The Cutting Edge (Lincoln Rhyme #14)(77)

“You’re sure?” Rhyme asked. “They won’t try to lock him up again?”

“I waved the obstruction-of-justice flag. I think they’ll toe the line.”

Ackroyd told them that he himself was making little headway. “The diamond rough your unsub, the Promisor, stole at Patel’s has just vanished, which bears out that he’s a mad man and hoarding the stones. No one else has reported any calls from him, asking about the apprentice. And people are even more reluctant to talk than ever. He’s scaring everyone. I’ve heard anecdotes that the sales of engagement rings are down twenty percent.”

Well, Unsub 47 may have been psychotic but, if his goal was to make a statement about the sanctity of diamonds, he was pretty damn effective.

“Now, I could have called that in, of course. But I wanted to stop by. Brought you a present.” He was speaking to Rhyme. He reached into the plastic bag he held and extracted a box about six by nine inches, glossy, pictures of some electronic product on the top. He stripped off the plastic wrapping and extracted what seemed to be a tablet device. He set it next to Rhyme’s chair and pushed a button on the side. It came to life and a menu appeared. “Electronic crosswords. These are cryptics. There’re over ten thousand, all different levels of difficulty.”

Rhyme explained to Sachs that Ackroyd and his husband competed at crossword tournaments. And he gave her a brief description of how cryptics worked.

She was even less a game person than Rhyme but admitted that she found the idea intriguing.

Ackroyd said, “And this unit? It’s voice-activated. Made for…”

“You can say ‘crip’ or ‘gimp.’ I do.”

“I was going to say ‘handicapped.’ I don’t think that’s correct, however.”

“My response is what is a four-letter word starting with ‘s’ and completing the sentence, ‘I don’t give a…’?”

Ackroyd laughed briskly.

“Well, thank you, Edward.” Rhyme was truly pleased. He played chess some—and had tried Go, an Asian board game that was even more complicated. The cryptics seemed more up his alley. He loved words and how they fit together. The puzzles would be a good way to keep his mind active, a shield against his worst enemy: boredom.

After Ackroyd left, the team received a call from Rodney Szarnek. He said that Vimal’s phone had been detected. “He’s out of the area. GPS puts him on an expressway in Pennsylvania. Headed west. Doing sixty miles an hour or so. He’s driving or on a bus.”

“Bus probably,” Sachs said. “The family only has one car and my security team’d spot him if he snuck back to take it.”

“Maybe a friend’s driving him,” Cooper suggested.

“He made that call from the Port Authority on Saturday,” Rhyme pointed out. “Maybe he was checking out bus schedules then. I’d go with bus. You and Lon Sellitto set up a tracking operation. Get in touch with the state police in Pennsylvania.”

When he disconnected, Rhyme called Lon Sellitto to arrange to intercept the vehicle.

The doorbell rang again and Rhyme glanced at the security video screen. A short, round balding man stood there. He didn’t recognize him but had a pretty good idea who he was.

Thom slipped a glance toward Rhyme, who said, “Go ahead, let him in.”

A moment later the man was in the doorway. He glanced around the lab. He seemed impressed—and pleased—more than surprised.

“Captain Rhyme.”

Rhyme didn’t introduce him to the others. He said “Let’s go in the den. Across the hall.”

If Sachs or Cooper was curious about the visitor, their interest didn’t show and they went back to their work. Just as well.

What would they think if they knew…?





Chapter 38



Antonio Carreras-López wasn’t as portly as he’d seemed in the security video, though he was a solid man. Rhyme wondered if he’d been a weight lifter or wrestler in his youth. Now apparently in his late fifties, he still seemed quite strong though some of the weight was gone to fat.

His black hair, what remained, that is, was swept back and fixed in place with spray or cream. He wore glasses with thick tortoiseshell frames, perched atop a fleshy nose. His eyes were amused. Quick too.

The men were in the small formal room, across the entry hall from the parlor. Three walls were lined with bookcases and on the other hung four muted prints of pen-and-ink drawings of New York City in the nineteenth century. The guest said, “As I told you on the phone, I represent Mr. Eduardo Capilla—El Halcón—though I’m not admitted to the bar here in the United States. I am, however, supervising his defense.”

“Who are the lawyers representing him here?”

Carreras-López mentioned three names—all lawyers from Manhattan, though the trial was in the Eastern District of New York, which included Long Island, Staten Island, Brooklyn and Queens. Rhyme knew of the lead trial attorney, a high-profile and respected criminal defense lawyer. Rhyme had never testified in a case involving any of his clients.

He wasn’t sure this would have been a conflict, but the situation was certainly fraught with the smoke of impropriety so he thought it best, if he proceeded, that there be no connection with El Halcón’s legal team. The prosecutor on the other side was Henry Bishop, and Rhyme knew he hadn’t been involved in a case he’d prosecuted.