The Skin Collector

by Jeffery Deaver

  Cooper and Rhyme looked over the resulting chromatogram - a bar chart of peaks and valleys representing the ink used in the printing of the mysterious book.

  By itself, the analysis meant nothing, but running the results through the database revealed that the ink was similar to those used in the production of adult trade books from 1996 through 2000.

  'Adult?' Pulaski asked.

  'No, not your kind of adult books,' Sellitto said, laughing.

  'My--' The officer was blushing furiously. 'Wait.'

  Rhyme continued, 'It means as opposed to juvenile publishing. Legitimate books for adults. And the paper? Check acidity.'

  Cooper ran a basic pH analysis, using a small corner of the paper.

  'It's very acidic.'

  'That means it's from a mass-produced commercial hardcover - not paperback because they're printed on newsprint. And it's commercial because more expensive, limited-edition books are printed on low-acid or acid-free paper.

  'Add that to your team's to-do list, Lon. Find the book. I'm leaning toward nonfiction, the aforementioned years. Possibly true crime. And each chapter devoted to a different subject, since he sliced out only what he needed. Have your people start talking to editors, bookstores, crime book collectors ... and true crime writers themselves. How many could there be?'

  'Yeah, yeah, in all the free time they have when they're not browsing for the trillion quotations featuring the words "the second".'

  'Oh, and by the way, make it a priority. If our unsub went to enough trouble to find a copy of the book, cut out the pages and carry them around with him, I really want to know what's in it.'

  The big detective was looking at the picture of the tattoo once more. He said to Cooper, 'Print out a picture of that, willya, Mel? I'll start hitting those tattoo parlors - is that what they still call 'em? Probably "studio" now. And get me a list of the big ones.'

  Rhyme watched Cooper print out the picture then go online with the NYC business licensing agency. He downloaded a list of what seemed to be about thirty tattoo businesses. Cooper handed it to the detective.

  'That many?' Sellitto grumbled. 'Wonderful. I just can't really get outside enough on these fine fall days.' He tossed the list and the photo of the tattoo into his briefcase. Then pulled on his Burberry and dug his wadded gloves from the pocket. Without a farewell he stalked out of the room. Rhyme once again heard the wind briefly as the door opened and slammed shut.

  'And, rookie, how're we coming on the marble?'

  The young officer turned to a nearby computer. He read through the screen. 'Still going through blasting permits. They're blowing up a lot of stuff in the city at the moment.'

  'Keep at it.'

  'You bet. I'll have some answers soon.' He turned his gaze to Rhyme. 'Hopefully.'

  'Hopefully?' Rhyme frowned.

  'Yep. I'm filled with hope that I don't get any more damn grammar lessons from you, Lincoln.'

  * * *

  237 Elizabeth Street

  Victim: Chloe Moore, 26 - Probably no connection to Unsub

  - No sexual assault, but touching of skin

  Unsub 11-5 - White male

  - Slim to medium build

  - Stocking cap

  - Thigh-length dark coat

  - Dark backpack

  - Wore booties

  - No friction ridges

  COD: Poisoning with cicutoxin, introduced into system by tattooing - From water hemlock plant

  - No known source

  - Concentrated, eight times normal

  Sedated with propofol - How obtained? Access to medical supplies?

  Tattooed with 'the second' Old English typeface, surrounded by scallops - Part of message?

  - Task force at police HQ checking this out

  Portable tattoo gun used as weapon - Model unknown

  Cotton fiber - Off white

  - Probably from Unsub's shirt, torn in struggle

  Page from book, true crime? - Probably torn from Unsub's pocket in struggle - Probably mass produced hardcover 1996-2000

  ies

  that his greatest skill was his ability to anticipate

  - On next page:

  the body was found.

  Possibly used adhesive rollers to remove trace from clothing prior to attack

  Handcuffs - Generic, cannot be sourced

  Flashlight - Generic, cannot be sourced

  Duct tape - Generic, cannot be sourced

  Trace evidence

  Nitric oxide, ozone, iron manganese, nickel, silver beryllium, chlorinated hydrocarbon, acetylene - Possibly oxy-fuel welding supplies

  Tetrodotoxin - Fugu fish poison

  - Zombie drug

  - Minute amounts

  - Not used on victim here

  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 - fecal material

  - Possibly suggesting interest/obsession in underground - From future kill sites underground?

  Benzalkonium chloride - Quaternary ammonium (quat), institutional sanitizer

  Adhesive latex - Used in bandages and construction, other uses too

  Inwood marble - Dust and fine grains

  Tovex explosive - Probably from blast site

  * * *

  CHAPTER 11

  'Hey, dude. Take a seat. I'll get to you in a few. You want to check out the booklet there? Find something fun, something to impress the ladies. You're never too old for ink.'

  The man's eyes alighted on Lon Sellitto's unadorned ring finger and turned back to the young blonde he was speaking to.

  The tattoo artist - and owner of the parlor (yeah, parlor, not studio) - was early thirties, scrawny as a crab leg. He was wearing well-cut and pressed black jeans and a sleeveless T-shirt, white, immaculate. His dark-blond hair was pulled back in a long ponytail. He had a dandy beard, an elaborate affair that descended from his upper lip in four thin lines of dark silky hair that circled his mouth and reunited on his chin in a spiral. His cheeks were shaved smooth but his sideburns, sharp as hooks, swept forward from his ears. A steel rod descended from his upper ear down to the lobe. Another, smaller, pierced each eyebrow vertically. After the facial hair and the metalwork, the full-color tattoos of Superman on one forearm and Batman on the other were pretty tame.

  Sellitto stepped forward.

  'A minute, dude, I was saying.' He studied the cop for a moment. 'You know, for an older guy, a bigger guy - I don't mean any offense - you're a good candidate. Your skin isn't going to sag.' His voice faded. 'Oh, hey. Look at that.'

  Sellitto had grown tired of the ramble. He'd thrust his gold shield toward the hipster in a way that was both aggressive and lethargic.

  'Okay. Police. You're police?'

  The tat artist was sitting on a stool next to a comfortable-looking but well-worn reclining chair of black leather, occupied by the girl he'd been speaking with when Sellitto walked in. She wore excessively tight jeans and a gray tank top over what seemed to be three bras or spaghetti-strap camisoles, or whatever they were called. Pink, green and blue. Her strikingly golden hair was long on the left and crew cut on the right. Pretty face if you could get past the skewed hair and nervous eyes.

  'You want to talk to me?' the tattoo artist asked.

  'I want to talk to TT Gordon?'

  'I'm TT.'

  'Then I want to talk to you.'

  Nearby another artist, a chubby thirty-something in cargo pants and T, was working away on another client - a massive bodybuilder - who was lying face down on a leather bed, like a masseur would use. The man was getting an elaborate motorcycle inked on his back.

  Both employee and customer looked at Sellitto, who stared back.

  They returned to inking and being inked.

  The detective shot a glance at Gordon and the girl with the unbalanced hair. She was upset, really bothered. Gordon, though, didn't seem fazed by the cop's presence. The owner of the Sonic Hum-Drum Tattoo Parlor had all his permits in a row and his t
ax bills paid, the detective knew. He'd checked.

  'Let me just finish up here.'

  Sellitto said, 'It's important.'

  'This's important too,' Gordon said, 'dude.'

  'No, dude,' Sellitto said. 'What you're going to do is sit down over there and answer my questions. Because my important is more important than your important. And, Miss Gaga, you're gonna have to leave.'

  She was nodding. Breathless.

  'But--' Gordon began.

  Sellitto asked bluntly, 'You ever hear about section two sixty point twenty-one, New York State Penal Code?'

  'I. Uhm. Sure.' Gordon nodded matter-of-factly.

  'It's a crime to tattoo minors under the age of eighteen and the crime is defined as unlawfully dealing with a child in the second degree.' Turning to the client. 'How old're you really?' Sellitto barked.

  She was crying. 'Seventeen. I'm sorry. I just, I didn't, I really, I mean ...'

  'You want to finish that sentence sometime soon?'

  'Please, I just, I mean ...'

  'Lemme put it this way: Get outta here.'

  She fled, leaving behind her vinyl leather jacket. As both Sellitto and Gordon watched, she stopped, debated then snuck back fast, grabbed the garment and vanished again, permanently this time.

  Turning to the owner of the store, Sellitto was enjoying himself, though he was also noting that Gordon still wasn't cringing with guilt. Or fear. The detective pushed harder. 'That happens to be a class B misdemeanor. Punishable by three months in jail.'

  Gordon said, 'Punishable by up to three months in jail but production of an apparently valid identification card is an affirmative defense. Her license? It was really, really good. Top-notch. I believed it was valid. The jury'd believe it was valid.'

  Sellitto tried not to blink but wasn't very successful.

  Gordon continued, 'Not that it mattered. I wasn't going to ink her. I was in my Sigmund mode.'

  Sellitto cocked his head.

  'Freud. The doctor is in, kind of thing. She wanted a work, real badly, but I was counseling her out of it. She's some kid from Queens or Brooklyn got dumped by a guy for a slut was inked with quinto death heads.'

  'What?'

  'Five. Quinto. Death heads, you know. She wanted seven. Septo.'

  'And how was the therapy going, Doc?'

  The man pulled a face. 'It was going great - I was talking her out of it. When you walked in. Discouragus interruptus. But I think she's scared off for the time being.'

  'Talking her out of it?'

  'Right. I was making some shit up about inking would ruin her skin. In a few months she'd look ten years older. Which is funny because women in the South Pacific used to get tattooed because it made them look younger. Lips and eyelids. Ouch, yeah. I figured she wouldn't know Samoan customs.'

  'But you thought she was legal. Then why talk her out of it?'

  'Dude. First, I had my doubts about the license. But that wasn't the point. She came in here for all the wrong reasons. You get inked to make a positive statement about yourself. Not for revenge, not to shove it in somebody's face. Not because you want to be that stupid girl with a dragon tattoo. Ink's about who you are, not being anybody else. Get it?'

  Not really, Sellitto's expression said.

  But Gordon continued, 'You saw her hair, the goth makeup? Well, despite all that, she was not a candidate for inking. She had a Hello Kitty purse, for Christ's sake. And a Saint Timothy's cross around her neck. In your day, you would've called her the girl next door, you know, going to the malt shop.'

  My day? Malt? Still, Sellitto found himself leaning reluctantly toward the veracity of his story.

  'Besides, I didn't have a big enough pussy ball for her,' the young man said, grinning. Pushing Sellitto some.

  'A ...?'

  He explained: a tennis ball you gave to customers you didn't think could handle the pain of the tattooing process. 'That kid couldn't take it. But, you gonna get inked, you gotta have the pain. Them's the rules: pain and blood. The commitment, dude. Get it? So what can I do you for, now that I know there's no, you know, mid-life crisis involved.'

  The detective grumbled. 'You ever say "Dig it" instead of "Get it"?'

  '"Dig it." From your day.'

  'From my day,' Sellitto said. 'Me and the beatniks.'

  TT Gordon laughed.

  'There's a case we're working on. I need some help.'

  'I guess. Gimme one minute.' Gordon stepped to a third workstation. This fellow tat artist, arms blue-and-red sleeves of elaborate inking, was working on a man in his late twenties. He was getting a flying hawk on his biceps. Sellitto thought of the falcons on Rhyme's window ledges.

  The customer looked like he'd just subwayed it up here from Wall Street and would head back to his law firm afterward for an all-nighter.

  Gordon looked over the job. Gave some suggestions.

  Sellitto examined the shop. It seemed to belong to a different era: specifically, the 1960s. The walls were covered with hundreds of bright samples of tats: faces, religious symbols, cartoon characters, slogans, maps, landscapes, skulls ... many of them psychedelic. Also, several dozen photos of piercings available for purchase. Some frames were covered by curtains. Sellitto could guess in what body parts those studs and pins resided, though he wondered why the modesty.

  The inking stations reminded Sellitto of those in a hair salon with the reclining chairs for customers and stools for the artists. Equipment and bottles and rags sat on a counter. On the wall was a mirror, on which were pasted some bumper stickers and taped certificates from the Board of Health. Despite the fact that the place existed for the purpose of spattering body fluids about, it looked immaculate. The smell of disinfectant was strong and there were warning signs everywhere about cleaning equipment, sterilizing.

  130 Degrees Celsius Is Your Friend.

  Gordon finished his suggestions and gestured Sellitto to the back room. They pushed through a plastic bead curtain into the office part of the shop. It too was well ordered and clean.

  Gordon took a bottle of water from a mini fridge and offered it to Sellitto, who wasn't putting in his mouth anything from this shop. Shook his head.

  The owner of the store unscrewed the top and drank. He nodded to the doorway, where the beads still pendulumed. 'That's what we've become.' As if Sellitto was his new best dude.

  'How's that?'

  'The guy in the business suit,' he said softly. The hawk man. 'You see where his tat is?'

  'His biceps.'

  'Right. High. Easy to hide. Guy's got two point three children, or will have in the next couple years. Went to Columbia or NYU. Lawyer or accountant.' A shake of the head. The ponytail swung. 'Tats used to be insidious. The inked were bad boys and girls. Now getting a work's like putting on a charm bracelet or a tie. There's a joke somebody's going to open a tattoo franchise in strip malls. Call it Tat-bucks.'

  'That's why the rods?' Sellitto nodded at the bars in Gordon's head.

  'You have to go to greater lengths to make a statement. That sounded effete. Sorry. So. What can I do for you, Officer?'

  'I'm making the rounds of the big parlors in the city. None of 'em could help so far but they all said I had to come see you. This's the oldest parlor in the city, they said. And you know everybody in the community.'

  'Hard to say about the oldest. Inking - I mean modern inking in the US, not tribal - pretty much began in New York. The Bowery, late eighteen hundreds. But it was banned in 'sixty-one after some hepatitis outbreaks. Only legalized again in 'ninety-seven. I found some records that this shop dated back to the twenties - man, those must've been the days. You got a tat, you were Mr Alternative. Or Miss, though women rarely got works done then. Not unheard of. Winston Churchill's mother had a snake eating its tail.' He noted that Sellitto was not much interested in the history lesson. A shrug. My enthusiasm isn't your enthusiasm. Got it.

  'This is, what I'm about to tell you, this's confidential.'

  'No worries there, dude. P
eople tell me all sorts of shit when they're under the machine. They're nervous and so they start rambling away. I forget everything I hear. Amnesia, you know.' A frown. 'You here about somebody might be a customer of mine?'

  'Don't have any reason to think so but could be.' Sellitto added, 'If we showed you a tat, you think you could tell us something about the guy who did it?'

  'Maybe. Everybody's got their own style. Even two artists working from the same stencil're going to be different. It's how you learned to ink, the machine you use, the needles you hack together. A thousand things. Anyway, I can't guarantee it but I've worked with artists from all over the country, been to conventions in almost every state. I might be able to help you out.'

  'Okay, here.'

  Sellitto dug into his briefcase and extracted the photo Mel Cooper had printed out.

  Gordon bent low and, frowning, studied the picture carefully. 'The guy drew this knows what he's doing - definitely a pro. But I don't get the inflammation. There's no ink. The skin's all swollen and rough. Real badly infected. And there's no color. Did he use invisible ink?'

  Sellitto thought Gordon was joking and said so. Gordon explained that some people didn't want to make a commitment, so they were inked with special solutions that appeared invisible but showed up under blacklight.

  'The pussy-ball crowd.'

  'You got it, dude.' A fist poked in Sellitto's direction. The detective declined to bump. Then the artist frowned. 'I got a feeling something else is going on, right?'

  Sellitto nodded. They'd kept the poison out of the press; this was the sort of MO that might lead to copycatting. And if there were informants, or the perp himself decided to ring up City Hall and gloat, they'd need to know that the caller had access to the actual details of the killing.

  Besides, as a general rule, Sellitto preferred to explain as little as possible when canvassing for witnesses or asking advice. In this case, though, he had no option. He needed Gordon's help. And Sellitto decided he kind of liked the guy.

  Dude ...

  'The suspect we're looking for, he used poison instead of ink.'