The Skin Collector

by Jeffery Deaver

  Come on, I deserve a hearing, Sachs thought.

  Which was not, however, Pam's opinion. She said brusquely, 'Anyway, we've decided.'

  Then Pam grew suddenly giddy, though Sachs could see the emotions were fake. That was clear. 'It'll be a year. Two, tops.'

  Now two?

  'Pam,' Sachs began. 'I don't know what to say.'

  Yes, you do. So say it.

  As a cop, Sachs never held back. She couldn't as a big sister either. Or surrogate mother. Or whatever her role in the girl's life might be.

  'Knuckle time, Pam.'

  The girl knew of Sachs's father's expression. She gauged Sachs with narrowed eyes, which were both cautious and flinty.

  'A year on the road with somebody you don't really know?' Sachs said this evenly, trying to keep some tenderness in the tone.

  But the woman responded as if Sachs had thrown open the parlor window and let in a flood of sleety wind. 'We do know each other,' Pam said defiantly. 'That's the whole point. Didn't you hear me?'

  'I mean really know each other. That takes years.'

  Pam shot back, 'We're right for each other. It's simple.'

  'Have you met his family?'

  'I've talked to his mother. She's totally sweet.'

  'Talked to?'

  'Yes,' the girl snapped. 'Talked to. And his father knows all about me.'

  'But you haven't met them?'

  A cool chill. 'This's about me and Seth. Not his parents. And this cross-examination is pissing me off.'

  'Pam.' Sachs leaned forward. She reached for the girl's hand. It was, of course, eased out of reach. 'Pam, have you told him about what happened to you?'

  'I have. And he doesn't care.'

  'Everything? Have you told him everything?'

  Pam fell silent and looked down. Then she said defensively, 'There's no need to ... No, not everything. I told him my mother was crazy and did some bad things. He knows she's in jail and will be there forever. He's totally fine with it.'

  Then he was from The Walking Dead, Sachs reflected. 'And where you grew up? How you grew up? Did you tell him any of that?'

  'Not really. But that's in the past. That's over with.'

  'I don't think you can ignore it, Pam. He has to know. Your mother did a lot of damage--'

  'Oh, I'm crazy too? Like my mother? That's how you look at me?'

  Sachs was stung by this comment but she tried to keep a light tone. 'Come on, you're saner than any politician in Washington.' She smiled. It wasn't reciprocated.

  'There's nothing wrong with me!' Pam's voice rose.

  'Of course not, no! I'm just concerned about you.'

  'No. You're saying I'm too fucked up, I'm too immature to make decisions on my own.'

  Sachs was growing angry herself. The defensive didn't suit her. 'Then make smart ones.' If you really love him and it's going to work out, a year or so of dating won't mean anything.'

  'We're going away, Amelia. And then we're moving in when we get back. I mean, Get over it.'

  'Don't talk that way to me,' Sachs snapped back. She knew she was losing it but couldn't stop herself.

  The young woman rose abruptly, knocking her cup over and spilling it onto the silver tray.

  'Shit.'

  She bent forward and angrily mopped it up. Sachs leaned in to help but Pam pulled the tray away and continued cleaning by herself, then tossed down the brown, saturated napkin. She glared at Sachs with shockingly feral eyes. 'I know exactly what's going on. You want to break us up. You're looking for any excuse.' A cold grin. 'It's all about you, isn't it, Amelia? You want to break us up just so you can have the daughter you were too busy being a cop to have.'

  Sachs nearly gasped at the searing accusation - perhaps, she admitted silently, because there was a splinter of truth in it.

  Pam stormed to the door, paused and said, 'You're not my mother, Amelia. Remember that. You're the woman who put my mother in prison.'

  Then she was gone.

  CHAPTER 16

  Near midnight, Billy Haven cleared away his supper dishes, washing everything that wasn't disposable in bleach to remove DNA.

  Which was as dangerous - to him - as some of the poisons he'd extracted and refined.

  He sat back down at the rickety table in the kitchen area of his workshop, off Canal Street, and opened the dog-eared, battered notebook, the Commandments.

  Delivered, in a way, by the hand of God.

  Those stone tablets to Moses.

  The notebook, with its dozen or so pages of tightly packed sentences - in Billy's beautiful, flowing cursive writing - described in detail how the Modification should unfold, who should die, when to do what, the risks to avoid, the risks to take, what advantages to seize, how to cope with unexpected reversals. An exact timetable. If Genesis were a how-to guide like the Modification Commandments, the first book of the Bible would read:

  Day Three, 11:20 a.m.: Create deciduous trees. Okay, now You have seven minutes to create evergreens ...

  Day Six, 6:42 a.m.: Time for salmon and trout. Get a move on!

  Day Six, noon: Let's do the Adam and Eve thing.

  Which naturally brought to mind Lovely Girl. He pictured her for a moment, face, hair, pure-white skin, then eased away the distracting image the way you'd set aside a precious snapshot of a departed loved one - carefully, out of a superstitious fear of harming your love if you dropped the frame.

  Flipping through the pages, he studied what was coming next. Pausing once again to reflect that the Modification was certainly complicated. At various points in the process he'd wondered if it was too much so. But he thought back to the pages of the chapter he'd stolen from the library earlier that day, Serial Cities, recalling all the surprising - no, shocking - information it had revealed.

  Experts in law enforcement universally voice the opinion of Lincoln Rhyme that his greatest skill was his ability to anticipate what the criminals he's pursuing will do next.

  He believed that was the quotation; he wasn't sure, since Chloe Moore, no longer of this earth, had inconsiderately ripped a portion of that passage from the book.

  Anticipate ...

  So, yes, the plan for the Modification had to be this precise. The people he was up against were too good for him to be careless, to miss a cue in any way.

  He reviewed plans for the next attack, tomorrow. He memorized locations, he memorized timing. Everything seemed in order. In his mind he rehearsed the attack; he'd already been to the site. He now pictured it, he smelled it.

  Good. He was ready.

  Then he glanced at his right wrist, the watch. He was tired.

  And what, he wondered, was going on with the investigation into the demise of Ms Chloe?

  He turned on the radio, hoping for news.

  The earlier reports had been that a young resident of Queens, a woman clerk in a stylish boutique in SoHo, had been found dead in an access tunnel off the cellar. Well, Billy had thought, perplexed, it was hardly very stylish. Chinese crap, overpriced and meant for frothy-hair sluts from Jersey and mothers seared by the approach of middle age.

  Initially Chloe's name had not been released, pending notification of next of kin.

  Hearing that, Billy had reflected: How sadistic can one cop be? To release the news that a young woman from Queens has been killed and not divulge the name? How many parents of kids living in that area had started making desperate phone calls?

  Now, waiting for an update, all he got were commercials. Didn't anyone care about poor Chloe Moore?

  Chloe Moore, Chloe the whore ...

  He paced back and forth in front of his terrariums. White leaves, green leaves, red leaves, blue ...

  Then, as often happened when he looked over the plants who were his companions, he thought of Oleander.

  And the Oleander Room.

  Billy resented that that thought intruded but there was nothing to do about it. He could--

  Ah, now the news. Finally.

  A city council scandal,
a minor train derailment, an economic report. Then, at last, a follow-up on Chloe Moore's demise. Additional details were coughed up now, a bit of history. The facts suggested the attack was not sexual in nature. (Of course not; Billy was offended that the subject had even come up. The media. Despicable.) A rough description. So someone had spotted him near the manhole.

  He listened as the story wound down.

  Still nothing about tattooing. Nothing about poison.

  That was typical, Billy knew. He'd read about police procedures in verifying confessions. The cops ask people taking credit for a crime certain unique details and, if they can't answer, the supposed perpetrators are dismissed as crackpots (a surprising number of people confessed to crimes they hadn't committed).

  Nor had the story mentioned anything about the phrase 'the second'.

  But that would be a thorn in their sides, of course.

  What on earth could the message be that their mysterious perp was sending?

  The Modification Commandments required, however, that it would be impossible for the police to decipher his message from the first several victims.

  He shut the radio off.

  Billy yawned. Sleep soon. He checked email, sent some texts, received some, then two hums of the watches told him it was time to get some rest.

  When he was through in the bathroom, where he cleaned the basin and toothbrush with bleach - banishing the DNA once more - he returned to his bed, flopping down in it. He tugged his Bible from under the pillow and propped it on his chest.

  Billy had had a crisis of faith a few years ago. A serious one. He believed in Jesus and the power of Christ. But he also believed he was meant to put his talents to use as a tattoo artist.

  The problem was this: The book of Leviticus warned, You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor tattoo any marks upon you: I am the LORD.

  He'd been depressed for weeks upon learning this. He wrestled with how to reconcile the conflict.

  One argument was that the Bible was full of such dissonance: In the same chapter, for instance, it was written: 'Nor shall a garment of mixed linen and wool come upon you.' Yet God surely had other priorities than sending to hell people wearing blended cloth suits.

  Billy had wondered if He intended future generations to reinterpret the Bible, to bring it into line with contemporary society. But that seemed suspect; it was like those Supreme Court justices who said that the Constitution was a living thing and should change to suit the times.

  Dangerous, thinking like that.

  Finally the answer to this apparent contradiction appeared. Billy had reasoned: The Bible also says, Thou shalt not kill. But the Good Book was filled with instances of outright murder - including a fair amount of carnage by the Almighty Himself. So, it was okay to kill in certain instances. Such as to further the glory of God, eliminate infidels and threats, further the values of truth and justice. Dozens of reasons.

  So in Leviticus, it was clear, God had to mean that tattooing too was acceptable under certain circumstances, just like taking lives.

  And what better circumstances could there be than the mission Billy was on at the moment?

  The Modification.

  He opened his Bible. He settled on a verse in Exodus, a well-read page.

  And if men strive together, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart, and yet no harm follow; he shall be surely fined, according as the woman's husband shall lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if any harm follow, then thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

  II

  THE UNDERGROUND MAN

  WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 6

  NOON

  CHAPTER 17

  The morning had been a flurry of activity, trying to correlate the evidence Sachs had come up with to pinpoint a place where the unsub might be living or had decided to make his stalking ground.

  Rhyme wheeled back and forth in front of the chart, feeling in his neck and jaw the thump as the Merits chair rolled over one of the power cables bisecting the floor of his parlor.

  * * *

  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

  - Professional tattoo artist or has been - May be using a 'splitter' for the tattoos - Uses bloodline to outline the tattoos - Not from area; more rural probably - Using book to learn techniques and outthink Rhyme and police?

  - Obsessed with skin

  - Will possibly be targeting the police - Organized offender; will be planning attacks ahead of time - Probably returned to the scene

  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 - Scallops are cicatrization - scarring - and probably significant

  Portable tattoo machine used as weapon - Probably American Eagle

  Cotton fiber - Off white

  - Probably from Unsub's shirt, torn in struggle

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

  - Book is Serial Cities. He was interested in Chapter 7, about Bone Collector.

  - Psychological connection with Bone Collector? Revenge?

  - Using book to learn techniques and outthink Rhyme and police?

  - Obsessed with skin

  - Will possibly be targeting the police

  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

  * * *

  Rhyme turned from the chart to Amelia Sachs, whom he caught staring out the window into the sleety morning. She was still obviously troubled by the news she'd received yesterday - that Pam was going on a 'round-the-world tour with her boyfriend, then moving in with him when they returned.

  Seth was a nice young man, she'd explained as they'd lain in his sumptuous bed last night, lights out, the wind battering the windows. 'To date. Not hole up in a hostel in Morocco or Goa. Maybe he's Mr Perfect, maybe he's not. Who can tell?'

  'Think it'll blow over?'

  'No. She's determined.'

  'Like you. Remember your mother didn't like you going out with a gimp in a wheelchair?'

  'You could've been a marathon runner and she wouldn't've liked you. Nobody could meet my mother's standards. She likes you now, though.'

  'My point exactly.'

  'I like Seth. I'll like him better in a year.'
/>   Rhyme had smiled.

  She had asked, 'Any thoughts?'

  'Afraid not.' Rhyme had been married for a few years. He'd gotten divorced not long after his accident (his call; not his wife's), but the marriage had been doomed for some time. He was sure he'd been in love at some point but the relationship had soured for reasons he could never isolate, quantify and analyze. As for what he had with Sachs? It worked because it worked. That was the best he could say. Lincoln Rhyme was admittedly in no position to offer romantic advice.

  But then who, ultimately, was? Love is an occurrence for which there are no expert witnesses.

  Sachs had added, 'And I didn't handle it well. I got protective. Too motherly. It turned ugly. I should've been objective, rational. But, no, I let things get out of control.'

  Now, this morning, Rhyme could see that Sachs was still deeply troubled. He was thinking he should say something reassuring, when, to his relief, the professional deflected the personal.

  'Have something here,' Pulaski called from across the lab, where he'd been staring at a monitor. 'I think ...' He fell silent, glowering. 'Damn Internet. Just when I had some hits.'

  Rhyme could see that his screen was frozen.

  'Okay, okay, up again.'

  He was tapping more keys. Maps and schematics and what appeared to be lists of compounds and elemental materials popped up on the big screen.

  'You're getting to be quite the scientist, rookie,' Rhyme said, regarding the notes.

  'What do you have, Ron?' Mel Cooper asked.

  'Some good news for a change. Maybe.'

  CHAPTER 18

  Harriet Stanton's family trip to New York, which she'd been looking forward to for years, had not turned out as planned.

  It had been derailed by a chance incident that could have changed her life forever.

  Harriet now stood before the mirror of the hotel suite she'd spent a restless night in and looked over her suit. Dark. Not black but navy blue.

  How close she'd come to selecting the former color. Bad luck, making that choice.

  She plucked a few pieces of random lint off the wool, brushed at some dust - the hotel was not as nice as advertised online (but it was affordable and frugality was important in the Stanton family, which hailed from a town where accommodation standards were set by a Holiday Inn).