The Steel Kiss

Cooper looked the number up once more and placed the call. “Professor Aniston? This is Detective Cooper. NYPD. I sent you that sample of vegetation trace evidence we found at a crime scene. Have you had any luck? We’re under some time pressure…  Sure.” Cooper glanced toward them. “He’s looking it up now.”

“Which suggests it wasn’t a particularly burdensome request in the first place,” Rhyme muttered, probably louder than he should have.

Cooper’s body language changed as the call resumed. He wrote on a pad beside him. “Got it, thanks, Professor.” He disconnected. “It’s rare. You don’t find it very often.”

“That’s what rare means, Mel. What the hell is it?”

“It’s a fragment of leaf from a hibiscus. But what’s rare is that it’s a blue one. There’ll be limited sources—”

“My God!” Sachs pulled her phone out, hit speed dial. “This is Detective Five Eight Eight Five. Sachs. I need officers at Four Two One Eight Martin Street, Brooklyn. Possible ten thirty-four in progress. Suspect is white male, six two to six four, weight one fifty. Possibly armed…  I’m en route.”

She hung up, grabbed her jacket. “My mother’s house. I got her a blue hibiscus for her birthday. It’s in her backyard, right by a window to the basement. He rigged something there.”

Sachs sprinted for the door, making a call.

* * *

A circuit breaker had popped.

Rose Sachs was now in her Brooklyn town house’s the dank basement, the place redolent of mold. She was making her way slowly to the panel. Slowly not because of her cardiac condition, but because of the clutter.

Looking over the boxes, the shelves, the racks of plastic-wrapped clothing.

Even here she felt good—the “even” because she was dodging a spider’s elaborate web.

Good.

Spending some time in her own house for a change.

She loved her daughter, appreciated everything Amie did for her. But the girl—the woman—had been such a, well, mother hen about the surgery. Stay at my house, Mom. Come on. No, I’ll drive you. No, I’ll pick up dinner.

Sweet of her. But the fact was Rose wasn’t going to break apart in the days leading up to the operation. No, it was obvious what Amie was thinking—that Rose might not wake up from the deep sleep while the surgeon was slicing out components of her heart and replacing them with little tubes from a lesser part of her body.

Daughter wanted to spend as much time with mother as possible—just in case Part A didn’t get along with Part B, which, by the way, God never did intend.

Upstairs her mobile phone was ringing.

They could leave a message.

Or maybe Amelia’s persistence—and insistence—was simply her uncompromising nature.

And for this, Rose thought smiling, she herself was to blame. She was thinking of the turbulent days with her daughter. What had been the source of Rose’s moods, her paranoia, her suspicion? Thinking that father and daughter were conspiring to get away from Mom?

But that wasn’t paranoia at all. They were conspiring.

As well they should have. What a shrew I was. Who knew what was the reason…  There were probably meds I could have taken, probably therapists I could have shared with. But that would have been a weakness.

And Rose Sachs had never done well with weakness.

At this moment, lost in these reflections, she felt a burst of pride. Because the upside of that attitude was that she’d created a strong daughter. Herman had given the girl heart and humor. Rose had given her steel.

Uncompromising…

The lights here in the cellar were working—it was on the second floor that the lamp had gone out. She wondered why the breaker had popped. She hadn’t turned anything on, no iron or hair dryer. She’d been reading. And pop, out went the lights. But the house was old; maybe one of the breakers was bad.

Now the home line was ringing—an old-fashioned ring, ring, ring.

She paused. Well, there was voice mail on that one too. Telemarketer on the landline probably. She didn’t use that phone much anymore, just her cell phone.

Welcome to the twenty-first century. What would Herman have thought?

Moving aside a few boxes to clear a path to the breaker box, she thought of Nick Carelli.

Rose supposed that the story was true, that he’d taken the blame for his brother. That seemed good, that seemed noble. But, as she’d told her daughter, if he’d really loved Amie, wouldn’t he have found a better way to handle it? A cop had to accept that you did things the right way when it came to the law. Her husband had been a lifelong policeman, a portable—a foot patrolman—walking the beat in a number of places, mostly in Times Square. He’d done his job with calm determination and was never confrontational, defusing conflicts, not fanning flames. Rose could never see Herman taking the fall for anybody. Because, even if for a good cause, that would have been a lie.