The Cutting Edge (Lincoln Rhyme #14)(6)

Rhyme thought back to his years as detective, as captain running the crime scene operation of the NYPD and, later, as consultant. Some cases had touched on the 47th Street area, Midtown. But none had involved diamond stores or dealers. He told Sellitto as much.

“We could use some help. Robbery gone bad, looks like. Multiple homicides.” A pause. “Some other shit too.”

Not a term of art in the crime-solving world, Rhyme reflected. He was curious.

“You interested?”

Since the El Halcón case had slipped away from him, the answer was yes. “How soon can you get here?” Rhyme asked.

“Let me in.”

“What?”

Rhyme heard a pounding from the front hall. Through the phone Sellitto was saying, “I’m here. I’m outside. I was gonna talk you into the case whether you wanted it or not. Come on, open the goddamn door. It’s like January out here.”

*



“Soup?” Thom asked, taking Lon Sellitto’s drab gray overcoat. Hanging it.

“Naw. Wait, what kind?” Sellitto, Rhyme noticed, had lifted his face, as if positioning his nose at a better angle to detect the scent meandering from the kitchen.

“Tomato bisque with shrimp. Lincoln’s having some.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, he is.”

“Hm.” Stocky and rumpled—the latter adjective referring to the clothing, not the man—Lon Sellitto had always had weight issues, at least as long as Rhyme had known him. A recent poison attack by an unsub he and Rhyme were pursuing had nearly killed him and caused him to shed scores of pounds. A skeletal Lon Sellitto was an alarming sight and he was fighting his way back to his substantial form. Rhyme was pleased when he said, “Okay.”

Pleased too because it would take the pressure off him. He wasn’t hungry.

“Where’s Amelia?” Sellitto asked.

“Not here.”

Amelia Sachs was in Brooklyn, where she kept an apartment near her mother’s. Rose was recovering well from heart surgery but Sachs looked in on her frequently.

“Not yet?”

“What do you mean?” Rhyme asked.

“She’s on her way. Should be soon.”

“Here? You called her.”

“Yeah. That smells good. Does he make soup a lot?”

Rhyme said, “So you decided we were going to be working the case.”

“Sort of. Rachel and I mostly open cans, Progresso, Campbell’s.”

“Lon?”

“Yeah, I decided.”

The soup arrived. Two bowls. Rhyme’s went on the small tray attached to his chair; Sellitto’s on a table. Rhyme glanced at his. It did smell appealing. Maybe he was hungry, after all. Thom was usually right in matters like this, though Rhyme rarely admitted it. The aide offered to feed him but he shook his head, no, and gave it a shot with his right hand and arm. Soup was tricky for the shaky appendage but he managed it without spilling. He was glad he hated sushi; chopsticks were not a utensil option for someone like Lincoln Rhyme.

Another arrival appeared, to Rhyme’s surprise, apparently summoned by Lon Sellitto for the Diamond District case: Ron Pulaski. Rhyme thought of him as Rookie and called him that, though he hadn’t been one for years. The trim blond uniformed officer was technically with the Patrol Division, though his crime scene skills had brought him to Rhyme’s attention and the criminalist had insisted that Sellitto have him informally assigned to Major Cases—Sellitto’s and Sachs’s outfit.

“Lincoln. Lon.” The latter name was uttered at slightly less volume. The Rookie was, after all, junior in rank, years and bluster to Sellitto.

He also suffered from a condition that had plagued him from the first time he, Rhyme and Sachs had worked together—a head injury. This had sidelined him for a time and, when he had made the tough decision to return to the force, it plagued him with the insecurities and uncertainty that often accompany a trauma to the brain.

When he’d approached Rhyme, mentioning he was thinking of quitting because he felt he wasn’t up to the task of policing, the criminalist had snapped, “It’s all in your fucking head.”

The young officer had stared and Rhyme kept a straight face for as long as he could. They had both laughed. “Ron, everybody’s got head injuries, one way or another. Now, I’ve got a scene I need you to work. You gonna get the CS kit and walk the grid?”

Of course he had.

Now Pulaski doffed his watch coat. Beneath, he was in his long-sleeve, dark-blue NYPD uniform.

Thom offered him food too and Rhyme came close to saying, “Enough, we’re not a soup kitchen”—a clever jab, he thought—but Pulaski declined anyway.

A moment later the low bubble of a powerful car’s exhaust thudded through the closed window. Amelia Sachs had arrived. She gave the engine some gas and it then went silent. She walked inside, hung her bomber jacket on a hook and adjusted the belt around her blue jeans, to slip rearward the plastic Glock holster for comfort. She wore a teal high-necked sweater and beneath that, Rhyme had seen this morning as she’d dressed, a black silk T-shirt. They’d listened to the weather report on the radio—today would be unseasonably cold for mid-March, just like the past week. In Washington, DC, they’d witnessed cherry blossoms dying by the thousands.