The Kill Room (Lincoln Rhyme 10)

"Don't trust it. We may have a third victim of our unsub. Find out where he lives, Pulaski. Get a team from the closest precinct to his house and see what's there."

The young officer pulled out his mobile and called Dispatch.

Rhyme wheeled back and forth in front of the charts. He didn't believe he'd ever had a case like this, where the evidence was so fragmentary and sparse.

Bits, scraps, observations, 180-degree changes in direction.

Nothing else...

Hell.

Rhyme steered toward the shelf with the whiskey bottles. He lifted the Glenmorangie and awkwardly poured another hit, then seated the cap on his tumbler and sipped.

"What're you doing?" Thom asked from the doorway.

"What am I doing, what am I doing? Now, that's an odd question. Usually the interrogatory 'what' introduces a sentence in which the inquirer is unable to make any deductions about a situation." A substantial sip. "I think you've wasted a perfectly good sentence, Thom. It's pretty clear wha

t I'm doing."

"You've already had too much."

"That's a declarative sentence and it makes much more sense. It's valid. I disagree with it but it's logically valid."

"Lincoln!" Thom strode forward.

Rhyme glared. "Don't even think--"

"Wait," Sachs said.

Rhyme assumed she was taking Thom's side in the alcohol dispute but when he wheeled around he found her eyes were not on him or the aide but on the whiteboards. She walked forward and Rhyme noticed that she wasn't wincing or limping. She was spry and balanced. Her eyes narrowed. This was her predatory gaze. It made the tall woman frightening and, to Rhyme, appealing.

He set the whiskey down. His eyes rose to the boards and scanned like radar. Were there some facts he'd missed? Had she made a deduction that had eluded him? "Do you see something about Five Sixteen?"

"No, Rhyme," she whispered. "It's something else. Something else entirely."

CHAPTER 74

NANCYANN OLIVIA LAUREL was sitting on a couch in her Brooklyn Heights apartment, a brown JCPenney slipcover over blue upholstery that had been worn smooth by her family and their friends years and years ago.

Hand-me-downs. A lot of those here. Laurel was tapped by a memory: Her father surreptitiously fishing in the sofa's crevices for coins that had fallen from the pockets of visitors. She'd been eight or so and he'd made a joke of it, a game, when she'd walked into the room unexpectedly.

Except it wasn't a game, and she knew it. Even children can be ashamed of their parents.

Still tasting the smoky scotch, she looked around this home. Her home. Hers alone. In a reflective mood. Despite, or maybe because of, the threadbare, recycled accoutrements, the sense of the place was comfort, even on a pitiful day like this one. She'd worked hard to make it that way. The walls, coated with dozens of layers of paint, going back to Teddy Roosevelt's era, were a cream shade. For decorations: a silk flower arrangement from a Chelsea crafts fair, an autumn wreath from the Union Square farmers' market, art too. She had paintings and sketches, some original and some prints, all of scenes that had resonated with her personally, horses, farms, rocky streams, still lifes. No idea why they appealed. But she'd known instantly that they did and she'd bought them if there was any way she could spare the cash. Some alpaca yarn hangings, colorful rectangles. Laurel had taken up knitting a few years ago but couldn't find the time or the inclination to complete the scarves for friends' nieces.

What now? she thought.

What now...

The teakettle's whistle was blowing. Had been blowing. Shrill. She was suddenly aware of it. She went into the small space and put a rose hip bag in the mug--navy blue on the outside, white in, matching her outfit, she realized. She should change.

Later.

Laurel stared at the kettle for a full minute. Shut off the heat but did not pour the boiling liquid. She returned to the couch.

What now?

This was the worst of all possible outcomes. If she'd won the convictions of Metzger and Barry Shales, well, that would have made her world. It would have made her life. There was no way to describe the importance that this case had taken on for her. She remembered in law school being mesmerized by the stories of the greats of the legal system in America--the lawyers, prosecutors and judges. Clarence Darrow, William O. Douglas, Felix Frankfurter, Benjamin Cardozo, Earl Warren...so many, many others. Louis D. Brandeis she thought of often.