The Skin Collector(Lincoln Rhyme)

Chapter 42





‘Amelia. They don’t know,’ said one of the uniformed officers, standing near Seth. His name was Flaherty and she knew the big, redheaded officer from the Eight Four.

Two other medics were working on Seth, clearing an airway, checking vitals. She could see on the portable monitor that, at least, his heart was beating, if weakly.

‘Did the perp tattoo him?’ She couldn’t see his abdomen from here.

Flaherty said, ‘No.’

Sachs said to the medics, ‘Might be propofol. That’s what he’s been using. To knock them out.’

‘A sedative’s consistent with this condition. He’s not convulsing and there are no gastrointestinal reactions and his vitals are stable so I’d guess it’s not a toxin.’

Sachs moved to the side and noted a red spot on Seth’s neck – where 11-5 had used the hypodermic. ‘There. See the injection site?’

‘Right.’

‘He’s done that in all the prior cases. Is he—’

A moan. Shivering suddenly, Seth opened his eyes. Blinked in confusion. Then alarm flooded his face; he would be first wondering, then recalling, how he’d ended up here.

‘I … What’s going—’

‘It’s okay, sir,’ one of the medics said.

‘You’re all right; you’re safe,’ Flaherty said.

‘Amelia!’ Urgent, though groggy.

‘How’re you feeling?’

‘Did he poison me?’

‘Doesn’t look like it.’

One of the medics asked a series of questions about possible symptoms. They jotted the young man’s responses. The EMT said, ‘All right, sir. We’ll have the lab run your blood but it’s looking like he just got some sedative into you. We’ll get you into the ER and run a few more tests, but I think you’re good.’


Sachs: ‘Can I ask him a few questions?’

‘Sure.’

Sachs donned gloves, helped him sit up and removed the handcuffs. Wincing, Seth lowered his arms and rubbed his wrists. ‘Man, that hurts.’

‘Can you walk?’ The scene down here was already badly contaminated, but she wanted to preserve as much as she could. ‘I’d like to get you upstairs into the hallway.’

‘I guess. Maybe with some help.’

She eased him up. With her arm around his waist, he staggered through the basement and up the stairs. In the front hallway they sat on the stairs leading to the second story.

The front door opened once more and Sachs greeted the Crime Scene team from Queens. The detective running the detail was an attractive young officer named Cheyenne Edwards, one of the stars of the department. Her specialty was chemical analysis. If a perp had a molecule of controlled substance or gunshot residue on his body, Edwards could find it. She also had a rep, as in reputation, as in gold.

As in don’t f*ck with her.

Once, she and her partner had been confronted by a perp who’d returned to a scene to collect the loot he’d left behind. The killer, surprised by the cops, had turned his weapon first on the older, broad-shouldered CS officer, assuming the pretty young woman would be less of a threat – only to find out the hard way that this wasn’t quite the case. Edwards had reached into her pocket, where her Taurus .38 backup rested, and fired through the cloth, parking three slugs in his chest. (‘Looks like, we just solved the case,’ she’d noted but continued to search the scene expertly, because that was just what you did.)

‘Chey, you run the scene, okay?’ Sachs asked.

‘You got it.’

Then to Seth: ‘So, tell me what happened.’

The man told Sachs about the initial assault, which they’d heard part of on the phone. A man in mask and gloves had broken the patio door and lunged as Seth stood in the living room. They’d fought but, gripping Seth around the chest with one arm, the perp had jabbed a needle into his neck. He passed out and came to in the basement. The man was getting a portable tattoo gun from a backpack.

Sachs displayed a picture of an American Eagle tattoo machine.

‘Yeah, that looks like what he had. He was pissed off I’d come to and gave me another shot. But then he suddenly stopped. He kind of cocked his head. I saw he had an earbud in. It was like somebody warned him.’

Sachs grimaced. ‘There’s no evidence he’s working with anybody. It was probably a police scanner.’

Costing all of $59.99. And if you act now, you get a list of frequencies of your favorite police department.

‘He just shoved his stuff into his backpack and ran. I passed out again.’

She asked for a description and learned what she expected: ‘White male around thirty, I’d guess. What I could see of his hair it was dark, round face. Light eyes. Blue or gray. Kind of weird, that color. But I really couldn’t see much. He had this yellowish see-through mask on.’ His voice was soft. ‘Scared the hell out of me. And this tattoo. On his … yeah, his left arm. Red. A snake with legs.’

‘A centipede?’

‘Could be. A human face. Way creepy.’ He closed his eyes for a minute, actually shivered.

Sachs showed him the Identi-Kit picture that the near-victim Harriet Stanton had done at the hospital. Seth looked at it but just shook his head. ‘Could be – the face was round like that. The eyes’re the same. But I just can’t be sure. I’m trying to think about what he was wearing. I really can’t remember. Something dark, I think. But it could’ve been orange tie-dye, for all I know. Seeing that mask and the tattoo, I was really freaked out.’

‘Wonder why?’ Sachs offered with a droll smile.

‘I better call my parents. They might hear about this. I want to tell them I’m okay.’

‘Sure.’

While Seth did this, dialing with shaking hands, Sachs called Rhyme. She gave him the details. ‘Cheyenne’s running the scene.’

‘Good.’

‘She’ll get everything over to you in a half hour.’

He disconnected.

Seth winced as he pressed his bandaged left wrist, the one that had taken the bulk of his weight and been cut by the handcuffs. ‘What does he want, Amelia? Why’s he doing this?’

‘We aren’t sure. It seems he was inspired by a perp Lincoln and I investigated years go. The first case we worked together.’

‘Oh, Pam told me about that. The Bone Collector, right?’

‘That’s the one.’

‘Serial killer?’

‘Not technically. Serial killing’s a sado-sexual crime – if the perp’s male. The criminal a decade ago had another agenda and so does this one. The first killer was obsessed with bones; our unsub’s obsessed with skin. ’Cause we stopped him a few times, he’s turned on us. He must’ve found out Pam and I are close and he went after her. You had the bad luck to be here at the wrong time.’

‘Better me than Pam. I—’

‘Seth!’

The front door to the building flew open and Pam, breathless after her run from the subway burst into the hall. She threw herself into his arms before he had even risen to his feet. He wobbled and nearly fell.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Fine, I guess,’ he muttered. ‘Bumped and scraped a little.’ Seth glanced at her with hollow eyes, wary eyes. It was as if he were struggling to keep from blaming her for the attack. Pam noticed, frowned. She wiped tears then swiped away strands of hair plastered to her pink cheeks.

Sachs put her arm around the girl, sensed the tension and let go. She stepped back.

‘What happened?’ Pam asked.

The detective explained, not sparing any details. Given the difficult life that Pam had experienced, she wasn’t a person you had to hand-feed hard news to.

Still, her taut face seemed to take on an accusatory gaze as she listened to the story, as if it was Sachs’s fault the killer had come here. Sachs dug a fingernail into her thumb, hard.

Cheyenne Edwards appeared in the doorway, still in coveralls but without the face mask or surgeon’s cap. She carted a milk crate containing a dozen plastic and paper bags.

‘Chey, how’s it look?’

The officer grimaced and said to Sachs, ‘Had to save his life, did you? I mean, could you get any more outsiders into that storeroom? One of the most contaminated scenes I’ve ever run.’ She laughed and then winked at the young man. ‘Can I roll you?’

‘Can you—?’

‘The perp touched you, right?’

‘Yeah, grabbed me around the chest when he injected me with that crap.’

Edwards took a dog hair roller and collected trace everywhere on his shirt that Seth indicated. She bagged the adhesive strips and headed to the CSU rapid response van, calling, ‘I’ll get this stuff to Lincoln.’

Sachs said to Pam, ‘You can’t stay here. I think you should move into your bedroom at Lincoln’s. We’ll have officers here until you pack what you need.’

The young woman looked at Seth, and the implicit question that fluttered between them was: I could stay with you, right?

He said nothing.

Sachs said, ‘And, Seth, you should probably stay with some friends or your family. He could’ve gotten your address. You’re a witness and that means you’re at risk.’ This was purely practical, not a ploy to separate Romeo and Juliet. Pam, though, shot Sachs an expression that said, I know what you’re up to.


Seth wasn’t looking at Pam as he said, ‘There’re a couple guys I know from the ad agency. Have a place in Chelsea. I can crash there.’ Sachs could see he wasn’t concealing his blame for Pam very well.

‘I hope it won’t have to be long. And?’ she asked Pam. ‘You coming to Lincoln’s?’

Her eyes looked over Seth with dismay. She said softly, ‘Think I’ll stay with my family.’

Referring to the foster family who’d raised her, the Olivettis.

A good choice. But Sachs was nonetheless stabbed by jealousy. By the subtle reproach. And the blatant choice of words.

My family.

Which doesn’t include you.

‘I’ll drive you there,’ Sachs said.

‘Or we could take the train,’ Pam said, glancing at Seth.

‘They want me to go to the hospital,’ he said. ‘For tests, I guess. After that I think I’ll just go hang with the guys downtown.’

‘Well, I could go with you. To the hospital at least.’

‘Naw, just after this … kind of want to chill. Get some alone time, you know?’

‘Sure. I guess. If you want.’

He staggered to his feet and walked into her apartment, collected his jacket and computer bag, then returned. He hugged Pam once, in a brotherly way, and pulled on his jacket and snagged his bag, then joined the EMTs outside, who helped him into the ambulance.

‘Pam—’

‘Not a word. Don’t say a word,’ the young woman growled. She pulled out her cell phone and placed a call to her ‘family’, asking for a ride. She walked inside. Sachs asked a patrolman to keep an eye on her until the Olivettis showed up. He said he would.

Then her phone hummed. She glanced at caller ID and answered, saying to Lincoln Rhyme, ‘I’m finished here. I’ll—’

The criminalist’s grim voice interrupted. ‘He got another vic, Sachs.’

Oh, no. ‘Who?’

‘Lon Sellitto.’