Jeffery Deaver - The Kill Room

“The unit has yet to get to the matter.”

“They’re waiting for the Venezuelan authorities.”

“That’s right.”

Rhyme inhaled deeply, trying to remain calm. “Please—”

“Corporal Poitier.” A voice cut through the lobby.

A man in a khaki uniform stood in an open doorway, a dim corridor beyond. His dark face—both in complexion and expression—was staring toward the four men beside the wall of service.

“Corporal Poitier,” he repeated in a stern voice.

The officer turned. He blinked. “Yes, sir.”

A pause. “When you have finished your business there, I need your presence in my office.”

Rhyme deduced: The stern man would be the RBPF’s version of Captain Bill Myers.

“Yes, sir.”

The young officer turned back, shaken. “That’s Assistant Commissioner McPherson. He is in charge of all of New Providence. Come, you must leave now. I will see you to your car.”

As he escorted them out, Poitier paused awkwardly to open the door for Rhyme and, once again, avoided looking at the disturbing sight of a man immobile.

Rhyme motored outside. Thom and Pulaski were in the rear. They headed back to the van.

Poitier whispered, “Captain, I went to a great risk to give you the information I did—about the phone call, about the man at the South Cove Inn. I had hoped you’d follow up on it in the United States. Not here.”

“And I appreciate what you told me. But it wasn’t enough. We need the evidence.”

“That’s not possible. I asked you not to come. I’m sorry. I can’t help.” The slim young officer looked away, back toward the front lobby door, as if his boss was still observing. Poitier was furious, Rhyme could see. He wanted to rage. But the officer’s only reaction was a figurative pat on the head.

God bless you…

“There is nothing for you here, sir. Enjoy a day or two, some restaurants. I don’t imagine you get out…” He braked his words to a halt. Then changed tack. “You are probably so busy at your job you don’t get a chance to enjoy yourself. There are some good restaurants down by the docks. For the tourists.”

Where the facilities are disabled-accessible because of the elderly passengers from the cruise ships.

Rhyme persisted, “I offered to meet you elsewhere. But you declined.”

“I didn’t think you would actually come.”

Rhyme stopped. He said to Thom and Pulaski. “I’d like a word with the corporal in private.”

The two men wandered back toward the van.

Poitier’s eyes swept the criminalist’s legs and body once more. He began, “I wish—”

“Corporal,” Rhyme spat out, “don’t play these fucking games with me.” The shame had finally solidified into the ice of anger.

The officer blinked in shock.

“You gave me a couple of leads that don’t mean shit without the forensics to back them up. They’re useless. You might as well’ve saved your goddamn phone card money.”

“I was trying to help you,” he said evenly.

“You were trying to purge your guilt.”

“My—?”

“You didn’t call me up to help the case. You called me so you could feel better about doing a lousy job as a cop. Hand off some useless tidbits to me and you go back to quote waiting for the Venezuelan authorities like you’d been told.”

“You don’t understand,” Poitier fired back, his own anger freed as well. Sweat covered his face and his eyes were focused and fierce. “You make your salary in America—ten times what we make here—and if that doesn’t work you go take another job and make just as much money or more. We don’t have those options, Captain. I’ve already risked too much. I tell you in confidence certain things and then…” He was sputtering. “And then here you are. And now my commissioner knows! I have a wife and two children I am supporting. I love them very much. What right do you have to put my job at stake?”

Rhyme spat out, “Your job? Your job is to find out what happened on May ninth at the South Cove Inn, who fired that bullet, who took a human life in your jurisdiction. That’s your job, not hiding behind your superior’s fairy tales.”

“You do not understand! I—”

“I understand that if you claim you want to be a cop, then be one. If not, go back to Inspections and Licensing, Corporal.”

Rhyme spun around and aimed toward the van, where Pulaski and Thom were staring his way with troubled, confused faces. He noticed too a man in one of the nearby windows, peering their way. Rhyme was sure it was the assistant commissioner.

CHAPTER 32

AFTER LEAVING THE RBPF HEADQUARTERS, Thom steered the van north and west through the narrow, poorly paved streets of Nassau.

“Okay, rookie, you’ve got a job. I need you to do some canvassing at the South Cove Inn.”

“We’re not leaving?”

“Of course we’re not leaving. Do you want your assignment or do you want to keep interrupting?” Without waiting for an answer, Rhyme reminded the young officer about the information that Corporal Poitier had provided via phone the other night in New York: the call from an American inquiring about Moreno’s reservation, and the man at the hotel the day before the shooting asking a maid about Moreno—Don Bruns, their talented sniper.

“Thirties, American, athletic, small build, short brown hair.” Pulaski had remembered this from the chart.

“Good. Now, I can’t go myself,” the criminalist said. “I’d make too much of a stir. We’ll park in the lot and wait for you. Walk up to the main desk, flash your badge and find out what the number was of the person who called from America and anything else about the guy asking about Moreno. Don’t explain too much. Just say you’re a police officer looking into the incident.”

“I’ll say I just came from RBPF headquarters.”

“Hm. I like that. Suitably authoritarian and yet vague at the same time. If you get the number— when you get the number—we’ll call Rodney Szarnek and have him talk to the cell or landline provider. You clear on all of that?”

“You bet, Lincoln.”

“What does that mean, ‘You bet’?”

“I’ll do it,” he said.

“Mouth filler, expressions like that.” He was still hurt and angry about what he considered Poitier’s betrayal—which was only partly his refusal to help.

As they bobbed along the streets of Nassau an idea occurred to Rhyme. “And when you’re at the inn, see if Eduardo de la Rua, the reporter who died, left anything there. Luggage, notebook, computer. And do what you can to get your hands on it.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. I don’t care. I want any notes or recordings that de la Rua made. The police haven’t been very diligent about collecting evidence. Maybe there’s still something at the inn.”

“Maybe he recorded Moreno talking about somebody surveilling him.”

“That,” Rhyme said acerbically, “or somebody conducting surveillance, since what you said may be correct but is a shamless example of verbing a perfectly fine noun.” And he couldn’t resist a smile at his own irony.

Pulaski sighed. Thom smiled.

The young officer thought for a moment. “De la Rua was a reporter. What about his camera? Maybe he took some pictures in the room or on the grounds before the shooting.”

“Didn’t think of that. Good. Yes. Maybe he got some pictures of a surveiller.” Then he grew angry again. “The Venezuelan authorities. Bullshit.”

Rhyme’s mobile buzzed. He looked at the caller ID.

Well, what’s this?

He hit answer. “Corporal?”

Had Poitier been fired? Had he called to apologize for losing his temper, while reiterating that there was nothing he could do to help?