The Vanished Man

Think about it before you answer. And I need you to be completely honest.”
    “Well,” the nurse said uncertainly, looking down at the newly varnished floor. “I’ll do the best I can.”
    •   •   •
    That afternoon Roland Bell was in Rhyme’s living room. To the soundtrack of some enticing Dave Brubeck jazz piano they were talking about the evidence in the Andrew Constable case.
    Charles Grady and the state’s attorney general himself had decided to delay the man’s trial in order to include additional charges against the bigot—attempted murder of his own lawyer, conspiracy to commit murder and felony murder. It wouldn’t be an easy case—linking Constable to Barnes and the other conspirators in the Patriot Assembly—but if anyone could bring in convictions Grady was the man to do it. He was also going for the death penalty against Arthur Loesser for the murder of Patrol Officer Larry Burke, whose body had been found in an alley on the Upper West Side. Lon Sellitto was presently at the officer’s full-dress funeral in Queens.
    Amelia Sachs now walked through the doorway, looking frazzled after an all-day meeting with lawyers arranged through the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association about her possible suspension. She was supposed to have been back hours ago and, glancing at her face, Rhyme deduced that the results of the session were not good.
    He himself had some news—about his meeting with Jaynene and what had happened after that—and had tried to reach her but had been unable to. Now,though, there was no time to brief her because another visitor appeared.
    Thom ushered Edward Kadesky into the room. “Mr. Rhyme,” he said, nodding. He’d forgotten Sachs’s name but he gave her a second nod in greeting. He shook Roland Bell’s hand. “I got your message. It said there’s something more about the case.”
    Rhyme nodded. “This morning I did some digging, looking into a few loose ends.”
    “What loose ends?” Sachs asked.
    “Ends I didn’t know were loose. Unknown loose ends.”
    She frowned. The producer too looked troubled. “Weir’s assistant—Loesser. He hasn’t escaped, has he?”
    “No, no. He’s still in detention.”
    The doorbell rang. Thom vanished and a moment later Kara stepped through the doorway into the room. She looked around, ruffling her short hair, which had lost its purple sheen and was now ruddy as a freckle. “Hi,” she said to the group, blinking in surprise when she saw Kadesky.
    “Can I get anybody anything?” Thom asked.
    “Maybe if you could leave us for a minute, Thom. Please.”
    The aide glanced at Rhyme and, hearing the firm, troubled tone in his voice, nodded and left the room. The criminalist said to Kara, “Thanks for coming by. I just need to follow up on a few things about the case.”
    “Sure,” she said.
    Loose ends . . .
    Rhyme explained, “I want to know a few more detailsabout the night that the Conjurer drove the ambulance bomb into the circus.”
    The young woman nodded, flicking her black fingernails against one another. “Anything I can do to help, I’d be glad to.”
    “The show was scheduled to start at eight, wasn’t it?” Rhyme asked Kadesky.
    “That’s right.”
    “You weren’t back from your dinner and radio interview yet when Loesser parked the ambulance in the doorway?”
    “No, I wasn’t.”
    Rhyme turned to Kara. “But you were there?”
    “Yeah. I saw the ambulance drive in. I didn’t think anything about it at the time.”
    “Where did Loesser park, exactly?”
    “It was under the box seat scaffolding,” she said.
    “Not under the expensive seats though?” Rhyme asked Kadesky.
    “No,” the man said.
    “So it was near the main fire exit—the one most people would use in an evacuation.”
    “That’s right.”
    Bell asked, “Lincoln, what’re you getting at?”
    “What I’m getting at is Loesser parked the ambulance so that it would do the most damage and yet still give a few people in the box seats a chance to escape. How did he know exactly where to park it?”
    “I don’t know,” the producer responded. “He probably checked it out ahead of time and saw it was the best location—I mean, best from his point of view. Worst for us.”
    “He might’ve checked it out earlier,” Rhyme mused. “But he also would be reluctant to be seen doing reconnaissance around the circus—since we had officers stationed there.”
    “True.”
    “So, isn’t it possible that someone on