Rhyme fell silent. Finally he asked, “Then how’d he get off?”

She gave a bitter laugh. “Here’s the joke, Rhyme. Crime Scene fucked up the search. The chain-of-custody cards weren’t filled out right, and his lawyer at the hearing excluded the evidence.”

Chain-of-custody cards exist so that evidence can’t be doctored or unintentionally altered to increase the chances a suspect will be convicted. But there was no way that tampering had occurred in Herman Sachs’s case; it’s virtually impossible to get fingerprints on evidence unless the suspect himself actually touches it. Still, the rules have to be applied evenly and if the COC cards aren’t filled out or are wrong, the evidence will almost always be excluded.

“Then . . . there were pictures of him with Tony Gallante.”

A senior organized crime capo from Bay Ridge.

“Your father and Gallante?”

“They were having dinner together, Rhyme. I called a cop that Pop used to work with, Joe Knox—he was in the Sixteenth Avenue Club too. Got busted. I asked him about Dad, point-blank. He didn’t want to say anything at first. He was pretty shaken up I’d called but finally he admitted it was true. Dad and Knox and a couple others put the finger on store owners and contractors for over a year. They ditched evidence, they even threatened to beat up people who complained.

“They thought Pop was going down big-time but, with the screwup, he got off. They called him the ‘fish that got away.’”

Wiping tears, she continued to scroll through the computer files. She was reviewing official documents too—archives in the NYPD that Rhyme had access to because of the work he did for the department. He wheeled close, so close he could smell her scented soap. She said, “Twelve officers in the Sixteenth Avenue Club were indicted. Internal Affairs knew about three others but they couldn’t make the case because of evidence problems. He was one of those three,” Sachs said. “Jesus. The fish that got away . . .”

She slumped in a chair, her finger disappearing into her hair and scraping. She realized she was doing it and dropped her hand into her lap. There was fresh blood on the nail.

“When that thing with Nick happened,” Sachs began. Another deep breath. “When that happened, all I could think was, there’s nothing worse than a crooked cop. Nothing. . . . And now I find out my father was one.”

“Sachs . . . “Rhyme felt painful frustration at not being able to lift his arm and place his hand on hers, to try to take some of the terrible sting away. He felt a burst of anger at this impotence.

“They took bribes to destroy evidence, Rhyme. You know what that means. How many perps ended up going free because of what they did?” She turned back to the computer. “How many shooters got off? How many innocent people’re dead because of my father? How many?”

Chapter 16

Vincent’s hunger was returning, as thick and heavy as a tide, and he couldn’t stop staring at the women on the street.