The Bone Collector

by Jeffery Deaver

  Thom had put on a CD--Samuel Barber's elegiac Adagio for Strings. But Rhyme had snorted a derisive laugh, declared it a sorry cliche and ordered him to replace it with Gershwin.

  Amelia Sachs climbed the stairs and walked into his bedroom, noticed him looking outside. "What do you see?" she asked.

  "Hot people."

  "And the birds? The falcons?"

  "Ah, yes, they're there."

  "Hot too?"

  He examined the male. "I don't think so. Somehow, they seem above that sort of thing."

  She set the bag on the foot of the bed and lifted out the contents, a bottle of expensive brandy. He'd reminded her of the Scotch but Sachs said she'd contribute the liquor. She set it next to the pills and the plastic bag. Looking like a breezy professional wife, home from Balducci's with piles of vegetables and seafood and too little time to whip them into dinner.

  She'd also bought some ice, at Rhyme's request. He'd remembered what Berger had explained about the heat in the bag. She lifted the cap off the Courvoisier and poured herself a glass and filled his tumbler, arranged the straw toward his mouth.

  "Where's Thom?" she asked him.

  "Out."

  "Does he know?"

  "Yes."

  They sipped the brandy.

  "Do you want me to say anything to your wife?"

  Rhyme considered it for a long moment, thinking: We have years to converse with someone, to blurt and rant, to explain our desires and anger and regrets--and oh how we squander those moments. Here he'd known Amelia Sachs all of three days and they'd bared their hearts far more than he and Blaine had done in nearly a decade.

  "No," he said. "I've e-mailed her." A chuckle. "That's a comment on our times, I'd say."

  More brandy, the astringent bite on his palate was dissipating. Growing smoother, duller, lighter.

  Sachs leaned over the bed and tapped her glass to his.

  "I have some money," Rhyme began. "I'm giving a lot of it to Blaine and to Thom. I--"

  But she shushed him with a kiss to the forehead and shook her head.

  A soft clatter of pebbles as she spilled the tiny Seconals into her hand.

  Rhyme instinctively thought: The Dillie-Koppanyi color test reagent. Add 1 percent cobalt acetate in methanol to the suspect material followed by 5 percent isopropylamine in methanol. If the substance is a barbiturate the reagent turns a beautiful violet-blue color.

  "How should we do it?" she asked, gazing at the pills. "I really don't know."

  "Mix them in the booze," he suggested.

  She dropped them in his tumbler. They dissolved quickly.

  How fragile they were. Like the dreams they induce.

  She stirred the mixture with the straw. He glanced at her wounded nails but even that he couldn't be sorrowful for. This was his night and it was a night of joy.

  Lincoln Rhyme had a sudden recollection of childhood in suburban Illinois. He never drank his milk and to get him to do so his mother bought straws coated on the inside with flavoring. Strawberry, chocolate. He hadn't thought about them until just this moment. It was a great invention, he remembered. He always looked forward to his afternoon milk.

  Sachs pushed the straw close to his mouth. He took it between his lips. She put her hand on his arm.

  Light or dark, music or silence, dreams or the meditation of dreamless sleep? What will I find?

  He began to sip. The taste was really no different from straight liquor. A little more bitter maybe. It was like--

  From downstairs came a huge pounding on the door. Hands and feet both, it seemed. Voices shouting too.

  He lifted his lips away from the straw. Glanced into the dim stairwell.

  She looked at him, frowning.

  "Go see," he said to her.

  She disappeared down the stairs and a moment later returned, looking unhappy. Lon Sellitto and Jerry Banks followed. Rhyme noticed that the young detective had done another butcher job on his face with a razor. He'd really have to get that under control.

  Sellitto glanced at the bottle and the bag. His eyes swayed toward Sachs but she crossed her arms and held her own, silently ordering him to leave. This was not an issue of rank, the look told the detective, and what was happening here was none of his business. Sellitto's eyes acknowledged the message but he wasn't about to go anywhere just yet.

  "Lincoln, I need to talk to you."

  "Talk. But talk fast, Lon. We're busy."

  The detective sat heavily in the noisy rattan chair. "An hour ago a bomb went off at the United Nations. Right next to the banquet hall. During the welcome dinner for the peace conference delegates."

  "Six dead, fifty-four hurt," Banks added. "Twenty of them serious."

  "My God," Sachs whispered.

  "Tell him," Sellitto muttered.

  Banks continued, "For the conference, the UN hired a bunch of temps. The perp was one of them--a receptionist. A half-dozen people saw her carrying a knapsack to work and putting it in a storeroom near the banquet hall. She left just before the bang. The bomb squad estimates we're looking at about two pounds of C4 or Semtex."

  Sellitto said, "Linc, the bomb, it was a yellow knapsack, the wits said."

  "Yellow?" Why was that familiar?

  "UN human resources ID'd the receptionist as Carole Ganz."

  "The mother," Rhyme and Sachs said simultaneously.

  "Yeah. The woman you saved in the church. Only Ganz's an alias. Her real name's Charlotte Willoughby. She was married to a Ron Willoughby. Ring a bell?"

  Rhyme said it didn't.

  "It was in the news a couple years ago. He was an Army sergeant assigned to a UN peacekeeping force in Burma."

  "Keep going," the criminalist said.

  "Willoughby didn't want to go--thought an American soldier shouldn't be wearing a UN uniform and taking orders from anybody except the U.S. Army. It's a big right-wing issue nowadays. But he went anyway. Wasn't there a week before he's blown away by some little punk in Rangoon. Got shot in the back. Became a conservative martyr. Anti-Terror says his widow got recruited by an extremist group out in the Chicago burbs. Some U of C grads gone underground. Edward and Katherine Stone."

  Banks took over the narrative. "The explosive was in a package of kid's modeling clay, along with some other toys. We think she was going to take the little girl with her so security at the banquet-hall entrance wouldn't think anything of the clay. But with Pammy in the hospital she didn't have her cover story so she gave up on the hall and just planted it in the storeroom. Did enough damage as it was."

  "Rabitted?"

  "Yep. Not a trace."

  "What about the little girl," Sachs asked, "Pammy?"

  "Gone. The woman checked her out of the hospital around the time of the bang. No sign of either of them."

  Rhyme asked, "The cell?"

  "The group in Chicago? They're gone too. Had a safe house in Wisconsin but it's been hosed. We don't know where they are."

  "So that was the rumor Dellray's snitch heard." Rhyme laughed. "Carole was the one coming into the airport. Had nothing to do with Unsub 823."

  He found Banks and Sellitto staring at him.

  Oh, the old silent trick again.

  "Forget it, Lon." Rhyme said, all too aware of the glass sitting inches from him, radiating a welcoming heat. "Impossible."

  The older detective plucked his sweaty shirt away from his body, cringing. "Goddamn cold in here, Lincoln. Jesus. Look, just think about it. What'sa harm?"

  "I can't help you."

  Sellitto said, "There was a note. Carole wrote it and sent it to the secretary-general by interoffice envelope. Harping on world government, taking away American liberties. Some shit like that. Claimed credit for the UNESCO bombing in London too and said there'd be more. We've gotta get 'em, Linc."

  Feeling his oats, scarface Banks said, "The secretary-general and the mayor both've asked for you. SAC Perkins too. And there'll be a call from the White House, you need any more persuading. We sure hope you don't,
detective."

  Rhyme didn't comment on the error regarding his rank.

  "They've got the Bureau's PERT team ready to go. Fred Dellray's running the case and he asked-- respectfully, yeah, he used that very word--he asked respectfully if you'd do the forensic work. And it's a virgin scene, except for getting the bodies and the wounded out."

  "Then it's not virgin," Rhyme snapped. "It's extremely contaminated."

  "All the more reason we need you," Banks ventured, adding "sir" to defuse Rhyme's glare.

  Rhyme sighed, looked at the glass and the straw. Peace was so close to him just now. And pain too. Infinite sums of both.

  He closed his eyes. Not a sound in the room.

  Sellitto added, "It was just the woman herself, hey, wouldn't be that big a deal. But she's got her daughter with her, Lincoln. Underground, with a little girl? You know what that kid's life's going to be like?"

  I'll get you for that too, Lon.

  Rhyme nestled his head into the opulent pillow. Finally his eyes sprang open. He said, "There'd be some conditions."

  "Name it, Linc."

  "First of all," he said. "I don't work alone."

  Rhyme looked toward Amelia Sachs.

  She hesitated for a moment then smiled and stood, lifted the glass of tainted brandy out from under the straw. She opened the window wide and flung the tawny liquid into the ripe, hot air above the alley next to the townhouse, while, just feet away, the falcon looked up, glaring angrily at the motion of her arm, cocked his gray head, then turned back to feed his hungry youngster.

  APPENDIX

  Excerpts from: Glossary of Terms, Lincoln Rhyme, Physical Evidence, 4th ed. (New York: Forensic Press, 1994). Reprinted with permission.

  Alternative light source (ALS): Any of several types of high-intensity lamps of varying wavelength and light color, used to visualize latent friction-ridge prints, and certain types of trace and biological evidence.

  Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS): One of several computerized systems for the scanning and storage of friction-ridge prints.

  Birefringence: The difference between two measures of refraction displayed by certain crystalline substances. Useful in identifying sand, fibers, and dirt.

  Chain of custody (COC): A record of every person who has had possession of a piece of evidence from the moment of its collection at a crime scene to its introduction at trial.

  COD: Cause of death.

  Control samples: Physical evidence collected at a crime scene from known sources, used for comparison with evidence from an unknown source. For example, the victim's own blood and hair constitutes a control sample.

  DCDS: Deceased, confirmed dead at scene.

  Density-gradient testing (D-G): A technique for comparing soil samples to determine if they come from the same location. The test involves suspending dirt samples in tubes filled with liquids that have different density values.

  DNA typing: Analyzing and charting the genetic structure within the cells of certain types of biological evidence (for example, blood, semen, hair) for the purpose of comparison with control samples from a known suspect. The process involves the isolation and comparison of fragments of DNA--deoxyribonucleic acid--the basic building block of the chromosome. Some types of DNA typing produce a mere likelihood that the evidence came from a suspect; other types are virtually conclusive, with the odds in the hundreds of millions that the evidence was from a particular individual. Also called "genetic typing," or--erroneously--"DNA fingerprinting" or "genetic fingerprinting."

  Forensic anthropologist: A skeletal-remains expert who aids crime scene investigators in evaluating and identifying remains and excavating grave sites.

  Forensic odontologist: A dental expert who aids crime scene investigators in identifying victims through examination of dental remains and analyzing bite-mark evidence.

  Friction ridges: The raised lines of skin on fingers, palms, and the soles of feet, whose patterns are unique to each individual. Prints of friction ridges at crime scenes can be classified as (1) plastic (left in an impressionable substance such as putty); (2) evident (left by skin coated with a foreign substance like dust or blood); (3) latent (left by skin contaminated with bodily secretions such as grease or sweat and largely invisible).

  Gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer (GC-MS): Two instruments used in forensic analysis to identify unknown substances such as drugs and trace evidence. They are often linked together. The gas chromatograph separates components in a substance and transmits them to the mass spectrometer, which definitively identifies each of those components.

  Grid: A common approach to searching for evidence whereby the searcher covers a crime scene back and forth in one direction (say, north-south), then covers the same scene in the perpendicular direction (east-west).

  Gunshot residue (GSR): The material--particularly barium and antimony--deposited on the hands and clothing of a person shooting a firearm. GSR remains on human skin for up to six hours if not removed intentionally by washing or inadvertently by excessive contact when a suspect is arrested and handcuffed (a greater risk if the hands are cuffed behind the back).

  Identification of physical evidence: Determining the category or class of material that an item of evidence falls into. This is distinguishable from "individuation," which is a determination of the single source the item came from. For example, a torn piece of paper found at a crime scene can be identified as coated 40-pound stock of the type often used in magazine printing. It can be individuated if the piece exactly fits the missing section of a torn page in a particular issue of a magazine found in a suspect's possession. Individuation, of course, has far more probative value than does identification.

  Individuation of physical evidence: See "Identification of physical evidence."

  Lividity: The purplish discoloring of portions of the skin of a deceased owing to the darkening and settling of the blood after death

  Locard's Exchange Principle: Formulated by Edmond Locard, a French criminalist, this theory holds that there is always an exchange of physical evidence between the perpetrator and the crime scene or the victim, however minute or difficult to detect that evidence might be.

  Mass spectrometer: See "Gas chromatograph."

  Ninhydrin: A chemical that visualizes latent friction-ridge prints on porous surfaces such as paper, cardboard, and wood.

  Physical evidence (PE): In criminal law, PE refers to items or substances presented at trial to support the assertion by the defendant or the prosecution that a particular proposition is true. Physical evidence comprises inanimate objects, bodily materials, and impressions (such as fingerprints).

  Presumptive blood test: Any of a number of chemical techniques for determining if blood residue is present at a crime scene, even if it is not evident to the eye. Most common are tests using luminol and orthotolidine.

  Scanning electron microscope (SEM): An instrument that fires electrons onto a specimen of evidence to be examined and projects the resulting image on a computer monitor. Magnification of 100,000X is possible with SEMs, compared with about 500X in the case of most optical microscopes. The SEM is often combined with an energy-dispersive X-ray unit (EDX), which can identify the elements in a sample at the same time the technician is viewing it.

  Staging: A perpetrator's efforts to rearrange, add, or remove evidence from a crime scene to make it appear that the crime he or she has committed did not occur or was committed by someone else.

  Trace evidence: Bits of tiny, sometimes microscopic, substances such as dust, dirt, cellular material, and fibers.

  Unsub: Unknown subject; that is, an unidentified suspect.

  Vacuum-metal deposition (VMD): The most effective means for visualizing latent friction-ridge prints on smooth surfaces. Gold or zinc evaporated in a vacuum chamber coats the object to be examined with a thin layer of metal, thereby making a print visible.

  AUTHOR'S NOTE

  I'm indebted to Peter A. Micheels, author of The Detectives, and E.
W. Count, author of Cop Talk, whose books were not only wonderfully helpful in researching this one but great reads as well. Thanks to Pam Dorman, whose deft editorial touch is evident everywhere in this story. And of course thanks to my agent, Deborah Schneider . . . what would I do without ya? I'm grateful too to Nina Salter at Calmann-Levy for her perceptive comments on an earlier draft of the book and to Karolyn Hutchinson at REP in Alexandria, Virginia, for invaluable help with wheelchairs and other equipment available for quadriplegics. And to Teddy Rosenbaum--a detective in her own right--for her fine copyediting job. Students of law enforcement may wonder about the structure of the NYPD and FBI as presented here; tweaking the organizational charts was my doing exclusively. Oh, yes--anyone interested in reading a copy of Crime in Old New York may have a little trouble finding one. The official story is that the book is a fictional creation, though I've also heard the rumor that the one copy in existence was recently stolen from the New York Public Library--by a person or persons unknown.

  --J.W.D.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Jeffery Deaver is the author of nine suspense novels. He's twice been nominated for Edgar Awards and is the recipient of the Ellery Queen Readers' Award for best short story of 1995. His most recent thriller from Viking/Signet, A Maiden's Grave, was an HBO feature presentation. The Bone Collector is soon to be a film from Universal Pictures.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's Imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is

  https://www.penguinputnam.com