“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 them 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 acerbically, “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.
Thom found the Avis office via GPS and steered in that direction. Just a few minutes later, though, he said uncertainly, “Lincoln.”
“What?”
“Somebody’s following us. I’m sure of it.”
“Don’t look back, rookie!” Rhyme didn’t spend much time in the field any longer, for obvious reasons, but when he’d been active he had frequently worked “hot” crime scenes—those where the perp might still be lingering, for the purposes of learning which cops were on the case and what leads they were finding, or sometimes even trying to kill the officers right then. The instincts he’d honed over the years of working scenes like that were still active. And rule one was don’t let anybody know you’re on to them.
Thom continued, “A car was oncoming but as soon as we passed, it made a U. I didn’t think much of it at first but we’ve been taking a pretty winding path and it’s still there.”
“Describe it.”
“Gold Mercury, black vinyl top. Ten years or older, I’d guess.”
The age of many cars here.
The aide glanced in the mirror. “Two, no, three people inside. Black males. Late twenties or thirties. T-shirts, one gray, one green, short-sleeved. One sleeveless yellow. Can’t make out their faces.”
“You sound just like a patrol officer, Thom.” Rhyme shrugged. “Just police keeping an eye on us. That commissioner—McPherson—isn’t very happy we strangers’ve come to town.”
Thom squinted into the rearview mirror. “I don’t think they’re cops, Lincoln.”
“Why not?”
“The driver’s got earrings and the guy next to him’s in dreads.”
“Undercover.”
“And they’re passing a joint back and forth.”
“Okay. Probably not.”
CHAPTER 33
FEW THINGS ARE MORE REPULSIVE than the chemical smoke aftermath of an IED plastic explosive detonation.
Amelia Sachs could smell it, taste it. She shivered from the cloying assault.
And then there was the ringing in her ears.
Sachs was standing in front of what remained of Java Hut, waiting—impatiently—for the Bomb Squad officers to make their rounds. She would run the crime scene search herself but the explosives experts from the Sixth Precinct in Greenwich Village always did the first post-blast sweep to check for secondary, delayed devices, intended to take out rescue workers. This was a common technique, at least in countries where bombs were just another means of making a political statement. Maybe Don Bruns had learned his skills abroad.
Sachs snapped her fingers next to each ear and was pleased to find that over the tinnitus ring she could hear pretty well.
What had saved her life and those of the coffee drinkers had at first made her laugh.
She and Jerry, the inked manager of Java Hut, had gone into the small, dimly lit office, where the store’s computer was located. They’d pulled up chairs and he’d bent forward, entering a passcode on the old Windows system.
“Here’s the program for the security video.” Jerry had loaded it and then showed her the commands for reviewing the .mpg files, how to rewind and fast-forward, how to capture stills and write clips to separate files for uploading or copying to a flash drive.
“Got it, thanks.”
She’d scooted forward and looked closely at the screen, which was divided into quadrants, one scene for each camera: two were of the floor of the shop, one of the cash register, one of the office.
She had just started scrolling back in time from today to May 11—the date the whistleblower had leaked the STO from here—when she noticed a scene of a man in the office where they now sat, walking forward.
Wait. Something was odd. She’d paused the video.
What was off about this?
Oh, sure, that was it. She’d laughed. In all the other scenes, because she was scrolling in reverse, people were moving backward. But on the office video, the man was moving forward, which meant that in real time he had been backing out of the office.
Why would anyone do that?
She
’d pointed it out to the manager, who hadn’t, however, shared her smile. “Look at the time stamp. That was just ten minutes ago. And I don’t know who he is. He doesn’t work here.”
The man was trim, with short hair, it seemed, under a baseball cap. He wore a windbreaker-style jacket and carried a small backpack.
Jerry had risen and walked to the back door. He’d tried it. “It’s open. Hell, we’ve been broken into!”
Sachs scrolled back farther, then played the video forward. They saw the man come into the office, try to log on to the computer several times and then struggle to pick it up, only to be stymied by the steel bars securing it to the floor. Then he’d glanced at the monitor and must have noticed that he was being filmed. Rather than turn and face the security camera, he’d backed out of the office.
She knew it had to be the sniper.
Somehow he too had learned about the whistleblower and had come here to see if he could find the man’s identity. He must’ve heard her and Jerry approach. Sachs had run the tape again, noting this time that before he left he seemed to place a small object behind the computer. What—?
Oh, hell, no!
He’d left an IED—that’s what he’d planted behind the computer. He couldn’t steal it; so he’d destroy the Dell. Try to disarm or not? No, he’d have set it to detonate at any minute. “Out, everybody out!” she’d cried. “Bomb. There’s a bomb! Clear the place. Everybody out!”
“But that’s—”
Sachs had grabbed Jerry by his ideogramed arm and dragged him into the restaurant, calling for the baristas, dishwasher and customers to flee. She’d held up her badge. “NYPD, evacuate now! There’s a gas leak!”
Too complicated to explain about bombs.
The device had blown just as she’d shoved the last customer out the door, a contrary young student whining that he hadn’t gotten his refill yet.
Sachs had still been inside when she’d felt the detonation in her chest and ears and, through the floor, her feet. Two plate-glass windows had shattered and much of the interior flew into pieces. Instantly the place had been enveloped by that vile, greasy smoke. She’d leapt through the door but stayed upright, sure that if she’d dived to the concrete—à la that clichéd scene in thriller movies—her knee would never forgive her.
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