The Bone Collector

his home and slice through its smooth belly with a thin knife.
    “Four years ago, the Shepherd case. We were on it together.”
    Rhyme nodded.
    “The workers found the body of that cop in the subway stop.”
    A groan, Rhyme recalled, like the sound of the Titanic sinking in A Night to Remember. Then an explosion loud as a gunshot as the beam came down on his hapless neck, and dirt packed around his body.
    “And you ran the scene. You yourself, like you always did.”
    “I did, yes.”
    “Did you know how we convicted Shepherd? We had a wit.”
    A witness? Rhyme hadn’t heard that. After the accident he’d lost all track of the case, except for learning that Shepherd had been convicted and, three months later, stabbed to death on Riker’s Island by an assailant who was never captured.
    “An eyewitness,” Polling continued. “He could place Shepherd at one of the victims’ homes with the murderweapon.” The captain stepped closer to the bed, crossed his arms. “We had the wit a day before we found the last body—the one in the subway. Before I put in the request that you run the scene.”
    “What’re you saying, Jim?”
    The captain’s eyes rooted themselves to the floor. “We didn’t need you. We didn’t need your report.”
    Rhyme said nothing.
    Polling nodded. “You understand what I’m saying? I wanted to nail that fuck Shepherd so bad. . . . I wanted an airtight case. And you know what a Lincoln Rhyme crime scene report does to defense lawyers. It scares the everlovin’ shit out of them.”
    “But Shepherd would’ve been convicted even without my report from the subway scene.”
    “That’s right, Lincoln. But it’s worse than that. See, I got word from MTA Engineering that the site wasn’t safe.”
    “The subway site. And you had me work the scene before they shored it up?”
    “Shepherd was a cop-killer.” Polling’s face twisted up in disgust. “I wanted him so bad. I woulda done anything to nail him. But . . .” He lowered his head to his hands.
    Rhyme said nothing. He heard the groan of the beam, the explosion of the breaking wood. Then the rustle of the dirt nestling around him. A curious, warm peace in his body while his heart stuttered with terror.
    “Jim—”
    “That’s why I wanted you on this case, Lincoln. You see?” A miserable look crossed the captain’s tough face; he stared at the disk of spinal column on the table. “I kept hearing these stories that your life was crap. You were wasting away here. Talking about killing yourself. I felt so fucking guilty. I wanted to try to give you some of your life back.”
    Rhyme said, “And you’ve been living with this for the last three and a half years.”
    “You know about me, Lincoln. Everybody knows about me. I collar somebody, he gives me any shit, he goes down. I get a hard-on for some perp, I don’t stop till the prick’s bagged and tagged. I can’t control it. Iknow I’ve fucked over people sometimes. But they were perps—or suspects, at least. They weren’t my own, they weren’t cops. What happened to you . . . that was a sin. It was just fucking wrong.”
    “I wasn’t a rookie,” Rhyme said. “I didn’t have to work a scene I thought wasn’t safe.”
    “But—”
    “Bad time?” another voice said from the doorway.
    Rhyme glanced up, expecting to see Berger. But it was Peter Taylor who’d come up the stairs. Rhyme recalled that he was coming by today to check on his patient after the dysreflexia attack. He supposed too that the doctor was planning to give him hell about Berger and the Lethe Society. He wasn’t in the mood for that; he wanted time alone—to digest Polling’s confession. At the moment it just sat there, numb as Rhyme’s thigh. But he said, “Come on in, Peter.”
    “You’ve got a very funny security system, Lincoln. The guard asked if I was a doctor and he let me up. What? Do lawyers and accountants get booted?”
    Rhyme laughed. “I’ll only be a second.” Rhyme turned back to Polling. “Fate, Jim. That’s what happened to me. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It happens.”
    “Thanks, Lincoln.” Polling put his hand on Rhyme’s right shoulder and squeezed it gently.
    Rhyme nodded and, to deflect the uneasy gratitude, introduced the men. “Jim, this is Pete Taylor, one of my doctors. And this is Jim Polling, we used to work together.”
    “Nice to meet you,” Taylor said, sticking out his right hand. It was a broad gesture and Rhyme’s