The Twelfth Card (23 page)

d over dx times . . .

It was then that she heard the scrape of footsteps from the street. Geneva stopped and turned. She couldn’t see anyone clearly, because of the glare of the bright sun. Was it the black man in the green jacket coming toward her?

The sound of footsteps paused. She turned away, started toward the school, pushing aside every thought but the power rule of calculus.

 . . . equals nx to the nth minus one . . .

Which is when she heard footsteps again, moving fast now. Somebody was charging forward, headed straight for her. She couldn’t see. Who is it? She held her hand up to block the fierce sunlight.

And heard Detective Bell’s voice call, “Geneva! Don’t move!”

The man was sprinting forward, with someone else—Officer Pulaski—at his side. “Miss, what happened? Why’d you come outside?”

“I was—”

Three police cars squealed up nearby. Detective Bell looked up, toward the large truck, squinting into the sun. “Pulaski! That’s
him
. Go, go, go!”

They were looking at the receding form of the man she’d seen a minute ago, the one in the green jacket. He was jogging away quickly, with a slight limp, down an alley.

“I’m on it.” The officer sprinted after him. He squeezed through the gate and disappeared into the alley, in pursuit of the man. Then a half dozen police officers appeared in the school yard. They fanned out and surrounded Geneva and the detectives.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

Hurrying her toward the cars, Detective Bell explained that they’d just heard from an FBI agent, somebody named Dellray, who worked with Mr. Rhyme. One of his informants had learned that a man in Harlem had been asking about Geneva that morning, trying to find which school she went to and where she lived. He was African-American and wearing a dark green army jacket. He’d been arrested on a murder charge a few years ago and was now armed. Because the attacker in the museum that morning was white and might not know Harlem very well, Mr. Rhyme concluded, he’d decided to use an accomplice who knew the neighborhood.

After Mr. Bell learned this, the detective had gone into the classroom to get her and found out that she’d slipped out the back door. But Jonette Monroe, the undercover cop, had been keeping an eye on her and followed her. She’d then alerted the police to where Geneva was.

Now, the detective said, they had to get her back to Mr. Rhyme’s immediately.

“But the test. I—”

“No tests, no school until we catch this guy,” Bell said firmly. “Now, come on, miss.”

Furious at Kevin’s betrayal, furious that she’d been dragged into the middle of this mess, she crossed her arms. “I have to take that test.”

“Geneva, you don’t know what kind of muley I can be. I aim to keep you alive and if that means picking you up and carrying you to my car rest assured I will do just that.” His dark eyes, which had seemed so easygoing, were now hard as rocks.

“All right,” she muttered.

They continued toward the cars, the detective looking around them, checking the shadows. She noticed his hand was near his side. Close to his gun. The blond-haired officer trotted up to them a moment later. “Lost him,” he gasped, catching his breath. “Sorry.”

Bell sighed. “Any description?”

“Black, six feet, solid build. Limp. Black do-rag. No beard or mustache. Late thirties, early forties.”

“Did you see anything else, Geneva?”

She shook her head sullenly.

Bell said, “Okay. Let’s get out of here.”

She climbed into the back of the detective’s Ford, with the blond officer beside her. Mr. Bell started for the driver’s side. The counselor they’d met earlier, Mrs. Barton, hurried up, a frown on her face. “Detective, what’s wrong?”

“We have to get Geneva out of here. Might be that one of the people wants to hurt her was close by. Still could be, for all we know.”

The heavy woman looked around, frowning. “Here?”

“We aren’t sure. A possibility, all I’m saying. Just better to play it safe.” The detective added, “We’re thinking he was here about five minutes ago.
African-American, good-sized fella. Wearing a green army jacket and do-rag. Clean-shaven. Limping. He was on the far side of the school yard, by that big truck there. Could you could ask students and teachers if they know him or saw anything else?”

“Of course.”

He asked her too to see if any school security tapes might have picked him up. They exchanged phone numbers, then the detective dropped into the driver’s seat, started the engine. “Buckle up, everybody. We aren’t exactly going to be moseyin’ on out of here.”

Just as Geneva clicked her seat belt on, the policeman hit the gas and the car skidded away from the curb and started a roller-coaster ride through the ragged streets of Harlem, as Langston Hughes High School—her last fortress of sanity and comfort—disappeared from view.

*   *   *

As Amelia Sachs and Lon Sellitto organized the evidence she’d collected at the safe house on Elizabeth Street, Rhyme was thinking about Unsub 109’s accomplice—the man who’d just gotten real damn close to Geneva at her school.

There was a possibility that the unsub had been using this man solely for surveillance, except that with the ex-con’s violent background and the fact he was armed, he too was probably prepared to kill her himself. Rhyme had hoped that the man had shed some evidence near the school yard, but no—a crime scene team had looked over the area carefully and found nothing. And a canvass team had located no witnesses on the street who’d seen him or how he got away. Maybe—

“Hi, Lincoln,” a male voice said.

Startled, Rhyme looked up and saw a man standing nearby. In his mid-forties, with broad shoulders, a close-cropped cap of silver hair, bangs in the front. He wore an expensive, dark gray suit.

“Doctor. Didn’t hear the bell.”

“Thom was outside. He let me in.”

Robert Sherman, the doctor supervising Rhyme’s physical therapy, ran a clinic that specialized in working with spinal cord injury patients. It was he who’d developed Rhyme’s regimen of therapy, the bicycle and the locomotor treadmill, as well as aquatherapy and the traditional range-of-motion exercises that Thom performed on Rhyme.

The doctor and Sachs exchanged greetings, then he glanced at the lab, noting the bustle of activity. From a therapeutic point of view, he was pleased that Rhyme had a job. Being engaged in an activity, he’d often said, vastly improved one’s will and drive to improve (though he caustically urged Rhyme to avoid situations where he could be, say, burned to death, which had nearly happened in a recent case).

The doctor was talented and amiable and damn smart. But Rhyme had no time for him at the moment, now that he knew
two
armed perps were after Geneva. He greeted the medico in a distracted mood.

“My receptionist said you canceled the appointment today. I wondered if you were okay.”

A concern that could easily have been addressed via telephone, the criminalist reflected.

But that way the doctor couldn’t have put the same pressure on Rhyme to take the tests as he could in person.

And Sherman had indeed been pressuring him. He wanted to know that the exercise plan was paying
off. Not only for the patient’s sake but also so that the doctor himself could incorporate the information into his ongoing studies.

“No, everything’s fine,” Rhyme said. “A case just fell into our laps.” He gestured toward the evidence board. Sherman eyed it.

Thom stuck his head in the doorway. “Doctor, you want some coffee? Soda?”

“Oh, we don’t want to take up the doctor’s precious time,” Rhyme said quickly. “Now that he knows that there’s nothing wrong, I’m sure he’ll want to—”

“A case?” Sherman asked, still looking over the board.

After a moment Rhyme said in a brittle voice, “A tough one. Very bad man out there. One we were in the process of trying to catch when you stopped by.” Rhyme wasn’t inclined to give an inch and didn’t apologize for his rude behavior. But doctors or therapists who deal with SCI patients know that they come with some bonuses: anger, bad attitudes and searing tongues. Sherman was completely unaffected by Rhyme’s behavior. The doctor continued to study Rhyme as he responded: “No, nothing for me, Thom, thank you. I can’t stay long.”

“You sure?” A nod toward Rhyme. “Don’t mind him.”

“I’m fine, yes.”

But even though he didn’t want a refreshing beverage, even though he couldn’t stay long, nonetheless here he was, not making any immediate move to depart. In fact, he was pulling up a fucking chair and sitting down.

Sachs glanced toward Rhyme. He gave her a blank look and turned back to the doctor, who scooted his chair closer. Then he leaned forward and whispered,
“Lincoln, you’ve been resisting the tests for months now.”

“It’s been a whirlwind. Four cases we’ve been working on. And now five. Time-consuming, as you can imagine . . . And fascinating, by the way. Unique issues.” Hoping the doctor would ask him for some details, which would at least deflect the course of the conversation.

But the man didn’t, of course. SCI doctors never went for the bait. They’d seen it all. Sherman said, “Let me say one thing.”

And how the hell can I stop you? thought the criminalist.

“You’ve worked harder on our exercises than any other patient of mine. I know you’re resisting the test because you’re afraid it won’t’ve had any effect. Am I right?”

“Not really, Doctor. I’m just busy.”

As if he hadn’t heard, Sherman said, “I know you’re going to find considerable improvement in your overall condition and functional status.”

Doctor-talk could be as prickly as cop-talk, Rhyme reflected. He replied, “I hope so. But if not, believe me, it doesn’t matter. I’ve got the muscle mass improvement, the bone density improvement . . . . Lungs and heart are better. That’s all I’m after. Not motor movement.”

Sherman eyed him up and down. “You really feel that way?”

“Absolutely.” Looking around, he lowered his voice as he said, “These exercises won’t let me walk.”

“No, that won’t happen.”

“So why would I want some tiny improvement in my left little toe? That’s pointless. I’ll do the exercises, keep myself in the best shape I can and in five
or ten years, when you folks come up with a miracle graft or clone or something, I’ll be ready to start walking again.”

The doctor smiled and clapped his hand on Rhyme’s leg, a gesture he did not feel. Sherman nodded. “I’m so glad to hear you say that, Lincoln. The biggest problem I have is patients’ giving up because they find that all the exercise and hard work doesn’t really change their lives very much. They want big wins and cures. They don’t realize that this kind of war is won with small victories.”

“I think I’ve already won.”

The doctor rose. “I’d still like those scans done. We need the data.”

“As soon as—hey, Lon, are you listening? Incoming cliché! As soon as the deck is cleared.”

Sellitto, who had no clue what Rhyme was talking about, or didn’t care, gave him a hollow look.

“All right,” Sherman said and walked to the door. “And good luck with the case.”

“We’ll hope for the best,” Rhyme said cheerily.

The man of small victories left the town house and Rhyme immediately turned back to the evidence boards.

Sachs took a call and listened for a moment, hung up. “That was Bo Haumann. Those guys on the entry team? The ones who took the electricity? The first one’s got some bad burns, but he’ll live. The other one’s been released.”

“Thank God,” Sellitto said, seeming hugely relieved. “Man, what that must’ve been like. All that juice going through you.” He closed his eyes momentarily. “The burns. And the smell. Jesus. His hair was fucking burnt off . . . . I’ll send him something. No, I’ll take him a present myself. Maybe flowers. Think he’d like some flowers?”

This reaction, like his earlier behavior, wasn’t typical of Sellitto. Cops got hurt and cops got killed, and everybody on the force accepted that reality in his or her own way. There were plenty of officers who’d say, “Thank God he’s alive,” and bless themselves and trot to the closest church to pray their thanks. But Sellitto’s way was to nod and get on with the job. Not to act like this.

“No clue,” Rhyme said.

Flowers?

Mel Cooper called out, “Lincoln, I’ve got Captain Ned Seely on the line.” The tech had been talking to the Texas Rangers about the killing in Amarillo that VICAP had reported was similar to the incident at the museum.

“Speaker it.”

He did and Rhyme asked, “Hello, Captain?”

“Yes, sir,” came the response, a drawl. “Mr. Rhyme?”

“That’s right.”

“Got your associate’s request for information on the Charlie Tucker case. I pulled what he had but it wasn’t much. You think it’s the same fellow causing a stir up your way?”

“The M.O.’s similar to an incident we had here this morning. His shoes were the same brand—so was the tread wear. And he left some fake evidence to lead us off, the same way he left those candles and occult markings at Tucker’s killing. Oh, and our perp’s got a Southern accent. There was also a similar killing in Ohio a few years later. That one was a contract hit.”

“So y’all’re thinkin’ somebody hired this fella to kill Tucker?”

“Maybe. Who was he?”

“Tucker? Ordinary fellow. Just retired from the
Department of Justice—that’s our corrections outfit down here. Was happily married, a grandfather. Never in any trouble. Went to church regular.”

Rhyme frowned. “What’d he do for prisons?”

“Guard. In our maximum security facility in Amarillo . . . Hmmm, you thinkin’ maybe a prisoner hired somebody to get even for something that happened inside? Prisoner abuse, or some such?”

“Could be,” Rhyme said. “Did Tucker ever get written up?”

“Nothing in the file here about it. You might wanta check with the prison.”

Rhyme got the name of the warden of the facility where Tucker had worked and then said, “Thanks, Captain.”

“Nothing to it. Y’all have a good day.”

A few minutes later Rhyme was on the line with Warden J. T. Beauchamp of the Northern Texas Maximum Security Correction Facility in Amarillo. Rhyme identified himself and said he was working with the NYPD. “Now, Warden—”