Page 18 of The Midnight Lock (Lincoln Rhyme 14)

“Probablyno battery,” Rhyme continued.

Nonconsensual contact.

“But even that would be hard to prove if there’s no evidence of touching. So you’ve got second-degree burglary.”

Breaking into acommercialbuilding required several conditions to make the crime a burglary, such as the perp’s being armed with a deadly weapon or causing injury to someone. But no such requirements were necessary when the trespasser broke into someone’spersonaldwelling. Simple breaking and entering made the Locksmith’s crime a felony.

But that hardly turned it into the crime of the century.

Sellitto caught the point. “Okay, okay, got it, Linc. He messed with her mind but considering what he could’ve done … So, you want to know what the hell’m I doing here, other than an excuse to have Thom’s baked goods. It’s a non-case, right? Well, there’s more.”

He dug out his phone and fiddled, then displayed the screen to Rhyme and Sachs. It was a picture of a social media post: theHeraldpage that Sellitto had referred to earlier, sitting in a dresser drawer, atop garments, the word “reckoning” and the nickname barely visible; the image was dark, shot without the flash, so as not to wake her, Rhyme supposed. Beneath the picture was typed Annabelle’s address and the words: “Who’ll be next?”

“He posted it somewhere underground but it went viral fast: Facebook and Twitter pages—newspapers, TV stations mostly. Word’s out now and reporters’re calling downtown. It’s holy hell. The brass can’t afford to flub a case that’s got a press-magnet of a perp like this guy. Especially now.”

Rhyme was all too aware of the scandal of recently botched investigations and trials in New York City.

Sellitto continued, “That’s who I was on the horn with when I got here.”

Rhyme had been wondering about the “Yessir.” He said, “So it’s about politics, Lon. Who has time for that? Anyway, I’m doingmypart to take the trash out.” He nodded at the whiteboard of the Viktor Buryak investigation.

“I know you are. But I’m not through pitching my case. The respondings’s report ends up on Benny Morgenstern’s desk.”

Sachs said to Rhyme, “Gold shield, Major Cases. Been there a long time.”

Sellitto said, “Yeah. He’s like the wise old man of the squad. Yoda.”

Rhyme frowned. “I don’t know any brass named Yoda.”

Sellitto stared for a moment, then, apparently deciding his former partner was serious, said, “Just hear him out.”

10

Via Zoom, Rhyme—and the others in the parlor—were looking at a round man with a pale, freckled face.

Benny Morgenstern was in his fifties, not exactly the “old man” Sellitto had suggested. He wore a short-sleeved white shirt without a tie. He sat at a cluttered desk, filled with file folders and what appeared to be locks and keys, as well as metalworking tools.

A main bailiwick of the NYPD Major Cases squad was burglaries, robberies and hijackings—crimes that involved perps getting into places that were locked up for the very purpose of keeping them out.

“Captain Rhyme. You don’t remember. We met a while ago. The Whitestone Brinks case.”

He remembered the case—a four-million-dollar heist—though not the detective.

Rhyme’s response was a nod.

“Hi, Benny,” Sachs said.

“Amelia. Lon’s briefed you, I guess. But here’s the situation.”

Ah, “situation”—not “sit.” Rhyme cast a glance to Sellitto, who whispered, “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” in response.

“I had one of the respondings take a shot of Ms. Talese’s front door. Hold on.”

He shared a screen on Zoom, and Rhyme could see a knob with a keyhole in the center and two different deadbolts, one above the knob, one below.

Morgenstern continued, “Now, this isn’t going to mean a lot to you … not yet. Bear with me. In the knob, there’s a generic pin tumbler lock. Anybody could pick that with a basic set of tools and an hour to watch YouTube videos. But the deadbolts: Hendricks Model Forty-One on top. And Stahl-Groen Sixteen on the bottom. At lock-picking conventions, they’re competition models.”

“Lock-picking conventions?” Rhyme asked.