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Henry commuted twice a week to teach his advanced physics courses at the University of Chicago, a long, two-train trek through the city's many social divides. His wife, Paula, taught at Northwestern. The couple had three children, Robert, Marie and Arthur, all named after scientists, Oppenheimer and Curie being the most famous. Art was named after Arthur Compton, who in 1942 ran the famed Metallurgic Lab at the University of Chicago, the cover for the project to create the world's first controlled nuclear chain reaction. All the children had attended good schools. Robert, Northwestern Medical. Marie, UC-Berkeley. Arthur went to M.I.T.
Robert had died years earlier in an industrial accident in Europe. Marie was working in China on environmental issues. As for the Rhyme parents, only one remained of the four: Aunt Paula now lived in an assisted-care facility, amid vivid, coherent memories of sixty years ago, while experiencing the present in bewildering fragments.
Rhyme now continued to stare at the picture of himself. He was unable to look away, recalling the track meet. . . . In his college classes Professor Henry Rhyme signified approval with a subtle, raised eyebrow. But on the playing field, he was always leaping to his feet in the bleachers, whistling and bellowing for Lincoln to push, push, push, you can do it! Encouraging him over the finish line first (he often was).
Following the meet, Rhyme supposed he'd gone off with Arthur. The boys spent as much time together as they could, filling the sibling gap. Robert and Marie were considerably older than Arthur, and Lincoln was an only child.
So Lincoln and Art adopted each other. Most weekends and every summer the surrogate brothers would go off on their adventures, often in Arthur's Corvette (Uncle Henry, even as a professor, made several times what Rhyme's father did; Teddy was a scientist too, though he was more comfortable out of the spotlight). The boys' outings were typical teenage venture--girls, ball games, movies, arguing, eating burgers and pizza, sneaking beer and explaining the world. And more girls.
Now, sitting in the new TDX wheelchair, Rhyme wondered where exactly he and Arthur had gone after the meet.
Arthur, his surrogate brother . . .
Who never came to see him after his spine was cracked like a piece of defective wood.
Why, Arthur? Tell me why. . . .
But these memories were derailed by the ringing doorbell in his town house. Thom veered toward the hallway and a moment later, a slightly built, balding man wearing a tuxedo strode into the room. Mel Cooper shoved his thick glasses up on his thin nose and nodded to Rhyme. "Afternoon."
"Formal?" Rhyme asked, glancing at the tux.
&nb
sp; "The dance competition. If we'd been finalists, you know I wouldn't have come." He took off jacket and bow tie, then rolled up the sleeves of the frilly shirt. "So what do we have, this unique case you were telling me about?"
Rhyme filled him in.
"I'm sorry about your cousin, Lincoln. I don't think you ever mentioned him."
"What do you think of the M.O.?"
"If it's true it's brilliant." Cooper gazed at the evidence chart of the Alice Sanderson homicide.
"Thoughts?" Rhyme asked.
"Well, half the evidence at your cousin's was in the car or the garage. A lot easier to plant it there than in the house."
"Exactly what I was thinking."
The doorbell rang again. A moment later Rhyme heard his aide's footsteps returning solo. Rhyme was wondering if someone had delivered a package. But then his mind jumped: Sunday. A visitor could be in street clothes and running shoes, which would make no sound on the entryway floor.
Of course.
Young Ron Pulaski turned the corner and nodded shyly. He wasn't a rookie any longer, having been a uniformed patrolman for several years. But he looked like a rookie and so, to Rhyme, that's what he was. And probably would always be.
The shoes were indeed quiet Nikes but he was wearing a very loud Hawaiian shirt over blue jeans. His blond hair was stylishly spiked and a scar prominently marked his forehead--a remnant from a nearly fatal attack during his first case with Rhyme and Sachs. The assault was so vicious that he'd suffered a brain injury and nearly quit the force. The young man had decided to fight his way through rehab and stay on the NYPD, inspired largely by Rhyme (a fact he shared only with Sachs, of course, not the criminalist himself; she relayed the news).
He blinked at Cooper's tux and then nodded hello to both men.
"Your dishes spotless, Pulaski? Your flowers watered? Your leftovers tucked away in freezer bags?"
"I left right away, sir."
The men were going over the case when they heard Sachs's voice from the doorway. "A costume party." She was looking at Cooper's tuxedo and Pulaski's brash shirt. To the lab man she said, "You're looking pretty smart. That's the word for somebody in a tux, right? 'Smart'?"
"Sadly, 'semifinalist' is the only thing that comes to my mind."
"Is Gretta taking it well?"
