The Bone Collector (20 page)

Rhyme realized that she was staring at him. Maybe just realizing now that he’d shaved and his hair was combed, his clothes changed.

And what was her mood now? he wondered. Angry at him, or disengaged? He couldn’t tell. At the moment Amelia Sachs was as cryptic as Unsub 823.

The beeping of the fax machine sounded in the hallway. Thom went to get it and returned a moment later with two sheets of paper.

“It’s from Emma Rollins,” he announced. He held the sheets up for Rhyme to see.

“Our grocery scanner survey. Eleven stores in Manhattan sold veal shanks to customers buying fewer than five items in the last two days.” He started to write on the poster then glanced at Rhyme. “The names of the stores?”

“Of course. We’ll need them for cross-referencing later.”

Thom wrote them down on the profile chart.

B’way & 82nd,
ShopRite

B’way & 96th,
Anderson Foods

Greenwich & Bank,
ShopRite

2nd Ave., 72nd–73rd,
Grocery World

Battery Park City,
J&G’s Emporium

1709 2nd Ave.,
Anderson Foods

34th & Lex.,
Food Warehouse

8th Ave. & 24th,
ShopRite

Houston & Lafayette,
ShopRite

6th Ave. & Houston,
J&G’s Emporium

Greenwich & Franklin,
Grocery World

“That narrows it down,” Sachs said, “to the entire city.”

“Patience,” said restless Lincoln Rhyme.

Mel Cooper was examining the straw that Sachs had found. “Nothing unique here.” He tossed it aside.

“Is it new?” Rhyme asked. If it was they might cross-reference stores that had sold brooms and veal shanks on the same day.

But Cooper said, “Thought of that. It’s six months old or older.” He began shaking the trace evidence in the German girl’s clothing out over a piece of newsprint.

“Several things here,” he said, poring over the sheet. “Dirt.”

“Enough for a density-gradient?”

“Nope. Just dust really. Probably from the scene.”

Cooper looked over the rest of the effluence he’d brushed off the bloodstained clothing.

“Brick dust. Why’s there so much brick?”

“From the rats I shot. The wall was brick.”

“You shot them? At the scene?” Rhyme winced.

Sachs said defensively, “Well, yes. They were all over her.”

He was angry but he let it go. Adding just, “All
kinds
of contaminants from gunfire. Lead, arsenic, carbon, silver.”

“And here . . . another bit of reddish leather. From the glove. And . . . We’ve got another fiber. A different one.”

Criminalists love fibers. This was a tiny gray tuft barely visible to the naked eye.

“Excellent,” Rhyme announced. “And what else?”

“And here’s the photo of the scene,” Sachs said, “and the fingerprints. The one from her throat and from where he picked up the glove.” She held them up.

“Good,” Rhyme said, looking them over carefully.

There was a sheen of reluctant triumph on her face—the rush of winning, which is the flip side of hating yourself for being unprofessional.

Rhyme was studying the Polaroids of the prints when he heard footsteps on the stairs and Jim Polling arrived. He entered the room, did a double-take at the spiffed-up Lincoln Rhyme and strode to Sellitto.

“I was just at the scene,” he said. “You saved the vic. Great job, guys.” He nodded toward Sachs to show the noun included her too. “But the prick’s ’napped another one?”

“Or’s about to,” Rhyme muttered, gazing at the prints.

“We’re working on the clues right now,” Banks said.

“Jim, I’ve been trying to track you down,” Sellitto said. “I tried the mayor’s office.”

“I was with the chief. Had to fucking beg for some extra searchers. Got another fifty men pulled off UN security detail.”

“Captain, there’s something we got to talk about. We gotta problem. Something happened at the last scene . . .”

A voice as yet unheard from boomed through the room, “Problem? Who got a
problem?
We don’t got no problems here, do we? None ay-tall.”

Rhyme looked up at the tall, thin man in the doorway. He was jet black and wore a ridiculous green suit and shoes that shone like brown mirrors. Rhyme’s heart plummeted. “Dellray.”

“Lincoln Rhyme. New York’s own Ironside. Hey, Lon. And Jim Polling, how’s it hangin’, buddy?”

Behind Dellray were a half-dozen other men and a woman. Rhyme knew in a heartbeat why the federal agents were here. Dellray scanned the officers in the
room, his attention alighting momentarily on Sachs then flying away.

“What do you want?” Polling asked.

Dellray said, “Haven’t you guessed, gemmuns. You’re outa business. We closin’ you up. Yessir. Just like a bookie.”

O
ne of us.

That’s how Dellray was looking at Lincoln Rhyme as he walked around the bed. Some people did this. Paralysis was a club and they crashed the party with jokes, nods, winks. You know I love you, man, ’cause I’m makin’ funna you.

Lincoln Rhyme had learned that this attitude got tiring very, very quickly.

“Lookit that,” Dellray said, poking at the Clinitron. “That’s something outa
Star Trek.
Commander Riker, get your ass in the shuttle.”

“Go away, Dellray,” Polling said. “It’s our case.”

“And how’s dis here patient doing, Dr. Crusher?”

The captain was stepping forward, a rooster the lanky FBI agent towered over. “Dellray, you listening? Go away.”

“Man, I’ma get me one of those, Rhyme. Lay my ass down in it, watcha game. Seriously, Lincoln, how you doin’? Been a few years.”

“Did they knock?” Rhyme asked Thom.

“No, they didn’t knock.”

“You didn’t knock,” Rhyme said. “So may I suggest that you leave?”

“Gotta warrant,” Dellray murmured, flicking papers in his breast pocket.

Amelia Sachs’s right index fingernail worried her thumb, which was on the verge of bleeding.

Dellray looked around the room. He was clearly impressed at their impromptu lab but strangled the feeling fast. “We’re taking over. Sorry.”

In twenty years of policing, Rhyme had never seen a peremptory takeover like this.

“Fuck this, Dellray,” Sellitto began, “you passed on the case.”

The agent swiveled his glossy black face around until he was looking down at the detective.

“Passed? Passed? I never got no ring-a-ling about it. D’jou call me?”

“No.”

“Then who dropped the dime?”

“Well . . .” Sellitto, surprised, glanced at Polling, who said, “You got an advisory. That’s all we’ve gotta send you.” On the defensive now too.

“An advisory. Yeah. And, hey, how ’xactly was that delivered? Would that have been by Pony
Ex
-press? Book-rate mail? Tell me, Jim, what’s the good of an overnight advisory when there’s an ongoing operation?”

Polling said, “We didn’t see the need.”

“We?” Dellray asked quickly. Like a surgeon spotting a microscopic tumor.

“
I
didn’t see the need,” Polling snapped. “I told the mayor to keep it a local operation. We’ve got it under control. Now fuck off, Dellray.”

“And you thought you could wrap it up in time for the eleven o’clock news.”

Rhyme was startled when Polling shouted, “What we thought was none of your goddamn business. It’s our fucking case.” He knew about the captain’s legendary temper but he’d never seen it in action.

“Ac-tu-ally, it’s ou-ur fucking case now.” Dellray strolled past the table that held Cooper’s equipment.

Rhyme said, “Don’t do this, Fred. We’re getting a handle on this guy. Work with us but don’t take it away. This unsub isn’t like anything you’ve ever seen.”

Dellray smiled. “Let’s see, what’s the latest I hear about this ‘fucking’ case? That you’ve got a civvy doin’ the ’rensics.” The agent forewent a glance at the Clinitron bed. “You got a portable doing crime scene. You got soldiers out buying groceries.”

“Evidence standards, Frederick,” Rhyme reminded stridently. “That’s SOP.”

Dellray looked disappointed. “But ESU, Lincoln? All
those taxpayer dollars. Then there’s cutting up people like
Texas Chainsaw
 . . .”

How had
that
news got out? Everyone was sworn to secrecy on the dismemberment issue.

“And whatsis I hear ’bout Haumann’s boys found the vic but dint go in and save her right away? Channel Five had a Big Ear mike on it. Got her screaming for a good five minutes ’fore you sent somebody in.” He glanced at Sellitto with a wry grin. “Lon, my man, would that’ve been the
problem
you were just talking about?”

They’d come so far, Rhyme was thinking. They
were
getting a feel for him, starting to learn the unsub’s language. Starting to see him. With a burst of surprise he understood that he was once again doing what he loved. After all these years. And now somebody was going to take it away from him. Anger rippled inside him.

“Take the case, Fred,” Rhyme grumbled. “But don’t cut us out. Don’t do it.”

“You lost two vics,” Dellray reminded.

“We lost
one,
” Sellitto corrected, looking uneasily at Polling, who was still fuming. “Nothing we coulda done about the first. He was a calling card.”

Dobyns, arms crossed, merely observed the argument. But Jerry Banks leapt in. “We’ve got his routine down now. We aren’t going to lose any more.”

“You are if ESU’s gonna sit around listenin’ to vics scream their heads off.”

Sellitto said, “It was my—”

“
My
decision,” Rhyme sang out. “Mine.”

“But you’re civvy, Lincoln. So it couldn’t have been your decision. It mighta been your
suggestion.
It mighta been your
recommendation.
But I don’t think it was your decision.”

Dellray’s attention had turned to Sachs again. His eyes on her, he said to Rhyme, “You told Peretti not to run the scene? That’s mighty curious, Lincoln. Why’d you go and do something like that?”

Rhyme said, “I’m better than he is.”

“Peretti’s not a happy boy scout. Nosir. He and I had a chin wag with Eckert.”

Eckert? The Dep Com? How was he involved?

And with one glance at Sachs, at the evasive blue eyes, framed by strands of mussed red hair, he knew how.

Rhyme nailed her with a look, which she promptly avoided, and he said to Dellray, “Let’s see . . . Peretti? Wasn’t he the one opened up traffic on the spot where the unsub’d stood to watch the first vic? Wasn’t he the one released the scene before we’d had a chance to pick up any serious trace? The scene my own Sachs here had the foresight to seal off.
My
Sachs had it right and Vince Peretti and everybody
else
had it wrong. Yes, she did.”

She was gazing at her thumb, a look that bespoke seeing a familiar sight, and slipped a Kleenex from her pocket, wrapped it around the bloody digit.

Dellray summarized, “You shoulda called us at the beginning.”

“Just get out,” Polling muttered. Something snapped in his eyes and his voice rose. “Get the hell out!” he screamed.

Even cool Dellray blinked and eased back as the spittle flew from the captain’s mouth.

Rhyme frowned at Polling. There was a chance they might salvage something of the case but not if Polling had a tantrum. “Jim . . .”

The captain ignored him. “Out!” he shouted again. “You are not taking over our case!” And startling everyone in the room, Polling leapt forward, grabbed the agent by his green lapels and shoved him against the wall. After a moment of stunned silence Dellray simply pushed the captain back with his fingertips and took out a cellular phone. He offered it to Polling.

“Call the mayor. Or Chief Wilson.”

Polling eased instinctively away from Dellray—a short man putting some distance between himself and a tall one. “You want the case, you fucking got it.” The captain strode to the stairs and then down them. The front door slammed.

“Jesus, Fred,” Sellitto said, “work with us. We can nail this scumbag.”

“We need the Bureau’s A-T,” said Dellray, now sounding like reason itself. “You’re not set up for the terrorist angle.”

“What terrorist angle?” Rhyme asked.

“The UN peace conference. Snitch o’ mine said word was up that something was gonna go down at the airport. Where he snatched the vics.”

“I wouldn’t profile him as a terrorist,” Dobyns said. “Whatever’s going on inside him’s psychologically motivated. It’s not ideological.”

“Well, fact is, Quantico and us’re pegging him one way. ’Preciate that you feel different. But this’s how we’re handling it.”

Rhyme gave up. Fatigue was spiriting him away. He wished Sellitto and his scar-faced assistant had never shown up this morning. He wished he’d never met Amelia Sachs. Wished he wasn’t wearing the ridiculous crisp white shirt, which felt stiff at his neck and felt like nothing below it.

He realized that Dellray was speaking to him.

“I’m sorry?” Rhyme cocked a muscular eyebrow.

Dellray asked, “I mean,
couldn’t
politics be a motive too?”

“Motive doesn’t interest me,” Rhyme said. “Evidence interests me.”

Dellray glanced again at Cooper’s table. “So. The case’s ours. We all together on that?”

“What’re our options?” Sellitto asked.

“You back us up with searchers. Or you can drop out altogether. That’s about all that’s left. We’ll take the PE now, you don’t mind.”

Banks hesitated.

“Give ’em it,” Sellitto ordered.

The young cop picked up the evidence bags from the most recent scene, slipped them into a large plastic bag. Dellray held his hands out. Banks glanced at the lean fingers and tossed the bag onto the table, walking back to the far side of the room—the cop side. Lincoln Rhyme was a demilitarized zone between them and Amelia Sachs stood riveted at the foot of Rhyme’s bed.

Dellray said to her, “Officer Sachs?”

After a pause, her eyes on Rhyme, she responded, “Yes?”

“Commissioner Eckert wants ya t’come with us for
debriefing ’bout the crime scenes. He said something about starting your new assignment on Monday.”

She nodded.

Dellray turned to Rhyme and said sincerely, “Don’tcha worry, Lincoln. We’re gonna git him. Next you hear, his head gonna be on a stake at the gates to the city.”

He nodded to his fellow agents, who packed up the evidence and headed downstairs. From the hallway Dellray called to Sachs, “You coming, officer?”

She stood with her hands together, like a schoolgirl at a party she regretted she’d come to.

“In a minute.”

Dellray vanished down the stairs.

“Those pricks,” Banks muttered, flinging his watchbook onto the table. “Can you believe that?”

Sachs rocked on her heels.

“Better get going, Amelia,” Rhyme said. “Your carriage awaits.”

“Lincoln.” Walking closer to the bed.

“It’s all right,” he said. “You did what you had to do.”

“I have no business doing CS work,” she blurted. “I never wanted to.”

“And you won’t be doing it anymore. That works out well, doesn’t it?”

She started to walk to the door then turned and blurted, “You don’t care about anything but the evidence, do you?”

Sellitto and Banks stirred but she ignored them.

“Say, Thom, could you show Amelia out?”

Sachs continued, “This is all just a game to you, isn’t it? Monelle—”

“Who?”

Her eyes flared, “There! See? You don’t even remember her name. Monelle Gerger. The girl in the tunnel . . . she was just a part of the puzzle to you. There were rats crawling all over her and you said, ‘That’s their nature’? That’s their
nature?
She’s never going to be the same again and all you cared about was your precious evidence.”

“In living victims,” he droned, lecturing, “rodent wounds are always superficial. As soon as the first li’l
critter drooled on her she needed rabies vaccine. What did a few more bites matter?”

“Why don’t we ask her opinion?” Sachs’s smile was different now. It had turned pernicious, like those of the nurses and therapy aides who hated crips. They walked around rehab wards with smiles like this. Well, he hadn’t been happy with the polite Amelia Sachs; he’d wanted the feisty one. . . .

“Answer me something, Rhyme. Why did you really want me?”

“Thom, our guest has overstayed her welcome. Would you—?”

“Lincoln,” the aide began.

“Thom,” Rhyme snapped, “believe I asked you to do something.”

“Because I don’t know shit,” Sachs blurted. “That’s why! You didn’t want a real CS tech because then you wouldn’t be in charge. But me . . . you can send me here, send me there. I’ll do exactly what you want, and I won’t bitch and moan.”