The Kill Room

countries.”
    “And you, Captain Rhyme, you. Do you understand you nearly got a policeman on my force killed?”
    The criminalist fell silent.
    His voice flinty he added, “And yourself too. We don’t need any more dead Americans in the Bahamas. We’ve had our share.” A cool glance to his side. “You’re suspended, Corporal. There will be an inquiry that may result in your termination. At the very least, you’ll be reassigned back to Traffic.”
    Dismay flooded Poitier’s face. “But—”
    “And you, Captain Rhyme, you are leaving the Bahamas immediately. My officers here will escort you to the airport, along with your associates. Your belongings will be collected from your motel and given to you there. We have already called the airline. You have seats on a flight that leaves in two hours. You’ll be in custody until then. And you, Corporal, you will surrender your weapon and your identification at headquarters.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    But suddenly Ron Pulaski strode forward and confronted the assistant commissioner, who was easily twice his weight and several inches taller. “No,” the young patrolman said.
    “I beg your pardon?”
    The young officer said firmly, “We’re going to spend the night at our motel. Leave in the morning.”
    “What?” McPherson blinked.
    “We are not leaving tonight.”
    “That’s not acceptable, Officer Pulaski.”
    “Lincoln nearly died. He’s not getting on an airplane until he’s had some rest.”
    “You’ve committed crimes—”
    Pulaski unholstered his phone. “Should we call the embassy and discuss the matter with them? Of course, I’d have to mention what we’re doing down here, the specific crime we’re investigating.”
    Silence, except for the clang of the mysterious machinery in the factory behind them and the lapping of the shimmering waves.
    The brass glowered. “All right,” McPherson muttered. “But you take the first flight in the morning. You’ll be escorted to your motel and confined to your room until then.”
    Rhyme said, “Thank you, Commissioner. I appreciate it. I apologize for any difficulties I’ve caused your force. Good luck with this case. And with the murder investigation of the American student.” He looked at Poitier. “And again, I’m sorry to you too, Corporal.”
    Five minutes later Rhyme, Thom and Pulaski were in the Ford van, leaving the spit, with a police escort behind them to make sure they arrived—and stayed put—at their motel. The two large officers in the squad car were unsmiling and wary. Rhyme in fact didn’t mind their presence; after all, the trio from the gold Mercury was still at large.
    “Goddamn good job, rookie.”
    “Better than competent?”
    “You exceeded competence.”
    The young officer laughed. “I had a hunch you needed to buy some time.”
    “That’s exactly right. I liked the embassy part, by the way.”
    “Improvising. So what do we do next?”
    “We let the bread bake,” Rhyme said cryptically. “And see if we can’t rustle up some of this Bahamian rum I’ve been hearing about.”

CHAPTER 44
    I NTO THE PARLOR OF THE TOWN HOUSE , the laboratory, Amelia Sachs carted a milk crate containing the evidence from the Lydia Foster crime scene.
    “Did Lincoln call?” she asked Mel Cooper, who eyed the crate with interest.
    “Nope, not a word.”
    Cooper, the expert lab man, was now officially on board, thanks to a call by Lon Sellitto and Captain Myers, to arrange for his reassignment to the Rhyme Precinct. Cooper, an NYPD detective, was balding and diminutive and wore thick Harry Potter glasses that never seemed to remain exactly perched where they should be. You would think his off-hours life would be filled with math puzzles and Scientific American but his leisure time was largely taken with ballroom dancing competitions, with his stunningly gorgeous Scandinavian girlfriend, a mathematics professor at Columbia University.
    Nance Laurel was at her desk. The woman glanced blankly at the physical evidence, then back to the policewoman, and Sachs didn’t know if this was a greeting or a symptom of one of the pauses before she spoke.
    Sachs offered grimly, “I got it wrong. There’re two perps.” She explained about her erroneous assumption. “I was following the sniper. The man who killed Lydia Foster’s somebody else.”
    “Who do you think?” Cooper asked.
    “Bruns’s backup.”
    “Or a specialist hired by Metzger to clean up,” Laurel said. It seemed to Sachs