The Coffin Dancer

Percey said. She hooked up a laptop computer to components in the engine itself. She typed on the keyboard, read the screen. Without looking down she asked, “So, what is it?”
    Eyes on the computer, the numbers flicking past, Sachs asked, “What do you mean?”
    “This, uhm, tension. Between us. You and me.”
    “You nearly got a friend of mine killed.”
    Percey shook her head. She said reasonably, “That’s not it. There’re risks in your job. You decide if you’re going to assume them or not. Jerry Banks wasn’t a rookie. It’s something else—I felt it before Jerry got shot. When I first saw you, in Lincoln Rhyme’s room.”
    Sachs said nothing. She lifted the jack out of the engine compartment and set it on a table, absently wound it closed.
    Three pieces of metal slipped into place around theengine and Percey applied her screwdriver like a conductor’s baton. Her hands were truly magic. Finally she said, “It’s about him, isn’t it?”
    “Who?”
    “You know who I mean. Lincoln Rhyme.”
    “You think I’m jealous?” Sachs laughed.
    “Yes, I do.”
    “Ridiculous.”
    “It’s more than just work between you. I think you’re in love with him.”
    “Of course I’m not. That’s crazy.”
    Percey offered a telling glance and then carefully twined excess wire into a bundle and nestled it into a cutout in the engine compartment. “Whatever you saw is just respect for his talent, that’s all.” She lifted a grease-stained hand toward herself. “Come on, Amelia, look at me. I’d make a lousy lover. I’m short, I’m bossy, I’m not good looking.”
    “You’re—” Sachs began.
    Percey interrupted. “The ugly duckling story? You know, the bird that everybody thought was ugly until it turned out to be a swan? I read that a million times when I was little. But I never turned into a swan. Maybe I learned to fly like one,” she said with a cool smile, “but it isn’t the same. Besides,” Percey continued, “I’m a widow. I just lost my husband. I’m not the least interested in anyone else.”
    “I’m sorry,” Sachs began slowly, feeling unwillingly drawn into this conversation, “but I’ve got to say . . . well, you don’t really seem to be in mourning.”
    “Why? Because I’m trying my hardest to keep my company going?”
    “No, there’s more than that,” Sachs replied cautiously. “Isn’t there?”
    Percey examined Sachs’s face. “Ed and I were incredibly close. We were husband and wife and friends and business partners . . . And yes, he was seeing someone else.”
    Sachs’s eyes swiveled toward the Hudson Air office.
    “That’s right,” Percey said. “It’s Lauren. You met her yesterday.”
    The brunette who’d been crying so hard.
    “It tore me apart. Hell, it tore Ed apart too. He loved me but he needed his beautiful lovers. Always did. And, you know, I think it was harder on them. Because he always came home to me.” She paused for a moment and fought the tears. “That’s what love is, I think. Who you come home to.”
    “And you?”
    “Was I faithful?” Percey asked. She gave another of her wry laughs—the laugh of someone who has keen self-awareness but who doesn’t like all the insights. “I didn’t have a lot of opportunities. I’m hardly the kind of girl gets picked up walking down the street.” She examined a socket wrench absently. “But, yeah, after I found out about Ed and his girlfriends, a few years ago, I was mad. It hurt a lot. I saw some other men. Ron and I—Ron Talbot—spent some time together, a few months.” She smiled. “He even proposed to me. Said I deserved better than Ed. And I suppose I did. But even with those other women in his life, Ed was the man I had to be with. That never changed.”
    Percey’s eyes grew distant for a moment. “We metin the navy, Ed and I. Both fighter pilots. When he proposed . . . See, the traditional way to propose in the military is you say, ‘You want to become my dependent?’ Sort of a joke. But we were both lieutenants j.g., so Ed said, ‘Let’s you and me become each other’s dependents.’ He wanted to get me a ring but my father’d disowned me—”
    “For real?”
    “Yep. Real soap opera, which I won’t go into now. Anyway, Ed and I were saving every penny to open our own charter company after we were discharged and we were completely broke. But one night he said, ‘Let’s go up.’ So we borrowed this old Norseman they had on the field. Tough plane.