The Steel Kiss (Lincoln Rhyme 12)

"In an evidence bag." She felt compelled to add, "It will be well taken care of."

"You police, you were watching the grave?"

"That's right."

Sachs had noted that his brother was only twenty when he passed. She commented on this. Then asked, "What happened to him?"

"Shoppers."

"You've said that. What does that mean?"

Griffith looked at his backpack. "There's a diary in there? My brother's diary. He dictated it to an MP3 player. I've been transcribing it, thinking I was going to publish it someday. There's some remarkable things Peter's said. About life, about relationships, about people."

Sachs found the leather book. It contained easily five hundred pages.

Griffith continued, "In high school, Manhasset, some of the cool kids made friends with him. He thought they really meant it. But, uh-uh, they just were using him to get even with a girl who wouldn't have sex with them. They drugged her, convinced Peter it was somebody else, and they got pictures of him with her in bed. You know, you can imagine."

"They posted them online?"

"No, this was before phone cameras. They took Polaroids and passed them around school." He nodded toward the battered leather-bound volume. "The last page. The last entry."

Sachs found it.

Some things don't really go away. Never ever. I thought it would. Really believed it would. Tell myself I don't need friends like Sam and Frank. They're slugs, they're useless. They're garbage. As bad as Dano or Butler. Worse really 'cause they say one thing and do something else. Tell yourself they're not worth thinking about. But it doesn't work.

And nobody believed me that I didn't know it was Cindy. Everybody in school, the police, everybody, thought I planned it.

No charges, but didn't matter. Reinforced I was a freak.

Vern went crazy, wanted to kill them. My brother always had that temper, always wanted to get even with anybody who crossed him or me. Mom and Dad always had to keep an eye on him. His Shoppers, wanted to kill the Shoppers.

What happened with Frank and Sam and Cindy and everything--I'm not mad, like Vern. I'm just tired. So tired of the looks, so tired of the notes in my locker. Cindy's friends spit on me. She's gone. She and her family moved.

So tired.

I need to sleep. That's what I need, to sleep.

"He killed himself?"

"Not technically. Couldn't be buried here if he had. It's Catholic. But he drank himself into a stupor and went for a drive on Route Twenty-Five. Hit a hundred. Was twenty years old."

"And 'Shoppers'? What does that mean?"

"Peter and me? We're built different, we look different. It's Marfan syndrome."

Sachs wasn't familiar with it. She assumed the condition was the cause of his height and disproportionately low weight, long hands and feet. To her, the condition wasn't particularly odd, simply another body type. But bullies in school? Well, they rarely needed much ammunition.

Griffith continued, "We got made fun of a lot. Both of us. Kids're cruel. You're pretty. You wouldn't know that."

Yes, she would. In her teens Sachs, more boyish than most of the boys, more competitive than any of them, had certainly been bullied. Then bullied too in the fashion industry because she was a woman. And the same when she joined the force... and for the same reason.

He said, "Most boys're bullied in gym class. But for me, it was mechanical arts--shop. It started because I had a crush on this girl, eighth grade. I heard she had this neat dollhouse. So for assignment, while all the other boys were making bookshelves and boot scrapers, I made her a Chippendale desk. Six inches high. Perfect." His light-colored eyes shone. "It was perfect. The boys gave me crap for that. 'Skinny Bean's got a dollhouse. Slim Jim's a girl.'" He shook his head. "I still finished it. Gave it to Sarah and she looked all funny, you know. Like when you do something real nice for somebody and it's more than they want. Or they don't want anything at all. Makes them feel uncomfortable. She said, 'Thanks,' like thanking a waitress. I never talked to her again."

So, that was it. Not "shoppers" as in those who buy products. As in students in shop class.

"And the people who were responsible for the defective car Alicia and her family were in, you thought of them as Shoppers."

"They were. Bullies, arrogant. Thinking only about themselves. Selling defective cars and knowing they were dangerous. Making money. That's all that mattered to them."