“Officer.”
“Detective.” The solidly built woman had a beautiful face, round. And she had applied makeup with care that morning. Sachs was pleased to see that Officer M. López was able to balance her personal inclinations with her profession. This small thing told Sachs she’d have a long career in blue. “I was going south, like you sent us, but thought I’d try this way. It’s a shortcut to the subway, up a block. Nobody heard any tires squealing away after the shots so I thought he might’ve done an MTA.”
Jumping on a Metropolitan Transportation Authority subway car could put distance between a criminal and a crime scene faster than a Ferrari.
López continued, “And since he got spotted by that wit — the woman with the dog — I was thinking, it’d been me, I would’ve lost the jacket. I’ve been checking trash cans and” — she pointed to the grate at her feet — “storm drains. Looks like some clothing in there. Didn’t touch it.”
“Good.” Sachs lay a number next to the grating and photographed it herself with her phone. “Did you—”
“I canvassed apartments. Nobody saw him.”
Sachs smiled in reply. She bent down and flashed her Maglite into the opening. It was a wad of dark cloth and it didn’t appear wet, which meant it hadn’t been there for very long. Drizzle had been the order of the day.
Pulling on gloves, she fished out the garment. It was a wool jacket and fairly new. Unsub 47 had worn a similar one, according to the anonymous 911 report and the video from the store on 47th Street, near Patel’s building.
López added, “Don’t know for certain it’s his. Maybe you can get gunshot residue off the sleeve to make sure.”
Which was on the program. Sachs bagged the jacket and fished in the drain but could find nothing else.
“Which subway?”
López told her and she jotted the numbers of the train lines.
“Thanks, Officer. Good work.”
“I’ll keep on with the canvass.”
“Thanks. I’m sending an ECT crew out. You can help ’em. And I’ll send a note to your file.”
The woman tried not to beam. “’Preciate it.”
Sachs encircled the area with yellow tape. She placed a call to the CSU’s main office, asking for an evidence collection tech she knew. She told the man the location of the storm drain and asked for a more thorough examination. A team would use fiber-optic cameras and lights to peer into the drain and see if the unsub — if it was indeed him — had thrown out the mask or anything else.
She returned to the scene at Saul Weintraub’s home to find that the crowds had largely dissipated. She stripped out of the overalls and gloves and wrote chain-of-custody notations on the cards.
Her phone buzzed. She glanced at the caller ID.
“Rhyme. We’re finished here. I’ll bring the evidence—”
“Sachs.”
The tone of his voice made clear that there was a problem.
“What is it?”
“Have the techs bring the stuff to me. You need to get down to Gravesend.”
“Brooklyn?”
“Yeah. Our unsub’s not wasting any time, Sachs. You’ve got another scene to run.”
Chapter 16
Lincoln Rhyme loved cloth.
When stitched into garments, the complex substance reveals the size of the perp, possibly age and maybe site of storage and, often, the source of purchase. It can shed fibers faster than a golden retriever blows his coat. And even better, cloth captures and retains wonderful trace evidence and in some rare instances fingerprints. Not to mention it can serve as a sponge to soak up and store that most wonderful of substances, deoxyribonucleic acid. Also known as DNA. Three letters that, Rhyme would theatrically tell his criminalistics students, spelled bad news for perps.
Rhyme was presently watching Mel Cooper process the jacket discarded by Unsub 47 in the storm drain in Queens.
They knew the garment was his because it contained traces of gunshot residue that was nearly identical in composition to residue on Weintraub’s body and found at the crime scenes in Patel’s building in the Diamond District. Cooper also discovered traces of the same rock dust near Weintraub’s body that was found at Patel’s: that kimberlite. The substance was proving helpful. The bullet striking the stone had blown a significant amount of rock dust and tiny chips throughout Patel’s shop, some settling on the unsub. It was acting like a marker to link him to locations and contacts.
Locard’s Principle, after Edmond Locard, the French criminalist, holds that in every exchange between criminal and victim, or criminal and crime scene, there is a transfer of matter. (“Every contact leaves a trace.”) If the forensic scientist is diligent enough, and clever enough, he or she can find that substance and determine what it is. That doesn’t mean, of course, that it will lead you to the perp’s door, but it can start you on the path.
This kimberlite, a perfect example of Locard’s matter, had become a helpful partner in their hunt for the unsub.
Rhyme called, “Prints?”
“Negative,” Cooper replied. He’d been over every inch of the jacket with an alternative light source then tried gold and zinc vacuum metal deposition, which can sometimes raise fingerprints on cloth. Well, that was always a long shot with garments.
Rhyme told him, “Get samples to Queens for DNA and TDNA.”
“Already ordered,” Cooper said. There was likely a DNA sample somewhere on the coat. Sweat or spit or tears or — it wasn’t unheard of with outer garments — semen adhere plentifully. If this was the case here, the DNA profile might have a positive hit in the CODIS or an international database and reveal the suspect’s identity. Even if no significant amounts of fluid or tissue were found, though, there would certainly be skin cells, which might be used for a Touch DNA analysis. This technique is less accurate than a full DNA workup — it requires only a half-dozen skin cells — and can result in false positive results. But this would not be for criminal trial, merely direction in getting the unsub’s identity.
Cooper slipped the jacket into an evidence bag and, since he hadn’t done so earlier, added his name to the chain-of-custody card. He left it inside the front door to await pickup by a team from the DNA analysis unit in Queens.
The brand labels had been cut from the jacket — clever. It was roughly a medium size, man’s. The stitching suggested mass manufacturing in a third-world country. Probably sold in a thousand stores around the country. There would be no leads from this angle.
In evidence bags Cooper assembled samples of fibers he’d taken from the jacket, along with fibers found inside the pockets — they were black cotton, very similar to those found at Patel’s, from the gloves, and polyester fibers, from the mask.
Patrolman Ron Pulaski called in. He explained he was still having no luck tracking down the mysterious VL. Rhyme recalled what their insurance investigator had warned of: the reluctance of those in the diamond community to talk to outsiders. As well as a natural tendency not to get involved in a case in which the perp was fast to use a razor knife and gun.
“Keep at it,” he told the Rookie and they disconnected.
VL’s refusal to contact the police was perplexing. Yes, he’d be scared of being targeted by the killer, but generally a witness would come forward immediately and ask for protection — and help catch the perp. It was also curious that no friends or family had contacted the police — surely he’d told someone about his run-in with the perp. He was a young man and must have a family.
Of course, it was possible he’d died of the wounds from the rock fragments. They hadn’t seemed serious but Rhyme had known victims of bad gunshot wounds to walk and act normally for hours before keeling over and dying.