“Those’re from videos,” Rhyme said. “Any others worth looking at?”
“Nope. Just more of the same, walking. One, two seconds each.”
Woman X wasn’t holding anything, say, a coffee cup that — by heavy-duty policework — they might’ve found and lifted prints from.
“Thanks, Bobby.”
“Sure.”
Pulaski said, “The one where she was by herself. I’ve been looking at images of neighborhoods. That could be a block in the West Thirties. Bad fire a couple of days ago. Arson. A pro job. Termite and napalm. Maybe a coincidence. But insurance scams don’t use accelerants like that. The army uses accelerants like that. I’ve sent a team to canvass.”
“And be sure—”
Pulaski finished the sentence. “That they know about acid IEDs.”
Sachs studied one of the pictures for a long moment.
From her eyes, he could tell she was onto something.
“What, Sachs?”
“Her face. The second shot, looking at him.”
“Hm.”
Pulaski frowned. “What do you see?”
Neither answered. She asked, “How do we handle it?”
The answer struck him almost immediately. “Thom! Thom!”
The aide appeared. “I have a pot on the stove.”
“Well, unstove it. We need some more help.”
“Yes?” he muttered.
Rhyme said, “You have the way with words.”
The man grimaced at the flagrant buttering up.
“It’s true,” Rhyme protested, seeing the expression.
“What do you need?”
“Simple. I want you to write an obituary.”
74
New York City is home to a number of neighborhoods in which celebrities and the powerful reside.
But no place has as many per square foot as these four hundred acres.
Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, just south of Westchester County, is home to Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Otto Preminger, Mark Twain, F. W. Woolworth, and Celia Cruz, the Queen of Salsa, and scores more of the famous.
The infamous too. Ellsworth “Bumpy” Johnson, the legendary gangland figure of Harlem, is interred here.
As is someone with an equally disturbing history, a recent addition: Charles Vespasian Hale, whose gravesite Amelia Sachs, Ron Pulaski and Lyle Spencer were now observing from a gardening shed near North Border Avenue, running roughly parallel to East 233rd Street.
Like most of the cemetery, this portion resembled a Long Island estate rather than an ominous gargoyle-filled setting for a Stephen King novel.
His gravesite had been chosen — by Lincoln Rhyme — because it was near a cluster of dense bushes, which were now providing cover for a half-dozen Emergency Service Unit officers in full military gear and camo.
In responding to his request — bordering on demand — the brass made clear they couldn’t commit to a large number of officers, and they couldn’t commit for very long. But Rhyme and Pulaski had made the point that Woman X would surely be leaving town soon, if she hadn’t already left, and so the troop commitment wouldn’t last longer than one day.
And what were the odds that she’d show up?
More than negligible, Rhyme and Sachs believed.
This was because of the second CCTV picture of Hale and Woman X, the one revealing a particular look on her face. It was the way he and Sachs occasionally regarded each other — and the way they’d seen Pulaski and his wife, Jenny, do the same.
There was no doubt that Hale and this woman were lovers.
So Rhyme had decided to lure her here via the obituary, which Thom had done a masterful job penning. It described how the man responsible for the crane collapses had been a career criminal and offered some facts about his early life. Much was speculation, but a paid obit did not need to adhere to the standard of true journalism. In fact, there was only one detail that mattered: his interment in Woodlawn.
By the time the piece hit the internet, an hour ago, Sachs and the others were already in place.
Would she indeed come to pay her last respects?
It was a sentimental gesture toward a man who was indisputably unsentimental.
Yet that look on her face — and the one suggested by his, though muted by the glasses — was undeniable.
In any event, they had no other options in their hunt for her. So here the trio waited in a hot shed, amid bags of fertilizer, which, Sachs reflected, maybe stank fiercely, but would provide good protection against bullets, should a firefight break out.
The day was suitably ominous, dark, and the sky was about to revisit an earlier rain.
Good for the operation. Few visitors were present.
Unlike some of the multimillion-dollar temples here, which were the resting place of multimillion-dollar corpses, Hale’s grave was simple. A plaque, flat on the ground, for a tombstone. Of necessity it had been engraved quickly. Name and date. Thom had suggested putting a clock face on it. Rhyme had said, “No.”
Another hour passed. Sachs radioed for the third time, “Stay alert.”
The more likely danger in stakeouts is not gunplay but falling asleep and letting your subject waltz off to freedom.
She was scanning once more when she was startled by a series of shots and a ragged cry. They were coming from just outside the cemetery. “Help! Help me! Ambulance!” A man’s voice.
“Bullshit,” Pulaski said. “It’s her. A diversion.”
Sachs grabbed the radio and nearly shouted, “No one move! Stay in position!”
Damn. Too late. One of the ESU officers had risen and stepped from the brush. She dropped to cover quickly.
Instinct — and who could blame her? But the woman had, perhaps, given away the whole game.
“Ron, call the local house. They’ve probably got somebody on the way, but make sure they check it out. And have the respondings call us with what they find.”
As he made the call, Sachs lifted a pair of powerful Nikon binoculars and scanned the opposite side of the cemetery, looking for lens flare, in case Woman X was using her own pair to surveil them.
Nothing.
But of course Sachs had been careful to make sure her binoculars were shaded; why wouldn’t X do the same?
Into the radio: “Detective Five Eight Eight Five to ESU team leader. You see anybody near the gravesite?”
“Negative, Detective,” the captain radioed back. “There was a groundskeeper and an elderly couple. Nowhere near the grave. And they took off when they heard the shots.”
“K.”
Pulaski said, “Not a soul in sight. And this is probably the only stakeout in history where soul makes sense.”
She gave a faint smile and continued to scan. “Okay, Charles... Talk to me.” A whisper. Maybe the others heard, maybe not. “What’s your girlfriend up to?”
A call from the local precinct on her mobile. “Yes?”
“Five Eight Eight Five?” A man’s voice, Bronx-inflected.
“Go ahead.”
“Just heard from respondings. We’ve got him, Detective. Get this. Somebody, a woman, paid this homeless guy ten K, yeah, that’s right, ten, to fire a gun into the dirt outside the cemetery and scream for help. We found him a couple blocks away. He was just sitting on the curb drinking a malt. No resistance. Seemed pretty fucking happy.”
“He told you about her?”
“Yeah. He didn’t want us to think he’d used the piece to hurt anybody. He just needed the money. Handed the weapon over. It’s cold. No number on it.”
She sighed. “Hair in braids? Blond? Thirties?”
“That’s right. Except it was brown. Her hair.”
So Miss Clairol had paid a visit.
“And what was she wearing?”