At last Rhyme understood her reaction at seeing him for the first time. She was at ease with him because here was a man who was no threat to her. No sexual come-ons. Someone she wouldn’t have to fend off. And perhaps a certain camaraderie too – as if they were both missing the same, crucial gene.

“You know,” he joked, “you and me, we ought to get together and not have an affair.”

She laughed. “So tell me about your wife. How long were you married?”

“Seven years. Six before the accident, one after.”

“And she left you?”

“Nope. I left her. I didn’t want her to feel guilty about it.”

“Good of you.”

“I’d have driven her out eventually. I’m a prick. You’ve only seen my good side.” After a moment he asked, “This thing with Nick… it have anything to do with why you’re leaving Patrol?”

“No. Well, yes.”

“Gunshy?”

Finally she nodded. “Life on the street’s different now. That’s what did it to Nick, you know. What turned him. It’s not like it was when Pop was walking his beat. Things were better then.”

“You mean it’s not like the stories your dad told you.”

“Maybe,” she conceded. Sachs slumped the chair. “The arthritis? That’s true but it’s not as serious as I pretend it is.”

“I know,” Rhyme said.

“You know? How?”

“I just looked at the evidence and drew some conclusions.”

“Is that why you’ve been on my case all day? You knew I was faking?”

“I’ve been on your case,” he said, “because you’re better than you think you are.”

She gave him a screwy look.

“Ah, Sachs, you remind me of me.”

“I do?”

“Let me tell you a story. I’d been on crime scene detail maybe a year when we got a call from Homicide there was a guy found dead in an alley in Greenwich Village. All the sergeants were out and so I got elected to run the scene. I was twenty-six years old, remember. I go up there and check it out and it turns out the dead guy’s the head of the City Health and Human Services. Now, what’s he got all around him but a load of Polaroids? You should’ve seen some of those snaps – he’d been to one of those S &M clubs off Washington Street. Oh, and I forgot to mention, when they found him he was dressed in a stunning little black minidress and fishnet stockings.

“So, I secure the scene. All of a sudden a captain shows up and starts to cross the tape. I know he’s planning to have those pictures disappear on the way to the evidence room but I was so naive I didn’t care much about the pictures – I was just worried about somebody walking through the scene.”

“P is for Protect the crime scene.”

Rhyme chuckled. “So I didn’t let him in. While he was standing at the tape screaming at me a dep com tried an end run. I told him no. He started screaming at me. The scene stays virgin till IRD’s through with it, I told them. Guess who finally showed up?”

“The mayor?”

“Well, deputy mayor.”

“And you held ’em all off?”

“Nobody got into that scene except Latents and Photography. Of course my payback was spending six months printing floaters. But we nailed the perp with some trace and a print off one of those Polaroids – happened to be the same snap the Post used on page one, as a matter of fact. Just like what you did yesterday morning, Sachs. Closing off the tracks and Eleventh Avenue.”

“I didn’t think about it,” she said. “I just did it. Why’re you looking at me that way?”

“Come on, Sachs. You know where you ought to be. On the street. Patrol, Major Crimes, IRD, doesn’t matter… But Public Affairs? You’ll rot there. It’s a good job for some people but not you. Don’t give up so fast.”

“Oh, and you’re not giving up? What about Berger?”

“Things’re a little different with me.”

Her glance questioned, They are? And she went prowling for a Kleenex. When she returned to the chair she asked, “You don’t carry any corpses around with you?”

“I have in my day. They’re all buried now.”

“Tell me.”

“Really, there’s nothing -”

“Not true. I can tell. Come on – I showed you mine.”

He felt an odd chill. He knew it wasn’t dysreflexia. His smile faded.

“Rhyme, go on,” she persisted. “I’d like to hear.”

“Well, there was a case a few years ago,” he said, “I made a mistake. A bad mistake.”

“Tell me.” She poured them each another finger of the Scotch.

“It was a domestic murder-suicide call. Husband and wife in a Chinatown apartment. He shot her, killed himself. I didn’t have much time for the scene; I worked it fast. And I committed a classic error – I’d made up my mind about what I was going to find before I started looking. I found some fibers that I couldn’t place but I assumed that the husband and wife’d tracked them in. I found the bullet fragments but didn’t check them against the gun we found at the scene. I noticed the blowback pattern but didn’t grid it to double-check the exact position of the gun. I did the search, signed off and went back to the office.”

“What happened?”

“The scene had been staged. It was really a burglary-murder. And the perp had never left the apartment.”

“What? He was still there?”

“After I left he crawled out from under the bed and started shooting. He killed one forensic tech and wounded an assistant ME. He got out on the street and there was a shootout with a couple of portables who’d heard the 10-13. The perp was shot up – he died later – but he killed one of the cops and wounded the other. He also shot up a family that’d just come out of a Chinese restaurant across the street. Used one of the kids as a shield.”

“Oh, my God.”

“Colin Stanton was the father’s name. He wasn’t hurt at all and he’d been an army medic – EMS said he probably could’ve saved his wife or one or both of the kids if he’d tried to stop the bleeding but he panicked and froze. He just stood there, watching them all die in front of him.”

“Jesus, Rhyme. But it wasn’t your fault. You -”

“Let me finish. That wasn’t the end of it.”

“No?”

“The husband went back home – upstate New York. Had a breakdown and went into a mental hospital for a while. He tried to kill himself. They put him under a suicide watch. First he tried to cut his wrist with a piece of paper – a magazine cover. Then he sneaked into the library and found a water glass in the librarian’s bathroom, shattered it and slashed his wrists. They stitched him up okay and kept him in the mental hospital for another year or so. Finally they released him. A month or so after he was out he tried again. Used a knife.” Rhyme added coolly, “That time it worked.”

He’d learned about Stanton’s death in an obituary faxed from the Albany County coroner to NYPD Public Affairs. Someone there had sent it to Rhyme via interoffice mail with a Post-It attached: FYI – thought you’d be interested, the officer had written.

“There was an IA investigation. Professional incompetence. They slapped my wrist. I think they should’ve fired me.”

She sighed and closed her eyes for a moment. “And you’re telling me you don’t feel guilty about that?”

“Not anymore.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I served my time, Sachs. I lived with those bodies for a while. But I gave ’ em up. If I hadn’t, how could I have kept on working?”

After a long moment she said, “When I was eighteen I got a ticket. Speeding. I was doing ninety in a forty zone.”

“Well.”

“Dad said he’d front me the money for the fine but I’d have to pay him back. With interest. But you know what else he told me? He said he would’ve tanned my hide for running a red light or reckless driving. But going fast he understood. He told me, ‘I know how you feel, honey. When you move they can’t getcha.’ ” Sachs said to Rhyme, “If I couldn’t drive, if I couldn’t move, then maybe I’d do it too. Kill myself.”

“I used to walk everywhere,” Rhyme said. “I never did drive much. Haven’t owned a car in twenty years. What kind do you have?”