The Twelfth Card

confining.
    That was bad enough but the worst was the sitting. Amelia Sachs hated to sit still.
    When you move they can’t getcha . . . .
    No small crime scenes, Rhyme? Brother . . .
    She started to leave.
    But at the door, she paused, looking back over the material, thinking: A few sentences in one of these musty books or yellowing newspapers could make the difference between life and death for GenevaSettle—and the other innocents that Unsub 109 might one day kill.
    Rhyme’s voice came back to her. When you’re walking the grid at the scene, you search it once and then again and when you’re finished, you search it once more. And when you’re done with that, you search it again. And . . .
    She glanced at the last book—the one that had defeated her. Sachs sighed, sat back down, pulled the 504-pager toward her and read through it properly and then flipped through the photographs in the middle.
    Which, it turned out, was a good idea.
    She froze, staring at a photograph of West Eightieth Street, taken in 1867. She gave a laugh, read the caption and the text on the opposite page. Then pulled her cell phone off her belt and hit speed-dial button 1.
    *   *   *
    “I found Potters’ Field, Rhyme.”
    “We know where it is,” he snapped into the microphone near his mouth. “An island in the—”
    “There’s another one.”
    “A second cemetery?”
    “Not a cemetery. It was a tavern. In Gallows Heights.”
    “A tavern?” Well, this was interesting, he thought.
    “I’m looking at the photo, or daguerreotype, whatever it is. A bar named Potters’ Field. It was on West Eightieth Street.”
    So, they’d been wrong, Rhyme reflected. Charles Singleton’s fateful meeting may not have been on Hart’s Island at all.
    “And, it gets better—the place burned down. Suspected arson. Perpetrators and motive unknown.”
    “Am I right in supposing that it was the same day Charles Singleton went there to—what did he say? To find justice?”
    “Yep. July fifteenth.”
    Forever hidden beneath clay and soil . . .
    “Anything else about him? Or the tavern?”
    “Not yet.”
    “Keep digging.”
    “You bet, Rhyme.”
    They disconnected the call.
    Sachs had been on the speakerphone; Geneva had heard. She asked angrily, “You think Charles burned that place down?”
    “Not necessarily. But one of the major reasons for arson is to destroy evidence. Maybe that’s what Charles was up to, covering up something about the robbery.”
    Geneva said, “Look at his letter . . . he’s saying that the theft was set up to discredit him. Don’t you think he’s innocent by now?” The girl’s voice was low and firm, her eyes bored into Rhyme’s.
    The criminalist returned her gaze. “I do, yes.”
    She nodded. Gave a faint smile at this acknowledgement. Then she looked at her battered Swatch. “I should get home.”
    Bell was concerned that the unsub had learned where Geneva lived. He’d arranged a safe house for her, but it wouldn’t be available until tonight. For the time being, he and the protection team would simply have to remain particularly vigilant.
    Geneva gathered up Charles’s letters.
    “We’ll have to keep those for the time being,” Rhyme said.
    “Keep them? Like, for evidence?”
    “Just until we get to the bottom of what’s going on.”
    Geneva was looking at them hesitantly. There seemed to be a longing in her eye.
    “We’ll keep them in a safe place.”
    “Okay.” She handed them to Mel Cooper.
    He looked at her troubled expression. “Would you like copies of his letters?”
    She seemed embarrassed. “Yeah, I would. Just . . . they’re, you know, from family. That makes ’em kind of important.”
    “No problem at all.” He made copies on the Xerox machine and handed them to her. She folded them carefully and they disappeared into her purse.
    Bell took a call, listened for a moment and said, “Great, get it over here as soon as you can. Much appreciated.” He gave Rhyme’s address, then hung up. “The school. They found the security tape of the school yard when the unsub’s partner was there yesterday. They’re sending it over.”
    “Oh, my God,” Rhyme said sourly, “you mean there’s a real lead in the case? And it’s not a hundred years old?”
    Bell switched to the scrambled frequency and radioed Luis Martinez about their plans. He then radioed Barbe Lynch, the officer guarding the street in front of Geneva’s house. She reported the street