‘Bad out there,’ Sellitto muttered. He dusted his thinning gray-black hair, and a few dots of sleet bailed. His eyes followed them down. He’d tracked in muck and ice. ‘Sorry about that.’
Thom said not to worry and brought him a cup of coffee.
‘Bad,’ the detective repeated, toasting his hands on the mug the way Sachs had. Eyes toward the window, on the other side of which, beyond the falcons, you could see sleet and mist and black branches. And little else of Central Park.
Rhyme didn’t get out much and in any event weather meant nothing to him, unless it was a factor in a crime scene.
Or it helped his early warning system detect visitors.
‘It’s pretty much finished,’ Rhyme said, nodding at the City Hall mugging/murder crime scene report.
‘Yeah, yeah, that’s not why I’m here.’ Spoken nearly as one word.
Rhyme’s attention hovered. Sellitto was a senior officer in Major Cases and if he wasn’t here to pick up the report, then maybe something else, something more interesting, was on the horizon. More propitious was that Sellitto had seen a tray of pastry, homemade by Thom, and had turned away as if the crullers were invisible. His mission here had to be urgent.
And, therefore, engaging.
‘We got a call, a homicide down in SoHo, Linc. Earlier today. We drew straws and you got picked. Hope you’re free.’
‘How can I get picked if I never drew a straw?’
A sip of coffee. Ignoring Rhyme. ‘It’s a tough one.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘Woman was abducted from the basement of the store where she worked. Some boutique. Killer dragged her through an access door and into a tunnel under the building.’
Rhyme knew that beneath SoHo was a warren of tunnels, dug years ago for transporting goods from one industrial building to another. He’d always believed it was just a matter of time before somebody used the place as a killing zone.
‘Sexual assault?’
‘No, Amelia,’ Sellitto said. ‘The perp’s a tattoo artist, seems. And from what the respondings said a pretty fucking good one. He gave her a tat. Only he didn’t use ink. He used poison.’
Rhyme had been a forensic scientist for many years; his mind often made accurate deductions from scant preliminary details. But inferences work only when the facts presented echo those from the past. This information was unique in Rhyme’s memory and didn’t become a springboard for any theories whatsoever.
‘What was the toxin he used?’
‘They don’t know. This just happened, I was saying. We’re holding the scene.’
‘More, Lon. The design? That he tattooed on her?’
‘It was some words, they said.’
The intrigue factor swelled. ‘Do you know what they were?’
‘The respondings didn’t say. But they told me it looked like only part of a sentence. And you can guess what that means.’
‘He’s going to need more victims,’ Rhyme said, glancing Sachs’s way. ‘So he can send the rest of his message.’
CHAPTER 4
Sellitto was explaining:
‘Her name was Chloe Moore, twenty-six. Part-time actress — had a few roles in commercials and some walk-ons in thrillers. Working in the boutique to pay the bills.’
Sachs asked the standard questions: Boyfriend trouble, husband trouble, triangle troubles?
‘Naw, none of the above that we could tell. I just started uniforms canvassing around the area but the prelim from the clerks in the store and her roommate is that she hung with a good crowd. Was pretty conservative. No boyfriend presently and no bad breakups.’
Rhyme was curious. ‘Any tattoos, other than the one he killed her with?’
‘I dunno. First responders scooted as soon as the ME’s team declared DCDS.’
Deceased, declared dead at scene. The official pronouncement by the city’s medical examiner that got the crime scene clock running and started all kinds of procedures. Once DCDS was called, there was no reason for anybody to remain on the scene; Rhyme insisted that responders get the hell out to avoid contamination. ‘Good,’ he told Sellitto. He realized he was fully in View of Death Number One mode.
‘All right, Sachs. Where are we with the city worker?’ A glance at the City Hall report.
‘I’d say it’s done. Still awaiting customer records about people who bought that brand of knife. But I’m betting the perp didn’t use his credit card or fill out a questionnaire about customer service. Not much else to do.’
‘Agreed. Okay, Lon, we’ll take it. Though I can’t help but note you didn’t really ask. You just drew a straw on my behalf and stomped slush in here, assuming I’d get on board.’
‘What the fuck else’d you be doing, Linc? Cross-country skiing through Central Park?’
Rhyme liked it when people didn’t shrink from his condition, when they weren’t afraid to make jokes like Sellitto’s. He grew furious when people treated him like a broken doll.
There, there, poor you …
Sellitto said, ‘I’ve called Crime Scene in Queens. There’s an RRV en route. They’ll let you take the lead, Amelia.’
‘On my way.’ She pulled on a wool scarf and gloves. She picked another leather jacket from the hook, longer, mid-thigh. In all their years together Rhyme had never seen her wear a full overcoat. Leather jackets or sport, that was about it. Rarely a windbreaker, either, unless she was undercover or on a tac op.
The wind again blasted the ancient windows, rattling the frames, and Rhyme nearly told Sachs to drive carefully — she piloted a classic rear-wheel-drive muscle car that behaved badly on ice — but telling Sachs to be cautious was like telling Rhyme to be patient; it just wasn’t going to happen.
‘You want help?’ Pulaski asked.
Rhyme debated. He asked Sachs, ‘You need him?’
‘Don’t know. Probably not. Single victim, confined area.’
‘For the time being, rookie, you’ll be our undercover mourner. Stay here. We’ll think about your cover story.’
‘Sure, Lincoln.’
‘I’ll call in from the scene,’ Sachs said, grabbing the black canvas bag that contained the com unit she used to talk with Rhyme from the field, and hurried out the door. There was a brief howl of wind, then silence after the creak and slam.
Rhyme noticed that Sellitto was rubbing his eyes. His face was gray and he radiated exhaustion.
The detective saw that Rhyme was looking his way. He said, ‘That fucking Met case. Not getting any sleep. Who breaks into someplace where you got a billion dollars’ worth of art, pokes around and walks out empty-handed? Doesn’t make sense.’
Last week at least three very clever perps had broken into the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Fifth Avenue after hours. Video cameras were disabled and alarms suspended — no easy matter — but an exhaustive crime scene search had revealed that the perps had spent time in two areas: the antique arms hall of the museum, which was open to the public — a schoolboy’s delight, filled with swords, battle-axes, armor and hundreds of other clever devices meant to excise body parts; and the museum’s basement archives, storage and restoration areas. They’d left after several hours and remotely reactivated the alarms. The intrusion had been pieced together by computer analysis of the security shutdowns and physical examinations of the rooms after discovering the alarm breaches.
It was almost as if the burglars were like many tourists who visit the museum: They’d seen enough, grown bored and headed for a nearby restaurant or bar.