The Skin Collector

by Jeffery Deaver

  'He only needs one,' Rhyme pointed out.

  Sellitto'd called ESU to have a team sent there.

  The second Belvedere was an old movie theater on the Upper West Side, the sort of grande dame you used to see on Broadway, the ornate venues where Clark Gable or Marilyn Monroe would open films. It was closed at this hour and, according to one of Rhyme's underground diagrams, had a number of basements, just the place for Unsub 11-5 to take his victims. Another ESU team was sent there.

  The final possibility was an apartment building on Midtown's East Side named the Belvedere. A grimy old structure, like the gothic Dakota. It featured both a large basement and an underground parking garage. The detective arranged for a third team to speed there.

  Sachs had said, 'Smells like that's the one. I'll go too.'

  Rhyme had noted her eyes, that huntress look, the undeterred focus. Which he found so appealing, and so unnerving, at the same time. Sachs was one of the best crime scene cops Rhyme had ever known. But she was never more alive than when leading a dynamic entry in a tactical scenario.

  She'd sprinted out the door, pulling her jacket on as she went. Sellitto had followed shortly after.

  Now Rhyme got a message from Sellitto, also mobile, reporting that a tac team had hit the Belvedere warehouse in Chelsea and found nothing. ESU commander Bo Haumann had left a small surveillance team and divided up the others; one group was heading to the Belvedere Apartments and one to the theater, which was massive; the search would take some time.

  Just after he disconnected, his phone line rang again. 'Rhyme?' Sachs's voice came through the speakers.

  'Just heard from Lon,' he told her. He explained that the warehouse was a bust. 'But that means you're getting some reinforcements. An ESU team's headed to the apartment building where you are.'

  'Not are, Rhyme,' she muttered. 'Will be. Traffic's lousy. And nobody knows how to drive in this weather. I'm on the sidewalk. Hold on.' Rhyme heard a crash as presumably her Torino reseated itself on New York City asphalt. He wondered about debilitating damage to the drive train or the axles. 'At this rate, ten minutes. And it's just 'cross town. Jesus.'

  Rhyme noted another incoming call on his phone.

  'I'll call you back, Sachs. ESU's on the other line.'

  'Lincoln, you there?' It was Haumann.

  'Yes, Bo. What's the status?'

  'Tac Team Two's almost to the Belvedere Apartments. We'll hit the basement in the building and the garage too. Any more evidence that he's armed?' Haumann would be remembering the earlier incident, at the hospital in Marble Hill, where Unsub 11-5 had threatened to shoot Harriet Stanton and Sachs.

  'Nothing further. But assume he is.'

  'I'll pass it along.' A pause as Haumann spoke to someone else in his car or ESU van. Rhyme couldn't hear the exchange. 'Okay, we're rolling up silent.'

  'I'll tell Amelia you're there. She'll want to be included in any tactical op. I wouldn't take any chances. You can't wait. Go in, dynamic, ASAP.'

  'Sure, Lincoln, we'll do it.'

  Rhyme said, 'Tell your folks to look out for traps. That's his new game. Gloves and respirators.'

  'Roger that. Hold on ... Okay, Lincoln?'

  'I'm here.'

  'We've got a chopper in place. You want to log in and watch?'

  'Sure.'

  The ESU commander gave him the code and a moment later Rhyme, Pulaski and Cooper were staring at the screen. It was a high-def image of two boxy ESU tactical trucks, designation numbers clearly visible on their roofs. Rhyme could see two dozen troops deploy through the front door of the apartment building and down the exit ramp of the garage. The parking attendant was being led away to safety by one of the officers.

  The audio was up too. Rhyme could hear the ESU troops as they made their way through the facilities. '... Southwest corridor, level one, clear ... Access door here ... no, it's sealed ...'

  Haumann disconnected and Rhyme called Sachs back. Told her about the conversation.

  She sighed. 'I'm ETA five minutes.' He could hear the disappointment about missing the entry.

  Rhyme's attention swiveled to the radio feed from the tactical operation.

  'Tac Two A is going in, heading down the stairs to the lower level. Two B is heading down the garage ramp. Hold on ... So far, no resistance, no innocents. We're green. K.'

  'Rhyme, I'm almost there. I--'

  But he missed what she said next. An officer's voice blared out of the radio. 'Tac Two B ... we have a situation. Lower level, parking garage ... Jesus ... Call it in, call it in! ... Fire department ... Move, move, move! We need fire now! K.'

  Fire? Rhyme wondered.

  Another officer echoed his question. 'What's burning? I don't see anything burning. K?'

  'Tac Two B. Negative on fire. The perp opened a standpipe to cover his getaway. We've got a flood. We can't get through. Already six inches of water. And it's rising. Need a fireman with a wrench to close the fucker. K.'

  Rhyme heard a chuckle from the ether - apparently relief that they had to contend only with water, not an arson blaze.

  He, however, was not amused. He knew exactly what their nimble unsub had done: unleashed the flood not only to slow down his pursuers, but to destroy whatever evidence he'd left behind.

  CHAPTER 37

  Running now, sprinting.

  Billy Haven was underground, in the old train tunnel once more, heading back past the spot where Bear-man Nathan had come close to performing his straight-razor modification.

  His backpack light as a leaf on his shoulder - that's what adrenaline does - he sprinted fast. The latex mask was off but not the gloves or coveralls. He carried his shoes. He was in his stocking feet. There wasn't, he'd learned in his research, any database for cloth footwear that might allow them to trace him. The booties were too slippery for sprinting.

  Move, move, move ...

  The warning that had precipitated his rapid escape from the Belvedere parking garage had not been the squeal of brakes from the Emergency Service trucks or the quiet footfalls of the cops. He'd known a few moments before that that he was in danger. The police dispatcher had reported the address and mentioned the name Belvedere, as Billy had heard through the earbud, connected to his police scanner.

  He'd then taken some measures to make sure the location - and the victim - would be useless to the police.

  Thou shalt cleanse the crime scene of all that can incriminate.

  Then he was back through the utility access port in the Belvedere parking garage's wall.

  And underground once more.

  Finally it was safe, Billy figured, to get to the surface. Chest aching, coughing shallowly, he climbed through another access door into the basement of a Midtown office building. It was one of those scuffed limestone functionaries of architecture, three-quarters of a century old, possibly more. Ten, twelve stories high, with dimly lit, jerky elevators that prompted you to bless yourself before you stepped inside.

  Billy, though, took the stairs from the basement and, after checking, eased into the first-floor hallway, the professional home of ambulance chasers, accountants and some import-export operations whose names in English appeared under Cyrillic letters or Asian pictograms. He stripped off the coveralls, stuffed them into a trash bin and pulled on a different stocking cap, beige for a change. Shoes back on.

  At the greasy glass door leading onto the street Billy paused and looked for police. None. This made sense; he was far enough away from the site of the attack at the Belvedere. The officers would have their hands full for some time there. It amused him to think of what was going on in the garage.

  Stepping out onto the street he moved quickly east.

  How had the great anticipator anticipated this? Yes, he'd been to the Belvedere several times to scope out the place. Maybe he'd picked up some trace there that had been discovered. That seemed unlikely but, with Rhyme, anything was possible.

  Walking through the sleet, he kept his head down and thought back to any mista
kes he might've made. Then: Yes, yes ... he remembered. A week or so ago he'd called directory assistance to get the number for the Belvedere to check on the hours of the parking garage. He'd been in the tattoo supply store, buying extra needles for the American Eagle machine. That's how they'd found him.

  This raised a question: The only reason the owner would have mentioned the Belvedere was because the police wanted to know who'd bought an American Eagle or needles for it. But how had they learned that this was his murder weapon?

  He'd have to do some more thinking about that.

  A subway station loomed and he descended the slushy stairs then caught a train south. In twenty minutes Billy was back at his workshop, in the shower, letting the hot water blast his skin as he scrubbed and scrubbed.

  Then toweling off, dressing again.

  He clicked on the radio. A short time later the news reported another attack by the 'Underground Man', which had struck him as a rather pathetic nickname. Couldn't they come up with anything better?

  Still no mention of Amelia Sachs or anybody else falling victim to a strychnine attack. Which meant that by either diligence or luck the crime scene people had missed getting stuck by the needle in Samantha's purse.

  Billy had known all along the Modification would be like a battle, with wins and losses on both sides. He'd succeeded with two victims. The police had had some victories too. This was to be expected - in fact, it had been anticipated. Now, he reflected, he had to be a bit more serious about protecting himself.

  An idea occurred to him.

  Surprisingly simple, surprisingly good.

  The applicable Commandment for this situation would be: Know thine enemy. But know the friends and family of thine enemy too.

  CHAPTER 38

  'Hell, Amelia, how bad is it?' Sellitto asked.

  He and Sachs were standing in parallel positions - hands on hips - looking down into the dusky parking garage beneath the Belvedere Apartments.

  'Bad,' she muttered. She looked over the city schematic of this scene. She ran her finger over the parking area and the abandoned New York Central train tunnel. 'Ruined. Gone. All of the evidence.'

  Sellitto stamped his feet, presumably to warm them against the stabbing chill of the icy muck they stood in. Sachs had stamped too; it didn't work. Just made her toes sting more.

  She noted Bo Haumann nearby, on his mobile. The ESU commander disconnected and strode over to them. Nodded.

  Sellitto asked, 'Anything?'

  The wiry, compact man, wearing a turtleneck under his shirt, strode forward. He rubbed a hand over his gray crew-cut hair. His eyebrows were frosty but he seemed completely unfazed by the cold. 'He's gone. Rabbited. Got a team into the tunnel from a manhole up the street. But even that's useless. All they could say is "No trace of him."'

  Sachs gave a grim laugh. 'No trace. In both senses of the word.'

  Rhyme's concern had proved warranted. By opening the fire department standpipe, Unsub 11-5 had managed to obliterate the crime scene with calculated efficiency. The perp had then slipped out through the doorway by which he'd gained access to the parking garage, leaving it open. Within minutes, the geyser of water had flooded the ground floor of the garage and cascaded through the door into the tunnel below - which was to have been the killing zone.

  When it comes to crime scene contaminants, water can be worse than fire. Much trace can survive flames and, while walls may collapse, the position of objects and architectural elements and even human bodies at the scene remains largely unchanged. A flood, though, is like a big mixing bowl, not only diluting and destroying and blending, but also moving items far from their original positions.

  Water is, Rhyme had frequently pointed out, the universal solvent.

  Emergency Service officers had cleared the scene and gotten the victim to the street level. He was doped up but conscious and his only injuries appeared to be bruises from where the water had slammed him into a wall. The unsub hadn't had time to start on the mod. The vic was bordering on hypothermia but the medical technicians got him out of his drenched clothing and into thermal blankets.

  After extracting him, and clearing the scene, the police retreated while two firemen in full biohazard outfits waded through the torrent to shut the flow off. They took water samples too. Rhyme had been concerned that the unsub might have spilled into the water some toxin that, even if diluted, could injure or kill.

  An ESU officer came up to them. 'Detectives. Captain.'

  'Go ahead,' Haumann said.

  'It's draining and the fire department's hooked up a pumper. But it's still a flood. Oh, and they've done a preliminary test of the water and there's no biohazard or chemicals, nothing significant, at any rate. So they're pumping to the sewer drains. Should be pretty clear in about an hour.'

  The officer said to Sachs, 'They said they found something you'll want to see, Detective. One of the firemen's bringing it out now.'

  'What?' she asked.

  'Just a plastic bag. All I know.'

  She nodded, not holding out much hope it had anything to do with the case. It might hold a banana peel, a joint, coins for parking meters.

  Though there was always the chance it was the perp's wallet or Social Security card.

  Nothing more to do here. Sachs and Sellitto walked to the ambulance. They stepped inside, through the back, closed the door. Braden Alexander was sitting in a blue robe, shivering. The ambulance was heated but the man had just gone for a serious dunking in near-freezing water.

  'How're you doing?' Sellitto asked.

  His jaw trembling. 'Cold, hazy from whatever the son of a bitch gave me. They said it's propofol.' He stuttered as he spoke. His words were slurred too. 'And seeing him, what he was wearing, it freaked me out.'

  'Could you describe him?'

  'Not real well. He was about six feet, pretty good shape. White. But he wore this yellow latex mask. Jesus. I freaked. I mean, I totally freaked. I said that, didn't I? Eyeholes and nose and mouth. That was it.'

  Sellitto showed him the Identi-Kit image.

  'Could be. Probably. But the mask, you know.'

  'Sure. Clothes?'

  'When he came at me in the garage, he was in coveralls, I think. I was freaked.' More shivering. 'But I'd seen him earlier and he was wearing something else. If it was him. He went into that building there.'

  Ah, maybe they had an intact crime scene after all. Sachs sent a CS officer to take a look, with an Emergency Service backup.

  'Did he say anything?' Sellitto asked.

  'No. Just jabbed me with a needle. Then I started to pass out. But I saw him ...' His voice faded. 'I saw him get a scalpel out of his backpack.'

  'A scalpel, not just a knife?'

  'Definitely a scalpel. And he looked like he knew what to do with it. Oh, and he was touching my skin. On my stomach. Touching and pinching it. Jesus. What was that all about?'

  'He's done that before,' Sachs said. 'We don't know exactly why.'

  'Oh, but I remember that as he reached down, his sleeve went up, you know. And I saw he had this tattoo. It was weird. A centipede, I'm pretty sure. Yeah. But, you know, with a face.'

  'What color was it?' Sellitto asked.

  'Red. Now, next I know I came to and was choking and the cops, the police were dragging me out of the water. I was so cold, cold. Man. It was like I was spinning around in the ocean. Is this the guy who's been killing those people in town?'

  Sometimes you withheld, sometimes you told.

  'It's likely.'

  'Why me?'

  'We aren't sure what his motive is. Do you have any enemies, anybody who might want to do this?' Sachs and Rhyme had not completely dismissed the theory that the unsub was using the apparent serial killings to cover up the murder of a specific victim, lost in the general carnage of Unsub 11-5.

  But Alexander said, 'I do computer security work and I was thinking I jammed the wrong hacker, and he wanted to nail me. I thought the guy who went into the building, the one maybe fo
llowing me, might've been a strong-arm, whatever you'd call it. But I don't know of anybody specific.'

  'That's probably unlikely,' Sellitto said. 'We think the people he's picking are random.'

  Happenstance victims ...

  They took Alexander's contact information.

  Sachs donned gloves and collected the cuffs, which had been removed by a responding, put them into a collection bag and filled out the chain-of-custody card. She made a note to get the fingerprints of the medic who'd removed the cuffs. But she had no doubt that their diligent unsub wasn't going to get careless now.

  They stepped out of the ambulance and were blasted by the chill wind.

  A crime scene officer approached, the one she'd sent to check on the building nearby - where Alexander had said he'd seen a man following him. The CS cop, a sinewy young man in round glasses, said, 'Nobody in the building. And we went through the basement real careful. No exit from down there, no way to get to the parking garage.'

  'Okay, thanks.'

  Two firemen approached, their gear dripping. One held a small plastic bag by the corner. Ah, the maybe evidence. She wasn't concerned about contamination; the fireman wore neoprene biohazard gloves.

  He greeted them. 'Heard you were the crime scene officer in charge.'

  'Right.' Sachs nodded. 'How is it down there?'

  'Mess. It's still under eight inches of water. And covers the whole ground floor. Then the tunnel underneath the lower level? That's a lake too.'

  'What'd you find?' Nodding at the bag.

  'Was against the wall near where the victim was. Might be from your boy, might not. There was nothing else, though.'

  Banana peel, pot, coins ...

  She took the bag in her gloved hand. Inside were small metal fixtures, about an inch high, in various shapes. Hardware of some kind, Sachs guessed. She showed the bag to Sellitto, who shrugged. She slipped this into an evidence bag and took the fireman's name and badge number for the chain-of-custody card. Wrote the details down and had him sign. She did the same.

  'I want to go down there,' Sachs said to one of the firemen. 'Borrow some boots?'

  'Sure. We'll suit you up.'

  Another fireman came by with a cardboard tray, passing around coffee. Sellitto took one but Sachs declined. She had no taste for anything at the moment except finding a lead, any lead, to Unsub 11-5.