Jeffery Deaver - The Kill Room

Whispering to himself as he stared at the boards. “Nothing in the physical evidence placing him there. We can prove the unsub was in the South Cove the day before the shooting but not Shales.” He looked toward Sachs. “How’s the datamining coming—is there anything about Shales’s travel history?”

“I’ll call Information Services.” She picked up her mobile.

We don’t need much, Rhyme reflected. A connection could be inferred by the jury—that’s what circumstantial evidence was all about. But there had to be some basis for a valid inference. A jury can find a man guilty of DUI hit-and-run, even if he’s found sober and denying the next morning, if a bartender testifies that he downed a dozen beers an hour before the accident and the jury takes that testimony as credible.

Vehicle E-ZPass transponders, credit cards, RFID chips in employee badges, subway MetroCards, TSA records, Customs documents, traffic cameras and security cameras in stores…dozens of sources of information could be used to place suspects at scenes.

He noted that Sachs was jotting quick notes. Good. They’d struck gold, he had a feeling.

Something would pin Barry Shales to the Bahamas on May 9.

Sellitto was looking at the chart and he echoed Rhyme’s thought. “There’s gotta be something. We know Shales’s the shooter.”

Amelia Sachs disconnected the call and with an uncharacteristically bewildered expression said, “Actually, Lon, no, he’s not.”

CHAPTER 59

A HALF HOUR LATER NANCE LAUREL was in Rhyme’s town house.

“Impossible,” she whispered.

Sachs said, “He’s not the sniper. Look for yourself.”

And she tossed a number of documents on the table in front of Laurel with a bit more force than Rhyme supposed was necessary under the circumstances. On the other hand, clearly these two women were never destined to be friends. He’d been expecting a knock-down-drag-out between them the way a storm chaser eyes a pea-green overcast and thinks: Tornado’s brewing.

What the Information Services operation of the NYPD had discovered was that Barry Shales had not been in the Bahamas on the day Moreno was shot. He was in New York City all day—in fact, he hadn’t been out of the country in months.

“They ran a dozen searches, cross-referenced everything. I asked them to double-check. They triple -checked. Radio frequency ID chip scans of him going into the NIOS office at nine and leaving for lunch, I’d guess—about two. During that time he went to Bennigan’s, paid with a credit card. Handwriting scan is his, and then went to an ATM—the scan by the cash machine camera is positive. Sixty-point facial recognition. Returned to the office at three. Left at six thirty.”

“May nine. You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

An odd sound, a snake’s hiss. The breath easing from Nance Laurel’s mouth.

“Where’s that leave us?” Sachs asked.

“With Unsub Five Sixteen,” Pulaski said.

Sellitto added, “We have nothing to suggest he’s the sniper—he seems more like backup, or clean-up. But we have charges against him.”

Rhyme said, “Here’s an alternative case. We forget the Moreno homicide altogether. We prove Metzger had Unsub Five Sixteen kill Lydia Foster and set the IED. At the least there’s your conspiracy charge. It’s probably likely to get Metzger murder two.”

But Laurel looked doubtful. “That’s not the case I want.”

“You want?” Sachs asked, as if she’d decided the ADA sounded like a spoiled little girl.

“Right. My case is against Metzger and his sniper for conspiring to commit an illegal targeted assassination.” Her voice rose, the first edge Rhyme had heard in it. “The kill order was the whole basis for that.” She stared at the copy on the whiteboard as if it had betrayed her.

“We can still nail Metzger,” Sachs countered petulantly. “Does it matter how?”

Ignoring her, the ADA turned and walked to the window in the front of the parlor. She was staring out at Central Park.

Amelia Sachs gazed after her. Rhyme knew exactly what she was thinking.

I want…

My case…

Rhyme’s eyes swiveled to Laurel. The tree she was looking at was a swamp white oak, Quercus bicolor , a thick and not particularly tall tree that did well in Manhattan. Rhyme knew about it not because of a personal interest in arboriculture but because he’d discovered a minuscule fragment of a swamp white oak leaf in the car of one Reggie “Sump” Kelleher, a particularly unpleasant Hell’s Kitchen thug. The sliver, along with a bit of limy soil, had placed Kelleher at a clearing in Prospect Park, where the body of a Jamaican drug kingpin had been found, though the head had not.

Rhyme was focusing on the tree when the idea occurred to him.

He turned quickly to the evidence charts and stared for a long moment. He was vaguely aware that people were saying things to him. He paid no attention, muttering to himself.

Then he called over his shoulder, “Sachs, Sachs! Fast! I need you to take a drive.”

CHAPTER 60

THE BUSINESS OF WAR WAS winding down around the world and some of the buildings in the New Jersey headquarters of Walker Defense Systems were shuttered.

But Sachs observed that there must be some market left for weapons of mass—and personal—destruction; dozens of high-end Mercedeses and Audis and BMWs dotted the parking lot.

And an Aston Martin.

Man, Sachs thought. I would love to take that Vanquish for a spin—and she fantasized about letting the horses loose on the company’s private drive.

Inside the fifties-style building, she checked with reception and was led to a waiting area.

“Sterile” was the word that came to mind and that was true in two senses: The decor was minimal and austere, a few gray and black paintings, some ads for products whose purpose she couldn’t quite figure out. And sterile in another sense: She felt she was a virus that researchers didn’t quite trust and were keeping isolated until they knew more.

Rather than a People or a Wall Street Journal with last week’s news, for waiting-room reading she chose a glossy company brochure, detailing its divisions, including missile guidance, gyroscopic navigation, armor, ammunition…all sorts of items.

Yes, maybe the company was downsizing but the literature showed impressive facilities in Florida, Texas and California, in addition to the headquarters. Overseas, they had operations in Abu Dhabi, São Paulo, Singapore, Munich and Mumbai. She walked to the window and studied the expansive grounds.

Soon a thirtyish man in a suit stepped into the lobby and greeted her. He was clearly surprised to see that an NYPD detective came in such a package and couldn’t quite restrain the flirt as he led her through the labyrinthine and equally sterile halls to the CEO’s office. He charmingly asked her about her job—what it was like to be a cop in New York, what were her most interesting cases, did she watch CSI or The Mentalist , what kind of gun did she have?

Which reminded her of the inked manager of Java Hut.

Men…

When it was clear that this theme of conversation wasn’t working, he took to telling her about the company’s achievements. She nodded politely and immediately forgot all of the factoids. With a frown he glanced at her leg; she realized she’d been limping and instantly forced herself into a normal gait.

After a trek they came to a corner office in the one-story building, Mr. Walker’s. A spray-haired brunette at an impressive desk looked up, defensive, probably because her boss was being visited by the NYPD. Sachs noticed that many of the shelves here were occupied by a collection of plastic and lead soldiers. Whole armies. Sachs’s first thought: Dusting would be a bitch.