The Steel Kiss

“Okay… ” Archer wheeled to a spot in front of the charts. “Frommer was a store clerk in Brooklyn and a volunteer at a homeless shelter, among other charities. Benkoff was account manager for an ad agency in New York. Heady is a carpenter for a Broadway theater. Mayer is into finance. None of them seems to know the others. They don’t live near each other.” She shook her head. “No connection.”

“Oh, well, that’s not enough to ask,” he said softly. “You have to go deeper.”

“How do you mean?”

“You’re looking at the surface. Pretend those people you mentioned are bits of trace evidence…  No, no,” he chided, seeing her scowl. “You play along with me now. The people aren’t people but bits of trace evidence. On the surface one’s gray metal, one’s brown wood, one’s cloth fiber, one’s a fragment of leaf. What do they have in common?”

Archer considered this: “Nothing.”

“Exactly. But, with evidence, we keep digging. What kind of metal, what sort of wood, what type of fiber, what plant is the leaf from? Where did they come from, what’s the context? You put them altogether and, bang, you’ve got an upholstered lawn chair sitting under a jacaranda tree. Different is suddenly the same.

“You want to analyze the victims, Archer, good, but we need to approach your inquiry the same way. Details! What’re the details? You have present careers. What about the past? Look at the raw data Amelia collected. The charts are only summaries. Residences and careers, anything that seems relevant.”

Archer called up Sachs’s notes and read from the screen.

As she read, Rhyme said, “I can fill in about Greg Frommer. He was a marketing manager for Patterson Systems in New Jersey.”

“What does Patterson do?”

Rhyme recalled what the lawyer had told him. “Fuel injectors. One of the big suppliers.”

She said, “Okay, noted. Now Abe Benkoff?”

“Amelia told me—advertising. Clients were food companies, airlines. I don’t recall.”

Archer read from Sachs’s notes. “He was fifty-eight, advertising account executive. Pretty senior. Clients were Universal Foods, U.S. Auto, Northeast Airlines, Aggregate Computers. He was a New York City resident, lived here all his life. Manhattan.”

Rhyme said, “And Heady, the carpenter?”

Archer read: “He grew up in Michigan and worked in Detroit on an assembly line. Moved here to be closer to his kids and grandkids. Didn’t like retirement so he joined the union and got a job at the theater.” She looked up from the computer screen. “Mayer is a hedge fund manager. Works in Connecticut. Lives in Scarsdale. Wealthy. Can’t find anything about his clients.”

Rhyme said, “Wife.”

“What?”

“Why do we assume that he’s the target? Is he married?”

Archer clicked her tongue. “Damn. Forgive my sexism.” Typing. “Valerie Mayer. She’s a Wall Street trial lawyer.”

“Who are her clients?”

More typing. “No names. But her specialty is representing insurance companies.”

Rhyme, gazing at the screen. He smiled. “We’ll have to wait until we do more research about Valerie, about her clients. But the others—they sure as hell have something in common.”

Archer looked over the chart and Sachs’s notes. “Cars.”

“Ex-actly! Benkoff’s client was U.S. Auto. Heady was on an assembly line and I’ll bet that’s whom he worked for. Did U.S. Auto use Patterson fuel injectors?”

With voice commands, Archer did the search. And, yes, Google dutifully reported that Patterson had been a major supplier of U.S. Auto…  until about five years ago.

He whispered, “Around the time Frommer quit the company.”

Archer asked, “And Valerie Mayer?”

The criminalist turned to the microphone near his head: “Call Evers Whitmore.”

The phone responded instantly and after two rings a receptionist answered. “Evers Whitmore, please. Now. It’s urgent.”

“Mr. Whitmore is—”

“Tell him Lincoln Rhyme is calling.”

“He’s actually—”

“That’s Lincoln, first name. Rhyme, second. And, as I said, it’s urgent.”

A pause. “One moment.”

Then the lawyer’s voice was saying, “Mr. Rhyme. How are you? How’s—?”

“Don’t have time. You were telling me about a case, a personal injury case, involving a car company. Some internal memo said that it would be cheaper to pay wrongful death claims than fix some dangerous defect in a car. Was it U.S. Auto? I can’t recall.”

“Yes, you’re correct. It was.”

“Valerie Mayer, a trial lawyer in New York. Did she defend the company?”

“No.”

Hell. There went his theory.

Then Whitmore said, “She represented the insurer who covered U.S. Auto against liability suits.”

“Was Patterson Systems involved?”

“Patterson? You mean the company Mr. Frommer worked for? I don’t know. Hold on a moment.”

Silence. Then the lawyer came back on the line. “Yes, the main suit was against U.S. Auto but Patterson was also a defendant. The claim was that both the automaker and the parts supplier knew about the fuel system defect and decided not to change the injectors and the interface with the motors to make them safer.”

“Mr. Whitmore, Evers, I need everything you can send me about the case.”