The Coffin Dancer

by Jeffery Deaver

  An hour later Amelia Sachs was back. She held up a plastic bag containing a pair of wire cutters.

  "Found them near the chain-link. The guard must've surprised the Dancer and he dropped them."

  "Yes!" Rhyme shouted. "I've never known him to make a mistake like that. Maybe he is getting careless . . . I wonder what's spooking him."

  Rhyme glanced at the cutters. Please, he prayed silently, let there be a print.

  But a groggy Mel Cooper--he'd been sleeping in one of the smaller bedrooms upstairs--went over every square millimeter of the tool. Not a print to be found.

  "Does it tell us anything?" Rhyme asked.

  "It's a Craftsman model, top of the line, sold in every Sears around the country. And you can pick them up in garage sales and junkyards for a couple bucks."

  Rhyme wheezed in disgust. He gazed at the clippers for a moment then asked, "Tool marks?"

  Cooper looked at him curiously. Tool marks are distinctive impressions left at crime scenes by the tools criminals used--screwdrivers, pliers, lock picks, crowbars, slim jims, and the like. Rhyme had once linked a burglar to a crime scene solely on the basis of a tiny V notch on a brass lock plate. The notch matched an imperfection in a chisel found on the man's workbench. Here, though, they had the tool, not any marks it might have made. Cooper didn't understand what tool marks Rhyme might be referring to.

  "I'm talking about marks on the blade," he said impatiently. "Maybe the Dancer's been cutting something distinctive, something that might tell us where he's holing up."

  "Oh." Cooper examined it closely. "It's nicked, but take a look . . . Do you see anything unusual?"

  Rhyme didn't. "Scrape the blade and handle. See if there's any residue."

  Cooper ran the scrapings through the gas-chromatograph.

  "Phew," he muttered as he read the results. "Listen to this. Residue of RDX, asphalt, and rayon."

  "Detonating cord," Rhyme said.

  "He cut it with clippers?" Sachs asked. "You can do that?"

  "Oh, it's stable as clothesline," Rhyme said absently, picturing what a thousand gallons of flaming gasoline would do to the neighborhood around the Twentieth Precinct.

  I should've made them leave, he was thinking, Percey and Brit Hale. Put them into protective custody and sent them to Montana until the grand jury. This is damn nuts what I'm doing, this trap idea.

  "Lincoln?" Sellitto asked. "We've got to find that truck."

  "We've got a little time," Rhyme said. "He's not going to try to get in until the morning. He needs the cover story of a delivery. Anything else, Mel? Anything in the trace?"

  Cooper scanned the vacuum filter. "Dirt and brick. Wait . . . here're some fibers. Should I GC them?"

  "Yes."

  The tech hunched over the screen as the results came up. "Okay, okay, it's vegetable fiber. Consistent with paper. And I'm reading a compound . . . NH four OH."

  "Ammonium hydroxide," Rhyme said.

  "Ammonia?" Sellitto asked. "Maybe you're wrong about the fertilizer bomb."

  "Any oil?" Rhyme asked.

  "None."

  Rhyme asked, "The fiber with the ammonia--was it from the handle of the clipper?"

  "No. It was on the clothes of the guard he beat up."

  Ammonia? Rhyme wondered. He asked Cooper to look at one of the fibers through the scanning electron microscope. "High magnification. How's the ammonia attached?"

  The screen clicked on. The strand of fiber appeared like a tree trunk.

  "Heat fused, I'd guess."

  Another mystery. Paper and ammonia . . .

  Rhyme looked at the clock. It was 2:40 A.M.

  Suddenly he realized Sellitto had asked him a question. He cocked his head.

  "I said," the detective repeated, "should we start evacuating everybody around the precinct? I mean, better now than wait till it's closer to the time he might attack."

  For a long moment Rhyme gazed at the bluish tree trunk of fiber on the screen of the SEM. Then he said abruptly, "Yes. We have to get everybody out. Evacuate the buildings around the station house. Let's think--the four apartments on either side and across the street."

  "That many?" Sellitto asked, giving a faint laugh. "You think we really gotta do that?"

  Rhyme looked up at the detective and said, "No, I've changed my mind. The whole block. We've got to evacuate the whole block. Immediately. And get Haumann and Dellray over here. I don't care where they are. I want them now."

  . . . Chapter Seventeen

  Hour 22 of 45

  Some of them had slept.

  Sellitto in an armchair, waking more rumpled than ever, his hair askew. Cooper downstairs.

  Sachs had apparently spent the night on a couch downstairs or in the other bedroom on the first floor. No interest in the Clinitron anymore.

  Thom, himself bleary, was hovering, a dear busybody, taking Rhyme's blood pressure. The smell of coffee filled the town house.

  It was just after dawn and Rhyme was staring at the evidence charts. They'd been up till four, planning their strategy for snagging the Dancer--and responding to the legion of complaints about the evacuation.

  Would this work? Would the Dancer step into their trap? Rhyme believed so. But there was another question, one that Rhyme didn't like to think about but couldn't avoid. How bad would springing the trap be? The Dancer was deadly enough on his own territory. What would he be like when he was cornered?

  Thom brought coffee around and they looked over Dellray's tactical map. Rhyme, back in the Storm Arrow, rolled into position and studied it too.

  "Everybody in place?" he asked Sellitto and Dellray.

  Both Haumann's 32-E teams and Dellray's federal pickup band of Southern and Eastern District FBI SWAT officers were ready. They'd moved in under cover of night, through sewers and basements and over rooftops, in full urban camouflage; Rhyme was convinced that the Dancer was surveilling his target.

  "He won't be sleeping tonight," Rhyme had said.

  "You sure he's going in this way, Linc?" Sellitto'd asked uncertainly.

  Sure? he thought testily. Who can be sure about anything with the Coffin Dancer?

  His deadliest weapon is deception . . .

  Rhyme said wryly, "Ninety-two point seven percent sure."

  Sellitto snorted a sour laugh.

  It was then that the doorbell rang. A moment later a stocky, middle-aged man Rhyme didn't recognize appeared in the doorway of the living room.

  The sigh from Dellray suggested trouble brewing. Sellitto knew the man too, it seemed, and nodded cautiously.

  He identified himself as Reginald Eliopolos, assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District. Rhyme recalled he was the prosecutor handling the Phillip Hansen case.

  "You're Lincoln Rhyme? Hear good things about you. Uh-huh. Uh-huh." He started forward, automatically offering his hand. Then he realized that the extended arm was wasted on Rhyme, so he simply pointed it toward Dellray, who shook it reluctantly. Eliopolos's cheerful "Fred, good to see you" meant just the opposite and Rhyme wondered what was the source of the cold fusion between them.

  The attorney ignored Sellitto and Mel Cooper. Thom instinctively sensed what was what and didn't offer the visitor coffee.

  "Uh-huh, uh-huh. Hear you've got quite an operation together. Not checking too much with the boys upstairs, but, hell, I know all about improvising. Sometimes you just can't spend time waiting for signatures in triplicate." Eliopolos walked up to a compound 'scope, peered through the eyepiece. "Uh-huh," he said, though what he might be seeing was a mystery to Rhyme since the stage light was off.

  "Maybe--" Rhyme began.

  "The chase? Cut to the chase?" Eliopolos swung around. "Sure. Here it is. There's an armored van at the Federal Building downtown. I want the witnesses in the Hansen case in it within the hour. Percey Clay and Brit Hale. They'll be taken to the Shoreham federal protective reserve, on Long Island. They'll be kept there until their grand jury testimony late on Monday. Period. End of chase. How's tha
t?"

  "You think that's a wise idea?"

  "Uh-huh, we do. We think it's wiser than using them as bait for some kind of personal vendetta by the NYPD."

  Sellitto sighed.

  Dellray said, "Open your eyes little bit here, Reggie. You're not exactly out of the loop. Do I see a joint operation? Do I see a task-forced operation?"

  "And a good thing too," Eliopolos said absently. His full attention was on Rhyme. "Tell me, did you really think that nobody downtown would remember that this was the perp killed your techs five years ago?"

  Well, uh-huh, Rhyme had hoped that nobody would remember. And now that somebody had, he and the team were swimming in the soup pot.

  "But, hey, hey," the attorney said with jolly cheer, "I don't want a turf war. Do I want that? Why would I want that? What I want is Phillip Hansen. What everybody wants is Hansen. Remember? He's the big fish."

  As a matter of fact Rhyme had largely forgotten about Phillip Hansen and now that he'd been reminded he understood exactly what Eliopolos was doing. And the insight troubled him a great deal.

  Rhyme snuck around Eliopolos like a coyote. "You've got yourself some good agents out there, do you," he asked innocently, "who'll protect the witnesses?"

  "At Shoreham?" the attorney responded uncertainly. "Well, you bet we do. Uh-huh."

  "You've briefed them about security? About how dangerous the Dancer is?" Innocent as a babe.

  A pause. "I've briefed them."

  "And what exactly are their orders?"

  "Orders?" Eliopolos asked lamely. He wasn't a stupid man. He knew that he'd been caught.

  Rhyme laughed. He glanced at Sellitto and Dellray. "See, our U.S. attorney friend here has three witnesses he hopes can nail Hansen."

  "Three?"

  "Percey, Hale . . . and the Dancer himself," Rhyme scoffed. "He wants to capture him so he'll turn evidence." He looked at Eliopolos. "So you're using Percey as bait too."

  "Only," Dellray chuckled, "he's putting her in a Havaheart trap. Got it, got it."

  "You're thinking," Rhyme said, "that your case against Hansen's not so good, whatever Percey and Hale saw."

  Mr. Uh-huh tried sincerity. "They saw him ditch some goddamn evidence. Hell, they didn't even actually see him do that. If we find the duffel bags and they link him to the killings of those two soldiers last spring, fine, we've got a case. Maybe. But, A, we might not find the bags, and, B, the evidence inside them might be damaged."

  Then, C, call me, Rhyme thought. I can find evidence in the clear night wind.

  Sellitto said, "But you get Hansen's hit man alive, he can dime his boss."

  "Exactly." Eliopolos crossed his arms the way he must have done in court when he was delivering closing statements.

  Sachs had been listening from the doorway. She asked the question Rhyme had just been about to. "And what would you plea the Dancer out to?"

  Eliopolos asked, "Who're you?"

  "Officer Sachs. IRD."

  "It's not really a crime scene tech's place to question--"

  "Then I'm asking the fuckin' question," Sellitto barked, "and if I don't get an answer, the mayor's gonna be asking it too."

  Eliopolos had a political career ahead of him, Rhyme supposed. And a successful one, most likely. He said, "It's important that we successfully prosecute Hansen. He's the greater of the two evils. The more potential for harm."

  "That's a pretty answer," Dellray said, scrunching up his face. "But it don't do a thing for the question. What're you gonna agree to give the Dancer if he snitches on Hansen?"

  "I don't know," the attorney said evasively. "That hasn't been discussed."

  "Ten years in medium security?" Sachs muttered.

  "It hasn't been discussed."

  Rhyme was thinking about the trap that they'd planned so carefully until 4 A.M. If Percey and Hale were moved now, the Dancer would learn of it. He'd regroup. He'd find out they were at Shoreham and, against guards with orders to take him alive, he'd waltz in, kill Percey and Hale--and a half dozen U.S. marshals--and leave.

  The attorney began, "We don't have much time--"

  Rhyme interrupted with, "You have paper?"

  "I was hoping you'd be willing to cooperate."

  "We aren't."

  "You're a civilian."

  "I'm not," said Sellitto.

  "Uh-huh. I see." He looked at Dellray but didn't even bother asking the agent whose side he was on. The attorney said, "I can get an order to show cause for protective custody in three or four hours."

  On Sunday morning? Rhyme thought. Uh-uh. "We're not releasing them," he said. "Do what you have to do."

  Eliopolos smiled a smile in his round bureaucratic face. "I should tell you that if this perp dies in any attempt to collar him I will personally be reviewing the shooting committee report, and it is a distinct possibility that I'll conclude that proper orders on the use of deadly force in an arrest situation were not given by supervisory personnel." He looked at Rhyme. "There could also be issues of interference by civilians with federal law enforcement activity. That could lead to major civil litigation. I just want you to be forewarned."

  "Thanks," Rhyme said breezily. "'Preciate it."

  When he was gone, Sellitto crossed himself. "Jesus, Linc, you hear him. He said major civil litigation."

  "My my my . . . Speaking for myself, minor litigation woulda scared this boy plenty," Dellray chimed in.

  They laughed.

  Then Dellray stretched and said, "A pisser what's going round. You hear 'bout it, Lincoln? That bug?"

  "What's that?"

  "Been infecting a lotta folk lately. My SWAT boys and me're out on some operation or other and what happens but they come down with this nasty twitch in their trigger fingers."

  Sellitto, a much worse actor than the agent, said broadly, "You too? I thought it was just our folks at ESU."

  "But listen," said Fred Dellray, the Alec Guinness of street cops. "I got a cure. All you gotta do is kill yourself a mean asshole, like this Dancer fella, he so much as looks cross-eyed at you. That always works." He flipped open his phone. "Think I'll call in and make sure my boys and girls remember 'bout that medicine. I'm gonna do that right now."

  . . . Chapter Eighteen

  Hour 22 of 45

  Waking in the gloomy safe house at dawn, Percey Clay rose from her bed and walked to the window. She drew aside the curtain and looked out at the gray monotonous sky. A slight mist was in the air.

  Close to minimums, she estimated. Wind 090 at five knots. Quarter mile visibility. She hoped the weather cleared for the flight tonight. Oh, she could fly in any weather--and had. Anyone with an IFR ticket--instrument flight rules rating--could take off, fly, and land in dense overcast. (In fact, with their computers, transponders, radar, and collision avoidance systems, most commercial airliners could fly themselves--even setting down for a perfect, hands-free landing.) But Percey liked to fly in clear weather. She liked to see the ground pass by beneath her. The lights at night. The clouds. And above her the stars.

  All the stars of evening . . .

  She thought again of Ed and her call to his mother in New Jersey last night. They'd made plans for his memorial service. She wanted to think some more about it, work on the guest list, plan the reception.

  But she couldn't. Her mind was preoccupied with Lincoln Rhyme.

  Recalling the conversation they'd had yesterday behind closed doors in his bedroom--after the fight with that officer Amelia Sachs.

  She'd sat next to Rhyme in an old armchair. He'd studied her for a moment, looking her up and down. A curious sensation came over her. His wasn't a personal perusal--not the way men looked over some women (not her, of course) in bars or on the street. It was the way a senior pilot might study her before their first flight together. Checking her authority, her demeanor, her quickness of thought. Her courage.

  She'd pulled her flask from her pocket but Rhyme had shaken his head and suggested eighteen-year-old scotch. "Thom thinks I drink to
o much," he'd said. "Which I do. But what's life without vices, right?"

  She'd given a wan laugh. "My father's a purveyor."

  "Of booze? Or vice in general?"

  "Cigarettes. Executive with U.S. Tobacco in Richmond. Excuse me. They're not called that anymore. It's U.S. Consumer Products or something like that."

  There was a flutter of wings outside the window.

  "Oh." She'd laughed. "It's a tiercel."

  Rhyme had followed her gaze out the window. "A what?"

  "A male peregrine. Why's his aerie down here? They nest higher in the city."

  "I don't know. I woke up one morning and there they were. You know falcons?"

  "Sure."

  "Hunt with them?" he'd asked.

  "I used to. I had a tiercel I used for hunting partridge. I got him as an eyas."

  "What's that?"

  "A young bird in the nest. They're easier to train." She'd examined the nest carefully, a faint smile on her face. "But my best hunter was a haggard--a mature goshawk. Female. They're bigger than the males, better killers. Hard to work with. But she'd take anything--rabbit, hare, pheasant."

  "You still have her?"

  "Oh, no. One day, she was waiting on--that means hovering, looking for prey. Then she just changed her mind. Let a big fat pheasant get away. Flew into a thermal that took her hundreds of feet up. Disappeared into the sun. I staked bait for a month but she never came back."

  "She just vanished?"

  "Happens with haggards," she'd said, shrugging unsentimentally. "Hey, they're wild animals. But we had a good six months together." It was this falcon that had been the inspiration for the Hudson Air logo. She'd nodded toward the window. "You're lucky for the company. Have you named them?"

  Rhyme'd given a scornful laugh. "Not the kind of thing I'd do. Thom tried. I laughed him out of the room."

  "Is that Officer Sachs really going to arrest me?"

  "Oh, I think I can persuade her not to. Say, I have to tell you something."

  "Go ahead."

  "You have a choice to make, you and Hale. That's what I wanted to talk to you about."

  "Choice?"

  "We can get you out of town. To a witness protection facility. With the right evasive maneuvers I'm pretty sure we can lose the Dancer and keep you safe for the grand jury."

  "But?" she'd asked.

  "But he'll keep after you. And even after the grand jury you'll still be a threat to Phillip Hansen because you'll have to testify at trial. That could be months away."