The Kill Room

by Jeffery Deaver

  Functional law enforcement.

  They got out of the van. Again, the piquant smell of smoke was in the air. Ah, yes. With a glance at a nearby private residence's backyard, Rhyme realized the source: trash fires. They must be everywhere.

  "Look, Lincoln, we need one of those," Pulaski said. He was pointing toward the front of the main building.

  "What?" Rhyme snapped. "A building, a radio antenna, a doorknob, a jail?"

  "A crest."

  The RBPF did have a rather impressive logo, promising the citizens of the islands courage, integrity and loyalty. Where on earth could you find all three of these in one tidy package?

  "I'll buy you a T-shirt for a souvenir, rookie." Rhyme motored his way up the sidewalk and brashly into the lobby, an unimpressive place, scuffed and dinged. Ants crawled and flies strafed. There seemed to be no plainclothes cops; everyone was in uniform. Most commonly these were white jackets and black trousers with subdued red stripes on the side; the few women officers wore such jackets and striped skirts. Much of the personnel--who were all black--had headgear, traditional police hats or white sun helmets.

  Colonial...

  A dozen locals and tourists waited on benches or in line to speak to officers, presumably to report a crime. Mostly they seemed put out, rather than traumatized. Rhyme assumed the bulk of cases here would be pickpocketing, missing passports, groping, stolen cameras and cars.

  He was aware of the attention he and his small entourage were drawing. A middle-aged couple, American or Canadian, was in line ahead of him. "No, sir, please, you go first." The wife was speaking as if to a five-year-old. "We insist."

  Rhyme resented their condescension and Thom, sensing this, stiffened, probably expecting a tirade, but the criminalist smiled and thanked them. The waves he intended to make would be reserved for the RBPF itself.

  A tall man presently at the head of the queue in front of Rhyme had gleaming black skin and wore jeans and an untucked shirt. He was complaining to an attractive and attentive desk officer about a stolen goat.

  "It might have walked off," the woman said.

  "No, no, the rope was cut. I took a picture. Do you want to see? It was cut with a knife. I have pictures! My neighbor. I know my neighbor did this."

  Tool mark evidence could link the cut pattern on the rope to the neighbor's blade. Hemp fibers are particularly adhesive; there would have been some evidentiary transfer. There'd been a recent rain. Footprints surely still existed.

  Easy case, Rhyme reflected, smiling to himself. He wished Sachs were here so he could share the story with her.

  Goats...

  The man was persuaded to search a bit longer.

  Then Rhyme moved forward. The desk officer rose slightly and peered down at him. He asked for Mychal Poitier.

  "Yes, I'll call him. You are, please?"

  "Lincoln Rhyme."

  She placed the call. "Corporal, it's Constable Bethel, at the desk. A Lincoln Rhyme and some other people are here to see you." She stared down at her beige, old-fashioned phone, growing tenser as she listened. "Well, yes, Corporal. He's here, as I was saying...Well, he's right in front of me."

  Had Poitier told her to pretend he was out?

  Rhyme said, "If he's busy, tell him I'm happy to wait. For as long as necessary."

  Her eyes flicked uncertainly to Rhyme's. She said into the phone, "He said..." But apparently Poitier had heard. "Yes, Corporal." She set the receiver down. "He'll be here in a minute."

  "Thank you."

  They turned away and moved to an unoccupied portion of the waiting room.

  "God bless you," said the woman who had given up her space in line for the pathetic figure.

  Rhyme felt Thom's hand on his shoulder but, once again, he merely smiled.

  Thom and Pulaski sat on a bench beside Rhyme, under dozens of painted and photo portraits of senior commissioners and commanders of the Royal Bahamas Police Force, going back many years. He scanned the gallery. This was like walls of service everywhere: faces unrevealing and, like Queen Victoria's, looking off into the distance, not directly at the painter or camera. Unemotional, yet oh what those eyes would have seen in the collective hundreds of years of duty as law enforcers.

  Rhyme was debating how long Poitier was going to stall when a young officer appeared from a hallway and approached the desk. He was in those ubiquitous black slacks, red-striped, and an open-collar, short-sleeved blue shirt. A chain from the top button disappeared into his left breast pocket. A whistle? Rhyme wondered. The dark-skinned man, who was armed with a semiautomatic pistol, was bareheaded and had thick but short-trimmed hair. His round face was not happy.

  Constable Bethel pointed Rhyme out to the officer. The young man turned and blinked in stark surprise. Though he tried to stop himself he stared immediately down at the wheelchair and at Rhyme's legs. He blinked again and seemed to swell with discomfort.

  Rhyme knew that it was more than his presence upsetting the officer.

  Forget murder, forget geopolitics. I have to deal with a cripple?

  Poitier delayed a moment more, perhaps wondering if he'd been spotted. Could he still escape? Then, composing himself, he broke away reluctantly from the desk and approached them.

  "Captain Rhyme, well." He said this with a casual, almost cheerful tone. Identical to the woman tourist's a moment ago. Poitier's hand was half extended as if he didn't want to shake but thought it would be a moral lapse not to make the effort. Rhyme lifted his hand and the officer quickly, very quickly, gripped and let go.

  Quadriplegia is not contagious, Rhyme thought sourly.

  "Corporal, this is Officer Pulaski with the NYPD. And my caregiver, Thom Reston."

  Hands were shaken, this time with less uncertainty. But Poitier looked Thom up and down. Perhaps the concept of "caregiver" was new to him.

  The corporal gazed about him and found several fellow officers frozen in different attitudes, like children playing the game of statue, as they stared.

  Mychal Poitier's attention returned at once to the wheelchair and Rhyme's insensate legs. The slow movements of the right arm seemed to rivet him the most, though. Finally, Poitier, using all his willpower, forced himself to stare into Rhyme's eyes.

  The criminalist found himself at first irritated at this reaction but then he felt a sensation he hadn't experienced for some time: He was ashamed. Actually ashamed of his condition. He'd hoped the sense would morph into anger but it didn't. He felt diminished, weakened.

  Poitier's dismayed look had burned him.

  Ashamed...

  He tried to push aside the prickly feeling and said evenly, "I need to discuss the case with you, Corporal."

  Poitier looked around again. "I'm afraid I've told you all I can."

  "I want to see the evidence reports. I want to see the crime scene itself."

  "That's not practical. The scene is sealed."

  "You seal crime scenes from the public, not from forensics officers."

  "But you're..." A hesitation; Poitier managed not to look at his legs. "You're not an officer here, Captain Rhyme. Here you are a civilian. I'm sorry."

  Pulaski said, "Let us help you with the case."

  "My time is very occupied." He was happy to glance toward Pulaski, someone who was on his feet. Someone who was normal. "Occupied," Poitier repeated, turning now to a bulletin board on which was pinned a flyer: The headline was MISSING. Beneath that stark word was a picture of a smiling blonde, downloaded from Facebook, it seemed.

  Rhyme said, "The student you were mentioning."

  "Yes. The one you..."

  The corporal had been going to add: the one you don't care about. Rhyme was sure of this.

  But he'd refrained.

  Because, of course, Rhyme wasn't fair game. He was weak. A snide word might shatter him beyond repair.

  His face flushed.

  Pulaski said, "Corporal, could we just see copies of the evidence report, the autopsies? We could look at them right here. We won't take t
hem off the premises."

  Good approach, Rhyme thought.

  "I'm afraid that will not be possible, Officer Pulaski." He endured another look at Rhyme.

  "Then let us have a fast look at the scene."

  Poitier coughed or cleared his throat. "I have to leave it intact, depending on what we hear from the Venezuelan authorities."

  Rhyme played along. "And I will make sure the scene remains uncontaminated for them."

  "Still, I'm sorry."

  "Our case for Moreno's death is different from yours--you pointed that out the other day. But we still need certain forensics from here."

  Otherwise the risk you took in calling me from the casino that night will be wasted. This was the implicit message.

  Rhyme was careful not to mention any U.S. security agencies or snipers. If the Bahamians wanted Venezuelan drug runners he wasn't going to interfere with that. But he needed the goddamn evidence.

  He glanced at the poster of the missing student.

  She was quite attractive, her smile innocent and wide.

  The reward for information was only five hundred dollars.

  He whispered to Poitier, "You have a firearms tracing unit. I saw the reference on your website. At the very least, can I see their report on the bullet?"

  "The unit has yet to get to the matter."

  "They're waiting for the Venezuelan authorities."

  "That's right."

  Rhyme inhaled deeply, trying to remain calm. "Please--"

  "Corporal Poitier." A voice cut through the lobby.

  A man in a khaki uniform stood in an open doorway, a dim corridor beyond. His dark face--both in complexion and expression--was staring toward the four men beside the wall of service.

  "Corporal Poitier," he repeated in a stern voice.

  The officer turned. He blinked. "Yes, sir."

  A pause. "When you have finished your business there, I need your presence in my office."

  Rhyme deduced: The stern man would be the RBPF's version of Captain Bill Myers.

  "Yes, sir."

  The young officer turned back, shaken. "That's Assistant Commissioner McPherson. He is in charge of all of New Providence. Come, you must leave now. I will see you to your car."

  As he escorted them out, Poitier paused awkwardly to open the door for Rhyme and, once again, avoided looking at the disturbing sight of a man immobile.

  Rhyme motored outside. Thom and Pulaski were in the rear. They headed back to the van.

  Poitier whispered, "Captain, I went to a great risk to give you the information I did--about the phone call, about the man at the South Cove Inn. I had hoped you'd follow up on it in the United States. Not here."

  "And I appreciate what you told me. But it wasn't enough. We need the evidence."

  "That's not possible. I asked you not to come. I'm sorry. I can't help." The slim young officer looked away, back toward the front lobby door, as if his boss was still observing. Poitier was furious, Rhyme could see. He wanted to rage. But the officer's only reaction was a figurative pat on the head.

  God bless you...

  "There is nothing for you here, sir. Enjoy a day or two, some restaurants. I don't imagine you get out..." He braked his words to a halt. Then changed tack. "You are probably so busy at your job you don't get a chance to enjoy yourself. There are some good restaurants down by the docks. For the tourists."

  Where the facilities are disabled-accessible because of the elderly passengers from the cruise ships.

  Rhyme persisted, "I offered to meet you elsewhere. But you declined."

  "I didn't think you would actually come."

  Rhyme stopped. He said to Thom and Pulaski. "I'd like a word with the corporal in private."

  The two men wandered back toward the van.

  Poitier's eyes swept the criminalist's legs and body once more. He began, "I wish--"

  "Corporal," Rhyme spat out, "don't play these fucking games with me." The shame had finally solidified into the ice of anger.

  The officer blinked in shock.

  "You gave me a couple of leads that don't mean shit without the forensics to back them up. They're useless. You might as well've saved your goddamn phone card money."

  "I was trying to help you," he said evenly.

  "You were trying to purge your guilt."

  "My--?"

  "You didn't call me up to help the case. You called me so you could feel better about doing a lousy job as a cop. Hand off some useless tidbits to me and you go back to quote waiting for the Venezuelan authorities like you'd been told."

  "You don't understand," Poitier fired back, his own anger freed as well. Sweat covered his face and his eyes were focused and fierce. "You make your salary in America--ten times what we make here--and if that doesn't work you go take another job and make just as much money or more. We don't have those options, Captain. I've already risked too much. I tell you in confidence certain things and then..." He was sputtering. "And then here you are. And now my commissioner knows! I have a wife and two children I am supporting. I love them very much. What right do you have to put my job at stake?"

  Rhyme spat out, "Your job? Your job is to find out what happened on May ninth at the South Cove Inn, who fired that bullet, who took a human life in your jurisdiction. That's your job, not hiding behind your superior's fairy tales."

  "You do not understand! I--"

  "I understand that if you claim you want to be a cop, then be one. If not, go back to Inspections and Licensing, Corporal."

  Rhyme spun around and aimed toward the van, where Pulaski and Thom were staring his way with troubled, confused faces. He noticed too a man in one of the nearby windows, peering their way. Rhyme was sure it was the assistant commissioner.

  CHAPTER 32

  AFTER LEAVING THE RBPF HEADQUARTERS, Thom steered the van north and west through the narrow, poorly paved streets of Nassau.

  "Okay, rookie, you've got a job. I need you to do some canvassing at the South Cove Inn."

  "We're not leaving?"

  "Of course we're not leaving. Do you want your assignment or do you want to keep interrupting?" Without waiting for an answer, Rhyme reminded the young officer about the information that Corporal Poitier had provided via phone the other night in New York: the call from an American inquiring about Moreno's reservation, and the man at the hotel the day before the shooting asking a maid about Moreno--Don Bruns, their talented sniper.

  "Thirties, American, athletic, small build, short brown hair." Pulaski had remembered this from the chart.

  "Good. Now, I can't go myself," the criminalist said. "I'd make too much of a stir. We'll park in the lot and wait for you. Walk up to the main desk, flash your badge and find out what the number was of the person who called from America and anything else about the guy asking about Moreno. Don't explain too much. Just say you're a police officer looking into the incident."

  "I'll say I just came from RBPF headquarters."

  "Hm. I like that. Suitably authoritarian and yet vague at the same time. If you get the number--when you get the number--we'll call Rodney Szarnek and have him talk to the cell or landline provider. You clear on all of that?"

  "You bet, Lincoln."

  "What does that mean, 'You bet'?"

  "I'll do it," he said.

  "Mouth filler, expressions like that." He was still hurt and angry about what he considered Poitier's betrayal--which was only partly his refusal to help.

  As they bobbed along the streets of Nassau an idea occurred to Rhyme. "And when you're at the inn, see if Eduardo de la Rua, the reporter who died, left anything there. Luggage, notebook, computer. And do what you can to get your hands on it."

  "How?"

  "I don't know. I don't care. I want any notes or recordings that de la Rua made. The police haven't been very diligent about collecting evidence. Maybe there's still something at the inn."

  "Maybe he recorded Moreno talking about somebody surveilling him."

  "That," Rhyme said acerb
ically, "or somebody conducting surveillance, since what you said may be correct but is a shamless example of verbing a perfectly fine noun." And he couldn't resist a smile at his own irony.

  Pulaski sighed. Thom smiled.

  The young officer thought for a moment. "De la Rua was a reporter. What about his camera? Maybe he took some pictures in the room or on the grounds before the shooting."

  "Didn't think of that. Good. Yes. Maybe he got some pictures of a surveiller." Then he grew angry again. "The Venezuelan authorities. Bullshit."

  Rhyme's mobile buzzed. He looked at the caller ID.

  Well, what's this?

  He hit answer. "Corporal?"

  Had Poitier been fired? Had he called to apologize for losing his temper, while reiterating that there was nothing he could do to help?

  The officer's voice was a low, angry whisper: "I eat a late lunch every day."

  "Excuse me?"

  "Because of my shift," Poitier continued harshly. "I eat lunch at three p.m. And do you wish to know where I eat lunch?"

  "Do I...?"

  "It's a simple question, Captain Rhyme!" the corporal snapped. "Do you wish to know where I eat my lunch every day?"

  "I do, yes," was all that Rhyme could muster, thoroughly confused.

  "I have lunch at Hurricane's on Baillou Hill Road. Near West Street. That is where I have lunch!"

  The line went silent. There was no sound other than a soft click but Rhyme imagined the corporal had angrily slammed his thumb onto the disconnect button.

  "Well." He told the others about the exchange. "Sounds like he might be willing to help us out after all."

  Pulaski said, "Or he's going to arrest us."

  Rhyme started to protest but decided the young officer had a point. He said, "In case you're right, rookie, change of plans. Thom and I are going to have lunch and/or get arrested. Possibly both. You're going to canvass at the South Cove Inn. We'll rent you a car. Thom, didn't we pass a rental place somewhere?"

  "Avis. Do you want me to go there?"

  "Obviously. I wasn't asking for curiosity's sake."

  "Don't you get tired of being in a good mood all the time, Lincoln?"

  "Rental car. Please. Now."

  Rhyme noticed that he'd had a call from Lon Sellitto. He'd missed it in the "discussion" he'd had with Poitier. There was no message. Rhyme called him back but voice mail replied. He left a phone-tag message and slipped the mobile away.