The Twelfth Card (39 page)

“Charles wouldn’t do it,” his descendant said softly. “He wouldn’t murder anyone.”

“The bullet was fired into the forehead,” Rhyme said. “Not from behind. And the Derringer—the gun—that Sachs found in the cistern probably belonged to the victim. That suggests the shooting could’ve been in self-defense.”

Though the fact remained that Charles had voluntarily gone to the tavern armed with a gun. He would have anticipated some sort of violence.

“I should never have started this in the first place,” Geneva muttered. “Stupid. I don’t even like the past. It’s pointless. I hate it!” She turned and ran into the hallway, then up the stairs.

Sachs followed. She returned a few minutes later. “She’s reading. She said she wants to be alone. I think she’ll be all right.” Her voice didn’t sound very certain, though.

Rhyme looked over the information on the oldest scene he’d ever run—140 years. The whole point of the search was to learn something that might lead them to whoever had hired Unsub 109. But all it had done was nearly get Sachs killed and disappoint Geneva with the news that her ancestor had killed a man.

He looked at the copy of The Hanged Man tarot card, staring at him placidly from the evidence board, mocking Rhyme’s frustration.

Cooper said, “Hey, have something here.” He was looking at his computer screen.

“Winskinskie?” Rhyme asked.

“No. Listen. An answer to our mystery substance—the one that Amelia found in the unsub’s Elizabeth Street safe house and near Geneva’s aunt’s. The liquid.”

“Damn well about time. What the hell is it? Toxin?” Rhyme asked.

“Our bad boy’s got dry eyes,” Cooper said.

“What?”

“It’s Murine.”

“Eyedrops?”

“That’s right. The composition’s exactly the same.”

“Okay. Add that to the chart,” Rhyme ordered Thom. “Might just be temporary—because he’d been working with acid. In which case, won’t help us. But it might be chronic. That’d be good.”

Criminalists loved perps with physical maladies. Rhyme had a whole section in his book on tracing people through prescription or over-the-counter drugs, disposed hypodermic needles, prescription eyeglasses, unique shoe-tread wear from orthopedic problems, and so on.

It was then that Sachs’s phone rang. She listened for a moment. “Okay. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.” The policewoman disconnected, glanced at Rhyme. “Well, this’s interesting.”

When Amelia Sachs walked into the Critical Care Unit at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital she saw two Pulaskis.

One was in bed, swathed in bandages and hooked up to creepy clear plastic tubes. His eyes were dull, his mouth slack.

The other sat at his bedside, awkward in the uncomfortable plastic chair. Just as blond, just as fresh-faced, in the same crisp blue NYPD uniform Ron Pulaski had been wearing when Sachs had recruited him in front of the African-American museum yesterday and told him to act concerned about a pile of garbage.

How many sugars? . . .

She blinked at the mirror image.

“I’m Tony. Ron’s brother. Which you probably guessed.”

“Hi, Detective,” Ron managed breathlessly. His voice wasn’t working right. It was slurred, sloppy.

“How you feeling?”

“How ish Geneva?”

“She’s all right. I’m sure you heard—we stopped him at her aunt’s place but he got away . . . . You hurting? Must be.”

He nodded toward the IV drip. “Happy soup . . . Don’t feel a thing.”

“He’ll be okay.”

“I’ll be okay,” Ron echoed his brother’s words. He took a few deep breaths, blinked.

“A month or so,” Tony explained. “Some therapy. He’ll be back on duty. Some fractures. Not much internal damage. Thick skull. Which Dad always said.”

“Shkull.” Ron grinned.

“You were at the academy together?” She pulled up a chair and sat.

“Right.”

“What’s
your
house?”

“The Six,” Tony answered.

The Sixth Precinct was in the heart of west Greenwich Village. Not many muggings or carjackings or drugs. Mostly breakins, gay domestics and incidents by emotionally disturbed artists and writers off their meds. The Six was also home to the Bomb Squad.

Tony was shaken, sure, but angry too. “The guy kept at him, even when he was down. He didn’t need to.”

“But maybe,” came Ron’s stumbling words, “it took for time . . . took
more
time on me. So he didn’t get . . . didn’t get a good chance to go after Geneva.”

Sachs smiled. “You’re kind of a glass-is-half-full sorta guy.” She didn’t tell him that he’d been beaten nearly to death simply so Unsub 109 could use a bullet from his weapon for a distraction.

“Sorta am. Thank Sheneva.
Gen
-eva for me. For the book.” He couldn’t really move his head but his eyes slipped to the side of the bedside table, where a copy of
To Kill a Mockingbird
lay. “Tony’sh reading to me. He even can read the big wordsh.”

His brother laughed. “You putz.”

“So what can you tell us, Ron? This guy’s smart and he’s still out there. We need something we can use.”

“I don’t know, ma—I don’t know, Detective. I wasssh goin’ up and down th’alley. He hid when I want to . . .
went
to the street. Came back to the
back, the alley . . . I washn’t expecting hih.
Him
. He was around the corner of the, you know, the bidling . . . the
building
. I got to the corner. I shaw this guy, in a mask like a ski mashk. And then this thing. Club, bat. Came too fasht. Couldn’t shee it really. Got me good.” He blinked again, closed his eyes. “Careless. Washhh, was too close to the wall. Won’t do that again.”

You didn’t know. Now you do.

“A woosh.” He winced.

“You okay?” his brother asked.

“I’m okay.”

“A woosh,” Sachs encouraged, nudged her chair closer.

“What?”

“You heard a woosh.”

“Yes, I heard it, ma’am. Not ‘ma’am.’ Detective.”

“It’s okay, Ray. Call me whatever. You see
anything
? Anything at all?”

“This thing. Like a bat. No, not Batman and Robin. Ha. A baseball bat. Right at my face. Oh, I told you that. And I went down. I mean, Detective. Not ‘ma’am.’ ”

“That’s okay, Ron. What do you remember then?”

“I don’t know. I remember lying on the ground. Thinking . . . I was thinking he was going for my weapon. I tried to control my weapon. Wash . . . was in the book, not to let it go. ‘Always control your weapon.’ But I didn’t. He got it anyway. I wash dead. I knew I
was
dead.”

She encouraged softly, “What do you remember seeing?”

“A tangle.”

“A what?”

He laughed. “I didn’t mean tangle. A
triangle
.
Cardboard. On the ground. I couldn’t move. It was all I could see.”

“And this cardboard. It was the unsub’s?”

“The trangle? No. I mean, triangle. No, it was jusht trash. I mean, it’s all I could see. I tried to crawl. I don’t think I did.”

Sachs sighed. “You were found on your back, Ron.”

“I washhh? . . . I was on my back?”

“Think back. Did you see the sky maybe?”

He squinted.

Her heart beat faster. Did he get a look at something?

“Bluh.”

“What?”

“Bluh in my eyes by then.”

“Blood?” his brother offered.

“Yeah. Blood. Couldn’t shee anything then. No trangles, no building. He got my piece. He stayed neareye for a few minutes. Then I don’t remember anything elshe.”

“He was nearby? How close?”

“I don’t know. Not close. Couldn’t see. Too much bluh.”

Sachs nodded. The poor man looked exhausted. His breathing was labored, his eyes much more unfocused than when she’d arrived. She rose. “I’ll let him get some rest.” She asked, “You heard of Terry Dobyns?”

“No. Ishh he . . . Who ishh?” A grimace crossed the injured officer’s face. “Who
is
he?

“Department psychologist.” She glanced at Ron with a smile. “This’ll take the starch out of you for a while. You should talk to him about it. He’s the man. He rules.”

Ron said, “Don’t need to—”

“Patrolman?” she said sternly.

He lifted an eyebrow, winced.

“It’s an order.”

“Yes, ma’am. I mean . . . ma’am.”

Anthony said, “I’ll make sure he does.”

“You’ll thank . . . Geneva for me? I like that book.”

“I will.” Sachs slung her bag over her shoulder and started for the door. She just stepped through it when she stopped abruptly, turned back. “Ron?”

“Wusthat?”

She returned to his bedside, sat down again.

“Ron, you said the unsub was near you for a few minutes.”

“Yuh.”

“Well, if you couldn’t see him, with the blood in your eyes, how did you know he was there?”

The young officer frowned. “Oh . . . yeah. There’s shomething I forgot to tell you.”

*   *   *

“Our boy’s got a habit, Rhyme.”

Amelia Sachs was back in the laboratory.

“What’s that?”

“He whistles.”

“For taxis?”

“Music. Pulaski heard him. After he’d been hit the first time and was lying on the ground the unsub took his weapon and, I’m guessing, spent a few minutes to hook the bullet to the cigarette. While he was doing that, he was whistling. Real softly, Ron said, but he’s sure it was whistling.”

“No pro’s going to whistle on the job,” Rhyme said.

“You wouldn’t think. But
I
heard it too. At the
safe house on Elizabeth Street. I thought it was the radio or something—he was good.”

“How’s the rookie doing?” Sellitto asked. He hadn’t rubbed his invisible bloodstain recently but he was still edgy.

“They say he’ll be okay. A month of therapy or so. I told him to see Terry Dobyns. Ron was pretty out of it but his brother was there. He’ll look after him. He’s a uniform too. Identical twin.”

Rhyme wasn’t surprised. Being on the force often ran in the family. “Cop” could be the name of a human gene.

But Sellitto shook his head at the news of a sibling. He seemed all the more upset, as if it was his fault that an entire family had been affected by the attack.

There was no time, though, to deal with the detective’s demons. Rhyme said, “All right. We’ve got some new information. Let’s put it to use.”

“How?” Cooper asked.

“The murder of Charlie Tucker’s still the closest lead we have to Mr. One-oh-nine. So, obviously,” the criminalist added, “we call Texas.”

“Remember the Alamo,” Sachs offered and hit the speaker button on the phone.

POTTERS’ FIELD SCENE (1868)

• Tavern in Gallows Heights—located in the Eighties on the Upper West Side, mixed neighborhood in the 1860s.

• Potters’ Field was possible hangout for Boss Tweed and other corrupt New York politicians.

• Charles came here July 15, 1868.

• Burned down following explosion, presumably just after Charles’s visit. To hide his secret?

• Body in basement, man, presumably killed by Charles Singleton.

  • Shot in forehead by .36 Navy Colt loaded with .39-caliber ball (type of weapon Charles Singleton owned).

  • Gold coins.

  
• Man was armed with Derringer.

  • No identification.

  • Had ring with name “Winskinskie” on it.

    • Means “doorman” or “gatekeeper” in Delaware Indian language.

    • Currently searching other meanings.

EAST HARLEM SCENE (GENEVA’S GREAT-AUNT’S APARTMENT)

• Used cigarette and 9mm round as explosive device to distract officers. Merit brand, not traceable.

• Friction ridge prints: None. Glove-prints only.

• Poisonous gas device:

  • Glass jar, foil, candleholder. Untraceable.

  • Cyanide and sulfuric acid. Neither containing markers. Untraceable.

• Clear liquid similar to that found on Elizabeth Street.

  • Determined to be Murine.

• Small flakes of orange paint. Posing as construction or highway worker?

ELIZABETH STREET SAFE HOUSE SCENE

• Used electrical booby trap.

• Fingerprints: None. Glove prints only.

• Security camera and monitor; no leads.

• Tarot deck, missing the twelfth card; no leads.

• Map with diagram of museum where G. Settle was attacked and buildings across the street.

• Trace:

  • Falafel and yogurt.

  • Wood scrapings from desk with traces of pure sulfuric acid.

  • Clear liquid, not explosive. Sent to FBI lab.

    • Determined to be Murine.

  • More fibers from rope. Garrotte?

  • Pure carbon found in map.

• Safe house was rented, for cash, to Billy Todd Hammil. Fits Unsub 109’s description, but no leads to an actual Hammil.

AFRICAN-AMERICAN MUSEUM SCENE

• Rape pack:

  • Tarot card, twelfth card in deck, The Hanged Man, meaning spiritual searching.

  • Smiley-face bag.

    • Too generic to trace.

  • Box cutter.

  • Trojan condoms.

  • Duct tape.

  • Jasmine scent.

  • Unknown item bought for $5.95. Probably a stocking cap.

  • Receipt, indicating store was in New York City, discount variety store or drugstore.

  • Most likely purchased in a store on Mulberry Street, Little Italy. Unsub identified by clerk.

• Fingerprints:

  • Unsub wore latex or vinyl gloves.

  • Prints on items in rape pack belonged to person with small hands, no IAFIS hits. Positive ID for clerk’s.

• Trace:

  • Cotton-rope fibers, some with traces of human blood. Garrotte?

    • Sent to CODIS.

      • No DNA match in CODIS.

    • Popcorn and cotton candy with traces of canine urine.

• Weapons:

  • Billy club or martial arts weapon.

  • Pistol is a North American Arms .22 rimfire magnum, Black Widow or Mini-Master.

  • Makes own bullets, bored-out slugs filled with needles. No match in IBIS or DRUGFIRE.

• Motive

  • Uncertain. Rape was probably staged.