The Coffin Dancer

by Jeffery Deaver

  "Put it through AFIS. Authorize a priority search. All states."

  "Oooo," Cooper said. "That'll cost my annual salary."

  He scanned the print into the computer.

  "It could take a half hour," said Cooper, more realistic than pessimistic.

  But it didn't take that long at all. Five minutes later--long enough only for Rhyme to speculate whom he could con into pouring him a drink, Sachs or Cooper--the screen fluttered and a new image came up.

  Your request has found . . . 1 match. 14 points of comparison. Statistical probability of identity: 97%.

  "Oh, my God," Sachs muttered. "We've got him."

  "Who is he, Mel?" Rhyme asked, softly, as if he were afraid the words would blow the fragile electrons off the computer screen.

  "He's not the Dancer anymore," Cooper said. "He's Stephen Robert Kall. Thirty-six. Present whereabouts unknown. LKA, fifteen years ago, an RFD number in Cumberland, West Virginia."

  Such a mundane name. Rhyme found himself experiencing an unreasonable tug of disappointment. Kall.

  "Why was he on file?"

  Cooper read. "What he was telling Jodie . . . He did twenty months for manslaughter when he was fifteen." A faint laugh. "Apparently the Dancer didn't bother to tell him that the victim was his stepfather."

  "Stepfather, hm?"

  "Tough reading," Cooper said, poring over the screen. "Man."

  "What?" Sachs asked.

  "Notes from the police reports. Here's what happened. Seems like there'd been a history of domestic disputes. The boy's mother was dying of cancer and her husband--Kall's stepfather--hit her for doing something or other. She fell and broke her arm. She died a few months later and Kall got it into his head her death was Lou's fault."

  Cooper continued to read and he actually seemed to shiver. "Want to hear what happened?"

  "Go ahead."

  "A couple months after she died Stephen and his stepfather were out hunting. The kid knocked him out, stripped him naked, and tied him to a tree in the woods. Left him there for a few days. Just wanted to scare him, his lawyer said. By the time the police got to him, well, let's just say the infestation was pretty bad. Maggots, mostly. Lived for two days after that. Delirious."

  "Man," Sachs whispered.

  "When they found him, the boy was there, just sitting next to him, watching." Cooper read, " 'The suspect surrendered without resistance. Appeared in a disoriented state. Kept repeating, "Anything can kill, anything can kill . . . " Taken to Cumberland Regional Mental Health Center for evaluation.' "

  The psychological makeup didn't interest Rhyme very much. He trusted his forensic profiling techniques far more than the behavioral law enforcers'. He knew the Dancer was a sociopath--all professional killers were--and the sorrows and traumas that made him who he was weren't much help at the moment. He asked, "Picture?"

  "No pictures in juvie."

  "Right. Hell. How 'bout military?"

  "Nope. But there's another conviction," Cooper said. "He tried to enlist in the marines but the psych profile got him rejected. He hounded the recruiting officers in D.C. for a couple months and finally assaulted a sergeant. Pled a suspended."

  Sellitto said, "We'll run the name through FINEST, the alias list, and NCIC."

  "Have Dellray get some people to Cumberland and start tracing him," Rhyme ordered.

  "Will do."

  Stephen Kall . . .

  After all these years. It was like finally visiting a shrine you'd read about all your life but never seen in person.

  There was a startling knock on the door. Sachs and Sellitto's hands both twitched impulsively toward their weapons.

  But the visitor was just one of the cops from downstairs. He had a large satchel. "Delivery."

  "What is it?" Rhyme asked.

  "A trooper from Illinois. Said this was from Du-Page County Fire and Rescue."

  "What is it?"

  The cop shrugged. "He said it was shit from some truck treads. But that's nuts. Must've been kidding."

  "No," Rhyme said, "that's exactly what it is." He glanced at Cooper. Tire scrapings from the crash site.

  The cop blinked. "You wanted that? Flown in from Chicago?"

  "We've been waiting with bated breath."

  "Well. Life's funny sometimes, ain't it?"

  And Lincoln Rhyme could only agree.

  Professional flying is only partly about flying.

  Flying is also about paperwork.

  Littering the back of the van transporting Percey Clay to Mamaroneck Airport was a huge stack of books and charts and documents: NOS's Airport/Facility Directory, the Airman's Information Manual, the FAA's NOTAMs--"Notices to Airmen"--and advisory circulars, and the Jeppesen "J-Aids," the Airport and Information Directory. Thousands of pages. Mountains of information. Percey, like most pilots, knew much of it by heart. But she also wouldn't think about driving an aircraft without going back to the original materials and studying them, literally, from the ground up.

  With this information and her calculator she was filling out the two basic pre-flight documents: the navigation log and the flight plan. On the log she'd mark their altitude, calculate the course variations due to wind and the variance between true course and magnetic course, determine their ETE--estimated time en route--and come up with the Godhead number: the amount of fuel they'd need for the flight. Six cities, six different logs, dozens of checkpoints in between . . .

  Then there was the FAA flight plan itself, on the reverse side of the navigation log. Once airborne, the copilot would activate the plan by calling the Flight Service Station at Mamaroneck, which would in turn call ahead to Chicago with Foxtrot Bravo's estimated time of arrival. If the aircraft didn't arrive at its destination within a half hour after ETA, it would be declared overdue and search-and-rescue procedures would start.

  These were complicated documents and had to be calculated perfectly. If aircraft had unlimited fuel supplies they could rely on radio navigation and spend as much time as they wanted cruising from destination to destination at whatever altitudes they wanted. But not only was fuel expensive to begin with (and the twin Garrett turbofans burned an astonishing amount of it); it was also extremely heavy and cost a lot--in extra fuel charges--just to carry. On a long flight, especially with a number of fuel-hungry takeoffs, carrying too much gas could drastically erode the profit the Company was making on the flight. The FAA dictated that each flight have enough fuel to make it to the point of destination, plus a reserve, in the case of a night flight, of forty-five minutes' flying time.

  Fingers tapping over the calculators, Percey Clay filled in the forms in her precise handwriting. Careless about so much else in her life, she was meticulous about flying. The merest act of filling in ATIS frequencies or the magnetic heading variations gave her pleasure. She never scrimped, never estimated when accurate calculations were called for. Today, she submerged herself in the work.

  Roland Bell was beside her. He was haggard and sullen. The good ole boy was long gone. She grieved for him, as much as for herself; it seemed that Brit Hale was the first witness he'd lost. She felt an unreasonable urge to touch his arm, to reassure him, as he'd done for her. But he seemed to be one of those men who, when faced with loss, disappear into themselves; any sympathy would jar. He was much like herself, she believed. Bell gazed out the window of the van, his hand frequently touching the checkered black grip of the pistol in his shoulder holster.

  Just as she finished the last flight plan card, the van turned the corner and entered the airport, stopping for the armed guards, who examined their IDs and waved them through.

  Percey directed them to the hangar but she noticed that the lights were still on in the office. She told the cars to stop and she climbed out, as Bell and her other bodyguards walked with her, vigilant and tense, into the main part of the office.

  Ron Talbot, grease-stained and exhausted, sat in the office, wiping his sweating forehead. His face was an alarming red.

  "Ron . . . " Sh
e hurried forward. "Are you all right?"

  They embraced.

  "Brit," he said, shaking his head, gasping. "He got Brit too. Percey, you shouldn't be here. Go someplace safe. Forget about the flight. It isn't worth it."

  She stepped back. "What's wrong? You sick?"

  "Just tired."

  She took the cigarette out of his hand and stubbed it out. "You did the work yourself? On Foxtrot Bravo?"

  "I--"

  "Ron?"

  "Most of it. It's almost finished. The guy from Northeast delivered the fire extinguisher cartridge and the annular about an hour ago. I started to mount them. Just got a little tired."

  "Chest pains?"

  "No, not really."

  "Ron, go home."

  "I can--"

  "Ron," she snapped, "I've lost two dear people in the last two days. I'm not going to lose a third . . . I can mount an annular. It's a piece of cake."

  Talbot looked like he couldn't even lift a wrench, much less a heavy combustor.

  Percey asked, "Where's Brad?" The FO for the flight.

  "On his way. Be here in an hour."

  She kissed his sweaty forehead. "You get home. And lay off the weeds, for God's sake. You crazy?"

  He hugged her. "Percey, about Brit . . . "

  She hushed him with a finger to her lips. "Home. Get some sleep. When you wake up I'll be in Erie and we'll have ourselves that contract. Signed, sealed, and delivered."

  He struggled to his feet, stood for a moment looking out the window at Foxtrot Bravo. His face revealed an acrid bitterness. It was the same look she'd remembered in his milky eyes when he'd told her that he'd flunked his physical and could no longer fly for a living. Talbot headed out the door.

  It was time to get to work. She rolled up her sleeves, motioned Bell over to her. He lowered his head to her in a way she found charming. The same pose Ed had fallen into when she was speaking softly. She said, "I'm going to need a few hours in the hangar. Can you keep that son of a bitch off me until then?"

  No down-home aphorisms, no done deals. Roland Bell, the man with two guns, nodded solemnly, his eyes moving quickly from shadow to shadow.

  They had a mystery on their hands.

  Cooper and Sachs had examined all the trace found in the treads of the Chicago fire trucks and police cars that had been at the scene of the Ed Carney crash. There was the useless dirt, dog shit, grass, oil, and garbage that Rhyme had expected to find. But they made one discovery that he felt was important.

  He just didn't have a clue what it meant.

  The only batch of trace exhibiting indications of bomb residue were tiny fragments of a pliable beige substance. The gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer reported it was C5H8.

  "Isoprene," Cooper reflected.

  "What's that?" Sachs asked.

  "Rubber," Rhyme answered.

  Cooper continued. "I'm also reading fatty acids. Dyes, talcum."

  "Any hardening agents?" Rhyme asked. "Clay? Magnesium carbonate? Zinc oxide?"

  "None."

  "It's soft rubber. Like latex."

  "And little fragments of rubber cement too," Cooper added, peering at a sample in the compound microscope. "Bingo," he said.

  "Don't tease, Mel," Rhyme grumbled.

  "Bits of soldering and tiny pieces of plastic embedded in the rubber. Circuit boards."

  "Part of the timer?" Sachs wondered aloud.

  "No, that was intact," Rhyme reminded.

  He felt they were on to something here. If this was another part of the bomb, it might give them a clue as to the source of the explosive or another component.

  "We have to know for sure whether this's from the bomb or from the plane itself. Sachs, I want you to go up to the airport."

  "The--"

  "Mamaroneck. Find Percey and have her give you samples of anything with latex, rubber, or circuit boards that would be in the belly of a plane like the one he was flying. Near the seat of the explosion. And, Mel, send the info off to the Bureau's Explosives Reference Collection and check Army CID--maybe there's a latex waterproof coating of some kind the army uses for explosives. Maybe we can trace it that way."

  Cooper began typing the request on his computer, but Rhyme noticed Sachs wasn't pleased with her assignment.

  "You want me to go talk to her?" she asked. "To Percey?"

  "Yes. That's what I'm saying."

  "Okay." She sighed. "All right."

  "And don't give her any crap like you've been doing. We need her cooperation."

  Rhyme didn't have a clue why she pulled on her vest so angrily and stalked out the door without saying good-bye.

  . . . Chapter Twenty-nine

  Hour 31 of 45

  At Mamaroneck Airport Amelia Sachs saw Roland Bell lurking outside the hangar. Another six officers stood guard around the huge building. She supposed there were snipers nearby too.

  Her eye caught the hillock where she'd dropped to the ground under fire. She remembered, with a disgusted twist in her belly, the smell of the dirt mingling with the sweet cordite scent from her own impotent pistol shots.

  Turned to Bell. "Detective."

  His eyes glanced at her once. "Hey." Then he returned to scanning the airport. His easy southern demeanor was gone. He'd changed. Sachs realized that they shared something notorious now. They'd both had a shot at the Coffin Dancer and missed.

  They both had also been in his kill zone and survived. Bell, though, with more glory than she. His body armor, she noticed, bore stigmata: the streaks from the two slugs that had glanced off him during the safe house attack. He'd stood his ground.

  "Where's Percey?" Sachs asked.

  "Inside. Finishing up the repairs."

  "By herself?"

  "Think so. She's something, she is. You wouldn't think a woman that wasn't so, well, attractive'd have quite the draw she does. You know?"

  Ugh. Don't get me started.

  "Anybody else here? From the Company?" She nodded toward the Hudson Air office. There was a light on inside.

  "Percey sent 'most everybody home. Fellow's going to be her copilot's due here anytime. And somebody from Operations's inside. Needs to be on duty when there's a flight going on, I guess. I checked him out. He's okay."

  "So she's really going to fly?" Sachs asked.

  "Looks that way."

  "The plane's been guarded the whole time?"

  "Yep, since yesterday. What're you doing here?"

  "Need some samples for analysis."

  "That Rhyme, he's something too."

  "Uh-huh."

  "All two of you go back a ways?"

  "We've worked a few cases," she said dismissingly. "He saved me from Public Affairs."

  "That's his good deed. Say, I hear you can really drive a nail."

  "I can . . . ?"

  "Shoot. Sidearms. You're on a team."

  And here I am at the site of my latest competition, she thought bitterly. "Just weekend sport," she muttered.

  "I do some pistol work myself, but I'll tell you, even on a good day, with a nice, long barrel and firing single-action, fifty, sixty yards is all the far I can shoot."

  She appreciated his comments but recognized that they were just an attempt to reassure her about yesterday's fiasco; the words meant nothing to her.

  "Better talk to Percey now."

  "Right through there, Officer."

  Sachs pushed into the huge hangar. She walked slowly, looking at all the places the Dancer could hide. Sachs paused behind a tall row of boxes; Percey didn't see her.

  The woman was standing on a small scaffolding, hands on her hips, as she gazed at the complicated network of pipes and tubes of the open engine. She'd rolled her sleeves up and her hands were covered with grease. She nodded to herself then reached forward into the compartment.

  Sachs was fascinated, watching the woman's hands fly over the machinery, adjusting, probing, seating metal to metal, and tightening the fixtures down with judicious swipes of her thin arms. She mounted
a large red cylinder, a fire extinguisher, Sachs guessed, in about ten seconds flat.

  But one part--it looked like a big metal inner tube--wouldn't fit correctly.

  Percey climbed off the scaffolding, selected a socket wrench, and climbed up again. She loosened bolts, removed another part to give her more room to maneuver, and tried again to push the big ring into place.

  Wouldn't budge.

  She shouldered it. Didn't move an inch. She removed yet another part, meticulously setting each screw and bolt in a plastic tray at her feet. Percey's face turned bright red as she struggled to mount the metal ring. Her chest heaved as she fought the part. Suddenly it slipped, dropping completely out of position, and knocked her backward off the scaffolding. She twisted and landed on her hands and knees. The tools and bolts that she'd arranged so carefully in the tray spilled to the floor beneath the plane's tail.

  "No!" Percey cried. "No!"

  Sachs stepped forward to see if she was hurt, but noticed immediately that the outburst had nothing to do with pain--Percey grabbed a large wrench and slammed it furiously into the floor of the hangar. The policewoman stopped, stepped into the shadow beside a large carton.

  "No, no, no . . . ," Percey cried, hammering the smooth concrete.

  Sachs remained where she was.

  "Oh, Ed . . . " She dropped the wrench. "I can't do it alone." Gasping for breath, she rolled into a ball. "Ed . . . oh, Ed . . . I miss you so much!" She lay, curled like a frail leaf, on the shiny floor and wept.

  Then, suddenly, the attack was over. Percey rolled upright, took a deep breath, and climbed to her feet, wiped the tears from her face. The aviatrix within her took charge once again and she picked up the bolts and tools and climbed back up onto the scaffolding. She stared at the troublesome ring for a moment. She examined the fittings carefully but couldn't see where the metal pieces were binding.

  Sachs retreated to the door, slammed it hard, and then started back into the hangar, walking with loud steps.

  Percey swung around, saw her, then turned back to the engine. She gave a few swipes to her face with her sleeve and continued to work.

  Sachs walked up to the base of the scaffolding and watched as Percey struggled with the ring.

  Neither woman said anything for a long moment.

  Finally Sachs said, "Try a jack."

  Percey glanced back at her, said nothing.

  "It's just that the tolerance is close," Sachs continued. "All you need is more muscle. The old coercion technique. They don't teach it in mechanics school."