Ten minutes later she was on her way to Manhattan Hospital, in the back seat of a black police sedan.
Carole practically sprinted down the corridor to Pammy’s room and was surprised to be stopped by the police guard. So they hadn’t caught the fucker yet? But as soon as she saw her daughter she forgot about him, forgot the terror in the taxi and the fiery basement. She threw her arms around her little girl.
“Oh, honey, I missed you! Are you okay? Really okay?”
“That lady, she killed a doggie -”
Carole turned and saw the tall, red-haired policewoman standing nearby, the one who’d saved her from the church basement.
“ – but it was all right because he was going to eat me.”
Carole hugged Sachs. “I don’t know what to say… I just… Thank you, thank you.”
“Pammy’s fine,” Sachs assured her. “Some scratches – nothing serious – and she’s got a little cough.”
“Mrs. Ganz?” A young man walked into the room, carrying her suitcase and yellow knapsack. “I’m Detective Banks. We’ve got your things here.”
“Oh, thank God.”
“Is anything missing?” he asked her.
She looked through the knapsack carefully. It was all there. The money, Pammy’s doll, the package of clay, the Mr. Potato Head, the CDs, the clock radio… He hadn’t taken anything. Wait…”You know, I think there’s a picture missing. I’m not sure. I thought I had more than these. But everything important’s here.”
The detective gave her a receipt to sign.
A young resident stepped into the room. He joked with Pammy about her Pooh bear as he took her blood pressure.
Carole asked him, “When can she leave?”
“Well, we’d like to keep her in for a few days. Just to make sure -”
“A few days? But she’s fine.”
“She’s got a bit of bronchitis I want to keep an eye on. And…” He lowered his voice. “We’re also going to bring in an abuse specialist. Just to make sure.”
“But she was going to go with me tomorrow. To the UN ceremonies. I promised her.”
The policewoman added, “It’s easier to keep her guarded here. We don’t know where the unsub – the kidnapper – is. We’ll have an officer babysitting you too.”
“Well, I guess. Can I stay with her for a while?”
“You bet,” the resident said. “You can stay the night. We’ll have a cot brought in.”
Then Carole was alone with her daughter once more. She sat down on the bed and put her arm around the child’s narrow shoulders. She had a bad moment remembering how he, that crazy man, had touched Pammy. How his eyes had looked when he’d asked if he could cut her own skin off… Carole shivered and began to cry.
It was Pammy who brought her back. “Mommy, tell me a story… No, no, sing me something. Sing me the friend song. Pleeeeease?”
Calming down, Carole asked, “You want to hear that one, hm?”
“Yes!”
Carole hoisted the girl onto her lap and, in a reedy voice, started to sing “You’ve Got a Friend.” Pammy sang snatches of it along with her.
It had been one of Ron’s favorites and, in the past couple years, after he was gone, she hadn’t been able to listen to more than a few bars without breaking into tears.
Today, she and Pammy finished it together, pretty much on key, dry-eyed and laughing.
THIRTY-THREE
AMELIA SACHS FINALLY WENT HOME to her apartment in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn.
Exactly six blocks from her parents’ house, where her mother still lived. As soon as she walked in she hit the first speed-dial button on the kitchen phone.
“Mom. Me. I’m taking you to brunch at the Plaza. Wednesday. That’s my day off.”
“What for? To celebrate your new assignment? How is Public Affairs? You didn’t call.”
A fast laugh. Sachs realized her mother had no idea what she’d been doing for the past day and a half.
“You been following the news, Mom?”
“Me? I’m Brokaw’s secret admirer, you know that.”
“You hear about this kidnapper the last few days?”
“Who hasn’t?… What’re you telling me, honey?”
“I’ve got the inside scoop.”
And she told her astonished mother the story – about saving the vics and about Lincoln Rhyme and, with some editing, about the crime scenes.
“Amie, your father’d be so proud.”
“So, call in sick on Wednesday. The Plaza. OK?”
“Forget it, sweetheart. Save your money. I’ve got waffles and Bob Evans in the freezer. You can come here.”
“It’s not that expensive, Mom.”
“Not that much? It’s a fortune.”
“Well, hey,” Sachs said, trying to sound spontaneous, “you like the Pink Teacup, don’t you?”
A little place in the West Village that served up platters of the best pancakes and eggs on the East Coast for next to nothing.
A pause.
“That might be nice.”
This was a strategy Sachs had used successfully over the years.
“I’ve gotta get some rest, Mom. I’ll call tomorrow.”
“You work too hard. Amie, this case of yours… it wasn’t dangerous, was it?”
“I was just doing the technical stuff, Mom. Crime scene. It doesn’t get any safer than that.”
“And they asked for you especially!” the woman said. Then repeated, “Your father’d be so proud.”
They hung up and Sachs wandered into the bedroom, flopped down on the bed.
After she’d left Pammy’s room Sachs had paid visits to the other two surviving victims of Unsub 823. Monelle Gerger, dotted with bandages and pumped full of anti-rabies serum, had been released and was returning to her family in Frankfurt “but just for rest of summer,” she explained adamantly. “Not, you know, for good.” And she’d pointed to her stereo and CD collection in the decrepit apartment in the Deutsche Haus by way of proving that no New World psycho was driving her permanently out of town.
William Everett was still in the hospital. The shattered finger was not a serious problem of course but his heart had been acting up again. Sachs was astonished to find that he’d owned a shop in Hell’s Kitchen years ago and thought he might have known her father. “I knew all the beat cops,” he said. She showed him her wallet picture of the man in his dress uniform. “I think so. Not sure. But I think so.”
The calls had been social but Sachs had gone armed with her watchbook. Neither of the vics, though, had been able to tell her anything more about Unsub 823.
In her apartment now Sachs glanced out her window. She saw the ginkgoes and maples shiver in the sharp wind. She stripped off her uniform, scratched under her boobs – where it always itched like mad from being squooshed under the body armor. She pulled on a bathrobe.
Unsub 823 hadn’t had much warning but it had been enough. The safe house on Van Brevoort had been hosed completely. Even though the landlord said he’d moved in a long time ago – last January (with a phony ID, no one was very surprised to learn) – 823 had left with everything he’d brought, trash included. After Sachs had worked the scene, NYPD Latents had descended and was dusting every surface in the place. So far the preliminary reports weren’t encouraging.
“Looks like he even wore gloves when he crapped,” young Banks had reported to her.
A Mobile unit had found the taxi and the sedan. Unsub 823’d cleverly parked them near Avenue D and Ninth Street. Sellitto guessed it probably took a local gang seven or eight minutes to strip them down to their chassis. Any physical evidence the vehicles might’ve yielded was now in a dozen chop shops around the city.
Sachs turned on the tube and found the news. Nothing about the kidnappings. All the stories were about the opening ceremonies of the UN peace conference.
She stared at Bryant Gumbel, stared at the UN secretary-general, stared at some ambassador from the Middle East, stared far more intently than her interest warranted. She even studied the ads as if she were memorizing them.
Because there was something she definitely didn’t want to think about: her bargain with Lincoln Rhyme.