Ackroyd wrote:
Location in Romania rich in oil (4)
Cooper turned back to his equipment. “Think I’ll stick to Sudoku.”
Rhyme stared for a moment. “A four-letter word that’s a location.”
Romania was a nation of which he knew nothing. “There’re thousands of towns and regions and parks in Romania. And someplace rich in oil. Maybe not oil wells. Maybe ports for shipping oil. Maybe banks that specialize in oil industry lending.” He shook his head.
“Remember,” Ackroyd said, “in cryptic puzzles, you’re often looking right at the answer. The problem is that you’re not seeing it.”
But then he did. Rhyme laughed. “Yes, the answer is a location in Romania—but not the country. It’s in ‘Romania,’ the word. The answer’s ‘Oman’: r-O-M-A-N-i-a. The Middle Eastern country with oil reserves.”
“Well done, Lincoln.”
Pleased with himself, he had to admit.
Rhyme noticed motion on the front-door monitor and observed Sachs climbing stairs and pulling her keys from her bag. She’d returned from the jobsite where Unsub 47 had, possibly, met with a worker for reasons as yet undetermined.
The time for diversion was over.
Chapter 29
Rhyme regarded Amelia Sachs carefully as she entered.
Hair damp—she’d taken a shower; the skies were gray but there’d been no rain.
I want to clean up first…
Her eyes were distant. Her thumb worried a finger, then the digits swapped roles. He could see a bloody cuticle.
She nodded a greeting to Ackroyd, who smiled his modest smile in return.
Rhyme told her, “Another one. You hear?”
Sachs asked quickly, “Earthquake?”
“What? No, attack.”
“The Promisor?”
He nodded. And observed that she seemed oddly distracted. Even troubled. He wondered too why it had taken her so damn long to get here.
But he said nothing about it. “Vic’ll live. Made her swallow her ring.”
“Jesus. How is she?”
“I don’t know. Ron’s walking the grid and getting details. He’ll do an interview when she’s out of surgery. The shield I talked to at the One-Nine asked a few questions. Didn’t add anything—same story you heard: protecting diamonds. And the canvass in the neighborhood didn’t turn up anyone. They’re still at it.”
Rhyme glanced to Edward Ackroyd, who told her what he’d found—the Amsterdam dealer lead had not paid off but it was likely that the unsub was Russian and probably had come only recently to the city.
Sachs looked thoughtful. “So, with the kids in Gravesend, he was trying to obscure the accent. Russian. Is that helpful?”
“I’m following up,” Rhyme said, thinking of the text he’d sent.
Sachs grimaced. “I’ve never known a perp to be so damn persistent about taking out witnesses. Hell. Have we had any luck finding the boy?”
“Ron hasn’t. Like with Edward, nobody’s talking to him. Computer Crimes is pulling Patel’s phone records. Let’s hope Patel and VL talked regularly.” Rhyme’s eyes swayed to Sachs. “So, what happened at the jobsite?”
Sachs blinked. “Happened?”
“Yeah. What was Forty-Seven doing there?”
“Oh.” She told them he probably hadn’t used the site as a shortcut. Yes, there were lots of CCTV cameras on the government building side of the construction area but the limited entrances to the site suggested the shortcut theory was unlikely.
Then she explained about her conversation with the foreman of the geothermal operation. She said that, yes, the unsub had been in the construction site and had met with somebody, identity unknown, for reasons unknown. She could get no better description than what they already had. “The scene wasn’t good—gravel and lots of contamination. Found this.” She handed over two small bags of earth and stones to Mel Cooper. “It’s probably from where he was standing but I don’t know for sure.”
The tech took the bags and got to work examining what had been uncovered.
Rhyme noticed that her eyes remained distant, her posture tense. She tugged at her hair, then dug the index finger of her right hand into the thumb of that hand once more. An old habit. She tried to control the self-harm. Sometimes she didn’t care. Amelia Sachs lived on the edge, in many senses.
He noticed her hand drop to her knee. She winced.
“Sachs?” Rhyme asked.
“I fell. That’s all. Nothing.”
No, it wasn’t nothing. Whatever had happened had shaken her. And now she had a brief coughing fit. Cleared her throat. He felt an urge to ask if she was okay but she didn’t like that question any more than he did.
Rhyme said, “Any indication Forty-Seven was picking up that new weapon of his?”
“No, but I didn’t get very far. We’ll have to keep canvassing.” She turned to Cooper. “Speaking of the weapon: Ballistics?”
He explained that the gun used at Gravesend was a .38 special. Probably the Smittie 36 or the Colt Detective. Both, classic snub-nose. Five rounds. Not very accurate and punishing on the shooting hand. But at close range as wicked as any other firearm.
Cooper added, “And I heard from the evidence collection techs out of Queens. No sign of the Glock—or anything else—in the storm drains or Dumpsters near Saul Weintraub’s.”
Sachs shrugged. “I was going back to the construction site tomorrow to keep up the canvassing but there’s a problem. I met a state inspector down there. Works for the Division of Mineral Resources. He said the city’s shutting down construction at the geothermal site until they can see if the drilling’s caused the quake.”
Ackroyd said, “Oh, it’s a geothermal plant they’re building?”
“Right.”
“How deep?”
“I think five, six hundred feet.”
“Yes, I’d guess that could do it. My company used to insure against damage from fracking and high-pressure water mining. Those’ve definitely caused earthquakes and undermined buildings and homes. But we gave up issuing policies. It was costing us too much. And I have heard of geothermal drilling leading to earthquakes too. In one case a school was destroyed in a fire from a broken gas line. Another one, two workers were buried alive.”
Sachs once more dug an index nail into the thumb cuticle. Deep. The flesh went pink. Rhyme believed he now understood what had happened at the geothermal site.
She continued, “Northeast is appealing the shutdown but until that’s resolved, there won’t be any workers on-site. We’ll have to interview them at home.”
“How many?”
“About ninety. I told Lon. He’ll recruit uniforms. Pain in the ass. But there’s no other way.”
Cooper looked up from a computer monitor. “Got the results from the construction site, Amelia. Same mineral trace as at Patel’s and Weintraub’s, so he was definitely there. But nothing new, other than diesel fuel. And mud. Was there a lot of mud down there?”
A pause. “Some. Yeah.”
“Nothing else.”
The door buzzer sounded and Thom let Ron Pulaski into the parlor.
The young officer nodded to those present and introduced himself to Edward Ackroyd; the two had never met. The young officer then handed off to Mel Cooper the evidence bags he’d collected on the Judith Morgan assault on the Upper East Side. The tech got to work, as Pulaski explained to the others what had happened in the latest Promisor assault. Morgan, twenty-six, had been in a bridal boutique, getting some final adjustments to her wedding dress. A man who’d been outside the shop followed her to her apartment and forced her into an alcove on the ground floor.
“He was rambling on and on about how she’d ruined a beautiful diamond by cutting it into a ring. He was going to kill her, she thought. Or cut her ring finger off. But then he changed his mind. He told her that since she’d treated the ring like shit, that’s where it was going to end up.”
Sachs asked, “Did he say anything that’d give us a clue where he lives? Works?”
“No. But said she could smell aftershave, alcohol, cigarette smoke residue, very foul. And onions. He has blue eyes.”
Sachs said, “Same as earlier.”