The Kill Room

Poitier told her to pretend he was out?
    Rhyme said, “If he’s busy, tell him I’m happy to wait. For as long as necessary.”
    Her eyes flicked uncertainly to Rhyme’s. She said into the phone, “He said…” But apparently Poitier had heard. “Yes, Corporal.” She set the receiver down. “He’ll be here in a minute.”
    “Thank you.”
    They turned away and moved to an unoccupied portion of the waiting room.
    “God bless you,” said the woman who had given up her space in line for the pathetic figure.
    Rhyme felt Thom’s hand on his shoulder but, once again, he merely smiled.
    Thom and Pulaski sat on a bench beside Rhyme, under dozens of painted and photo portraits of senior commissioners and commanders of the Royal Bahamas Police Force, going back many years. He scanned the gallery. This was like walls of service everywhere: faces unrevealing and, like Queen Victoria’s, looking off into the distance, not directly at the painter or camera. Unemotional, yet oh what those eyes would have seen in the collective hundreds of years of duty as law enforcers.
    Rhyme was debating how long Poitier was going to stall when a young officer appeared from a hallway and approached the desk. He was in those ubiquitous black slacks, red-striped, and an open-collar, short-sleeved blue shirt. A chain from the top button disappeared into his left breast pocket. A whistle? Rhyme wondered. The dark-skinned man, who was armed with a semiau tomatic pistol, was bareheaded and had thick but short-trimmed hair. His round face was not happy.
    Constable Bethel pointed Rhyme out to the officer. The young man turned and blinked in stark surprise. Though he tried to stop himself he stared immediately down at the wheelchair and at Rhyme’s legs. He blinked again and seemed to swell with discomfort.
    Rhyme knew that it was more than his presence upsetting the officer.
    Forget murder, forget geopolitics. I have to deal with a cripple ?
    Poitier delayed a moment more, perhaps wondering if he’d been spotted. Could he still escape? Then, composing himself, he broke away reluctantly from the desk and approached them.
    “Captain Rhyme, well.” He said this with a casual, almost cheerful tone. Identical to the woman tourist’s a moment ago. Poitier’s hand was half extended as if he didn’t want to shake but thought it would be a moral lapse not to make the effort. Rhyme lifted his hand and the officer quickly, very quickly, gripped and let go.
    Quadriplegia is not contagious, Rhyme thought sourly.
    “Corporal, this is Officer Pulaski with the NYPD. And my caregiver, Thom Reston.”
    Hands were shaken, this time with less uncertainty. But Poitier looked Thom up and down. Perhaps the concept of “caregiver” was new to him.
    The corporal gazed about him and found several fellow officers frozen in different attitudes, like children playing the game of statue, as they stared.
    Mychal Poitier’s attention returned at once to the wheelchair and Rhyme’s insensate legs. The slow movements of the right arm seemed to rivet him the most, though. Finally, Poitier, using all his willpower, forced himself to stare into Rhyme’s eyes.
    The criminalist found himself at first irritated at this reaction but then he felt a sensation he hadn’t experienced for some time: He was ashamed. Actually ashamed of his condition. He’d hoped the sense would morph into anger but it didn’t. He felt diminished, weakened.
    Poitier’s dismayed look had burned him.
    Ashamed…
    He tried to push aside the prickly feeling and said evenly, “I need to discuss the case with you, Corporal.”
    Poitier looked around again. “I’m afraid I’ve told you all I can.”
    “I want to see the evidence reports. I want to see the crime scene itself.”
    “That’s not practical. The scene is sealed.”
    “You seal crime scenes from the public, not from forensics officers.”
    “But you’re…” A hesitation; Poitier managed not to look at his legs. “You’re not an officer here, Captain Rhyme. Here you are a civilian. I’m sorry.”
    Pulaski said, “Let us help you with the case.”
    “My time is very occupied.” He was happy to glance toward Pulaski, someone who was on his feet. Someone who was normal. “Occupied,” Poitier repeated, turning now to a bulletin board on which was pinned a flyer: The headline was MISSING . Beneath that stark word was a picture of a smiling blonde, downloaded from Facebook, it seemed.
    Rhyme said, “The student you