“What did you say?” Thom turned to face him.
“A blanket.”
“No, after that,” the aide said. “That word?”
“I don’t know. ‘Please’?”
Thom’s eyes went wide with alarm. “Are you all right? You want me to get Pete Taylor back here? The head of Columbia-Presbyterian? The surgeon general?”
“See how this son of a bitch torments me?” Rhyme said to Sachs. “He never knows how close he comes to getting fired.”
“A wake-up call for when?”
“Six-thirty should be fine,” Rhyme said.
When he was gone, Rhyme asked, “Hey, Sachs, you like music?”
“Love it.”
“What kind?”
“Oldies, doo-wop, Motown… How ’bout you? You seem like a classical kind of guy.”
“See that closet there?”
“This one?”
“No, no, the other one. To the right. Open it up.”
She did and gasped in amazement. The closet was a small room filled with close to a thousand CDs.
“It’s like Tower Records.”
“That stereo, see it on the shelf?”
She ran her hand over the dusty black Harmon Kardon.
“It cost more than my first car,” Rhyme said. “I don’t use it anymore.”
“Why not?”
He didn’t answer but said instead, “Put something on. Is it plugged in? It is? Good. Pick something.”
A moment later she stepped out of the closet and walked over to the couch as Levi Stubbs and the Four Tops started singing about love.
It had been a year since there’d been a note of music in this room, Rhyme estimated. Silently he tried to answer Sachs’s question about why he’d stopped listening. He couldn’t.
Sachs lifted files and books off the couch. Lay back on it and thumbed through a copy of Scenes of the Crime.
“Can I have one?” she asked.
“Take ten.”
“Will you…” Her voice braked to a halt.
“Sign it for you?” He laughed. She joined him. “How ’bout if I put my thumbprint on it? Graphoanalysts’ll never give you more than an eighty-five percent probability of a handwriting match. But a thumbprint? Any friction-ridge expert’ll certify it’s mine.”
He watched her read the first chapter. Her eyes drooped. She closed the book.
“Will you do something for me?” she asked.
“What?”
“Read to me. Something from the book. When Nick and I were together…” Her voice faded.
“What?”
“When we were together, a lot of times Nick’d read out loud before we went to sleep. Books, the paper, magazines… It’s one of the things I miss the most.”
“I’m a terrible reader,” Rhyme confessed. “I sound like I’m reciting crime scene reports. But I’ve got this memory… It’s pretty good. How ’bout if I just tell you about some scenes?”
“Would you?” She turned her back, pulled her navy blouse off and unstrapped the thin American Body Armor vest, tossed it aside. Beneath it she wore a mesh T-shirt and under that a sports bra. She pulled the blouse back on and lay on the couch, pulling the blanket over her, and curled up on her side, closed her eyes.
With the environmental control unit Rhyme dimmed the lights.
“I always found the sites of death fascinating,” he began. “They’re like shrines. We’re a lot more interested in where people bought the big one than where they were born. Take John Kennedy. A thousand people a day visit the Texas Book Depository in Dallas. How many you think make pilgrimages to some obstetrics ward in Boston?”
Rhyme nestled his head in the luxurious softness of the pillow. “Is this boring you?”
“No,” she said. “Please don’t stop.”
“You know what I’ve always wondered about, Sachs?”
“Tell me.”
“It’s fascinated me for years – Calvary. Two thousand years ago. Now, there’s a crime scene I’d like to’ve worked. I know what you’re going to say: But we know the perps. Well, do we? All we really know is what the witnesses tell us. Remember what I say – never trust a wit. Maybe those Bible accounts aren’t what happened at all. Where’s the proof? The PE. The nails, blood, sweat, the spear, the cross, the vinegar. Sandal prints and friction ridges.”
Rhyme turned his head slightly to the left and he continued to talk about crime scenes and evidence until Sachs’s chest rose and fell steadily and faint strands of her fiery red hair blew back and forth under her shallow breath. With his left index finger he flipped through the ECU control and shut off the light. He too was soon asleep.
A faint light of dawn was in the sky.
Awakening, Carole Ganz could see it through the chicken- wire- impregnated glass above her head. Pammy. Oh, baby… Then she thought of Ron. And all her possessions sitting in that terrible basement. The money, the yellow knapsack…
Mostly, though, she was thinking about Pammy.
Something had wakened her from a light, troubled sleep. What was it?
The pain from her wrist? It throbbed horribly. She adjusted herself slightly. She -
The tubular howl of a pipe organ and a rising chorus of voices filled the room again.
That’s what had wakened her. Music. A crashing wave of music. The church wasn’t abandoned. There were people around! She laughed to herself. Somebody would -
And that was when she remembered the bomb.
Carole peered around the filing cabinet. It was still there, teetering on the edge of the table. It had the crude look of real bombs and murder weapons – not the slick, shiny gadgets you see in movies. Sloppy tape, badly stripped wires, dirty gasoline… Maybe it’s a dud, she thought. In the daylight it didn’t look so dangerous.
Another burst of music. It came from directly over her head. Accompanied by a shuffling of footsteps. A door closed. Creaks and groans as people moved around the old, dry wood floors. Plumes of dust fell from the joists.
The soaring voices were cut off in mid-passage. A moment later they started singing again.
Carole banged with her feet but the floor was concrete, the walls brick. She tried to scream but the sound was swallowed by the gag. The rehearsal continued, the solemn, vigorous music rattling through the basement.
After ten minutes Carole collapsed on the floor in exhaustion. Her eyes were drawn back to the bomb again. Now the light was better and she could see the timer clearly.
Carole squinted. The timer!
It wasn’t a dud at all. The arrow was set for 6:15 a.m. The dial showed the time was now 5:30.
Squirming her way farther behind the filing cabinet, Carole began to kick the metal sides with her knee. But whatever faint noises the blows made immediately vanished in the booming, mournful rendition of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” filling the church basement from above.
IV . DOWN TO THE BONE
This only is denied the Gods:
the power to remake the past.
– ARISTOTLE
TWENTY-SEVEN
Sunday, 5:45 a.m., to Monday, 7:00 p.m.
HE AWOKE TO A SCENT. AS HE OFTEN DID.
And – as on many mornings – he didn’t at first open his eyes but just remained in his half-seated position, trying to figure out what the unfamiliar smell might be:
The gassy scent of dawn air? The dew on the oil-slick streets? Damp plaster? He tried to detect the scent of Amelia Sachs but could not.
His thoughts skipped over her and continued. What was it?
Cleanser? No.
A chemical from Cooper’s impromptu lab?
No, he recognized all of those.
It was… Ah, yes… marking pen.
Now he could open his eyes and – after a glance at sleeping Sachs to make certain she hadn’t deserted him – found himself gazing at the Monet poster on the wall. That’s where the smell was coming from. The hot, humid air of this August morning had wilted the paper and brought the scent out.