The Twelfth Card Read Online Free PDF Page B

her ‘lady.’ She’s ‘Detective.’ ”
    The rookie looked at him uneasily but she could see he got the message—one that Sachs herself had been going to deliver when they were out of earshot.
    “Sorry,” Pulaski said to her.
    “You didn’t know. Now you do.”
    Which could be the motto of police training everywhere.
    They turned to go. The guard called, “Oh, hey, rookie?”
    Pulaski turned.
    “You forgot the coffee.” Grinned.
    At the entrance to the museum Lon Sellitto wassurveying the street and talking to a sergeant. The big detective looked at the kid’s name tag and asked, “Pulaski, you were first officer?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “What’sa story?”
    The kid cleared his throat and pointed to an alley. “I was positioned across the street, roughly there, on routine patrol. At about oh-eight-thirty the victim, an African-American female, sixteen years of age, approached me and reported that—”
    “You can just tell it in your own words,” Sachs said.
    “Sure. Okay. What it was, I was standing right about there and this girl comes up to me, all upset. Her name’s Geneva Settle, junior in high school. She was working on a term paper or something on the fifth floor.” Pointing to the museum. “And this guy attacks her. White, six feet, wearing a ski mask. Was going to rape her.”
    “You know that how?” Sellitto asked.
    “I found his rape pack upstairs.”
    “You looked in it?” Sachs asked, frowning.
    “With a pen. That’s all. I didn’t touch it.”
    “Good. Go on.”
    “The girl gets away, comes down the fire stairs and into the alley. He’s after her, but he turns the other way.”
    “Anybody see what happened to him?” Sellitto asked.
    “No, sir.”
    He looked over the street. “You set up the press perimeter?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Well, it’s fifty feet too close. Get ’em the hell away. Press’re like leeches. Remember that.”
    “Sure, Detective.”
    You didn’t know. Now you do.
    He hurried off and started moving the line back.
    “Where’s the girl?” Sachs asked.
    The sergeant, a solid Hispanic man with thick, graying hair, said, “An officer took her and her friend to Midtown North. They’re calling her parents.” Sharp autumn sunlight reflected off his many gold decorations. “After they get in touch with them, somebody was going to take ’em to Captain Rhyme’s place to interview her.” He laughed. “She’s a smart one. Know what she did?”
    “What?”
    “She had an idea there might be some trouble, so she dressed up this mannequin in her sweatshirt and hat. The perp went after that. Bought her time to get away.”
    Sachs laughed. “And she’s only sixteen? Smart.”
    Sellitto said to her, “You run the scene. I’m going to get a canvass going.” He wandered up the sidewalk to a cluster of officers—one uniform and two Anti-Crime cops in dress-down plain clothes—and sent them around the crowd and into nearby stores and office buildings to check for witnesses. He rounded up a separate team to interview each of the half dozen pushcart vendors here, some selling coffee and doughnuts at the moment, others setting up for lunches of hot dogs, pretzels, gyros and falafel pita-bread sandwiches.
    A honk sounded and she turned. The CS bus had arrived from the Crime Scene Unit HQ in Queens.
    “Hey, Detective,” the driver said, getting out.
    Sachs nodded a greeting to him and his partner. She knew the young men from prior cases. Shepulled off her jacket and weapon, dressed in white Tyvek overalls, which minimized contamination of the scene. She then strapped her Glock back on her hip, thinking of Rhyme’s constant admonition to his CS crews: Search well but watch your back.
    “Give me a hand with the bags?” she asked, hefting one of the metal suitcases containing basic evidence-collection and -transport equipment.
    “You bet.” A CSU tech grabbed two of the other cases.
    She pulled on a hands-free headset and plugged it into her Handi-Talkie