The Cutting Edge (Lincoln Rhyme #14)(96)

She stood up. Pulaski glanced her way and rose too.

“Thanks for your time, Mr. Collier.”

“Ms. Evans will show you out.” He said nothing more, didn’t rise. He opened a folder and began reading.

The assistant appeared and escorted them down the hall.

As they walked into the parking lot, out of earshot of the employees, the young officer whispered, “We just going to let it go, like that? He showed us a contract. He might’ve had it printed out in case somebody called him on the earthquake plot. How do we know he’s not behind it?”

“Because of this.”

Sachs showed him her phone, the text she’d just gotten from Lon Sellitto.

“Oh. Well. We’re going to New Jersey?”

“We’re going to New Jersey.”





Chapter 48



This is a place where earth meets water in stark and stunning beauty.

This is a place where the rocks take on the texture and sheen and contradiction of art.

This is a place where brush, bush and trees rise along sheer cliffs with the effortless ease of smoke.

This is a place where someone whose life was devoted to the earth might, fittingly, die.

The body of Ezekiel Shapiro, in a fire department rescue basket, was now being winched to the top of the hundred-foot cliff of Palisades Park.

In the chill early evening, their breath easing in visible wisps from their mouths, Sachs, Pulaski and a number of New Jersey state troopers stood watching the fire department and rescue team. They were beside Shapiro’s car, which was surrounded by protective yellow tape.

Suicide is, after all, a crime.

It had not been the police but insurance man Edward Ackroyd who’d made the discovery that Shapiro had hired Unsub 47.

When Ackroyd told Sellitto what he’d found, the lieutenant had sent patrol cars to Shapiro’s office and home but apparently the environmentalist had seen them and realized that the authorities had learned about the plot.

He’d posted a suicide note online, driven here and killed himself.

Shapiro had hired Unsub 47 for two missions. The first was to close down the geothermal drilling as environmentally unsound. The second was to single out Jatin Patel for attack and robbery. The diamond cutter was apparently known for working on stones from mines that displaced indigenous people and polluted villages and rivers. The stolen rough, Ackroyd had learned, would be sold by 47 and the proceeds given to Shapiro, who would distribute it to environmental organizations to help the unfortunates.

I don’t think tree huggers use C4 very much…or burn down buildings with people inside…

Mel Cooper had been wrong.

Shapiro’s suicide note made clear, though, that he’d miscalculated. He’d wanted to scare the city, sure. The deaths by fire were not his idea, but had been the brainchild of the madman he’d hired—somebody who shared his fury at the destruction of the earth, but who had decided, on his own, to plant a series of incendiary devices to kill and injure.

Perhaps the deaths, though unintended, had been what pushed him to take his own life.

“Hey, Amelia.”

She turned to see a tall, blond officer, about her age. He was in uniform—dark slacks with an orange stripe down the outseam and a powder-blue shirt and tie. Latex gloves and booties too. Ed Bolton was a sergeant with the Crime Scene Investigation Unit of the New Jersey State Police’s Major Crime Bureau. He now pulled off the cornflower-blue accessories and stuffed them into his pants pocket.

Knowing that Bolton had run the scene was a relief. He’d have done as thorough a job as she would have.

She introduced him to Pulaski, who asked, “How’d you get onto it?”

“Trooper saw the car here and ran the plate. There was an area-wide out after you guys found he was behind those earthquakes and murders on Saturday and Sunday.”

“Positive ID? It’s Shapiro?”

“Uh-huh. One of our tac people rappelled down. Did a field FR. It’s him. Prints were on file after an arrest at a protest rally a few years ago. Pretty crazy, faking earthquakes.”

She asked, “So how does the scene look?”

“Nothing says anything other than suicide. No wits. And he drove here from the city, so no tollbooths.”

All the bridges and tunnels were toll-free entering New Jersey. There was no toll-taker video of someone else driving Shapiro’s car, with the activist in the trunk, for instance. That was improbable, of course. No one would have a motive to kill him—except, she supposed, Unsub 47, if he’d decided to keep the diamonds for himself. But even then, why kill Shapiro, why not just take the diamonds and go back to Russia?

And if he’d truly wanted to murder Shapiro, he wouldn’t’ve staged it. He would simply have shot the man, at a time and place of his convenience. The Russian was clever but apparently cared little for nuance.

Sachs asked, “The evidence’s gone to Hamilton?”

The state police’s crime scene headquarters.

“That’s right. We’ll get you copies as soon as we can, autopsy too.”

Sachs and Pulaski watched the basket in which the body was strapped breach the top of the cliff. Two muscular firefighters, one a man, one a woman, pulled it closer, unhooked the cable and carried the body to a waiting ambulance.

The view of Manhattan from here was spectacular in clear weather. Now the haze made the place look dystopian. Not many lights shone through the gray fog, though you could see the outlines of buildings large and buildings small. It seemed like a ghost town.