The Skin Collector(Lincoln Rhyme)

Chapter 13





‘And you too, Amelia.’

Sellitto was opening the book. Rhyme noted the full title: Serial Cities: Famous Killers from Coast to Coast.

‘Let me guess: The theme is that every major city’s had a serial killer.’

‘Boston Strangler, Charles Manson in LA, the I-5 Killer in Seattle.’

‘Sloppy journalism. Manson wasn’t a serial killer.’

‘I don’t think the public cares.’

‘And we made it into the book?’ Sachs asked.

‘Chapter seven’s titled, “The Bone Collector”.’

That was the popular name, courtesy of the press and an overblown novelization, of a serial kidnapper who taunted Rhyme and the NYPD some years ago by stashing his victims in places where they would die if he couldn’t figure out in time where they’d been hidden.

Some of the victims had been saved, some had not. The case had been significant for several reasons: It had brought Rhyme back from the dead – almost literally. He’d been planning to take his own life, so depressed had he been about his quadriplegia, but he’d decided to stick around for a while after the exhilaration of mentally wrestling with the brilliant killer.


The case had also brought Rhyme and Sachs together.

Rhyme now muttered, ‘And we’re not the first chapter?’

Sellitto shrugged. ‘Oh, sorry, Linc.’

‘But it’s New York.’

And it is me, Rhyme couldn’t help thinking.

‘Can I see it?’ Sachs asked. She opened the book to the chapter and began to read quickly.

‘Short,’ Rhyme observed, even more irritated. Did the Boston Strangler investigation get more pages?

‘You know,’ Sachs said, ‘I seem to remember talking to a writer a while ago. He said he was working on a book and took me out for coffee to find out some details that weren’t in the press or the official record.’ She smiled. ‘I think he said he called you too, Rhyme, and you chewed his head off and hung up on him.’

‘I don’t recall,’ he grumbled. ‘Journalism. What’s the point of it anyway?’

‘You wrote that,’ Pulaski pointed out, nodding toward a bookshelf on which sat Rhyme’s own nonfiction account of famous crime scenes in New York City.

‘It was a lark. I don’t devote my life to regurgitating lurid stories to a bloodsucking audience.’

Though perhaps he should have been more lurid, he reflected; The Scenes of the Crime had been remaindered years ago.

‘The important question is, what’s Unsub Eleven-Five’s interest in the Bone Collector case?’ He nodded at the book. ‘What’s the nature of my chapter? Does it have a theme? Does the author have an ax to grind?’

How long was it, for God’s sake? Only ten pages? Rhyme grew even more offended.

Sachs continued skimming. ‘Don’t worry. You come off well. I do too, I have to say … It’s mostly a description of the kidnapping incidents and the investigation techniques.’

She flipped more pages. ‘A lot of procedural details about the crime scene work. Some footnotes. There’s a long one about your condition.’

‘Oh, that must be some truly compelling reading.’

‘Another one about the politics of the case.’

Sachs had gotten into hot water by closing down a train line to preserve evidence – which resulted in a rift all the way up to Albany.

‘And one more footnote – about Pam’s mother,’ Sachs said.

A young girl named Pam Willoughby and her mother had been kidnapped by the Bone Collector. Rhyme and Sachs had saved them – only to have Mom turn out to be someone other than an innocent victim. After learning this, Sachs and Rhyme had tried desperately to find the child. A few years ago they’d managed to rescue her. Pam was now nineteen, in college and working in New York. She’d become Sachs’s de facto younger sister.

Sachs read to the end. ‘The author’s mostly concerned with the perp’s psychological makeup: Why was he so interested in bones?’

The kidnapper had stolen human bones and carved, sanded and polished them. His obsession, it seemed, stemmed from the fact that he had suffered a loss in the past, loved ones killed, and he found subconscious comfort in the permanence of bones.

His crimes were revenge for that loss.

Rhyme said, ‘First, I think we need to see if our unsub’s got any connection to the Bone Collector himself. Look up the files. Track down any family members of the perp, where they lived, what they’re up to.’

It took some time to unearth the files – the official reports and evidence were at the NYPD, in the archives. The case was quite old. Rhyme had some material on his computer but the word processing files weren’t compatible with his new system. Some of the info was on three-and-a-half-inch disks, which Thom unearthed from the basement – the verb appropriate since the boxes were so dust-covered.

‘What’re those?’ asked Pulaski, a representative of the generation that measured data storage in gigabytes.

‘Floppy disks,’ Sellitto said.

‘Heard of them. Never seen one.’

‘No kidding? And you know, Ron, they used to have big round black vinyl things you listened to music on. Oh, and we roasted our mastodon steaks over real fire, rookie. Before microwaves.’

‘Ha.’

The disks proved useless but Thom also managed to find hard copies of the files in the basement. Rhyme and the others were able to piece together a bio of the Bone Collector and use the Internet (now working at a fine clip) to determine that the perp from back then had no living relatives, none close at least.

Rhyme was quiet for a moment as he thought: And I know why he doesn’t have any family.

Sachs caught his troubled gaze. She gave a reassuring nod, which Rhyme didn’t respond to.

‘How about the survivors?’

More online research, more phone calls.

It turned out that aside from Pam none of the victims saved from the Bone Collector were still alive or living in the city.

Rhyme said brusquely, ‘All right, doesn’t sound like there’s any direct connection to the Bone Collector case. Revenge might be a dish best served cold but too much time has elapsed for somebody to come after us for that.’

‘Let’s talk to Terry,’ Sachs suggested.

The NYPD’s chief psychologist, Terry Dobyns. He was the one who’d formulated the theory that the Bone Collector’s obsession with bones was rooted in their permanence and reflected some loss in the perp’s past.

Dobyns was also the doctor who’d been a pit bull after Rhyme’s accident some years ago. He’d refused to accept Rhyme’s withdrawal from life and his flirtation with suicide. He’d helped the criminalist adjust to the world of the disabled. And no ‘How does that make you feel’ crap. Dobyns knew how you felt and he guided the conversation in directions that took the hard edges off what you were going through while not shying from the truth that, yeah, sometimes life f*cks with you.

The doctor was smart, no question. And a talented shrink. But Sachs’s suggestion for enlisting him now was another matter altogether; she wanted a psychological profile of Unsub 11-5 and profiling was an art – not a science, mind you – that Rhyme found dubious at best.

‘Why bother?’ he asked.

‘Cross our t’s and—’

‘No clichés, please, Sachs.’

‘—dot our j’s.’

Sellitto took sides. ‘What can it hurt, Linc?’

‘It’ll take time away from doing something valuable – analyzing the evidence. It’ll be distracting. That’s what will hurt, Lon.’

‘You analyze away,’ Sellitto shot back. ‘Amelia and I’ll give Terry a call. You don’t even have to listen. Look, our unsub went to a lot of trouble to get his hands on a book that’s about the Bone Collector. I want to know why.’

‘All right,’ Rhyme said, surrendering.

Sellitto placed a call and when Dobyns answered, the detective hit a button on his mobile.

‘You’re on speaker, Terry. ’S Lon Sellitto. I’m here with Lincoln and a couple of others. We’ve got a case we’d like to ask you about.’

‘Been awhile,’ the doctor said in his smooth baritone. ‘How are you doing, Lon?’

‘Okay, okay.’

‘And Lincoln?’

‘Fine,’ Rhyme muttered and began looking over the evidence chart once more. Inwood marble. Being blown up. That, he was far more interested in than spongy psychological guesswork.

Alchemy …

‘It’s Amelia too,’ she said. ‘And Ron Pulaski and Mel Cooper.’


‘I’m deducing this’s about the tattoo case. I saw it on the wire.’

Though the press hadn’t been informed about the nuances of the Unsub 11-5 case, all law enforcement agencies in the area had been contacted, with a request for matching MOs (none had answered in the affirmative).

‘That’s right. There’s a development and we’d like your thoughts.’

‘I’m all ears.’

Rhyme had to admit that he found the man’s intonation calming. He could picture the sinewy, gray-haired doctor, whose smile was as easy as his voice. When he was listening to you, he truly listened. You were the center of the universe.

Sachs explained about the perp’s theft of the chapter about the Bone Collector – and the fact that he’d been carrying it around with him during the crime. She added too that there was no direct connection with the Bone Collector case but that he’d probably gone to some trouble to obtain a copy of the book.

Lon Sellitto added, ‘And he left a message.’ He explained about the tattooed phrase ‘the second’ in Old English type.

The doctor was silent for a moment. Then: ‘Well, the first thing that I thought of, which you obviously have too, is that he’s a serial doer. A partial message means there’re more to come. And then his interest in the Bone Collector, who was a serial kidnapper.’

‘We assume he’s going to keep hunting,’ Sellitto said.

‘Do you have any leads at all?’

Sachs said, ‘Description – white male, slim. Some details on the poisons he used and one that he probably intends to.’

‘And the victim’s white female?’

‘Yes.’

‘Fits the serial killer model.’ Most such killers hunted in the same racial pool as their own.

Sachs continued, ‘He subdued her with propofol. So maybe he’s got a medical background.’

‘Like the Bone Collector,’ Dobyns said.

‘Right,’ Rhyme said, eyes shifting from the evidence to the speaker phone. ‘I hadn’t thought about that.’ His attention to the psychiatrist now edged over the 50 percent mark.

‘Sexual component?’

‘No,’ Sellitto said.

Sachs added, ‘It took her some time to die. Presumably he was there, watching. And possibly enjoying it.’

‘Sadistic,’ Ron Pulaski said.

‘Who’s that?’ Dobyns asked.

‘It’s Ron Pulaski, Patrol. I work with Lincoln and Amelia.’

‘Hello, Officer. Well, no, actually I don’t see sadism. That occurs only in a sexual context. If he enjoys inflicting pain for its own sake his condition would probably be diagnosed as anti-social personality disorder.’

‘Yessir.’ Pulaski was blushing, not from the correction but, it seemed, because of Rhyme’s glare at the interruption.

Dobyns said, ‘Off the top of my head, he’s an organized offender and he’ll be planning out the attacks carefully. I’d also say there’re two possible reasons for your unsub’s interest in the Bone Collector and in you, Lincoln. Amelia too, don’t forget. One, he might have been affected by the Bone Collector’s crimes a decade ago. Emotionally moved by them, I mean.’

‘Even if he had no direct connection?’ Rhyme asked, forgetting he was trying to ignore the doctor’s input.

‘Yes. You don’t know his age exactly but it’s possible he was in early adolescence then – just the time when a news story about a serial doer might’ve spoken to him. As for that message? Well, the Bone Collector was, if I remember, all about revenge.’

‘That’s right.’

Sellitto asked, ‘What kind of revenge would our unsub be after, Doc? Family members who’d died? Some other personal loss?’

‘Really, it could be anything. Maybe he suffered a loss, a tragedy that he blames someone for – or some thing, a company, organization, institution. The loss might’ve happened when the Bone Collector story hit the press and he embraced the idea of getting retribution the same way the Bone Collector did. He’s been carrying that thought around with him. That’s one explanation for why this murder echoes the attacks from a decade ago – some of those crimes were underground too, weren’t they?’

‘That’s right,’ Rhyme confirmed.

‘And your unsub has a morbid interest in the morphology of the human body. Skin, in his case.’

Sachs added, ‘Yes, I found evidence that he touched the victim in a number of places – not sexually. There was no reason related to the tattooing for that that I could see. It gave him some satisfaction, I was thinking. My impression.’

The doctor continued, ‘So, the first reason he might be interested in the Bone Collector: a psychological bonding with him.’ He chuckled. ‘An insight that, I suspect, is rather low in your estimation, Lincoln.’ He knew of Rhyme’s distrust of what the criminalist called ‘woo-woo’ policing. ‘But that might hint he too is out for revenge,’ Dobyns added.

Rhyme said, ‘Noted, Doctor. We’ll put it on our evidence chart.’

‘I think you’ll be more interested in the second reason he was interested in the chapter of this book. Whatever his motive – revenge or joy killing or distracting you so he could rob the Federal Reserve – he knows you’ll be after him and he’ll want to learn as much as he can about you, your tactics, how you think. How specifically you tracked down a serial criminal. So he doesn’t make the same mistakes. He wants to know where your weaknesses are. You and Amelia.’

This made more sense to Rhyme. He nodded at Sachs, who told the doctor, ‘The book is practically a how-to guide on using forensics to stop a serial criminal. And it’s clear from running the scenes that he’s been paying attention to scrubbing the evidence.’

Pulaski asked, ‘Doctor, any idea why this victim? There was no, you know, prior contact between them that we could find.’ He gave a brief bio of Chloe Moore.

Sachs said, ‘Seems to be random.’

‘With the Bone Collector, remember, his true victims were somebody else: the city of New York, the police, you, Lincoln. I’d guess that the choice of victim by your unsub is mostly accessibility and convenience – to have a place and the time to do the tattoo undisturbed … Then I think there’s the fear factor.’

‘What’sat?’ Sellitto asked.

‘He’s got another agenda beyond murdering individuals – clearly it’s not to rob them, it’s not sexual. It may serve his purposes to put the whole city on edge. Everybody in New York’s going to be thinking twice about heading into basements and garages and laundry rooms and using back doors to their offices and apartments. Now, a few other points. First, if he’s truly been influenced by the Bone Collector, then he may think about targeting you personally, Lincoln. And Amelia. In fact, you all might be in danger. Second, he’s clearly an organized offender, as I said. And that means he’s been checking out his victims, or at least the kill sites, ahead of time.’

Rhyme said, ‘We’re going on that assumption.’

‘Good. And finally – if he were really a copycat he would have concentrated on the victim’s bones. But he’s obsessed with skin. It’s central to his goal. He could just as easily be injecting them with poison or making them drink it. Or for that matter stabbing people or shooting them. But he’s not. He’s obviously a professional artist – so every time he puts one of his designs on a body, he claims somebody else’s skin as his own.’


‘A skin collector,’ Pulaski said.

‘Exactly. If you can find out why he’s so fascinated with skin, that’s key to understanding the case.’ Rhyme heard another voice, indistinct, from the doctor’s office. ‘Ah, you’ll have to excuse me now. I’m afraid I have a session to get to.’

‘Thanks, Doctor,’ Sachs said.

After he disconnected, Rhyme told Pulaski to put Dobyns’s observations up on the chart.

Quasi-babble … but, Rhyme reluctantly admitted, it might be helpful.

He said, ‘We should talk to Pam. See if anybody’s contacted her about the Bone Collector.’

Sachs nodded. ‘Not a bad idea.’

Pam was now out of the foster system and living on her own in Brooklyn, not far from where Sachs kept her apartment. It seemed unlikely that the unsub would even know about her. Because Pam was a child at the time of the Bone Collector kidnapping, her name had never come up in the press. And Serial Cities hadn’t mentioned her either.

Sachs gave the young woman a call and left a message asking her to come over to Rhyme’s. There was something she wanted to discuss.

‘Pulaski. Get back to marble detail. I want to find where that stone dust came from.’

The doorbell buzzed. And Thom disappeared to answer it.

He returned to the parlor a moment later beside a sinewy man in his thirties, with a weathered, creased face and long blond ponytail. He also had the most extravagant beard Rhyme had ever seen. He was amused at the difference between the two standing before him. Thom was in dark dress slacks, a pastel-yellow shirt and a rust-colored tie. The visitor wore a spotless tuxedo jacket, way too thin for the raging weather, ironed black jeans and a black long-sleeve pullover emblazoned with a red spider. His brown boots were polished like a mahogany table. The only attribute this man and the aide shared was a slender build, though Thom was a half foot taller.

‘You must be TT Gordon,’ Rhyme said.

‘Yeah. And, hey, you’re the dude in the wheelchair.’