Sachs said, “Edward, thank you.” An inadequate expression, of course. But what possibly would suffice?
Sachs was, however, of mixed feelings about the incident. Her digits were intact, her life was spared. But not only had Unsub 47 died but so had the easiest — and perhaps only — chance to find out where the last gas bomb devices had been planted. As the medical examiner tour doctor was finishing the preliminary examination, Sachs dressed in CSU overalls and bent to the corpse to see what, in death, it might tell her.
“Know this is a hassle, sir. But, between you and I, I wouldn’t worry about it overly.”
Andrew Krueger nodded and tried to bring a bit of uncertain concern to the equation. “I... just don’t know what to say.”
The detective was a large African American, driving his unmarked police car to a precinct house that he had assured Krueger was not too far away. Krueger was in the front seat of the Chrysler. He wasn’t under arrest. The detective himself had made the determination that the shooting was justified and he would “go to bat for you, Mr. Ackroyd.”
Still, there were formalities. He would have to make a statement, there’d be an investigation, and all the findings would go to an assistant district attorney, who would make the final determination about his fate.
“One chance in a million it’ll become a case. I’d bet my pension not. No ADA’s going to screw up his reputation by bringing a charge on this one. Besides, you’ve got a ringer.”
“A what?”
“Oh, means like a get-out-of-jail-free card.”
Krueger still didn’t get it. “Sorry?”
“Don’t you have Monopoly in England?”
“Unfair business arrangements?”
The detective seemed amused. “Never mind. Just that Amelia — Detective Sachs — you saving her hide? She’s a big deal in the department. That’ll count for more than beans.”
They drove in silence for a time.
He continued, “Happened to me. I’ve done it. Once. Twenty-four years on the force I never fired my weapon. Then, just eighteen months ago...” His voice faded away. “Domestic call. The guy was nuts, you know, off his meds. He was going to shoot his mother, and my partner and me were talking him down. But then he swung the weapon on Jerry. No choice.” A pause for the length of one block. “It wasn’t loaded. His weapon. But... well, you’ll get over it. I did.”
Or not.
“Thanks for that,” Krueger said with as much sincerity as he could dredge up. “I’m not sure that I’ll ever be the same.”
This, from a man who had murdered at least thirteen people — though only three with firearms.
He was recalling Rostov’s expression when he’d seen the gun pointed at his head. Shock, then an instant of understanding, knowing that he’d been set up. Krueger had fired fast, before the Russian could call out his name and tip Sachs off that they knew each other. Aiming right at the temple.
Vladimir Rostov’s death had been inevitable.
And planned out for some time. Krueger had decided to kill him as soon as he’d figured out that the Russian had hacked his phone and was in New York, playing the role of the “Promisor.” He’d known by then that Rhyme and Amelia were brilliant and he needed to give them both a mastermind — the fanatical Ezekiel Shapiro — and his hired-gun eco-terrorist, Vladimir Rostov.
Krueger’s strategy was to walk into Blaustein’s and kill Rostov with Krueger’s own unregistered Glock — the one that he’d used to shoot at Vimal and to kill Saul Weintraub. In the confusion after the shooting at Blaustein’s, he’d planted 9mm rounds in Rostov’s jacket to better link the man to the shootings at Patel’s and Weintraub’s. Krueger had also pocketed Rostov’s mobile and the keys to his motel and the Toyota.
The minute Krueger’s interview with the police was done, which he didn’t think would take very long, he would hurry to Rostov’s room, scrub it of evidence, then ditch the Russian’s burner phones, computer and car.
The police car now arrived at the precinct house and Krueger climbed out. The detective directed him toward the front door.
“This way, Mr. Ackroyd. Now, just to let you know. You’re not being arrested. No fingerprinting or pictures. Any of that. It’ll just be an interview is all.”
“Thanks, Officer. I truly appreciate your words of reassurance. What happened, well, it was pretty upsetting.” He thought about wiping faux tears from his eyes but decided that would be out of character.
Chapter 57
Amelia Sachs returned to Rhyme’s town house with several things.
The first was a collection of evidence from Vladimir Rostov’s hotel in Brighton Beach and the dealer’s store where she’d nearly lost a finger to the crazy Russian’s knife.
The second was a New York state mining inspector.
Rhyme glanced toward the man they’d spoken to before, Don McEllis, without much interest and reseated his gaze on the evidence cartons that Sachs was carting in. She noticed the direction of his eyes and said, “Not going to be easy, Rhyme.”
Referring to their urgent mission: finding out where the next gas bombs had been set.
“I’m hoping McEllis can help.”
He was a slim, earnest-looking man — okay, “dowdy” came to mind — who was here, Sachs explained, to look over the maps and the details of the prior fires and see if he could help them narrow down the search for the devices.
Sachs said, “I’m thinking that he’d plant them close to fault lines in the area, if he wanted the quakes to look authentic. If so, maybe Don can point them out.”
The detective shrugged. He didn’t seem enthusiastic. His phone hummed. “City Hall. Jesus.” He took the call and stepped aside.
McEllis asked to use one of the computers to load some geological maps of the area. Cooper directed him to one. He wanted to see too where the previous gas bombs had been set, and Sachs pushed toward him the whiteboard on which was taped a map of the city. The fires were marked in red and they made a rough ellipse around what was the epicenter: the geothermal drilling site near Cadman Plaza. McEllis called up the geological diagrams of the area and began poring over them.
Cooper and Sachs both dressed in gowns and face masks and began to look over the evidence that had been collected at Blaustein’s jewelry store and Rostov’s motel in Brighton Beach.
Rhyme had some information too. After Sachs had sent him the unsub’s identity, he had contacted Daryl Mulbry at AIS once more, requesting details on the killer. The man had sent a report summarizing what he could find on short notice. Vladimir Ivanovich Rostov. The forty-four-year-old’s history was Russian military and then FSB — one of the successors to the KGB — and then for the past ten years a “consultant,” whose clients included some of the big Russian quasigovernmental organizations, like Gazprom, the oil and gas company, Nizhny Novgorod Shipping, which made oil rigs and tankers and — significantly — Dobprom, the biggest diamond-mining company in Russia.
Mulbry had learned that Rostov had worked in the Mir mine, in Siberia, from ages twelve through twenty. “Fellow’s a bit off, from what we could learn. Rumors that he killed his uncle, who was in a mine shaft with him. Head crushed with a rock, but there wasn’t any rockslide. The police tended to look the other way when it came to the biggest employer in the region. His aunt died too, not long after that. Apparently one night, she got trapped on the roof of the building, locked out of the access door. No one could figure what she was doing there. She was wearing a flimsy nightgown and no shoes. It was December. The temperature was minus twenty. The authorities looked the other way on that one too. There were complaints that she’d been ne podkhodit, not appropriate, with some youngsters in the building.”