The Bone Collector

Rhyme nodded. “Okay. It’s a deal.” To Berger he said, “Monday?”
    “Okay, Lincoln. Fair enough.” Berger, still shaken, watched Sachs cautiously as she unlocked the cuffs. Afraid, it seemed, that she might change her mind. When he was free he walked quickly to the door. He realized he was still holding the vertebra and returned, set it—almost reverently—next to Rhyme on the crime scene report for the first murder that morning.
    * * *  
    “Happier’n hogs in red Virginia mud,” Sachs remarked, slouching in the squeaky rattan chair. Meaning Sellitto and Polling, after she’d told them that Rhyme had agreed to remain on the case for another day.
    “Polling particularly,” she said. “I thought the little guy was going to hug me. Don’t tell him I called him that. How are you feeling? You look better.” She sipped some Scotch and set the glass back on the bedside table, beside Rhyme’s tumbler.
    “Not bad.”
    Thom was changing the bedclothes. “You were sweating like a fountain,” he said.
    “But only above my neck,” Rhyme pointed out. “Sweating, I mean.”
    “That right?” Sachs asked.
    “Yep. That’s how it works. Thermostat’s busted below that. I never need any axial deodorant.”
    “Axial?”
    “Pit,” Rhyme snorted. “ Armpit. My first aide never said armpit. He’d say, ‘I’m going to elevate you by your axials, Lincoln.’ Oh, and: ‘If you feel like regurgitating go right ahead, Lincoln.’ He called himself a ‘caregiver.’The word was actually on his résumé. I have no idea why I hired him. We’re very superstitious, Sachs. We think calling something by a different name is going to change it. Unsub. Perpetrator. But that aide, he was just a nurse who was up to his own armpits in piss ’n’ puke. Right, Thom? Nothing to be ashamed of. It’s an honorable profession. Messy but honorable.”
    “I thrive on mess. That’s why I work for you.”
    “What’re you, Thom? An aide or a caregiver?”
    “I’m a saint.”
    “Ha, fast with the comebacks. And fast with the needle too. He brought me back from the dead. Done it more than once.”
    Rhyme was suddenly pierced with a fear that Sachs had seen him naked. Eyes fixed firmly on the unsub profile, he asked, “Say, do I owe you some thanks too, Sachs? Did you play Clara Barton here?” He uneasily waited for her answer, didn’t know how he could look at her again if she had.
    “Nup,” Thom answered. “Saved you all by my lonesome. Didn’t want any of these sensitive souls repulsed by the sight of your baggy rear end.”
    Thank you, Thom, he thought. Then barked, “Now go away. We have to talk about the case. Sachs and me.”
    “You need some sleep.”
    “Of course I do. But we still need to talk about the case. Good night, good night.”
    After Thom left, Sachs poured some Macallan in a glass. She lowered her head and inhaled the smoky vapors.
    “Who snitched?” Rhyme asked. “Pete?”
    “Who?” she asked.
    “Dr. Taylor, the SCI man.”
    She hesitated long enough for him to know that Taylor was the one. She said finally, “He cares about you.”
    “Of course he does. That’s the problem—I want him to care a little less. Does he know about Berger?”
    “He suspects.”
    Rhyme grimaced. “Look, tell him that Berger’s just an old friend. He . . . what?”
    Sachs exhaled slowly, as if shooting cigarette smokethrough her pursed lips. “You not only want me to let you kill yourself you want me to lie to the one person who could talk you out of it.”
    “He couldn’t talk me out of it,” Rhyme responded.
    “Then why do you want me to lie?”
    He laughed. “Let’s just keep Dr. Taylor in the dark for a few more days.”
    “All right,” she said. “Jesus, you’re a tough person to deal with.”
    He examined her closely. “Why don’t you tell me about it.”
    “About what?”
    “Who’s the dead? That you haven’t given up?”
    “There’s plenty of them.”
    “Such as?”
    “Read the newspaper.”
    “Come on, Sachs.”
    She shook her head, stared down at her Scotch with a faint smile on her lips. “No, I don’t think so.”
    He put her silence down to reluctance about having an intimate conversation with someone she’d known only for one day. Which seemed ironic, considering she sat next to a dozen catheters, a tube of K-Y jelly and a box of Depends. Still he wasn’t going to push it and said nothing more. So he was surprised when she suddenly looked up and blurted,