The Skin Collector

by Jeffery Deaver

  She looked into the utility room once more, to give Rhyme a view, and then gazed through the tunnel of hell briefly.

  'Ah,' he said, now understanding her concern. 'Breadbasket.'

  Sachs made the final adjustments to her outfit. She was dressed in a white Tyvek jumpsuit, hood and booties. Because poison had been the apparent weapon, she wore an N95 respirator. The toxin had been injected, the first responders reported, via the tattoo gun, and there seemed to be no airborne chemicals to worry about that they'd noted. Still, why take the chance?

  Footsteps behind her, someone approaching through the moldy, damp basement of Chez Nord.

  She glanced back at an attractive crime scene officer who'd be helping process the boutique. Sachs had known Jean Eagleston for years; she was one of the stars of the CS oper-ation. Eagleston had been interviewing the store manager, who'd found the body. Sachs had wanted to know if the manager had entered the scene itself - where Chloe's body lay - to check on her employee.

  But Eagleston said, 'No. She noticed the door was open and looked into the utility room, saw the vic lying there. That was enough for her. She didn't go any farther.'

  Can't blame the manager, Sachs reflected. Even if one wasn't claustrophobic, who'd go into a deserted tunnel with an apparent murder victim lying on the ground and, possibly, the killer still there?

  'How could she see the victim?' Rhyme asked. He'd overheard the conversation. 'I thought I could see spotlights there now, from the medics. But wasn't it dark then?'

  Sachs relayed the question. But the crime scene officer didn't know. 'All the manager said was that she could see inside.'

  Rhyme said, 'Well, we'll find out.'

  Eagleston added, 'The only other people at the kill site were one responding uniform and one medic. But they backed out as soon as they confirmed death. To wait for us. I've got samples of their shoes, so we can eliminate any footprints. They tell me they didn't touch anything other than the vic, to check on her condition. And the EMT was gloved.'

  So contamination of the scene - the introduction of evidence unrelated to the crime itself or the perp - would be minimal. That was one advantage of a murder in a hellhole like this. A crime on the street could have dozens of contaminants, from blowing dust, pouring rain and fierce sleet (like today) to passersby and even souvenir seekers. One of the worst contaminants was fellow officers, especially brass grandstanding if reporters were present and eager to grab a video bite to slap on the twenty-four-hour news cycle.

  One more glance at the circular coffin.

  Okay, Amelia Sachs thought: Knuckle time ...

  A phrase of her father's. The man had also been a cop, a beat patrolman working the Deuce - Midtown South; back then Times Square was like Deadwood in the 1800s. Knuckle time meant referring to those moments when you have to go up against your worst fears.

  Breadbasket ...

  Sachs returned to the access door and climbed through it and down into the utility room below the cellar. Then she took the evidence collection gear bag from the other officer. Sachs said, 'You search the basement, Jean?'

  'I'll do it now,' Eagleston said. 'And then get everything into the RRV.'

  They'd done a fast examination of the cellar. But it was apparent that the perp had spent minimal time there. He'd grabbed Chloe, subdued her somehow and dragged her to the access door; her heel marks were visible.

  Sachs set the heavy bag on the floor and opened it. She photographed and gathered evidence from the utility room, although, as with the basement, the perp and the victim would have spent little time here; he'd've wanted to get her out of sight as soon as possible. She bagged and tagged the trace and set the plastic and paper containers on the floor in the cellar for the other crime scene officers to cart to the RRV.

  Then Sachs turned to the tiny shaft's opening, eyeing it the way one would glance at the muzzle of a pistol in the hand of a desperate perp.

  Breadbasket ...

  She didn't move. Heard her heart thudding.

  'Sachs.' Rhyme's voice sounded in her ear.

  She didn't respond.

  He said softly, 'I understand. But.'

  Meaning: Get your ass going.

  Fair enough.

  'Got it, Rhyme. No worries.'

  Knuckle time ...

  It's not that long, she reassured herself. Twenty three feet. That's nothing. Though, for some inexplicable reason, Sachs found herself passionately resenting that extra yard past twenty. As she approached, her palms began to sweat fiercely; her scalp too, which itched more than normally. She wanted to scratch, dig her nails into her skin, her cuticles. A nervous habit. The urge rose when she was unable to move - in all senses, physically, emotionally, mentally.

  Static: How she hated that state.

  Her breath came in short intervals and shallow gulps.

  Orienting, she touched her Glock 17, which was strapped to her hip. A slight risk of contamination from the weapon, even if she didn't blow anyone away, but there was that security issue again. And if any perp had a good scenario for hurting a crime scene officer, it would be here.

  She hooked a nylon tie-down to her evidence collection gear bag and the other end to her weapon belt, to drag it behind her.

  Moving forward. Pausing before the opening. Then on her hands and knees. And into the shaft. Sachs wanted to leave the headlamp off - seeing the tunnel would be more troubling than concentrating on the goal at the end of it - but she was afraid she'd miss some evidence.

  Click.

  Under the halogen beam, the metal coffin seemed to shrink and wrap its steel shell around her.

  Get. Going.

  She extracted a dog hair roller from her pocket and swept the floor of the tunnel as she went forward. She knew that because of the confining space and presumably the perp's struggling with the victim, it was likely that he had shed evidence, so she concentrated on seams and rough spots that might dislodge trace.

  She thought of a joke, a Steven Wright routine from years ago. 'I went into the hospital for an MRI. I wanted to find out if I had claustrophobia.'

  But the humor and the distraction of the task didn't keep the panic away for long.

  She was a third of the way through when fear stabbed her gut, a frozen blade.

  Get out, get out, get out!

  Teeth chattering despite the intense heat around her.

  'You're doing fine, Sachs.' Rhyme's voice in her ear.

  She appreciated his baritone reassurance, but didn't want it. She dialed down the volume on the headset.

  Another few feet. Breathe, breathe.

  Concentrate on the job. Sachs tried. But her hands were unsteady and she dropped the roller, the clang of the handle on the metal skin of the tunnel nearly making her gag.

  And then the madness of fear snagged her. Sachs got it into her head that the unknown subject - the unsub - was behind her. He had somehow perched on the ceiling of the utility room and dropped to the floor after her. Why didn't I look up? You always look up at crime scenes! Fuck.

  Then a tug.

  She gasped.

  It wasn't the gear bag tethered to her. No, it was the perp's hand! He was going to tie her down here. And then fill the tunnel with dirt, slowly, starting with her feet. Or flood it. She'd heard dripping water in the utility space; there'd been pipes. He'd undo the plug, open a valve. She'd drown, screaming, as the water rose and she couldn't move forward or back.

  No!

  That this scenario was improbable at best didn't matter. Fear made the unlikely, even the impossible, more than plausible. Fear itself was now another occupant of the tunnel, breathing, kissing, teasing, sliding its wormy arms around her body.

  She raged at herself: Don't be crazy. You're in danger of getting fucking shot when you climb out the other end of the tunnel, not getting suffocated by some nonexistent perp with a nonexistent shovel. There is no way the tunnel's going to collapse and hold you as tight as a mouse in a snake's grip. That's not. Going. To. Happen.


  But then that image itself - snake and pinned mouse - screwed itself into her thoughts, and the panic notched up a level more.

  Shit. I'm going to lose it. I'm going to fucking lose it.

  The end of the tunnel was now about eight feet away, and she was possessed by an urge to sprint out. But she couldn't. There wasn't enough room for her to move any more quickly than at a crawl. Anyway, Sachs knew that trying to hurry would be a disaster. For one thing, she could miss clues. And going more quickly would ratchet up the dread, which would explode within her like a chain reaction.

  Also: Moving faster out of the tunnel, even if she could, would be a defeat.

  Her personal mantra - which she'd also learned from her father - was: When you move they can't getcha.

  But sometimes, like now, they'll getcha when you do move.

  So, stop, she commanded.

  And she did. Came to a complete halt. And felt the perverse arms of the tunnel embrace her ever more tightly.

  Panic, cresting like waves. Panic, stabbing like that frosty knife.

  Don't move. Be with it, she told herself. Face it. Confront it. She believed Rhyme was speaking to her, the whisper of his faraway voice perplexed or concerned or impatient. All of those, probably. Down went the headset volume to silence.

  Breathe.

  She did. In, out. Eyes open, looking at the disk of light ahead of her, relief a mile ahead. No, not that. Evidence. Look for evidence. That's your job. Her gaze took in the metal shell, inches away.

  And the sting of panic began to detach. Not vanish completely. But it grew loose.

  Okay. She continued through the tunnel, rolling for trace, collecting scraps, intentionally moving more slowly than before.

  And finally her head emerged. Shoulders.

  Birthing, she laughed to herself, a pallid sound, and blinked sweat from her eyes.

  Then she rolled quickly into the larger tunnel; it seemed like a concert hall by comparison. Rising to a crouch, drawing her Glock.

  But no intruders were aiming weapons her way, not in the immediate area at least. The spotlights over the body were blinding and there might have been a threat in the blackness beyond but she immediately shone her Maglite in that direction. No threat.

  Rising, Sachs tugged the gear bag out of the tunnel. She gazed around and saw that the diagram from Rhyme's database was accurate. This tunnel resembled a mine shaft, about twenty feet square. It disappeared west into the darkness. She knew it had been used, a century ago, for transporting wheeled carts of goods to and from factories and warehouses. Now the damp, moldy passageway served only as New York City infrastructure. There were large iron pipes overhead and smaller aluminum and PVC ones, perhaps for electrical cables, running through old battered junction boxes. Newer conduits sprouted from bright-yellow boxes secured with thick padlocks. These were embossed with the letters IFON. She didn't know what that meant. The iron pipes were stamped NYC DS and NYC DEP - Sanitation and Environmental Protection, the agencies that handled the city's sewage and water supply, respectively.

  She realized it was utterly quiet and turned up the volume of the radio.

  '--the hell is going on?'

  'Sorry, Rhyme,' Sachs said. 'Had to concentrate.'

  He was silent for a moment. Then he seemed to get it - her wrestling with the breadbasket. 'All right. Well. The scene secure, as far as you can tell?'

  'The immediate scene.' The tunnel was bricked off to the east but she glanced again at the darkness to the west.

  'Turn one of the spotlights that way. It'll blind anybody trying to target you. And you'll be able to see him coming before he sees you.'

  The first responders had brought two halogen lamps on tripods, connected to large batteries. She turned one in the direction Rhyme had suggested and squinted as she examined the receding tunnel.

  No indication of threats.

  Sachs hoped there'd be no firefight. The big pipe overhead, newly installed, it seemed - the one stamped DEP - appeared to be thick iron; her rounds in the Glock, hollow-points, wouldn't break through the metal. But if the unsub returned with guns a-blazing he might be loaded with armor-piercing slugs, which could pierce the pipe. Because of the huge water pressure inside, she imagined, a rupture might create an explosion like a massive load of C-4.

  And even if he had regular bullets, the ricochet off metal and the stone and brick walls could kill or wound as easily as a direct shot.

  She peered up the tunnel again and saw no movement.

  'Clear, Rhyme.'

  'Good. So. Let's get going.' He'd turned impatient.

  Sachs already was. Wanted to get out of here.

  'Start with the vic.'

  She's more than a victim, Rhyme, Sachs thought. She has a name. Chloe Moore. She was a twenty-six-year-old sale clerk in a boutique that sold clothing with loose strands escaping the stitching. She was working for near minimum wage because she was intoxicated on New York. On acting. On being twenty-six. And God bless her for it.

  And she didn't deserve to die. Much less like this.

  Sachs slipped rubber bands on her booties, the balls of the feet, to differentiate her footfalls from those of the perp and the first responders - whose footgear she would photograph later as control samples.

  She walked closer to the body. Chloe lay on her back, her blouse tugged up to below the breasts. Sachs noted that even in death her round, pretty face was distorted with an asymmetrical grimace, muscles taut. It was evidence of the obvious pain she'd experienced, pain tapering to death. She'd frothed at the mouth. And vomited copiously. The smell was vile. Sachs mentally moved past it.

  Chloe's hands, under her body, were secured in cheap handcuffs. With a universal key Sachs removed these. The victim's ankles were duct-taped. With surgical scissors Sachs clipped the tape and bagged the gray, dusty strips. She scraped beneath the young woman's deep-purple fingernails, noting fibers and bits of off-white flecks. Perhaps she'd fought him and if so bits of valuable trace, even skin, might be present; if her killer was in the CODIS DNA database, they might have his identity in hours.

  Rhyme said, 'I want to see the tattoo, Sachs.'

  Sachs noted a small blue tattoo on Chloe's neck, right and near the shoulder, but that had been done long ago. Besides, it was easy to see which one the killer had done. She knelt down and trained her eyes, and the camera, on Chloe's abdomen.

  'There it is, Rhyme.'

  The criminalist whispered, 'His message. Well, part of his message. What do you think it means?'

  But given the sparse letters, Sachs realized, his question had to be rhetorical.

  CHAPTER 6

  The two words were about six inches long and ran horizontally one inch above the woman's navel.

  Although he'd presumably used poison, not ink, the inflamed wound, swollen and scarring, was easy enough to read.

  'All right,' Rhyme said, '"the second." And the border, the scalloped lines. Wonder what those are about?'

  Sachs commented, 'They're not as swollen as the letters. Maybe there was no poison in them. They look like wounds, not tattoos. And, Rhyme, look at the characters.'

  'How well done they are?'

  'Exactly. Calligraphy. He's good. He knows what he's doing.'

  'And another observation. It must've taken some time to do. He could've written them crudely. Or just injected her with the poison. Or shot her for that matter. What's his game?'

  Sachs had a thought. 'And if it took awhile, that meant she was in pain for a long time.'

  'Well, yes, you can see the pain reaction but I have a feeling that was later. She couldn't have been conscious while he was writing his message. Even if she wasn't trying to get away, the involuntary movement would've ruined his handiwork. No, he subdued her somehow. Any trauma to the head?'

  She examined the woman's scalp carefully and looked under her blouse, front and back. 'No. And I don't see any signs of Taser barbs. No stun gun welts ... Ah but, Rhyme, see that?' She pointed out a tiny red dot
on her neck.

  'Injection site?'

  'I think so. I'm guessing sedative, not poison. There's no sign of any swelling or other irritation that toxin would cause.'

  'The blood work will tell us.'

  Sachs took pictures of the wound and then bent down and swabbed the area carefully, lifting trace. Then the rest of her body too and the ground around her. It was likely that a perp this diligent would have worn gloves - it certainly appeared that way. Yet valuable evidence from even a gloved-and-gowned perp could still easily be transferred to the victim or crime scene.

  Edmond Locard, the French criminalist who lived a century before, formulated the Exchange Principle: that every time a crime occurs there is a transfer of evidence between criminal and scene, or criminal and victim. That evidence (which he referred to as 'dust') might be very, very difficult to detect and collect but it exists, for the diligent and innovative forensic scientist.

  'There's something odd, Rhyme.'

  'Odd?' A splinter of disdain for the artless word. 'Go ahead, Sachs.'

  'I'm using only one of the first responders' spotlights - the other's pointed up the tunnel. But there're two shadows on the ground.' She looked up and walked in a slow circle to get a clear view. 'Ah, there's another light near the ceiling, between those two pipes. It looks like a flashlight.'

  'Not left by the first responders?'

  'What cop or medic is going to give up his Maglite?'

  The big black tubed flashlights that all cops and firemen carried around were invaluable - great sources of illumination and they doubled as bone-breaking weapons in a clutch.

  But she noted it wasn't one of those expensive models. This was cheap, plastic.

  'It's taped to the pipe. Duct tape. Why would he leave a light here, Rhyme?'

  'That explains it.'

  'What?' she asked.

  'How the store manager found the body. The flashlight. Our perp wanted to make sure we found the message from our sponsor.'

  The words seemed a little flippant to Sachs but she'd always suspected that much of Rhyme's gruff facade and sardonic delivery were defense mechanisms. Still, she wondered if he raised the barricade of protection higher than he needed to.