The Broken Window (Lincoln Rhyme 8)

Sachs paused at the old redbrick structure, noticing the open gate leading out to the street. A fast search of the grounds revealed no sign of 522. She continued on to the street and looked out fast, left and right. Traffic, curious onlookers--dozens of them--but the suspect was gone.

Sachs returned to the loading dock and wasn't surprised to find the police officer's hat lying nearby. It sat next to a sign, Leave Caskets Here. She collected the hat, slipped it into an evidence bag and returned to the other officers. Sachs and a local precinct sergeant sent officers around the neighborhood to see if anybody had spotted him. Then she returned to her car. Of course, he'd be far away by now but still she couldn't shake the raw uneasiness--which was due mostly to the fact that he hadn't tried to escape when he saw her walking toward the crematorium but casually stood his ground.

Though what chilled her the most was the memory of his casual voice--referring to her by name.

*

"Are they going to do it?" Rhyme snapped as Lon Sellitto walked through the door from his mission downtown with Captain Malloy and the deputy mayor, Ron Scott, about what Rhyme was calling the "Expert Plan."

"They're not happy. It's expensive and they--"

"Bull . . . shit. Get somebody on the phone."

"Hold on, hold on. They'll do it. They're making the arrangements. I'm just saying they're grumbling about it."

"You should have told me up front they agreed. I don't care how much they grumble."

"Joe Malloy'll give me a call with the details."

At around 9:30 P.M. the door opened and Amelia Sachs entered, carrying the evidence she'd collected at the groundskeeper's murder scene.

"He was there," she said.

Rhyme didn't understand her.

"Five Twenty-Two. At the cemetery. He was watching us."

"No shit," Sellitto said.

"He was gone by the time I realized it." She held up a patrolman's hat and explained that he'd been watching her in disguise.

"The fuck he'd do that for?"

"Information," Rhyme said softly. "The more he knows, the more powerful he is, the more vulnerable we become. . . ."

"You canvass?" Sellitto asked.

"A team from the precinct did. Nobody saw anything."

"He knows everything. We know zilch."

She unpacked the crate as Rhyme's eyes took in each evidence-collection bag she lifted out. "They struggled. Could be some good transfer trace."

"Let's hope."

"I talked to Abrera, the janitor. He said that for the past month, he's noticed some strange things. His time sheets were changed, there were deposits into his checking account he didn't make."

Cooper suggested, "Like Jorgensen--identity theft?"

"No, no," Rhyme said. "I'll bet Five Twenty-Two was grooming him to take the fall. Maybe a suicide. Plant a note on him . . . It was his wife and child's grave?"

"That's right."

"Sure. He's despondent. Going to kill himself. Confesses to all the crimes in a suicide note. We close the case. But the groundskeeper interrupts him in the act. And now Five Twenty-Two's up a creek. He can't try this again; we'll be expecting a fake suicide now. He'll have to try something else. But what?"

Cooper had started going over the evidence. "No hairs in the hat, no trace at all . . . But you know what I've got? A bit of adhesive. Generic though. Can't source it."

"He removed the trace with tape or a roller before he left the hat," Rhyme said, grimacing. Nothing 522 did would surprise him anymore.