The Kill Room (Lincoln Rhyme 10)

CHAPTER 77

JACOB SWANN WONDERED what had happened.

His plans for Nance Laurel had been interrupted by the arrival of an unmarked police car in front of her apartment in Brooklyn--just as Swann had been about to rise and go visit the ADA, to play out his revenge scenario.

The plainclothes detective had whisked her out quickly--so fast that it was clear something significant was going on. Did it relate to the Moreno case, which supposedly was a case no longer? Or something else?

He was now in his Nissan, headed back home. The answer to the mystery arrived in the form of a text from headquarters. Shit. Shreve Metzger had reported that the case was back on but with a curious variation: Barry Shales had been arrested for the killing not of Robert Moreno but of Eduardo de la Rua, the reporter who'd been interviewing him at the time the bullet had blown the hotel window into a million little shards of glass.

Because de la Rua was a U.S. citizen--!Hola, Puerto Rico!--Ms. Nance Laurel had been reinstated on the case.

Metzger had not been charged but it was possible that he would be soon, accused of at least one or two felony counts; the point of Shales's arrest, of course, was to pressure the drone pilot to give up his boss.

How easy was it to kill someone in detention? Swann wondered. Not that easy, he suspected, at least not without some inside help, which would be extremely expensive.

Swann was told additional services would be needed. He was to await instructions. Tomorrow promised to be a busy day but since the hour was late he doubted any of those directives would involve his going out again tonight.

This was good.

The little butcher man was hungry and had a taste for some wine. A glass or two of Spanish Albarino beckoned, as did some of the Veronique from last night, carefully wrapped up and tucked into the fridge. There wasn't a chef in the world--even those whose eateries boasted three Michelin stars--who didn't appreciate leftovers, whatever they said in public.

FRIDAY, MAY 19

VI

SMOKE

CHAPTER 78

CAPTAIN SHALES--"

"I've left the military. I'm civilian now."

The hour was early, Friday morning. Nance Laurel and the drone pilot were in an interview room at the detention center. The same floor, as a matter of fact, where she'd been talking to Amelia Sachs when the State Department delivery boy had so successfully derailed the Moreno homicide case.

"All right, Mr. Shales, you've been read your rights, correct?" Laurel put a tape recorder on the scabby table in front of them. She wondered how many invectives, lies, excuses and pleas for mercy this battered rectangle of electronics had heard. Too many to count.

He looked at the device without emotion. "Yes."

She wasn't sure how to read him, and reading defendants was a very important part of her job. Would they cave, would they stonewall, would they offer a modicum of helpful comment, would they look for the right moment to leap from the chair and throttle her?

All of those had happened on occasion.

"And you understand you can terminate this conversation at any point?"

"Yes."

And yet he wasn't terminating and he wasn't crying for his lawyer. She sensed that part of him, a small part, wanted to tell her everything, wanted to confess--though some very thick walls surrounded that portion of his heart still.

She noted something else: Yes, Shales was a trained killer, no different, in theory, from Jimmy Bonittollo, who'd put a bullet into the head of Frank Carson because Carson had moved into Bonittollo's liquor distribution territory. But, practically, there did seem to be a difference. Unlike Bonittollo, Shales had a patina of regret in his blue eyes. And not regret because he'd been caught, which was always there, but regret because he understood that Robert Moreno's death was wrong.

"I want to explain why I'm here." Laurel spoke calmly.

"I thought...the case was dropped."

"The case for the death of Robert Moreno is not going forward. We're bringing a case for the death of Eduardo de la Rua."

"The reporter."