The Vanished Man (Lincoln Rhyme 5)

She picked up the phone and dialed and Kara rose to straighten the blankets on her mother's bed. "Remember that bed-and-breakfast we stayed at in Warwick, Mum? Near the castle?"

Do you remember? Tell me you remember!

Amelia's voice: "Rhyme? Me."

Kara's unilateral conversation was interrupted a few seconds later, though, when she heard the officer's voice ask a sharp, "What? When?"

Turning to the policewoman, Kara frowned. Amelia was looking at her, shaking her head. "I'll get right down there. . . . I'm with her now. I'll tell her." She hung up.

"What's the matter?" Kara asked.

"Looks like I can't join you guys after all. We must've missed a lock pick or key. Weir got out of his cuffs at detention and went for somebody's gun. He was killed."

"Oh, my God."

Amelia walked to the doorway. "I've got to run the scene down there." She paused and glanced at Kara. "You know, I was worried about keeping him under guard during the trial. That man was just too slippery. But I guess sometimes there is justice. Oh, that bill? Whatever you were going to charge, double it."

*

"Constable's got some information," the man's voice came crisply through the phone.

"He's been playing detective, has he?" Charles Grady asked the lawyer wryly.

Wryly--but not sarcastically. The prosecutor had nothing against Joseph Roth, who--though he represented scum--was a defense lawyer who managed to step around the slime trail left by his clients and who treated D.A.'s and cops with honesty and respect. Grady reciprocated.

"Yeah, he has. Made some calls up to Canton Falls and put the fear of God into a couple of the Patriot Assembly folks. They checked things out. Looks like some of the former members've gone rogue."

"Who is it? Barnes? Stemple?"

"We didn't go into it in depth. All I know is he's pretty upset. He kept saying, 'Judas, Judas, Judas.' Over and over."

Grady couldn't stir up much sympathy. You lie down with dogs. . . . He said to the lawyer, "He knows I'm not letting him off scot-free."

"He understands that, Charles."

"You know Weir's dead?"

"Yep. . . . I've got to tell you Andrew was happy to hear it. I really believe he didn't have anything to do with trying to hurt you, Charles."

Grady didn't have any use for opinions from defense counsel, even forthright ones like Roth. He asked, "And he's got solid information?"

"He does, yes."

Grady believed him. Roth was a man you simply could not fool; if he thought Constable was going to dime out some of his people then it was going to happen. How successful the resulting case would be was a different matter, of course. But if Constable gave relatively hard information and if the troopers did a halfway decent job with their investigation and arrest he was confident he could put the perps away. Grady would also make sure that Lincoln Rhyme oversaw the forensics.

Grady had mixed feelings about Weir's death. While he'd publicly express his concern at the man's shooting and promise to look into it officially, he was privately delighted that the fucker'd been disposed of. He was still shocked and infuriated that a killer had walked right into the apartment where his wife and daughter lived, willing to murder them too.

Grady looked at the glass of wine he so dearly wanted a sip of, but realized that a consequence of this phone call was that it precluded alcohol for the time being. The Constable case was so important that he needed all his wits about him.

"He wants to meet you face-to-face," Roth said.

The wine was a Grgich Hills Cabernet Sauvignon. A 1997, no less. Great vineyard, great year.

Roth continued, "How soon can you get down to detention?"

"A half hour. I'll leave now."

Grady hung up and announced to his wife, "The good news is no trial."