Sachs had just walked into Rhyme’s room when he made this pronouncement. He was quite pleased with himself.
“Everything except the rattler and the glop.”
She delivered the new evidence to Mel Cooper. The room had been transformed yet again and the tables were covered with new vials and beakers and pillboxes and lab equipment and boxes. It wasn’t much compared to the feds’ headquarters but, to Amelia Sachs, it felt oddly like home.
“Tell me,” she said.
“Tomorrow’s Sunday… pardon me – today’s Sunday. He’s going to burn down a church.”
“How do you figure?”
“The date.”
“On the scrap of paper? What’s it mean?”
“You ever hear of the anarchists?”
“Little Russians in trench coats carrying around those bombs that look like bowling balls?” Banks said.
“From the man who reads picture books,” Rhyme commented dryly. “Your Saturday-morning-cartoon roots are showing, Banks. Anarchism was an old social movement calling for the abolition of government. One anarchist, Enrico Malatesta – his shtick was ‘propaganda by deed.’ Translated that means murder and mayhem. One of his followers, an American named Eugene Lockworthy, lived in New York. One Sunday morning he bolted the doors of a church on the Upper East Side just after the service began and set the place on fire. Killed eighteen parishioners.”
“And that happened on May 20, 1906?” Sachs asked.
“Yep.”
“I’m not going to ask how you figured that out.”
Rhyme shrugged. “Obvious. Our unsub likes history, right? He gave us some matches so he’s telling us he’s planning arson. I just thought back to the city’s famous fires – the Triangle Shirtwaist, Crystal Palace, the General Slocum excursion boat… I checked the dates – May twentieth was the First Methodist Church fire.”
Sachs asked, “But where? Same location as that church?”
“Doubt it,” Sellitto said. “There’s a commercial high-rise there now. Eight twenty-three doesn’t like new places. I’ve got a couple men on it just in case but we’re sure he’s going for a church.”
“And we think,” Rhyme added, “that he’s going to wait till a service starts.”
“Why?”
“For one thing, that’s what Lockworthy did,” Sellitto continued. “Also, we were thinking ’bout what Terry Dobyns was telling us – upping the ante. Going for multiple vics.”
“So we’ve got a little more time. Until the service starts.”
Rhyme looked up at the ceiling. “Now, how many churches are there in Manhattan?”
“Hundreds.”
“That was rhetorical, Banks. I mean – let’s keep looking over the clues. He’ll have to narrow it down some.”
Footsteps on the stair.
It was the twins once again.
“We passed Fred Dellray outside.”
“He wasn’t the least bit cordial.”
“Or happy.”
“Whoa, look at that.” Saul – Rhyme believed it was Saul; he’d forgotten who had the freckles – nodded at the snake. “I’ve seen more of those in one night than I ever want to again.”
“Snakes?” Rhyme asked.
“We were at Metamorphosis. It’s a -”
“- very spooky place. Met the owner there. Weird guy. As you may’ve guessed.”
“Long, long beard. Wish we hadn’t gone at night,” Bedding continued.
“They sell taxidermied bats and insects. You wouldn’t believe some of the insects -”
“Five inches long.”
“- and critters like that one.” Saul nodded at the snake.
“Scorpions, a lot of scorpions.”
“Anyway, they had a break-in a month ago and guess what got took? A rattler’s skeleton.”
“Reported?” Rhyme asked.
“Yep.”
“But total value of the perped merch was only a hundred bucks or so. So Larceny wasn’t like all-hands-onboard, you know.”
“But tell them.”
Saul nodded. “The snake wasn’t the only thing missing. Whoever broke in took a couple dozen bones.”
“Human bones?” Rhyme asked.
“Yep. That’s what the owner thought was funny. Some of those insects -”
“Forget five inches, some of ’em were eight. Easy.”
“- are worth three or four hundred. But all the perp boosted was the snake and some bones.”
“Any particular ones?” Rhyme asked.
“An assortment. Like your Whitman’s Sampler.”
“His words, not ours.”
“Mostly little ones. Hand and foot. And a rib, maybe two.”
“The guy wasn’t sure.”
“Any CS report?”
“For ’jacked bones? Noooope.”
The Hardy Boys departed once more, heading downtown to the last scene to start canvassing the neighborhood.
Rhyme wondered about the snake. Was it giving them a location? Did it relate to the First Methodist fire? If rattlers had been indigenous to Manhattan, urban development had long ago played Saint Patrick and purged the island of them. Was he making a play on the word snake or rattler?
Then Rhyme suddenly believed he understood. “The snake’s for us.”
“Us?” Banks laughed.
“It’s a slap in the face.”
“Whose face?”
“Everybody who’s looking for him. I think it’s a practical joke.”
“I wasn’t laughing very hard,” Sachs said.
“Your expression was pretty funny.” Banks grinned.
“I think we’re better than he expected and he’s not happy about it. He’s mad and he’s taking it out on us. Thom, add that to our profile, if you would. He’s mocking us.”
Sellitto’s phone rang. He opened it and answered. “Emma darlin’. Whatcha got?” He nodded as he jotted notes. Then looked up and announced, “Rental-car thefts. Two Avises disappeared from their location in the Bronx in the past week, one in Midtown. They’re out ’cause the colors’re wrong: red, green and white. No Nationals. Four Hertz were ’jacked. Three in Manhattan – one from their downtown East Side location, from Midtown and from the Upper West Side. There were two green and – this could be it – one tan. But a silver Ford got boosted from White Plains. That’s my vote.”
“Agree,” Rhyme announced. “White Plains.”
“How do you know?” Sachs asked. “Monelle said it could’ve been either beige or silver.”
“Because our boy’s in the city,” Rhyme explained, “and if he’s going to boost something as obvious as a car he’ll do it as far away from his safe house as he can. It’s a Ford, you said?”
Sellitto asked Emma the question, then looked up. “Taurus. This year’s model. Dark-gray interior. Tag’s irrelevant.”
Rhyme nodded. “The first thing he changed, the plates. Thank her and tell her to get some sleep. But not to wander too far from the phone.”
“Got something here, Lincoln,” Mel Cooper called.
“What’s that?”
“The glop. I’m running it through the database of brand names now.” He stared at the screen. “Cross-referencing… Let’s see, the most likely match is Kink-Away. It’s a retail hair straightener.”
“Politically incorrect but helpful. That puts us up in Harlem, wouldn’t you think? Narrows down the churches considerably.” Banks was looking through the religious-service directories of all three metro newspapers. “I count twenty-two.”
“When’s the earliest service?”
“Three have services at eight. Six at nine. One at nine-thirty. The rest at ten or eleven.”
“He’ll go for one of the first services. He’s already giving us hours to find the place.”
Sellitto said, “I’ve got Haumann getting the ESU boys together again.”
“How ’bout Dellray?” Sachs said. She pictured the forlorn agent by himself on the street corner outside.
“What about him?” Sellitto muttered.
“Aw, let’s cut him in. He wants a piece of this guy bad.”
“Perkins said he was supposed to help,” Banks offered.
“You really want him?” Sellitto asked, frowning.