The Broken Window

comprehensive way of discovering evidence.
    Rhyme, feeling both like a boss and a parent, knew that the kid would have to run his first homicide scene solo sooner or later. “All right,” he grumbled. “Let’s hope this Post-it lead pays off.” He couldn’t help adding, “And isn’t a complete waste of time.”
    She laughed. “Don’t we always hope that, Rhyme?”
    “And tell Pulaski not to screw up.”
    They disconnected and Rhyme told Cooper the evidence was on its way.
    Staring at the evidence charts, he muttered, “He got away.”
    He ordered Thom to put the sparse description of 522 on the whiteboard.
    Probably white or light-skinned . . .
    How helpful is that ?
    •   •   •
    Amelia Sachs was in the front seat of her parked Camaro, the door open. Late-afternoon spring air was wafting into the car, which smelled of old leather and oil. She was jotting notes for her crime-scene report. She always did this as soon as possible after searching a scene. It was amazing what one could forget in a short period of time. Colors changed, left became right, doors and windows moved from one wall to another or vanished altogether.
    She paused, distracted once again by the odd facts of the case. How had the killer managed to come so close to blaming an innocent man for an appalling rape and murder? She’d never run into a perp like this; planting evidence to mislead the police wasn’t unusual but this guy was a genius at pointing them in the wrong direction.
    The street where she’d parked was two blocks away from the trash-can crime scene, shadowed and deserted.
    Motion caught her eye. Thinking of 522, she felt a throb of uneasiness. She glanced up and in the rearview mirror saw somebody walking her way. She squinted, studying him carefully, though the man seemed harmless: a clean-cut businessman. He was carrying a take-out bag in one hand and talking on his cell phone, a smile on his face. A typical resident out to get Chinese or Mexican for dinner.
    Sachs returned to her notes.
    Finally she was finished and tucked them into her briefcase. But then something struck her as strange. The man on the sidewalk should have passed the Camaro by now. But he hadn’t. Had he gone into one of the buildings? She turned to the sidewalk where he’d been.
    No!
    She was staring at the take-out bag, sitting on the sidewalk to the left and behind the car. It was just a prop!
    Her hand went for her Glock. But before she could draw, the right side door was ripped open and she was staring into the face of the killer, eyes narrowed, lifting a pistol toward her face.
    •   •   •
    The doorbell rang and a moment later Rhyme heard yet another distinctive footfall. Heavy ones.
    “In here, Lon.”
    Detective Lon Sellitto nodded a greeting. His stocky figure was encased in blue jeans and a dark purple Izodshirt, and he was wearing running shoes, which surprised Rhyme. The criminalist rarely saw him in casual clothes. He was also struck by the fact that, while Sellitto didn’t seem to own a suit that wasn’t fiercely wrinkled, this outfit looked hot off the ironing board. The only disfigurements were a few stretch marks in the cloth where his belly jutted past his waistband, and the bulge in the back where his off-duty pistol was not efficiently hidden.
    “He rabbited, I heard.”
    Rhyme spat out, “Gone completely.”
    The floor creaked under the big man’s weight as he ambled to the evidence charts and looked them over. “That’s what you’re calling him? Five Twenty-Two?”
    “May twenty-second. What happened with the Russian case?”
    Sellitto didn’t answer. “Mr. Five Twenty-Two leave anything behind?”
    “We’re about to find out. He ditched a bag of evidence he was going to plant. It’s on its way.”
    “That was courteous.”
    “Iced tea, coffee?”
    “Yeah,” the detective muttered to Thom. “Thanks. Coffee. You have skim milk?”
    “Two percent.”
    “Good. And any of those cookies from last time? The chocolate chip ones?”
    “Just oatmeal.”
    “Those’re good too.”
    “Mel?” Thom asked. “You want something?”
    “If I eat or drink near an examining table, I get yelled at.”
    Rhyme snapped, “It’s hardly my fault if defense lawyers have this thing about excluding contaminated evidence. I didn’t make the rules.”
    Sellitto observed, “See your mood hasn’t improved. What’s going on in London?”
    “Now that ’s a subject I don’t want to talk