The Twelfth Card (6 page)

The first one hit the thigh of a woman standing on the sidewalk.

The others struck his intended victim just where he’d aimed. The three tiny dots appeared in the center of his chest; they’d become three rosettes of blood by the time the body hit the ground.

*   *   *

Two girls stood in front of him and, though their physiques were totally opposite, it was the difference
in their eyes that Lincoln Rhyme noticed first.

The heavy one—dressed in gaudy clothes and shiny jewelry, her fingernails long and orange—had eyes that danced like skittish insects. Unable to look at Rhyme, or anything else, for more than a second, she made a dizzying visual circuit of his lab: the scientific instruments, the beakers, chemicals, the computers and monitors, wires everywhere. At Rhyme’s legs and his wheelchair, of course. She chewed gum loudly.

The other girl, short, skinny and boyish, had a stillness about her. She gazed at Lincoln Rhyme steadily. One fast glance at the wheelchair, then back to him. The lab didn’t interest her.

“This’s Geneva Settle,” explained the calm patrolwoman, Jennifer Robinson, nodding at the slim girl, the one with the unwavering eyes. Robinson was a friend of Amelia Sachs, who’d arranged for her to drive the girls here from the Midtown North house.

“And this’s her friend,” Robinson continued, “Lakeesha Scott. Lose the gum, Lakeesha.”

The girl gave a beleaguered look but stuffed the wad somewhere in her large purse, without bothering to wrap it.

The patrolwoman said, “She and Geneva went to the museum together this morning.”

“Only I didn’t see nothing,” Lakeesha said preemptively. Was the big girl nervous because of the attack, he wondered, or was she uncomfortable because Rhyme was a crip? Both probably.

Geneva was dressed in a gray T-shirt and black baggy pants and running shoes, which Rhyme guessed was the fashion among high school students nowadays. Sellitto had said the girl was sixteen but she looked younger. While Lakeesha’s hair was done in a mass of thin gold and black braids,
tied so taut that her scalp showed, Geneva’s was cropped short.

“I told the girls who you are, Captain,” Robinson explained, using the title that was some years out of date. “And that you’re going to ask them some questions about what happened. Geneva wants to get back to her school but I said she’d have to wait.”

“I have some tests,” Geneva said.

Lakeesha tsked a sound through her white teeth.

Robinson continued, “Geneva’s parents are out of the country. But they’re getting the next flight back. Her uncle’s been staying with her while they’ve been away.”

“Where are they?” Rhyme asked. “Your parents?”

“My father’s teaching a symposium at Oxford.”

“He’s a professor?”

She nodded. “Literature. At Hunter.”

Rhyme chided himself for being surprised that a young girl from Harlem would have intellectual, globe-trotting parents. He was angry for stereotyping but mostly piqued that he’d made a flawed deduction. True, she was decked out like a gangsta but he might’ve guessed she had academic roots; she’d been attacked during an early-morning visit to a library, not hanging out on the street corner or watching TV before school.

Lakeesha fished a package of cigarettes out of her purse.

Rhyme began, “There’s no—”

Thom walked through the doorway. “—smoking in here.” He lifted the pack away from the girl and stuffed it back into her bag. Unfazed that two teenagers had suddenly materialized on his watch, Thom smiled. “Soft drinks?”

“You got coffee?” Lakeesha asked.

“I do, yes.” Thom glanced at Jennifer Robinson and Rhyme, who shook their heads.

“I like it strong,” the big girl announced.

“Do you?” Thom asked. “So do I.” To Geneva: “Anything for you?”

The girl shook her head.

Rhyme glanced longingly at the bottle of scotch sitting on a shelf nearby. Thom noticed and laughed. The aide disappeared. To Rhyme’s distress, Patrolwoman Robinson said, “I’ve got to get back to the house, sir.”

“Ah, you do?” Rhyme asked, dismayed. “You sure you couldn’t stay a little longer?”

“Can’t, sir. But you need anything else, just gimme a call.”

How about a babysitter?

Rhyme didn’t believe in fate but, if he had, he would have noted a deft jab here: he’d taken on the case to avoid the test at the hospital and now was being paid back for the deception by suffering through an immensely awkward half hour or so in the company of two high school girls. Young people were not his forte.

“So long, Captain.” Robinson walked out the door.

He muttered, “Yeah.”

Thom returned a few minutes later with a tray. He poured a cup of coffee for Lakeesha and handed Geneva a mug, which, Rhyme smelled, contained hot chocolate.

“I took a guess you’d like something anyway,” the aide said. “You don’t want it, you can leave it.”

“No, that’s fine. Thanks.” Geneva stared at the hot surface. Took a sip, another, lowered the cup and gazed at the floor. Took several more sips.

“You’re all right?” Rhyme asked.

Geneva nodded.

“I am too,” Lakeesha said.

“He attacked both of you?” Rhyme asked.

“Naw, not me.” Lakeesha looked him over. “You like that actor broke his neck?” She slurped her coffee, added more sugar. Slurped again.

“That’s right.”

“An’ you can’t move nothin’?”

“Not much.”

“Damn.”

“Keesh,” Geneva whispered. “Chill, girl.”

“Just, you know, damn.”

Silence again. Only eight minutes had passed since they’d arrived. It seemed like hours. What should he do? Have Thom run out and buy a board game?

There were, of course, questions that had to be asked. But Rhyme was reluctant to do so himself. Interviewing and interrogation were skills he didn’t possess. When he was on the force he’d questioned suspects maybe a dozen times, and had never had one of those oh-Jesus moments when the grillee broke down and confessed. Sachs, on the other hand, was a natural at the art. She warned rookies that you could blow an entire case with a single wrong word. She called it “contaminating the mind,” the counterpart to Rhyme’s number-one sin: contaminating a crime scene.

Lakeesha asked, “How you move round in that chair?”

“Shhh,” Geneva warned.

“I only askin’.”

“Well, don’t.”

“Ain’t no harm in
asking
nothin’.”

Lakeesha had lost her skittishness completely now. Rhyme decided she was actually pretty savvy.
She acts uneasy at first, making it seem like she’s naive, vulnerable, that you have the advantage, but all the while she’s sizing things up. Once she’s got a handle on the situation, she knows whether or not to trot out the bluster.

In fact, Rhyme was thankful for something to make conversation about. He explained about the ECU, the environmental control unit, how the touch pad under his left ring finger could direct the movement and speed of the wheelchair.

“One finger?” Keesha glanced at one of her orange nails. “That all you can move?”

“That’s right. Other than my head and shoulders.”

“Mr. Rhyme,” Geneva said, looking at a red Swatch, which sat large and obvious on her thin wrist, “about those tests? The first one’s in a couple of hours. How long’ll this be?”

“School?” Rhyme asked, surprised. “Oh, you can stay home today, I’m sure. After what happened, your teachers’ll understand.”

“Well, I don’t really
want
to stay home. I need to take the tests.”

“Yo, yo, girl, time out. Here the man say you can take a pass, all one hundred percent phat, and you sayin’ no. Come on. That wack.”

Geneva looked up into her friend’s eyes. “And you’re taking your tests too. You’re not skipping.”

“It ain’t skippin’, you got a pass,” the big girl pointed out with flawless logic.

Rhyme’s phone rang and he was grateful for the interruption.

“Command, answer phone,” he said into the hands-free microphone.

“Def!” Lakeesha said, lifting her eyebrows. “Look at that, Gen. I want one of them.”

Eyes narrowing, Geneva whispered something to her friend, who rolled her eyes and slurped more coffee.

“Rhyme,” Sachs’s voice said.

“They’re here, Sachs,” Rhyme said in a brittle voice. “Geneva and her friend. And I’m hoping you’re—”

“Rhyme,” she repeated. It was a particular tone. Something was wrong.

“What is it?”

“The scene was hot, after all.”

“He was
there
?”

“Yep. Never left. Or doubled back.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. It wasn’t me he was after.”

“What happened?”

“Got up close, into an alley. Fired four shots. He wounded a bystander . . . and he killed a witness. His name was Don Barry. He was in charge of the library at the museum. He took three rounds in the heart. Died instantly.”

“You’re sure the shooter’s the same?”

“Yep. The shoe prints I found from his shooting position match the ones in the library. Lon was just starting to interview him. He was standing right in front of him when it happened.”

“He get a look at the doer?”

“Nope. Nobody did. He was hiding behind a Dumpster. Couple of the uniforms on the scene went to work on the woman to save her. She had a major bleeder. He got away in the crowd. Just disappeared.”

“Somebody take care of the details?”

Calling the next of kin.
Details
.

“Lon was going to make the calls but he had phone problems or something. There was a sergeant on the scene. He did it.”

“All right, Sachs, come on back with what you’ve found . . . . Command, disconnect.” He looked up and found the two girls staring at him.

He explained, “It looks like the man who attacked you didn’t leave, after all. Or he came back. He killed the head librarian and—”

“Mr. Barry?” A gasp from Geneva Settle. She stopped moving, simply froze.

“That’s right.”

“Shit,” Lakeesha whispered. She closed her eyes and shivered.

A moment later Geneva’s mouth tightened and she looked down. She set the cocoa on a table. “No, no . . . ”

“I’m sorry,” Rhyme said. “Was he a friend of yours?”

She shook her head. “Not really. He was just helping me with my paper.” Geneva sat forward in her chair. “But it doesn’t matter if he was a friend or not. He’s dead—that’s so terrible.” She whispered angrily, “Why? Why did he do it?”

“He was a witness, I’d guess. He could identify the man who attacked you.”

“So he’s dead because of me.”

Rhyme muttered some words to her, no, how could it be her fault? She didn’t plan on being attacked. It was just bad luck for Barry. Wrong time, wrong place.

But the reassurance had no effect on the girl. Her face grew taut, her eyes cold. Rhyme didn’t have a clue what to do next. It wasn’t enough that he had to endure the presence of teenagers—now he had to comfort them, get their minds off this tragedy. He wheeled closer to the girls and pushed his patience to its limit by making small talk.

An endless twenty minutes later, Sachs and Sellitto arrived at Rhyme’s, accompanied by a young, blond patrol officer named Pulaski.

Sellitto explained that he’d requisitioned the kid to cart the evidence back to Rhyme’s and help with the investigation. Clearly a rookie, he had “eager” written on his smooth forehead. He’d obviously been briefed about the criminalist’s disability; he was overly oblivious to the fact that the man was paralyzed. Rhyme hated these fake reactions. He infinitely preferred Lakeesha’s brashness.

Just, you know, damn . . .

The two detectives greeted the girls. Pulaski looked them over sympathetically and asked in a kid-friendly voice how they were doing. Rhyme noted a nicked wedding ring on his finger and deduced a high school marriage; only having children of your own could produce this kind of look.

Lakeesha answered, “Messed up is what I be. Buggin’ . . . Some asshole tryin’ to bust up my girlfriend. Whatta you think?”

Geneva said she was doing all right.

“I understand you’re staying with a relative?” Sachs asked.

“My uncle. He’s living at our place till my folks get back from London.”

Rhyme happened to look at Lon Sellitto. Something was wrong. He’d changed dramatically in the past two hours. The boisterous mood had vanished.
His eyes were spooked and he was fidgety. Rhyme noticed too that his fingers repeatedly touched a particular spot on his cheek. He’d rubbed it red.

“Get dinged by some lead?” Rhyme asked, recalling that the detective had been right next to the librarian when the perp had shot him. Maybe Sellitto had been hit by a bullet fragment or bit of stone if a slug had passed through Barry and struck a building.

“What?” Then Sellitto realized he’d been rubbing his skin and dropped his hand. He said in a soft voice, so the girls couldn’t hear, “I was pretty close to the vic. Got spattered by some blood. That’s all. Nothing.”

But a moment later he absently started the rubbing again.

The gesture reminded Rhyme of Sachs, who had the habit of scratching her scalp and worrying her nails. The compulsion came and went, linked somehow to her drive, her ambition, the indefinable churning inside most cops. Police officers hurt themselves in a hundred different ways. The harm ranged from the minor inflictions of Sachs’s, to destroying marriages and children’s spirits with harsh words, to closing your lips around the tangy barrel of your service pistol. He’d never seen it in Lon Sellitto, though.

Geneva asked Sachs, “There was no mistake?”

“Mistake?”

“About Dr. Barry.”

“I’m sorry, no. He’s dead.”

The girl was motionless. Rhyme could feel her sorrow.

Anger too. Her eyes were black dots of fury. Then she looked at her watch, said to Rhyme, “Those tests I mentioned?”

“Well, let’s just get some questions out of the way and then we’ll see. Sachs?”

With the evidence now set out on the examining table and chain of custody cards completed, Sachs pulled up a chair beside Rhyme and interviewed the girls. She asked Geneva exactly what had happened. The girl explained she’d been looking up an article in an old magazine when somebody came into the library. She’d heard hesitant footsteps. Then a laugh. The voice of a man ending a conversation and the snap of a closing cell phone.