The Coffin Dancer

down,” Rhyme said. “I’ll have Dellray get an armored van from the Bureau’s White Plains field office.”
    Percey heard the commotion. “I’ll go to the safe house in an hour or so. I have to find a mechanic to work on—”
    Sachs waved her silent, then said, “Jerry, keep them here.” She ran to the door and looked out over the gray expanse of the airfield as a noisy prop plane charged down the runway. She pulled the stalk mike closer to her mouth. “How, Rhyme?” she asked. “How’ll he come at us?”
    “I don’t have a clue. He could do anything.”
    Sachs tried to reenter the Dancer’s mind, but couldn’t. All she thought was, Deception . . .
    “How secure is the area?” Rhyme asked.
    “Pretty tight. Chain-link fence. Troopers at a road-blockat the entrance, checking tickets and IDs.”
    Rhyme asked, “But they’re not checking IDs of police, right?”
    Sachs looked at the uniformed officers, recalling how casually they’d waved her through. “Oh, hell, Rhyme, there’re a dozen marked cars here. A couple unmarkeds too. I don’t know the troopers or detectives . . . He could be any one of them.”
    “Okay, Sachs. Listen, find out if any local cops’re missing. In the past two or three hours. The Dancer might’ve killed one and stolen his ID and uniform.”
    Sachs called a state trooper up to the door, examined him and his ID closely, and decided he was the real article. She said, “We think the killer may be nearby, maybe impersonating an officer. I need you to check out everybody here. If you don’t recognize ’em, let me know. Also, find out from your dispatcher if any cops from around the area’ve gone missing in the past few hours.”
    “I’m on it, Officer.”
    She returned to the office. There were no blinds on the windows and Banks had moved Percey and Hale into an interior office.
    “What’s going on?” Percey asked.
    “You’re out of here in five minutes,” Sachs said, glancing out the window, trying to guess how the Dancer would attack. She had no idea.
    “Why?” the flier asked, frowning.
    “We think the man who killed your husband’s here. Or on his way here.”
    “Oh, come on. There’re cops all over the field. It’s perfectly safe. I need to—”
    Sachs snapped to her, “No arguments.”
    But argue she did. “We can’t leave. I’ve just had my chief mechanic quit. I have to—”
    “Perce,” Hale said uneasily, “maybe we ought to listen to her.”
    “We’ve got to get that aircraft—”
    “Get back. In there. And be quiet.”
    Percey’s mouth opened wide in shock. “You can’t talk to me that way. I’m not a prisoner.”
    “Officer Sachs? Hellooo?” The trooper she’d spoken to outside stepped into the doorway. “I’ve done a fast visual of everybody here in uniform and the detectives too. No unknowns. And no reports of any state or Westchester officers missing. But our Central Dispatch told me something maybe you oughta know about. Might be nothing, but—”
    “Tell me.”
    Percey Clay said, “Officer, I have to talk to you . . . ”
    Sachs ignored her and nodded to the trooper. “Go on.”
    “Traffic Patrol in White Plains, about two miles away. They found a body in a Dumpster. Think he was killed about an hour ago, maybe less.”
    “Rhyme, you hear?”
    “Yes.”
    Sachs asked the cop, “Why d’you think that’s important?”
    “It’s the way he was killed. Was a hell of a mess.”
    “Ask him if the hands and face were missing,” Rhyme asked.
    “What?”
    “Ask him!”
    She did, and everyone in the office stopped talking and stared at Sachs.
    The trooper blinked in surprise and said, “Yes ma’am, Officer. Well, the hands at least. The dispatcher didn’t say anything about the face. How’d you know . . . ?”
    Rhyme blurted, “Where’s it now? The body?”
    She relayed the question.
    “In a coroner’s bus. They’re taking it to the county morgue.”
    “No,” Rhyme said. “Have them get it to you, Sachs. I want you to examine it.”
    “The—”
    “Body,” he said. “It’s got the answer to how he’s going to come at you. I don’t want Percey and Hale moved until we know what we’re up against.”
    She told the cop Rhyme’s request.
    “Okay,” he said. “I’ll get on it. That’s . . . You mean you want the body here .”
    “Yes. Now.”
    “Tell ’em to get it there fast, Sachs,” Rhyme said. He sighed. “Oh, this is bad. Bad.”
    And Sachs had the uneasy thought