The Twelfth Card Read online

  A staged crime scene, Rhyme had concluded. And went on to trace stone dust in the briefcase to a kitchen and bathroom countertop company in Jersey. A fast look at the phone records of the owner and credit card receipts led to the conclusion that the man's wife was sleeping with one of the diplomats. Her husband had found out about the liaison and, along with a Tony Soprano wannabe who worked for him in the slab yard, killed her lover and the man's unfortunate associate on Roosevelt Island, then staged the evidence to make the crime seem politically motivated.

  "An affair, yes, though not a diplomatic one," Rhyme had offered dramatically at the conclusion of his testimony in court. "Undercover action, yes, though not espionage."

  "Objection," the weary defense lawyer had said.

  "Sustained." Though the judge couldn't keep from laughing.

  The jury took forty-two minutes to convict the businessman. The lawyers had, of course, appealed--they always do--but, as Sellitto had just revealed, the appellate court upheld the conviction.

  Thom said, "Say, let's celebrate the victory with a ride to the hospital. You ready?"

  "Don't push it," Rhyme grumbled.

  It was at that moment that Sellitto's pager went off. He looked at the screen, frowned and then pulled his cell phone off his belt and made a call.

  "Sellitto here. What's up? . . . " The big man nodded slowly, his hand absently kneading his belly roll. He'd been trying Atkins lately. Eating a lot of steaks and eggs had apparently not had much effect. "She's all right? . . . And the perp? . . . Yeah . . . That's not good. Hold on." He looked up. "A ten twenty-four call just came in. That African-American museum on Five-five? The vic was a young girl. Teenager. Attempted rape."

  Amelia Sachs winced at this news, exuding sympathy. Rhyme had a different reaction; his mind automatically wondered: How many crime scenes were there? Did the perp chase her and possibly drop evidence? Did they grapple, exchanging trace? Did he take public transportation to and from the scene? Or was a car involved?

  Another thought crossed his mind as well, one that he had no intention of sharing, however.

  "Injuries?" Sachs asked.

  "Scraped hand is all. She got away and found a uniform on patrol nearby. He checked it out but the beast was gone by then . . . So, can you guys run the scene?"

  Sachs looked at Rhyme. "I know what you're going to say: that we're busy."

  The entire NYPD was feeling a crunch. Many officers had been pulled off regular detail and assigned to anti-terrorism duty, which was particularly hectic lately; the FBI had gotten several anonymous reports about possible bombings of Israeli targets in the area. (The reassignments reminded Rhyme of Sachs's stories her grandfather would tell about life in prewar Germany. Grandpa Sachs's father-in-law had been a criminal police detective in Berlin and was constantly losing his personnel to the national government whenever a crisis arose.) Because of the diverted resources, Rhyme was busier than he'd been in months. He and Sachs were presently running two white-collar fraud investigations, one armed robbery and a cold-case murder from three years ago.

  "Yep, really busy," Rhyme summarized.

  "Either rains or it pours," Sellitto said. He frowned. "I don't quite get that expression."

  "Believe that's 'Never rains but it pours.' A statement of irony." Rhyme cocked his head. "Love to help. I mean it. But we've got all those other cases. And, look at the time, I have an appointment now. At the hospital."

  "Come on, Linc," Sellitto said. "Nothing else you're working on's like this--the vic's a kid. That's one bad actor, going after teenagers. Take him off the street and who knows how many girls we'll save. You know the city--doesn't matter what else is going on. Some beast starts going after kids, the brass'll give you whatever you need to nail him."

  "But that'd make it five cases," Rhyme said petulantly. He let the silence build up. Then, reluctantly, he asked, "How old is she?"

  "Sixteen, for Christ's sake. Come on, Linc."

  A sigh. He finally said, "Oh, all right. I'll do it."

  "You will?" Sellitto asked, surprised.

  "Everybody thinks I'm disagreeable," Rhyme scoffed, rolling his eyes. "Everybody thinks I'm the wet blanket--there's another cliche for you, Lon. I was just pointing out that we have to consider priorities. But I think you're right. This's more important."

  It was the aide who asked, "Your helpful nature have anything to do with the fact you'll have to postpone your hospital visit?"

  "Of course not. I didn't even think about that. But now you mention it, I guess we better cancel. Good idea, Thom."

  "It isn't my idea--you engineered it."

  True, he was thinking. But he now asked indignantly, "Me? You make it sound like I've been attacking people in Midtown."

  "You know what I mean," Thom said. "You can have the test and be back before Amelia's through with the crime scene."

  "There might be delays at the hospital. Why do I even say 'might'? Always are."

  Sachs said, "I'll call Dr. Sherman and reschedule."

  "Cancel, sure. But don't reschedule. We have no idea how long this could take. The perp might be an organized offender."

  "I'll reschedule," she said.

  "Let's plan on two, three weeks."

  "I'll see when he's available," Sachs said firmly.

  But Lincoln Rhyme could be as stubborn as his partner. "We'll worry about that later. Now, we've got a rapist out there. Who knows what he's up to at the moment? Probably targeting somebody else. Thom, call Mel Cooper and get him in here. Let's move. Every minute we delay is a gift to the perp. Hey, how's that expression, Lon? The genesis of a cliche--and you were there."

  Chapter Three

  Instinct.

  Portables--beat cops--develop a sixth sense for knowing when somebody's concealing a gun. Veterans on the force'll tell you it's really nothing more than the way the suspect carries himself--less a matter of a pistol's heaviness in pounds than the weight of consequences of having it close to you. The power it gives you.

  The risk of getting caught too. Carrying an unlicensed weapon in New York comes with a Cracker Jack prize: an automatic stint in jail. You carry concealed, you do time. Simple as that.

  No, Amelia Sachs couldn't say exactly how she understood it, but she knew that the man leaning against a wall across the street from the Museum of African-American Culture and History was armed. Smoking a cigarette, arms crossed, he gazed at the police line, the flashing lights, the officers.

  As she approached the scene Sachs was greeted by a blond NYPD uniform--so young he had to be a rookie. He said, "Hi, there. I was the first officer. I--"

  Sachs smiled and whispered, "Don't look at me. Keep your eyes on that garbage pile up the street."

  The rookie looked at her, blinked. "Sorry?"

  "Garbage," she repeated in a harsh whisper. "Not me."

  "Sorry, Detective," said the young man, who sported a trim haircut and a nameplate on his chest that read R. Pulaski. The tag had not a single ding or scratch on it.

  Sachs pointed to the trash. "Shrug."

  He shrugged.

  "Come on with me. Keep watching it."

  "Is there--?"

  "Smile."

  "I--"

  "How many cops does it take to change a lightbulb?" Sachs asked.

  "I don't know," he said. "How many?"

  "I don't know either. It's not a joke. But laugh like I just told you a great punch line."

  He laughed. A little nervous. But it was a laugh.

  "Keep watching it."

  "The trash?"

  Sachs unbuttoned her suit jacket. "Now we're not laughing. We're concerned about the garbage."

  "Why--?"

  "Ahead."

  "Right. I'm not laughing. I'm looking at the trash."

  "Good."

  The man with the gun kept lounging against a building. He was in his forties, solid, with razor-cut hair. She now saw the bulge at his hip, which told her it was a long pistol, probably a revolver, since it seemed
to swell out where the cylinder would be. "Here's the situation," she said softly to the rookie. "Man on our two o'clock. He's carrying."

  Bless him, the rookie--with spiky little-boy hair as shiny beige as caramel--kept looking at the garbage. "The perp? You think it's the perp in the assault?"

  "Don't know. Don't care. I care about the fact that he's carrying."

  "What do we do?"

  "Keep on going. We pass him, watching the garbage. Decide we're not interested. Head back toward the scene. You slow up and ask me if I want coffee. I say yes. You go around to his right. He'll keep his eyes on me."

  "Why will he watch you?"

  Refreshing naivete. "He just will. You double back. Get close to him. Make a little noise, clear your throat or something. He'll turn. Then I'll come up behind him."

  "Sure, I've got it . . . Should I, you know, draw down on him?"

  "No. Just let him know you're there and stand behind him."

  "What if he pulls his gun?"

  "Then you draw down on him."

  "What if he starts to shoot?"

  "I don't think he will."

  "But if he does?"

  "Then you shoot him. What's your first name?"

  "Ronald. Ron."

  "How long you out?"

  "Three weeks."

  "You'll do fine. Let's go."

  They walked to the garbage pile, concerned. But then they decided it was no threat and started back. Pulaski stopped suddenly. "Hey, how 'bout some coffee, Detective?"

  Overacting--he'd never be a guest on Inside the Actor's Studio--but all things considered it was a credible performance. "Sure, thanks."

  He doubled back then paused. Shouted: "How do you like it?"

  "Uhm, sugar," she said.

  "How many sugars?"

  Jesus Lord . . . She said, "One."

  "Got it. Hey, you want a Danish too?"

  Okay, cool it, her eyes told him. "Just coffee's fine." She turned toward the crime scene, sensing the man with the gun study her long red hair, tied in a ponytail. He glanced at her chest, then her butt.

  Why will he watch you?

  He just will.

  Sachs continued toward the museum. She glanced in a window across the street, checking out the reflection. When the smoker's eyes swiveled back toward Pulaski she turned quickly and approached, jacket pulled aside like a gunfighter's dust coat so she could get her Glock out fast if she needed to.

  "Sir," she said firmly. "Please keep your hands where I can see them."

  "Do as the lady says." Pulaski stood on the other side of the guy, hand near his weapon.

  The man glanced at Sachs. "That was pretty smooth, Officer."

  "Just don't move those hands. Are you carrying a weapon?"

  "Yeah," the man replied, "and it's bigger than what I used to carry in the Three Five."

  The numbers referred to a precinct house. He was a former cop.

  Probably.

  "Working security?"

  "That's right."

  "Let me see your ticket. With your left hand, you don't mind. Keep your right where it is."

  He pulled out his wallet and handed it to her. His carry permit and security guard's license were in order. Still, she called it in and checked out the guy. He was legit. "Thanks." Sachs relaxed, handing him back the papers.

  "Not a problem, Detective. You got yourself some scene here, looks like." Nodding toward the squad cars blocking the street in front of the museum.

  "We'll see." Noncommittal.

  The guard put the wallet away. "I was Patrol for twelve years. Retired on a medical and was going stir crazy." He nodded at the building behind him. "You'll see a couple other guys carrying round here. This's one of the biggest jewelry operations in the city. It's an annex for the American Jewelry Exchange in the diamond district. We get a couple million bucks' worth of stones from Amsterdam and Jerusalem every day."

  She glanced at the building. Didn't look very imposing, just like any other office building.

  He laughed. "I thought it'd be a piece of cake, this job, but I work as hard here as when I was on a beat. Well, good luck with the scene. Wish I could help, but I got here after the excitement." He turned to the rookie and said, "Hey, kid." He nodded toward Sachs. "On the job, in front of people, you don't call her 'lady.' She's 'Detective.' "

  The rookie looked at him uneasily but she could see he got the message--one that Sachs herself had been going to deliver when they were out of earshot.

  "Sorry," Pulaski said to her.

  "You didn't know. Now you do."

  Which could be the motto of police training everywhere.

  They turned to go. The guard called, "Oh, hey, rookie?"

  Pulaski turned.

  "You forgot the coffee." Grinned.

  At the entrance to the museum Lon Sellitto was surveying the street and talking to a sergeant. The big detective looked at the kid's name tag and asked, "Pulaski, you were first officer?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "What'sa story?"

  The kid cleared his throat and pointed to an alley. "I was positioned across the street, roughly there, on routine patrol. At about oh-eight-thirty the victim, an African-American female, sixteen years of age, approached me and reported that--"

  "You can just tell it in your own words," Sachs said.

  "Sure. Okay. What it was, I was standing right about there and this girl comes up to me, all upset. Her name's Geneva Settle, junior in high school. She was working on a term paper or something on the fifth floor." Pointing to the museum. "And this guy attacks her. White, six feet, wearing a ski mask. Was going to rape her."

  "You know that how?" Sellitto asked.

  "I found his rape pack upstairs."

  "You looked in it?" Sachs asked, frowning.

  "With a pen. That's all. I didn't touch it."

  "Good. Go on."

  "The girl gets away, comes down the fire stairs and into the alley. He's after her, but he turns the other way."

  "Anybody see what happened to him?" Sellitto asked.

  "No, sir."

  He looked over the street. "You set up the press perimeter?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Well, it's fifty feet too close. Get 'em the hell away. Press're like leeches. Remember that."

  "Sure, Detective."

  You didn't know. Now you do.

  He hurried off and started moving the line back.

  "Where's the girl?" Sachs asked.

  The sergeant, a solid Hispanic man with thick, graying hair, said, "An officer took her and her friend to Midtown North. They're calling her parents." Sharp autumn sunlight reflected off his many gold decorations. "After they get in touch with them, somebody was going to take 'em to Captain Rhyme's place to interview her." He laughed. "She's a smart one. Know what she did?"

  "What?"

  "She had an idea there might be some trouble, so she dressed up this mannequin in her sweatshirt and hat. The perp went after that. Bought her time to get away."

  Sachs laughed. "And she's only sixteen? Smart."

  Sellitto said to her, "You run the scene. I'm going to get a canvass going." He wandered up the sidewalk to a cluster of officers--one uniform and two Anti-Crime cops in dress-down plain clothes--and sent them around the crowd and into nearby stores and office buildings to check for witnesses. He rounded up a separate team to interview each of the half dozen pushcart vendors here, some selling coffee and doughnuts at the moment, others setting up for lunches of hot dogs, pretzels, gyros and falafel pita-bread sandwiches.

  A honk sounded and she turned. The CS bus had arrived from the Crime Scene Unit HQ in Queens.

  "Hey, Detective," the driver said, getting out.

  Sachs nodded a greeting to him and his partner. She knew the young men from prior cases. She pulled off her jacket and weapon, dressed in white Tyvek overalls, which minimized contamination of the scene. She then strapped her Glock back on her hip, thinking of Rhyme's constant admonition to his CS crews: Search wel
l but watch your back.

  "Give me a hand with the bags?" she asked, hefting one of the metal suitcases containing basic evidence-collection and -transport equipment.

  "You bet." A CSU tech grabbed two of the other cases.

  She pulled on a hands-free headset and plugged it into her Handi-Talkie just as Ron Pulaski returned from his press push-back duty. He led Sachs and the Crime Scene officers into the building. They got off the elevator on the fifth floor and walked to the right, to double doors below a sign that said, Booker T. Washington Room.

  "That's the scene in there."

  Sachs and the techs opened the suitcases, started removing equipment. Pulaski continued, "I'm pretty sure he came through these doors. The only other exit is the fire stairwell and you can't enter from the outside, and it wasn't jimmied. So, he comes through this door, locks it and then goes after the girl. She escaped through the fire door."

  "Who unlocked the front one for you?" Sachs asked.

  "Guy named Don Barry, head librarian."

  "He go in with you?"

  "No."

  "Where is he now?"

  "His office--third floor. I wondered if maybe it was an inside job, you know? So I asked him for a list of all his white male employees and where they were when she was attacked."

  "Good." Sachs had been planning to do the same.

  "He said he'd bring the list down to us as soon as he was done."

  "Now, tell me what I'll find inside."

  "The girl was at the microfiche reader. It's around the corner to the right. You'll see it easy." Pulaski pointed to the end of a large room filled with tall rows of bookshelves, beyond which was an open area where Sachs could see mannequins dressed in period clothing, paintings, cases of antique jewelry, purses, shoes, accessories--your typical dusty museum displays, the sort of stuff you look at while you're really wondering what restaurant to eat at after you've had enough culture.

  "What's security like around here?" Sachs was looking for surveillance cameras on the ceiling.

  "Zip. No cameras. No guards, no sign-in sheets. You just walk in."

  "Never easy, is it?"

  "No, ma' . . . No, Detective."

  She thought about telling him that "ma'am" was okay, not like "lady," but didn't know how to explain the distinction. "One question. Did you close the fire door downstairs?"

  "No, I left it just the way I found it. Open."

  "So the scene could be hot."

  "Hot?"

  "The perp could've come back."