The Coffin Dancer

as always when he could think up a melodramatic line. “What the DA does with it is up to him. Did Percey tell you we’ve had trouble with the evidence implicating Hansen?”
    “Yeah, she said something about that. The evidence he dumped was fake? Why’d he do that?”
    “I think I can answer that, but I need some more information. Percey tells me you know the Company pretty well. You’re a partner, right?”
    Talbot nodded, took out a pack of cigarettes, saw no one else was smoking, replaced them in his pocket. He was even more rumpled than Sellitto and it looked as if it had been a long time since he’d been able to button his jacket around his ample belly.
    “Let me try this out on you,” Rhyme said. “What if Hansen didn’t want to kill Ed and Percey because they were witnesses?”
    “But then why?” Percey blurted.
    Talbot asked, “You mean, he had another motive? Like what?”
    Rhyme didn’t respond directly. “Percey tells me the Company hasn’t been doing well for a while.”
    Talbot shrugged. “Been a tough couple years. Deregulation, lots of small carriers. Fighting UPS and FedEx. Postal Service too. Margins’ve shrunk.”
    “But you still have good—what is that, Fred? You did some white-collar crime work, right? Money that comes in. What’s the word for it?”
    Dellray snorted a laugh. “Revy-nue, Lincoln.”
    “You had good revenue.”
    Talbot nodded. “Oh, cash flow’s never been a problem. It’s just that more goes out than comes in.”
    “What do you think about the theory that the Dancer was hired to murder Percey and Ed so that the killer could buy the Company at a discount?”
    “What company? Ours?” Percey asked, frowning.
    “Why would Hansen do that?” Talbot said, wheezing again.
    Percey added, “And why not just come to us with a big check? He never even approached us.”
    “I didn’t actually say Hansen,” Rhyme pointedout. “The question I asked before was what if Hansen didn’t want to kill Ed and Percey? What if it was somebody else?”
    “Who?” Percey asked.
    “I’m not sure. It’s just . . . well, that green fiber.”
    “Green fiber?” Talbot followed Rhyme’s eyes to the evidence chart.
    “Everyone seems to’ve forgotten about it. Except me.”
    “Man never forgets a single thing. Do you, Lincoln?”
    “Not too often, Fred. Not too often. That fiber. Sachs—my partner—”
    “I remember you,” Talbot said, nodding toward her.
    “She found it in the hangar that Hansen leased. It was in some trace materials near the window where Stephen Kall waited before he planted the bomb on Ed Carney’s plane. She also found bits of brass and some white fibers and envelope glue. Which tells us that somebody left a key to the hangar in an envelope somewhere for Kall. But then I got to thinking—why did Kall need a key to break into an empty hangar? He was a pro. He could’ve broken into the place in his sleep. The only reason for the key was to make it look like Hansen had left it. To implicate him.”
    “But the hijacking,” Talbot said, “when he killed those soldiers and stole the guns. Everybody knows he’s a murderer.”
    “Oh, he probably is,” Rhyme agreed. “But he didn’t fly his airplane over Long Island Sound and play bombardier with those phone books. Somebody else did.”
    Percey stirred uneasily.
    Rhyme continued, “Somebody who never thought we’d find the duffel bags.”
    “Who?” Talbot demanded.
    “Sachs?”
    She pulled three large evidence envelopes out of a canvas bag and rested them on the table.
    Inside two of them were accounting books. The third contained a stack of white envelopes.
    “Those came from your office, Talbot.”
    He gave a weak laugh. “I don’t think you can just take those without a warrant.”
    Percey Clay frowned. “I gave them permission. I’m still head of the Company, Ron. But what’re you saying, Lincoln?”
    Rhyme regretted not sharing his suspicions with Percey before this; it was coming as a terrible shock. But he couldn’t risk that she might tip their hand to Talbot. He’d covered his tracks so well until now.
    Rhyme glanced at Mel Cooper, who said, “The green fiber that we found with the particles of key came from a ledger sheet. The white ones from an envelope. There’s no doubt they match.”
    Rhyme continued, “They all came from your office, Talbot.”
    “What do you mean, Lincoln?” Percey gasped.
    Rhyme said to Talbot, “Everybody at the airport knew Hansen