The Skin Collector(Lincoln Rhyme)

Chapter 41





The squad cars beat Amelia Sachs to Pam’s apartment.

But not by much.

Sachs had kept the gears low in her Torino, the RPMs high, and her foot largely off the brake as she sped to Brooklyn Heights. Sidney Place, a narrow street ending at State, runs north, one way, but that didn’t stop Sachs from pounding the Ford the opposite way, sending several oncoming cars up on the sidewalk, squeezing for protection between the many trees here. One rattled elderly driver scraped a fender on the stairs of St Charles Borromeo church, tall and red as a fire truck.

Sachs’s fierce eyes, more than the blue dashboard flasher, cleared the way with little resistance.

Pam’s apartment building was shabbier than most here, a three-story walk-up, one of the few gray buildings in a neighborhood of crimson stone. Sachs aimed for the semicircle of police vehicles and an ambulance. She laid on the horn – no siren in the Torino – and parted the craning-neck crowd then gave up and parked. She sprinted to the door, noting that the ambulance door was open but there were no EMS techs nearby. Bad sign. Were they working away desperately on Seth?

Or was he dead?

In Pam’s apartment hallway, a stocky uniform glanced at the shield on her belt and nodded her in. She asked, ‘How is he?’

‘Dunno. It’s a mess.’

Her phone buzzed. She glanced at caller ID. Pam. Sachs debated but let it ring. She didn’t have anything to tell her yet.

I will in a few minutes, she thought. Then wondered what exactly the message would be.

A mess …

Pam lived on the ground floor, a small dark space of about six hundred square feet, whose resemblance to a jail cell was enhanced by the exposed brick walls and tiny windows. Such was the price of living in a posh neighborhood like the Heights, the center of town when Brooklyn was a city unto itself.

She stepped inside and saw two officers.

‘Detective Sachs,’ one said, though she didn’t recognize him. ‘You running the scene? We’ve cleared it. Had to make sure—’

‘Where is he?’ She looked past the uniform but then she realized that, of course, the Underground Man would have taken Seth to the basement.

The officer confirmed that he was in the cellar. ‘The medics, coupla detectives from the Eight Four.’ He shook his head. ‘They’re doing the best they can. But.’

Sachs tossed her hair off her shoulder. Wished she’d banded it up outside. No time then, no time now. She turned and headed back into the corridor, which smelled of onion and mold and some powerful cleaner. It turned her stomach. She found herself walking slowly. The sight of death or gore didn’t bother her; you don’t sign on to crime scene work if that troubles you. But the looming thought of a somber call to Pam was a sea anchor.

Or given that the perp’s weapon of choice was toxins, even a non-fatal injury could be devastating: blindness, nerve or brain damage, kidney failure.

She found the door to the cellar and started down the rickety stairs. Overhead bulbs lit the way, bare and glaring. The basement was well underground, with slits of greasy windows at ceiling level. The large expanse, which smelled astringently of furnace fuel and mildew, was mostly open but there were several smaller areas with doorless entryways, maybe storerooms at one time. It was into one of these that the perp had dragged Seth. She could see the backs of one detective and one uniform in the room, both looking down.

Her heart thudded as she also noted a medical tech standing with crossed arms outside the doorway, peering in. His face, a mask.

He looked at her blankly and nodded, then glanced back into the storeroom.

Alarmed, Sachs stepped forward, peered in and stopped.

Seth McGuinn, shirtless, lay on the damp floor, hands under him – probably cuffed like the other victims. His eyes were closed and his face was as gray as the ancient paint on the troubled cellar walls.