“Oh, goddamn it, Rhyme,” she muttered and started down the sidewalk at a run, leaving the doctor in midsentence.
She got to the front door of the townhouse just as Thom was closing it. She pushed past him. “Forgot my watchbook.”
“Your? -”
“Be right back.”
“You can’t go up there. He’s with his doctor.”
“I’ll just be a second.”
She was at the landing before Thom started after her.
He must have known it was a scam because he took the stairs two at a time. But she had a good lead and had shoved open Rhyme’s door before the aide got to the top of the stairs.
She pushed in, startling both Rhyme and the doctor, who was leaning against the table, arms crossed. She closed the door and locked it. Thom began pounding. Berger turned toward her with a frown of curiosity on his face.
“Sachs,” Rhyme blurted.
“I have to talk to you.”
“What about?”
“About you.”
“Later.”
“How much later, Rhyme?” she asked sarcastically. “Tomorrow? Next week?”
“What do you mean?”
“You want me to schedule a meeting for, maybe, a week from Wednesday? Will you be able to make it then? Will you be around?”
“Sachs -”
“I want to talk to you. Alone.”
“No.”
“Then we’ll do it the hard way.” She stepped up to Berger. “You’re under arrest. The charge is attempted assisted suicide.” And the handcuffs flashed, click, click, snapping onto his wrists in a silver blur.
She guessed the building was a church.
Carole Ganz lay in the basement, on the floor. A single shaft of cold, oblique light fell on the wall, illuminating a shabby picture of Jesus and a stack of mildewy Golden Book Bible stories. A half-dozen tiny chairs – for Sunday-school students, she guessed – were nested in the middle of the room.
The cuffs were still on and so was the gag. He’d also tied her to a pipe near the wall with a four-foot-long piece of clothesline.
On a tall table nearby she could see the top of a large glass jug.
If she could knock it off she might use a piece of glass to cut the clothesline. The table seemed out of reach but she rolled over onto her side and started to squirm, like a caterpillar, toward it.
This reminded her of Pammy when she was an infant, rolling on the bed between herself and Ron; she thought of her baby, alone in that horrible basement, and started to cry.
Pammy, Pooh, purse.
For a moment, for a brief moment, she weakened. Wished she’d never left Chicago.
No, stop thinking that way! Quit feeling sorry for yourself! This was the absolute right thing to do. You did it for Ron. And for yourself too. He’d be proud of you. Kate had told her that a thousand times, and she believed it.
Struggling once more. She moved a foot closer to the table.
Groggy, couldn’t think straight.
Her throat stung from the terrible thirst. And the mold and mildew in the air.
She crawled a little farther then lay on her side, catching her breath, staring up at the table. It seemed hopeless. What’s the use? she thought.
Wondering what was going through Pammy’s mind.
You fucker! thought Carole. I’ll kill you for this!
She squirmed, trying to move farther along the floor. But instead, she lost her balance and rolled onto her back. She gasped, knowing what was coming. No! With a loud pop, her wrist snapped. She screamed through the gag. Blacked out. When she came to a moment later she was overwhelmed with nausea.
No, no, no… If she vomited she’d die. With the gag on, that would be it.
Fight it down! Fight it. Come on. You can do it. Here I go… She retched once. Then again.
No! Control it.
Rising in her throat.
Control…
Control it…
And she did. Breathing through her nose, concentrating on Kate and Eddie and Pammy, on the yellow knapsack containing all her precious possessions. Seeing it, picturing it from every angle. Her whole life was in there. Her new life.
Ron, I don’t want to blow it. I came here for you, honey…
She closed her eyes. Thought: Breathe deep. In, out.
Finally, the nausea subsided. And a moment later she was feeling better and, though she was crying in pain from the snapped wrist, she managed to continue to caterpillar her way toward the table, one foot. Two.
She felt a thump as her head collided with the table leg. She’d just managed to connect with it and couldn’t move any farther. She swung her head back and forth and jostled the table hard. She heard the bottle slosh as it shifted on the tabletop. She looked up.
A bit of the jug was showing beyond the edge of the table. Carole drew back her head and hit the table leg one last time.
No! She’d knocked the leg out of reach. The jug teetered for a moment but stayed upright. Carole strained to get more slack from the clothesline but couldn’t.
Damn. Oh, damn! As she gazed hopelessly up at the filthy bottle she realized it was filled with a liquid and something floated inside. What is that?
She scrunched her way back toward the wall a foot or two and looked up.
It seemed like a lightbulb inside. No, not a whole bulb, just the filament and the base, screwed into a socket. A wire ran from the socket out of the jug to one of those timers that turn the lights on and off when you’re away on vacation. It looked like -
A bomb! Now she recognized the faintest whiff of gasoline.
No, no…
Carole began to squirm away from the table as fast as she could, sobbing in desperation. There was a filing cabinet by the wall. It’d give her some protection. She drew her legs up then felt a chill of panic and unwound them furiously. The motion knocked her off balance. She realized, to her horror, that she was rolling onto her back once more. Oh, stop. Don’t… She stayed poised, perfectly still, for a long moment, quivering as she tried to shift her weight forward. But then she continued to roll, collapsing onto her cuffed hand, her shattered wrist taking the weight of her body. There was a moment of incredible pain and, mercifully, she fainted once more.
TWENTY-FIVE
“NO WAY, RHYME. YOU CAN’T DO IT.”
Berger looked on uneasily. Rhyme supposed that in this line of work he’d seen all sorts of hysterical scenarios played out at moments like this. The biggest problem Berger’d have wasn’t those wanting to die but those who wanted everyone else to live.
Thom pounded on the door.
“Thom,” Rhyme called. “It’s all right. You can leave us.” Then to Sachs: “We’ve said our farewells. You and me. It’s bad form to ruin a perfect exit.”
“You can’t do this.”
Who’d blown the whistle? Pete Taylor maybe. The doctor must’ve guessed that he and Thom were lying.
Rhyme saw her eyes slip to the three items on the table. The gifts of the Magi: the brandy, the pills and the plastic bag. Also a rubber band, similar to the ones Sachs still wore on her shoes. (How many times had he come home from a crime scene to find Blaine staring at the bands on his shoes, horrified? “Everybody’ll think my husband can’t afford new shoes. He’s keeping the soles on with rubber bands. Honestly, Lincoln!”)
“Sachs, take the cuffs off the good doctor here. I’ll have to ask you to leave one last time.”
She barked a fast laugh. “Excuse me. This’s a crime in New York. The DA could bootstrap it into murder, he wanted to.”
Berger said, “I’m just having a conversation with a patient.”
“That’s why the charge’s only attempt. So far. Maybe we should run your name and prints through NCIC. See what we come up with.”
“Lincoln,” Berger said quickly, alarmed. “I can’t -”
“We’ll get it worked out,” Rhyme said. “Sachs, please.”