The Skin Collector

by Jeffery Deaver

  'Inorganic arsenite?' Rhyme asked.

  'Yes.'

  Arsenic (III) is the most dangerous of all types of the toxin. Rhyme was quite familiar with the toxin. He'd run two cases in which it had been used as a murder weapon - in both cases spouses (one husband, one wife) had dispatched their partners with the substance.

  Three other cases he'd run of suspected arsenic poisoning had turned out to be accidental. The toxin occurs naturally in groundwater, particularly where fracking - high-pressure geologic fracturing to extract oil and gas - has occurred.

  In fact, throughout history, for every intentional victim of arsenic poisoning - like Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany - there were many more accidental victims: Napoleon Bonaparte, possibly done in by the wallpaper of the rooms to which he'd been exiled on St Helena; Simon Bolivar (the water in South America); and the American ambassador to Italy in the 1950s (flaking paint in her residence). It was also possible that the madness of King George was due to the metalloid.

  'Can we see him?' Sachs asked.

  'I'm afraid not. He's unconscious. But a nurse will call you when he comes to.'

  Rhyme noted and, for Rachel's sake, appreciated the conjunction.

  When, not if.

  The doctor shook hands. 'You believe someone actually did this intentionally?'

  'That's right.'

  'Oh, my.'

  His mobile rang and without a word he turned away to answer.

  CHAPTER 44

  In October 1818 an attractive woman with an angular face and piercing eyes died at the age of thirty-four in Spencer County, Indiana.

  There is some debate as to what was the cause of Nancy Lincoln's death - possibly tuberculosis or cancer but the general consensus is that she was a victim of milk sickness, which claimed thousands of lives in the nineteenth century. Although the actual cause can't be pinpointed, one fact about Nancy's death is well documented: her nine-year-old son, Abraham, the future president of the United States, helped his father build the woman's coffin.

  Milk sickness perplexed medical professionals for years, until it was finally discovered that the cause was tremetol, a highly toxic alcohol, which made its way into a cow's milk after the animal had grazed on white snakeroot.

  This plant is a nondescript, workaday herb that is hardly an aesthetic contribution to any garden, and accordingly Billy Haven didn't enjoy the plant as a subject to sketch. But he loved its toxic properties.

  When ingested, tremetol causes the victim to suffer excruciating abdominal pain, intense nausea and thirst, uncontrollable tremors and explosive vomiting.

  Even a small dosage can result in death.

  Head down, wearing a short-brimmed brown fedora - very hipster - and long black raincoat, Billy was making his way through Central Park, the west side. In his gloved hand was a briefcase. He was walking south and had made a serious trek from Harlem, but he wanted to avoid the CCTV cameras in the subway, even if his appearance was different from what the Underground Man had worn during the prior attacks.

  Yes, tremetol was his weapon but the pending attack wouldn't involve tattooing, so he'd left his machine back at his workshop near Canal. Today the circumstances dictated a different means of poisoning. But one that could be just as satisfying.

  Billy was enjoying a good mood. Oh, with the earlier attacks, he'd felt satisfaction, sure, buzzing the poison into the victims, getting the bloodline just right, angling the careful serifs of the Old English letters.

  A Billy Mod ...

  But that was good in the same way you felt good doing your job or completing chores around the house.

  What he was about to do now was a whole different level of good.

  Billy slipped out of the park and examined the streets carefully, uptown and cross, noting no one looking at him with suspicion. No police on patrol. He continued his journey south toward his target.

  Yes, this attack would be different.

  For one thing, there was no message to send. He'd simply deliver the tremetol. No scars, no tats, no mods.

  Also, he was not interested in killing the victim. That death would ultimately be detrimental to the Modification. No, he was going to wield the poison to debilitate.

  Though it would be a very different life that his target would live in the future; perhaps the most disturbing symptoms of non-lethal white snakeroot poisoning were delirium and dementia. The man he was going to poison in a few moments would stay alive but become a raving madman for a long, long time.

  Billy nonetheless had one regret: that his victim would be incapable of feeling the searing, unbearable nausea and gut pain that white snakeroot's toxin caused. Lincoln Rhyme was numb to sensation below his neck. The vomiting, tremors and other symptoms would be unpleasant but not as horrific as in a person who had a fully functioning nervous system.

  Billy now turned west down a cross street and entered a brightly lit Chinese restaurant, which was filled with the smells of garlic and hot oil. He made his way to the restroom, where, in a stall, he lost the hat and overcoat and dressed in coveralls.

  Outside once more - unnoticed by diners or staff, he observed - Billy walked across the street and into the service alley that would lead to the back of Rhyme's apartment.

  The cul-de-sac was pungent - smelled a bit like the Chinese restaurant, now that he thought about it - but relatively clean. The ground was ancient cobblestones and patches of asphalt, dotted with slush and ice. Several Dumpsters sat well-ordered against brick walls. It seemed that several town houses, including Rhyme's, and a larger apartment building backed onto this area.

  Noting a video camera at the rear of Rhyme's town house, he went about his faux business of checking electrical lines.

  Ducking behind a Dumpster, as if searching for a troublesome bit of electrical wire conduit, Billy circumvented the camera and approached the door. He extracted the hypodermic that contained the snakeroot toxin from his toothbrush holder and slipped the syringe into his pocket.

  Tremetol, a clear liquid, is an alcohol and would blend instantly with what Billy's research had revealed was Rhyme's favorite beverage - single-malt scotch. It would also be tasteless.

  Billy's palms sweated. His heart thudded.

  For all he knew there might be ten armed officers inside, meeting with Rhyme at the moment. The alarm wouldn't be on, not during the day, but he could easily be spotted lacing the bottle.

  And possibly shot on the spot.

  But the Modification, naturally, involved risk. What important missions didn't? So, get on with it. Billy pulled out his phone, a prepaid model, untraceable, and pressed in a number.

  Almost immediately he heard, 'Police and fire. What's your emergency?'

  'A man with a gun in Central Park! He's attacking a woman.'

  'Where are you, sir?'

  'He's got a gun! I think he's going to rape her!'

  'Yes, sir. Where are you? Where exactly?'

  'Central Park West, about ... I don't know. It's ... uhm, okay, in front of Three Fifty Central Park West.'

  'Is anyone hurt?'

  'I think so! Jesus! Please. Send somebody.'

  'Describe him.'

  'Dark-skinned. Thirties.'

  'What's your name--?'

  Click.

  It was sixty seconds later that he heard the sirens. He knew the 20th Precinct, located in Central Park, was nearby.

  More sirens.

  Dozens of squad cars, he guessed.

  He waited until the sirens grew louder; they'd have to be drawing the attention of everyone in the town house. Gambling that no one could see the security monitor, Billy walked matter-of-factly to Rhyme's back door. Paused again. He looked around. Nobody. He turned to the lock.

  Later, the police might look at the security tape - if it was recorded at all - and see the intruder. But all they'd see would be a vague form, head down.

  And by then it would be too late.

  CHAPTER 45

  'The hell is going on?' Rh
yme barked.

  The criminalist and Mel Cooper were in the front hallway of the town house, the door open. Ron Pulaski joined them. They were peering out into the street, which was filled with police cars, two ESU vans and two ambulances.

  Blue lights, white, red. Flashing urgently.

  Cooper's and Pulaski's hands were near their sidearms.

  Thom was upstairs, probably observing from a bedroom window.

  Five minutes ago Rhyme had heard frantic wails grow loud as emergency vehicles streaked along the street outside. He'd expected them to continue on Central Park West, but they didn't. The vehicles braked to a stop just one door north. The piercing howls remained at peak pitch for a moment then one by one shut off.

  Peering outside, Rhyme said, 'Call downtown, Mel. Find out.'

  He'd assumed at first that the incident had something to do with him - maybe the unsub had been making a frontal assault on the town house - but then he noted that the attention was focused on the park itself and that none of the officers who were part of the operation approached his place.

  Cooper had a conversation with someone at Dispatch and then disconnected.

  'Assault in the park. Dark-skinned male, thirties. Maybe attempted rape.'

  'Ah.' They continued to watch for another three or four minutes. Rhyme examined the park. It was hard to see anything through the mist and reinvigorated sleet. A rape? The urge for sex is more impulsive than that for money and more intense, he knew, but in this weather?

  He wondered if he'd draw the crime scene side of the case and was thinking that given the icy rain the evidence would be a challenge.

  But that put in mind Lon Sellitto, who would normally be the NYPD representative who'd contact him about potential jobs. The detective was still in the most intensive of intensive care wards, nowhere near consciousness.

  Rhyme put the rape, or attempted rape, out of his mind. He, Pulaski and Cooper returned to the parlor laboratory, where they'd been analyzing the evidence Detective Cheyenne Edwards had delivered - the finds from the crime scene at Pam Willoughby's.

  There hadn't been much, though the unsub had left in such a hurry that he'd neglected to pick up the hypodermic needle he'd stabbed Seth with and a vial of the poison he'd presumably been about to use on the young man. The substance was from the white baneberry plant - also called doll's eyes, because the berries resemble eyeballs. Eerie. The toxin, Cooper explained, was cardiogenic; it basically stopped the heart. Of all the poisons their unsub was using this was the most humane, killing without the pain of toxins that attacked the GI and renal systems.

  Rhyme noticed Ron Pulaski looking down at his phone. His face was lit with a faint blue glow.

  Checking messages or the time? Rhyme wondered. Mobiles were used as watches more and more frequently nowadays.

  Pulaski hung up and said to Rhyme, 'I should go.'

  So, time. Not texts.

  Ron Pulaski's undercover assignment at the funeral home was about to begin: to see who was collecting the Watchmaker's remains and maybe, just maybe learn a bit more about the enigmatic criminal.

  'You all set, you ready to be Serpico, you ready to be Gielgud?'

  'Was he a cop? And, wait, didn't Serpico get shot in the face?'

  Rhyme and Pulaski had spent some time that morning on a cover story that would seem credible to the funeral home director and whoever was coming to collect the man's remains.

  Rhyme had never done undercover work but he knew the rules: Less is more and more is less. Meaning you research the hell out of your role, learn every possible fact, but when you present yourself to the perp, you offer up only the minimal. Inundating the bad guys with details is a sure giveaway.

  So he and Pulaski had come up with a bio for Stan Walesa, a bio that would have made credible some connection with the Watchmaker. Rhyme had noted him walking around the lab all day, reciting facts they'd made up. 'Born in Brooklyn, has an import-export company, investigated for insider trading, questioned in connection with a banking scam, divorced, knows weapons, was hired by an associate of the Watchmaker to transport some containers overseas, no, I can't give his name away, no, I don't know what was in the containers. Again: Born in Brooklyn, has an import-export ...'

  Now, as Pulaski pulled on his coat, Rhyme said, 'Look, rookie, don't think about the fact that this is our only chance to fill in gaps on the late Watchmaker's biography.'

  'Um, okay.'

  'And if you mess up, we'll never have this opportunity again. Don't think about that. Put it out of your mind.'

  'I ...' The patrolman's face relaxed. 'You're fucking with me, aren't you, Lincoln?'

  Rhyme smiled. 'You'll do great.'

  Pulaski chuckled and disappeared into the hallway. His exit was announced a moment later by a blast of wind through the open door. The latch clicked; then silence.

  Rhyme turned to look at the containers of evidence that Detective Edwards had collected at Pam's apartment, following the unsub's attack on Seth. But he focused past the bags.

  Well, what was this?

  A miracle had occurred.

  He was looking at the shelves that contained forensic books, a stack of professional journals, a density gradient instrument and ... his single-malt scotch. The bottle of Glenmorangie had been placed within reach. Thom usually stashed it higher on the shelf - out of Rhyme's grasp, the way you'd keep candy away from a child, which pissed Rhyme off to no end.

  But apparently the old mother hen had been distracted and screwed up.

  He resisted temptation for the time being and maneuvered back to the evidence from Pam's apartment and the storeroom in the basement and Seth's clothing laid out on an examination table. For a half hour he and Cooper went through the finds - which weren't many. No friction ridges, of course, a few fibers, a hair or two, though they might have been Pam's or they might have come from a friend of hers. Or even from Amelia Sachs, who had been a frequent visitor. There was trace, but it was mostly trace identical to that of the earlier scenes. Only one new substance was discovered: some fibers on Seth's shirt, where the unsub had grabbed him. They were from an architectural or engineering blueprint. They had to come from 11-5, since Seth wouldn't use such diagrams in his work as an ad agency freelancer. And Pam would have no reason to come in contact with such plans either.

  Mel Cooper filled a new evidence chart, which included the trace, the syringe, the pictures of the scene, the booty footprints.

  Rhyme glanced at the sparse info, displeased. No insights.

  He circled away and headed for the shelf, thinking of the peaty smell and taste of the whisky, tangy but not too smoky.

  With another glance toward the kitchen, where Thom was laboring away, and toward Cooper, securing evidence from the scene. Rhyme easily picked the bottle off the shelf and deposited it between his legs. He was clumsier with the crystal glass, lifting that - careful, careful - and setting it on the shelf within pouring distance.

  Then he returned to the bottle and, with careful manipulation, he eased out the cork and poured into the glass.

  One finger, two fingers, all right, three.

  It had been a difficult day.

  The bottle landed safely where it had been and he turned the chair around and returned to the center of the lab.

  'I didn't see a thing,' Cooper said, his back to Rhyme.

  'Nobody believes witnesses anyway, Mel.' He eased up to the evidence chart and stopped.

  Not spilling a drop.

  CHAPTER 46

  Amelia Sachs was sitting at a coffee shop in Midtown, one of those traditional delis you see fewer and fewer of, dying off in favor of corporate franchises with faux foreign names. Here, stained menus, Mediterranean staff, unsteady chairs - and the best comfort food for miles around.

  Fidgety. She dug a thumbnail into a finger, avoided blood. Bad habits. Unstoppable. Some things Sachs could control. Other things, not.

  And stopping Pam's sojourn with Seth?

  Sachs had left two messages for
the girl - her limit, she decided - but had called once more and on the third ring Pam had picked up. Sachs had asked how Seth was doing after the attack: 'The doctors at the hospital said he's okay. He wasn't even admitted.'

  Apparently he wasn't as mad as earlier; at least they were talking.

  'And you?'

  'Fine.'

  Quiet, once again.

  Sachs had taken a figurative breath and asked if they could meet for coffee.

  Pam had hesitated but then agreed, adding she had to be at work anyway. Suggesting this deli, which was across the street from the theater.

  Sachs now toyed with her phone to keep from digging into flesh.

  The Skin Collector ...

  What could she say to Pam to convince the girl not to quit school and go on the worldwide tour.

  Well, wait. You can't think of her that way. Girl. Of course not. She was nineteen. She'd lived through kidnapping and attempted murder. She'd defied militiamen. She had the right to make decisions and the right to make mistakes.

  And, Sachs asked herself, was her decision a mistake at all?

  Who was she to say?

  Look at her own romantic history. High school for her was, as for everybody, a time of exploration and exhilarating fumbling and false starts. Then she had hit the professional world of fashion. A tall, gorgeous model, Sachs had had to take the repel-all-boarders approach. Which was a shame because some of the men she'd met on photo shoots and at ad agency planning sessions had probably been pretty nice. But they were lost among the vast number of players. Easier to say no to everyone, slip into her garage and tune engines or go to the race track and work on lap times with her Camaro SS.

  After joining the NYPD, things hadn't got much better. Tired of the relentless pressure to go out, the filthy jokes, the juvenile looks and attitudes offered up by fellow cops, she'd continued to be a recluse. Ah, that was the answer, the male officers understood, after she'd rejected their overtures. She was a dyke. Such a pretty one too. Fucking waste.

  Then she'd met Nick. The first real love, true love, consuming love, complete love. Whatever tired adjective you wanted.

  And, with Nick, it'd turned out to be betrayed love, too.

  Not of the daily variety, no. But, to Sachs, perhaps worse. Nick had been a corrupt cop. And a corrupt cop who hurt people.