The Skin Collector

by Jeffery Deaver

  'Why bother?' he asked.

  'Cross our t's and--'

  'No cliches, please, Sachs.'

  '--dot our j's.'

  Sellitto took sides. 'What can it hurt, Linc?'

  'It'll take time away from doing something valuable - analyzing the evidence. It'll be distracting. That's what will hurt, Lon.'

  'You analyze away,' Sellitto shot back. 'Amelia and I'll give Terry a call. You don't even have to listen. Look, our unsub went to a lot of trouble to get his hands on a book that's about the Bone Collector. I want to know why.'

  'All right,' Rhyme said, surrendering.

  Sellitto placed a call and when Dobyns answered, the detective hit a button on his mobile.

  'You're on speaker, Terry. 'S Lon Sellitto. I'm here with Lincoln and a couple of others. We've got a case we'd like to ask you about.'

  'Been awhile,' the doctor said in his smooth baritone. 'How are you doing, Lon?'

  'Okay, okay.'

  'And Lincoln?'

  'Fine,' Rhyme muttered and began looking over the evidence chart once more. Inwood marble. Being blown up. That, he was far more interested in than spongy psychological guesswork.

  Alchemy ...

  'It's Amelia too,' she said. 'And Ron Pulaski and Mel Cooper.'

  'I'm deducing this's about the tattoo case. I saw it on the wire.'

  Though the press hadn't been informed about the nuances of the Unsub 11-5 case, all law enforcement agencies in the area had been contacted, with a request for matching MOs (none had answered in the affirmative).

  'That's right. There's a development and we'd like your thoughts.'

  'I'm all ears.'

  Rhyme had to admit that he found the man's intonation calming. He could picture the sinewy, gray-haired doctor, whose smile was as easy as his voice. When he was listening to you, he truly listened. You were the center of the universe.

  Sachs explained about the perp's theft of the chapter about the Bone Collector - and the fact that he'd been carrying it around with him during the crime. She added too that there was no direct connection with the Bone Collector case but that he'd probably gone to some trouble to obtain a copy of the book.

  Lon Sellitto added, 'And he left a message.' He explained about the tattooed phrase 'the second' in Old English type.

  The doctor was silent for a moment. Then: 'Well, the first thing that I thought of, which you obviously have too, is that he's a serial doer. A partial message means there're more to come. And then his interest in the Bone Collector, who was a serial kidnapper.'

  'We assume he's going to keep hunting,' Sellitto said.

  'Do you have any leads at all?'

  Sachs said, 'Description - white male, slim. Some details on the poisons he used and one that he probably intends to.'

  'And the victim's white female?'

  'Yes.'

  'Fits the serial killer model.' Most such killers hunted in the same racial pool as their own.

  Sachs continued, 'He subdued her with propofol. So maybe he's got a medical background.'

  'Like the Bone Collector,' Dobyns said.

  'Right,' Rhyme said, eyes shifting from the evidence to the speaker phone. 'I hadn't thought about that.' His attention to the psychiatrist now edged over the 50 percent mark.

  'Sexual component?'

  'No,' Sellitto said.

  Sachs added, 'It took her some time to die. Presumably he was there, watching. And possibly enjoying it.'

  'Sadistic,' Ron Pulaski said.

  'Who's that?' Dobyns asked.

  'It's Ron Pulaski, Patrol. I work with Lincoln and Amelia.'

  'Hello, Officer. Well, no, actually I don't see sadism. That occurs only in a sexual context. If he enjoys inflicting pain for its own sake his condition would probably be diagnosed as anti-social personality disorder.'

  'Yessir.' Pulaski was blushing, not from the correction but, it seemed, because of Rhyme's glare at the interruption.

  Dobyns said, 'Off the top of my head, he's an organized offender and he'll be planning out the attacks carefully. I'd also say there're two possible reasons for your unsub's interest in the Bone Collector and in you, Lincoln. Amelia too, don't forget. One, he might have been affected by the Bone Collector's crimes a decade ago. Emotionally moved by them, I mean.'

  'Even if he had no direct connection?' Rhyme asked, forgetting he was trying to ignore the doctor's input.

  'Yes. You don't know his age exactly but it's possible he was in early adolescence then - just the time when a news story about a serial doer might've spoken to him. As for that message? Well, the Bone Collector was, if I remember, all about revenge.'

  'That's right.'

  Sellitto asked, 'What kind of revenge would our unsub be after, Doc? Family members who'd died? Some other personal loss?'

  'Really, it could be anything. Maybe he suffered a loss, a tragedy that he blames someone for - or some thing, a company, organization, institution. The loss might've happened when the Bone Collector story hit the press and he embraced the idea of getting retribution the same way the Bone Collector did. He's been carrying that thought around with him. That's one explanation for why this murder echoes the attacks from a decade ago - some of those crimes were underground too, weren't they?'

  'That's right,' Rhyme confirmed.

  'And your unsub has a morbid interest in the morphology of the human body. Skin, in his case.'

  Sachs added, 'Yes, I found evidence that he touched the victim in a number of places - not sexually. There was no reason related to the tattooing for that that I could see. It gave him some satisfaction, I was thinking. My impression.'

  The doctor continued, 'So, the first reason he might be interested in the Bone Collector: a psychological bonding with him.' He chuckled. 'An insight that, I suspect, is rather low in your estimation, Lincoln.' He knew of Rhyme's distrust of what the criminalist called 'woo-woo' policing. 'But that might hint he too is out for revenge,' Dobyns added.

  Rhyme said, 'Noted, Doctor. We'll put it on our evidence chart.'

  'I think you'll be more interested in the second reason he was interested in the chapter of this book. Whatever his motive - revenge or joy killing or distracting you so he could rob the Federal Reserve - he knows you'll be after him and he'll want to learn as much as he can about you, your tactics, how you think. How specifically you tracked down a serial criminal. So he doesn't make the same mistakes. He wants to know where your weaknesses are. You and Amelia.'

  This made more sense to Rhyme. He nodded at Sachs, who told the doctor, 'The book is practically a how-to guide on using forensics to stop a serial criminal. And it's clear from running the scenes that he's been paying attention to scrubbing the evidence.'

  Pulaski asked, 'Doctor, any idea why this victim? There was no, you know, prior contact between them that we could find.' He gave a brief bio of Chloe Moore.

  Sachs said, 'Seems to be random.'

  'With the Bone Collector, remember, his true victims were somebody else: the city of New York, the police, you, Lincoln. I'd guess that the choice of victim by your unsub is mostly accessibility and convenience - to have a place and the time to do the tattoo undisturbed ... Then I think there's the fear factor.'

  'What'sat?' Sellitto asked.

  'He's got another agenda beyond murdering individuals - clearly it's not to rob them, it's not sexual. It may serve his purposes to put the whole city on edge. Everybody in New York's going to be thinking twice about heading into basements and garages and laundry rooms and using back doors to their offices and apartments. Now, a few other points. First, if he's truly been influenced by the Bone Collector, then he may think about targeting you personally, Lincoln. And Amelia. In fact, you all might be in danger. Second, he's clearly an organized offender, as I said. And that means he's been checking out his victims, or at least the kill sites, ahead of time.'

  Rhyme said, 'We're going on that assumption.'

  'Good. And finally - if he were really a copycat he would have
concentrated on the victim's bones. But he's obsessed with skin. It's central to his goal. He could just as easily be injecting them with poison or making them drink it. Or for that matter stabbing people or shooting them. But he's not. He's obviously a professional artist - so every time he puts one of his designs on a body, he claims somebody else's skin as his own.'

  'A skin collector,' Pulaski said.

  'Exactly. If you can find out why he's so fascinated with skin, that's key to understanding the case.' Rhyme heard another voice, indistinct, from the doctor's office. 'Ah, you'll have to excuse me now. I'm afraid I have a session to get to.'

  'Thanks, Doctor,' Sachs said.

  After he disconnected, Rhyme told Pulaski to put Dobyns's observations up on the chart.

  Quasi-babble ... but, Rhyme reluctantly admitted, it might be helpful.

  He said, 'We should talk to Pam. See if anybody's contacted her about the Bone Collector.'

  Sachs nodded. 'Not a bad idea.'

  Pam was now out of the foster system and living on her own in Brooklyn, not far from where Sachs kept her apartment. It seemed unlikely that the unsub would even know about her. Because Pam was a child at the time of the Bone Collector kidnapping, her name had never come up in the press. And Serial Cities hadn't mentioned her either.

  Sachs gave the young woman a call and left a message asking her to come over to Rhyme's. There was something she wanted to discuss.

  'Pulaski. Get back to marble detail. I want to find where that stone dust came from.'

  The doorbell buzzed. And Thom disappeared to answer it.

  He returned to the parlor a moment later beside a sinewy man in his thirties, with a weathered, creased face and long blond ponytail. He also had the most extravagant beard Rhyme had ever seen. He was amused at the difference between the two standing before him. Thom was in dark dress slacks, a pastel-yellow shirt and a rust-colored tie. The visitor wore a spotless tuxedo jacket, way too thin for the raging weather, ironed black jeans and a black long-sleeve pullover emblazoned with a red spider. His brown boots were polished like a mahogany table. The only attribute this man and the aide shared was a slender build, though Thom was a half foot taller.

  'You must be TT Gordon,' Rhyme said.

  'Yeah. And, hey, you're the dude in the wheelchair.'

  CHAPTER 14

  Rhyme took in the bizarre beard, the steel rods in the ears and eyebrows.

  Parts of tats were visible on the backs of Gordon's hands; the rest of the inking vanished under his pullover. Rhyme believed he could make out POW! on the right wrist.

  He drew no conclusions about the man's appearance. He'd long ago given up on the spurious practice of equating the essence of a person with his or her physical incarnation. His own condition was the prototype for this way of thinking.

  His main reaction was: How badly had the piercings hurt? This was something Rhyme could relate to; his ears and brows were places in which he could feel pain. And the other thought: If TT Gordon ever got busted he'd be picked out of a lineup in an instant.

  A nod to Sellitto, who reciprocated.

  'Hey. The wheelchair thing I said? It wasn't as stupid as it sounded,' Gordon said, smiling and looking at everyone in the room. His eyes returned to Rhyme's. 'Obviously you're in a wheelchair. I meant, hey, you're the famous dude in the wheelchair. I didn't make the connection before. When he' - a nod at Sellitto - 'came to my shop, he said "consultant". You're in the papers. I've seen you on TV. Why don't you do that Nancy Grace show? That'd be very cool. Do you watch it?'

  This was just natural rambling, Rhyme deduced, not awkward, I-don't-want-to-be-with-a-gimp rambling. The disability seemed to Gordon merely another aspect of Rhyme, like his dark hair and fleshy nose and intense eyes and trim fingernails.

  An identifying marker, not a political one.

  Gordon greeted the others, Sachs, Cooper and Pulaski. Then he gazed around the room, whose decor Rhyme had once described as Hewlett-Packard Victorian. 'Hm. Well. Cool.'

  Sachs said, 'We appreciate your coming here to help us.'

  'Like, no problem. I want this guy taken down. This dude, what he's doing? It's bad for everybody who mods for a living.'

  'What does that mean? "Mods"?' Sachs asked.

  'Modifying bodies, you know. Inking people, piercing, cutting.' He tapped his ear bars. 'Everything. "Modding" covers the gamut.' He frowned. 'Whatever a gamut is. I don't really know.'

  Rhyme said, 'Lon says you're pretty well connected in the tattoo community here and that you don't have any specific idea who it might be.'

  Gordon confirmed this.

  Sellitto added that Gordon had looked over a picture of the victim's tattoo but wanted a better image; the printout hadn't been that clear.

  Cooper said, 'I'll call up the raw .nef files and save them as enhanced .tiffs.'

  Rhyme had no clue what he was talking about. In the days when he worked crime scenes himself he used actual thirty-five-millimeter film that had to be developed in chemicals and printed in a darkroom. Back then you made every frame count. Now? You shot the hell out of a crime scene and culled.

  Cooper said, 'I'll send them to the Nvidia computer - the big screen there.'

  'Whatever, dude. As long as it's clear.'

  Pulaski asked, 'You seen The Big Lebowski?'

  'Oh, man.' Gordon grinned and punched a fist Pulaski's way. The rookie reciprocated.

  Rhyme wondered: Maybe Tarantino.

  The pictures appeared on the largest monitor in the room. They were extremely high-definition images of the tattoo on Chloe Moore's abdomen. TT Gordon gave one blink of shock at the worried skin, the welts, the discoloration. 'Worse than I thought, the poisoning and everything. Like he created his own hot zone.'

  'What's that?'

  Gordon explained that tattoo parlors were divided into zones, hot and cold. The cold zone was where there was no risk of contamination by one customer's blood getting into another's. No unsterilized needles or machine parts or chairs, for instance. Hot, obviously, was the opposite, where the tattoo machine and needles were tainted by customers' blood and body fluids. 'We do everything we can to keep the two separate. But here, this dude did the opposite - intentionally infected, well, poisoned her. Man. Fucked up.'

  But then the artist settled into an analytic mode that Rhyme found encouraging. Gordon eyed a computer. 'Can I?'

  'Sure,' Cooper said.

  The artist hit keys and scrolled through the images, enlarging some.

  Rhyme asked, 'TT, are the words "the second" significant in any way in the tattoo world?'

  'No. Has no meaning that I know about and I've been inking for nearly twenty years. Guess it's something significant to the dude who killed her. Or maybe the victim.'

  'Probably the perp,' Amelia Sachs explained to Gordon. 'There's no evidence that he knew Chloe before he killed her.'

  'Oh. She was Chloe.' Gordon said this softly. He touched his beard. Then scrolled once more. 'Well, it's weird for a client to make up a phrase or a passage for a modding. Sometimes I'll ink a poem they've written. I'll tell you, mostly they suck, big time. Usually, though, if somebody wants text, it's a passage from something like their favorite book. The Bible. Or a famous quote. Or a saying, you know. "Live Free or Die." "Born to Ride." Things like that.' Then he frowned. 'Hm. Okay.'

  'What?'

  'Could be a splitter.'

  'And that is?' Rhyme asked.

  'Some clients split their mods. They get half a word on one arm, the other half on another. Sometimes they'll get part of the tat inked on their body, and their girlfriend or boyfriend get the other part on theirs.'

  'Why?' Pulaski asked.

  'Why?' Gordon seemed perplexed by the question. 'Tats connect people. That's one of the whole points of getting inked. Even if you've got unique works, you're still part of the ink world. You got something in common, you know. That connects you, see, dude?'

  Sachs said, 'You seem to've done some thinking about all this.'


  Gordon laughed. 'Oh, I could be a shrink, I tell you.'

  'Freud,' Sellitto said.

  'Dude,' Gordon responded with a grin. That fist again. Sellitto didn't take the offer.

  Sachs asked, 'And can you tell us anything concrete about him?'

  Sellitto added, 'We're not going to quote you. Or get you on the witness stand. We just want to know who this guy is. Get into his head.'

  Gordon was looking at the equipment, hesitating.

  'Well, okay. First, he's a natural, a total talent as an artist, not just a technician. A lot of inkers are paint-by-numbers guys. They slap on a stencil somebody else did and fill it in. But' - a nod at the picture - 'there's no evidence of a stencil there. He used a bloodline.'

  'Which is what?' Rhyme asked.

  'If they're not using a stencil, most artists draw an outline of the work on the skin first. Some draw freehand with a pen - water-soluble ink. But there's no sign of that here. Your guy didn't do that. He just turned on his tattoo machine and used a lining needle for the outline, so instead of ink you have a line of blood that's the outer perimeter of your design. So, bloodline. Only the best tat artists do that.'

  Pulaski asked, 'A pro then?'

  'Oh, yeah, dude'd have to be a pro. Like I told him.' A nod at Sellitto. 'Or was at some point. That level of skill? He could open his own shop in a blind second. And probably he's a real artist too - I mean like with paint and pen and ink and everything. And I don't think he's from here. For one thing, I probably would've heard. Not from the tristate area, either. Doing this in fifteen minutes? Man, that's lightning. His name'd get around. Then, look at the typeface.'

  Rhyme's, and everyone else's, eyes slipped to the screen.

  'It's Old English, or some Gothic variation. You don't see that much now around here. I'd guess he's got rural roots: redneck, shit kicker, biker, meth cooker. On the other hand, maybe born-again, righteous, upstanding. But definitely a country boy.'

  'The typeface tells you that?' Sachs asked.

  'Oh, yeah. Here, if somebody wants words, they'll go for some kind of flowery script or thick sans serif. At least that's current now. Man, for a few years everybody wanted this Elvish crap.'

  'Elvis Presley?' Sellitto asked.