"It was like he knew exactly what to look for . . . . What was it about?"
"Nothing important. Just this ancestor of mine. My teacher's into all this Roots stuff and we had to write about somebody in our past."
"Who was he, this ancestor?"
"My great-great-great-whatever, a freed slave. I went to the museum last week and found out there was an article about him in this issue of Coloreds' Weekly Illustrated. They didn't have it in the library but Mr. Barry said he'd get the microfiche from storage. It just came in."
"What was the story about specifically?" Rhyme persisted.
She hesitated then said impatiently, "Charles Singleton, my ancestor, was a slave in Virginia. His master had this change of heart and he freed all of his slaves. And because Charles and his wife had been with the family for so long and had taught their children to read and write, their master gave them a farm in New York state. Charles was a soldier in the Civil War. He came back home afterwards and in eighteen sixty-eight he got accused of stealing some money from a black educational fund. That's all the article in the magazine was about. I'd just gotten to the part where he jumped into the river to escape from the police when that man showed up."
Rhyme noted that she spoke well but held on to her words tightly, as if they were squirming puppies trying to escape. With educated parents on one side and homegirl friends like Lakeesha on the other, it was only natural that the girl suffered from some linguistic multiple personality.
"So you don't know what happened to him?" Sachs asked.
Geneva shook her head.
"I think we have to assume that the unsub had some interest in what you were researching. Who knew what the topic of your paper was? Your teacher, I assume."
"No, I never told him specifically. I don't think I told anybody but Lakeesha. She might've mentioned it to somebody but I doubt it. Assignments don't take up a lot of her attention, you know what I'm saying? Not even her own. Last week I went to this law office in Harlem to see if they had any old records about crimes in the eighteen hundreds but I didn't tell the lawyer there very much. Of course, Dr. Barry would've known."
"And he would've mentioned it to that other person who was interested in the magazine too," Rhyme pointed out. "Now, just for the sake of argument, let's assume there's something in that article that the unsub doesn't want known--maybe about your ancestor, maybe something else entirely." A glance at Sachs. "Anybody still at the scene?"
"A portable."
"Have 'em canvass the employees. See if Barry mentioned that somebody was interested in that old magazine. Have them go through his desk too." Rhyme had another thought. "And I want his phone records for the past month."
Sellitto shook his head. "Linc, really . . . this's sounding pretty thin, don't you think? We're talking, what? The eighteen hundreds? This isn't a cold case. It's a frozen one."
"A pro who staged a scene, nearly killed one person, and did kill another--right in front of a half dozen cops--just to steal that article? That's not thin, Lon. That's got searchlights all over it."
The big cop shrugged and called the precinct to rel
ay the order to the cop still on duty at the crime scene and then called Warrants to have them issue a phone record subpoena on the museum's and Barry's personal phones.
Rhyme looked over the slim girl and decided that he had no choice; he had to deliver the tough news. "You know what all this might mean, don't you?"
A pause, though he could see in Sachs's troubled glance at Geneva that the policewoman at least knew exactly what it meant. It was she who said to the girl, "Lincoln's saying that it's likely that he's probably still after you."
"That's wack," Geneva Settle offered, shaking her head.
After a pause, Rhyme replied solemnly, "I'm afraid it's anything but."
*
Sitting at the Internet access station in a quick-copy shop in downtown Manhattan, Thompson Boyd was reading through the local TV station website, which updated news every few minutes.
The headline of the article he read was: MUSEUM OFFICIAL MURDERED; WITNESS IN ASSAULT ON STUDENT.
Whistling, almost silently, he examined the accompanying picture, which showed the library director he'd just killed talking to a uniformed policeman on the street in front of the museum. The caption read, Dr. Donald Barry speaks with police shortly before he was shot to death.
Because of her age, Geneva Settle wasn't identified by name, though she was described as a high school student living in Harlem. Thompson was grateful for that information; he hadn't known which borough of the city she lived in. He hooked his phone to the USB port on the computer and transferred the picture he'd taken of the girl. This he then uploaded to an anonymous email account.
He logged off, paid for his time--in cash, of course--and strolled along lower Broadway, in the heart of the financial district. He bought a coffee from a vendor, drank half of it, then slipped the microfiche plates he'd stolen into the cup, replaced the lid and dropped them into a trash basket.
He paused at a phone kiosk, looked around and saw no one was paying him any attention. He dialed a number. There was no outgoing message from the voice mail service, only a beep. "Me. Problem with the Settle situation. I need you to find out where she goes to school or where she lives. She's a high school student in Harlem. That's all I know. I've sent a picture of her to your account . . . . Oh, one thing--if you get a chance to take care of her yourself, there's another fifty thousand in it for you. Give me a call when you get this message. We'll talk about it." Thompson recited the number of the phone where he stood then hung up. He stepped back, crossed his arms and waited, whistling softly. He'd gotten through only three bars of Stevie Wonder's "You Are the Sunshine of My Life" before the phone started to ring.
Chapter Seven