Patricia Cornwell - From Potter's Field

Management has assumed the current occupant -Gault - is an Italian relative. At any rate, they don't ask many questions there, and he's been speaking with an accent. It also is very convenient because Mr. Benelli does not pay his rent. His father in Verona does.'

'Why can't you go into the Dakota and get Gault?' I asked. 'Why can't HRT do that?'

'We could, but I'd rather not. It's too risky,' Wesley said. 'This isn't war, Kay. We don't want any casualties, and we are bound by law. There are people inside the Dakota who could get hurt. We don't know where Benelli is. He could be in the room.'

'Yeah, in a plastic bag in a steamer trunk,' Marino said.

'We know where Gault is and we have the building under surveillance. But Manhattan is not where I would have chosen to catch this guy. It's too damn crowded. You get in an exchange of firepower - I don't care how good you are - and someone's going to get hit. Someone else is going to die. A woman, a man, a child who just happens to walk out at the wrong time.'

'I understand,' I said. 'I'm not disagreeing with you. Is Gault in the apartment now? And what about Carrie?'

Wesley said, 'Neither has been sighted, and we have no reason to suspect Carrie travels with him.'

'He hasn't used my charge card to buy her plane tickets,' I considered. 'That much I can tell.'

'We do know Gault was in the apartment as recently as eight o'clock this evening,' Wesley said.

'That's when he got on the line and Lucy trapped him.'

'She trapped him?' I looked at both men, 'She trapped him from here and now she's gone? Did she get deployed with HRT?'

I had a bizarre image of Lucy in black boots and fatigues being loaded on a plane at Andrews Air Force Base. I imagined her with a group of supremely fit helicopter pilots, snipers and experts in explosives, and my incredulity grew.

Wesley met my eyes. 'She's been in New York for the past couple of days. She's working on the Transit Police computer. She got the hit in New York.'

'Why not work here where CAIN is located?' I wanted to know, because I did not want Lucy in New York. I did not want her in the same state where Temple Gault was.

'Transit's got an extremely sophisticated system,' he said.

Marino spoke. 'It's got things we don't have, Doc.'

'Like what?'

'Like a computerized map of the entire subway system.' Marino leaned closer to me, forearms resting on his knees. He understood what I was feeling. I could see it in his eyes. 'We think that's how Gault's been getting around.'

Wesley explained, 'We think Carrie Grethen somehow got Gault into the Transit Police computer, through CAIN. He was able to map out for himself a way to move around the city through the tunnels, so he could get his drugs and commit his crimes.

He has had access to detailed diagrams that include stations, catwalks, tunnels and escape hatches.'

'What escape hatches?' I asked.

'The subway system has emergency exits that lead out of the tunnels, in the event a train should have to stop for some reason down there. Passengers can be routed through an emergency exit that will bring them back above ground. Central Park has a number of them.'

Wesley got up and went to his suitcase. He opened it and pulled out a thick roll of white paper. Removing the rubber band, he spread open very long drawings of New York's subway system that included all tracks and structures, every manhole, trash can, car marker, platform edge. The diagrams covered most of his office floor, some more than six feet long. I studied them, fascinated.

'This is from Commander Penn,' I said.

'Right,' Wesley replied. 'And what's on her computer is even more detailed. For example' - he squatted, pointing and moving his tie out of the way - 'in March of 1979, turnstiles at CB number 300 were removed. That's right here.' He showed me on a drawing of the 110th Street station at Lenox Avenue and 112th Street.

'And a change like that now,' he went on, 'goes directly into the Transit Police computer system.'

'Meaning that any changes are instantly reflected on the computerized maps,' I said.

'Right.' He pulled another drawing closer, this one of the Eighty-first Street Museum of Natural History station. 'Now the reason we think Gault is using these maps is right here.' He tapped an area on the field survey that indicated an emergency exit very near Cherry Hill.

'If Gault was looking at this drawing,' Wesley went on, 'he most likely would choose this emergency exit as the one to come in and out of when he committed the murder in Central Park. That way he and his victim could travel unseen through the tunnels after leaving the museum, and when they surfaced in the park they would be very close to the fountain where he planned to display the body.

'But what you don't know from looking at this three-month-old printout is the day before the murder, the Maintenance of Way Department bolted that escape door shut for repairs. We think that might be why Gault and his victim started out closer to the Ramble,' he said. 'Some footwear impressions recovered in that area, as it turns out, are consistent with theirs. And the tracks were found near an emergency exit.'

'So you have to ask how he knew that exit in Cherry Hill was bolted shut,' Marino said.

'I suppose he could have checked it first,' I said.

'You can't do that above ground because the doors don't open except from inside the tunnels,' Marino said.

'Maybe he was down in the tunnel and saw from the inside that the door was bolted,' I argued, because I sensed where this was leading and did not like it.

'Of course that's possible,' Wesley reasonably said. 'But Transit cops go down into the tunnels a lot. They're all over the platforms and the stations, and none of them remembers seeing Gault. I believe he travels down there by computer until it suits his purposes to make an appearance,'

'What is Lucy's role?' I asked.

To manipulate,' Marino said.

'I'm not a computer person,' Wesley added. 'But as best I can understand, she has worked it so when he logs on to this computerized map, he's really seeing one she is altering.'

'Altering for what purpose?'

'We're hoping to come up with a way of trapping him like a rat in a maze.'

'I thought HRT had been deployed.'

'We are going to try whatever it takes.'

'Well then, let me suggest you consider one other plan,' I said. 'Gault goes to Houston Professional Pharmacy when he wants money.'

They looked at me as if I were crazy.

'That's where his mother has been wiring money to Temple's sister, Jayne-'

'Wait a minute,' Marino interrupted.

But I went on, 'I tried to call earlier to tell you. I know that Temple has been intercepting the money because Mrs. Gault wired money after Jayne was already dead. And someone signed for it. This person knew the test question.'

'Hold on,' Marino said. 'Hold on one damn minute. Are you telling me that son of a bitch murdered his own sister?'

'Yes,' I answered. 'She was his twin,'

'Jesus. No one told me.' He looked accusingly at Wesley.

'You just got here two minutes before Kay got arrested,' Wesley said to him.

'I didn't get arrested,' I said. 'Her middle name actually is Jayne, with a y,' I added, and then I filled them in.

'This changes everything,' Wesley said, and he called New York.

It was almost eleven when he got off the phone. He stood and picked up his briefcase and his bag and a portable radio that was on his desk. Marino rose from his chair, too.

'Unit three to unit seventeen,' Wesley spoke into the radio.

'Seventeen.'

'We're heading your way.'

'Yes, sir.'

'I'm coming with you,' I said to Wesley.

He looked at me. I was not on the original passenger list.

'All right,' he said. 'Let's go.'