The Burial Hour (Lincoln Rhyme 13)

"I'm not even responding."

"What does Amelia say?"

"She left it up to me. Which was irritating. Doesn't she know I have better things to think about?"

"You mentioned the Bahamas recently. You wanted to go back, you said."

"That was true at the time. It's not true any longer. Can't one change one's mind? Hardly a crime."

"What's the real reason for Greenland?"

Rhyme's face--with its prominent nose and eyes like pistol muzzles--was predatory in its own right, much like the bird's. "What do you mean by that?"

"Could it be that there's a practical reason you want to go to Greenland, a professional reason? A useful reason?"

Rhyme glanced at the single-malt scotch bottle sitting just out of reach. He was largely paralyzed, yes. But surgery and daily exercise had returned to him some ability to move his right arm and hand. Fate had helped too. The beam that had tumbled upon his neck from a crime scene many years ago and severed and crushed many nerves had left a few outlying strands intact, if injured and confused. He could grasp objects--like single-malt scotch bottles, to pick a random example--but he could not rise from his complex wheelchair to fetch them if Thom, playing nursemaid, kept them out of goddamn reach.

"Not cocktail hour yet," the aide announced, noting the arc of his boss's vision. "So, Greenland? 'Fess up."

"It's underrated. Named 'Greenland' while much of it's barren. Not the least verdant. Compare Iceland. Quite green. I like the irony."

"You're not answering."

Rhyme sighed. He disliked being transparent and hugely disliked being caught being transparent. He would appeal to truth. "It seems that the Rigspolitiet, the Danish police, have been doing rather important research into a new system of horticultural spectrographic analysis in Greenland. A lab in Nuuk. That's the capital, by the way. You can situate a sample in a much narrower geographic area than with standard systems." Rhyme's brows rose involuntarily. "Nearly the cellular level. Imagine! We think all plants are the same--"

"Not a sin of mine."

Rhyme groused, "You know what I mean. This new technique can narrow down a target area to three meters!" He repeated, "Imagine."

"I'm trying to. Greenland--no. And has Amelia actually deferred to you?"

"She will. When I tell her about the spectrograph."

"How about England? She'd love that. Is that show on still, the one she likes? Top Gear? I think the original is off the air but I heard there's a new version. She'd be great on it. They let people go out on the racetrack. She's always talking about driving a hundred and eighty miles an hour on the wrong side of the road."

"England?" Rhyme mocked. "You've just lost your argument. Greenland and England offer the same degree of romance."

"You'll find some disagreement there."

"Not from the Greenlanders."

Lincoln Rhyme did not travel much. The practical consequences of his disability added a layer of complication to journeys but physically, his doctors reported, there was no reason not to hit the road. His lungs were fine--he'd weaned himself off a ventilator years ago, the chest scar present but not prominent--and as long as such matters as the piss 'n' shit details--his words--and low-chafing clothing were attended to, there was little chance of being afflicted by the quad's bane: autonomic dysreflexia. A good portion of the world was disabled-accessible now--with most enterprises, from restaurants to bars to museums, offering ramps and special restrooms. (Rhyme and Sachs had shared a smile when Thom pointed out an article in the paper about a school that had recently installed a disabled ramp and bathroom; the place taught only one thing: tap dancing.) No, much of Rhyme's reluctance to travel and his reclusiveness were simply because he was, well, a recluse. By nature. Working in his laboratory--the parlor here, filled with equipment--and teaching and writing for scientific journals appealed to him far more than tired si

ghts polished for tourists.

But, given what was on his and Sachs's agenda in the next few weeks, a trip outside Manhattan was necessary; even he admitted that one could not honeymoon in one's own hometown.

Plans for trips to labs specializing in horticultural spectrometry, or locales of wooing romance, were, though, put on hold for the moment; the door buzzer sounded. Rhyme glanced at the security video and thought: Well.

Thom rose and returned a moment later with a middle-aged man in a camel-tan suit, which he might have slept in, though he probably hadn't. He moved slowly but with little hesitation, and Rhyme thought that pretty soon he'd be able to discard the cane, which was, however, a pretty nifty accessory. Black with a silver head in the shape of an eagle.

The man looked around the lab. "Quiet."

"Is. A few small private jobs recently. Nothing fun. Nothing exciting. Nothing since the Steel Kiss killer." A recent perpetrator had taken to sabotaging household items and public conveyances--with tragic and occasionally gruesome results.

NYPD detective Lon Sellitto, in the Major Cases Division, had been Rhyme's partner--before Rhyme had moved up to captain and taken over the Crime Scene Unit. Nowadays Sellitto would occasionally hire Rhyme to consult on cases in which special forensic expertise was needed.

"What're you looking at? Tan is all I had." Sellitto waved toward his suit.