Sachs and Rhyme turned to the crime scene report on the City Hall mugging case and made some edits.
A moment later Pulaski returned. 'The hospital said they're waiting to hear about where to send the body. The morgue director said he's expecting a call in the next few hours.'
Rhyme looked him over. 'You up for this?'
'I suppose. Sure.'
'If there's a service, you'll go. If not, you'll get to the funeral home at the same time as whoever's picking up the remains. The flowers from me'll be there. Now, that'll be a conversation starter - the man Richard Logan tried to kill and who put him in jail sends flowers to his funeral.'
'Who's Walesa supposed to be?'
'An associate of Logan's. Exactly who, I'm not sure. I'll have to think it through. But it should be somebody inscrutable, dangerous.' He scowled. 'I wish you didn't look like an altar boy. Were you one?'
'My brother and I both.'
'Well, practice looking scruffy.'
'Don't forget dangerous,' Sachs said, 'though that's going to be tougher than inscrutable.'
Thom brought Rhyme some coffee in a straw-fitted cup. Apparently the aide had noticed him glancing at Sachs's. Rhyme thanked him with a nod.
Old married couple ...
Thom said, 'I feel better now, Lincoln. For a minute I really did think I was seeing a soft side. It was disorienting. But knowing that you're just setting up a sting to spy on the family of a corpse? It's restored my faith in you.'
Rhyme grumbled, 'It's simply logical. You know, I'm really not the cold fish everyone thinks I am.'
Though ironically Rhyme did want to send the flowers in part for a sentimental reason: to pay his respects to a worthy adversary. He suspected the Watchmaker would have done the same for him.
Views of Death Number One and Number Two were not, of course, mutually exclusive.
Rhyme then cocked his head.
'What?' Sachs asked.
'What's the temperature?'
'Right around freezing.'
'So there's ice on the steps outside?' Rhyme's town house sported both stairs and a disabled-accessible ramp.
'There was in the back,' she said. 'Front too, I assume.'
'We're about to have a visitor, I think.'
Though the evidence was largely anecdotal, Rhyme had come to believe that, after the accident that deprived him of so many sensations, those that survived grew more discerning. Hearing in particular. He'd detected someone crunching up the front steps.
A moment later the buzzer sounded and Thom went to answer it.
The sound and pacing of the footsteps as the visitor entered the hallway and made for the parlor revealed who'd come a-callin'.
'Lon.'
Detective First-Grade Lon Sellitto turned the corner and strode through the archway, pulling off his Burberry overcoat. It was tan and vivid with the creases that characterized most of Sellitto's garb, thanks to his portly physique and careless posture. Rhyme wondered why he didn't stick with dark clothing, which wouldn't show the rumpling so much. Though once the overcoat was off and tossed over a rattan chair, Rhyme noted that the navy-blue suit displayed its own troubled texture.
'Bad out there,' Sellitto muttered. He dusted his thinning gray-black hair, and a few dots of sleet bailed. His eyes followed them down. He'd tracked in muck and ice. 'Sorry about that.'
Thom said not to worry and brought him a cup of coffee.