The Broken Window

“Where did he go outside?” Sachs asked.

“I’ll show you.” Pam glanced at Sachs’s face, which was apparently revealing her reluctance to expose the girl to more danger. “It’d be better than me just telling you.”

Sachs nodded and they walked into the garden. She looked around carefully. She asked the patrol officer, “See anything?”

“Nope. But I’ve gotta say, when you think somebody’s watching you, you see somebody watching you.”

“I hear that.”

He jerked a thumb toward a row of dark windows across the alley, then toward some thick azaleas and boxwood bushes. “I checked them out. Nothing. But I’ll keep on it.”

“Thanks.”

Pam directed Sachs to the path 522 had taken to escape and Sachs began walking the grid.

“Amelia?”

“What?”

“I was kind of a shit, you know. What I said to you yesterday. I felt, like, all desperate or something. Panicked…I guess what I’m saying is, I’m sorry.”

“You were the picture of restraint.”

“I didn’t feel very restrained.”

“Love makes us weird, honey.”

Pam laughed.

“We’ll talk about it later. Maybe tonight, depending on how the case goes. We’ll get dinner.”

“Okay, sure.”

Sachs continued her examination, struggling to put aside her uneasiness, the sense that 522 was still here. But despite her effort the search wasn’t very fruitful. The ground was mostly gravel and she found no footprints, except one near the gate through which he’d escaped from her yard into the alley. The only mark was the toe of a shoe-he’d been sprinting-and useless forensically. She found no fresh tire treadmarks.

But, returning to her yard, she saw a flash of white in the ivy and periwinkle covering the ground-exactly in the position where it would have landed after falling from 522’s pocket as he’d vaulted the locked gate.

“You found something?”

“Maybe.” With tweezers, Sachs picked up a small piece of paper. Returning to the town house, she set up a portable examining table and processed the rectangle. She sprayed ninhydrin on it, then, after donning goggles, hit it with an alternative light source. She was disappointed that no prints were revealed.

“Is it helpful?” Pam asked.

“Could be. It’s not going to point to his front door. But then evidence usually doesn’t. If it did,” she added, smiling, “they wouldn’t need people like Lincoln and me, right? I’m going to go check it out.”

Sachs got her toolbox, took out the drill and screwed shut the broken window. She locked up, setting the alarm.

She had called Rhyme briefly earlier to tell him Pam was all right but she now wanted to let him know about the possible lead. She pulled out her cell phone but, before she called, she paused on the curb and looked around.

“What’s the matter, Amelia?”

She put the phone back in its holster. “My car.” The Camaro was gone. Sachs felt a surge of alarm. Her gaze swiveled up and down the street, her hand strayed to the Glock. Was 522 here? Had he stolen the car?

The patrol officer was just leaving the backyard and she asked if he’d seen anybody.

“That car, that old one? It was yours?”

“Yeah, I think the perp might’ve boosted it.”

“Sorry, Detective, I think it got towed. I woulda said something if I’d known it was yours.”

Towed? Maybe she’d forgotten to put the NYPD placard on the dash.

She and Pam walked up the street to the girl’s beat-up Honda Civic and drove to the local precinct. The desk sergeant there, whom she knew, had heard about the break-in. “Hi, Amelia. The boys canvassed the hood real careful. Nobody saw the perp.”

“Listen, Vinnie, my wheels’re gone. They were by the hydrant across the street from my place.”

“Pool car?”

“No.”

“Not your old Chevy?”

“Yep.”

“Aw, no. That’s lousy.”

“Somebody said it got towed. I don’t know if I had the official-business sign on the dash.”

“Still, they ought to’ve run the plate, seen who it was registered to. Shit, that sucks. Sorry, miss.”

Pam smiled to show her immunity to words that she’d just uttered herself occasionally.

Sachs gave the sergeant the plate number and he made some calls, checked the computer. “Naw, it wasn’t Parking Violations. Hold on a second.” He made some other calls.

Son of a bitch. She couldn’t afford to be without her wheels. She wanted desperately to check out the lead she’d found at her town house.

But her frustration became concern when she noticed the frown on Vinnie’s face. “You sure?…Okay. Where’d it go to?…Yeah? Well, gimme a call back as soon as you know.” He hung up.

“What?”

“The Camaro, you have it financed?”

“Financed? No.”

“This is weird. A repo team got it.”

“Somebody repossessed it?”

“According to them, you missed six months’ payments.”

“Vinnie, it’s a ’sixty-nine. My dad bought it for cash in the seventies. It’s never had a lien on it. Who was the lender supposed to be?”

“My guy didn’t know. He’s going to check it out and call back. He’ll find out where they took it.”

“Goddamn last thing I need. You have wheels here?”

“Sorry, nope.”