The Kill Room

know, of course.”
    “Did you get a description?”
    “Male, Caucasian, mid-thirty years of age, short-cut hair, light brown. American accent too. Thin but athletic, the maid said. She said too he seemed military.”
    “That’s our man. First, he called to make sure Moreno was still arriving. Then he showed up the day before the shooting to check out the target zone. Any car? Other details?”
    “No, I’m afraid not.”
    Beep.
    Rhyme heard the sound over the line and he thought: Shit, NIOS’s tapping us.
    But Poitier said, “I only have a few minutes left. That’s the tone warning me the time on my card is expiring.”
    “I’ll call you back—”
    “I must go anyway. I hope this—”
    Rhyme said urgently, “Please, wait. Tell me about the crime scene. I asked you earlier about the bullet.”
    That’s key to the case…
    A pause. “The sniper fired three times from a very far distance, more than a mile. Two shots missed and those bullets disintegrated on the concrete wall outside the room. The one that killed Moreno was recovered largely intact.”
    “One bullet?” Rhyme was confused. “But the other victims?”
    “Oh, they were not shot. The round was very powerful. It hit the windows and showered everyone with glass. The guard and the reporter interviewing Moreno were badly cut and bled to death before they got to the hospital.”
    The million-dollar bullet.
    “And the brass? The cartridges?”
    “I asked a crime scene team to go search where the sniper had to shoot from. But…” His voice dimmed. “I was, of course, very junior and they told me they didn’t want to bother.”
    “They didn’t want to bother?”
    “The area was rugged, they said, a rocky shoreline that would be hard to search. I protested but by then the decision had been made not to pursue the case.”
    “You yourself can search it, Corporal. I can tell you how to find the place he shot from,” Rhyme said.
    “Well, the case is suspended, as I said.”
    Beep.
    “There are simple things to look for. Snipers leave a great deal of trace, however careful they are. It won’t take much time.”
    Beep, beep…
    “I’m not able to, Captain. The missing student still hasn’t been found—”
    Rhyme blurted: “All right, Corporal, but please—at least send me the report, photos, the autopsy results. And if I could get the victims’ clothing. Shoes particularly. And…the bullet. I really want that bullet. We’ll be very diligent about the chain of custody.”
    A pause. “Ah, Captain, no, I’m sorry. I have to go.”
    Beep, beep, beep…
    The last that Rhyme heard before the line went silent was the urgent hoot of a slot machine and a very drunken tourist saying, “Great, great. You realize it just cost you two hundred bucks to win thirty-nine fucking dollars.”

CHAPTER 23
    T HAT NIGHT RHYME AND SACHS lay in his SunTec bed, fully reclined.
    She had assured him that the bed was indescribably comfortable, an assessment for which he would have to take her word, since his only sensation was the smooth pillowcase. Which in fact was quite luxurious.
    “Look,” she whispered.
    Immediately outside the window of Rhyme’s second-story bedroom, on the ledge, was a flurry of movement, hard to discern in the dusk.
    Then a feather rose and drifted out of sight. Another.
    Dinnertime.
    Peregrine falcons had lived on this sill, or one of the others outside the town house, ever since Rhyme had been a resident. He was particularly pleased they’d chosen his abode for nesting. As a scientist, he emphatically did not believe in signs or omens or the supernatural, but he saw nothing wrong with the idea of emblems. He viewed the birds metaphorically, thinking in particular of a fact that most people didn’t know about them: that when they attack they are essentially immobile. Falling bundles of muscle with legs fixed outward and wings tucked, streamlined. They dive at over two hundred miles per hour and kill prey by impact, not rending or biting.
    Immobile, yet predatory.
    Another feather floated away as the avian couple bent to their main course. The entrée was what had until recently been a fat, and careless, pigeon. Falcons are generally diurnal and hunt until dusk but in the city they are often nocturnal.
    “Yum,” said Sachs.
    Rhyme laughed.
    She moved closer to him and he smelled her hair, the rich scent. A bit of shampoo, floral. Amelia Sachs was not a perfume girl. His right arm rose and he cradled her head