The Twelfth Card (21 page)

Thompson Boyd then continued on to his car—a three-year-old Buick, in a boring shade of blue, a medium car, an
average
car, for Average Joe. He pulled into traffic and circled far around the bus accident congestion. He made his way toward the Fifty-ninth Street bridge, his thoughts occupied about what he’d learned in the book he’d been
studying for the past hour, the one bristling with Post-it tabs, thinking about how he’d put his new skills to use.

*   *   *

“I don’t . . . I don’t know what to say.”

Miserable, Lon Sellitto was looking up at the captain who’d come directly here from Police Plaza as soon as the brass learned of the shooting incident. Sellitto sat on the curb, hair askew, belly over his belt, pink flesh showing between the buttons. His scuffed shoes pointed outward. Everything about him was rumpled at the moment.

“What happened?” The large, balding African-American captain had taken possession of Sellitto’s revolver and was holding it at his side, unloaded, the cylinder open, following NYPD procedures after an officer has discharged a weapon.

Sellitto looked into the tall man’s eyes and said, “I fumbled my piece.”

The captain nodded slowly and turned to Amelia Sachs. “You’re okay?”

She shrugged. “It was nothing. Slug hit nowhere near me.”

Sellitto could see that the captain knew she was being cool about the incident, making light of it. Her protecting him made the big detective even more miserable.

“You were in the line of fire, though,” the captain said.

“It wasn’t any—”

“You
were
in the line of fire?”

“Yes, sir,” Sachs said.

The 38-caliber slug had missed her by three feet. Sellitto knew it. She knew it.

Nowhere near me . . .

The captain looked over the warehouse. “This hadn’t happened, the perp would still’ve gotten away?”

“Yep,” Bo Haumann said.

“You sure it had nothing to do with his escape? It’s going to come up.”

The ESU commander nodded. “It’s looking now like the unsub got onto the roof of the warehouse and headed north or south—probably south. The shot”—He nodded toward Sellitto’s revolver—“was after we’d secured the adjacent buildings.”

Sellitto again thought, What’s happening to me?

Tap, tap, tap . . .

The captain asked, “Why’d you draw your weapon?”

“I wasn’t expecting anybody to come through the basement door.”

“Didn’t you hear any transmissions about the building being cleared?”

A hesitation. “I missed that.” The last time Lon Sellitto had lied to brass had been to protect a rookie who’d failed to follow procedure when trying to save a kidnap victim, which he’d managed to do. That had been a good lie. This was a cover-your-own-ass lie, and it hurt like a broken bone to utter it.

The captain looked around the scene. Several ESU cops milled about. None of them was looking at Sellitto. They seemed embarrassed for him. The brass finally said, “No injury, no serious property damage. I’ll do a report, but a shooting review board’s optional. I won’t recommend it.”

The relief flooded through Sellitto. An SRB for an accidental discharge was a short step away from an Internal Affairs investigation as far as what it did to your reputation. Even if you were cleared, grime
stuck to you for a long, long time. Sometimes forever.

“Want some time off?” the captain asked.

“No, sir,” Sellitto said firmly.

The worst thing in the world for him—for any cop—was downtime after a thing like this. He’d brood, he’d eat himself drunk on junk food, he’d be in a shitty mood to everybody around him. And he’d get even more spooked than he was now. (He still recalled with shame how he’d jumped like a schoolgirl at the truck backfire earlier.)

“I don’t know.” The captain had the power to order a mandatory leave of absence. He wanted to ask Sachs’s opinion but that would be out of line. She was a new, junior detective. Still, the captain’s hesitation in deciding was meant to give her the chance to pipe up. To say, maybe, Hey, Lon, yeah, it’d be a good idea. Or: It’s okay. We’ll manage without you.

Instead she said nothing. Which they all knew was a vote in his favor. The captain asked, “I understand some wit got killed right in front of you today, right? That have anything to do with this?”

Fuck yes, fuck no . . .

“Couldn’t say.”

Another long debate. But say what you will about brass, they don’t rise through the ranks in the NYPD without knowing all about life on the street and what it does to cops. “All right, I’ll keep you active. But go see a counselor.”

His face burned. A shrink. But he said, “Sure. I’ll make an appointment right away.”

“Good. And keep me in the loop on how it goes.”

“Yes, sir. Thanks.”

The captain returned his weapon and walked back to the CP with Bo Haumann. Sellitto and Sachs
headed for the Crime Scene Unit rapid response vehicle, which had just arrived.

“Amelia . . . ”

“Forget it, Lon. It happened. It’s over with. Friendly fire happens all the time.” Statistically cops had a much higher chance of being shot by their own or fellow cops’ bullets than by a perp’s.

The heavyset detective shook his head. “I just . . . ” He didn’t know where to go from there.

Silence for a long moment as they walked to the bus. Finally Sachs said, “One thing, Lon. Word’ll go around. You know how that is. But nobody civilian’ll hear. Not from me.” Not being hooked into the wire—the network of police scuttlebutt—Lincoln Rhyme would only learn about the incident from one of them.

“I wasn’t going to ask that.”

“I know,” she said. “Just telling you how I’m going to handle it.” She started unloading crime scene equipment.

“Thanks,” he said in a thick voice. And realized that the fingers of his left hand had returned to the stigmata of blood on his cheek.

Tap, tap, tap . . .

*   *   *

“It’s a lean one, Rhyme.”

“Go ahead,” he said through the headset.

In her white Tyvek suit, she was walking the grid in the small apartment—a safe house, they knew, because of its sparseness. Most pro killers had a place like this. They kept weapons and supplies there and used it as a staging spot for nearby hits and a hidey-hole if a gig went bad.

“What’s inside?” he asked.

“A cot, bare desk and chair. Lamp. A TV hooked up to a security camera mounted in the hall outside. It’s a Video-Tect system but he’s removed the serial number stickers so we don’t know when and where it was bought. I found wires and some relays for the electric charge he rigged on the door. The electrostatics match the Bass walking shoes. I’ve dusted everywhere and can’t find a single print. Wearing gloves inside his hidey-hole—what’s up with that?”

Rhyme speculated, “Aside from the fact he’s goddamn smart? Probably he wasn’t guarding the place very carefully and knew it’d get tossed at some point. I’d just
love
to get a print. He’s definitely on file someplace. Maybe a lot of places.”

“I found the rest of the tarot card deck, but there’re no store labels on it. And the only card missing is number twelve, the one he left at the scene. Okay, I’m going to keep searching.”

She continued walking the grid carefully—even though the apartment was small and you could see most of it simply by standing in the center and turning three-sixty. Sachs found one piece of hidden evidence: As she passed the cot she noticed a small sliver of white protruding from under the pillow. She lifted it out, opened the folded sheet carefully.

“Got something here, Rhyme. A map of the street the African-American museum’s on. There’re a lot details of the alleys and entrances and exits for all the buildings around it, loading zones, parking spaces, hydrants, manholes, pay phones. Man’s a perfectionist.”

Not many killers would go to this much trouble for a hired clip. “Stains on it too. And some crumbs. Brownish.” Sachs sniffed. “Garlic. Crumbs look like food.” She slipped the map into a plastic envelope and continued the search.

“I’ve got some more fibers, like the other ones—cotton rope, I’d guess. A bit of dust and dirt. That’s it, though.”

“Wish I could see the place.” His voice trailed to silence.

“Rhyme?”

“I’m picturing it,” he whispered. Another pause. Then: “What’s on the surface of the desk?”

“There’s nothing. I told—”

“I don’t mean what’s
sitting
on it. I mean, is it stained with ink? Doodles? Knife marks? Coffee cup rings?” He added acerbically, “When perps are rude enough not to leave their electric bill lying around, we take what we can get.”

Yep, the good mood was officially deceased.

She examined the wooden top. “It’s stained, yes. Scratched and scarred.”

“It’s wood?”

“Yes.”

“Take some samples. Use a knife and scrape the surface.”

Sachs found a scalpel in the examination kit. Just like the ones used in surgery it was sterilized and sealed in paper and plastic. She carefully scraped the surface and placed the results in small plastic bags.

As she glanced down she noticed a flash of light from the edge of the table. She looked.

“Rhyme, found some drops. Clear liquid.”

“Before you sample them, hit one with some Mirage. Go with Exspray Two. This guy likes deadly toys way too much.”

Mirage Technologies makes a convenient explosives detection system. Exspray No. 2 would detect Group B explosives, which include the highly unstable, clear liquid nitroglycerine, even a drop of which could blow off a hand.

Sachs tested the sample. Had the substance been explosive, its color would have turned pink. There was no change. She hit the same sample with Spray No. 3, just to be sure—this would show the presence of
any
nitrates, the key element in most explosives, not just nitroglycerine.

“Negative, Rhyme.” She collected a second dot of the liquid and transferred the sample to a glass tube, then sealed it.

“Think that’s about it, Rhyme.”

“Bring it all back, Sachs. We need to get a jump on this guy. If he can get away from an ESU team that easily, it means he can get close to Geneva just as fast.”

She’d aced it.

Cold.

Twenty-four multiple choices—all correct, Geneva Settle knew. And she’d written a seven-page answer to an essay question that called for only four.

Phat . . .

She was chatting with Detective Bell about how she’d done and he was nodding—which told her he wasn’t listening, just checking out the halls——but at least he kept a smile on his face and so she pretended he was. And it was wack, she felt good rambling like this. Just telling him about the curveball the teacher’d thrown them in the essay, the way Lynette Tompkins had whispered, “Jesus, save me,” when she realized she’d studied for the wrong subject. Nobody else except Keesh’d be interested in listening to her go on and on like this.

Now, she had the math test to tackle. She didn’t enjoy calc much but she knew the material, she’d studied, she had the equations nailed cold.

“Girlfriend!” Lakeesha fell into step beside her. “Damn, you still here?” Her eyes were wide. “You nearly got your own ass killed this morning and you don’t stress it none. That some mad shit, girl.”

“Gum. You sound like you’re cracking a whip.”

Keesh kept right on snapping, which Geneva knew she would.

“You got a A already. Why you need to take them tests?”

“If I don’t take
those
tests, it won’t be
an
A.”

The big girl glanced at Detective Bell with a frown. “You ask me, you oughta be out looking for that prick done attack my girlfriend here.”

“We’ve got plenty of people doing that.”

“How many? And where they be?”

“Keesh!” Geneva whispered.

But Mr. Bell gave a faint smile. “Plenty of ’em.”

Snap, snap.

Geneva asked her friend, “So, how’d the WC test go?”

“The world
ain’t
civilized. The world fucked up.”

“But you didn’t skip?”

“Told you I’d go. Was def, girl. I was all on it. Pretty sure I got myself
an
C. Least that. Maybe even
an
B.”

“Funny.”

They came to an intersection of hallways and Lakeesha turned to the left. “Later, girl. Call me in the p.m.”

“You got it.”

Geneva laughed to herself as she watched her friend steam through the halls. Keesh seemed like any other fine, hooked-up, off-the-rack homegirl, with her flashy skintight outfits, scary nails, taut braids, cheap bling. Dancing like a freak to L.L. Cool J, Twista and Beyoncé. Ready to jump into fights—even going right in the face of gangsta girls (she sometimes carried a box cutter or a flick knife). She was an occasional DJ who called herself Def Mistress K when she spun vinyl at school dances—and at clubs too, where the bouncers chose to let her pass for twenty-one.

But the girl wasn’t quite as ghetto as she fronted. She’d wear the image the way she’d put on her crazy nails and three-dollar extensions. The clues were obvious
to Gen: If you listened closely you could tell that standard English was her first language. She was like those black stand-up comics who sound like homies in their act but they get the patter wrong. The girl might say, “I be at Sammy’s last night.” But somebody really talking ebonics—the new politically correct phrase was “African-American vernacular English”—wouldn’t say that; they’d say “I
was
at Sammy’s.” “Be” was only used for ongoing or future activity, like “I be working at Blockbuster every weekend.” Or: “I be going to Houston with my aunt next month.”

Or Keesh would say, “I the first one to sign up.” But that wasn’t AAVE, where you never dropped the verb “to be” in the first person, only the second or third: “He the first one to sign up” was right. But to the casual listener, the girl sounded bred in the hood.

Other things too: A lot of project girls bragged about perping merch from stores. But Keesh’d never lifted so much as a bottle of fingernail polish or pack of braids. She didn’t even buy street jewelry from anybody who might’ve fiended it from a tourist, and the big girl was fast to whip out her cell phone and 911 suspicious kids hanging around apartment lobbies during “hunting season”—the times of the month when the welfare, ADC or social security checks started hitting the mailboxes.