“I’m thinking,” Rhyme said, “you’ll have to be discreet. Maybe not mention the initials, when you call. Just ask about protégés of Patel.”
The Englishman nodded. “Yes, of course, in case the suspect gets in touch with one of my contacts.”
“Another thing you should know,” Sachs said. “He just assaulted another engaged couple — in Gravesend. A neighborhood of Brooklyn.”
“Good Lord, he did?” Ackroyd asked, clearly surprised. “So soon after Weintraub? Are they dead?”
“No. They survived. Not badly injured.”
“Really?” The Englishman’s face narrowed. “Ah, very good. For them, of course. And for us, as well. What did they have to say?”
Rhyme glanced toward Sachs, who said, “That brings me to my diagnosis: crazy. I think we have his motive. And it has nothing to do with stealing the rough to sell it. He’s saving it.”
Ackroyd nodded. “Saving? Not uncommon. Diamonds are a solid investment and an inflation hedge.”
“No, no. I mean, like saving an endangered species: keeping diamonds out of the hands of the engagement ring mill. He stole the rough to keep it pure. They said he rambled on about how diamonds are the heart of the earth and that cutting them is like raping or murdering them.”
Crazy...
Thom appeared with a cup and Ackroyd took it. He sipped and complimented the aide on the beverage. The man was then shaking his head. “Saving diamonds. ‘Heart of the earth.’ That’s one for the ages. There are certainly some nutters who hoard diamonds but that’s always for the value. They think if there’s a nuclear war or rebellion they’ll have the diamonds to barter. As if after an atomic holocaust the first thing people will want is baubles.”
Sachs added, “And it looks like he was intentionally targeting Patel too. He referred to the ‘Indian’ he killed yesterday. He’d betrayed his people, he said.” Sachs flipped through her notes. “Something about diamonds being sacred.”
“In ancient India, yes, that was true. For them it was a mortal sin to cut diamonds. The Greeks and Romans began cutting them and turning them into jewelry although it wasn’t long until the Indians got on board. As one might expect, the spiritual nature of the stones took second place to commerce and vanity.” Ackroyd seemed to grow thoughtful... and then perplexed. He asked, “Did he give any indication of where the rough was? Where he lived? Anything else about him?”
“Nothing. Just threats and ranting. They gave me some details. He has light-blue eyes. And a foreign accent but it was as though he was trying to obscure it, speaking American-accented English. His grammar was, I’m quoting, ‘messed up.’ He’s a smoker. They could smell it. And he’s got a new, or a second, weapon. A revolver. Mikey knows guns. And I dug the slug out of the wall. Damaged but not bad. It’s a thirty-eight, I’m sure.”
Sellitto said, “He pitched out his jacket after the Weintraub killing. He probably tossed the Glock into a Dumpster somewhere. Or another storm drain.”
“I’ll get an EC team from Queens to check out the other drains,” Sachs said and called Crime Scene headquarters to arrange it.
Sachs and Cooper turned to analyzing the evidence from the Gravesend assault.
The results of the fingerprints were negative. The floors were carpeted, so she hadn’t been able to take electrostatic footprints. Cooper did a gunshot residue profile from furniture near where the unsub had been standing when he fired. Sachs had also collected a few items that were more likely associated with the perp, rather than Mikey or Emma, or recent visitors to the place: black cotton fibers, some scraps of cooked ground beef and two blond hairs. The hairs and swabs of surfaces the unsub had been near were sent to the main lab for DNA testing.
The analysis on the Promisor’s text had come in. It was impossible to trace the call and the burner had been bought with cash. Some fast research had revealed that the first sentence was from a knowledge base like Wikipedia.
The concept of engagement is based on a binding promise to wed by the man to his betrothed. Now I have promise too. I am looking for YOU, I am looking every where. Buy ring, put on pretty finger but I will find you and you will bleed for your love.
Since he had quoted that first sentence, the words and phrasing revealed nothing about him. The rest, presumably generated by their unsub, provided some minor insights, basically what Sachs had discovered: That English was probably not his first language — the sparsity of articles or modifiers (not “buy the ring”) was typical of a number of foreign tongues. The splitting of “everywhere” into two words supported this as well, as did the absence of contractions — as with “I am” and “I will.”
And there was nothing in the NCIC crime database, or any other they had access to, that profiled anyone fitting the behavior of the unsub.
“Promisor,” Ackroyd muttered. He looked as though he wished he’d drawn a more conventional case. Setting down his empty coffee cup, he walked to the rack of coats and pulled his on. “I’ll see if I can find this elusive VL. No one you’ve talked to has any leads at all?”
“Not a one,” Sellitto said.
The Englishman left. Rhyme told Sachs about the fare card and recounted their conclusion that Forty-Seven had been at the jobsite across from the subway two days ago — either taking a shortcut to avoid the cameras in the government buildings at Cadman Plaza or, more likely, meeting somebody there, possibly a worker with an organized crime connection to buy a new gun, the .38.
“I’ll get down there and check it out. Sunday, but they’ll have at least some security there.” Sachs collected her jacket and headed out the door.
After she’d left, Sellitto received a call and had a conversation. He disconnected. “CCTVs from just before our boy took the subway. He was tagged on Hicks Street, near Pierrepont, a couple blocks away. Wearing the hard hat and reflective vest. Just walking. Alone. That’s all they’ve got. But he’s in the system now, tagged to the location. If he shows up again, we’re on the alert.”
Rhyme nodded and wheeled back to the charts. The entries provided some direction, some help. But the prickly dissatisfaction he felt, like a nagging fever, told him that the problem wasn’t that the answers were so elusive; it was that he was beginning to think they weren’t asking the right questions.
It was then that his phone dinged with a text. He looked over the screen.
“Thom?” he shouted.
“I’m right—”
“Bring the van around.”
“Here. The van?”
“Yes. Bring. The. Van. Around.”
Sellitto regarded him. “Got a lead?”
“No. This’s something else.”
Chapter 19
Well, a problem.
Vimal Lahori was sitting across from Mr. Nouri at the diamantaire’s desk, in his upstairs office at N&B Jewelry. His heart was beating hard, his breath coming fast.
He needed the money. But there was a glitch.
He was staring at the diamond that he’d shaken from the stiff folded envelope, the diamond Mr. Nouri was hiring him to cut.
“Something, isn’t it?” the man whispered.
Vimal could only nod. He tipped down the loupe and examined the stone under the sharp light from a gooseneck lamp. Turned it over, and over, and over.
Rough diamonds occur in nature in various forms. The most common shape is octahedron — essentially two four-sided pyramids joined at the base. These are cut into separate pyramids and each one is then bruted — smoothed against another diamond or a laser. These become round brilliants: the most common cut, making up tens of millions of stones in rings, earrings, pins and necklaces around the world. This cut features fifty-seven or occasionally fifty-eight facets; it was created a century ago by Marcel Tolkowsky, one of the most renowned diamantaires who ever lived. He applied geometry to establish the ideal proportions for shaping diamonds.