Eyes on the woman’s ruined body. Water dripped off her peeled nose. A bit of white – bone – showed through the cheek. And her face was drawn into an anguished grin. Just like the vic that morning.
“I believed you, Amelia,” he said dismissively. “Now, the case is open?” He was calm and he sounded… what? Yes, that was the tone. Seductive. He sounds like a lover.
I hate him, she thought. It’s wrong to hate a cripple. But I fucking hate him.
“You’re in the basement, right?”
“Yessir.”
“Listen, you’ve got to call me Lincoln. We’re going to know each other very well by the time this is over.”
Which is gonna be about sixty minutes, tops.
“You’ll find some rubber bands in the suitcase, if I’m not mistaken.”
“I see some.”
“Put them around your shoes. Where the ball of your foot is. If there’s any confusion as to footprints you’ll know which ones are yours.”
“Okay, done.”
“Take some evidence bags and envelopes. Put a dozen of each in your pocket. Can you use chopsticks?”
“What did you say?”
“You live in the city, right? You ever go to Mott Street? For General Tsao’s chicken? Cold noodles with sesame paste?”
Her gorge rose at the talk of food. She refused to glance at the woman dangling in front of her.
“I can use chopsticks,” she said icily.
“Look in the suitcase. I’m not sure you’ll find them. They kept them there when I was running scenes.”
“I don’t see any.”
“Well, you’ll find some pencils. Put those in your pocket. Now you’re going to walk a grid. Cover every inch. Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
“First tell me what you see.”
“One big room. Maybe twenty by thirty. Full of rusted pipes. Cracked concrete floor. Walls’re brick. Mold.”
“Any boxes? Anything on the floor?”
“No, it’s empty. Except for the pipes, oil tanks, the boiler. There’s the sand – the shells, a pile of it spilling out of a crack in the wall. And there’s some gray stuff too -”
“'Stuff'?” he jumped. “I don’t recognize that word. What’s 'stuff'?”
A burst of anger tore through her. She calmed and said, “It’s the asbestos but not wadded up like this morning. It’s in crumbling sheets.”
“Good. Now, the first sweep. You’re looking for footprints and any staged clues that he’s left for us.”
“You think he left more?”
“Oh, I’ll betcha,” Rhyme said. “Put on the goggles and use the PoliLight. Keep it low. Grid the room. Every inch. Get going. You know how to walk a grid?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
She bristled. “I don’t need to be tested.”
“Ah, humor me. How?”
“Back and forth in one direction, then back and forth in the perpendicular direction.”
“Each step, no more than one foot in length.”
She hadn’t known that. “I know,” she said.
“Go ahead.”
The PoliLight flashed on with an eerie, otherworldly glow. She knew it was something called an ALS – alternative light source – and that it made fingerprints and semen and blood and some shoeprints fluoresce. The brilliant bile-green light made shadows dance and jump and more than once she nearly drew down on a dark form that turned out to be a mere phantom of darkness.
“Amelia?” Rhyme’s voice was sharp. She jumped again.
“Yes? What?”
“Do you see any footprints?”
She continued to stare at the floor. “I, uh, no. I see streaks in the dust. Or something.” She cringed at the careless word. But Rhyme, unlike Peretti that morning, paid no attention. He said, “So. He swept up afterwards.”
She was surprised. “Yeah, that’s it! Broom marks. How’d you know?”
Rhyme laughed – a jarring sound to Sachs in this rank tomb – and he said, “He was smart enough to cover his tracks this morning; no reason to stop now. Oh, he’s good, this boy is. But we’re good too. Keep going.”
Sachs bent over, her joints on fire, and began the search. She covered every square foot of the floor. “Nothing here. Nothing at all.”
He picked up on the note of finality in her voice. “You’ve only just started, Amelia. Crime scenes are three-dimensional. Remember that. What you mean is there’s nothing on the floor. Now search the walls. Start with the spot farthest away from the steam and cover every inch.”
She slowly circled the horrible marionette in the center of the room. She thought of a Maypole game she’d played at some Brooklyn street feast when she was six or seven, as her father proudly took home movies. Circling slowly. It was an empty room and yet there were a thousand different places to search.
Hopeless… Impossible.
But it wasn’t. On a ledge, about six feet above the floor, she found the next set of clues. She barked a fast laugh. “Got something here.”
“In a cluster?”
“Yes. A big splinter of dark wood.”
“Chopsticks.”
“What?” she asked.
“The pencils. Use them to pick it up. Is it wet?”
“Everything in here’s wet.”
“Sure, it would be. The steam. Put it in a paper evidence bag. Plastic keeps the moisture in and in this heat bacteria’ll destroy the trace evidence. What else is there?” he asked eagerly.
“It’s, I don’t know, hairs, I think. Short, trimmed. A little pile of them.”
“Loose or attached to skin?”
“Loose.”
“There’s a role of two-inch tape in the suitcase. 3M. Pick them up with that.”
Sachs lifted most of the hairs, placed them in a paper envelope. She studied the ledge around the hairs. “I see some stains. Looks like rust or blood.” She thought to hit the spot with the PoliLight. “They’re fluorescing.”
“Can you do a presumptive blood test?”
“No.”
“Let’s just assume it’s blood. Could it be the victim’s?”
“Doesn’t seem to be. It’s too far away and there’s no trail to her body.”
“Does it lead anywhere?”
“Looks like it. To a brick in the wall. It’s loose. No prints on it. I’m going to move it aside. I – oh, Jesus!” Sachs gasped and stumbled back a foot or two, nearly fell.
“What?” Rhyme asked.
She eased forward, staring in disbelief.
“Amelia. Talk to me.”
“It’s a bone. A bloody bone.”
“Human?”
“I don’t know,” she answered. “How would I…? I don’t know.”
“Recent kill?”
“Looks like it. About two inches long and two in diameter. There’s blood and flesh on it. It’s been sawn off. Jesus. Who the fuck’d do something -”
“Don’t get rattled.”
“What if he got it from another victim?”
“Then we better find ’im pretty damn soon, Amelia. Bag it. Plastic for the bone.”
As she did this, he asked, “Any other staged clues?” He sounded concerned.
“No.”
“That’s all? Hairs, a bone and a splinter of wood. He’s not making it very easy, is he?”
“Should I bring it back to your… office?”
Rhyme was laughing. “He’d like us to call it quits. But no. We’re not through yet. Let’s find out a little more about Unsub 823.”
“But there’s nothing here.”
“Oh, yes there is, Amelia. There’s his address and his phone number and his description and his hopes and aspirations. They’re all around you.”
She was furious at his professor’s tone and remained silent.
“You have the flashlight?”
“I’ve got my issue halogen -”
“No,” he grumbled. “Issue lights are too narrow. You need the twelve-volt broad beam.”
“Well, I didn’t bring it,” she snapped. “Should I go back and get it?”
“No time. Check out the pipes.”
She searched for ten minutes, climbing up to the ceiling, and with the powerful light she illuminated spots that perhaps hadn’t been lit in fifty years. “No, I don’t see a thing.”