Was there another trigger mechanism? Was this a decoy?
Timitz began to laugh. His chest was heaving, his lungs doling out their last breaths, and he was using them to laugh at us.
“Jesus Christ,” said Grimes, taking a closer look at the vest Timitz had made him wear. There were wires galore, but that was it. The C-4 was as fake as the detonator. “It’s painted Play-Doh.”
Now you tell me, Grimes.
Timitz had blown up Jackie Palmer’s apartment with Jackie in it. When it came to explosives, he knew what he was doing. So why did he do this?
“He wanted you here,” said Grimes. “He wanted it to look like I was tipping you off. I’m sorry; I had no choice.” He glanced at the vest again. “At least I didn’t think I did.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “Call 911.”
That was nothing more than protocol, though. Timitz had no intention of hanging around until the EMTs arrived.
I watched as he fell back onto the couch, the cushions easing his fall but not the pain. He grimaced, his face contorted. Still, he continued to laugh.
Then, of all things, he began to sing. And, of all songs, it was “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.”
He could barely get the words out.
“Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack. I don’t care if I…”
The words stopped. There was no more singing. There was no more breathing. Tomorrow’s front-page headline lay there motionless on the couch, his head slumped to the side.
HE’S THE REAL DEALER!
…AND HE’S DEAD.
Chapter 99
RULES ARE rules.
No one was allowed to see Elizabeth in the ICU at Manhattan South Hospital after she came out of surgery—not even her immediate family, even if they had arrived. Her sister was still en route from Boston, and her mother’s flight from Seattle was almost three hours from landing.
The phrase often heard is “critical but stable condition.” Elizabeth was in only one of those conditions. Critical. She had lost a massive amount of blood, her heart rate was too low, and she was barely conscious.
But she was alive.
“You should’ve told the nurse that you were her brother,” said Tracy. He’d been waiting with me the past two hours, the first of which was spent repeatedly lifting his jaw off the floor as I told him everything that had happened.
“You heard the nurse—not even family,” I said. “Hell, they didn’t even let the mayor in.”
Deacon had come and gone, as had Livingston again. I would never second-guess their concern for Elizabeth, but it was hard not to notice their ulterior motives. For Livingston and his boss, it was another photo op. The mayor arrived with flowers in hand and a prepared statement for the press. There were thoughts and prayers for Elizabeth up front before a quick pivot to the city’s resilience. “Our streets are safer today, our mettle having been tested,” he said.
Livingston probably had that line focus-grouped for the mayor in advance.
There were a couple of other visitors. I spoke to Robert briefly—Elizabeth’s fellow detective—who seemingly knew more about her than anyone else. He reminded me that she and her father weren’t on speaking terms. “Her mother’s forgiven him for cheating, but Elizabeth hasn’t,” said Robert. “The girl really knows how to hold a grudge.”
“This is crazy,” said Tracy when it was only the two of us again in the waiting room. “You should be able to see her.”
“It’s okay,” I said.
“No; it’s really not. I’m sick of stupid rules for the sake of rules. It’s always about what we can’t do.”
I rarely, if ever, put Tracy on the proverbial couch, but it was impossible not to see that he was projecting his disappointment over our adoption efforts onto this situation. In fact, from a certain angle, the nurse who told us that Elizabeth couldn’t have any visitors sort of looked like Ms. Peckler from the Gateway Adoption Agency. She was even carrying around a clipboard.
It was obviously still bothering him. It bothered me, too. The only silver lining to chasing a serial killer, though, was that it took my mind off everything else.
“Excuse me,” Tracy called out. The nurse happened to be standing in the hallway checking her clipboard. She came over, although she didn’t seem too happy about it.
“Yes?” she asked.
“I know you said Detective Needham can’t have visitors while still in the ICU,” said Tracy, “and I know there’s probably a good reason for the rule, but—”
“Good,” said the nurse, cutting him off. “Then there’s no reason to revisit the conversation, right?”
I looked at Tracy, who was blinking in disbelief. The words were forming on his tongue. He was loaded for bear.
Oh, shit, here we go again…
I was so busy bracing myself that I didn’t notice the other nurse who had come over. I could tell she was from inside the ICU. She had that look of experience, of having seen it all.
“Are you Dr. Reinhart?” she asked.
I nodded. “Yes.”
“Detective Needham just regained full consciousness,” she said. “You must be pretty special to her, because you’re the first person she asked for.”
“Can I see her?” I asked.
“Normally, you’re not allowed to,” she said before giving me a smile. “But what good is a rule if you can’t make an exception to it?”
Chapter 100
ELIZABETH WAS bruised and bandaged and pale as a ghost. There were wires and tubes sticking out of her, a tangled mess. She took one look at me, though, and cracked a smile.
“Christ, I thought I was the one in bad shape,” she said.
“Yeah, well, only one of us has gotten any sleep.”
We both left the subtext unspoken. She almost didn’t wake up.
“Are you in pain?” I asked.
“Only when I breathe.” She smiled again, reaching for my hand. “Thank you…for everything.”
“Nothing that you wouldn’t have done for me,” I said.
The story of what happened at Grimes’s apartment could wait—or that was my thinking. I should’ve known better about Detective Elizabeth Needham. If she was breathing, she was working.
“I overheard two doctors talking about Timitz,” she said. “Tell me everything.”
I did. I told her everything, including the one thing I hadn’t told anyone else yet. “When we were first at Kingsman’s house, in his study,” I said. “There was something about my book on his shelf.”
“I remember there was no dust jacket,” she said.
“There was no dust, period. The last time that bookshelf, let alone the study, got a cleaning was probably while Kingsman’s wife was still alive. Mine was the only book not covered in dust, though,” I said.
“Timitz put it there.”
“As it turns out. We couldn’t know it at the time.”
“But you picked up on it,” she said. “Then you heard Timitz had called his attorney a second time…”
“The book, the knife in Kingsman’s car—Timitz was framing him. I still couldn’t be sure, though. Then, before I went to Grimes’s apartment, I made sure.”
“How?”