The Kill Room

She fired back with: “Laws don’t include ignoring due process and executing citizens arbitrarily.”

“There’s nothing arbitrary about what I do.”

“No? You kill people you think  are going to commit an offense.”

“All right, Counselor. What about a policeman on the street? He sees a perp in a dark alley with what might be a gun. It seems that he’s about to shoot someone. The cop is authorized to kill, right? Where’s your due process there, where’s your reasonable search and seizure, where’s your right to confront your accuser?”

“Ah, but Moreno didn’t  have a gun.”

“And sometimes the guy in the alley only has a cell phone. But he gets shot anyway because we’ve chosen to give the police the right to make judgments.” He gave a deep, chill laugh. “Tell me, aren’t you guilty of the same thing?”

“What do you mean?” she snapped.

“What about my  due process? What about Barry Shales’s?”

She frowned.

He continued, “In making the case, did you datamine me? Or Barry? Did you get classified information from, say, the FBI? Did you somehow ‘accidentally’ happen to get your hands on NSA intercepts?”

An awkward hesitation. Was she blushing beneath the white mask? “Every bit of evidence I present at trial can pass Fourth Amendment scrutiny.”

Metzger smiled. “I’m not talking about trial. I’m talking about unwarranted gathering of information as part of an investigation.”

Laurel blinked. She said nothing.

He whispered, “You see? We both interpret, we judge, we make decisions. We live in a gray world.”

“You want another quotation, Shreve? Blackstone: ‘Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one i

“Then I’ll look forward to seeing you in court, Counselor.”

He turned and walked back to his car. He sat, calming, in the front seat, not looking back. Breathing.

Let it go.

Five minutes later he started at his phone’s buzz. He noted Ruth’s number on caller ID.

“Hi, there.”

“Uhm, Shreve. I heard. Is it true about Spencer?”

“Afraid it is. I’ll tell you more later. I don’t want to talk on an open line.”

“Okay. But that’s not why I called. We heard from Washington.”

The Wizard.

“He wanted to schedule a call with you for tomorrow afternoon.”

Didn’t firing squads gather at dawn ?

“That’s fine,” he said. “Send me the details.” He stretched. A joint popped. “Say, Ruth?”

“Yes?”

“What did he sound like?”

There was a pause. “He…It wasn’t so good, I don’t think, Shreve.”

“Okay, Ruth. Thank you.”

He disco

Smoke…

So that was it. Whether Moreno was guilty or not was irrelevant; Washington now had plenty of reason to disband NIOS. Metzger had picked for his administrations director a whistleblower, and for his defense contractor a corrupt CEO who’d ordered people tortured and killed.

This was the end.

Metzger sighed and put the car in gear, thinking: Sorry, America. I did the best I could.

VII

MESSAGES

SATURDAY, MAY 20

CHAPTER 93

At nine on Saturday morning Lincoln Rhyme was maneuvering through the lab and dictating the evidence report to back up the Walker trial and the Swa

He noted too his calendar, up on a big monitor.

Surgery Friday, May 26. Be at hospital at 9 a.m.

NO liquor after midnight. None. Not a drop.

He smiled at the second line, Thom’s entry.

The town house was quiet. His aide was in the kitchen and Sachs was in her apartment in Brooklyn. She’d had basement problems and was waiting for the contractor. She would also be seeing Nance Laurel later today – getting together for drinks and di

And dish on men too…

Rhyme was pleased the women had, against all odds, become friends. Sachs didn’t have many.

The sound of a doorbell echoed and Rhyme heard Thom’s footfalls making for the portal. A moment later he returned with a tall figure in a brown suit, white shirt and green tie whose hue he couldn’t begin to describe.

NYPD Captain Bill Myers. Special Services Division. Whatever that might be.

Greetings were exchanged and the man fell into an effusive tone, with Myers complimenting Rhyme on the resolution of the case.

“Never in a million years would have seen that potentiality,” the captain said.

“Was surprised at how it turned out.”

“I’ll say. Some pretty decent deductions on your part.”

The word “decent” only describes that which is socially proper or non obscene; it doesn’t mean fair or good. But you can’t change a jargonist so Rhyme kept mum. He realized that silence had descended as Myers took in the gas chromatograph with an intensity that circumstances – and the equipment itself – didn’t warrant.

Then the captain looked around the lab and observed that they were alone.

And Rhyme knew.

“This’s about Amelia, right, Bill?”

Wishing he hadn’t used her first name. Neither of them was the least superstitious, except in this tradition. They never referred to each other by their givens.

“Yes. Lon talked to you? About my problems with her health issues?”

“He did.”

“Let me unpack it further,” Myers said. “I allowed her some time to finish this case and then have her take a medical. But I’m not going that route. I read the report of the take down in Glen Cove, when she and Officer Pulaski collared Jacob Swa

Rhyme said bluntly, “She took down the perp, Bill.”

“She was lucky. The report said afterward she could hardly walk.”

“She’s fine now.”

“Is she?”

No, she wasn’t. Rhyme said nothing.

“It’s the elephant in the room, Lincoln. Nobody wants to talk about it but it’s a problematic circumstance. She’s putting herself and other people at risk. I wanted to talk to you alone about this. We huddled and conjured up a decision. I’m promoting her out of the field. She’ll be a supervisor in Major Cases. And we’ll rank her. Sergeant. But I know there’ll be pushback from her.”

Rhyme was furious. This was his Sachs the captain was talking about in the cheapest of clichés.

But he kept silent.

The captain continued, “I need you to talk her into it, Lincoln. We don’t want to lose her; she’s too good. But the department can’t keep her if she insists on being in the field. Desking her’s the only option.”

And what would she do post NYPD? Become a freelance consultant, like him? But that wasn’t Sachs’s way. She was a brilliant crime scene searcher, with her natural empathy and dogged nature. But she had to be a cop in the field, not lab bound, like he was. And forensics wasn’t her only specialty, of course; if she couldn’t speed to a hostage taking or robbery in progress to engage the perp, she’d wither.

“Will you talk to her, Lincoln?”

Finally he said, “I’ll talk to her.”

“Thank you. It’s for her own good, you know. We really do want the best. It’ll be a three sixty for everybody.”

The captain shook his hand and departed.

Rhyme stared at the table where Sachs had recently been sitting to work the Moreno case. He believed he could smell some of the gardenia soap she favored though possibly that was just a fragrance memory.