The Kill Room

by Jeffery Deaver

  The other reason she wasn't connecting was that she didn't understand the unsub's motive. If he wanted to eliminate witnesses and hamper the investigation, then why the horrific torture, the precise knife cuts? The slashes where he flayed off skin, leisurely, it seemed? Sachs found herself distracted as she stared at the strips of flesh on the floor below the chair where Lydia was tied. The blood.

  What did he want?

  Maybe if Rhyme had been speaking into her ear, working the scene with her via radio or video, it might be different, insights might leap out.

  But he wasn't, and the killer's psyche eluded her.

  The search itself didn't take long. Whatever his motive, Lydia Foster's killer had been careful--wearing rubber gloves. She could tell this from the wrinkles in some of the blood smears, where he'd touched her body while slicing her skin. He'd been careful to avoid stepping in the blood and so there were no obvious shoe prints, and an electrostatic wand sweep of the non-carpeted floor revealed no latents. She collected trace, a few receipts and Post-it notes, stuffed into the pockets of jeans hung on the bathroom door. But this was all the documentary evidence Sachs could track down. She processed the body, noting again the appalling wounds, small but precise, as the unsub had flayed the skin from the woman's fingers. The single, fatal stab wound through the chest. There seemed to be bruises around the site of the incision, as if he had firmly palpated her flesh to find an entrance to her heart free of bones.

  Why was that?

  Sachs then radioed down to her colleagues to let them know they could come upstairs for the videos and stills.

  At the door she paused, glancing back for one last look at Lydia Foster's body.

  I'm sorry, Lydia. I didn't think!

  I should have considered that he'd tap the landlines near Java Hut. I should have thought there might be two perps.

  Sachs had another thought too: She regretted being too late to get the information that the woman would have provided. The details the interpreter had known and the records she had were clearly crucial. Otherwise, why interrogate her?

  And she apologized to Lydia Foster a second time, for having this selfish thought.

  Outside, she stripped off the overalls and deposited them in a burn bag; they were streaked with Lydia's blood. She used cleanser on her hands. Checked her Glock. Scanned the area for any threats. All she saw were a hundred black windows, dim cul-de-sacs, paused cars. Each a perfect vantage point for the unsub to be standing to target her.

  Sachs was about to hook her phone holster into place too but she paused. Thinking: I really want to talk to Rhyme.

  She hit speed dial on her most recent prepaid mobile; it was his number. But the call went right to voice mail. Sachs thought about leaving a message but hung up. She found she wasn't sure what she wanted to say.

  Maybe just that she missed him.

  CHAPTER 43

  LINCOLN RHYME BLINKED. His eyes stung like hell and in his mouth were conflicting tastes, the sweetness of oil and the sourness of chemicals.

  He'd just come back to consciousness and was, to his surprise, not coughing as much as he thought he ought to be. An oxygen mask was over his mouth and nose and he was breathing deeply. His throat hurt, though, and he guessed he had been coughing plenty earlier, when he'd been dead to the world.

  He looked around, noting that he was in the back of an ambulance, excessively hot, parked on the spit of land where the attack had taken place; he could see the South Cove Inn in the distance, over the choppy blue-and-green bay. A stocky medic with a round black face was leaning forward, manning a flashlight, examining his eyes. He removed the oxygen mask to study Rhyme's mouth and nose.

  The man's own face, very dark, gave away nothing. Finally he said in an American inflection, not British: "That water. Very bad. Runoff. Chemicals. All kinds of things. But it doesn't look too bad. Irritation. It hurts?"

  "Stings. Bad. Yes."

  As if the medic's staccato syntax were contagious.

  Rhyme inhaled deeply. "But please, you have to tell me! The two men who were with me? What--?"

  "How're his lungs?"

  The question was from Thom Reston, who was approaching the back of the ambulance. The aide coughed once then twice, hard.

  Rhyme squelched his own cough and muttered in astonishment, "You're...you're all right?"

  Thom pointed to his eyes, which were bright red. "Nothing serious. Just a lot of crap in that water."

  Very bad. Runoff...

  His clothes were soaking, Rhyme noted, and that answered several questions. First, that the aide had been the one who'd rescued him.

  And, second, that the two shots he'd heard had been meant for Mychal Poitier.

  I have a wife and two children I am supporting. I love them very much...

  Rhyme was heartsick at the man's death. After the corporal had been killed Thom must have dived into the water to save Rhyme as the attackers fled.

  The medic listened to his chest again. "Surprising. They're good, your lungs. I see the scar, the ventilator, but it's an old scar. You've done well. You work out. And your right arm, the prosthetic system. I've read about that. Very impressive."

  Except not impressive enough to save Mychal Poitier.

  The paramedic rose and said, "I would rinse them, your eyes and mouth. Water. Nothing else. Bottled. Three, four times a day. And see your own doctor. When you get home. I'll be back in a moment." He turned and stepped away, his feet crunching on the sand and gravel.

  Rhyme said, "Thank you, Thom. Thank you. Saved my life yet again and not with clonidine." The medicine to bring down blood pressure after an attack of autonomic dysreflexia. "I tried the ventilator."

  "I know. It was tangled around your neck. I had to pull it off. Wish I'd had Amelia's switchblade."

  Rhyme sighed. "But Mychal. It's terrible..."

  Thom lifted a sphygmomanometer from a rack in the ambulance. He took Rhyme's blood pressure himself. As he did this, he shrugged. "It's not that serious."

  "The blood pressure?"

  "No, I mean Poitier. Quiet. I need to hear the pulse."

  Rhyme was sure he'd misheard; his ears were still clogged with water. "But--"

  "Shhh." The aide was holding a purloined stethoscope to Rhyme's arm.

  "You said--"

  "Quiet!" A moment later he nodded. "Pressure's fine." A glance in the direction in which the medic had disappeared. "Not that I didn't trust him but I wanted to see for--"

  "What do you mean it isn't that serious, about Mychal?"

  "Well, you saw: He got kicked and hit. But nothing too bad."

  "He was shot!"

  "Shot? No, he wasn't."

  "I heard two gunshots."

  "Oh, that."

  Rhyme snapped, "What do you mean, 'Oh, that'?"

  Thom explained, "The guy who kicked you into the water, in the gray shirt? He was shooting at Ron."

  "Pulaski? Jesus, he all right?"

  "He's fine too."

  "What the fuck happened?" Rhyme blurted.

  Thom laughed. "Glad you're feeling better."

  "What. Happened?"

  "Ron finished up at the South Cove and came over here. You told him that's where we'd be. He drove up in the rental just after you went for your swim. He saw what was going on and drove right toward the one with the gun, really floored it. The guy shot at the car twice but must've figured Ron was the first of the reinforcements and since there was only one way out they jumped in the Mercury and the pickup and beat it."

  "Mychal's all right?"

  "That's what I said."

  The relief was immeasurable. Rhyme said nothing for a moment as his eyes took in the choppy water nearby, an arc of spray in the sunlight, low to the west. "The wheelchair?"

  Thom shook his head. "That's not so all right."

  "Pricks," Rhyme muttered. He had no sentimental feelings about hardware, either professional or personal. But he'd grown quite attached to the Storm Arrow as a practical matter because
it was such a fine piece of machinery and he'd worked hard to master it. Operating a wheelchair is a true skill. He was furious at the thugs.

  The aide continued, "I'm borrowing one of theirs." A glance at the medical team. "Non-motorized. Well, motorized by yours truly."

  Another figure appeared.

  "Well, the rookie saves the day."

  "You don't look too bad," Pulaski said. "Damp. I don't think I've ever seen you damp, Lincoln."

  "What'd you find at the inn?"

  "Not much else. The maid confirmed pretty much what Corporal Poitier told us. A tough-looking American was asking about Moreno and suite twelve hundred. He said he was a friend and was thinking of throwing a party for him. Wanted to know who was with him, what his schedule was, who was his friend--I assume that was his guard."

  "Party," Rhyme grunted and looked around the ambulance. The medic returned with burly assistants, one of whom was pushing a battered wheelchair. Rhyme asked, "You have any brandy or anything?"

  "Brandy?"

  "Medicinal brandy."

  "Medicinal brandy?" The man's large face drew into a frown. "Let me think. I suppose doctors down here do administer that some--being a third-world island, of course. I'm afraid I missed that course when I got my emergency health services degree at the University of Maryland."

  Touche.

  But the doctor was clearly amused, not offended, and gestured to the assistants, who got Rhyme into the battered chair. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been in one that didn't have a battery and motor, and he didn't like the sensation of helplessness. It took him back to the days just after the accident.

  "I want to see Mychal," he said. Instinctively he reached for the chair's controller before recalling it wasn't there. He didn't bother to go for the handgrip on the wheel to propel himself forward. If he couldn't pull the fucking trigger of a gun he wasn't going to be able to move his own deadweight over broken asphalt and sand with one hand.

  Thom wheeled him the thirty feet to where Poitier sat on a creosote-soaked eight-by-eight beam, beside the two RBPF officers who'd responded to the emergency call.

  Poitier rose. "Ah, Captain. I heard you were safe. Good, good. You look none the worse for wear."

  "Damp," Pulaski repeated. Drawing a smile from Thom and scowl from Rhyme.

  "And you?"

  "Fine. Little groggy. They gave me some pain medicine. My first fight in five years on the force and I didn't do very well. Blindsided. I was blindsided."

  "Did anyone see tag numbers?" Rhyme asked.

  "There were none, no number plates. And it won't do any good to look up gold-and-black Mercurys or white pickup trucks. I'm sure they were stolen. I will look at mug shots back in the station but that will be useless too. Still we have to go through the motions."

  Suddenly a plume of dust rose from the direction of the SW Road. A car, no, two cars were moving in fast.

  The RBPF officers who were standing nearby stiffened uneasily.

  Not because these cars represented a physical threat. Rhyme could see that the unmarked Ford sported red grille lights, which flashed dramatically. He wasn't surprised that the man in the backseat was Assistant Commissioner McPherson. A second car, a marked RBPF cruiser, was behind.

  They both skidded to a stop near the ambulance and McPherson climbed angrily from the car, slammed the door.

  Storming toward Poitier, he said, "What has happened here?"

  Rhyme explained, shouldering the blame.

  The assistant commissioner glared at him then turned and raged in a low growl at his corporal, "I will not have this insubordination. You should have told me."

  Rhyme expected the young man would roll over. But he stared into his boss's eyes.

  "Sir, with all respect. I was given the Moreno homicide to handle."

  "It was your case to handle according to proper procedures. And that doesn't include bringing an interloper into the field with you."

  "This was a lead. The sniper was here. I should have searched last week."

  "We have to see what the--"

  Poitier interjected, "Venezuelan authorities have to say."

  "Do not interrupt me again, Corporal. And do not take that attitude with me."

  "Yes, sir. Sorry, sir."

  Rhyme said, "This is an important case, Commissioner, with implications for both our countries."

  "And you, Captain Rhyme, you. Do you understand you nearly got a policeman on my force killed?"

  The criminalist fell silent.

  His voice flinty he added, "And yourself too. We don't need any more dead Americans in the Bahamas. We've had our share." A cool glance to his side. "You're suspended, Corporal. There will be an inquiry that may result in your termination. At the very least, you'll be reassigned back to Traffic."

  Dismay flooded Poitier's face. "But--"

  "And you, Captain Rhyme, you are leaving the Bahamas immediately. My officers here will escort you to the airport, along with your associates. Your belongings will be collected from your motel and given to you there. We have already called the airline. You have seats on a flight that leaves in two hours. You'll be in custody until then. And you, Corporal, you will surrender your weapon and your identification at headquarters."

  "Yes, sir."

  But suddenly Ron Pulaski strode forward and confronted the assistant commissioner, who was easily twice his weight and several inches taller. "No," the young patrolman said.

  "I beg your pardon?"

  The young officer said firmly, "We're going to spend the night at our motel. Leave in the morning."

  "What?" McPherson blinked.

  "We are not leaving tonight."

  "That's not acceptable, Officer Pulaski."

  "Lincoln nearly died. He's not getting on an airplane until he's had some rest."

  "You've committed crimes--"

  Pulaski unholstered his phone. "Should we call the embassy and discuss the matter with them? Of course, I'd have to mention what we're doing down here, the specific crime we're investigating."

  Silence, except for the clang of the mysterious machinery in the factory behind them and the lapping of the shimmering waves.

  The brass glowered. "All right," McPherson muttered. "But you take the first flight in the morning. You'll be escorted to your motel and confined to your room until then."

  Rhyme said, "Thank you, Commissioner. I appreciate it. I apologize for any difficulties I've caused your force. Good luck with this case. And with the murder investigation of the American student." He looked at Poitier. "And again, I'm sorry to you too, Corporal."

  Five minutes later Rhyme, Thom and Pulaski were in the Ford van, leaving the spit, with a police escort behind them to make sure they arrived--and stayed put--at their motel. The two large officers in the squad car were unsmiling and wary. Rhyme in fact didn't mind their presence; after all, the trio from the gold Mercury was still at large.

  "Goddamn good job, rookie."

  "Better than competent?"

  "You exceeded competence."

  The young officer laughed. "I had a hunch you needed to buy some time."

  "That's exactly right. I liked the embassy part, by the way."

  "Improvising. So what do we do next?"

  "We let the bread bake," Rhyme said cryptically. "And see if we can't rustle up some of this Bahamian rum I've been hearing about."

  CHAPTER 44

  INTO THE PARLOR OF THE TOWN HOUSE, the laboratory, Amelia Sachs carted a milk crate containing the evidence from the Lydia Foster crime scene.

  "Did Lincoln call?" she asked Mel Cooper, who eyed the crate with interest.

  "Nope, not a word."

  Cooper, the expert lab man, was now officially on board, thanks to a call by Lon Sellitto and Captain Myers, to arrange for his reassignment to the Rhyme Precinct. Cooper, an NYPD detective, was balding and diminutive and wore thick Harry Potter glasses that never seemed to remain exactly perched where they should be. You would think his off-hours life
would be filled with math puzzles and Scientific American but his leisure time was largely taken with ballroom dancing competitions, with his stunningly gorgeous Scandinavian girlfriend, a mathematics professor at Columbia University.

  Nance Laurel was at her desk. The woman glanced blankly at the physical evidence, then back to the policewoman, and Sachs didn't know if this was a greeting or a symptom of one of the pauses before she spoke.

  Sachs offered grimly, "I got it wrong. There're two perps." She explained about her erroneous assumption. "I was following the sniper. The man who killed Lydia Foster's somebody else."

  "Who do you think?" Cooper asked.

  "Bruns's backup."

  "Or a specialist hired by Metzger to clean up," Laurel said. It seemed to Sachs that her voice brightened at this. Good news for the case, good news for the jury--that their primary suspect would order one of his officers to do something so heartless. Not a word of sympathy for the victim, not a frown of concern.

  Sachs truly hated the woman at this moment.

  She continued, pointedly speaking only to Mel Cooper, "Lon's agreed to keep it a motive-unknown case for the time being--like the IED at the Java Hut's still officially a gas main explosion. I thought it was better not to let Metzger know how the investigation's going."

  Laurel was nodding. "Good."

  Sachs stared at the whiteboards then began to revise them in light of what they'd learned. "Let's give Lydia Foster's killer the title Unsub Five Sixteen. After today's date."

  Laurel asked, "Anything more about the ID of the shooter, the man you followed to NIOS?"

  "No. Lon's got a surveillance team on him. They'll call as soon as they make an ID."

  Another pause. Laurel said, "I'm just curious: Did you think about getting his fingerprints?"

  "His--"

  "When you were following the sniper downtown? The reason I'm asking is I was working a case once and an undercover detective dropped a glossy magazine. The subject picked it up for her. We got his prints."

  "Well," Sachs said evenly, "I didn't."

  Because if I had done that we'd have his fucking ID by now. Which we don't.

  An impenetrably cryptic nod from Laurel.

  Just curious...

  That was as irritating as "if you don't mind."

  Sachs turned away from her, wincing slightly, and handed off the evidence from the Lydia Foster crime scene to Mel Cooper, who regarded the slim pickings with the same dismay that Sachs felt.