The Twelfth Card

Thom run out and buy a board game?
    There were, of course, questions that had to be asked. But Rhyme was reluctant to do so himself. Interviewing and interrogation were skills he didn’t possess. When he was on the force he’d questioned suspects maybe a dozen times, and had never had one of those oh-Jesus moments when the grillee broke down and confessed. Sachs, on the other hand, was a natural at the art. She warned rookies that you could blow an entire case with a single wrong word. She called it “contaminating the mind,” the counterpart to Rhyme’s number-one sin: contaminating a crime scene.
    Lakeesha asked, “How you move round in that chair?”
    “Shhh,” Geneva warned.
    “I only askin’.”
    “Well, don’t.”
    “Ain’t no harm in asking nothin’.”
    Lakeesha had lost her skittishness completely now. Rhyme decided she was actually pretty savvy.She acts uneasy at first, making it seem like she’s naive, vulnerable, that you have the advantage, but all the while she’s sizing things up. Once she’s got a handle on the situation, she knows whether or not to trot out the bluster.
    In fact, Rhyme was thankful for something to make conversation about. He explained about the ECU, the environmental control unit, how the touch pad under his left ring finger could direct the movement and speed of the wheelchair.
    “One finger?” Keesha glanced at one of her orange nails. “That all you can move?”
    “That’s right. Other than my head and shoulders.”
    “Mr. Rhyme,” Geneva said, looking at a red Swatch, which sat large and obvious on her thin wrist, “about those tests? The first one’s in a couple of hours. How long’ll this be?”
    “School?” Rhyme asked, surprised. “Oh, you can stay home today, I’m sure. After what happened, your teachers’ll understand.”
    “Well, I don’t really want to stay home. I need to take the tests.”
    “Yo, yo, girl, time out. Here the man say you can take a pass, all one hundred percent phat, and you sayin’ no. Come on. That wack.”
    Geneva looked up into her friend’s eyes. “And you’re taking your tests too. You’re not skipping.”
    “It ain’t skippin’, you got a pass,” the big girl pointed out with flawless logic.
    Rhyme’s phone rang and he was grateful for the interruption.
    “Command, answer phone,” he said into the hands-free microphone.
    “Def!” Lakeesha said, lifting her eyebrows. “Look at that, Gen. I want one of them.”
    Eyes narrowing, Geneva whispered something to her friend, who rolled her eyes and slurped more coffee.
    “Rhyme,” Sachs’s voice said.
    “They’re here, Sachs,” Rhyme said in a brittle voice. “Geneva and her friend. And I’m hoping you’re—”
    “Rhyme,” she repeated. It was a particular tone. Something was wrong.
    “What is it?”
    “The scene was hot, after all.”
    “He was there ?”
    “Yep. Never left. Or doubled back.”
    “Are you okay?”
    “Yeah. It wasn’t me he was after.”
    “What happened?”
    “Got up close, into an alley. Fired four shots. He wounded a bystander . . . and he killed a witness. His name was Don Barry. He was in charge of the library at the museum. He took three rounds in the heart. Died instantly.”
    “You’re sure the shooter’s the same?”
    “Yep. The shoe prints I found from his shooting position match the ones in the library. Lon was just starting to interview him. He was standing right in front of him when it happened.”
    “He get a look at the doer?”
    “Nope. Nobody did. He was hiding behind a Dumpster. Couple of the uniforms on the scene went to work on the woman to save her. She had a major bleeder. He got away in the crowd. Just disappeared.”
    “Somebody take care of the details?”
    Calling the next of kin. Details .
    “Lon was going to make the calls but he had phone problems or something. There was a sergeant on the scene. He did it.”
    “All right, Sachs, come on back with what you’ve found . . . . Command, disconnect.” He looked up and found the two girls staring at him.
    He explained, “It looks like the man who attacked you didn’t leave, after all. Or he came back. He killed the head librarian and—”
    “Mr. Barry?” A gasp from Geneva Settle. She stopped moving, simply froze.
    “That’s right.”
    “Shit,” Lakeesha whispered. She closed her eyes and shivered.
    A moment later Geneva’s mouth tightened and she looked down. She set the cocoa on a table. “No,