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The squad car that had accompanied them here pulled to a stop where Bell pointed, in front of the Crown Vic. The officer inside would speed back to Rhyme's with the letters he wanted. Another car arrived a moment later, an unmarked Chevy. It contained two officers from Bell's SWAT witness protection team, who would remain in and around the town house. After learning that the unsub would target bystanders simply as a diversion, Bell had ordered some reinforcements. The team officers he'd picked for this assignment were Luis Martinez, a quiet, solid detective, and Barbe Lynch, a sharp, young plainclothes officer, who was new to protection detail but gifted with an intuitive radar for sensing threats.
The Carolinian now lifted his lean frame out of the car and looked around, buttoning his sports coat to hide the two pistols he wore on his hips. Bell had been a good small-town cop and he was a good big-city investigator but was truly in his element when it came to protecting witnesses. It was a talent, like the way he could sniff out game in the fields where he'd hunted growing up. Instinct. What he sensed was more than the obvious--like spotting flashes off telescopic sights or hearing the click of pistol receivers or noticing somebody checking out your witness in the reflection of a storefront window. He could tell when a man was walking with a purpose when by all logic he had none. Or when an apparently innocent bad parking job had placed a car in the perfect position to let a killer escape without having to saw the wheel back and forth. He'd see a configuration of building and street and window and think: Now, that's where a man would hide to do some harm.
But at the moment he noted no threat and ushered Geneva Settle out of the car and inside the town house, motioning Martinez and Lynch to follow. He introduced Geneva to them, then the two officers returned outside to check the surrounding area. The girl unlocked the inside security door and they went in and climbed to the second floor, accompanied by the uniformed officer.
"Uncle Bill," she called, rapping on the door. "It's me."
A heavyset man in his fifties with a dusting of birthmarks on his cheek opened the door. He smiled and nodded at Bell. "Nice to meet you. Name's William."
The detective identified himself and they shook hands.
"Honey, you all right? Terrible what happen to you."
"I'm fine. Only the police are going to hang around for a while. They're thinking that guy who attacked me might try again."
The man's round face wrinkled with concern. "Damn." Then he gestured toward the TV. "You made the news, girl."
"They mention her by name?" Bell asked, frowning, troubled at this news.
"No. 'Causa her age. And no pictures neither."
"Well, that's something . . . " Freedom of the press was all very well and good but there were times when Roland Bell wouldn't mind a certain amount of censorship--when it came to revealing witnesses' identities and addresses. "Now, y'all wait in the hall. I want to check out the inside."
"Yes, sir."
Bell stepped into the apartment and looked it over. The front door was secured by two deadbolts and a steel police lock rod. The front windows looked out on the town houses across the street. He pulled the shades down. The side windows opened onto an alley and the building across the way. The facing wall, though, was solid brick and there were no windows that presented a vantage point for a sniper. Still, he closed the windows and locked them, then pulled the blinds shut.
The place was large--there were two doors to the hallway, one in the front, at the living room, and a second in the back, off a laundry room. He made sure the locks were secured and returned to the hallway. "Okay," he called. Geneva and her uncle returned. "It's looking pretty good. Just keep the doors and windows locked and the blinds drawn."
"Yes, sir," the man said. "I be sure to do that."
"I'll get the letters," Geneva said. She disappeared toward the bedrooms.
Now that Bell had examined the place for security, he looked at the room as a living space. It struck him as cold. Spotless white furniture, leather and linen, all covered with plastic protectors. Tons of books, African and Caribbean sculptures and paintings, a china cabinet filled with what seemed like expensive dishes and wineglasses. African masks. Very little that was sentimental, personal. Hardly any pictures of family.
Bell's own house was chockablock with snaps of kin--especially his two boys, as well as all their cousins back in North Carolina. Also a few pictures of his late wife, but out of deference to his new belle--Lucy Kerr, who was a sheriff down in the Tarheel State--there were none of his wife and Bell together, only of mother and sons. (Lucy, who was herself well represented on his walls, had seen the pictures of the late Mrs. Bell and her children and announced she respected him for keeping those up. And one thing about Lucy: She meant what she said.)
Bell asked Geneva's uncle if he'd seen anybody he hadn't recognized around the town house lately.
"No, sir. Not a soul."
"When will her parents be back?"
"I couldn't say, sir. Was Geneva talked to 'em."
Five minutes later the girl returned. She handed Bell an envelope containing two yellow, crisp pieces of paper. "Here they are." She hesitated. "Be careful with them. I don't have copies."
"Oh, you don't know Mr. Rhyme, miss. He treats evidence like it was the holy grail."
"I'll be back after school," Geneva said to her uncle. Then to Bell, "I'm ready to go."
"Listen up, girl," the man said. "I want you t'be polite, the way I told you. You say 'sir' when you talking to the police."
She looked at her uncle and said evenly, "Don't you remember what my father said? That people have to earn the right to be called 'sir'? That's what I believe."
The uncle laughed. "That's my niece fo' you. Got a mind of her own. Why we love her. Give yo' uncle a hug, girl."
Embarrassed, like Bell's sons when he'd put his arm around them in public, the girl stiffly tolerated the embrace.
