The Kill Room (22 page)

J
ACOB SWANN WAS EATING
a very well-crafted omelet at a diner on the Upper West Side, near Central Park West.

He was in jeans, a windbreaker (black, today), running shoes and white T-shirt. His backpack was at his side. This was a neighborhood in which many people worked jobs where suits and ties weren’t required and regular hours weren’t the norm—performing arts, museums, galleries. Food service too, of course. Swann blended right in.

The coffee he was sipping was hot and not bitter. The toast thick and buttered before meeting the heating element—the only way to do it. And the omelet? Better than well crafted, he decided. Damn good.

Eggs are the trickiest of ingredients and can make a dish sublime or turn it into a complete rout if you’re careless or conditions betray: toughening or curdling or collapsing. A bit of yolk in the whites you’re trying to meringue and your baked Alaska is fucked. And there’s always the chance of unpleasant bacteria reproducing eagerly in God’s perfect oval (gestating
is
what shells are made for, after all).

But these eggs had been whisked just right—casually and without a whisper of liquid—and then cooked over high heat, the fresh-chopped tarragon, chive and dill sprinkled in at just the right moment, not too soon. The completed mezzaluna-shaped dish was yellow, brown and white, crisp outside, gently curded within.

Despite the food, though, Swann was growing a bit impatient with Amelia Sachs.

She had been inside Lincoln Rhyme’s town house now for hours. She’d finessed the phone call issue, switching prepaid mobiles every few hours, it seemed—everybody on the team was using them now—and she had a wiretap alert on the landline into the town house, which there was no way to defeat without physically breaking into the central switch.

But with her being the lead investigator she’d have to emerge sooner or later.

He reflected on her partner, Rhyme. Now,
that
was a setback. It had cost his organization nearly two thousand dollars to eliminate the man, his male nurse and another cop. But his contacts down there from the dock crowd had blown the attempt. They’d asked if Swann wanted them to try again but he’d told them to get the hell off the island. It would be very difficult to trace them back to Swann and his boss but it could be done.

He was sure there’d be another opportunity to take care of Rhyme. The man certainly couldn’t move very fast to get away from the Kai Shun. Swann had looked up Rhyme’s condition, quadriplegia, and discovered that the criminalist had no feeling whatsoever in most of his body. Swann was intrigued with the idea of the man’s just sitting still and watching someone flay his skin off—and slowly bleed to death—while feeling no pain.

What an interesting idea: butchering a creature while it was alive.

Curious. He’d have to—

Ah, but here is our beautiful Amelia.

She wasn’t coming from the direction he’d expected her—the
L-shaped
cul-de-sac for deliveries behind the town house, near where her Ford Torino was parked. She’d apparently left via the front door, which faced Central Park West. She was now walking west along the crosstown street’s sidewalk, across from the diner.

He’d hoped to get her in the cul-de-sac; there were too many pedestrians, stragglers on their way to work, here at the moment. But finding her alone would be only a matter of time.

Swann casually wiped the utensils and coffee mug, smearing prints. He paid by slipping a ten and a five under the plate, rather than taking the check to the cashier. He’d gotten these bills in change from a hotel concierge across town; cash from an ATM is frighteningly traceable, so he’d engaged in a little micro money laundering, leaving a generous but not overly so tip.

Now he was out the door, climbing into his Nissan.

He observed Sachs through the windshield. Vigilant, she looked around carefully, though not toward him—only at those places where an attacker might come from. Interesting too: She looked up, scanning.

Don’t worry, Swann thought to her. That’s not where the bullet’s going to come from.

As she fished for car keys her jacket slipped away from her hip and he noted she wore a Glock.

He started his car at the same time she did hers, to cover the sound of his ignition.

As Sachs’s Torino sped away from the curb, Swann followed.

His only regret was that her fate would be that bullet he’d just been thinking of; using the Kai Shun on her silken flesh wasn’t an option in the present recipe.

M
YCHAL POITIER WAS SPEAKING
to the manager of the South Cove.

“But, Officer, I thought you knew,” said the tall, curly-haired man in a very nice beige suit. He was presently frowning creases deep into his rosily tanned forehead. His accent was mildly British.

“Knew what?” Poitier muttered.

“You told us we could reopen the room and clean it, repair the damage.”

“I? I never said any such thing.”

“No, no, not you. But someone from your department. They called me and said to release the scene. I don’t remember his name.”

Rhyme asked, “He
called
? No one came here in person?”

“No, it was a phone call.”

Rhyme sighed. He asked, “When was this?”

“Monday.”

Poitier turned and looked at Rhyme with a dismayed gaze. “I gave very strict orders that the scene should have remained sealed. I can’t imagine who in the department—”

“It wasn’t anybody in your department,” Rhyme said. “Our unsub made the call.”

And the accomplice, of course, was the manager’s fervent desire to eliminate any sign that a murder had been committed here. Crime scene placards in hallways do not make for good public relations.

“I’m sorry, Corporal,” the manager said defensively.

Rhyme asked, “Where’s the carpet, sofa, the shattered window glass? The other furniture?”

“A rubbish tip somewhere, I should suppose. I have no idea. We used a contractor. Because of the blood, they said they would burn the carpet and couch.”

All the trash fires…

Pulaski said, “Right after he killed Annette, our unsub makes one call and, bang, there goes the crime scene. Pretty smart, you think about it. Simple.”

It was. Rhyme looked into the immaculate room. The only evidence of the crime was the missing window, over which plastic had been taped.

“If there’s anything I can do,” the manager said.

When no one said a word, he retreated.

Thom wheeled Rhyme into the suite and, since the Kill Room wasn’t wheelchair-accessible, he was helped down two low stairs by Poitier and Pulaski.

The room was pale blue and green—the paint still wet on several walls—and measured about twenty by thirty feet, with two doors leading to what appeared to be bedrooms to the right. These too were empty and were primed for painting. To the left upon entering was a full kitchen.

Rhyme looked out one of the remaining windows. There was a trim garden outside the room, dominated by a smooth-trunked tree that rose about forty feet into the air. He noted that the lower branches had all been trimmed back; the leaves didn’t start until about twenty or more feet off the ground. Looking straight over the garden, under the canopy of leaves, he could clearly see the infamous spit of land where Barry Shales had fired from, and where the men in the room now had nearly died.

He squinted up at the tree.

Well, we may just have a crime scene after all.

“Rookie!” Rhyme called.

“Sure, Lincoln.”

Pulaski joined him. Mychal Poitier did too.

“Notice anything odd about this scene?”

“One hell of a shot. That’s an awfully long way away. And look at that pollution he had to fire through.”

“It’s the same shooting scenario we saw yesterday from the
other
side of the water,” he grumbled. “Nothing’s changed about it. Obviously I’m not talking about that. I’m saying: Don’t you see something strange about the horticulture?”

The young officer examined the scene for a moment. “The shooter had help. The branches.”

“That’s right.” Rhyme explained to Poitier, “Somebody cut those lower branches so the sniper would have a clear shot. We should search the garden.”

But the corporal shook his head. “It is a good theory, Captain. But no. That tree? It’s a poisonwood. Are you familiar with it?”

“No.”

“It’s just like the name suggests, like poison oak or sumac. If you burn it, for instance, the smoke will be like tear gas. If you touch the leaves you can end up in the hospital from the irritation. They are flowering trees and very pretty so the resorts here don’t cut them down but they do trim all but the highest branches so people don’t touch them.”

“Ah, well, nice try,” Rhyme muttered. He absolutely hated it when a solid theory crashed. And, with it, any hope of a proper crime scene to search.

He told Pulaski, “Get some pictures, take samples of the carpet right outside the door, soil samples from the beds around the front sidewalk, dust the knobs here for prints. Probably useless but as long as we’re here…”

Rhyme watched the young man collect the evidence and slip it into plastic bags, documenting where it had been found. Pulaski then took perhaps a hundred pictures of the scene. He lifted three latent prints. He finished and deposited what he’d collected in a large paper bag. “Anything else, Lincoln?”

“No,” the criminalist grumbled.

The search of the Kill Room and the inn was perhaps the fastest in the history of forensic analysis.

Someone appeared in the doorway, another uniformed officer, skin very dark, face circular. He glanced at Rhyme with what seemed like admiration. Perhaps Mychal Poitier’s copy of Rhyme’s crime scene manual had recently made the rounds of the Royal Bahamas Police. Or maybe he was simply impressed to be in the same room as the odd cop from America who had in a series of simple deductions transformed the case of the missing student into a murder investigation.

“Corporal,” said the young officer to Poitier, with a deferential nod. He carried a thick folder and a large shopping bag. “From Assistant Commissioner McPherson: a full copy of the crime scene report and autopsy photos. And the autopsy reports themselves.”

Poitier took the folder from the man and thanked him. He nodded at the bag. “The victims’ clothing?”

“Yes, and shoes. Evidence that was collected here just after the shooting too. But I have to tell you, much has gone missing, the morgue administrator told me. He doesn’t know how.”

“Doesn’t know how,” Poitier scoffed.

Rhyme recalled that the watches and other valuables had vanished between here and the morgue, as had Eduardo de la Rua’s camera and tape recorder.

“I’m sorry, Corporal.”

Poitier added, “Any word on the shell casings?” He cast a glance through the window at the spit of land across the bay. The divers and officers with metal detectors had been at work for the past hour or so.

“I’m afraid not. It seems the sniper took the brass with him and we still can’t find where the nest was.”

A shrug from Poitier. “And any hits on the name Barry Shales?”

As they’d driven here Poitier had had his intelligence operation see if Customs or Passport Control had a record of the sniper entering the country. Credit card information too.

“Nothing, sir. No.”

“All right. Thank you, Constable.”

The man saluted then gave a tentative nod to Rhyme, turned and, with impressive posture, marched from the room.

Rhyme asked Thom to push him closer to Poitier and he peered into the shopping bag, noting three plastic-wrapped bundles, all tightly sealed, attached to which were chain-of-custody cards, properly filled out. He clumsily reached in and extracted a small envelope on top. Inside was the bullet. Rhyme estimated it as a bit bigger than the most common sniper round, the .338 Lapua. This was probably a .416, a caliber growing in popularity. Rhyme studied the bit of deformed copper and lead. Like all rounds, even this large caliber, it seemed astonishingly small to have caused such horrific damage and stolen a human life in a fraction of a second.

He replaced it. “Rookie, you’re in charge of these. Fill out the cards now.”

“Will do.” Pulaski jotted his name on the chain-of-custody cards.

Rhyme said, “We’ll take good care of them, Corporal.”

“Ah, well, I doubt the evidence will be useful to us. If you arrest this Shales and his partner, your unsub, I don’t think your courts will send them back here for trial.”

“Still, it’s evidence. We’ll make sure it’s returned to you uncontaminated.”

Poitier looked around the pristine room. “I’m sorry we don’t have a crime scene for you, Captain.”

Rhyme frowned. “Oh, but we
do
. And I suggest we get to it as quickly as we can before something happens to that one too. Propel me, Thom. Let’s go.”

H
E RESEMBLED A TOAD.

Henry Cross was squat and dark-complexioned and he had several visible warts that Amelia Sachs thought could be easily removed. His black hair was thick and crowned a large head. Lips, broad. Hands, wide with ragged nails. As he talked he would occasionally lift a fat cigar and stick it in his mouth to chew the unlit stogie enthusiastically. This was gross.

Cross said, with a shake of his head, “It sucks, Roberto dying. Sucks big time.” His voice had a faint accent, Spanish, she supposed; she recalled Lydia Foster said he spoke that language and English perfectly—like Moreno.

He was the director of the Classrooms for the Americas Foundation, which worked with churches to build schools and hire teachers in impoverished
areas
of Latin America. Sachs recalled that Moreno had been involved in this.

Blowing up the balloons…

“Roberto and his Local Empowerment Movement were one of our biggest supporters,” Cross said. He stabbed a blunt finger at the gallery of pictures on a scuffed wall. They showed the CAF offices in Caracas, Rio and Managua, Nicaragua. Moreno was standing with his arm around a smiling, swarthy man at a construction site. They were both wearing hard hats. A small group of locals seemed to be applauding.

“And he was a friend of mine,” Cross muttered.

“Had you known him long?”

“Five years maybe.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.” A phrase that instructors actually teach you at the police academy. When Amelia Sachs uttered these words, though, she meant them.

“Thank you.” He sighed.

The small dark office was in a building on Chambers Street in lower Manhattan. The foundation was the one stop on Moreno’s trip to New York that Sachs had been able to track down—thanks to the receipt from Starbucks she’d found at Lydia Foster’s apartment. Sachs had checked the office sign-in sheet in the building that housed the coffee shop and found that on May 1 Moreno was visiting CAF.

“Roberto liked it that we’re not a charity. We call ourselves a distributor of resources. My organization doesn’t just give money away to the indigent. We fund schools, which teach people skills so they can work their way out of poverty. I don’t have any patience for anyone with their hands out. It really irks me when…”

Cross stopped speaking, raised a hand and laughed. “Like Roberto, I tend to lecture. Sorry. But I’m speaking from experience, speaking from getting my hands dirty on the job, speaking from knowing what it’s like to live in the trenches. I used to work in the shipping industry and one thing I noticed was that most people
want
to work hard. They want to improve themselves. But they can’t do it without a good education, and schools down there were basically shit, excuse me. I wanted to change it. That’s how I met Roberto. We were setting up an office in Mexico and he was in town speaking at some empowerment group for farmers. We kind of connected.” The big lips formed a wan smile. “Power to the people…It’s not a bad sentiment, I have to say. Roberto did his thing through microbusinesses; I do mine through education.”

Though he still seemed more like the owner of a button factory in the Fashion District or a personal injury lawyer than a foundation director.

“So you’re here about those drug assholes who killed him?” Cross barked. Chewed on his cigar ferociously for a moment then set it down on a glass ashtray in the shape of a maple leaf.

“We’re just getting information at this point,” Sachs said noncommittally. “We’re looking into his whereabouts on the recent trip to New York—when he met with you. Can you tell me where else he went in the city?”

“Some other nonprofits, he said, three or four of them. I know he needed an interpreter for some of them, if that helps.”

“Did he mention which ones?”

“No, he just came by to drop off a check and find out about some new projects we were putting together. He wanted something named after him. A classroom. Not a whole school. See, that was Roberto. He was realistic. He donated X amount of money, not a zillion dollars, so he knew he wouldn’t have a whole school named after him. He was happy with a classroom. Modest guy, you know what I’m saying? But he wanted some recognition.”

“Did he seem worried about his safety?”

“Sure. He always was. He was, you know, real outspoken.” A sad smile. “He hated this politician or that CEO and, man, he wasn’t afraid to say it on the air or in his blogs. He called himself the Messenger, the voice of conscience. He made a lot of enemies. Those fucking drug assholes. Pardon my French. I hope they get the chair or lethal injection or whatever.”

“He mentioned cartels or gangs as a threat?”

Cross leaned back and thought for a moment. “You know, not by name. But he said he was being followed.”

“Tell me.”

Cross ran a finger over a cluster of moles on his neck. “He said there was this guy who was there but not there, you know what I’m saying? Following him on the street.”

“Any description?”

“White, a guy. Looked tough. That’s it.”

She thought immediately of Barry Shales and Unsub 516.

“But there was something else. The airplane. That freaked him out the most.”

“Airplane?”

“Roberto traveled a lot. He said he’d noticed this private jet three or four times in different cities he’d been in—places with small airports, where a private jet was more, you know, noticeable. Bermuda, the Bahamas, Caracas, where he lived. Some towns in Mexico. He said it was strange—because the plane always seemed to be there
before
he arrived. Like somebody knew his travel schedule.”

By tapping his phone, for instance? A favorite sport of Metzger, Shales and Unsub 516.

The cigar got chomped. “The reason he recognized it: He said most private jets’re white. But this one was blue.”

“Markings, designations, numbers?”

A shrug. “No, he never said. But I was thinking, somebody in a
jet’s
following you? What’s that all about? Who the hell could it be? Those things cost money.”

“Anything else you can remember?”

“Sorry.”

Sachs rose and shook his hand, reflecting that the convoluted trail here—starting with the limo driver—had paid off with a solid clue. If a cryptic one.

The blue jet …

Cross sighed, looking at another picture of himself and Moreno, this one snapped in a jungle. They were surrounded by cheerful workers. More shovels, more hard hats, more mud.

“You know, Detective, we were good friends but I’ve gotta say I never quite figured him out. He was always down on America, just hated the place. Wouldn’t shut up about it. I told him one time, ‘Come on, Roberto. Why’re you dissing the one country on earth where you
can
say those things and not get shot in an alley by a truth squad or hauled off to a secret prison in the middle of the night? Ease up.’”

A bitter laugh escaped the fat, damp mouth. “But he just wouldn’t listen.”