“Hey, Linc, you’re the squiggly line/bloody shoe-print guru. Not me.” He took another phone call and stepped away.
No squiggles, it turned out. Probably slip-ons.
The witness had reported only one perp present, and footprints confirmed the killer was by himself.
His weapon was most likely a 9mm Glock, like Sachs’s, to judge from the polygonal rifling of the slug. Gun barrels for the past 150 years have contained interior indentations to spin the bullet as it leaves the weapon, making it more accurate. Most have lands and grooves — troughs. Glocks, however, have wavy indentations, not sharp edges, which give the bullet more speed and power. They aren’t the only guns with this feature — others are Heckler & Koch, Kahr Arms, Magnum Research, Tanfoglio, and CZ — but Glocks are by far the most common to feature polygonal rifling.
Sellitto disconnected his phone. “That was a couple gold shields. Went to Patel’s sister’s house, delivered the news. His wife had passed away a few years ago and the sister’s the only family he’s got in the area. They said it was pretty tough for her. She nearly collapsed. They waited till her husband got home to ask her questions. She said she didn’t know much about the business. That was a ‘man thing,’ she said.
“Patel’d never told her or her husband that he was concerned about security or that anybody’d been casing the shop. But he was really famous as a cutter — here and internationally too. Word could’ve gotten around that he had some nice shit for somebody to steal. My word, not hers.”
Sachs asked, “Partners? Employees? She have any idea who that witness was?”
“She didn’t really know. He owned the place himself. No full-time employees — he was too cheap and didn’t trust anybody else to work on the stones. Except, his sister thought, some young man worked there occasionally, apprenticing to be a diamond cutter. They asked about S and VL. But zip.”
Sachs said, “Probably paid in cash, off the books, to save money; no payroll information to help us track him down.”
A team from Crime Scene in Queens had searched Patel’s modest apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where he’d lived alone since his wife passed away of cancer some years ago. There was no evidence of a break-in, and — as Rhyme had wondered — the Grace-Cabot diamonds were not there.
Neither was Patel’s phone, so their contact at the NYPD Computer Crimes Unit was presently getting a list of numbers, incoming and outgoing, from the provider. They hoped one of these would prove to be a call to or from S or VL.
Sachs stepped away to take a call and, nodding absently as she had a conversation, jotted a few notes. Then gave the caller her email address.
A moment later a computer sounded with an incoming message and she disconnected and called it up.
“Movie time,” she said. “Security company for the building. This’s the security video of the floor this morning.” She downloaded it and began playing the grainy black-and-white footage.
Rhyme wheeled closer. Patel had arrived for work at about eight thirty this morning. Nothing happened until a few minutes before eleven. A man appeared, bearded and in a black overcoat and a short-brimmed hat, possibly with short dark hair. He pushed a button on the intercom of Patel’s shop, was admitted and stayed about twenty minutes.
“Probably S — Patel’s eleven o’clock.”
Five minutes later he left, according to the time stamp, some black speckles began to appear in the image and for a fraction of a second you could see a gloved hand and a shape of a head in the ski mask as the unsub sprayed black paint at the lens, while staying largely out of sight. The fuzzy images — literally thirteen frames — revealed nothing.
Rhyme looked to Cooper, who anticipated his question. “I ran the paint. It’s generic. No source.”
The criminalist grunted.
She reminded, “Patel’s security footage is gone. Forty-Seven took it with him but some Midtown North uniforms’re collecting video from the street. Most of the stores’ cameras are interior but there’re a few outside. We’ll see what they turn up. They’re checking the loading dock on Forty-Six too; that’s where the fire exit leads to.”
She asked Cooper for the clearest screenshot of S, from the hallway outside Patel’s. He processed the image and sent it to her via email. “I’ll get it to the canvassers. See if they can get a name.” She sat down at a nearby terminal, logged in and uploaded the shot for citywide distribution.
Mel Cooper turned to the others. “I’ve ID’d the stones that the apprentice, or whoever he was, was carrying — what the bullet hit. Looks like it’s in the serpentinite family — it’s called that because of the coloring and mottled texture; looks like snakeskin. If it’s got garnets or diamonds in it it’s kimberlite. That’s what this is. I can see little flecks of crystal that could be diamonds. Patel probably cuts and polishes it into necklaces or earrings.”
The parlor landline rang. The caller ID was a country code Rhyme did not recognize.
Sachs glanced at it. “South Africa.”
She hit Speaker and answered. “Yes?”
“Yes, hello. I’m trying to reach a Detective Amelia Sachs.” The accent was that melodic blend of Dutch and English.
“This is Detective Sachs.”
The caller identified himself as Llewelyn Croft, the managing director of Grace-Cabot Mining, Ltd., in Cape Town.
“Mr. Croft, you’re on speakerphone with Lieutenant Lon Sellitto, New York Police, and Lincoln Rhyme, a consultant.”
“I got your message. You said there’s been a theft that might involve us?”
“That’s right. I didn’t leave details on the phone but I’m sorry to tell you the diamond cutter who had the stones, Jatin Patel, was killed in the robbery.”
They heard a gasp.
“No! Oh, no. I saw him just last week. No, this is terrible.” His voice faded. “I can’t... killed?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“We’ve worked with him for years. He was one of the best diamond cutters in New York. Well, in the world.” His voice cracked. He cleared his throat and continued, “Are you saying our diamonds were stolen? Are you sure?”
“No, not for certain. One of the reasons I’m calling. I found an empty box with a receipt for a shipment of four items, ID numbers GC-one through — four.”
“Yes,” he said, sounding dismayed. “Those are ours.”
“In rands they’re worth about sixty eight million?”
A sigh. Then nothing.
“Sir?”
“Yes, that’s the insured value. They were rough so when finished they would have sold for much more.”
“This is Detective Lon Sellitto. As far as you know then, Patel had the stones with him? Could he’ve sent them out to be worked on?”
“No, no. He’d never do that. Only he was talented enough to work on them. My God. Those stones... Do you know who did it?”
“We’re investigating,” Sachs said.
Sellitto asked, “Who’d have known that Patel had these diamonds?”
A pause, then Croft said, “I couldn’t say, of course, who Jatin told. But I doubt he mentioned them to anyone. I don’t know how familiar you are with the diamond industry but no one talks about jobs. Especially with incomparable stones like these. Security is paramount. And within our company? An inside job, I’m sure you’re thinking. Only a few executives knew they were going to Jatin. But we’re all partners in the company — and, frankly, we’re all fairly well off. As for the line workers and miners? Once the stone is extracted and processed, they have no idea where it goes. Sometimes transport companies sell information to thieves but I flew the rough to New York myself. It was that valuable.” A pause. “That irreplaceable.”