The Broken Window

Amelia Sachs didn’t believe in a sixth sense. Not in the way people think of the supernatural. To her, the whole natural world was so amazing and our senses and thought processes so complex and powerful that we didn’t need superhuman skills to make the most perceptive of deductions.

She was sure somebody was there.

She stepped out of the crime-scene perimeter and strapped her Glock onto her hip. Tapped the grip a few times to orient her hand, in case she needed to draw fast. She went back to the grid, finished with the evidence and turned quickly in the direction where she’d seen the movement earlier.

The lights were blinding but she knew without doubt that a man was there, in the shadows of the building, studying her from the back of the crematorium. Maybe a worker but she wasn’t taking any chances. Hand on her pistol, she strode forward twenty feet. Her white jumpsuit made a nice target in the failing light but she decided not to waste time stripping it off.

She drew her Glock and pushed fast through the bushes, starting a painful jog on arthritic legs toward the figure. But then Sachs stopped, grimacing, as she looked at the loading dock of the crematorium, where she’d seen the intruder. Her mouth tightened, angry at herself. The man, a silhouette against a streetlight outside the cemetery, was a cop; she could see the outline of the patrolman’s hat and noted the slumped, bored posture of a man on guard duty. She called, “Officer? You see anybody over there?”

“No, Detective Sachs,” he answered. “Sure haven’t.”

“Thanks.”

She finished with the evidence, then released the scene to the medical examiner tour doctor.

Returning to her car, she opened the trunk and began stripping off the white jumpsuit. She was chatting with the other officers from the CS main headquarters in Queens. They too had changed out of their own overalls. One frowned and was looking around for something he’d misplaced.

“Lose something?” she asked.

The man frowned. “Yeah. It was right here. My hat.”

Sachs froze. “What?”

“It’s missing.”

Shit. She tossed the jumpsuit into the trunk and jogged fast to the sergeant from the local precinct, who was the immediate supervisor here. “Did you have anybody secure the loading dock?” she asked breathlessly.

“Over there? Naw. I didn’t bother. We had the whole area sealed and-”

Goddamnit.

Turning, she sprinted to the loading dock, her Glock in hand. She shouted to the officers nearby, “He was here! By the crematorium. Move!”

Sachs paused at the old redbrick structure, noticing the open gate leading out to the street. A fast search of the grounds revealed no sign of 522. She continued on to the street and looked out fast, left and right. Traffic, curious onlookers-dozens of them-but the suspect was gone.

Sachs returned to the loading dock and wasn’t surprised to find the police officer’s hat lying nearby. It sat next to a sign, Leave Caskets Here. She collected the hat, slipped it into an evidence bag and returned to the other officers. Sachs and a local precinct sergeant sent officers around the neighborhood to see if anybody had spotted him. Then she returned to her car. Of course, he’d be far away by now but still she couldn’t shake the raw uneasiness-which was due mostly to the fact that he hadn’t tried to escape when he saw her walking toward the crematorium but casually stood his ground.

Though what chilled her the most was the memory of his casual voice-referring to her by name.

“Are they going to do it?” Rhyme snapped as Lon Sellitto walked through the door from his mission downtown with Captain Malloy and the deputy mayor, Ron Scott, about what Rhyme was calling the “Expert Plan.”

“They’re not happy. It’s expensive and they-”

“Bull…shit. Get somebody on the phone.”

“Hold on, hold on. They’ll do it. They’re making the arrangements. I’m just saying they’re grumbling about it.”

“You should have told me up front they agreed. I don’t care how much they grumble.”

“Joe Malloy’ll give me a call with the details.”

At around 9:30 P.M. the door opened and Amelia Sachs entered, carrying the evidence she’d collected at the groundskeeper’s murder scene.

“He was there,” she said.

Rhyme didn’t understand her.

“Five Twenty-Two. At the cemetery. He was watching us.”

“No shit,” Sellitto said.

“He was gone by the time I realized it.” She held up a patrolman’s hat and explained that he’d been watching her in disguise.

“The fuck he’d do that for?”

“Information,” Rhyme said softly. “The more he knows, the more powerful he is, the more vulnerable we become…”

“You canvass?” Sellitto asked.

“A team from the precinct did. Nobody saw anything.”

“He knows everything. We know zilch.”

She unpacked the crate as Rhyme’s eyes took in each evidence-collection bag she lifted out. “They struggled. Could be some good transfer trace.”

“Let’s hope.”

“I talked to Abrera, the janitor. He said that for the past month, he’s noticed some strange things. His time sheets were changed, there were deposits into his checking account he didn’t make.”