"Didn't you? Ah, Mr. Innocent. You didn't play the game? You just accidentally drove up to our house on weekends, even when I wasn't there? You didn't invite him to come to your track meets? Sure, you did. Answer me: Which of them would you really want for a father, mine or yours? Did your father ever fawn over you? Ever whistle for you from the stands? Give you that raised eyebrow of approval?"
"That's all bullshit," Rhyme had snapped. "You've got some issue with your father and what do you do? You sabotage me. I could've gotten into M.I.T. But you ruined that! And my whole life changed. If it weren't for you, everything would've been different."
"Well, I can say the same about you, Lincoln. I can say the same. . . ." A harsh laugh. "Did you even try with your father? What do you think he felt, having a son like you, who was a hundred times smarter than he was? Going off all the time because he'd rather hang out with his uncle. Did you even give Teddy a chance?"
At that, Rhyme had slammed the phone into the cradle. It was the last time they talked. Several months later he was paralyzed at the crime scene.
Everything would've been different. . . .
After he'd explained this to Sachs she said, "That's why he never came to see you after you were hurt."
He nodded. "Back then, after the accident, all I could do was lie in bed and think that if Art hadn't changed the application I would have gotten into M.I.T. and maybe done graduate work at Boston University or joined the BPD or come to New York earlier or later. In any case I probably wouldn't've been at the subway crime scene and . . ." His voice dissolved to silence.
"The butterfly effect," she said. "A small thing in the past makes a big difference in the future."
Rhyme nodded. And he knew that Sachs could take in this information with sympathy and understanding and make no judgments about the broader implications--which he would choose: walking and leading a normal life, or being a crip and perhaps a far better criminalist because of it . . . and, of course, being her partner.
This was the type of woman Amelia Sachs was.
He gave a faint smile. "The funny thing is, Sachs . . ."
"There was something to what he said?"
"My own father never seemed to notice me at all. He certainly never challenged me the way my uncle did. I did feel like Uncle Henry's other son. And I liked it." He'd come to realize that maybe, subconsciously, he had been pursuing boisterous, full-of-life Henry Rhyme. He was pelted with a dozen fast memories of the times he'd been embarrassed by his father's shyness.
"But it's no excuse for what he did," she said.
"No, it's not."
"Still," she began.
"You're going to say that it happened a long time ago, let bygones be bygones, water over dams and under bridges?"
"Something like that," she offered with a smile. "Judy said he asked about you. He's reaching out. Forgive him."
You two were like brothers. . . .
Rhyme glanced over the still topography of his immobile body. Then back to Sachs. He said softly, "I'm going to prove he's innocent. I'll get him out of jail. I'll give him his life back."
"That's not the same, Rhyme."
"Maybe not. But it's the best I can do."
Sachs began to speak, perhaps to make her case again, but the subject of Arthur Rhyme and his betrayal vanished as the phone buzzed and on the computer screen came Lon Sellitto's number.
"Command, answer phone. . . . Lon. Where are we?"
"Hey, Linc. Just wanted to let you know our computer expert's on his way."
*
The guy was familiar, the doorman thought--the man who nodded pleasantly as he left the Water Street Hotel.
He nodded back.
The guy was on his cell phone and he paused near the door, as people eased around him. He was talking, the doorman deduced, to his wife. Then the tone changed. "Patty, sweetheart . . ." A daughter. After a brief conversation about a soccer game he was back on with the wife, sounding more adult, but still adoring.
He fell into a certain category, the doorman knew. Been married fifteen years. Faithful, looked forward to getting home--with a bag of tacky, heartfelt presents. He wasn't like some guests: the businessman who'd arrive wearing his wedding ring and leave for dinner with finger naked. Or the tipsy businesswoman being escorted into the elevator by a hunky coworker (they never shed their rings; they didn't need to).