"Sure."
But when he got to the door, his hand on the knob, he heard the man call, "Hey, wait, sir. Wait. You know, one time, I remember, Stan did say something. Did you go to Thoreau High?"
"Yeah." Ransom stared back at the man.
"Well, I heard him talking about this great play in the last few minutes of a Thoreau-Woodrow Wilson game, a sixty-yard touchdown. He was smiling. He said his kid did a great job. The best play he'd ever seen."
"He said that?"
"Yeah."
Ransom nodded and walked outside, dropping into the front seat of the car and firing it up.
Reflecting that what Stan actually would have said was, "the kid," not "his kid."
Ransom had never played football.
*
AND NOW, FOUR HOURS LATER, Ransom Fells was still sitting in the rental Toyota, on the meager hill that overlooked the lopsided softball field. He clutched his cool coffee and riffled through Upshaw's stories again and again.
His father a killer...and possibly murdered himself.
Impossible.
And yet...
The old man's account had seemed too specific to be made up and his troubled face had registered genuine fear that Ransom had come to kill him. Ransom lined Upshaw's words up against the facts he remembered from his childhood:
How his father never talked about his job or introduced the family to fellow workers. How Ransom and his brother were never invited to his company. How Stan didn't want Ransom to get into fights--which might draw the police. How he rarely took the family out in public--for fear of jeopardizing them? How he regularly went hunting solo but never came back with a trophy (and what game had he really been after?). How his quiet, retiring manner was similar to, say, a sniper in Iraq that Ransom knew, who'd never boast about his kills and who was a craftsman who treated taking lives as simply another job.
One big question remained, however: What was Ransom's reaction to the news? He simply couldn't tell. He was too confused.
It was then that he remembered Annie had called. He listened to her message, in which she'd suggested, no commitment, if he wanted to get together that night she'd enjoy it.
He now called her back.
"Hey," she said, recognizing the number.
"Hey to you, too."
"How's your day been?"
If you only knew...
"Good. Productive."
"I'm bored," Annie said breathily.
"Well, have dinner with me. I'll cure you."
"I'm quite familiar with your course of treatment, Doctor. Can you fit me in at seven?"
She really had one of the sexiest voices he'd ever heard.
"The appointment's been scheduled," he said playfully.
He disconnected and, as he stared again at the field, an electric jolt coursed through him. Ransom Fells actually smiled.
Of all the weird ironies, learning the shocking truth about his father had suddenly put his own concerns in perspective. The edginess, the tension, the guilt he'd felt when connecting with someone like Annie vanished completely.
The sentimental journey, which he'd avoided for so many years, had paid off in a way he could never have expected.
More than he would ever have expected.
Ransom fired up the car and returned to Chesterton. He finished up his business with John Hardwick then hurried to Annie's.
On the way he made up a phrase that was worthy of his ex.
Absentee reconciliation.
Ransom liked that. The phrase had two meanings when it came to his father: He'd reconciled with someone who was emotionally absent, even when they were living in the same house, and now who was absent physically.
An exhilarating sense of freedom coursed through him.
He parked and made his way to Annie's front door, rang the bell and heard the thump thump thump of steps as she approached. He noticed that she didn't play any games--like slowing down, or making him wait.
Then the door was opening and she pulled him inside fast, smiling and kissing him hard on the lips.
Ransom swung the door shut with his foot and held her tightly. He cradled her neck, stroking her hair teasingly.
She whispered, "Don't you want to examine me before dinner, Doctor?"
Ransom smiled. Silently, he slipped the Smith & Wesson revolver from his pocket and touched her temple with the blunt muzzle. He slipped the index fingertip into his ear--the .38 special rounds were loud as hell.
"What's--?" she asked.
He pulled the trigger.
Still, the gunshot was stunning and numbed his hearing. It pitched Annie's head sideways so fast he wondered if the impact had also broken her neck.
She thudded to the floor like a sack of ice melt.
The house was at least fifty yards from the nearest neighbors but gunshots are quite distinctive and he knew he didn't have much time. Pulling on latex gloves, he dropped to his knees and wiped her lips hard with a tissue to lift any DNA he might have left from the kiss. Then, with a new tissue, he wiped his own prints from the gun and nestled it in her still-quivering hand, which he then dusted with the gunshot residue from this particular lot of cartridges. He then planted around her house a half-dozen items he'd lifted from John Hardwick's house, after he'd killed the man and his wife a half hour before: dirty socks and underwear, a toothbrush, condoms, a coffee mug. (On Hardwick's corpse he'd also planted some hairs he'd lifted from Annie's brush that morning in her bathroom and more condoms, the same brand.)
The prepaid anonymous cell phone, whose number he'd given Annie earlier, was now scrubbed of his own prints and marked with Hardwick's; it rested in the dead man's pocket. The police would find only one message, from Annie--the call he hadn't picked up earlier. It was "John, hey, it's me, Annie. If you want to get together tonight, I'd love to. Only if you're up for it."
Ransom had told her his first name was "John."
He stood for a minute and surveyed the house, deciding it was a righteous set.
It was easy to kill someone, of course. What was difficult was setting up a credible scenario so that the police stopped looking for suspects. In the thirty-five killings Ransom was responsible for, he usually found a person to take the rap. The police, forever overworked, were generally happy to take the obvious explanation, even if there were a few holes as to the truth of the incident.
Murder/suicide was always good.
The police would conclude that John Hardwick had been having an affair with Annie Colbert and had told her it was over. She'd gone to his house tonight when he got home from work, shot him and his wife and then returned home, taking her own life with the same gun she'd used to kill the couple.
There were a few people who'd seen Annie and Ransom together. The drunk kid wouldn't remember anything. The bartender might but the young man had been busy and Ransom had introduced himself as John to him as well.
Besides, Ransom Fells had a solid cover: a traveling salesman for GKS Tech, based in New Jersey. It was a front, of course, but a very elaborately documented one. And in any case Ransom would be out of this area in twenty minutes.
Then he was out the door and, sticking to bushes in the backyards of the properties here, he made toward the car, parked several blocks away.
Ransom's boss would be pleased. The clients would, too--a money-laundering operation on the East Coast trying to expand into the Midwest and meeting resistance from John Hardwick, who had his own financial game set up here.
Ransom was pleased, too. And about more than the success of the job.
Learning what he had about his father had removed one of the biggest draws in his career, one he'd wrestled with ever since joining the operation: the troubled feelings about making a living at murder, so to speak, and the guilt at killing the innocent to enhance your goal.
Could a death--violent death--ultimately (and ironically) lead to something positive, a reconciliation of sorts?
Apparently the answer was yes. Not his father's own
death but the killing that was his father's profession.
Knowing what he'd learned from the scrawny bar owner had worked a miracle. Now it was clear. He'd been born this way, his father's son, and there was nothing he could do to change.
And then another thought struck him like the shockwave from an IED.
My name!
Stan's first job had been the kidnapping of the Mafioso's wife in the western suburbs of Chicago, at which he'd made his own career...and made Bobby Doyle $500,000--in ransom.
His father had named his firstborn son after his big break.
Ransom grinned like he hadn't done for years.
He was halfway through Ohio when he received an encrypted email and pulled over; he didn't want to read it while driving and risk a ticket. His other weapons were carefully hidden under the computer tools, but why tempt fate?
The message was from his boss at GKS Tech, thanking him for the Indiana job and asking if he was able to take on another assignment--back in his own territory of the New York area. A whistleblower was going to testify against a client--a government contractor, who'd been delivering shoddy military equipment and overcharging for it. The employee had not gone to the authorities yet but was going to do so on Monday. The client needed him dead right away.
Ransom answered that he'd handle the job.
A moment later he received another message. It said that Ransom ought to know that the target was presently at home with his wife and two teenage children and would be there all weekend until he left for the DA's office. It was possible that the entire family would be present when he killed the man. There'd probably have to be collateral damage.
Ransom typed: That's not a problem.
And cut and pasted the address of his victims into his GPS.
THE OBIT
a Lincoln Rhyme story
Memorandum
From: Robert McNulty, Chief of Department, New York City Police Department
To:Inspector Frederick Fielding
Deputy Inspector William Boylston
Captain Alonzo Carrega
Captain Ruth Gillespie
Captain Sam Morris
Sergeant Leo Williams
Lieutenant Detective Diego Sanchez
Lieutenant Detective Carl Sibiewski
Lieutenant Detective Lon Sellitto
Detective Antwan Brown
Detective Eddie Yu
Detective Peter Antonini
Detective Amelia Sachs
Detective Mel Cooper
Police Officer Ronald Pulaski
CC:Sergeant Amy Mandel
Re:Lincoln Rhyme News Release
In light of the recent tragic events, our Public Information Department has prepared the following release for news organizations around the country. As you are someone who has in the past worked with Lincoln Rhyme, we are sending you a draft of this document for review. If you wish to make any changes or additions, please send them by 1030 hours Friday to Sgt. Amy Mandel, the office of the Deputy Commissioner of Public Information, One Police Plaza, Room 1320.
Please note the time and place of the memorial service.
* FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE *
New York City--Capt. Lincoln Henry Rhyme (Ret.), internationally known forensic scientist, died yesterday of gunshot wounds following an attack by a murder suspect he had been pursuing for more than a year.
The assailant, whose name is unknown but who goes by the nickname The Watchmaker, gained entrance to Capt. Rhyme's Central Park West townhouse, shot him twice and escaped. He was believed to be wounded by NYPD Detective Amelia Sachs, who was present at the time. The assailant's condition is unknown. An extensive manhunt is under way in the Metropolitan area.
Capt. Rhyme was pronounced dead at the scene.
"This is a terrible loss," said Police Commissioner Harold T. Stanton, "one that will be felt throughout the department, indeed throughout the entire area. Capt. Rhyme has been instrumental in bringing to justice many criminals who would not have been apprehended if not for his brilliance. The security of our city is now diminished due to this heinous crime."
For years Capt. Rhyme had been commanding officer of the unit that supervised the NYPD Crime Scene operation.
It was, in fact, while he was searching a scene in a subway tunnel undergoing construction work that he was struck by a falling beam, which broke his spine. He was rendered a C-4 quadriplegic and paralyzed from the neck down, able to move only one finger of his left hand and his shoulders and head. Though initially on a ventilator, his condition stabilized and he was able to breathe without assistance.
He retired on disability but continued to consult as a private "criminalist," or forensic scientist, working primarily for the NYPD, though also for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Central Intelligence Agency, among others, as well as many international law enforcement agencies.
Lincoln Rhyme was born in the suburbs of Chicago. His father was a research scientist who held various positions with manufacturing corporations and at Argonne National Laboratory. His mother was a homemaker and occasional teacher. The family lived in various towns in the northern Illinois area. In high school, Capt. Rhyme was on the varsity track and field team and president of the Science Club and the Classics Club. He was valedictorian of his high school graduating class. Capt. Rhyme was graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, receiving dual degrees in chemistry and history. He went on to study geology, mechanical engineering and forensic science at the graduate level.
Capt. Rhyme turned down lucrative offers to work in the private sector or in colleges and chose instead to specialize in crime scene work.
He said in an interview that theoretical science had no interest for him. He wanted to put his talents to practical use. "I couldn't be a karate expert who spends all his time in the monastery or practice hall. I'd be itching to get out on the street."
Some friends believed an incident in his past, possibly a crime of some sort, steered him to law enforcement but none was able to say what that might have been.
Capt. Rhyme attended the NYPD Police Academy in Manhattan and joined the force as an officer in the Crime Scene Unit. He quickly rose through the division and was eventually named commanding officer of the division overseeing the unit while still a captain, usually a position held by an officer with the higher rank of deputy inspector.
Capt. Rhyme took forensic science to a new level in New York City. He fought for budget increases to buy state-of-the-art equipment, evidence collection gear and computers. He personally created a number of databases of "samplars," such as motor oils, gasoline, dirt, insects, animal droppings and construction materials, against which his officers could compare trace evidence from crime scenes and thus identify and locate the perpetrator with unprecedented speed. He would wander throughout the streets of the city at all hours and collect such materials.
He developed new approaches to searching crime scenes (for which he coined the now-common term, "walking the grid"). He instituted the practice of using a single officer to examine scenes, believing that a solo searcher could achieve a better understanding of the crime and the perpetrator than when a group of officers was involved.
FBI Special Agent Frederick Dellray, who worked with Capt. Rhyme frequently, said, "When it came to physical evidence, there was not a single, solitary soul in the country who was better. No, make that the world. I mean, he was the one we brought in to set up our Physical Evidence Response Team. Nobody from Washington or Quantico, nope. We picked him. I mean, this's a guy solved a case 'cause he found a fleck of cow manure from the eighteen hundreds. He couldn't tell you who Britney Spears is or who won American Idol, but, it came to evidence, that man knew f***ing everything."
Although most senior Crime Scene officers are content to leave the actual searches and lab work to underlings, Capt. Rhyme would have none of that. Even as a captain, he searched s
cenes, gathered samples and did much of the analysis himself.
"When we were partnered," said Lt. Lon Sellitto, "he was a lot of times first officer at the scene and would insist on searching it himself, even if it was hot."
A "hot" crime scene is one at which an armed and dangerous perpetrator might still be present.
"I remember one time," Lt. Sellitto recalled, "he was running a scene and the perp comes back with a gun, starts shooting. Lincoln dives under cover and returns fire but he was mad about the whole thing--every time he fired, he said, he was contaminating the scene. I told him later, 'Geez, Linc, you shoot the guy, you're not gonna have to worry about the scene.' He didn't laugh."
When asked once about his fastidious approach to forensic work, Capt. Rhyme cited Locard's Principle, which was named after the early French criminalist, Edmond Locard, who stated that in every crime there is some exchange between the criminal and the victim, or the criminal and the scene, though the trace might be extremely difficult to find.
"Often the only thing that will stop a vicious killer is a microscopic bit of dust, a hair, a fiber, a sloughed-off skin cell, a coffee stain. If you're lazy or stupid and miss that cell or fiber, well, how're you going to explain that to the family of the next victim?"
He insisted on employees' total devotion to their job and once fired an officer for using the toilet beside the bedroom where a murder had occurred.
Still, he rewarded hard work and loyalty. A former protege reported that on more than one occasion Capt. Rhyme would berate senior police officials to secure raises or promotions for his people or adamantly, and loudly, defend their judgments about handling cases.
In several instances Capt. Rhyme himself ordered senior police officials, reporters and even a deputy mayor arrested when their presence threatened to contaminate or interfere with a crime scene.
In addition to gathering and analyzing evidence, Capt. Rhyme enjoyed testifying in court against those whose arrests he had participated in.
Bernard Rothstein, a well-known criminal defense lawyer who has represented many organized crime figures, recalled several cases in which Capt. Rhyme testified. "If I saw that Rhyme had done the forensic work in a case against one of my clients, I'd think, brother, I am not looking forward to that cross-examination. You can punch holes in the testimony of a lot of Crime Scene cops when they get up on the stand. But Lincoln Rhyme? He'd punch holes in you."