The Skin Collector

by Jeffery Deaver

  CHAPTER 39

  'They're implants.'

  TT Gordon, the tat artist decorated with superheroes and an excessively stylish chin, was back in Rhyme's parlor.

  Standing at the examination table beside Mel Cooper, he peered at what the fireman had collected at the crime scene in the Belvedere Apartments parking garage: loose metal bits in a plastic bag. They weren't hardware, as Sachs had originally thought, but were in the shape of numbers and letters. Grooves had been filed in them and some off-white substance smeared into the notches.

  h 7 1 t

  About an inch high each, they sat on a sterile pad of Teflon.

  'And what are implants?' Rhyme asked, wheeling closer.

  The skinny man rubbed at Batman's face on his lean arm. Rhyme could see a portion of another superhero on the other. Why those particular two comic characters? he wondered.

  But then: Why not?

  'Implants're, they're sort of an extreme form of modding. You cut slits into the skin and feed them in. Eventually the skin shrinks and you can see the shape or the letters raised. You don't find 'em much. But inkings're a dime a dozen nowadays - like I was saying yesterday. Every clerk, public relations assistant and lawyer has a tat now. You need implants and scars to be different. Who knows what it'll be in ten years. Actually, I don't think I want to know.'

  Sachs asked, 'Does it tell us anything about the unsub?'

  'Confirms what I was saying before. They're rare here. I don't know any artists who do them in the area. It's technically, you know, a surgical procedure and you need good training. You see them mostly in the Midwest and Appalachia, West Virginia, mountains of North Carolina. People who want to lead a more alternative life. I mean, more alternative than I,' said TT Gordon, the grammarian tattoo artist.

  'You'd think implants were a macho thing but, fact is, women go for them more. They're pretty dangerous. They're made out of materials where there's not much chance of rejection but there's the infection issue. And, worse, they'll migrate. And then you're in trouble.'

  'And,' Mel Cooper said, regarding a computer, attached to the gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer, 'you're also in trouble if the implants happen to contain extremely concentrated doses of nicotine. Which these do.'

  'Nicotine,' Rhyme mused.

  'That's poison?' Ron Pulaski asked.

  'Oh, yes,' Cooper said. 'I worked a case a few years ago. Nicotine used to be applied as an insecticide. You could buy it raw, concentrated. The perp in that case got his hands on some. He wanted to dispatch his mother for the inheritance and, since she smoked, he thought it'd be a good idea to lace her food with it. She was dead in about a half hour. If he'd done small doses instead of a single large one he might've gotten away with it. We found out that it was as if she'd smoked eight hundred cigarettes in an hour and covered her arm with patches.'

  'What's the formula?' Rhyme asked.

  'A parasympathomimetic alkaloid. Comes from the nightshade family of plants.'

  Sachs said, 'The implants don't look that big. How concentrated was the dosage?'

  Regarding the mass spectrum, Cooper said, 'Huge. If he'd implanted these in the dermis, the victim would have been dead within twenty minutes, I'm estimating.'

  'God almighty.' From superhero man.

  'A painful death?' Sachs asked.

  'Would be,' Rhyme said, uninterested in that. He cared more about origins: 'Where would he've gotten the implants?'

  Gordon shrugged. 'I don't know any sources here. Mostly you want them, you go online.'

  'No,' Rhyme countered, 'he'd buy them in a brick-and-mortar store, again. And pay cash.'

  He gazed at the bits of metal again. What they represented, Rhyme reflected, was obvious. A simple rearrangement resulted in yet another number. The ordinal '17th'.

  Sachs had donned a face mask and double gloves. She was examining one metal character. The number 7. 'We've got tool marks. Distinctive filing. That's something.'

  It might be possible to link the poisoned implants to a metal file in the suspect's possession - provided that they found the file, of course; there was no national registry of tool marks, as there was for fingerprints, DNA and rifle slugs.

  'Source of the poison?' Rhyme inquired.

  Sachs went online and reported, 'Well, this's interesting. You know e-cigarettes?'

  'No.'

  'Smokeless cigarettes. They have batteries and a flavor capsule. There's sort of a vapor you inhale. You can buy commercial nicotine, unflavored and in flavors, to add to the capsules. It's in liquid form. They call it "juice".'

  What people do to their bodies, Rhyme reflected. 'How many sources?'

  'Several dozen.' Mel Cooper looked over the computer. 'What's for sale on the market is toxic, yeah, but nothing like this. The unsub either distilled that or made his own.'

  'Okay. What else do we have?'

  Sachs had explained that wading through the ground floor of the parking garage and the tunnel had yielded nothing; the flood had been massive. Still, they had found some evidence on and inside the bag containing the implants.

  The bag was a typical (and untraceable) food storage bag. At the top was a strip of matte-finish plastic so a cook could write down what the bag contained or the date it went into the freezer. Though the water had washed away much of the unsub's writing, faint pink lettering remained. The message was No. 3 - for the third attack, Rhyme assumed.

  'Don't know how helpful that is,' Rhyme grumbled. 'But put it on the board.'

  Cooper ran several other samples. 'Here's a combination of human albumin and sodium chloride - the percentages are consistent with drugs used in plastic surgery procedures.'

  'Ah, that again,' Rhyme said. 'Our perp's got in mind changing appearance. But can't see him going under the knife quite yet. He's too busy. But afterward, that's part of his plan.'

  Lon Sellitto called in. He had remained at the Belvedere to run the canvassing for witnesses. 'Linc, nobody saw anything. You know what's happening, don't you?'

  'Enlighten me.'

  'People know this guy is using the underground to get close to his victims. They're afraid that if they say they saw anything, he'll get them in their bathroom or laundry room or garage.'

  Rhyme couldn't argue with that attitude. What could be more frightening than to think you were alone and safe in the lower levels of your home or office or a public building and learn that you weren't alone at all; you had lethal company. Like a moist, venomous centipede uncurling under the blankets of your bed as you slept.

  Sachs had brought Braden Alexander's clothing too. Cooper went through each item carefully but the water had eradicated all trace - if there'd been any in the first place, which was unlikely, Sachs said, because the contact between the two men had been minimal. The handcuffs revealed no trace and, like the others, were generic.

  Cooper ran other samples of swabs from the implant bag. Most were negative. But finally he had a hit. Reading from the computer screen, he said, 'Hypochlorous acid.'

  Rhyme looked over the mass spectrum. 'Curious. It's pure. Not diluted.'

  'Right.' Cooper reached under the face shield and shoved his glasses higher on his nose. Rhyme wondered, as he often did, why he didn't get frames that fit.

  Hypochlorous acid - a form of chlorine - was added to New York City drinking water, as in most cities, for purification. But because this sample was undiluted, it had not come from the flood that had destroyed the Belvedere parking garage crime scene. This was the form of the chemical in its pure state, before it was added to the water system.

  Rhyme said, musing, 'It's a weak acid. At higher levels, I suppose, it could be deadly, though. Or maybe he just picked it up because he was near one of the boxes that dispense it into the water supply. Sachs, at the first or second scenes, in the tunnels? There were water pipes, right?'

  'Water and, in one, sewage.'

  'Incoming and outgoing,' joked Pulaski. Drawing laughs. From everyone except Rhyme.

  'Any other
pipes - maybe some feeding chlorine into the mains?'

  'I don't remember.'

  'I want to find out. If this chlorine is from tap-water purification it's not helpful. If it's from a poison he's planning to use, then we can start checking sources.' Rhyme called up the pictures from the first two crime scenes. 'Let's get somebody back to the scenes and find out if there's a feeder line for the chemical.'

  Sachs asked, 'Do you want Crime Scene to search?'

  'No, just a uniform'll be fine,' Rhyme said. 'Anybody. But soon. Now.'

  Sachs called Dispatch and had patrol cars sent to each of the two previous crime scenes, with instructions on what to look for.

  Twenty minutes later Sachs's phone rang. She answered, then hit speaker.

  'Okay, Officer, you're on with me and Lincoln Rhyme.'

  'I'm at the Elizabeth Street scene, Detective. The Chloe Moore homicide.'

  'Where are you exactly?' Rhyme asked.

  'In the tunnel, next to the crime scene lamps and battery packs.'

  Rhyme told him, 'I need you to look for any pipes or reservoirs marked "hypochlorous acid", "chlorine" or the letters "Cl". They'd have a hazard diamond on them and probably a skin and eye irritant warning.'

  'Yes, sir. I'll do that.'

  The patrolman kept up a narrative as he walked from the place where the body'd been found, near the claustrophobia tunnel, to the bricked-off wall a hundred yards away.

  Finally: 'Nothing, sir. Only markings are DS and DEP stamped on the pipes.' Department of Sanitation and Department of Environmental Protection, which was the agency overseeing the New York City water supply.

  'And some kind of boxes marked IFON - don't know what that is. But nothing about chemicals.'

  Sachs thanked him and disconnected.

  Soon a member of the other team called in, from underneath the Provence2 crime scene - the slaughterhouse octagon, where Samantha Levine had died.

  This officer reported the same. No DEP systems for introducing hypochlorous acid into the water system.

  After disconnecting, Rhyme said, 'So, it's probably got some connection with the unsub. Let's find out where somebody would buy it, or how it's made. Ron?'

  But a search revealed what Rhyme suspected: There were dozens of chemical supply companies in the tri-state area. And the unsub would have bought a small amount, so he'd use cash. He might even have stolen a can or two. A useless lead.

  Rhyme wheeled forward to the examination table, staring at the implants, his mind considering the implications of the numbers.

  1 7 t h

  'We have "the second", "forty" and "seventeenth". What the hell is he saying?' Rhyme shook his head. 'I still like the idea he's sending us someplace. But where?'

  Sachs said, 'No scalloped border, like the others.'

  But TT Gordon pointed out, 'That was scarification, remember? If he was going to include them he would have used the same scalpel that he used to cut the incisions for the implants. He would've done that later, after he'd placed the implant. From what I heard, sounds like you interrupted him before he could get very far.'

  'Well, he escaped before he got very far,' Sachs muttered.

  Pulaski added, 'No "the" with the seventeenth.'

  'Maybe that's exactly how the quote goes, whatever that quote is.'

  'Implants take time, too,' Gordon noted.

  'Good point. He'd want to move fast.' Rhyme nodded toward the tattoo artist. '"The" might have been too much.'

  Everyone's eyes were on the numbers.

  What the hell was the unsub's message? What could he possibly be wanting to say to us, to the city, to the world?

  If his model was the Bone Collector, as it seemed to be, that message was about revenge most likely. But for what? What did 'the second', 'forty', and now '17th' say about a wrong he wanted vindicated?

  That you could also dub Unsub 11-5 the Skin Collector wasn't enough for Rhyme. There was more to his purpose, he sensed, than being a legacy of a psychotic killer stalking the streets of New York more than a decade ago.

  TT Gordon broke the silence, 'Anything else you need me for?'

  'No,' Rhyme said. 'Thanks for your help. Appreciate it.'

  Drawing a raised eyebrow from Amelia Sachs. Civility was not a Lincoln Rhyme quality. But he found he was enjoying the company of this man with elaborate facial hair and a command of Strunk and White's The Elements of Style.

  Gordon pulled his tuxedo jacket on. Again, Rhyme thought, it seemed too thin for such a slight frame on a foul, gray day like this one. 'Good luck.' He paused in front of Rhyme, looking him over. 'Hey, looks like you're one of us, dude.'

  Rhyme looked up. 'One of who?'

  'You're modded.'

  'How's that?'

  He pointed to Rhyme's arm, where scars were prominent, from the surgery to restore motion to his right arm and hand. 'Looks like Mount Everest, those scars there. Upside down to you.'

  True, curiously, the triangular pattern did look like the famous mountain.

  'You want me to fill it in, just let me know. Or I could do something else. Oh, dude, I know. I could add a bird.' He nodded toward the window. 'One of those hawks or whatever they are. Flying over the mountains.'

  Rhyme laughed. What a crazy thought. Then his eyes strayed to the peregrine falcons. There was something intriguing about the idea.

  'Trauma to the skin is contraindicated for someone in his condition.' Thom was in the doorway, arms crossed.

  Gordon nodded. 'Guess that means no.'

  'No.'

  He looked around the room. 'Well, anybody else?'

  'My mother would kill me,' near-middle-aged Mel Cooper said.

  'My wife,' Pulaski said.

  Amelia Sachs only shook her head.

  Thom said, 'I'll stick with the one I have.'

  'What?' Sachs asked, laughing. But the aide said nothing more.

  'Okay, but you've got my number. Good luck, dudes.'

  Then the man was gone.

  The team was looking at the images of the tattoos once more. Lon Sellitto wasn't picking up so Sachs called Major Cases and had the team at headquarters add '17th' to the list of numbers they were searching for.

  Just after she'd disconnected, her phone hummed again and she answered. Rhyme saw immediately that she stiffened. She asked breathlessly, 'What? You have somebody on the way?'

  She slammed the disconnect button and looked at Rhyme, eyes wide. 'That was a sergeant at the Eight-Four. A neighbor just called in a nine one one, intruder outside Pam's apartment. White male in a stocking cap and short gray coat. Seemed to be wearing a mask. Yellow. Jesus.'

  Sachs flipped open her phone and hit a speed-dial button.

  CHAPTER 40

  Answer!

  Please answer! Sachs gripped her mobile hard and shivered in hopeless rage when Pam's voice mail came on.

  'If you're at home, Pam, get out of your house! Now! Go to the Eighty-Fourth Precinct. Gold Street. I think the perp in our case is at your place.'

  Her eyes met Rhyme's, his face equally troubled, and she jammed her finger onto the redial button.

  Rhyme asked, 'Is she working? Or at school?'

  'I don't know. She works odd hours. And's in school part-time this semester.'

  Ron Pulaski called, 'There should be a unit there in seven, eight minutes.'

  But the question: Is it too late?

  The hollow buzzing of the phone filled the speaker.

  Goddamn it. Voice mail once more.

  No, no ...

  'Sachs--'

  She ignored Rhyme and hit the redial button again. Why the hell hadn't they put protection on Pam full-time? True, their unsub's targets - like the Bone Collector's - were random and the Skin Collector surely didn't even know she existed, they'd assumed. But now, of course, he'd decided to target not only those tracking him down, but their friends and family too. It wouldn't be impossible to discover Pam's relationship to Rhyme and Sachs. Why hadn't--

  Click. 'Amelia,' Pam
said, breathless. 'I got your message. But I'm not home. I'm at work.'

  Sachs lowered her head. Thank you, thank you ...

  'But Seth's there! He's there now. He's waiting for me. We're going out later. Amelia, what ... what should we do?'

  Sachs got his mobile and spun to Pulaski. 'Call Seth!' She shouted the number across the room. The young officer dialed fast.

  'The doors are locked, Pam?'

  'Yes, but ... Oh, Amelia. Are police there?'

  'They're on their way. Stay where you are. And--'

  'Stay where I am? I'm going home. I'm going there now.'

  'No. Don't do that.'

  Pam's voice was ragged, accusatory. 'Why's he doing this? Why is he at my apartment?'

  'Stay where--'

  The girl hung up.

  'It's ringing.' Pulaski's expression changed instantly.

  'Speaker,' Rhyme snapped.

  The young officer hit the button. Seth's voice came from the line. 'Hello?'

  'Seth, it's Lincoln Rhyme.'

  'Hey, how--'

  'Listen to me carefully. Get out. Somebody's breaking into the apartment. Get out now!'

  'Here? What do you mean? Is Pam all right?'

  'She's okay. Police are coming but you have to get out. Drop whatever you're doing and leave. Go out the front door and get to the Eighty-Fourth Precinct. It's on Gold Street. Or at least some populated place. Call Amelia or me as soon as--'

  Seth's next words were muted, as if he was turning and the phone was no longer next to his mouth. 'Hey!'

  A sound like breaking glass could be heard and another voice, a man's: 'You. Put the phone down.'

  'The hell're you--'

  Then several thuds. Seth screamed.

  And the line went dead.

  CHAPTER 41

  The squad cars beat Amelia Sachs to Pam's apartment.

  But not by much.

  Sachs had kept the gears low in her Torino, the RPMs high, and her foot largely off the brake as she sped to Brooklyn Heights. Sidney Place, a narrow street ending at State, runs north, one way, but that didn't stop Sachs from pounding the Ford the opposite way, sending several oncoming cars up on the sidewalk, squeezing for protection between the many trees here. One rattled elderly driver scraped a fender on the stairs of St Charles Borromeo church, tall and red as a fire truck.

  Sachs's fierce eyes, more than the blue dashboard flasher, cleared the way with little resistance.

  Pam's apartment building was shabbier than most here, a three-story walk-up, one of the few gray buildings in a neighborhood of crimson stone. Sachs aimed for the semicircle of police vehicles and an ambulance. She laid on the horn - no siren in the Torino - and parted the craning-neck crowd then gave up and parked. She sprinted to the door, noting that the ambulance door was open but there were no EMS techs nearby. Bad sign. Were they working away desperately on Seth?