The Cutting Edge (Lincoln Rhyme #14)(36)

Cooper typed and a video appeared on the screen, in color and of pretty good resolution. Medium definition.

“Here’s the rider.” The tech pointed to a figure on the monitor.

He appeared similar to their other image of the unsub, on 47th Street, just after the killings. The jacket appeared identical to the one they’d just analyzed. He wore a black stocking cap that could be a rolled-up ski mask. And, of course, he kept his head down as he swept the fare card through the reader.

“Now here’s the MTA camera facing the street outside the subway entrance. Five minutes earlier, as he’s approaching the station.”

Cooper ran the tape several times.

“What’s he doing?” Sellitto muttered. “I don’t get it.”

Odd…

It appeared that Forty-Seven was approaching the subway in a straight line from across the street but then he stopped abruptly, turned around and walked back toward where he’d just come from. Then he reversed direction once more, continuing into the station.

Rhyme said, “There’s a trash bin there. He turns around to throw something out. What is it? Yellow. He was holding something yellow. And orange. I can see orange too. But what? Again.”

Cooper played the tape once more.

It was Sellitto who said, “Got it.”

“What?” Rhyme asked.

“Look what’s behind him.”

Ah, Rhyme thought, nodding. He too understood. On the other side of the street was a construction site. Several workers wore orange safety vests and yellow hard hats. The same shade as what was in Forty-Seven’s hand.

Sellitto said, “He exits the jobsite, swaps the hard hat for his stocking cap. He’s going to pitch out the hat and vest but can’t find a trash bin in front of the subway. He turns around and finds a bin. Then goes to catch his train.”

“He’s not a worker—he’s in street clothes and nobody on a job would throw out a hard hat.”

“I’d vote he stole the hat and vest to get into the site. Why?”

Rhyme offered, “Meeting somebody who works there. One possibility.”

Sellitto said, “Another one: That station’s near the government buildings, right?”

“Cadman Plaza,” Cooper said. “The streets’re loaded with CCTVs—the police, the federal buildings, courts, administrative offices. To get to the station entrance any other way, aside from the jobsite, he’d have to go past a dozen cameras.”

Sellitto offered, “He lives south of construction site?”

“No, he can’t steal hard hats and trespass,” Rhyme said, “every time he wants to take the train. I’d go with he was meeting somebody in the site. Maybe he was picking up his weapon? Talking to somebody about fencing the rough?”

Although less so than in the past, the New York City’s construction industry was populated with men who had organized crime connections.

Sellitto called the RTCC supervisor and gave him the ID information about the video. He would have officers check street cameras in the surrounding blocks for an hour before the unsub swiped the card. The search criteria would be a man fitting the general description, filtered by “wearing or in possession of yellow hard hat and orange vest.”

As Rhyme watched Mel Cooper add the latest details of the case to a whiteboard, he thought: Why? Why’re you doing this?

“Easy answer,” called a woman’s melodious voice.

Rhyme turned. He hadn’t been aware Amelia Sachs had returned from Brooklyn. Or that he’d just spoken the questions aloud. He asked, “Which is?”

“He’s just plain crazy.”





Chapter 17



He’d spent the night at the airport. LaGuardia—two bus journeys away.

Vimal Lahori had huddled in the backs of both vehicles, wincing as the rough ride punched his wounds.

He’d found a waiting area chair, near the ticket counters, as if planning to check in for an early flight, after a cancellation. He was one of a dozen displaced travelers. No one paid him any mind.

Vimal would have preferred his beloved Port Authority but he suspected that the place would be watched by the police. And there was also the killer, who might continue to be prowling the streets of Midtown. He’d dreamed much, mostly nightmares, though he couldn’t recall the specific images. He’d woken to the memory of Mr. Patel’s feet. Tears had streamed for a few minutes. But then he forced himself to rise and wash up in the bathroom. There, in a stall, he checked the wound once more. It stung and was surrounded by a huge bruise but wasn’t puffy with infection. He clumsily changed the dressing—the wound was hard to reach—and squirted some more of the chill Betadine on it.

Now, after another bus ride, he was moving with his head down along a sidewalk in Flushing, Queens. He found the place he sought, a retail and wholesale jewelry shop on a busy street. He entered N&B Jewelers and walked to the clerk, a young, round South Asian woman.

“Is Mr. Nouri in yet?”

“He’s in a meeting.”

“Could you tell him Vimal Lahori would like to see him?”

She glanced at his rumpled, dusty clothes and made a call. She disconnected. “He’ll be down in five minutes.”

He thanked her and wandered around the store. It had just opened—noon on Sunday—and there were no customers yet, just an armed guard, staring blankly at the ceiling.