The Coffin Dancer (48 page)

“They’re gonna release Hansen’s fat ass,” Sellitto muttered darkly. “They’re doin’ the paperwork right now. They’re not even presenting it to the grand jury. All those people died for nothing.”

“Tell him the rest,” Sachs added.

“Eliopolos is on his way here now,” Sellitto said. “He’s got paper.”

“A warrant?” Rhyme asked shortly. “For what?”

“Oh. Like he said. To arrest you.”

chapter forty

Reginald Eliopolos appeared at the doorway, backed up by two large agents.

Rhyme had thought of the attorney as middle aged. But in the daylight he seemed to be in his early thirties. The agents were young too and dressed as well as he was, but they reminded Rhyme of pissed-off longshoremen.

What exactly did he need them for? Against a man flat on his back?

“Well, Lincoln, I guess you didn’t believe me when I said there’d be repercussions. Uh-huh. You didn’t believe me.”

“What the fuck’re you bitchin’ about, Reggie?” Sellitto asked. “We caught him.”

“Uh-huh ... uh-huh. I’ll tell you what I’m”—he lifted his hands and made imaginary quotation marks in the air—“bitchin’ for. The case against Hansen is kaput. No evidence in the duffel bags.”

“That’s not our fault,” Sachs said. “We kept your witness alive. And caught Hansen’s hired killer.”

“Ah,” Rhyme said, “but there’s more to it than that, right, Reggie?”

The assistant U.S. attorney gazed at him coldly.

Rhyme continued, “See, Jodie—I mean, the Dancer—is the only chance they have to make a case against Hansen now. Or that’s what he thinks. But Dancer’ll never dime a client.”

“Oh, that a fact? Well, you don’t know him as well as you think you do. I just had a long talk with him. He was more than willing to implicate Hansen. Except now he’s stonewalling. Thanks to you.”

“Me?” Rhyme asked.

“He said you threatened him. During that little unauthorized meeting you had a few hours ago. Uh-huh. Heads are going to roll because of
that.
Rest assured.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Rhyme spat out, laughing bitterly. “Don’t you see what he’s doing? Let me guess ... you told him that you’d arrest me, right? And he’d agree to testify if you did.”

The pendulum swing of Eliopolos’s eyes told Rhyme that this was exactly what happened.

“Don’t you get it?”

But Eliopolos didn’t get a thing.

Rhyme said, “Don’t you think he’d like to get me in detention, maybe fifty, sixty feet from where he is?”

“Rhyme,” Sachs said, frowning with concern.

“What’re you talking about?” the attorney said.

“He wants to
kill
me, Reggie. That’s his point. I’m the only man who’s ever stopped him. He can’t very well go back to work knowing I’m out there.”

“But he’s not going anywhere. Ever.”

Uh-huh.

Rhyme said, “After I’m dead he’ll recant. He’ll never testify against Hansen. And what’re you going to pressure him with? Threaten him with the needle? He won’t care. He’s not afraid of anything. Not a single thing.”

What was nagging? Rhyme wondered. Something seemed wrong here. Very wrong.

He decided it was the phone books ...

Phone books and rocks.

Rhyme was lost in thought, staring at the evidence chart on the wall. He heard a jingle, glanced up. One of the agents with Eliopolos actually pulled out his handcuffs and was proceeding toward the Clinitron. Rhyme laughed to himself. Better shackle the old feet. Might run away.

“Come on, Reggie,” Sellitto said.

The green fiber, phone books, and rocks.

He remembered something the Dancer had told him. Sitting in the very chair Eliopolos stood beside now.

A million dollars
...

Rhyme was vaguely aware of the agent trying to figure out how to best subdue a crip. And he was vaguely aware of Sachs stepping forward trying to figure out how to subdue the
agent
. Suddenly he barked, “Wait,” in a voice commanding enough to freeze everyone in the room.

The green fiber ...

He stared at it on the chart.

People were talking to him. The agent was still eyeing Rhyme’s hands, brandishing the tinkling cuffs. But Rhyme ignored them all. He said to Eliopolos, “Give me a half hour.”

“Why should I?”

“Come on, what’s it going to hurt? It’s not like I’m going anywhere.” And before the attorney could agree or disagree, Rhyme was shouting, “Thom!
Thom
, I need to make a phone call. Are you going to help me, or not? I don’t know where he gets to sometimes. Lon, will you call for me?”

Percey Clay had just returned from burying her husband when Lon Sellitto tracked her down. Wearing black she sat in the crinkly wicker chair beside Lincoln Rhyme’s bed. Standing nearby was Roland Bell, in a tan suit, badly cut—thanks to the size of the two guns he wore. He pushed his thinning brown hair straight back over the crown of his head.

Eliopolos was gone, though his two goons were outside, guarding the hallway. Apparently they actually
did
believe that, given a chance, Thom would wheel Rhyme out the door and he’d make a getaway in the Storm Arrow, top speed 7.5 miles per hour.

Percey’s outfit chafed at collar and waist, and Rhyme bet that it was the only dress she owned. She began to lift ankle to knee as she sat back, realized a skirt was wrong for this pose, and sat up formally, knees together.

She eyed him with impatient curiosity and Rhyme realized that no one else—Sellitto and Sachs had fetched her—had delivered the news.

Cowards, he thought grumpily.

“Percey ... They won’t be presenting the case against Hansen to the grand jury.”

For an instant there was a flash of relief. Then she understood the implication. “No!” she gasped.

“That flight Hansen made? To dump those duffel bags? The bags were fake. There was nothing in them.”

Her face grew pallid. “They’re letting him go?”

“They can’t find any connection between the Dancer and Hansen. Until we do, he’s free.”

Her hands rose to her face. “It was all a waste then? Ed ... and Brit? They died for nothing.”

He asked her, “What’s happening to your company now?”

Percey wasn’t expecting the question. She wasn’t sure she heard him. “I’m sorry?”

“Your company? What’s going to happen to Hudson Air now?”

“We’ll sell it, probably. We’ve had an offer from another company. They can carry the debt. We can’t. Or maybe we’ll just liquidate.” It was the first time he’d heard resignation in her voice. A Gypsy in defeat.

“What other company?”

“I frankly don’t remember. Ron’s been talking to them.”

“That’s Ron Talbot, right?”

“Yes.”

“Would he know about the financial condition of the Company?”

“Sure. As much as the lawyers and accountants. More than me.”

“Could you call him, ask him to come down here as soon as possible?”

“I suppose I could. He was at the cemetery. He’s probably home by now. I’ll call him.”

“And, Sachs?” he said, turning to her, “We’ve got another crime scene. I need you to search it. As fast as possible.”

Rhyme looked over the big man coming through the doorway, wearing a dark blue suit. It was shiny and had the color and cut of a uniform about it. Rhyme supposed it was what he’d worn when he flew.

Percey introduced them.

“So you got that son of a bitch,” Talbot grumbled. “Think he’ll get the chair?”

“I collect the trash,” Rhyme said, pleased as always when he could think up a melodramatic line. “What the DA does with it is up to him. Did Percey tell you we’ve had trouble with the evidence implicating Hansen?”

“Yeah, she said something about that. The evidence he dumped was fake? Why’d he do that?”

“I think I can answer that, but I need some more information. Percey tells me you know the Company pretty well. You’re a partner, right?”

Talbot nodded, took out a pack of cigarettes, saw no one else was smoking, replaced them in his pocket. He was even more rumpled than Sellitto and it looked as if it had been a long time since he’d been able to button his jacket around his ample belly.

“Let me try this out on you,” Rhyme said. “What if Hansen didn’t want to kill Ed and Percey because they were witnesses?”

“But then why?” Percey blurted.

Talbot asked, “You mean, he had another motive? Like what?”

Rhyme didn’t respond directly. “Percey tells me the Company hasn’t been doing well for a while.”

Talbot shrugged. “Been a tough couple years. Deregulation, lots of small carriers. Fighting UPS and FedEx. Postal Service too. Margins’ve shrunk.”

“But you still have good—what is that, Fred? You did some white-collar crime work, right? Money that comes in. What’s the word for it?”

Dellray snorted a laugh. “Revy-nue, Lincoln.”

“You had good revenue.”

Talbot nodded. “Oh, cash flow’s never been a problem. It’s just that more goes out than comes in.”

“What do you think about the theory that the Dancer was hired to murder Percey and Ed so that the killer could buy the Company at a discount?”

“What company? Ours?” Percey asked, frowning.

“Why would Hansen do that?” Talbot said, wheezing again.

Percey added, “And why not just come to us with a big check? He never even approached us.”

“I didn’t actually say Hansen,” Rhyme pointed out. “The question I asked before was what if
Hansen
didn’t want to kill Ed and Percey? What if it was somebody else?”

“Who?” Percey asked.

“I’m not sure. It’s just ... well, that green fiber.”

“Green fiber?” Talbot followed Rhyme’s eyes to the evidence chart.

“Everyone seems to’ve forgotten about it. Except me.”

“Man never forgets a single thing. Do you, Lincoln?”

“Not too often, Fred. Not too often. That fiber. Sachs—my partner—”

“I remember you,” Talbot said, nodding toward her.

“She found it in the hangar that Hansen leased. It was in some trace materials near the window where Stephen Kall waited before he planted the bomb on Ed Carney’s plane. She also found bits of brass and some white fibers and envelope glue. Which tells us that somebody left a key to the hangar in an envelope somewhere for Kall. But then I got to thinking—why did Kall need a key to break into an empty hangar? He was a pro. He could’ve broken into the place in his sleep. The only reason for the key was to make it look like Hansen had left it. To implicate him.”

“But the hijacking,” Talbot said, “when he killed those soldiers and stole the guns. Everybody knows he’s a murderer.”

“Oh, he probably is,” Rhyme agreed. “But he didn’t fly his airplane over Long Island Sound and play bombardier with those phone books. Somebody else did.”

Percey stirred uneasily.

Rhyme continued, “Somebody who never thought we’d find the duffel bags.”

“Who?” Talbot demanded.

“Sachs?”

She pulled three large evidence envelopes out of a canvas bag and rested them on the table.

Inside two of them were accounting books. The third contained a stack of white envelopes.

“Those came from your office, Talbot.”

He gave a weak laugh. “I don’t think you can just take those without a warrant.”

Percey Clay frowned. “I gave them permission. I’m still head of the Company, Ron. But what’re you saying, Lincoln?”

Rhyme regretted not sharing his suspicions with Percey before this; it was coming as a terrible shock. But he couldn’t risk that she might tip their hand to Talbot. He’d covered his tracks so well until now.

Rhyme glanced at Mel Cooper, who said, “The green fiber that we found with the particles of key came from a ledger sheet. The white ones from an envelope. There’s no doubt they match.”

Rhyme continued, “They all came from your office, Talbot.”

“What do you mean, Lincoln?” Percey gasped.

Rhyme said to Talbot, “Everybody at the airport knew Hansen was under investigation. You thought you’d use that fact. So you waited until one night when Percey and Ed and Brit Hale were working late. You stole Hansen’s plane for the flight, you dumped the fake duffel bags. You hired the Dancer. I assume you’d heard about him on your jobs in Africa or the Far East. I made a few calls. You worked for the Botswana air force and the Burmese government advising them in buying used military airplanes. The Dancer told me he was paid a million for the hit.” Rhyme shook his head. “That should have tipped me right there. Hansen could have had all three witnesses killed for a couple hundred thousand. Professional killing’s definitely a buyer’s market nowadays. A million told me that the man ordering the hit was an amateur. And that he had a lot of money at his disposal.”

The scream rose from Percey Clay’s mouth and she leapt for him. Talbot stood, backed up. “How could you?” she screamed. “Why?”

Dellray said, “My boys from financial crimes’re looking over your books now. What we think we’re gonna be finding is lots and lots of money that ain’t where it oughta be.”

Rhyme continued. “Hudson Air’s a lot more successful than you were thinking, Percey. Only most of it was going into Talbot’s pocket. He knew he was going to get caught someday and he needed to get you and Ed out of the way and buy the Company himself.”

“The stock purchase option,” she said. “As a partner he had a right to buy our interest from our estates at a discount if we die.”

“This’s bullshit. That guy was shooting at me too, remember.”

“But you didn’t hire Kall,” Rhyme reminded. “You hired Jodie—the Coffin Dancer—and he subcontracted the work with Kall. Who didn’t know you from beans.”

“How could you?” Percey repeated in a hollow voice. “Why?
Why?”

Talbot raged, “Because I loved you!”

“What?” Percey gasped.

Talbot continued. “You laughed when I said I wanted to marry you.”

“Ron, no. I—”

“And you went back to him.” He sneered. “Ed Carney, the handsome fighter pilot. Top gun ... He treated you like shit and you still wanted him. Then ...” His face was purple with fury. “Then ... then I lost the last thing I had—I was grounded. I couldn’t fly anymore. I watched the two of you logging hundreds of hours a month while all I could do was sit at a desk and push papers. You had each other, you had flying ... You don’t have a clue what it’s like to lose everything you love. You just don’t have a clue!”