Richard Montanari (26 page)

    The
crime lab - officially known as the Forensic Science Center, but never called
that - was a massive building that had once been a schoolhouse, located just a
few blocks from the Roundhouse at Eighth and Poplar Streets.

    The
reigning sovereign of the documents section was Sergeant Helmut Rohmer. Hell
Rohmer was thirty-five, and a giant, measuring six-four, weighing two-fifty.
Besides his strange and eclectic taste in music, which ran from Iron Maiden to
Kitty Wells, he was known for his T-shirts - always black, never bearing the
same saying twice. He must have had hundreds. He was starting to receive them
in the mail, even from people he had helped put away in prison. Today his shirt
read:

    His
considerable arms were ringed with rose tattoos, or some variation, which now
finished with ivy circling his wrists and ending on the backs of his hands. He
was always well-groomed - right down to his oddly manicured fingers. Jessica
figured that his manicures had something to do with his sense of the tactile.
Hell Rohmer didn't want anything interfering with his sense of touch. He was
almost metaphysical in his approach to document forensics. It was one of the
reasons why he and Byrne spoke the same language.

    'Good
evening, sleuths,' Hell said.

    'Good
evening, alchemist,' Byrne replied.

    Hell
smiled. 'I have your paper,' he said. 'You can only hide from the Weavemeister
for so long.'

    On
the wall were six enlarged photographs of the paper found on the victims, front
and back. The photographs showed the blood that had leached from the
lacerations on each of the victim's foreheads, as well as the small dot of blood
from the shallow puncture wound. A line, a dot, and the rough figure eight
where the ears were mutilated.

    'What
do we have?' Jessica asked.

    Hell
picked up a small square of the paper sample, cut from the end of one of the
bands. 'This is pricey stuff,' he said, running a finger across the slightly
pebbled surface. 'It's beautiful, really. Our boy has exquisite taste.' Hell
zoned for a moment, his eyes going a bit unfocused. Hell Rohmer was definitely
a touchy-feely sort of guy.

    'Hell?'

    'Okay.
Sorry. The paper is handmade, a hundred percent cotton, acid-free. Which puts
it into the same category as about ten thousand brands. I'm not equipped to do
a comparison test to determine the make, and I was just about to send it off to
the FBI - which, as you know, can take a month or two to get back - when I saw
something.' Helmut held up a sample. 'This was cut from the paper we took from
the female victim. If you look here, you can see a small segment of a
watermark.' Hell held the paper up to a strong light, but not too close.
Jessica saw what looked like the portion of a shoulder.

    'Is
that a cherub of some sort?' Jessica asked.

    Hell
shook his head. 'The watermark is Venus de Milo. It's not on the other sample,
so I'm thinking these were cut from a larger sheet.'

    Hell
displayed another printout. It was an extreme close-up of the edge of the
paper, photographed through a microscope. 'This was cut with a large blade,
which is indicated by the slight tearing of the fiber. I think he used a paper
cutter, instead of an X-acto blade, scissors, or razor blade. The shearing is
consistent front to back, with the fibers pushed downward. Too uniform to have
been done by hand.'

    Hell
pointed to the sample.

    'And while
this might look white, it is really Felt Light Grey. Deckled on two sides,
which leads me to believe it's deckled on four. The band is twenty-four inches
long, which leads me to believe it was cut from a sheet that was twenty-four by
twenty-six, which is fairly standard in printmaking.'

    'This
is printmaking paper?'

    'Among
other things.'

    Hell
put the sample down, picked up a few pages of computer printouts.

    'It's
the watermark that jumped out. Without it, we would have had to wait for Washington
on this.' He pointed to one of the lines on the printout, highlighted in lime
green. 'The manufacturer of this paper is headquartered in Milan, Italy, and
the line is called
Atriana.
Really high-end stuff. Printmaking, mostly,
but they make all kinds of multi-use paper - stationery, canvas, vellum, linen.
But this stuff is top of the line. One sheet of this paper retails for about
seventy dollars.'

    'Wow'

    'Yeah,'
Hell said. 'And dig this. This company also supplies the paper for the Euro.'

    'The
currency?'

    'The
one.'

    'They
have two distributors in the US,' Hell said. 'As far as I can tell this paper
is available at only twenty retail stores across the country. Mostly art
supplies and specialty paper shops. Unfortunately - for us, not our bad boy -
the paper can be ordered from a dozen online retailers.'

    'Are
there any stores in Philly that carry it?' Jessica asked.

    'No,'
Hell said. He smiled, held up a 3 x 5 card with an address on it. 'But there is
a store in Doylestown.'

    Jessica
took the address.

    'No
applause?'

    Jessica
clapped.

    'Thank
you. And now to the wax.' On the table sat a small covered glass dish. The wax
seal was inside. 'This is standard candle wax, not sealing wax, which is why it
has begun to disintegrate.'

    'What's
the difference?'

    'Well,
about five hundred years ago, sealing wax was made primarily of beeswax and
something called Venice turpentine, which is an extract of the larch tree. The
wax was uncolored in those days, but when the Renaissance hit, folks started to
color it with vermilion, and do you really want to know any of this?'

    'Maybe
one of these days,' Jessica said. 'Right now I'd love to know where our boy
bought this. I would like a clear video of him leaving the store, and a copy of
his driver's license. Do you have that?'

    'No.
And what's worse, this candle wax is available at every Rite- Aid, Wal-Mart and
Target in the country. But not in this color.'

    'What
do you mean?'

    'Well,
what I was getting to, before I was so brusquely interrupted, was that this
particular sample was not colored with any old vermilion.'

    It
took Jessica a second to realize what Hell Rohmer was saying. One look at Byrne
told her he'd gotten it as well. She turned back to Hell.

    'No.'

    'I'm
afraid so. The coloring is blood. This is a bad, bad pony, this guy.'

    Jessica
looked at Byrne just as someone entered the lab and stopped by the door. Hell
crossed the room, disappeared from Jessica's line of sight. In the reflection
from one of the glass cabinets she saw that the new arrival was Irina Kohl.
Irina had with her a few folders, one of which she placed in Hell's hands. Then
Jessica saw the diminutive Irina get on her tiptoes and kiss Hell Rohmer flush
on the mouth. Hell turned and saw that Jessica could see them in the cabinet's
reflection.

    The
two of them, now red as raspberries, walked back to join Jessica and Byrne.

    'Urn,
you didn't see that,' Hell whispered to Jessica.

    'See
what?'

    Hell
winked.

    'I'm glad
you're here,' Irina said, plowing forward. 'I think we may have something on
the murder weapon.'

    Irina
Kohl worked in the lab's firearms ID unit, which also handled tool marks, and
was in her late twenties, a prototypical lab dweller - neat in appearance,
precise in manner and speech, probably a little too smart for Mensa. Beneath
her lab coat she wore a suit coat, white button-down shirt, and lavender knit
tie.

    Irina
opened a folder, removed some enlargements.

    'The
wire used as the ligature was made of woven multi-strand titanium.' She pointed
to an extreme close-up of the ligature marks on the first two victims. Even to
the naked eye the woven characteristics were visible. The flesh bore an imprint
of the three-strand weave. 'We found traces of the metal in the wound.'

    'What
is something like this used for?' Jessica asked.

    'There
are a lot of uses for it. In general, titanium wire is specified for medical
devices, bone screws, orthodontic appliances. In different gauges it is all over
the aerospace, medical and marine manufacturing map. It is low-density and has
a high resistance to corrosion.'

    Irina
then picked up a blown-up photograph, as well as a pair of slides.

    'I
also found hair samples in the ligature wound on the first two victims. We
haven't gotten a crack at the third victim yet.' She pointed to the two slides.
'These are from Sharon Beckman and Kenneth Beckman.'

    'Do
you think this is our killer's hair?' Jessica asked.

    'No,'
Irina said. 'I'm afraid not. These samples are definitely not human.'

    Jessica
looked at Byrne, back. 'Not human as in ...'

    'Well,
animal.' Irina pushed up her thick glasses. She scrunched her face, as if
smelling something unpleasant. Jessica supposed this was her way of waiting for
the conversation to regenerate. She also noted that the woman was wearing two
different lipsticks. One shade on her upper lip, one on the lower.

    'Well,
duh,
Jess,' Jessica said, berating herself. 'I mean, what else, alien?'

    Irina
continued, undaunted. 'Domestic animal specifically.'

    'We're
talking dog or cat?' Jessica asked.

    'Not
domesti
cated,
necessarily. What I mean is domestic as in cow, sheep,
horse.' Irina got a little more animated. 'See, if we're talking the hair of domestic
animals there are a number of variations in color and length. However, a lot of
these identifiers are pretty general. In order to tell the difference between,
say, a dog and a cat, or between a cow and a moose, you really need the root to
be present. Which, unfortunately, in this case, we do not have.'

    She
slipped a slide onto the stage of a microscope, clipped it in.

    'But
we're just getting started.' Irina smiled at Hell. Hell beamed.

    Irina
then peered into the microscope eyepiece, did a little fine focusing. 'If you
take a look here, you can see it.' She stepped back.

    Jessica
stepped forward, looked through the microscope.

    'You
see it is quite coarse. The medulla is unbroken,' Irina said. 'The pigment is
fine and evenly distributed.'

    'Yeah,'
Jessica said. 'I was just going to say that about the medulla.' The image she
saw looked like a long dark brown tube. She might just as well have been
looking at a Tootsie Roll. Hell Rohmer watched Irina, sunny with admiration,
seething with forensic lust. Jessica and Byrne had worked with the two of them
many times. Hell and Irina liked to have scientifically clueless detectives and
other investigators look though microscopes. It validated them as criminalists.

    'What
tipped me was the ovoid structures,' Irina added.

    'Every
time,' Jessica said, stepping away from the microscope. 'So what are you
saying? I mean,
I
understand it. Tell us for Kevin's benefit.'

    Byrne
smiled.

    'Well,
this is not exactly my field,' Irina said. 'So I'm going to send this out. We
should know something by tomorrow at the latest.'

    Jessica
handed Irina a card with her cellphone number on it. 'Call me the second you
have it.'

    'Will
do,' Irina said. 'And our freaky killer better get some game.'

    'Why's
that?'

    Irina
smiled. Jessica saw her hand covertly brush up against Hell Rohmer's hand.
'We're about to make his life awfully uncomfortable.'