to pick locks on Central Park West. I had keys to get in. I followed you down to that fire, on the lower west side. I was going to tap your assistant on the head and get images of the keys. He was lucky he left them in the ignition of the Sprinter. But I did need the video to see the type of alarm. A BRT-4200. That’s a good one. I had to program three separate jamming codes. It’s sophisticated.” He nodded at the panel. “But as you can hear — or can’t hear — it’s not really sophisticated enough.”

Lincoln closes his eyes briefly. “So that’s how you got into the victims’ apartments. Through their videos. Annabelle Talese was an influencer. Carrie Noelle ran her toy sales operation out of her apartment.”

In his eyes there is a look that I choose to take as admiration.

“And it’s how you met Joanna Whittaker,” Lincoln says. “You watched her posts as Verum. That must have been tricky. She went to a lot of trouble to stay anonymous, I’d imagine.”

I tell him, “The challenge.” Then I click my tongue. “But I object to ‘victim,’ Lincoln. The posters are co-conspirators.”

I share my theory of social media as a form of natural selection. “I’m just culling, eliminating the oblivious and stupid and weak.”

Rhyme gives another look at the door.

“It’s just you and me. If you’re going to say your aide is back soon, I saw him leave a half hour ago. He got into his friend’s car. They kissed. I know about Thom and his partner — there were articles about his loyal service to you online. So it’s date night for them. And Amelia’s at headquarters. I heard her tell you. Anyway, I won’t be long.”

“Yannis. Do you go by that?”

“From my last name. Greg.”

“Greg.” His voice is analytical. Without a hint of anxiety. It occurs to me that someone in his condition faces death frequently. “Are there any other victims — sorry, but they are victims — other than your father?”

I think about how close I came with Carrie — the shower scene. My father’s death had freed me, but Joanna had said no, and so I kept my knife in my pocket and left.

“No. Just him.”

“And now you’re going to kill me and leave town?”

While I would rather have made a Visit to Amelia Sachs’s Brooklyn apartment — the image of her hair as hawk wings simply will not go away — it was Lincoln who had to go. Had I killed her first he would have done all he could to find me.

And when he’s gone, then it will be time for my Visit with Taylor Soames.

I look Lincoln over closely. “We lock our cars, our homes, our offices, our money in banks. I know all about locks, every kind... But you’re one that I’ve never come across before.”

“Me?”

“A locked man. You’re a locked man, Lincoln. And there’s only one key to free you.”

“Is that the murder weapon?” Lincoln asks.

“That’s right.”

“You just smeared some of his blood on the butcher knife and planted it in Xavier’s locker at the shelter.”

I nod, recalling sharpening my folding knife. It was that run-in with my father’s ribs that required the satisfying whetstone.

Lincoln says, “Brass. Alloy of copper and zinc. Sometimes with some manganese, aluminum, arsenic.

“Chemically I’ve always found the metal quite interesting — it’s a substitutional alloy. Some copper atoms are substituted for some of zinc. There’s a symmetry to it I enjoy. But why brass? It’s softer than bronze. That has a whole historic era named after it.”

“Because,” I tell him, “brass is the metal of keys.” I scoff. “And, don’t put it down, Lincoln. Brass does define a whole section of the orchestra.”

Lincoln is shaking his head. “We found dried blood at the Locksmith’s scenes. We dated it to about the time your father was stabbed to death. Never made the connection.”

As if he’s speaking to himself.

I move on.

“You’ve been banned from working for the NYPD. You’re in your condition.” I glance at the chair. “I’d think you’d welcome death. You’ve taught your wife and your protégés your skill. Passing on the torch. Do you have nerves in your neck?”

Lincoln says sourly, “I have nerves everywhere.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I have sensation in my neck. Nowhere below my shoulders.”

“I don’t want you to be in pain. So the jugular’s out. But if I were to slice through the veins in your arms, you’d feel nothing?”

“Not true. I’d feel pretty pissed off.”

How can I not smile? “You’re a puzzle, Lincoln. Just like the best locks. Riddles and pin tumblers have a lot in common. You know Richard Feynman?”

“Of course. Physicist. One of the creators of the atom bomb.”

“He loved locks. There wasn’t much to do in Alamogordo when he was off the clock. He’d amuse himself by cracking the combination locks of the filing cabinets that held the nuclear weapons’ secrets. Locks, puzzles...”

This has gone on for too long and now it’s time to leave. I’m eager for my Visit with Taylor Soames and, perhaps, Roonie.

Stretch your hamstrings slowly and be sure to wear leg warmers...

I start toward him.

He tilts his head. “Before you do this. Please. Answer a question.”

I pause.

“What would your idea of hell be?”

There’s only one: being trapped forever in a place where I can’t peer into private lives, can’t slip into their bedrooms and bend close enough to feel their sleep heat radiate from their bodies. Can’t cut open their secrets.

Can’t cut open their bodies...

I do not answer him, of course.

But it seems I don’t need to. I see in Lincoln Rhyme’s face what might be a cast of perfect understanding. This is followed by the narrowest of narrowing eyes, which connote sorrow and regret.

And I realize to my utter shock, this look is conveying sympathy not for himself, but for me .

Oh, Christ, no!

The door to the second parlor, across the entryway, flies open and a half-dozen men and women, some in uniform, all with guns drawn, charge out. I’m not surprised to see Amelia in the front and I now understand what she said over the phone were lines that had been scripted to make me believe that she was downtown.

They are shouting, so loud I can feel the words in my chest, “Drop it, drop the weapon!” I’m so shocked that I’m frozen and incapable of moving, incapable of relaxing my grip on the knife.

Being trapped forever in a place where I can’t peer into private lives...

I consider taking a step toward them.

And letting that be the end.

But they’ve done this before and, in the instant of my hesitation, they’re on me.

“Well, if he isn’t a people cop after all.”

Rhyme cut a look to his former partner and grumbled, “Beg your pardon?”

Sellitto said, “Your interrogation. You got a confession about killing his father. And found out there were no other vics. Played a little of the old mind games. See, evidence isn’t everything, Linc.”

A shrug. “I figured as long as we had him, why not chat? Obviously he has father issues, so I thought I’d rile him up and see where it went. It’s easy to get somebody to fess up when he’s about to murder the confessee. But, for the record, evidence is a more elegant way to build a case and it always will be.”

“Have to have the last word, don’t you, Linc?” Sellitto was smiling.

“Uhm.”

Yannis Gregorios sat in a chair, hands cuffed behind him. His eyes were constantly in motion.