The Bone Collector

by Jeffery Deaver

  "You ever notice when you're in a good mood you call me Sachs, when you're in a bad mood, you call me Amelia?"

  "I'm not in a bad mood," he snapped.

  "He really isn't," Thom agreed. "He just hates to get caught at anything." The aide nodded toward the impressive wheelchair. She glanced at the side. It was made by the Action Company, a Storm Arrow model. "He had this in the closet downstairs all the while he spun his pathetic little tale of woe. Oh, I let him have it for that."

  "No annotations, Thom, thank you. I'm apologizing, all right? I. Am. Sorry."

  "He's had it for years," Thom continued. "Learned the sip-'n'-puff cold. That's the straw control. He's really very good at it. By the way, he always calls me Thom. I never get preferential last-name treatment."

  "I got tired of being stared at," Rhyme said matter-of-factly. "So I stopped going for joyrides." Then glanced at her torn lip. "Hurt?"

  She touched her mouth, which was bent into a grin. "Stings like hell."

  Rhyme glanced sideways. "And what happened to you, Banks? Shaving your forehead now?"

  "Walked into a fire truck." The young man grinned and touched the bandage again.

  "Rhyme," Sachs began, smiling no longer. "There's nothing here. He's got the little girl and I couldn't get to the planted PE in time."

  "Ah, Sachs, there's always something. Have faith in the teachings of Monsieur Locard."

  "I saw them burn up, the clues. And if there was anything left at all, it's all buried under tons of debris."

  "Then we'll look for the clues he didn't mean to leave. We'll do this scene together, Sachs. You and me. Come on."

  He gave two short breaths into the straw and started forward. They'd got ten feet nearer the church when she said suddenly, "Wait."

  He braked to a stop.

  "You're getting careless, Rhyme. Get some rubber bands on those wheels. Wouldn't want to confuse your prints with the unsub's."

  "Where do we start?"

  "We need a sample of the ash," Rhyme said. "There were some clean paint cans in the back of the wagon. See if you can find one."

  She collected a can from the remains of the RRV.

  "You know where the fire started?" Rhyme asked.

  "Pretty much."

  "Take a sample of ash--a pint or two--as close to the point of origin as you can get."

  "Right," she said, climbing up on a five-foot-high wall of brick--all that remained of the north side of the church. She peered down into the smoky pit at her feet.

  A fire marshal called, "Hey, officer, we haven't secured the area yet. It's dangerous."

  "Not as dangerous as the last time I was there," she answered. And holding the handle of the can in her teeth started down the wall.

  Lincoln Rhyme watched her but he was really seeing himself, three and a half years ago, pull his suit jacket off and climb down into the construction site at the subway entrance near City Hall. "Sachs," Rhyme called. She turned. "Be careful. I saw what was left of the RRV. I don't want to lose you twice in one day."

  She nodded and then disappeared over the edge of the wall.

  After a few minutes Rhyme barked to Banks, "Where is she?"

  "I don't know."

  "What I'm saying is, could you go check on her?"

  "Oh, sure." He walked to the wall, looked over.

  "Well?" Rhyme asked.

  "It's a mess."

  "Of course it's a mess. Do you see her?"

  "No."

  "Sachs?" Rhyme shouted.

  There was a long groan of wood then a crash. Dust rose.

  "Sachs? Amelia?"

  No answer.

  Just as he was about to send ESU in after her they heard her voice. "Incoming."

  "Jerry?" Rhyme called.

  "Ready," the young detective called.

  The can came flying up out of the basement. Banks caught it one-handed. Sachs climbed out of the basement, wiping her hands on her slacks, wincing.

  "Okay?"

  She nodded.

  "Now, let's work the alley," Rhyme ordered. "There's traffic at all hours around here so he'd want the car off the street while he got her inside. That's where he parked. Used that door right there."

  "How do you know?"

  "There're two ways to open locked doors--without explosives, that is. Locks and hinges. This one'd be dead-bolted from the inside so he took the pins out of the hinges. See, he didn't bother to put them in very far again when he left."

  They started at the door and worked their way to the back of the grim canyon, the smoldering building on their right. They moved a foot at a time, Sachs training the PoliLight on the cobblestones. "I want tire treads," Rhyme announced. "I want to know where his trunk was."

  "Here," she said, examining the ground. "Treads. But I don't know whether these're the front or the rear tires. He might've backed in."

  "Are they clear or fuzzy? The treadmarks?"

  "A little fuzzy."

  "Then those're the front." He laughed at her bewildered expression. "You're the automotive expert, Sachs. Next time you get in a car and start it see if you don't spin the wheel a little before you start moving. To see if the tires are pointed straight. The front treads're always fuzzier than the rear. Now, the stolen car was a '97 Ford Taurus. It measures 197.5 stem to stern, wheelbase 108.5. Approximately 45 inches from the center of the rear tire to the trunk. Measure that and vacuum."

  "Come on, Rhyme. How'd you know that?"

  "Looked it up this morning. You do the vic's clothing?"

  "Yep. Nails and hair too. And, Rhyme, get this: the little girl's name is Pam but he called her Maggie. Just like he did with the German girl--he called her Hanna, remember?"

  "You mean his other persona did," Rhyme said. "I wonder who the characters are in his little play."

  "I'm going to vacuum around the door too," she announced. Rhyme watched her--face cut and hair uneven, singed short in spots. She vacuumed the base of the door and just as he was about to remind her that crime scenes were three-dimensional she ran the vacuum up and around the jamb.

  "He probably looked inside before he took her in," she said and began vacuuming the windowsills too.

  Which would have been Rhyme's next order.

  He listened to the whine of the Dustbuster. But second by second he was fading away. Into the past, some hours before.

  "I'm--" Sachs began.

  "Shhh," he said.

  Like the walks he now took, like the concerts he now attended, like so many of the conversations he had, Rhyme was slipping deeper and deeper into his consciousness. And when he got to a particular place--even he had no idea where--he found he wasn't alone. He was picturing a short man wearing gloves, dark sports clothes, a ski mask. Climbing out of the silver Ford Taurus sedan, which smelled of cleanser and new car. The woman--Carole Ganz--was in the trunk, her child captive in an old building made of pink marble and expensive brick. He saw the man dragging the woman from the car.

  Almost a memory, it was that clear.

  Popping the hinges, pulling open the door, dragging her inside, tying her up. He started to leave but paused. He walked to a place where he could look back and see Carole clearly. Just like he'd stared down at the man he'd buried at the railroad tracks yesterday morning.

  Just like he'd chained Tammie Jean Colfax to the pipe in the center of the room. So he could get a good look at her.

  But why? Rhyme wondered. Why does he look? To make sure the vics can't escape? To make sure he hasn't left anything behind? To--

  His eyes sprang open; the indistinct apparition of Unsub 823 vanished. "Sachs! Remember the Colfax scene? When you found the glove print?"

  "Sure."

  "You said he was watching her, that's the reason he chained her out in the open. But you didn't know why. Well, I figured it out. He watches the vics because he has to."

  Because it's his nature.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Come on!"

  Rhyme sipped twice into the st
raw control, which turned the Arrow wheelchair around. Then puffed hard and he started forward.

  He wheeled to the sidewalk, sipped hard into the straw to stop. He squinted as he looked all around him. "He wants to see his victims. And I'm betting he wanted to see the parishioners too. From someplace he thought was safe. Where he didn't bother to sweep up afterwards."

  He was gazing across the street at the only secluded vantage point on the block: the outdoor patio of a restaurant opposite the church.

  "There! Sweep it clean, Sachs."

  She nodded, slipped a new clip into her Glock, grabbed evidence bags, a pair of pencils and the Dustbuster. He saw her run across the street and work her way up the steps carefully, examining them. "He was here," she shouted. "There's a glove print. And the shoeprint--it's worn just like the other ones."

  Yes! Rhyme thought. Oh, this felt good. The warm sun, the air, the spectators. And the excitement of the chase.

  When you move they can't getcha.

  Well, if we move faster, maybe we can.

  Rhyme happened to glance at the crowd and saw that some people were staring at him. But far more were watching Amelia Sachs.

  For fifteen minutes she pored over the scene and when she returned she held up a small evidence bag.

  "What did you find, Sachs? His driver's license? His birth certificate?"

  "Gold," she said, smiling. "I found some gold."

  THIRTY

  Come on, people," Rhyme called. "We've got to move on this one. Before he gets the girl to the next scene. I mean move!"

  Thom did a sitting transfer to get Rhyme from the Storm Arrow back into bed, perching him momentarily on a sliding board and then easing him back into the Clinitron. Sachs glanced at the wheelchair elevator that had been built into one of the bedroom closets--it was the one he hadn't wanted her to open when he was directing her to the stereo and CDs.

  Rhyme lay still for a moment, breathing deeply from the exertion.

  "The clues're gone," he reminded them. "There's no way we can figure out where the next scene is. So we're going for the big one--his safe house."

  "You think you can find it?" Sellitto asked.

  Do we have a choice? Rhyme thought, and said nothing.

  Banks hurried up the stairs. He hadn't even stepped into the bedroom before Rhyme blurted, "What did they say? Tell me. Tell me."

  Rhyme knew that the tiny fleck of gold that Sachs had found was beyond the capabilities of Mel Cooper's impromptu lab. He'd asked the young detective to speed it down to the FBI's regional PERT office and have it analyzed.

  "They'll call us in the next half hour."

  "Half hour?" Rhyme muttered. "Didn't they give it priority?"

  "You bet they did. Dellray was there. You should've seen him. He ordered every other case put on hold and said if the metallurgy report wasn't in your hands ASAP there'd be one mean mother--you get the picture--reaming their--you get the rest of the picture."

  "Rhyme," Sachs said, "there's something else the Ganz woman said that might be important. He told her he'd let her go if she agreed to let him flail her foot."

  "Flail?"

  "Cut the skin off it."

  "Flay," Rhyme corrected.

  "Oh. Anyway, he didn't do anything. She said it was--in the end--like he couldn't bring himself to cut her."

  "Just like the first scene--the man by the railroad tracks," Sellitto offered.

  "Interesting . . ." Rhyme reflected. "I thought he'd cut the vic's finger to discourage anybody from stealing the ring. But maybe not. Look at his behavior: Cutting the finger off the cabbie and carrying it around. Cutting the German girl's arm and leg. Stealing the bones and the snake skeleton. Listening while he broke Everett's finger . . . There's something about the way he sees his victims. Something . . ."

  "Anatomical?"

  "Exactly, Sachs."

  "Except the Ganz woman," Sellitto said.

  "My point," Rhyme said. "He could've cut her and still kept her alive for us. But something stopped him. What?"

  Sellitto said, "What's different about her? Can't be that she's a woman. Or she's from out of town. So was the German girl."

  "Maybe he didn't want to hurt her in front of her daughter," Banks said.

  "No," Rhyme said, laughing grimly, "compassion isn't his thing."

  Sachs said suddenly, "But that is one thing different about her--she's a mother."

  Rhyme considered this. "That could be it. Mother and daughter. It didn't carry enough weight for him to let them go. But it stopped him from torturing her. Thom, jot that down. With a question mark." He then asked Sachs, "Did she say anything else about the way he looked?"

  Sachs flipped through her notebook.

  "Same as before." She read. "Ski mask, slight build, black gloves, he--"

  "Black gloves?" Rhyme looked at the chart on the wall. "Not red?"

  "She said black. I asked her if she was sure."

  "And that other bit of leather was black too, wasn't it, Mel? Maybe that was from the gloves. So what's the red leather from?"

  Cooper shrugged. "I don't know but we found a couple pieces of it. So it's something close to him."

  Rhyme looked over the evidence bags. "What else did we find?"

  "The trace we vacuumed in the alley and by the doorway." Sachs tapped the filter over a sheet of newsprint and Cooper went over it with a loupe. "Plenty o' nothin'," he announced. "Mostly soil. Bits of minerals. Manhattan mica schist. Feldspar."

  Which was found throughout the city.

  "Keep going."

  "Decomposed leaves. That's about it."

  "How about the Ganz woman's clothes?"

  Cooper and Sachs opened the newspaper and examined the trace.

  "Mostly soil," Cooper said. "And a few bits of what look like stone."

  "Where did he keep her at his safe house? Exactly?"

  "On the floor in the basement. She said it was a dirt floor."

  "Excellent!" Rhyme shouted. To Cooper: "Burn it. The soil."

  Cooper placed a sample in the GC-MS. They waited impatiently for the results. Finally the computer screen blinked. The grid resembled a lunar landscape.

  "All right, Lincoln. Interesting. I'm reading off-the-charts for tannin and--"

  "Sodium carbonate?"

  "Ain't he amazin'?" Cooper laughed. "How'd you know?"

  "They were used in tanneries in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The tannic acid cures the hide and the alkaline fixes it. So, his safe house is near the site of an old tannery."

  He smiled. Couldn't help himself. He thought: You hear footsteps, 823? That's us behind you.

  His eyes slipped to the Randel Survey map. "Because of the smell no one wanted tanneries in their neighborhoods so the commissioners restricted them. I know there were some on the Lower East Side. And in West Greenwich Village--when it literally was a village, a suburb of the city. And then on the far West Side in the Fifties--near the stockyard tunnel where we found the German girl. Oh, and in Harlem in the early 1900s."

  Rhyme glanced at the list of grocery stores--the locations of the ShopRites that sold veal shanks. "Chelsea's out. No tanning there. Harlem too--no ShopRites there. So, it's the West Village, Lower East Side or Midtown West Side--Hell's Kitchen again. Which he seems to like."

  Only about ten square miles, Rhyme estimated cynically. He'd figured out on his first day on the job that it was easier to hide in Manhattan than in the North Woods.

  "Let's keep going. What about the stone in Carole's clothes?"

  Cooper was bent over the microscope. "Okay. Got it."

  "Patch it in to me, Mel."

  Rhyme's computer screen burst to life and he watched the flecks of stone and crystal, like brilliant asteroids.

  "Move it around," Rhyme instructed. Three substances were bonded together.

  "The one on the left is marble, pinkish," Cooper said. "Like what we found before. And in between, that gray stuff . . ."

  "It's mortar. And the other is
brownstone," Rhyme announced. "It's from a Federal-style building, like the 1812 City Hall. Only the front facade was marble; the rest was brownstone. They did it to save money. Well, they did it so the money appropriated for marble could find its way into various pockets. Now, what else do we have? The ash. Let's find the arson accelerant."

  Cooper ran the ash sample through the GC-MS. He stared at the curve that appeared on the screen.

  Newly refined gasoline, containing its manufacturer's dyes and additives, was unique and could be traced back to a single source, as long as different batches of gas weren't mixed together at the service station where the perp bought it. Cooper announced that the gasoline matched perfectly the brand sold by the Gas Exchange service stations.

  Banks grabbed the Yellow Pages and flipped them open. "We've got six stations in Manhattan. Three downtown. One at Sixth Avenue and Houston. One on Delancey, 503 East. And one at Nineteenth and Eighth."

  "Nineteenth's too far north," Rhyme said. He stared at the profile chart. "East Side or West. Which is it?"

  Grocery stores, gasoline . . .

  A lanky figure suddenly filled the doorway.

  "I still invited to this here party?" Frederick Dellray asked.

  "Depends," Rhyme countered. "You bearing gifts?"

  "Ah got presents galore," the agent said, waving a folder emblazoned with the familiar disk of the FBI emblem.

  "You ever knock, Dellray?" Sellitto asked.

  "Got outa the habit, you know."

  "Come on in," Rhyme said. "What've you got?"

  "Dunno for sure. Doesn't make any sense to this boy. But then, whatta I know?"

  Dellray read from the report for a moment then said, "We had Tony Farco at PERT--said 'Hey' to you by the way, Lincoln--analyze that bit of PE you found. Turns out it's gold leaf. Probably sixty to eighty years old. He found a few cellulose fibers attached so he thinks it's from a book."

  "Of course! Gold topstain from a page," Rhyme said.

  "Now he also found some particles of ink on it. He said, I'm quotin' the boy now: 'It's not inconsistent with the type of ink the New York Public Library uses to stamp the ends of their books.' Don't he talk funny?"

  "A library book," Rhyme mused.

  Amelia Sachs said, "A red-leather-bound library book."

  Rhyme stared at her. "Right!" he shouted. "That's what the bits of red leather're from. Not the glove. It's a book he carries around with him. Could be his bible."

  "Bible?" Dellray asked. "You thinkin' he's some kinda religious nutzo?"

  "Not the Bible, Fred. Call the library again, Banks. Maybe that's how he wore down his shoes--in the reading room. I know, it's a long shot. But we don't have a lot of options here. I want a list of all the antiquarian books stolen from Manhattan locations in the past year."