The Bone Collector

Sachs? I just fucked her a few times. Turned out she was lousy. So I dumped her.’ ” She tilted her head back and mopped tears with her sleeve. “The nickname? P.D.”
    “Lon told me.”
    She frowned. “Did he tell you what it means?”
    “The Portable’s Daughter. After your father.”
    She smiled wanly. “That’s how it started. But that’s not how it ended up. At the inquest Nick said I was such a lousy fuck it really stood for ‘Pussy Diver’ ’cause I probably liked girls better. Guess how fast that went through the department.”
    “It’s a low common denominator out there, Sachs.”
    She took a deep breath. “I saw him in court toward the end of the inquest. He looked at me once and . . . I can’t even describe what was in his eyes. Just pure heartbreak. Oh, he did it to protect me. But still . . . You were right, you know. About the lonely stuff.”
    “I didn’t mean—”
    “No,” she said, unsmiling. “I hit you, you hit me. That was fair. And you were right. I hate being alone. I want to go out, I want to meet somebody. But after Nick I lost my taste for sex.” Sachs gave a sour laugh. “Everybody thinks looking like me’s wonderful. I could have my pick of guys, right? Bullshit. The only ones with the balls to ask me out’re the ones who want to screw all the time. So I just gave up. It’s easier by myself. I hate it, but it’s easier.”
    At last Rhyme understood her reaction at seeing him for the first time. She was at ease with him because here was a man who was no threat to her. No sexual come-ons. Someone she wouldn’t have to fend off. And perhaps a certain camaraderie too—as if they were both missing the same, crucial gene.
    “You know,” he joked, “you and me, we ought to get together and not have an affair.”
    She laughed. “So tell me about your wife. How long were you married?”
    “Seven years. Six before the accident, one after.”
    “And she left you?”
    “Nope. I left her. I didn’t want her to feel guilty about it.”
    “Good of you.”
    “I’d have driven her out eventually. I’m a prick. You’ve only seen my good side.” After a moment he asked, “This thing with Nick . . . it have anything to do with why you’re leaving Patrol?”
    “No. Well, yes.”
    “Gunshy?”
    Finally she nodded. “Life on the street’s different now. That’s what did it to Nick, you know. What turned him. It’s not like it was when Pop was walking his beat. Things were better then.”
    “You mean it’s not like the stories your dad told you.”
    “Maybe,” she conceded. Sachs slumped the chair. “The arthritis? That’s true but it’s not as serious as I pretend it is.”
    “I know,” Rhyme said.
    “You know? How?”
    “I just looked at the evidence and drew some conclusions.”
    “Is that why you’ve been on my case all day? You knew I was faking?”
    “I’ve been on your case,” he said, “because you’re better than you think you are.”
    She gave him a screwy look.
    “Ah, Sachs, you remind me of me.”
    “I do?”
    “Let me tell you a story. I’d been on crime scene detail maybe a year when we got a call from Homicide there was a guy found dead in an alley in Greenwich Village. All the sergeants were out and so I got elected to run the scene. I was twenty-six years old, remember. I go up there and check it out and it turns out the dead guy’s the head of the City Health and Human Services. Now, what’s he got all around him but a load of Polaroids? You should’ve seen some of those snaps—he’d been to one of those S&M clubs off Washington Street. Oh, and I forgot to mention, when they found him he was dressed in a stunning little black minidress and fishnet stockings.
    “So, I secure the scene. All of a sudden a captain shows up and starts to cross the tape. I know he’s planning to have those pictures disappear on the way to the evidence room but I was so naive I didn’t care much about the pictures—I was just worried about somebody walking through the scene.”
    “P is for Protect the crime scene.”
    Rhyme chuckled. “So I didn’t let him in. While he was standing at the tape screaming at me a dep com tried an end run. I told him no. He started screaming at me. The scene stays virgin till IRD’s through with it, I told them. Guess who finally showed up?”
    “The mayor?”
    “Well, deputy mayor.”
    “And you held ’em all off?”
    “Nobody got into that scene except Latents and Photography. Of