The Bone Collector (Lincoln Rhyme 1)

Saturday, 4:00 p.m., to Saturday, 10:15 p.m.

I've got myself into a situation here, sir."

The man across the desk looked like a TV show's idea of a big-city deputy police commissioner. Which happened to be his rank. White hair, a temperate jowl, gold-rimmed glasses, posture to die for.

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"Now what's the problem, officer?"

Dep Com Randolph C. Eckert looked down his long nose with a gaze that Sachs recognized immediately; his nod to equality was to be as stern with the female officers as with the male ones.

"I've got a complaint, sir," she said stiffly. "You heard about that taxi kidnapping case?"

He nodded. "Ah, has that got the city in double dutch."

She believed that was a schoolchild's game of jump rope but wouldn't presume to correct a deputy commissioner.

"That damn UN conference," he continued, "and the whole world's watching. It's unfair. People don't talk about crime in Washington. Or Detroit. Well, Detroit they do. Say, Chicago. Never. No, it's New York that people thump on. Richmond, Virginia, had more murders per capita than we did last year. I looked it up. And I'd rather parachute unarmed into Central Harlem than drive windows-up through South East D.C. any day."

"Yessir."

"Understand they found that girl dead. It was on all the news. Those reporters."

"Downtown. Just now."

"Now that's a pity."

"Yessir."

"They just killed her? Like that? No ransom demand or anything?"

"I didn't hear about any ransom."

"What's this complaint?"

"I was first officer in a related homicide this morning."

"You're Patrol?" Eckert asked.

"I was Patrol. I was supposed to be transferring to Public Affairs today at noon. For a training session." She lifted her hands, tipped with flesh-colored Band-Aids, and dropped them in her lap. "But they shanghaied me."

"Who?"

"Detective Lon Sellitto, sir. And Captain Haumann. And Lincoln Rhyme."

"Rhyme?"

"Yessir."

"Not the fellow was in charge of IRD a few years ago?"

"Yessir. That's him."

"I thought he was dead."

Egos like that will never die.

"Very much alive, sir."