The Steel Kiss

“Greg Frommer quit the company and went on to do volunteer work,” Rhyme said. “He was guilty about what happened with the fuel injectors.”

The sentence tripped leadenly off his tongue and deserved the Oh-please look that Alicia gave him.

“The People’s Guardian. That was all nonsense, right?”

Alicia nodded. “Vernon isn’t the most attractive man in the world. It wasn’t hard to get him to do what I wanted. I needed people responsible for Michael’s death to die the way he and the others had. Because of products. Because of greed. Vernon was happy to go along and we decided to turn it into a political issue as a cover. To keep people from thinking about U.S. Auto and maybe making a connection to me.”

“Why The Steel Kiss, the name for his manifesto?”

“He came up with that. Thinking of his tools, saws and knives and chisels, I think.”

“How did you find him?”

“I’ve been planning this for four years, of course. The hardest part was finding a fall guy. I was one of the parties to a suit against the automaker, so I couldn’t kill anyone myself. But one night I was in Manhattan having dinner, and I happened to see Vernon get in a fight with a man. Some Latino guy. He’d made fun of Vernon—he’s very skinny, you know. Vernon just snapped. Went crazy. He ran and the man chased him. But Vernon had it planned. He spun around and killed the man, used a knife or razor. I’ve never seen anybody more frenzied. Like a shark. Vernon jumped into a gypsy cab and vanished.

“I couldn’t really take in what I’d just seen. A murder right in front of me. I kept thinking about it for days. Finally I realized he was someone who might be able to help me. I checked with the restaurant it seemed he’d been eating in. They didn’t know his name but told me that, yes, he ate there about once a week. I kept coming back and finally saw him.”

“And you seduced him.”

“Yes, I did. Then the next morning I told him I’d seen him kill that Latino. It was a risk but I had my hook in by then. I knew he’d do whatever I wanted. I told him I understood why he’d killed him. He’d been bullied. I told him I’d been bullied too, in a way—the car company taking my husband away from me and ruining my body with the scars from the accident. I wanted to get even.”

“The man who taught Vernon how to hack the DataWise controllers, the blogger he killed, also got him a list of customers who’d bought embedded products. You searched them for the names of people connected to U.S. Auto. Right?”

She nodded. “I couldn’t kill everybody connected to the companies. I just wanted a half dozen or so. Frommer, Benkoff, Heady…  that leech of an attorney, Valerie Mayer.”

“So,” Rhyme asked, almost nonchalantly, “how are you going to kill Vernon Griffith?”

She didn’t seem surprised he’d deduced this. “I don’t know yet. Probably have to burn him alive. Make it look like he was creating some booby trap or another. Gasoline. He’s oddly strong for such a skinny man.”

“So you do know where he is?”

“No, after he left my place, he wasn’t sure where he was going. A transient hotel somewhere. He’d be in touch, he said. And he will be.”

Rhyme said, “It was tragic what happened to you and your family. But what does this get you?”

“Justice, comfort.”

“You will be found out.”

“I don’t think so.” A glance at her watch, then Alicia stepped closer to Rhyme and turned the blade up, eyeing his jugular. She had the steady hand of a butcher or surgeon.

Rhyme looked away from the blade, lifted his head and said, “Yes, go ahead. But hard. It has to be hard. You’ll only have one chance.”

Alicia paused. Frowned in confusion.

But Rhyme wasn’t speaking to her. His eyes were focused on Juliette Archer, unsteadily walking up behind the woman, holding an examination lamp, which had a heavy iron base. She nodded, acknowledging Rhyme’s instruction, and swung the fixture, hard indeed, directly into the base of Alicia’s skull.

CHAPTER 54

The medics reported that the injuries the two women had sustained were not life threatening, though Alicia Morgan’s were more severe by far.

She was presently in the hospital wing of Manhattan’s detention center, close by Central Booking and the courthouse downtown.

Juliette Archer was sitting in one of Rhyme’s rattan chairs in his parlor, her face bandaged, with an impressive bruise peeking out from under the gauze, similar to Alicia’s when she’d arrived. An EMS tech was finishing up his artistry on a second wound to her jaw.

“Is it ready yet?” Rhyme asked Thom, who was reassembling the controller that Alicia had ripped from his wheelchair. “I mean, it’s been ten minutes.”

You ever get impatient…

“I volunteered to get the service people here,” the aide replied languidly. “Do you remember that? But do we think that might’ve taken, oh, until tomorrow?”

“It looks finished to me. Just turn it on. I have phone calls to make.”

At the younger man’s glare, Rhyme fell silent.

Three minutes later he was functional again.