Free A Textbook Case by Jeffery Deaver Page A

more junior detective. But she didn’t let a lot pass—from anyone. Sellitto caught the glance. “Did that sound condescending?”
    She lifted an eyebrow, meaning, “Yep. And if Rhyme heard you say it, the reply would not be pretty.”
    “Well, fuck. Good for him anyway.” He focused on the off-white apartment, the water stains on the walls, the mismatched windows, the dented air conditioners underneath them, the sad grass, sick or dying from city dogs more than from the cool air. Still, even an air-shaft studio would cost two thousand and change. When Sachs was not staying with Rhyme she was at her place in Brooklyn. Big. And it had a garden. The month was September and she’d just harvested the last crop of veggies, beating the frost by twenty-four hours.
    Sachs tucked her abundant red hair up under the Tyvek cap and Velcroed closed the coveralls over her jeans and tight wool sweater. The suit fit snugly. Marko watched, somewhat discreetly. Sachs had been a fashion model before joining the NYPD. She got followed by a lot of eyes.
    “Chance of the scene being hot?” she asked Marko.
    It was rare for perps to stick around a murder scene and target investigators, but not unheard of.
    “Doubt it,” the young officer responded. “But…”
    Made sense for him to hedge when it came to a scene that was apparently so horrific.
    Before suiting up, Sachs had drawn and set her Glock pistol aside. She now wiped it down with an alcohol swab to remove trace and slipped it into the pocket of the coveralls. If she needed the weapon, she could get to it quickly, even fire through the cloth, if need be. That was good about Glocks. No external safeties, double action. You pointed and pulled.
    Any chance of it being hot?…
    And what the hell was so bad about the scene? How had the poor woman died? And what had happened to her before… or after?
    She guessed it was a sado-sexual killing.
    Sellitto said to Marko, “What’s the story, Officer?”
    He looked back and forth from the older detective to Sachs as he gave the story. “I’m assigned to crime scene in Queens, HQ, sir. I had some advanced training at the academy this morning so I was heading there, when I heard the call.”
    The NYPD academy on Twentieth Street at Second Avenue.
    “Dispatch said any available. I was two blocks away so I responded. I had gear with me and I suited up before I went in.” Marko, too, was dressed in a Tyvek crime scene outfit, minus the head covering.
    “Good thinking.”
    “I wouldn’t have waited but the dispatch said the report was a body, not an injured victim.”
    Crime scenes were always a compromise. Contamination with outside trace and obliterating important evidence could hamper or even ruin an investigation but first responders’ priority is saving lives or collaring perps who were still present. Marko had acted right.
    “I looked at the scene fast then called in.”
    Two other crime scene people from the Queens headquarters had just arrived in the RRV—rapid response vehicle—containing evidence collection gear. The man and woman climbed out, she Asian, he Latino. He opened the back and they, too, got their gear. “Hey, Marko,” he called, “how’d you beat us? Take a chopper over here?”
    The young officer gave a faint smile. But it was clear he was still troubled, presumably by what he’d seen inside.
    Sellitto asked Marko, “You know any of the players yet?”
    “Just, her boyfriend called it in. That’s all I know.”
    The older detective said, “I’ll talk to him and get a canvass team going. You handle the scene, Amelia. We’ll rendezvous back at Lincoln’s.”
    “Sure.”
    “Detective Rhyme’s going to be on the case?” Marko asked.
    Rhyme was decommissioned—he’d been a detective captain—but in policing, like the military, titles tended to stick.
    “Yeah,” Sellitto muttered. “We’re running it out of there.” Rhyme’s townhouse was often the informal command post for cases that Sellitto