Джеффри Дивер - The Midnight Lock

EVANS: And doing what?

DOUGLASS: Opening a chain of food trucks. Already got it planned.

You can be my first customer. You get a discount. [Laughter.]

The mayor pushed the document away. He muttered, “Jesus... I never would have guessed Brett. He always seemed rock solid.”

Rhyme said, “I was thinking I should’ve been more suspicious of him too. There was something odd about him calling me up after I was fired. Sure, I helped make his career, but that was years ago, and we haven’t talked much since. He was saying he’d get me a commercial job or a slot at the New Jersey State Police. But he was spying on me, wanted to know what I was up to.”

Harrison shook his head. His distinguished mane of silver hair was at odds with his rolled-up shirtsleeves. Like now, his top collar button was rarely fixed, his tie forever lopsided. “Looks like my firing you added a layer of complication.”

Rhyme muttered, “To put it mildly.”

Al Rodriguez said, “When I heard about your edict, sir, I called Sally Willis and talked my way into overseeing the disciplinary effort. Had to run interference and make it look like Lincoln and his team were toeing the line, while we went after the mole.”

Then the mayor was looking out over the harbor. “The Murphy murder. Did Buryak commit it?”

Rodriguez said, “No.”

“What if the jury’d come back with a guilty verdict?”

“We have the real perp on ice — a safe house in Queens. A signed confession. Buryak wasn’t at risk. And Sellars had some legitimate cause to bring the case: motive, means.”

“We got our mole. What about Douglass?”

“He’s disappeared. We’re looking for him.”

“And Buryak?” Harrison’s face was grim. “Do you have him on tape?”

“No,” Rodriguez said. “He’s been as cautious as he’s always been.”

“So back to fucking square one with him.”

“Well, about that...” Rhyme said absently and glanced at his phone.

Sitting in her Torino in a very pleasant portion of Queens, Amelia Sachs heard a crackle on her walkie-talkie.

“Detective Five Eight Eight Five, be advised, subject has been spotted in his car, heading toward home. Two blocks away. K.”

“Five Eight Eight Five,” she transmitted. “Is he alone? K.”

“Affirmative. K.”

Hell. She’d hoped to net two birds with one bust but this was the far more important avian and they couldn’t wait any longer.

She dropped the Torino into gear and drove forward, then turned the corner and stopped. She was across the street from an elegant estate, nestled in some fine landscaping. She killed the engine.

“Five Eight Eight Five. I’m ten twenty-three. I have visual on subject’s vehicle. Block and a half away. Get ready to move in. K.” She watched the white Mercedes sedan cruise smoothly toward her.

The four teams, in unmarkeds, responded they were ready.

She lifted the radio to her face, smelling the familiar pungent scent the devices off-gassed. “Five Eight Eight Five. He’s at the intersection Holly and June. K.”

Two minutes later the Mercedes pulled up to his front gate and Sachs saw his hand reach up to the visor and press the button on the remote to open the scrolly black metal gate.

Nothing happened. The receiver had been disabled by an NYPD tactical officer a half hour ago.

“Move in, move in, move in!” Sachs shouted, sprinting to the Mercedes. Her Glock was aimed at the driver’s head. The other cars skidded up, one blocking him in. In just a few seconds, nine officers surrounded the Mercedes.

“Unlock the door!” she shouted.

The driver did.

“I want to see your hands at all times. You understand. At every second!”

And nodding, Viktor Buryak climbed out, arms raised. While the other officers covered her, Sachs frisked him.

As a beefy officer cuffed him, Buryak gave a wry laugh. “You’re kidding me. Whatever Evans or anybody says, they’re lying. You got no tapes, nothing. And what’s all this goddamn SWAT shit for?”

Sachs didn’t respond. She read him his rights on the charge of murder in the second degree.

In the office of Mayor Tony Harrison, Lincoln Rhyme disconnected the call from Amelia Sachs.

He nodded to Al Rodriguez, then said to him, the mayor and Beaufort, “Buryak’s in custody and going to be transferred to Garner County on homicide charges.”

Rhyme believed the mayor actually gasped.

Rodriguez said, “Buryak always kept himself at arm’s length from anything that could implicate him. But for years we kept looking — and that included searching for any felonies or deaths within ten miles of Buryak’s offices and homes — his mansion in Forest Hills and his vacation house in Garner County. Couple months ago, we found one, a contractor in Garner died in a car crash coming home from a job last year. It was written up as accidental but it was suspicious. It happened on a clear afternoon on a straightaway — and just three miles from Buryak’s country house.”

Rhyme said, “We got credit card receipts that showed that Buryak bought a couple thousand dollars’ worth of building supplies around the time of the death. Just a theory: Had the contractor been working on his house and seen something incriminating? And had Buryak moved fast to eliminate the man and stage the accident?”

Rodriguez continued, “It all could have been a coincidence. But Amelia Sachs and Ron Pulaski drove up there and worked the scene. They found evidence linking Buryak to the worker’s death.”

“After all that time?”

Rhyme chose not to lecture the mayor about the skill of those two particular forensic scientists. He himself had been of some help too.

“We made him in March,” Rodriguez continued, “and could’ve moved on him at any time, but we had to keep him in play to find our mole. Once we had Evans, it was okay to roll Buryak up.”

“Jesus, Lord,” Harrison said, shaking his head. Then he was gazing at Rhyme. “My apologies, Captain — the consulting situation. It was politics, of course. How I hate it.”

Sometimes you hate it, Rhyme qualified silently.

“I’ll cancel that goddamn ban right away. I’ll call the commissioner and the chief of department.” The mayor then sat back and tugged the loose tie from the left side of his collar to the right. He said to Rhyme, “And is there anything else I can do for you? Anything at all?”

After a long moment, Rhyme replied, “As a matter of fact, there might just be.”

He’d had the lab to himself for the past hour, which was how he liked it.

Thom was in the kitchen, getting something ready for dinner, and Sachs was out buying wine and appetizers.

Tonight would be a celebration, he hoped.

He was finishing the report on the murder charge of Viktor Buryak. After Sachs and Pulaski had found evidence linking him to the same rock that contained the DNA of the contractor he’d killed, the local authorities executed a search warrant of the vacation home in Garner. The motive for the murder was what Rhyme had guessed. They found a room where Buryak was storing cash and thumb drives related to his business. It was a logical deduction that the contractor had stumbled upon the stash and was seen by Buryak. The mobster would have taken a hammer or blunt object to him and dragged him to the car then driven it to a deserted part of the state road and, with the dead man’s foot on the gas, flicked the transmission into gear. After the crash, he’d then pulled the body out and struck it in the head with the telltale rock to make it seem that was the cause of death.

A small town, winding roads and more than a few accidents? The local authorities wouldn’t think it anything untoward.