Page 49 of The Midnight Lock (Lincoln Rhyme 14)

“You too.”

Thom showed him out.

As soon as the door closed, Rhyme turned to Sachs. “So?”

“Take a look. I’ll send it to you.” She typed on her phone and a moment later a ding rang out in the lab. Rhyme called up his email.

He was looking at what she’d just downloaded from the NYPD personnel database and sent to him.

Richard Beaufort was indeed a detective, third-class, with the NYPD. And, yes, he had been assigned to the 112 House, the precinct in which Buryak’s mansion was located. However, he’d never had anything to do with the Buryak case. In fact, for the past four months, he had had nothing to do with criminal investigation. He’d been transferred to a different job.

He was on Mayor Tony Harrison’s security detail.

Rhyme muttered, “Son of a bitch was here to see if I was working the Locksmith case.”

“Rodriguez was at the Noelle scene, playing it up for the cameras. Potter was there too, the mayor’s aide.”

“To report that we’re toeing the line.” Rhyme scoffed. “The press’s really playing it up big. They like notorious bad guys. Looks better when they get caught. The Zodiac Killer, the Boston Strangler. And here we’ve got a nefarious serial perp. The Locksmith gets collared on the mayor’s watch—and without my help—his poll numbers go up. I don’t know why any human being would run for political office.”

Rhyme again reflected: I’m fucking housebound, no work to do, no desire to look for alternatives.

He thought of what Commander Brett Evans had said last night.

New Jersey …

Commercial lab work …

Jesus Christ.

He said, “You’ve got to get to Queens. That blood trace Mel found? If he used the knife once he’s going to use it again. That’s a given.”

She didn’t answer but glanced down as her phone dinged with a text. “Just a second.” She walked into the hallway and then out onto the front porch. On the monitor, he saw her looking up and down the street. She returned and, head down, sent yet another text.

“Sachs. I’m serious. You need to get started.”

Now, she held up a wait-a-second index finger and walked to the front door once more. He heard it open. He heard voices.

And into the lab walked Ron Pulaski and Mel Cooper. They were each carting crates containing evidence bags.

“The hell’s this?”

Sachs told the men who had just entered, “I watched Beaufort drive off. He’s clear. And I don’t think they’re going to waste manpower surveilling us.” She turned to Rhyme. “They may not like you at the moment, but they don’tdislikeyou enough to spend money spying on and busting you.”

Cooper walked to a locker and donned a face mask and gloves, booties, lab coat. He carried his crate into the sterile part of the lab and then took Pulaski’s and did the same.

“I’ll repeat my question,” Rhyme muttered.

Sachs: “I double-dipped the evidence. Took two samples of each. From the Bechtel Building and Noelle’s.”

“You didwhat?”

“I hid the second set in both scenes,” Sachs continued. “Ron went back and got them after I left.”

Rhyme looked from one to the other.

She said, “We talked about it. Lon too. We know the risk. Are they going to fire us? Maybe. Arrest for obstruction? Not likely.”

Cooper said, “Let’s face it, Lincoln, we didn’t have a choice. The Queens lab is good. But not as good as we are.”