The Bone Collector

“It’s just . . . It’s just . . . Oh, hell. ” And as the sobbing began she lifted her hands to her face, spilling a good two inches of Scotland’s best all over the parquet.

TWENTY-SIX
    I can’t believe I’m telling you this.” She sat huddled in the deep chair, legs drawn up, issue shoes kicked off. The tears were gone though her face was as ruddy as her hair.
    “Go on,” he encouraged.
    “That guy I told you about? We were going to get an apartment together.”
    “Oh, with the collie. You didn’t say it was a guy. Your boyfriend?”
    The secret lover? Rhyme wondered.
    “He was my boyfriend.”
    “I was thinking maybe it was your father you’d lost.”
    “Naw. Pop did pass away—three years ago. Cancer. But we knew it was coming. If that prepares you for it I guess we were prepared. But Nick . . .”
    “He was killed?” Rhyme asked softly.
    But she didn’t answer. “Nick Carelli. One of us. A cop. Detective, third. Worked Street Crimes.”
    The name was familiar. Rhyme said nothing and let her continue.
    “We lived together for a while. Talked about getting married.” She paused, seemed to be lining up her thoughts like targets at a shooting range. “He worked undercover. So we were pretty secret about our relationship. He couldn’t let word get around on the street that his gal was a cop.” She cleared her throat. “It’s hard to explain. See, we had this . . . thing between us. It was . . . it hasn’t happened for me very often. Hell, it never happened before Nick. We clicked in some really deep way. He knew I had to be a cop and that wasn’t a problem for him. Same with me and his working undercover. Thatkind of . . . wavelength. You know, where you just completely understand someone? You ever felt what I’m talking about? With your wife?”
    Rhyme smiled faintly. “I did. Yes. But not with Blaine, my wife.” And that was all he wanted to say on the subject. “How’d you meet?” he asked.
    “The assignments lectures at the academy. Where somebody gets up and they tell you a little about what their division does. Nick was lecturing on undercover work. He asked me out on the spot. Our first date was at Rodman’s Neck.”
    “The gun range?”
    She nodded, sniffing. “Afterwards, we went to his mom’s in Brooklyn and had pasta and a bottle of Chianti. She pinched me hard and said I was too skinny to have babies. Made me eat two cannoli. We went back to my place and he stayed over that night. Quite a first date, huh? From then on we saw each other all the time. It was gonna work, Rhyme. I felt it. It was gonna work just fine.”
    Rhyme said, “What happened?”
    “He was . . .”
    Another bolstering hit of old liquor. “He was on the take is what happened. The whole time I knew him.”
    “He was?”
    “Crooked. Oh, way crooked. I never had a clue. Not a single goddamn clue. He socked it away in banks around the city. He dusted close to two hundred thousand.”
    Lincoln was silent a moment. “I’m sorry, Sachs. Drugs?”
    “No. Merch, mostly. Appliances, TVs. ’Jackings. They called it the Brooklyn Connection. The papers did.”
    Rhyme was nodding. “That’s why I remember it. There were a dozen of them in the ring, right? All cops?”
    “Mostly. A few ICC people too.”
    “What happened to him? Nick?”
    “You know what happens when cops bust cops. They beat the crap out of him. Said he resisted but I know he didn’t. Broke three ribs, a couple fingers, smashedhis face all up. Pleaded guilty but he still got twenty to thirty.”
    “For hijacking?” Rhyme was astonished.
    “He worked a couple of the jobs himself. Pistol-whipped one driver, took a shot at another one. Just to scare him. I know it was just to scare him. But the judge threw him away.” She closed her eyes, pressed her lips together hard.
    “When he got collared, Internal Affairs went after him like they were in heat. They checked pen registers. We were real careful about calling each other. He said perps sometimes tapped his line. But there were some calls to my place. IA came after me too. So Nick just cut me off. I mean, he had to. Otherwise I would’ve gone down with him. You know IA—it’s always a goddamn witch-hunt.”
    “What happened?”
    “To convince them that I wasn’t anything to him . . . Well, he said some things about me.” She swallowed, her eyes fixed on the floor. “At the IA inquest they wanted to know about me. Nick said, ‘Oh, P.D.