The Broken Window

“The chase, Lon. The chase.” Rhyme was staring at the whiteboard that detailed the plan to catch the killer in England. The scheme was elaborate.

And fragile.

Sellitto brought him out of his reflection. “Look, I’m sorry, Linc, but I gotta tell you, the perp’s your cousin, Arthur Rhyme. It’s murder one. He’s looking at twenty-five years, and the D.A. says it’s an airtight case.”

Chapter Three

“It’s been quite a while.”

Judy Rhyme sat in the lab. Hands together, face ashen, she fiercely avoided looking at anything except the criminalist’s eyes.

Two responses to his physical condition infuriated Rhyme: when visitors struggled agonizingly to pretend his disability didn’t exist, and when they considered it a reason to be his best friend, joking and slinging around tough talk as if they’d been through the war together. Judy fell into the first category, measuring her words carefully before she set them delicately in front of Rhyme. Still, she was family, of sorts, and he remained patient as he tried to keep from glancing at the telephone.

“A long time,” the criminalist agreed.

Thom was picking up the social details to which Rhyme was forever oblivious. He’d offered Judy coffee, which now sat untouched, a prop, on the table in front of her. Rhyme had glanced at the whisky once more, a longing peek that Thom had no trouble ignoring.

The attractive, dark-haired woman seemed in better shape, solid and more athletic, than the last time he’d seen her-about two years before his accident. Judy risked a look at the criminalist’s face. “I’m sorry we never got here. Really. I wanted to.”

Meaning not a social visit before he was injured but a sympathy call after. Survivors of catastrophes can read what is unsaid in conversations as clearly as the words themselves.

“You got the flowers?”

Back then, after the accident, Rhyme had been dazed-medication, physical trauma, and the psychological wrestling match with the inconceivable: the fact that he would never walk again. He didn’t remember any flowers from them but he was sure the family had sent them. A lot of people had. Flowers are easy, visits are hard. “Yes. Thanks.”

Silence. An involuntary, lightning-fast glance at his legs. People think if you can’t walk there’s something wrong with your legs. No, they’re fine. The problem was telling them what to do.

“You’re looking good,” she said.

Rhyme didn’t know whether he did or not. Never really considered it.

“And you’re divorced, I heard.”

“That’s right.”

“I’m sorry.”

Why? he wondered. But that was a cynical thought and he gave a nod, acknowledging her sympathy.

“What’s Blaine up to?”

“She’s out on Long Island. Remarried. We don’t stay in touch much. Without kids, that usually happens.”

“I enjoyed that time in Boston, when you two came up for the long weekend.” A smile that wasn’t really a smile. Painted on, a mask.

“It was nice, yes.”

A weekend in New England. Shopping, a drive south to Cape Cod, a picnic by the water. Rhyme remembered thinking how lovely the place was. Seeing the green rocks by the shore, he’d had a brainstorm and decided to start a collection of algae from around the New York City area for the NYPD crime lab database. He’d spent a week driving around the metro area, taking samples.

And, on the trip to see Arthur and Judy, he and Blaine hadn’t fought once. Even the drive home, with a stop at a Connecticut inn, was nice. He remembered making love on the back deck of their room, the smell of honeysuckle overwhelming.

That visit was the last contact with his cousin in person. They’d had one other brief conversation but only via the phone. Then came the accident, and silence.

“Arthur kind of fell off the face of the earth.” She laughed, an embarrassed sound. “You know we moved to New Jersey?”

“Really?”

“He was teaching at Princeton. But he got laid off.”

“What happened?”

“He was an assistant and a research fellow. They decided not to offer him a full professor’s contract. Art says politics was behind it. You know how that is in colleges.”

Henry Rhyme, Art’s father, was a renowned professor of physics at the University of Chicago; academia was an esteemed pursuit in that branch of the Rhyme family. In high school Arthur and Lincoln would debate the virtues of university research and teaching versus a private-sector job. “In academia, you can make a serious contribution to society,” Art had said as the boys shared two somewhat illegal beers, and managed to keep a straight face when Lincoln supplied the requisite follow-up line: “That, and the teaching assistants can be pretty hot.”

Rhyme wasn’t surprised that Art had gone for a university job.