The Burning Wire

too. Glad he’s going away forever.”
    Dellray turned and left the office. As he returned to his own, he allowed himself a single nervous laugh.
    Third graders?
    Then pulled out his mobile to text Serena and to tell her that he’d be home soon.

Chapter 84
    LINCOLN RHYME GLANCED up to see Pulaski in the doorway.
    “Rookie, what’re you doing here? I thought you were logging in evidence in Queens.”
    “I was. Just . . .” His voice slowed like a car hitting a patch of soupy fog.
    “Just?”
    It was close to 9 p.m., and they were alone in Rhyme’s parlor. Comforting domestic sounds in the kitchen. Sachs and Thom were getting dinner ready. It was, Rhyme noticed, well past cocktail hour and he was a bit piqued that nobody had filled up his plastic tumbler of scotch again.
    A failing he now told Pulaski to remedy, which the young cop did.
    “That’s not a double,” Rhyme muttered. But Pulaski seemed not to hear. He’d walked to the window, eyes outside.
    Shaping up to be a dramatic scene from a slow-moving Brit drama, Rhyme deduced, and sipped the smoky liquor through the straw.
    “I’ve kind of made a decision. I wanted to tell you first.”
    “Kind of?” Rhyme chided once again.
    “I mean, I have made a decision.”
    Rhyme raised his eyebrow. He didn’t want to be too encouraging. What was coming next? he wondered, though he believed he had an idea. Rhyme’s life might have been devoted to science but he’d also been in charge of hundreds of employees and cops. And despite his impatience, his gruffness, his fits of temper, he’d been a reasonable and fair boss.
    As long as you didn’t screw up.
    “Go on, Rookie.”
    “I’m leaving.”
    “The area?”
    “The force.”
    “Ah.”
    Rhyme had become aware of body language sincehe’d known Kathryn Dance. He sensed that Pulaski was now delivering lines he’d rehearsed. Many times.
    The cop rubbed his hand through his short blond hair. “William Brent.”
    “Dellray’s CI?”
    “Right, yessir.”
    Rhyme thought once more about reminding the young man that he didn’t need to use such deferential appellations. But he said only, “Go on, Pulaski.”
    His face grim, eyes turbulent, Pulaski sat down in the creaking wicker chair near Rhyme’s Storm Arrow. “At Galt’s place, I was spooked. I panicked. I didn’t exercise good judgment. I wasn’t aware enough of procedures.” As if in summary, he added, “I didn’t assess the situation properly and adjust my behavior accordingly.”
    Like a schoolboy who wasn’t sure of the test answers and was rattling them off quickly, hoping one would stick.
    “He’s out of his coma.”
    “But he might’ve died.”
    “And that’s why you’re quitting?”
    “I made a mistake. It nearly cost somebody his life. . . . I just don’t feel I can keep functioning at full capacity.”
    Jesus, where did he get these lines?
    “It was an accident, Rookie.”
    “And one that shouldn’t’ve happened.”
    “Are there any other kinds of accidents?”
    “You know what I mean, Lincoln. It’s not like I haven’t thought this through.”
    “I can prove that you have to stay, that it’d be wrong for you to quit.”
    “What, say that I’m talented, I have a lot to contribute?” The cop’s face was skeptical. He was youngbut he looked a lot older than when Rhyme had met him. Policing will do that.
    So will working with me, Lincoln Rhyme reflected.
    “You know why you can’t quit? You’d be a hypocrite.”
    Pulaski blinked.
    Rhyme continued, an edge to his voice. “You missed your window of opportunity.”
    “What’s that mean?”
    “Okay, you fucked up and somebody was injured badly. But then when it looked like Brent was a perp with outstanding paper, you thought you’d been given a reprieve, right?”
    “Well . . . I guess.”
    “You suddenly didn’t care that you’d hit him. Since he was, what, less than human?”
    “No, I just—”
    “Let me finish. The minute after you backed into that guy, you had a choice to make: Either you should’ve decided that the risk of collateral damage and accidents isn’t acceptable to you and quit on the spot. Or you should’ve put the whole thing behind you and learned to live with what happened. It doesn’t make any difference if that guy was a serial killer or a deacon at his church. And it’s intellectually dishonest for you to whine about it now.”
    The rookie’s eyes narrowed with anger and he was about to offer a defense of some