“Thanks for coming back,” Sachs said.
“No, thanks to you all for saving our case.” She was looking around the room.
Our case…
“Amelia came up with the idea,” Lon Sellitto said.
Rhyme added, “I missed the option entirely.”
Sellitto added that he’d been in touch with Captain Myers and the man had — with some reluctance — agreed they should proceed with the new charges. The attorney general had given his tentative approval too.
“Now we have to consider how to proceed,” Laurel said, surprising Rhyme by not only unbuttoning but slipping off her jacket. She could smile, she could sip whiskey, she could relax. “First, I’d like some background. Who was he, this reporter?”
Ron Pulaski had been researching. He said, “Eduardo de la Rua, fifty-six. Married. Freelance journalist and blogger. Born in Puerto Rico, U.S. passport. But he’s been living in Buenos Aires for the past ten years. Last year he won the Premio a la Excelencia en el Periodismo. That’s ‘Award for Excellence in Journalism.’”
“You speak Spanish too, rookie?” Rhyme interrupted. “You never fail to astound. Good accent too.”
“Nada.”
“Ha,” Sellitto offered.
The young officer: “Lately de la Rua’s been writing for Diario Seminal Negocio de Argentina.”
“The Weekly Journal of Argentina,” Rhyme tried.
“Almost. Weekly Business Journal.”
“Of course.”
“He was doing a series on American businesses and banks starting up in Latin America. He’d been after Moreno for months to do an interview about that — the alternative view, why U.S. companies shouldn’t be encouraged to open operations down there. Finally he agreed and de la Rua flew to Nassau. And we know what happened next.”
Sachs told Laurel, “Shales is in custody.”
“Good,” the prosecutor said. “Now, where are we with the evidence?”
“Ah, the evidence,” Rhyme mused. “The evidence. All we need to prove is that the bullet caused the flying glass, and the glass was the cause of the reporter’s death. We’re close. We’ve got the trace of glass splinters on the bullet and on de la Rua’s clothes. I’d just really like some of the shards that actually caused the laceration and bleeding.” He looked to Laurel. “Juries love the weapons, don’t they?”
“They sure do, Lincoln.”
“The morgue in the Bahamas?” Sachs asked. “The examiner would still have the glass, wouldn’t you think?”
“Let’s hope. People may steal Rolexes and Oakleys down there but I imagine broken glass is safe from sticky fingers. I’ll call Mychal and see what he can find. He can ship some up here with an affidavit that states the shards were recovered from the body and were the cause of death. Or, hell, maybe he could come up himself to testify.”
“That’s a great idea,” Thom said. “He could stay with us for a while, hang out.”
Rhyme exhaled in exasperation. “Oh, sure. We’ve got so much time for socializing. I could take him on a tour of the Big Apple. You know, haven’t been to the Statue of Liberty in…ever. And I intend to keep it that way.”
Thom laughed, irritating Rhyme all the more.
The criminalist called up the autopsy pictures and scrolled through them. “A shard from the jugular, carotid or femoral would be best,” he mused. “Those would be the fatal ones.” But an initial review didn’t show any obvious splinters of glass jutting from the pale corpse of Eduardo de la Rua.
“I’ll give Mychal a call in the morning. It’s late now. Don’t want to interfere with his moonlighting job.”
Rhyme could have called now but he wanted to speak to the corporal in private. The fact was that he had been considering inviting Poitier to New York at some point in the near future and this would be a good excuse to do so.
And, he reflected with some irony, yes, he did intend to show Poitier around town. The Statue of Liberty, however, would not be on the tour.
CHAPTER 77
Jacob Swann wondered what had happened.
His plans for Nance Laurel had been interrupted by the arrival of an unmarked police car in front of her apartment in Brooklyn — just as Swann had been about to rise and go visit the ADA, to play out his revenge scenario.
The plainclothes detective had whisked her out quickly — so fast that it was clear something significant was going on. Did it relate to the Moreno case, which supposedly was a case no longer? Or something else?
He was now in his Nissan, headed back home. The answer to the mystery arrived in the form of a text from headquarters. Shit. Shreve Metzger had reported that the case was back on but with a curious variation: Barry Shales had been arrested for the killing not of Robert Moreno but of Eduardo de la Rua, the reporter who’d been interviewing him at the time the bullet had blown the hotel window into a million little shards of glass.
Because de la Rua was a U.S. citizen—¡Hola, Puerto Rico! — Ms. Nance Laurel had been reinstated on the case.
Metzger had not been charged but it was possible that he would be soon, accused of at least one or two felony counts; the point of Shales’s arrest, of course, was to pressure the drone pilot to give up his boss.
How easy was it to kill someone in detention? Swann wondered. Not that easy, he suspected, at least not without some inside help, which would be extremely expensive.
Swann was told additional services would be needed. He was to await instructions. Tomorrow promised to be a busy day but since the hour was late he doubted any of those directives would involve his going out again tonight.
This was good.
The little butcher man was hungry and had a taste for some wine. A glass or two of Spanish Albariño beckoned, as did some of the Veronique from last night, carefully wrapped up and tucked into the fridge. There wasn’t a chef in the world — even those whose eateries boasted three Michelin stars — who didn’t appreciate leftovers, whatever they said in public.
VI
SMOKE
FRIDAY, MAY 19
CHAPTER 78
“Captain Shales—”
“I’ve left the military. I’m civilian now.”
The hour was early, Friday morning. Nance Laurel and the drone pilot were in an interview room at the detention center. The same floor, as a matter of fact, where she’d been talking to Amelia Sachs when the State Department delivery boy had so successfully derailed the Moreno homicide case.
“All right, Mr. Shales, you’ve been read your rights, correct?” Laurel put a tape recorder on the scabby table in front of them. She wondered how many invectives, lies, excuses and pleas for mercy this battered rectangle of electronics had heard. Too many to count.
He looked at the device without emotion. “Yes.”
She wasn’t sure how to read him, and reading defendants was a very important part of her job. Would they cave, would they stonewall, would they offer a modicum of helpful comment, would they look for the right moment to leap from the chair and throttle her?
All of those had happened on occasion.
“And you understand you can terminate this conversation at any point?”
“Yes.”
And yet he wasn’t terminating and he wasn’t crying for his lawyer. She sensed that part of him, a small part, wanted to tell her everything, wanted to confess — though some very thick walls surrounded that portion of his heart still.