The Broken Window

Rhyme recalled dozens of times when the two boys, born within months of each other, would race along sidewalks or through the green-yellow fields near their Midwestern homes, grasshoppers fleeing, gnats sticking to their sweaty skin when they stopped for breath. Art always seemed to be in better shape but Lincoln had made his school’s varsity track team; his cousin hadn’t been interested in trying out.

Rhyme pushed aside the memories and concentrated on what Judy was saying.

“He left work about three-thirty and went for his run, then came home about seven, seven-thirty. He didn’t seem any different, wasn’t acting odd. He took a shower. We had dinner. But the next day the police came to the house, two from New York and a New Jersey trooper. They asked him questions and looked through the car. They found some blood, I don’t know…” Her voice conveyed traces of the shock she would have felt on that difficult morning. “They searched the house and took away some things. And then they came back and arrested him. For murder.” She had trouble saying the word.

“What was he supposed to have done exactly?” Sachs asked.

“They claimed he killed a woman and stole a rare painting from her.” She scoffed bitterly. “Stole a painting? What on earth for? And murder? Why, Arthur never hurt a single soul in his life. He isn’t capable of it.”

“The blood that was found? Have they run a DNA test?”

“Well, yes, they did. And it seemed to match the victim. But those tests can be wrong, can’t they?”

“Sometimes,” Rhyme said, thinking, Very, very rarely.

“Or the real killer could have planted the blood.”

“This painting,” Sachs asked, “did Arthur have any particular interest in it?”

Judy played with thick black and white plastic bracelets on her left wrist. “The thing is, yes, he used to own one by the same artist. He liked it. But he had to sell it when he lost his job.”

“Where was the painting found?”

“It wasn’t.”

“But how did they know it was taken?”

“Somebody, a witness, said they saw a man carrying it from the woman’s apartment to the car around the time she was killed. Oh, it’s all just a terrible mix-up. Coincidences…That’s what it has to be, just a weird series of coincidences.” Her voice cracked.

“Did he know her?”

“At first Art said he didn’t but then, well, he thought they might’ve met. At an art gallery he goes to sometimes. But he said he never talked to her that he can remember.” Her eyes now took in the whiteboard containing the schematic of the plan to capture Logan in England.

Rhyme was remembering other times he and Arthur had spent together.

Race you to that tree… No, you wimp…the maple way over there. Touch the trunk! On three. One…two…go!

You didn’t say three!

“There’s more, isn’t there, Judy? Tell us.” Sachs had seen something in the woman’s eyes, Rhyme supposed.

“I’m just upset. For the kids too. It’s a nightmare for them. The neighbors’re treating us like terrorists.”

“I’m sorry to push but it’s important for us to know all the facts. Please.”

The blush had returned and she was gripping her knees. Rhyme and Sachs had a friend who worked as an agent for the California Bureau of Investigation, Kathryn Dance. She was a kinesics, or body language, expert. Rhyme considered such skills secondary to forensic science but he’d come to respect Dance and had learned something about her specialty. He now could see easily that Judy Rhyme was a fountain of stress.

“Go on,” Sachs encouraged.

“It’s just that the police found some other evidence-well, it wasn’t really evidence. Not like clues. But…it made them think maybe Art and the woman were seeing each other.”

Sachs asked, “What’s your opinion of that?”

“I don’t think he was.”

Rhyme noted the softened verb. Not as adamant a denial as with the murder and theft. She desperately wanted the answer to be no, though she’d probably come to the same conclusion Rhyme just had: that the woman’s being his lover worked in Arthur’s favor. You were more likely to rob a stranger than someone you were sleeping with. Still, as a wife and mother, Judy was crying out for one particular answer.

Then she glanced up, less cautious now about looking at Rhyme, the contraption he sat in and the other devices that defined his life. “Whatever else was going on, he did not kill that woman. He couldn’t have. I know it in my soul… Is there anything you can do?”

Rhyme and Sachs shared a look. He said, “I’m sorry, Judy, we’re in the midst of a big case right now. We’re real close to catching a very dangerous killer. I can’t drop that.”

“I wouldn’t want you to. But, just something. I don’t know what else to do.” Her lip was trembling.

He said, “We’ll make some calls, find out what we can. I can’t give you information you couldn’t otherwise get through your lawyer but I’ll tell you honestly what I think about the D.A.’s chance of success.”

“Oh, thank you, Lincoln.”

“Who’s his lawyer?”