“Mr. Cody was killed instantly, a shot in the head. The bodyguard survived for a day but never regained consciousness.”
“Tell me about the tainted evidence.”
“You see, when my client was being arrested he was placed facedown on the floor of the warehouse. At one point, an agent or officer—he couldn’t see who—came up to him and searched him. But then my client felt something pressed against his hands and clothing. It was cloth. He is sure the officer was transferring gunshot residue he’d lifted from Cody’s hands. When he asked what the man was doing, my client was told, ‘Shut the fuck up. Two of our guys’re shot to hell. You’re going away forever.’”
Rhyme said, “So the prosecution claims that after Cody was killed, your client picked up his gun and shot the officer?”
“That’s right.”
“Friction ridges—fingerprints—on the weapon?”
“Only Cody’s, not my client’s. There were no gloves or rags nearby he might’ve used to hold the gun but the prosecutor’s position is that he undid his shirt cuff button and held the pistol in the sleeve. That would explain the gunshot residue and the absence of fingerprints.”
“Clever theory. What are the exact charges?”
“The illegal entry into the U.S.—it’s called ‘entry at improper time or place’ under the statute. The charge carries a fine and imprisonment of up to six months. A federal misdemeanor. The other charges are what you’d expect: weapons, assault on a law enforcement officer, attempted murder of a law enforcement officer, Cody’s death—felony murder. We admit he was in the country illegally and he is willing to plead to that. So, now, that is our situation.” He eyed Rhyme closely. “You said you were busy. Working a big case.”
“I am, yes.”
“I am asking you is it possible to take some time and look at the evidence, see if you can find proof that the officers at the scene planted that residue?”
Rhyme’s head eased back. He gazed at the ceiling for a moment. Thoughts swirled.
Finally he said, “I’ll need all the forensic files. Yours and the prosecution’s.”
Carreras-López said, “I’ll have copies of the files sent over. A half hour. Gracias, sir. God bless you.” He pulled on his coat and left.
Rhyme placed a call to Ron Pulaski. He would have liked to pursue the El Halcón tainted-evidence matter on his own but that wasn’t possible. There’d be some fieldwork.
“Lincoln.”
“Need you to do something for me.”
“Sure. This about Forty-Seven?”
“No. A different case. There’ll be a box of files over here in a half hour. I’ll need you to collect it and take it home.”
“Home?” the officer asked. “As in home-home?”
“Exactly. I need a complete analysis of all the firearm, clothing, electrostatics and surface trace from the scene.”
“Sure, Lincoln.”
“Then I need you to do something else.”
“What’s that?”
“Keep quiet. Don’t say a word about this to any other living soul. You got that?”
Silence.
“You got that, Rookie?”
“Yes.” Pulaski was whispering, as if speaking any louder would itself be a breach of the rules.
Chapter 39
Another earthquake.”
Rhyme glanced toward Mel Cooper, who’d just delivered this news. The tech’s eyes were on the TV.
He followed the man’s gaze. On the screen, news cameras were filming an apartment in Brooklyn, engulfed in swirling flames and smoke. The cause was, as with the others, a gas line rupture, which had followed on the heels of the second quake.
Now the scene shifted to a press conference at City Hall. Rhyme read the closed-captioned account of the mayor’s words: In light of the second quake, the city had decided to reject Northeast Geo’s request to resume its geothermal drilling even on a limited basis. The talking heads appeared again: Ezekiel Shapiro—the bearded activist leader of the One Earth movement; Dwyer, head of Northeast Geo; and C. Hanson Collier, CEO of Algonquin Power.
As they spoke, the scene shifted to the blazing apartment building, surrounded by the clutter of fire trucks and emergency vehicles.
The text at the bottom reported three fatalities. The victims had been engulfed by flames.
The door buzzer sounded. Thom was out, at the store; Rhyme looked at the security camera screen. It was Lon Sellitto. Didn’t he have a goddamn key? After all these years? They should have one cut for him. Rhyme buzzed him in.
“Okay. Are you ready for this?”
Rhyme sighed and lifted an eyebrow.
Sellitto nodded at the screen, on which were stark images of brawny, spiraling flames, a black torrent of smoke.
The crawl at the bottom of the screen: Multiple fatalities.
The detective said, “Linc, that wasn’t from the quakes. All the fires were arson—just staged to make it look like the earthquakes caused ’em.”
“What?” Mel Cooper asked.
“That latest quake, the second one? Right after, this woman at home by Cadman Plaza—it’s near where the epicenter is—smells gas really strong. She thinks the quake broke the line and it’s gonna blow. She’s home with her kid, a baby. But the good news is she’s got a broken ankle. I mean, a totally fucked-up ankle. She falls and breaks it again and passes out.”
Good news…?
“But then she wakes up a few seconds later and she’s trapped. So what’s she do?”
“Move it along, Lon.”
“She has a brainstorm. She can’t get out, can’t walk, but maybe she can keep the gas from blowing up. She opens the access door in the bathroom, the door to the pipes, you know? And she turns a handheld shower sprayer on full and douses the basement, hoping to hit the pilot light of the water heater and put it out. While she’s spraying, she’s screaming her head off and somebody hears and gets the fire department and police there. They shut the gas off outside and get the woman and her baby out, and the other tenants.”
Rhyme glanced at the TV screen, the cyclone of fire. “So that fire was a second one.”
“Yeah.” Sellitto added with a grimace, “Three fatalities. It was a couple blocks from Claire’s.”
“Who?”
“Claire Porter. That shower thing. She was really thinking on her feet.” Sellitto winced. “Bad choice of words. She’s in emergency surgery right now for her ankle. Anyway. A marshal goes down to the basement to check out the leak. Guess what he finds?”
Rhyme lifted an eyebrow.
“If looks could talk,” Sellitto said.
“They can. Mine did. Let’s keep going.”
“IED on the gas line.”
Now Rhyme’s full attention settled. An improvised explosive device. He said, “Set up to cut through the line and let the gas flow for, what, five minutes then ignite it?”
“Ten minutes.”
“And the water she sprayed disabled it.”
“Bingo, Linc. Sometimes you do catch a break. The device was plastic and housed in a thermostat casing. If it works right and ignites the gas, there’s virtually nothing left and even if the fire marshal finds something, it’ll look like a melted, burnt-up thermostat, sitting in the rubble. Perfect arson. No evidence. No accelerant.”
The door buzzer again. It was a solid man in a black suit, holding a large carton. Rhyme hit the intercom. “Is that from Tony?”
Carreras-López: El Halcón’s lawyer.
The man leaned close to the speaker. “That’s right, sir.”
The case files he’d asked for, regarding the evidence-tampering claim. He glanced at Sellitto to see if he was paying any attention. But, no. The detective and Cooper were staring at the scene of the fire on the TV.
“Just leave it inside the front door. On the table.”
“Yessir.”
Rhyme hit the door lock, and the man set down the box of the El Halcón case files and left.
He turned to Sellitto. “Fire marshal’s gone back and checked out the prior fires?”
“Yep, every fire that started after the first and second earthquakes? There’re the shells of fake thermostats. Just like at Claire’s.”
Serial fires with sophisticated IEDs. What’s that about?
“As if that wasn’t interesting enough, here’s the juicy part. As soon as it was labeled arson the fire marshal called RTCC to pull the nearby video cams from the past few weeks.”