“So much the better for us. Whatever’s inside has been trapped nice and tight since he tied them.”
“
“I like that, Mel. It sums up the whole business of crime scene work, wouldn’t you say?”
When Rhyme had lived alone, the front parlor of his town house — across the hall from the lab — had been used as a storeroom. But now that Sachs was living here part of the time she and Thom had redecorated, turned it into a comfortable living room.
There were contemporary Asian paintings and silk screens, from NoHo and East Village galleries, a large portrait of Houdini (a present from a woman they’d worked with on a case some years ago), a Blue Dog print, two large flower arrangements and comfortable furniture imported all the way from New Jersey.
On the mantel rested pictures of Sachs’s father and mother and of her as a teenage girl, peeking out from under the hood of a ’68 Dodge Charger she and her father worked on for months before finally admitting to themselves that the patient was terminal.
And her history wasn’t the only one represented in the parlor.
She’d sent Thom on a mission into the basement of the town house where he’d rummaged through boxes and returned with framed decorations and citations from Rhyme’s days with the NYPD. Personal photographs, as well. Several of them showed Rhyme during his Illinois childhood, with his parents and other relatives. One was of the boy and his folks in front of their house, beside a large blue sedan. The parents smiled at the camera. Lincoln was smiling as well, but his was a different expression — one of curiosity — and the eyes were looking to the side at something off camera.
One snapshot depicted a slim, intense, teenage Lincoln. He was wearing a school track uniform.
Thom now opened the front door and ushered three people into the room: Lon Sellitto, as well as a portly sixtyish man in a gray suit and minister’s collar and, gripping his arm, a woman with pale skin and eyes as red as her hair. She had no reaction to the wheelchair.
“Mrs. Larkin,” the criminalist said. “I’m Lincoln Rhyme. This is Amelia Sachs.”
“Call me Kitty, please.” She nodded a greeting.
“John Markel,” the reverend said and shook Sachs’s hand, gave a sallow smile to Rhyme.
He explained that his diocese, on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, operated several charities in the Sudan and Liberia and ran a school in the Congo. “Ron and I have worked together for years. We were going to have lunch today, about our work over there.” He sighed and shook his head. “Then I heard the news.”
He’d hurried to the hospital to be with Kitty and then said he’d accompany her here.
“You don’t have to stay, John,” the widow said. “But thank you for coming.”
“Edith and I want you to spend the night with us. We don’t want you alone,” the man said.
“Oh, thank you, John, but I should be with Ron’s brother and his family. And his son too.”
“I understand. But if you need anything, please call.”
She nodded and embraced him.
Before he left, Sachs asked the minister if he had any ideas about who the killer might be. The question caught him off guard. “Killing someone like Ron Larkin? It’s inexplicable. I’d have no idea who’d want him dead.”
Thom saw the minister out, and Kitty sat on a couch. The aide returned a moment later with a tray of coffee. Kitty took a cup but didn’t sip any. She let it sit between her clasped hands.
Sachs nodded at the large bandage on her forearm. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” she said, as if the only pain came from speaking. She stared at her arm. “The doctor said it was part of one of the bullets. It broke apart.” She looked up. “It might have been from the one that killed Ron. I don’t know what to think about that.”
Rhyme deferred to Sachs, who had more people skills than he, and the detective asked her about the shooting.
Kitty and her husband had been traveling around the country to meet with the heads of companies and other not-for-profits. Last night they’d flown in from Atlanta, where they’d been meeting with one of the suppliers the charity was purchasing baby formula from. The limo had picked them up at LaGuardia and then taken them to the town house, around midnight.
“The car dropped us off. We went inside and went to bed right away — it was late, we were exhausted. Then early this morning I heard something. It woke me up. A shuffle, I don’t know. Or a scraping sound. I remember I was so tired I didn’t move. I just lay there with my eyes open.”
That probably saved her life, Rhyme reflected. If she’d rolled over or gotten out of bed, the killer would have shot her first.
Then she saw something on the balcony, the form of a man.
“At first I thought it was a window washer. I mean, I knew it couldn’t be but I was groggy and he looked like he was holding a squeegee. But it wasn’t that at all.”
The.32.
She heard glass breaking and pops, then her husband grunting.
“I screamed and rolled out of bed. I called nine-one-one. I didn’t even realize I’d been shot until later and I saw I was bleeding.”
Sachs drew her out and got some more information. The killer was a white man with dark curly hair, wearing some kind of dark clothes. He had broad shoulders.
Steroids…
The light, Kitty said, was too dim to see his face.
Recalling the HD images of the town house, Rhyme asked, “Did you happen to go out on the balcony when you got home? Was there anything unusual there? Any furniture moved?”
“No, we just went right to bed.”
Sachs asked, “How could the killer have found out you’d be there last night?”
“It was in the papers. We were here for several fund-raisers and to meet with the heads of other philanthropic foundations. The
Sellitto asked, “You have any thoughts about why he might’ve been killed?”
Her hands were knotted together. Rhyme wondered if she was going to break down. She took a breath and said, “I know he had enemies. When he was in Africa or the Far East he had a security detail. But here… I don’t know. It was all so new to me…. You might want to talk to his brother. I spoke to him this morning. He’s flying back from Kenya with his wife now. They’ll be here tonight. Or if you want to talk to somebody now, you could call Bob Kelsey. He was Ron’s right-hand man in the foundation. He’s pretty upset but he’d want to help.”
And with that her voice stopped working. She choked and began to sob.
Sachs looked at Rhyme, who nodded.
She said, “That’s all, Kitty. We don’t want to keep you any longer.”
Finally she controlled herself.
Thom walked into the room and gave her a Kleenex. She thanked him and wiped her face.
“Now,” Lon Sellitto said, “we’re going to have someone keep an eye on you.”
Kitty shook her head and gave a faint laugh. “I know I’m a little shaky. But I’ll be okay. I just… It’s all so overwhelming. I’ll stay with Ron’s brother when they get back. And I have family in the area too. Oh, and Ron’s son and his wife are flying back from China.” A deep breath. “That was the hardest call. His son.”
“Well, Mrs. Larkin, I’m talking about a bodyguard.”
“A… guard? Why?”
Sachs said, “You’re a material witness. He tried to kill you too. There’s a chance he might try again.”
“But I didn’t see anything, really.”
Rhyme pointed out, “He doesn’t know that.”
The policewoman said, “And there’s more to being a material witness than identifying the perp. You could testify as to the time the incident occurred, the sound of the shots, where he was standing, how he stood, how he held the gun. All those things can help convict him.”
“Well, we have security people in the company.”
Sellitto said, “Probably better to stick with a police officer, you know.”
