He tipped his head again.
“I assume you’ve heard about the Viktor Buryak verdict.”
“I have.”
She looked at Duvalier, who said, “Lincoln, there was a jury poll taken after the verdict.” He was hesitating, which Rhyme had never known him to do. “Eight members of the jury said the reason they couldn’t convict was because of your testimony. They said that the evidence was questionable.”
Rhyme was silent.
The man continued, “You and I, we both know that juries can be tough to figure. But that many of them, focusing on the same issue?”
Willis continued, “Somehow, the poll went public. I guess some jurors talked to the press. It became an issue. There’ve been stories: a man nearly convicted of murder on the basis of erroneous evidence. You know we’ve had problems in the past.”
She was referring to incidents in the NYPD lab where evidence technicians were sloppy or lazy, or who in a few cases were bribed to intentionally alter evidence.
“Captain, we needed to do something. To shore up the department’s credibility. This comes from the top. I’ve met with some people here, including the commissioner. It’s been approved by the chief of department too. We’ve come to a decision. A press release is going out as we speak. Effective immediately, the NYPD will no longer be using civilian consultants in criminal investigations.”
Rhyme said coolly, “If I’m not mistaken, you wanted me on the Locksmith case. Weren’t you feeling that he’d thrown the home invasion in your face and you wanted him collared as fast as possible? Was I mistaken about that?”
The trio looked toward one another uneasily. Willis continued, “Circumstances changed.”
Amelia Sachs was blunter. “Bullshit.”
“Detective Sachs, this decision was not made lightly. And it’s not just you, Captain Rhyme. No outside contractors at all — not for investigative work.”
Sachs persisted: “So you’ll shoot yourself in the foot because of the... what? Optics? One mistake out of thousands, and you hit us with this?”
“Detective, maybe in the future we might be able to put some quality control measures into place and revisit the decision. A year or two.”
“Commissioner, name one investigator who hasn’t fumbled a lead or missed the boat with a sample of trace or DNA...”
This was true. Yet the situation here was more complicated, because of that series of missteps in investigations and prosecutions Lon Sellitto had referred to earlier. These had been embarrassing for the NYPD and, worse, they had proved deadly. Several drug dealers who’d gotten off went on to kill rivals and bystanders. One sex trafficker had raped a teenager after his acquittal and fled to a Latin-American country with no extradition to the U.S.
This move, banning consultants, was clever. It would lay the blame for the Buryak screwup at the feet of someone not directly with the NYPD. And by banning consultants, the city — that is, the mayor — would be seen as taking strong action to clean house.
Willis’s harsh voice continued, “I should bring up another policy we’ve instituted: that any employee of the NYPD who employs or works with a civilian will be subject to discipline, including suspension and firing.”
Mel Cooper said, “And what do the PBA attorneys say about that?”
“They’re in agreement.”
Well, this had certainly been thought out.
Rhyme found himself looking at Al Rodriguez, who grimaced, gave a faint shrug and thumbed at his thin mustache.
Willis said, “Also effective immediately, Detectives Sachs and Cooper, you’re to have no communication with Captain Rhyme.”
“Commissioner,” said Sachs, “Lincoln and I are married.” Her voice registered disgust.
“You know what I’m saying, Detective. No professional communication. I’ll be having the same conversation with Lieutenant Sellitto and Patrolman Pulaski. The officers on the Locksmith case will continue to run it. But all forensics will be done by department personnel at the lab in Queens.”
Sachs sighed and sat in a rattan chair.
Willis said, “I’m sorry about this.”
Rhyme now understood from her voice that “this” referred to something yet to be.
It was for someone else, Rodriguez, to tell him.
In a rather imperious voice he said, “The commissioner and chief of department have been in touch with the district attorney. His policy is that any officer who intentionally uses civilian consultants in an investigation may be indicted for obstruction of justice. The consultant too.” Rodriguez added, “I’ve been put in charge of enforcing that policy.”
An assignment that he would not be pleased about.
Still, he said what was inevitable.
“Detectives Sachs and Cooper, pack up all the evidence there and have it transported to Queens. Thank you for your time, Captain,” Willis said. “I am sorry it worked out this way.”
The Zoom screen vanished.
17
Viktor Buryak was in his lovely Tudor home in a leafy section of Forest Hills, Queens, the most idyllic suburb of New York City, in his opinion, apologies to Staten Island.
Buryak was sipping strong English breakfast tea, his second favorite drink. The brew was wonderful. It warmed him, heart and belly. His wife ordered this brand online for him. After he’d had a serious bout of the flu some years ago, coffee became repulsive and he began drinking tea. A man curious by nature, Buryak had looked into the origin of the beverage. His research, hardly academically rigorous, revealed that English breakfast tea was misnamed in several ways. It came from India, Sri Lanka and Kenya, not England. It was imported to the British Isles by the Portuguese, who drank it in the afternoon. A Scotsman popularized its consumption at breakfast. Victoria was responsible for bringing the seductively fragrant leaves south, and it was the Americans who had given it the name “English,” which made sense because why would the Brits refer to it that way? To them it was just “tea.”
His two cats chased each other briefly, amusing Buryak. They were grayish Maine Coons and massive. Brick, the female, was dominant and feisty. The male, Labyrinth, was younger and was happily bullied. Lab had replaced Mortar when he passed, several years ago.
He turned to his computer — a high-def model the size of a small TV — and began the meeting.
“Gentlemen.”
There were five windows open on the monitor. Buryak’s face was in one — the upper right — and from three other squares, faces peered out as well. He received in reply nods or greetings as perfunctory as his had been.
As each person spoke, a red outline appeared around the window. The program was similar to Zoom, but had been created by Buryak’s IT people and was virtually unhackable. As far as tracing went, if you rode the coattails of the proxies, you ended up somewhere in Europe but there the trail would end.
In the upper left was Harry Welbourne, a sinewy and sour fifty-five-year-old. He radiated impatience, here and in person. He would be in his office in Newark. In the lower left was Kevin Duggin, whose face, very dark, was as round as Welbourne’s was narrow. There was no telling where youthful, muscular Duggin might be. His businesses were scattered throughout East New York and Brownsville. But judging from the background — a Miró-like modern painting — he was probably in either his town house in Harlem or his house on the South Shore of Long Island. In the final occupied window were the Twins — Buryak always thought of them in upper case. Stoddard and Steven Boscombe. Both of the thirty-seven-year-olds wore their blond hair shoulder-length and middle-parted.