The Steel Kiss Read online

  Yeah, one of them says, Loved her face, Mrs. Bitch. You owned her, man.

  Epic.

  "See you 'round." From Sam. And they just walk away.

  I don't get whaled on or spit on. Or told dick bod, skinny bean, all of that.

  Nothing.

  A good day. Today was a good day.

  I pause the recorder and sip some water. Then ease down beside the pillow still holding Alicia's scent. I used to think I would date a blind woman. Tried, but couldn't find one. They don't use personals. Maybe it's too risky. Blind women wouldn't care about too tall, too skinny, long face, long fingers, long feet. Skinny worm freak. Skinny bean boy. Slim Jim. So, a blind woman was my plan. But didn't work out. I meet somebody occasionally. It works okay for what it is. Then it ends.

  It always ends. It will end with Alicia too.

  I think of the Toy Room.

  Then I'm back to the diary, transcribing again, ten minutes, twenty.

  The ups and downs of life, recorded forever. Just like my mementos on the shelves in the Toy Room: I remember the joy or sadness or anger surrounding each one.

  Today was a good day.

  WEDNESDAY II

  THE INTERN

  CHAPTER 6

  Mr. Rhyme, an honor."

  Not sure how to respond to that. A nod seemed appropriate. "Mr. Whitmore."

  No nudge to first names. Rhyme had learned, however, that his was Evers.

  The attorney might have been transplanted from the 1950s. He wore a dark-blue suit, gabardine, a white shirt whose collar and cuffs were starched to plastic. The tie, equally stiff, was the shade of blue that couldn't quite give up violet and was narrow as a ruler. A white rectangle peeked from the jacket's breast pocket.

  Whitmore's face was long and pallid and so expressionless Rhyme thought for a moment that he had Bell's Palsy or some paralysis of the cranial nerves. Just as that conclusion was reached, though, his brow furrowed ever so slightly as he took in the parlor and its CSI accoutrements.

  Rhyme realized that the man seemed to be waiting for an invitation to sit. Rhyme told him to do so and, smoothing his trousers and unbuttoning his jacket, Whitmore picked a chair close by and lowered himself onto it. Perfectly upright. He removed his glasses, cleaned the round lenses with a dark-blue cloth and replaced both, on nose and in pocket respectively.

  Upon meeting Rhyme, visitors generally reacted in one of two ways. The majority were stricken nearly dumb, blushing, to be in the company of a man 90 percent of whose body was immobile. Others would joke and banter about his condition. This was tedious, though preferable to the former.

  Some--Rhyme's partiality--upon meeting him would glance once or twice at his body, and move on, undoubtedly the same way they would assess potential in-laws: We'll withhold judgment till we get to the substance. This is what Whitmore now did.

  "Do you know Amelia?" Rhyme asked.

  "No. I've never met Detective Sachs. We have a mutual friend, a classmate of ours from high school. Brooklyn. Fellow attorney. She called Richard initially and asked him to consider the case but he doesn't do personal injury law. He gave her my number."

  The narrowness of his face accentuated its pensive expression, and Rhyme was surprised to hear that he and Sachs were roughly the same age. He'd have thought Whitmore a half-dozen years older.

  "When she called me about taking on a possible case and told me that you were free to be an expert witness, I was surprised."

  Rhyme considered the time line implicit in his comment. Apparently Sachs had committed Rhyme to be a consultant before she'd confessed to him this was the reason she'd driven from the widow's house in Brooklyn to the parlor here last night.

  I came by to ask you something. I need a favor...

  "But of course I'm pleased that you're available. All wrongful death litigation involves thorny evidentiary matters. And I know that will be particularly true in this case. You have quite the reputation." He looked around. "Is Detective Sachs here?"

  "No, she's downtown. Working a homicide case. But last night she told me about your client. Sandy, that's her name?"

  "The widow. Mrs. Frommer. Sandy."

  "Her situation's as bad as Amelia told me?"

  "I don't know what she told you." A precise correction of Rhyme's imprecision. He doubted Whitmore would be fun to share a beer with but he would be a good man to have as your counselor, especially when cross-examining the other side. "But I'll confirm that Mrs. Frommer is facing some very difficult times. Her husband had no life insurance and he hadn't worked full-time for some years. Mrs. Frommer works for a housecleaning service but only part-time. They're in debt. Significant debt. They have some distant family but nobody is in a position to help much financially. One cousin can provide temporary shelter--in a garage. I've been practicing personal injury law for years and I can tell you that for many clients a recovery is a windfall; in Mrs. Frommer's case, it's a necessity.

  "Now, Mr. Rhyme... Excuse me, you were a captain on the police force, right? Should I call you that?"

  "No, Lincoln is fine."

  "Now, I would like to tell you what our situation is."

  There was a robotic element to him. Not irritating. Just plain odd. Maybe juries liked it.

  Whitmore opened his old-fashioned briefcase--again, circa the 1950s--and withdrew some unlined white sheets. He uncapped a pen (not a fountain pen, Rhyme was mildly surprised to see) and in the smallest handwriting that was still possible for the unaided eye to read, he wrote what seemed to be the date and the parties present, the subject of the meeting. Unlined paper, yes, but the ascenders and descenders of the characters were as even as if they butted into a ruler.

  He looked at the sparse notes, seemed satisfied and lifted his gaze.

  "I intend to file suit in New York trial court--the Supreme Court, as you know."

  The forum, the lowest in the state, despite the lofty name, handled criminal cases as well as civil suits; Rhyme had testified there a thousand times as an expert witness for the prosecution.

  "The complaints will be for wrongful death on the part of the widow, Mrs. Frommer. And their child."

  "A teenage boy, right?"

  "No. Twelve."

  "Ah, yes."

  "And for pain and suffering on behalf of Mr. Frommer's estate. My understanding is that he survived for perhaps ten minutes in extreme agony. That recovery will, as I say, go into his estate and inure to the benefit of whoever is mentioned in his testamentary documents or according to determination of the probate court if he had no will. In addition, I will be filing suit on behalf of Mr. Frommer's parents, whose support, to the extent he was able, he was contributing to. That will also be a wrongful death action."

  This was perhaps the least flamboyant, if not the most boring, attorney Rhyme had ever met.

  "The ad damnum in my complaint--the demand for damages--is, frankly speaking, outrageously high. Thirty million for the wrongful death, twenty million for pain and suffering. We could never recover that. But I picked those sums merely to get the defendants' attention and to create a little publicity for the case. I don't intend to go to trial."

  "No?"

  "No. Our situation is a little unusual. Because of the absence of insurance and any other financial support for Mrs. Frommer and her son, they need a settlement quickly. A trial could take a year or more. They'd be destitute by then. They'll need money for shelter, the youngster's education, to buy health insurance, for necessaries. After we present a solid case against the defendants, and I indicate a willingness to reduce the demand considerably, I believe they'll write some checks that are minuscule to them but sizable to Mrs. Frommer, and roughly in the amount that sees sufficient justice done."

  He'd be at home in a Dickens novel, Rhyme decided. "Seems like a reasonable strategy. Now, can we talk about the evidence?"

  "A moment, please." Evers Whitmore was going to steam forward true to the course he'd set, no matter what. "First, I would like to explain to you the intricacie
s of the relevant law. Are you familiar with tort law?"

  It was obvious that whether he said yes, no or maybe was irrelevant. Attorney Whitmore was going to make him familiar.

  "Not really, no."

  "I'll give you an overview. Tort law deals with harm caused by the defendant to the plaintiff, other than a breach of contract. The word comes from--"

  "Latin for 'twisted'? Tortus." Rhyme had an affection for the classics.

  "Indeed." Whitmore was neither impressed at Rhyme's knowledge nor disappointed that he'd missed an opportunity to expound. "Car accidents, libel and slander, hunting accidents, lamps catching fire, toxic spills, plane crashes, assault--threatening to hit a person--and battery--actually hitting him. Those are often conflated. Even intentional murder, which can be both criminal and civil."

  O. J. Simpson, thought Rhyme.

  Whitmore said, "So a tortious action for wrongful death and personal injury. The first step is to find our defendant--who exactly is responsible for Mr. Frommer's death? Our best hope is that it's the escalator itself that caused the harm and not some outside party. Under tort law anyone injured by a product--anything, an appliance, car, drug, escalator--has a much easier time proving the case. In nineteen sixty-three a justice on the California Supreme Court created a cause of action called strict products liability--to shift the burden of loss from an injured consumer to the manufacturer even when it wasn't negligent. In strict liability all you need to show is that the product was defective and injured the plaintiff."

  "What constitutes a defect?" Rhyme asked, finding himself reluctantly intrigued by the lecture.

  "A key question, Mr. Rhyme. A defect can be that it was badly designed, that it had a weakness or flaw in the manufacturing or that there was a failure to adequately warn the consumer of dangers. Have you seen a baby stroller lately?"

  Why would I? Rhyme's lips formed a faint smile.

  Whitmore seemed immune to irony and continued, "You'd appreciate the sticker: Remove infant before folding stroller closed. I'm not making that up. Of course, yes, it's called strict liability but not absolute. There does have to be a defect. Someone who uses a chain saw to attack a victim, for instance, is an intervening cause. The plaintiff can't sue the saw manufacturer for an assault like that.

  "Now, to our case: The first question is, Whom do we sue? Was there a design or manufacturing flaw in the Midwest Conveyance escalator itself? Or was it in good working order and the mall management company, a cleaning crew or a separate maintenance company was negligent in repairing or maintaining it? Did a worker not latch it closed last time it was opened? Did someone manually open the panel while Mr. Frommer was on it? Did the general contractor who built the mall render the unit dangerous? The subcontractor who installed the escalator? What about component parts manufacturers? What about the mall cleaning staff? Were they working for an independent contractor or employees of the mall? This is where you come in."

  Rhyme was already thinking of how to proceed. "First, I'll need to have someone inspect the escalator, the controls, the crime scene photos, trace, and--"

  "Ah. Now, I must tell you our situation has a slight wrinkle. Well, several wrinkles."

  Rhyme's brow rose.

  Whitmore continued, "Any accident involving an escalator, elevator, moving sidewalk, et cetera, is investigated by the Department of Buildings and the Department of Investigation."

  Rhyme was familiar with the DOI. One of the oldest law enforcement agencies in the country--going back to the early nineteenth century--the division was charged with overseeing government employees, agencies and anyone who contracted or worked with the city. Because he himself was rendered a quad while investigating a crime scene in a subway construction site, the DOI was involved with the investigation into how his accident happened.

  Whitmore continued, "We can use the findings in our suit, but--"

  "It'll take months to get their report."

  "Exactly the problem, Mr. Rhyme. Six months, a year more likely. Yes. And we can't wait that long. Mrs. Frommer will be homeless by then. Or living with her relatives in Schenectady."

  "Wrinkle one. And two?"

  "Access to the escalator. It's being removed and impounded in a city warehouse, pending investigation by the DOI and DOB."

  Hell, already major evidence contamination, Rhyme thought instinctively.

  "Get a subpoena," he said. This was obvious.

  "I can't at this point. As soon as I file suit--that'll be within the next few days--I can serve a duces tecum. But a judge will quash it. We won't get access until DOI and DOB have finished their investigation."

  This was absurd. The escalator was the best evidence, possibly the only evidence, in the case and he couldn't get his hands on it?

  Then he remembered: Of course, it's a civil, not a criminal, matter.

  "We can also subpoena design, manufacturing, installation and maintenance records from the possible defendants: the mall, the manufacturer--Midwest Conveyance--the cleaning company, anyone else with any connection to the unit. Those we might get copies of but it'll be a fight. And the motions'll go back and forth for months before they're released. Finally, the last wrinkle. I mentioned that Mr. Frommer wasn't working full-time any longer?"

  "I recall. A midlife crisis or some such."

  "That's correct. He quit a high-pressure corporate position. Lately he worked jobs that he didn't have to take home at night--deliveryman, telemarketer, order taker in a fast-food restaurant, a shoe salesman at the mall. Most of his time was spent volunteering for charities. Literacy, homelessness, hunger. So for the past few years he's had minimal income. One of the hardest parts of our case will be convincing a jury that he would have gotten back into the workforce in a job like the one he had."

  "What did he used to do?"

  "Before he quit he was director of marketing. Patterson Systems in New Jersey. I looked it up. Very successful company. Number one fuel injector maker in America. And he made solid six figures. Last year his income was thirty-three thousand. The jury awards wrongful death damages based on earnings. The defendants' attorneys will hammer home that, even if their clients are liable, the damages were minimal since he was making just enough to live on.

  "I will be trying to prove that Mr. Frommer was going through a phase. That he was going to get back into a high-paying job. Now, I may not succeed at that. So this is your second task. If you can make the case that the defendant, whoever it or they turn out to be, engaged in wanton or reckless behavior in building the escalator or a component part, or in failing to maintain the device, then we'll--"

  "--add a punitive damage claim. And the jury, which feels bad that they can't award the widow much by way of future earnings, will compensate with a big punitive award."

  "Well observed, Mr. Rhyme. You should have gone to law school. So, there we have our situation in a nutshell."

  Rhyme said, "In other words, find out how a complex device failed and who's responsible for that failure without having access to it, the supporting documentation or even photographs or analysis of the accident?"

  "And that is well put too." Whitmore added, "Detective Sachs said you were rather creative when it came to approaching a problem like this."

  How creative could one be without the damn evidence? Absurd, Rhyme thought again. The whole thing was completely...

  Then a thought occurred. Whitmore was speaking but Rhyme ignored him. He turned toward the doorway. "Thom! Thom! Where are you?"

  Footsteps and a moment later the aide appeared. "Is everything all right?"

  "Fine, fine, fine. Why wouldn't it be? I just need something."

  "And what's that?"

  "A tape measure. And the sooner the better."

  CHAPTER 7

  Ironic.

  One Police Plaza is considered to be among the ugliest government structures in New York City, yet it offers some of the finest views in downtown Manhattan: the harbor, the East River, the soaring "Let the River Run" skyline of
New York at its most muscular. By contrast, the original police headquarters on Centre Street is arguably the most elegant building south of Houston Street, but, in the day, officers stationed there could look out only on tenements, butchers, fishmongers, prostitutes, ne'er-do-wells and muggers lying in wait (police officers were, at the time, prime targets for thieves, who valued their wool uniforms and brass buttons).

  Walking into her office now in the Major Cases Division at One PP, Amelia Sachs was gazing out the speckled windows as she reflected on this fact. Thinking too: She couldn't have cared less about either the building's architectural aesthetics or the view. What she objected to was that she plied her investigative skills here and not from Lincoln Rhyme's town house.

  Hell.

  Not happy about his resigning from the police consulting business, not happy at all. Personally she missed the stimulation of the give-and-take, the head-butting, the creativity that flourished from the gestalt. Her life had become like studying at an online university: The information was the same but the process of loading it into your brain was diminished.

  Cases weren't progressing. Homicides, in particular, Rhyme's specialty, were not getting solved. The Rinaldo case, for instance, had been on her docket for about a month and was going nowhere. A killing on the West Side south of Midtown. Echi Rinaldo, a minor player and drug dealer, had been slashed to death, and slashed vigorously. The street and alley had been filthy, so the inventory of trace was voluminous and therefore not very helpful: cigarette butts, a roach clip with a bit of pot still clinging, food wrappers, coffee cups, a wheel from a child's toy, beer cans, a condom, scraps of paper, receipts, a hundred other items of effluvia common to New York City streets. None of the fingerprint or footprint evidence she'd found at the scene had panned out.

  The only other lead was a witness--the deceased's son. Well, witness of sorts. The eight-year-old hadn't seen the killer clearly but had heard the assailant jump into a car and give an address, which included the word "Village." A male voice. More likely white than black or Latino. Sachs had exhausted her interview skills to get the boy to recall more but he was, understandably, upset, seeing his father in the alley, cascading with blood. A canvass of cabs and gypsy drivers revealed nothing. And Greenwich Village covered dozens of square miles.