The Skin Collector

by Jeffery Deaver

  Equally troubling was the fact that he'd somehow reduced it to create a particularly virulent form of the toxin.

  Ron Pulaski happened to be standing beside the whiteboard. Rhyme said to him, 'Add that to the list in your concise handwriting, rookie, which the Sisters of the Skeptical Heart Church would be exceedingly proud of.'

  Rhyme's mood had improved considerably now that there were challenges to confront, mysteries to unravel ... and they had some evidence to work with.

  Sachs continued, 'Now, there were no friction ridges.'

  Rhyme hadn't expected fingerprints. No, the perp was too smart for that.

  'As far as hairs - I found some from rats and some from Chloe but no others, so I'm guessing headgear beyond the stocking cap.'

  Close-fitting hats tended to dislodge hair more than keep it from falling out, especially wool or nylon, since the wearer would tend to scratch or rub itches. Rhyme guessed the perp had known this and taken other, more careful precautions to keep his fiber and DNA evidence to himself.

  She continued, 'The prelim for sexual assault was negative - though the ME might find something else. But genitals and secondary sexual locations don't seem to have been touched. Aside from her abdomen' - she nodded at the photographs - 'she was fully clothed. But when I wanded her with the ALS, I found something interesting: dozens of places where he touched her skin, stroked it. More than just to pull it taut to do the tattoo. And she had a small tat on her neck. A flower.' Sachs displayed the picture on Rhyme's high-def monitor. 'He rubbed that a few times, the wand showed.'

  'But not sexual touching?' Sellitto muttered.

  'Not traditionally sexual,' Sachs pointed out. 'He may have a fetish or paraphilia. My impression was that he was fascinated with her skin. He wanted to touch it. Or was driven to maybe.'

  Rhyme said, 'Driven? That's getting a little fishy for me, Sachs. A little soft. Noted but let's move on.'

  They began on the trace, analyzing substances that Sachs had found near the body and comparing them with control samples from the tunnel, trying to isolate those that were unique to the unsub.

  Cooper kept the GC/MS humming.

  'Okay, clustered together we have nitric oxide, ozone, iron, manganese, nickel, silver, beryllium, chlorinated hydrocarbon, acetylene.'

  Rhyme nodded. 'Those were near the body?'

  'Right.' Sachs looked over her detailed chain-of-custody card, which noted the exact location of each sample.

  'Hm.' He grunted.

  'What, Linc?' Sellitto asked.

  'Those're materials used in welding. Oxy-fuel welding primarily. Maybe it came from our unsub but I'd think it's more likely from the workers who installed the pipe. But we'll put it on the chart anyway.'

  Cooper selected another sample. It was from the floor near the ladder that led to the manhole. When this analysis was finished the tech frowned. 'Well, may have something here.'

  Rhyme sighed. Then share it, please and thank you, his burdened smile said.

  But Cooper wasn't going to be rushed. He carefully read the mass spectrum - the computer analysis from the instruments.

  'It's tetrodotoxin.'

  Rhyme was intrigued. 'Ah, yes, we do have something here. Another possible murder weapon.'

  'Poison, Linc?' Sellitto asked.

  Mel Cooper said, 'Oh, indeed. A good one. It's from the ovaries of the puffer fish, the fugu. It's a neurotoxin with no known antidote. Sixty or so people a year die in Japan - from eating it intentionally. In low dosages you can get a high ... and survive to pay the check. And for what it's worth, tetrodotoxin's the zombie drug.'

  'The what?' Sellitto asked, barking a laugh.

  'Really.' Cooper added, 'Like out of a movie. In the Caribbean people take it to lower their heart rate and respiration to the point where they appear dead. Then they come back to life. Either for religious rituals or as scams. Anthropologists think it might've been the source for the zombie myth.'

  'Just the diversion for a slow Saturday night in Haiti,' Rhyme muttered. 'Could we stay on point here? On focus? On message?'

  Cooper pushed his glasses higher up on his nose. 'Very small trace amounts.'

  'Unless the ME finds some in Chloe's blood, he's probably planning to use it for a future attack.' Rhyme grimaced. 'And where the hell did he get it? Probably caught a puffer fish himself. Like he grew the hemlock. Keep going, Mel.'

  Cooper was reading from Sachs's chain-of-custody card. 'Here's something from a footprint - one of his, I'm assuming, since it was near the ladder. And obscured.'

  Booties ...

  'That's right,' Sachs confirmed. Cooper showed her the mass spectrum and she nodded, then transcribed the computer analysis to the whiteboard.

  Stercobilin, urea 9.3 g/L, chloride 1.87 g/L, sodium 1.17 g/L, potassium 0.750 g/L, creatinine 0.670 g/L

  'Crap,' Rhyme muttered.

  'What's wrong?' Pulaski asked.

  'No,' Rhyme replied. 'Literally. Fecal material. Why that? Why there? Any deductions, boys and girls?'

  'There were DS - Sanitation - pipes overhead, but I couldn't see any sewage on the ground or walls. Probably didn't come from there.'

  'Dog-walking park?' Sellitto suggested. 'Or he owns a dog.'

  'Please,' Rhyme said, refraining from rolling his eyes. 'Those chemicals suggest human shit. We could run DNA but that would be a waste of time. Excuse the choice of words.'

  'Bathroom just before he came to the scene?'

  'Possibly, rookie, but I'd guess he picked it up from the sewage system somewhere. I think it tells us he's been spending a lot of time in underground New York. That's his killing zone. He's comfortable there. And if there wasn't any effluence at the Chloe Moore scene, that means he's already got a few other sites selected. And it also tells us he's scoping out his targets ahead of time.'

  The parlor phone rang. Sachs answered. Had a brief conversation and then hung up. 'The ME. Yep, COD was cicutoxin - and no tetrodotoxin. You were right, Mel: This was eight times more concentrated than what you'd find in a natural plant. And he sedated her with propofol. Neck and arm. Two injection sites.'

  'Prescription drug,' Rhyme noted. 'You can't grow that in your backyard. How did he have access to that? Well, put it on the chart and let's keep going. The tattoo itself. That's what I'm really curious about.'

  Rhyme gazed at the picture Sachs had taken: inkless but easy to see from the red, inflamed skin. A much clearer image than what he'd viewed through the video camera at the dim crime scene.

  'Man,' Ron Pulaski said, 'it's good.'

  'I don't know the tattoo world,' Rhyme said. 'But I wonder if there're only a limited number of artists who could do that in a short period of time.'

  'I'll hit some of the bigger parlors in town,' Sellitto said. 'See what I can find.'

  Rhyme mused, 'Those lines.' He pointed to the border, scallops above and below the words. 'You were right, Sachs. They look cut, not tattooed. Like he used a razor blade or scalpel.'

  Sellitto muttered, 'Just fucking decorations. What a prick.'

  'On the chart. Don't know what to make of that. Now, the words: "the second". Meaning? Thoughts?'

  'The second victim?' Pulaski offered.

  Sellitto laughed. 'This guy ain't really covering up his tracks. We probably woulda heard if there was a number one, don'tcha think? Bet CNN would've caught on.'

  'Sure, true. Wasn't thinking.'

  Rhyme regarded the picture. 'Not enough to draw conclusions at this point. And what's the rest of the message? My impression is that somebody who knows calligraphy that well also knows spelling and grammar. Lowercase "t" on the article "the". So something preceded it. There's no period so something comes after the phrase.'

  Sachs said, 'I wonder if it's a line he made up. Or is it a quotation? A puzzle?'

  'No clue ... Lon, get some bodies at HQ to search the databases.'

  'Good idea. Efficient: a task force to find "the second" in a book or something? You think that's ever appeared before, L
inc?'

  'First, Lon, aren't air quotes a bit overused? More to the point: How's this? Have them search for the words in famous quotes about crimes, killers, tattoos, underground New York. Tell them to be creative!'

  Sellitto muttered, 'All right. "The second". And for the number - the numeral two - with "nd" as a suffix.'

  'Hm,' Rhyme muttered, nodding. He hadn't thought of that.

  The bulky detective placed a call, rising and walking to the corner of the parlor, and a moment later began barking orders. He disconnected and wandered back.

  'Let's keep going,' Rhyme said to the others.

  After more trace analysis Mel Cooper announced, 'We've got several instances of benzalkonium chloride.'

  'Ah,' Rhyme said. 'It's a quat. Quaternary ammonium. A basic institutional sanitizer, used mostly where there's particular concern about exposure to bacteria and a vulnerable clientele. School cafeterias, for instance. On the board.'

  Cooper continued, 'Adhesive latex.'

  Rhyme announced that the product was used in everything from bandages to construction work. 'Generic?'

  'Yep.'

  'Naturally,' Rhyme grumbled. Forensic scientists vastly preferred brand-name trace - it was more easily sourced.

  The tech ran additional tests. After a few minutes he regarded the computer screen. 'Good, good. Strong results for a type of stone. Marble. Specifically Inwood marble.'

  'What form?' Rhyme asked. 'Put it up on the screen.'

  Cooper did and Rhyme found they were looking at dust and grains of various sizes, white, off-white and beige. The tech said, 'Fractured. See the edge on that piece in the upper left-hand corner?'

  'Sure is,' Rhyme offered. 'Bake it!'

  The tech ran a sample through the GC/MS. He announced, 'We're positive for Tovex residue.'

  Sellitto said, 'Tovex? Commercial explosive.'

  Rhyme was nodding. 'Had a feeling we'd find something like that. Used in blasting foundations out of rock. Given the trauma to the marble grains, our unsub picked up that trace at or near a construction site. Someplace where there's a lot of Inwood marble. Call the city for blasting permits, rookie. And then cross-reference with the geological database of the area. Now, what else?'

  The scrapings beneath Chloe Moore's fingernails revealed no skin, only off-white cotton cloth and paper fibers.

  Rhyme explained to Sellitto: 'Chloe may've fought him and picked those up in the struggle. A shame she didn't get a chunk of his skin. Where's the DNA when you need it? On the board, and let's keep at it.'

  The duct tape that the unsub had used to bind Chloe's feet was generic; the handcuffs too. And the flashlight - the beacon to reveal his handiwork - was a cheap, plastic variety. Neither that nor the D batteries inside bore fingerprints, and no hairs or other trace adhered, except a bit of adhesive similar to that used on sticky rollers - exactly what crime scene officers employed to pick up trace. As Sachs had speculated, he'd probably rolled himself before leaving for the crime scene.

  'This boy's even better than I thought,' Rhyme said. Dismay mixing with a certain reluctant admiration.

  'Now, any electrical outlets down there, Sachs? I don't recall.'

  'No. The spotlights that the first responders set up were battery-powered.'

  'So his tattoo gun would be battery-operated too. Rookie - when you take a break from your marble quest, find out who makes battery tattoo guns.'

  Pulaski went back online, saying, 'Hopefully, they'll be pretty rare.'

  'Now, that's going to be interesting.'

  'What?'

  'Finding a tattoo gun that's filled with hope.'

  'That's filled with ... what?'

  Sellitto was smiling sourly. He knew what was coming.

  Rhyme continued, 'That's what "hopefull"Y means. Your sentence didn't say "I hope that portable tattoo guns're rare." Using "hopefull"Y as a disjunct - an opinion by the speaker - is non-standard. English teachers and journalists disapprove.'

  The young officer's head bobbed. 'Lincoln, sometimes I think I've walked into a Quentin Tarantino movie when I'm talking to you.'

  Rhyme's eyebrows arched. Continue.

  Pulaski grumbled, 'You know, that scene where two hit men are going to blow somebody away but they talk and talk and talk for ten minutes about how "eager" and "anxious" aren't the same, or how "disinterested" doesn't mean "uninterested". You just want to slap 'em.'

  Sachs coughed a laugh.

  'Those two misuses bother me just as much,' Rhyme muttered. 'And good job knowing the distinction. Now, that last bit of evidence. That's the one I'm most interested in.'

  He turned back to the collection bag, thinking he'd have to find out who this Tarantino was.

  CHAPTER 10

  Mel Cooper carefully opened the sole remaining evidence bag over an examination table. Using tweezers, he extracted the crumpled ball of paper. He began to unwrap it. Slowly.

  'Where was it, Amelia?' he asked.

  'About three feet from the body. Below one of those yellow boxes.'

  'I saw those,' Rhyme said. 'IFON. Electric grid, telephone, I'd guess.'

  The paper was from the upper corner of a publication, torn out. It was about three inches long, two high. The words on the front, the right-hand page, were these: ies

  that his greatest skill was his ability to anticipate

  On the reverse page:

  the body was found.

  Rhyme looked at Cooper, who was using a Bausch + Lomb microscope to compare the paper fibers from this sample with those found under the victim's fingernails.

  'We can associate them. Probably from the same source. And there were no other samples of the cloth fibers under her nails from the scene.'

  'So the presumption is that she tore the scrap in a struggle with him.'

  Sellitto asked, 'Why'd he have it with him? What was it?'

  Rhyme noted that the stock was uncoated, so the scrap was likely not from a magazine. Nor was the paper newsprint, so the source probably wasn't a daily or weekly paper or tabloid.

  'It's probably from a book,' he announced, staring at the triangular scrap.

  'But what'd the scenario be?' Pulaski asked.

  'Good question: You mean if the scrap was from the pocket of our unsub and she tore it off while grappling with him, how can the pages be from a book?'

  'Right.'

  'Because I would think he sliced important pages out of the book and kept them with him. I want to know what that scrap is from.'

  'The easy way?' Cooper suggested.

  'Oh, Google Books? Right. Or whatever that thing is called, that online service that has ninety percent or however many of the world's books in a database. Sure, give it a shot.'

  But, unsurprisingly, the search returned no hits. Rhyme didn't know much about how the copyright laws worked but he suspected that there were more than a few authors of books still protected by the US Code that didn't want to share their creative sweat labor royalty-free.

  'So, it's the hard way,' Rhyme announced. 'What do they call that in computer hacking? Brute-force attack?' He reflected for a moment then added, 'But we can maybe narrow down the search. Let's see if we can find out when it was printed and look for books published around then that deal with - to start - crimes. The word "bodies" is a hint there. Now, let's get a date.'

  'Carbon dating?' Ron Pulaski asked, drawing a smile from Mel Cooper. 'What?' the young officer asked.

  'Haven't read my chapter on radiocarbon, rookie?' Referring to Rhyme's textbook on forensic science.

  'Actually I have, Lincoln.'

  'And?'

  Pulaski recited, 'Carbon dating is the comparison of non-degrading carbon-12 with degrading carbon-14, which will give an idea of the age of the object being tested. I said "idea"; I think you said "approximation".'

  'Ah, well quoted. Just a shame you missed the footnote.'

  'Oh. There were footnotes?'

  'The error factor for carbon dating is thirty to forty years. And that's wi
th recent samples. If our perp had carried around a chapter printed on papyrus or dinosaur hide, the deviation would be greater.' Rhyme gestured toward the scrap. 'So, no, carbon dating isn't for us.'

  'At least it would tell us if it was printed in the last thirty or forty years.'

  'Well, we know that,' Rhyme snapped. 'It was printed in the nineties, I'm almost certain. I want something more specific.'

  Now Sellitto was frowning. 'How do you know the decade, Linc?'

  'The typeface. It's called Myriad. Created by Robert Slimbach and Carol Twombly for Adobe Systems. It became Apple's font.'

  'It looks like any other sans serif font to me,' Sachs said.

  'Look at the "y" descender and the slanting "e".'

  'You studied that?' asked Pulaski, as if a huge gap in his forensic education threatened to swallow him whole.

  Years ago Rhyme had run a kidnapping case in which the perp had crafted a ransom note by cutting letters from a magazine. He'd used characters from editorial headlines as well as from a number of advertisements. Correlating the typefaces from dozens of magazines and advertisers' logos, Rhyme had concluded it was from a particular issue of the Atlantic Monthly. A warrant for subscriber lists - and some other evidence - led to the perp's door and the rescue of the victim. He explained this to Pulaski.

  'But how do we date it more specifically?' Sellitto asked.

  'The ink,' Rhyme said.

  'Tags?' Cooper asked.

  'Doubt it.' In the 1960s ink manufacturers began adding tags - chemical markers, in the same way that explosives manufacturers did - so that, in the event of a crime, the ink sample would be easy to trace to a single source or at least to a brand name of ink or pen. (The primary purpose of tagging was to track down forgers, though the markers also nailed a number of kidnappers and psychopathic killers, who left messages at the scenes of their crimes.) But the ink used for book printing, as in this sample, was sold in large batches, which were rarely if ever tagged.

  So, Rhyme explained, they needed to compare the composition of this particular ink with those in the NYPD ink database.

  'Extract the ink, Mel. Let's find out what it's made out of.'

  From a rack of tools above the evidence examination tables, Cooper selected a modified hypodermic syringe, the point partially filed down. He poked this through the paper seven times. The resulting tiny disks, all of which contained samples of the ink, he soaked in pyridine to extract the ink itself. He dried the solution to a powdery residue, which he then analyzed.