More Twisted: Collected Stories, Vol. II

suspicious right away.”

She shook her head.

Rhyme explained, “Amelia found it on the balcony. I remembered seeing the Larkin Energy logo on the doormat in front of the town house when Amelia got there to search the scene. And I remembered that coir fibers are used in making rugs and mats. She checked later and found out the fiber did come from the same mat.

“Now, how did the fiber get from the doormat to the balcony? It couldn’t’ve been when you and Ron arrived at the house together last night. You said you hadn’t been on the balcony. And obviously you hadn’t been there for a long time — otherwise you would’ve watered the houseplants. Same for any caretakers. The mysterious killer? Would he have wiped his feet on the doormat on a busy street then walked around to the back of the building, climbed the rope to the balcony? Didn’t make sense. So,” he repeated dramatically, “how did the fiber get there?

“I’ll tell you, Kitty: You picked it up from the mat on your shoe when you got in from the airport. And you left it on the balcony early this morning when you stepped outside to kill Ron.”

She blinked, shaking her head no, but Rhyme could see from the dismay in her face that the words struck close to home. She’d thought of almost everything. But as Locard might’ve said, Almost isn’t good enough when it comes to evidence.

“Then the other clues on the balcony? The steroid, the rubber, the lint, sand and dirt with the diesel traces, the hairs. I suspected they were planted by you to support your story of the bodybuilding hit man. But proving it was something else. So I—”

It was then that Kitty, or whatever her name was, stiffened. “God, no. It’s him! He’s going to—”

Rhyme swiveled around in the chair to see a green Jeep Cherokee pull up and double-park next to them. Climbing out was a solidly built man with a crew cut, wearing a conservative suit. He snapped closed a cell phone and walked toward them.

“No!” Kitty cried.

“Captain,” the man said, nodding at Rhyme. The criminalist was amused that Jed Carter insisted on using Rhyme’s rank when he was with the NYPD.

Carter was a freelance security consultant for companies doing business in Africa and the Middle East. Rhyme had met him on that Brooklyn illegal arms case a few months ago, when the former mercenary soldier had helped the FBI and the NYPD take down the principal gunrunner. Carter was humorless and stiff — and surely had a past Rhyme didn’t want to know too much about — but he’d proved invaluable in nailing the perp. (He also seemed eager to make amends for some of his own past missions in Third World countries.)

Carter shook Sellitto’s hand, then the tactical officer’s. He nodded respectfully to Amelia Sachs.

“What is this?” Kitty gasped.

Sachs said, “Like Lincoln was saying, we suspected you but we ran your prints and you weren’t on file anywhere.”

“Will be soon, though,” Sellitto pointed out cheerfully.

“So we didn’t have enough proof to get a search warrant.”

“Not on the basis of one fiber. So I enlisted the help of Mr. Carter here — and Agent Sedgwick.”

Norma, from State Department security, worked regularly with Fred Dellray. He’d contacted her and explained that they’d needed someone to play bodyguard and to help them fake an assault. She’d agreed. They’d arranged the undercover set for Madison Square Park, along with an officer from Patrol, in hopes that they’d find some more of the trace that Rhyme suspected was planted. If so, it had to come from Kitty and would place her on the balcony, justifying a search warrant.

But his idea didn’t work. Sachs searched Madison Square Park around where Kitty had lain, as well as the Lincoln, inside and out, but she could find none of the planted evidence or any trace linking her to the weapon.

So they’d tried once more. Rhyme decided that they needed to search her suitcases. Sachs called Norma about a tracking device that the supposed killer had planted. While Norma pretended to find one under the car — it was her Olay skin cream jar — Kitty had dumped the contents of her suitcases out into the backseat to look for the device.

After Sachs dropped them off at the hotel, she returned immediately to the sedan and searched the hell out of it. She found traces of the steroid, a bit more of the diesel-laden sand and dirt and another grain of rice. Ironically, it turned out the rice husk in the rope and the grain of rice in the State Department sedan weren’t from any shipments of food to Africa. Their source was a spoonful of dried rice in a lace ball tied with a silver ribbon, a souvenir from Kitty’s and Ron’s wedding. The woman had neglected to take it out of her suitcase.

Rhyme added, “Detective Sellitto went to the courthouse, got a warrant and a wiretap.”

“A tap?” Kitty whispered.

“Yep. On your cell.”

“Shit.” Kitty closed her eyes, a bitter grimace on her face.

“Oh, yeah,” Sellitto muttered. “We got the asshole who hired you.”

It wasn’t a warlord, vengeful employee, Third World dictator or corrupt CEO who wanted Ron and his brother dead. And it wasn’t the Reverend John Markel — briefly a suspect because of the fleck of leather at the Madison Square scene, possibly shed by a Bible.

No, Robert Kelsey, the operations director of the foundation, was whom she’d called an hour ago. When he’d learned that Ron Larkin was thinking of merging with several other foundations, Kelsey knew there’d be a complete audit of the operation and it would be discovered that he’d been taking money from warlords and corrupt government officials in Africa in exchange for information about where the ship containing food and drugs would be docking.

Oh, yeah. We lose fifteen, twenty percent a year of our African donations to theft and hijacking. Tens of millions….

He had to kill them, he reasoned, to stop any mergers.

Kelsey had confessed, in exchange for an agreement not to seek the death penalty. But he swore he didn’t know Kitty’s real identity. Sachs and Sellitto believed him; Kitty wasn’t a stupid woman, and she’d have to operate through a number of anonymous identities.

That’s why Rhyme had called Carter not long ago, to see if the former mercenary could learn more about her. The man now said, “I’ve been speaking to some of my associates in Marseilles, Bahrain and Cape Town, Captain. They’re asking about her now. They think it won’t take too long to get an ID. I mean, she’s not exactly your typical merc.”

Amen, thought Lincoln Rhyme.

“This is a mistake,” Kitty growled at Rhyme. Which could be interpreted to mean either he was erroneous or that stopping her was foolhardy and dangerous.

Whatever the message, her opinion meant nothing to him.

Lon Sellitto escorted her to a squad car and got in his own Crown Victoria. The entourage headed downtown to Central Booking.

Soon all the tactical officers were gone. Jed Carter promised he’d call as soon as he heard about anyone who fit Kitty’s description. “Good-bye, Captain. Ma’am.” He ambled off to his green Jeep.

Rhyme and Sachs were alone on the street. “Okay,” he said, meaning, Let’s get home. He wanted the Glenmorangie whisky Thom had denied him in anticipation of the operation here. (“It’s not like I’m going to be fighting anybody hand-to-hand.” Still, as often, the aide won.)

He asked Sachs to call Thom now; he was parked up the street in Rhyme’s custom-made van.

But Sachs frowned. “Oh, we can’t leave yet.”

“Why?”

“There’re some people who want to meet you. Ron Larkin’s brother and family.” They had been ushered into an upstairs bedroom with armed guards as soon as Kitty had arrived. She glanced at the third-floor window and waved at the faces of a middle-aged couple looking down at Rhyme and Sachs at the moment.

“Do we have to?”

“You saved their lives, Rhyme.”

“Isn’t that enough? I have to make small talk too?”