Then two cops are pointing in my direction. I see that yet another officer is on the top of the house across the street. He's pointing my way too. And since I'm not six feet three, 230 pounds, with skin dark as ebony, they aren't waiting for DeLeon 6832. They've been waiting for me.
My hands are beginning to shake. Imagine if I'd blundered right into the middle of that, with the evidence in my backpack.
A dozen other officers are running to their cars or jogging fast in my direction. Running like wolves. I turn and scrabble up the embankment, breathing hard, panicked. I'm not even to the top when I hear the first of the sirens.
No, no!
My treasures, my Closet . . .
The highway, four lanes total, is crowded, which is good because the sixteens have to drive slowly. I can dodge pretty well, even with my head down; I'm sure nobody gets a good look at my face. Then I vault the barrier and stumble down the other embankment. My collecting, and other activities, keep me in good shape and soon I'm sprinting fast toward the closest subway station. I pause only once, to pull on cotton gloves and rip from my backpack the plastic bag containing the evidence I was going to plant, then shove it into a trash can. I can't be caught with it. I can't. A half block closer to the subway, I dodge into an alley behind a restaurant. I turn my reversible jacket inside out, swap hats and emerge again, my backpack now stuffed into a shopping bag.
Finally, I'm at the subway station, and--thank you--I can feel the musty tunnel breath preceding a train as it approaches. Then the thunder of the bulky car, the squeal of metal on metal.
But before I get to the turnstile I pause. The shock is now gone, but it's been replaced by the edgy. I understand I can't leave just yet.
The significance of the problem
crashes down on me. They might not know my identity but they've figured out what I was doing.
Which means they want to take something away from me. My treasures, my Closet . . . everything.
And that, of course, is unacceptable.
Making sure I stay clear of the CCTV camera, I casually walk back up the stairs, digging in my bag, as I leave the subway station.
*
"Where?" Rhyme's voice filled Amelia Sachs's earphone. "Where the hell is he?"
"He spotted us, took off."
"You're sure it was him?"
"Pretty sure. Surveillance saw somebody a few blocks away. Looks like he spotted some of the detectives' cars and changed his route. We saw him watching us, and he ran. We've got teams after him."
She was in DeLeon Williams's front yard with Pulaski, Bo Haumann and a half dozen other ESU officers. Some Crime Scene Unit techs and uniformed patrolmen were searching the escape route for evidence and canvassing for witnesses.
"Any sign he has a car?"
"Don't know. He was on foot when we saw him."
"Christ. Well, let me know when you find something."
"I'll--"
Click.
She grimaced at Pulaski, who was holding his Handi Talkie up to his ear, listening to the pursuit. Haumann was monitoring it too. The progress, from what she could hear, didn't seem fruitful. Nobody on the highway had seen him or was willing to admit it, if they had. Sachs turned to the house and saw a very concerned, and very confused, DeLeon Williams looking out through a curtained window.
Saving the man from being yet another fall guy of 522 had involved both happenstance and good police work.
And they had Ron Pulaski to thank for it. The young officer in the brash Hawaiian shirt had done what Rhyme had requested: immediately gone to One Police Plaza and started looking for other cases that matched 522's modus operandi. He found none but as he was talking to a Homicide detective the unit got a report from Central about an anonymous phone call. A man had heard screams from a loft near SoHo and seen a black man fleeing in an old beige Dodge. A patrolman had responded and found that a young woman, Myra Weinburg, had been raped and murdered.
Pulaski was struck by the anonymous call, echoing the earlier cases, and immediately called Rhyme. The criminalist figured that if 522 was in fact behind the crime he was probably sticking to his plan: he would plant evidence blaming a fall guy and they needed to find which of the more than 1,300 older beige Dodges was the one 522 might pick. Sure, maybe the man wasn't 522 but even if not, they had the chance to collar a rapist and killer.
At Rhyme's instruction, Mel Cooper cross-matched Department of Motor Vehicles records with criminal records and came up with seven African-American men who had convictions for crimes more serious than traffic violations. One, though, was the most likely: an assault charge against a woman. DeLeon Williams was a perfect choice as a fall guy.
Happenstance and police work.