The Steel Kiss

She continued, “We know that Alicia Morgan hired you to kill certain individuals connected with the U.S. Auto vehicle that was defective and killed her husband. But we’d like to know more. Will you talk to us?”

He nodded.

“Could you state yes, please?”

“Oh, sorry. Yes.”

“Tell me in your words what happened. She’s told my partner some things but not everything. I’d like to hear it from you.”

He nodded and without hesitation explained how Alicia had approached him, after seeing him kill someone on the street. “Someone who was attacking me,” he added emphatically.

She recalled that Rhyme had told her Griffith had goaded Rinaldo to attack. But she nodded encouragingly.

“You said she hired me to kill the Shoppers who’d made and sold the car that killed her husband.”

Shoppers? she wondered.

“But I did it because I wanted to help her. She was burned and cut and, you know, changed forever by what happened. I agreed.”

“She wanted the people she felt were to blame to be killed by a product?”

“Things, yes. Because that’s what killed her husband and injured her.”

“Tell me about Todd Williams.”

He confirmed what they’d guessed. That Williams, a digital activist, was a genius of a hacker and had taught Griffith how to crack the DataWise5000s. And, pretending he worked for an ad agency, he bought the databases of the products containing the controllers and of people or companies who had bought the specific items.

Griffith added that he and Alicia had searched the list of purchasers for anyone employed by U.S. Auto, the fuel injector company, the agency creating their ads or the lawyers defending them. “Greg Frommer, Benkoff, Joe Heady. The woman insurance attorney in Westchester.”

“Afterward, after you’d killed Valerie Mayer, the lawyer, where were you and Alicia supposed to be going?”

“Don’t know. Upstate maybe. Canada’d be better. This all happened so fast. Didn’t plan anything out. How’d you get here?” he asked. “I never told Alicia about my brother.”

Sachs explained, “A case from a while ago. The victim you killed was named Rinaldo.”

“The Shopper.”

Again, that word.

“He was a drug dealer,” Sachs said.

“I know. I read the story after. But still. How?”

“That case was on my docket. One of the pieces of evidence from the scene where you killed him was a wheel from a toy. You had a caisson in your apartment in Chelsea. It had the same wheel.”

Griffith nodded. “I’d made one for Peter, a caisson.” Nodding back toward his brother’s grave. “I had it with me that night at dinner. I left the restaurant and was coming here to put it on his grave.” He shivered with disgust or anger. “He broke it.”

“Rinaldo?”

A nod. “He was walking back to his car and was on his cell phone, wasn’t looking where he was going. Knocked into me and it got crushed, the caisson. I insulted him and he came after me. I killed him.” Griffith shook his head. “But here, how’d you figure here?”

Sachs explained that after they’d connected Vernon and Rinaldo, with Rhyme making the Middle Village leap, it hadn’t taken much to speculate that the evidence from the various scenes—the humus, the large quantities of fertilizer and pesticides or herbicides, along with the phenol, an ingredient in embalming fluid—might mean he’d visited the famed cemetery here.

Within about ten square feet…

A call revealed that Peter Griffith, Vernon’s brother, was interred here. Sachs had called the director and asked if they had records of Vernon visiting grave. He said he didn’t know about visits, but there had been some odd occurrences around the Griffith plot: Someone would leave miniature furniture or toys at the grave site. The director told her the pieces were extremely well made. The man supposed some visitors took them. The ones that were turned in he kept in the office, waiting for someone to claim them. The combination had all the makings of an urban legend: miniatures and a cemetery.

“When he was alive Peter always liked what I made for him. The boy things, of course. Medieval weapons, tables and thrones for castles. Catapults and war towers. Cannon and caissons. He would have liked that boat, the Warren skiff. On his tombstone. Where is it?”

“In an evidence bag.” She felt compelled to add, “It will be well taken care of.”

“You police, you were watching the grave?”

“That’s right.”

Sachs had noted that his brother was only twenty when he passed. She commented on this. Then asked, “What happened to him?”

“Shoppers.”

“You’ve said that. What does that mean?”

Griffith looked at his backpack. “There’s a diary in there? My brother’s diary. He dictated it to an MP3 player. I’ve been transcribing it, thinking I was going to publish it someday. There’s some remarkable things Peter’s said. About life, about relationships, about people.”

Sachs found the leather book. It contained easily five hundred pages.