The Cutting Edge (Lincoln Rhyme #14)(98)

“No. We’ll get him for receiving stolen government files. Is there any facility that can handle him?”

“Lockdown medical unit in detention.”

“Good.”

“He’s got a caregiver.”

“A what?”

“An aide. Somebody who takes care of him.”

Bishop scoffed. “Well, he’s not going in with him. There’ll be some orderly or nurses who can do what they have to.”

Fallow said, “I’ll let the medical unit know.”

Bishop looked out the window. “And another thing. I’m going to make sure absolutely every law enforcement agency in the country knows what Rhyme’s done. He’ll never work as a consultant again. I hope he has a good retirement plan. After he gets out of jail, he’ll spend the rest of his life sitting home and watching soap operas.”





Tuesday, March 16

IV





Bruting





Chapter 50



Think we’ve got everything,” Sachs said. Rhyme wheeled closer to her in his parlor.

She explained to him, Ackroyd and Sellitto what evidence they’d uncovered, and then added her and Cooper’s analysis.

“The environmental outfit—One Earth? Didn’t find anything there, other than some trace linking Shapiro to it, but he was director, so of course he’d be there every day. The New Jersey State Police crime scene analysis from the suicide site at the Palisades didn’t turn up anything about the Russian or gas bombs. Shapiro’s car, though—we’ve got traces of the kimberlite.”

Rhyme said, “Linking Shapiro to the drilling site or to Unsub Forty-Seven, or both.”

“Right,” Sellitto said, adding that the find supported what they had surmised but it offered no new information.

Sachs continued, telling those present that the search of Shapiro’s small apartment in upper Manhattan, where he’d lived alone, gave up no leads either. But it did offer explanations.

Hidden under a mattress she’d discovered a map of the geothermal site, with the shafts of Area Seven circled, five hundred thousand Russian rubles—about eighty-five hundred dollars, presumably a bonus for Unsub 47 when the job was finished—and two burner phones, presently inoperative. Their call history was cleared.

“I printed the phones—negative on that—and I sent ’em down to Rodney. We’ll see if the computer geniuses can extract any info. The guy he hired? The Russian? Sure, he’s a mercenary. But he’s also cut from the same cloth, I’m betting. Saving the earth, getting even for the damage we’ve inflicted. He just did Shapiro one better: the torture, the gas line bombs.”

Sachs added that she’d recovered a great deal of trace evidence in Shapiro’s apartment, some situating the activist at various places around the metropolitan area: samples of minerals and soil and sand and diesel fuel and plant material. Some might have been carried into Shapiro’s home on Unsub 47’s shoes but without more evidence to narrow down the locales they did the investigators no good in finding him.

Rhyme noticed Sachs looking at the chart on which she’d written the findings. Her face seemed wistful. She looked back and noticed his gaze. She said, “It was sad, you know.”

“Sad?” Sellitto muttered. “The asshole killed a half-dozen people.”

“Oh, I know. He got carried away, lost in the cause. But you should’ve seen his apartment.” She explained that it was filled with easily a thousand books, mostly about the environment. There were dozens of protest posters and photos he’d taped up on the scabby walls: of Shapiro and colleagues in jail or being arrested—once being teargassed—as a result of various protests. She imagined he’d mounted them with pride and fond memories.

“It was like a shrine to his cause. He did a lot of good. Up until now, that is.”

Murder was, of course, murder.

Rhyme noticed another picture Sachs had taken in Shapiro’s apartment: a black-and-gold ceramic urn on which was a bronze plaque. It contained his wife’s ashes. He commented on it. Sachs added, “I looked her up. She died of cancer, probably due to a toxic waste spill when she was a teenager.”

Rhyme now turned and wheeled closer to their insurance expert, Edward Ackroyd, who was the man of the moment—since it was he who’d been instrumental in cracking the case. He was trying to get in touch once more with the diamond dealer in Manhattan who had put him onto Ezekiel Shapiro. The activist had called the dealer asking about Jatin Patel’s source for diamonds. Was it true that he bought them from mines that exploited indigenous people?

Ackroyd hoped that the dealer might have additional information—maybe even a lead about the Russian that Shapiro had hired.

Rhyme focused out the window. A lethargic ice storm during the night had encased the vegetation in front of his town house. He wondered if the sharp crystals had killed the plants, or if the ice had had no effect whatsoever other than to temporarily enwrap leaves and buds in a clear cocoon, which would flash with rainbow fire, like a diamond, under the sun.

Now Ackroyd was disconnecting his phone. “Okay. I got through to him: the dealer. He’s still jittery but I think the guilt got to him—that Patel was killed after he told Shapiro about him. I’ll go have a chat with the gentleman.”