"I have to get her to the hospital now." She strode out and left the town house.
Rhyme heard the front door shut and not long after that the big engine of her Torino fire up. He wasn't surprised that the acceleration was modest. For Amelia Sachs, unleashing her vehicle's horses was done only out of joy, never anger.
CHAPTER 62
At first Lincoln Rhyme didn't recognize the man who stepped into his parlor.
He glanced at Thom, irritated. Why no warning that a stranger had arrived?
But in a few seconds he realized: This was Evers Whitmore, Esq., the stiff, understated attorney with the precise handwriting and more precise mannerisms.
The reason for the missed identification was that the man was incognito: wearing gray wool slacks, a blue plaid shirt sans tie, and a green sweater (he should have tipped immediately; the sweater was a cardigan, all three buttons done in the best style of a 1950s sitcom father, patiently enduring his children's mischievous but benign antics). On the man's head was a Titleist golf cap, bright green and yellow.
"Mr. Rhyme."
"Mr. Whitmore." Rhyme had, as he put it to himself, given up on given names.
The lawyer was aware of Rhyme's scan of his outfit. "I'm coaching a soccer game in an hour. My sons."
"Oh, you have a family. I didn't know."
"I choose not to wear my wedding ring most of the time because it tends to give away a fact about me to opposing counsel. I myself would not use another attorney's personal information tactically but there are some who don't feel the same. As I'm sure will be no surprise to you."
"You said sons?"
"I also have daughters. Three of each."
Well.
"The boys are triplets, and they're all on the same soccer team. It tends to confound the opponents." A smile. Was this his first? In any event, it was small and brief.
Whitmore looked around. "And Detective Sachs?"
"At the hospital. Her mother's having surgery. Bypass."
"My. Any word?"
Rhyme shook his head. "But she's a feisty one. If that's indicative of a good prognosis."
The literal-minded attorney didn't seem to comprehend. "When you talk to Detective Sachs, wish her my best. And to her mother, as well."
"I will."
"I understand that you had a run-in with the suspect. A firsthand run-in."
"That's right. I wasn't injured. Juliette Archer was, but it's not serious."
Without unbuttoning his sweater, the man sat pristinely in a chair and hoisted his briefcase to his lap. A double click of the spring clasps and then he lifted the lid.
"I'm afraid I have bad news. I'm sorry to report that I've had my investigator take a thorough look at the finances of both Alicia Morgan and Vernon Griffith. She had a savings account worth about forty thousand dollars and he had about one hundred and fifty-seven thousand in assets, plus a retirement plan--but that's protected against creditors."
"So a total of about two hundred thousand."
"I'll pursue it but, if there are other plaintiffs, and there will be, I assure you, that will have to be divided among all the other survivors and family members. Abe Benkoff's wife. Todd Williams's survivors. Even the carpenter who was injured at the Broadway theater."
"And the people ruined forever because they can't take escalators," Rhyme added, referring to the bandwagon clients Juliette Archer had initially mentioned and that Whitmore had assured them will be standing in line, hat in hand.
The lawyer continued, "And there'll be my contingent fee. Mrs. Frommer will collect perhaps twenty thousand at most."
The check to be delivered to a garage in Schenectady.
Whitmore was setting documents on a nearby rattan coffee table, probably his investigator's financial analysis of the two perpetrators, carefully ordered. Rhyme didn't know why he was delivering them. He believed the lawyer's PI had done his homework and that the results were accurate. There was no need for proof.
"So," Whitmore said, ordering the paperwork even more precisely. "We'll have to go with Plan A."
"Plan A."
The plaintiff's team hadn't established any alphabetized contingencies that Rhyme was aware of, but after the Midwest Conveyance bankruptcy and the absence of any culpability by CIR Microsystems, he'd assumed that the only recourse was to target the conspirators' own assets, a strategy that was now defunct.
Rhyme mentioned this. And Whitmore regarded him through a thin gauzy veil of confusion. "No, Mr. Rhyme. That was Plan B. Our first approach--product liability against the manufacturer--has always been viable. Here." He pushed forward one of the documents he'd just off-loaded and Rhyme wheeled closer to the table to read it. He saw it was not, in fact, a financial analysis.
SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK COUNTY OF KINGS
x SANDRA MARGARET FROMMER,
Plaintiff,
COMPLAINT
- vs. - Index No.:
CIR MICROSYSTEMS, INC.,
Defendant.
x
TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK
The complaint of the Plaintiff, SANDY MARGARET
FROMMER, respectfully shows and alleges as follows:
With his right hand Rhyme clumsily flipped through the lengthy complaint. There was a second batch of documents, similar, in the name of her son, for wrongful death, and a third in the name of Greg Frommer himself for the pain and suffering in his last fifteen minutes on earth. And many, many adjunct documents.
The demand for judgment--the ad damnum clause--was for fifty million dollars.
Rhyme looked up from the documents. "But... I assumed there was no suit against the controller manufacturer."
"Why would you think that?"
Rhyme shrugged. "Vernon Griffith was--"
"An intervening cause?"
"Yes."
"Ah, but a foreseeable intervening cause, one they should have guarded against. Negligence is determined by multiplying the likelihood of injury by the severity of that injury and comparing that against how much it would have cost to prevent it. Learned Hand. Second Circuit Court of Appeals. United States v. Carroll Company.
"Applying that rule, I take the position that, one, the probability of hacking a smart product is extremely high, given the number, ingenuity and motivation of hackers today. Two, the gravity of the injury can be extremely high. Mr. Frommer and Abe Benkoff are dead. Res ispa loquitur. And, three, the burden of adequate precautions is minimal. CIR could easily have provided for automatic security updates, as they themselves admitted and, indeed, are doing now. They should have foreseen that a hacker would cause serious injury and it would have been a simple fix for them. So, CIR is negligent in the deaths.
"I'll also claim the controllers are defective under the law of strict products liability. Your associate told me--and I have experts researching this further--that the software in embedded products is antiquated."
True. Rodney Szarnek had told them that it was cheaper and easier for the smart controller companies to use old, easily hacked software, stripped of certain functions, than write new code, to save money and get the products to market sooner.
The spamming refrigerators...
"So, negligence and strict liability. I'll probably add that breach of warranty claim too. There's nothing wrong with the kitchen sink strategy when suing a wealthy defendant."
"You'll try for a settlement, of course."
"Yes. They know I'd bring into evidence all of the other incidents--Mr. Benkoff's stove, the microwave in the theater, the cars taken control of. It would be a public relations nightmare for CIR to fight it in court. And I could get a jury to bleed them anemic, if not dry, with punitive damages. Like a vampire."
Ah, the somber lawyer had a sense of humor after all.
"I won't get fifty million but I'll negotiate a reasonable amount. Which brings me to why I'm here. There are some evidentiary issues that you'll have to address before I send the complaint to Mr. Frost, the CIR attorn
ey, and begin the horse trading."
A pause.
"I'm afraid I can't help you with that."
"No? May I ask why not?"
"I'm helping the DA prepare the criminal case. There'd be a conflict of interest if I were to continue helping you."
"I see. Of course. I'm sorry to hear that. True, I don't want to jeopardize the civil trial."
"No."
"I must say, though, it's important to marshal our cause of action as formidably as we can. There cannot be any gaps in the case we present to the defendant. And the evidence is vital to that. I need an expert. Is there anyone you can think of, Mr. Rhyme? Anyone at all?"
"Hello, Rose."
The elderly woman opened her eyes. "Lincoln. You came for a visit. Good to see you."
With her non-IV'd arm she brushed at her hair, though it was perfectly well assembled. Amelia Sachs had fixed her sleeping mother's coiffure when she and Rhyme had arrived in the recovery room not long before.
"Where's Amie?"
"Talking to the doctor about when you get to go home. What you can do and can't."
"I'm supposed to start walking tomorrow. Who would have thought? Cut you open, fix your ticker... and start you on marathons. Hardly fair. I'd hoped to bask in sympathy for at least a week or two."
Rose didn't look as pale as he'd expected. In fact, she looked healthier. The improved circulation, Rhyme supposed. He thought momentarily of Alicia Morgan. A small, obscure object, a product within the family car, had changed her life for the worse, forever. And small obscure objects here, in a hospital, had just added years to a life that, otherwise, could have ended abruptly at any minute. In the same way a variety of things kept Rhyme himself alive and functioning.
Then he chuckled at the overwrought thinking. He was here to visit his future mother-in-law.
Rose's room was a good one, and happened to look out over a park across the street, a portion of it at least. He commented on the view.
She glanced through the window. "Yes, it is. It is. Though I must say I was never one of those people who went for a room with a view. What occurs in rooms is far more interesting, don't you think?"
He couldn't have agreed more.
No questions about how she was feeling, the hospital food, the trivia that visitors ask patients by rote. Rhyme had noted on the nightstand one of Stephen Hawking's books. He'd read it some years ago. They fell into a lively discussion about the big bang theory.
A nurse arrived, a handsome man, solid, with a rich Caribbean accent.
"Mrs. Sachs. Ah, you have a famous visitor."
Rhyme was inclined to offer a dismissive grimace but for her sake simply nodded and smiled.
The man looked her over, the incision site, the IVs.
"Looking good, looking very good."
Rose said, "And Mr. Herrando knows what he's talking about. Now, Lincoln, I think I'll get some rest."
"Sure. We'll be back tomorrow."
Rhyme left the room and headed up to the nurse's station, where Sachs was finishing a call.
He said, "She's good, getting some sleep."
"I'll peek in."
Sachs stepped into her mother's room and returned to Rhyme a moment later.
"Like a baby."
Together Sachs and Rhyme walked and wheeled down the corridor. Not that he cared much, but Rhyme noted that he received not a single glance his way, unlike on the streets of the city. Here, of course, one would expect to find someone in a fancy wheelchair. Nothing extraordinary, nothing worth staring at. Indeed he was mobile and moving breezily down the hall beside a companion, far more fortunate than many of the people in the dim, silent rooms they passed.
In regione caecorum rex est luscus, he thought.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
Side by side, they negotiated the crowded lobby and headed out into the overcast spring afternoon, turning toward the van, which was sitting in the disabled zone.
"So," Rhyme asked Sachs. "Any more thoughts on what to do during your three-month retirement?"
"Aside from being pissed off?"
"Aside from that."
"Taking care of Mom. Working on the Torino. Shoot a hell of a lot of lead through paper out on the range. Take up cooking."
"Cooking?"
"Okay, not that."
As they approached the van she said, "I have a feeling you're agendizing something."
Rhyme chuckled. Ah, Lon Sellitto... what would we do without him?
"Evers Whitmore came to see me, the lawyer. You know I'm not working for him anymore on the Frommer case. Conflict of interest, now that I'm handling the criminal side."
"What's this about, Rhyme?"
"I need a favor, Sachs. You're going to want to say no, but just hear me out."
"This sounds familiar."
His eyebrow rose. "Hear me out?"
Sachs put her hand on Rhyme's and said, "Deal."
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
With undying gratitude to: Will and Tina Anderson, Cicely Aspinall, Sophie Baker, Giovanna Canton, Francesca Cinelli, Jane Davis, Julie Deaver, Jenna Dolan, Kimberly Escobar, Jamie Hodder-Williams, Mitch Hoffman, Kerry Hood, Cathy Gleason, Emma Knight, Allegra Le Fanu, Carolyn Mays, Claire Nozieres, Hazel Orme, Abby Parsons, Seba Pezzani, Michael Pietsch, Jamie Raab, Betsy Robbins, Lindsey Rose, Katy Rouse, Roberto Santachiara, Deborah Schneider, Vivienne Schuster, Ruth Tross, Madelyn Warcholik. You're the best!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A former journalist, folksinger and attorney, Jeffery Deaver is an international number-one bestselling author. His novels have appeared on bestseller lists around the world, including the New York Times, The Times of London, Italy's Corriere della Sera, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Los Angeles Times. His books are sold in 150 countries and translated into twenty-five languages.
The author of thirty-seven novels, three collections of short stories and a nonfiction law book, and a lyricist of a country-western album, he's received or been shortlisted for dozens of awards. His The Bodies Left Behind was named Novel of the Year by the International Thriller Writers association, and his Lincoln Rhyme thriller The Broken Window and a stand-alone, Edge, were also nominated for that prize. He has been awarded the Steel Dagger and the Short Story Dagger from the British Crime Writers' Association and the Nero Award, and he is a three-time recipient of the Ellery Queen Readers Award for Best Short Story of the Year and a winner of the British Thumping Good Read Award. The Cold Moon was recently named the Book of the Year by the Mystery Writers of Japan, as well as by Kono Mystery ga Sugoi magazine. In addition, the Japanese Adventure Fiction Association awarded The Cold Moon and Carte Blanche their annual Grand Prix award. His book The Kill Room was awarded the Political Thriller of the Year by Killer Nashville. And his collection of short stories, Trouble in Mind, was nominated for best anthology by that organization, as well.
Deaver has been honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Bouchercon World Mystery Convention and by the Raymond Chandler Lifetime Achievement Award in Italy.
He contributed to the anthology Books to Die For, which won the Agatha Award and the Anthony. One of his stories also appeared in the Anthony-winning anthology In the Company of Sherlock.
His most recent novels are Solitude Creek, a Kathryn Dance novel; The October List, a thriller told in reverse; The Skin Collector and The Kill Room, Lincoln Rhyme novels. For his Dance novel XO Deaver wrote an album of country-western songs, available on iTunes and as a CD; and before that, Carte Blanche, a James Bond continuation novel, a number-one international bestseller.
Deaver has been nominated for seven Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America, an Anthony, a Shamus and a Gumshoe. He was recently shortlisted for the ITV3 Crime Thriller Award for Best International Author. Roadside Crosses was on the shortlist for the Prix Polar International 2013.
His book A Maiden's Grave was made into an HBO movie starring James Garner and Marlee Matlin, and his novel The Bone Collect
or was a feature release from Universal Pictures, starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie. Lifetime aired an adaptation of his The Devil's Teardrop. And, yes, the rumors are true; he did appear as a corrupt reporter on his favorite soap opera, As the World Turns. He was born outside Chicago and has a bachelor of journalism degree from the University of Missouri and a law degree from Fordham University.
Readers can visit his website at www.jefferydeaver.com.
ALSO BY JEFFERY DEAVER
Solitude Creek**
The Skin Collector*
The Starling Project, an original radio play Trouble in Mind, Collected Stories, Volume Three
Ice Cold, Tales of Intrigue from the Cold War (Editor) Books to Die For (Contributor) The October List, a Thriller in Reverse The Kill Room*
XO**/*
XO: The Album (Music CD of original songs) Carte Blanche, a James Bond Novel Edge
The Burning Wire*
Best American Mystery Stories 2009 (Editor) The Watch List (The Copper Bracelet and The Chopin Manuscript) (Contributor) Roadside Crosses**
The Bodies Left Behind
The Broken Window*
The Sleeping Doll**
More Twisted: Collected Stories, Volume Two
The Cold Moon*/**
The Twelfth Card*
Garden of Beasts
Twisted: Collected Stories
The Vanished Man*
The Stone Monkey*
The Blue Nowhere
The Empty Chair*
Speaking in Tongues
The Devil's Teardrop
The Coffin Dancer*
The Bone Collector*
A Maiden's Grave
Praying for Sleep
The Lesson of Her Death
Mistress of Justice
Hard News
Death of a Blue Movie Star
Manhattan Is My Beat
Hell's Kitchen
Bloody River Blues
Shallow Graves
A Century of Great Suspense Stories (Editor) A Hot and Sultry Night for Crime (Editor) Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (Introduction) * Featuring Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs **Featuring Kathryn Dance
Thank you for buying this ebook, published by Hachette Digital.