The Skin Collector(Lincoln Rhyme)

Chapter 6





The two words were about six inches long and ran horizontally one inch above the woman’s navel.

Although he’d presumably used poison, not ink, the inflamed wound, swollen and scarring, was easy enough to read.



‘All right,’ Rhyme said, ‘“the second.” And the border, the scalloped lines. Wonder what those are about?’

Sachs commented, ‘They’re not as swollen as the letters. Maybe there was no poison in them. They look like wounds, not tattoos. And, Rhyme, look at the characters.’

‘How well done they are?’

‘Exactly. Calligraphy. He’s good. He knows what he’s doing.’

‘And another observation. It must’ve taken some time to do. He could’ve written them crudely. Or just injected her with the poison. Or shot her for that matter. What’s his game?’

Sachs had a thought. ‘And if it took awhile, that meant she was in pain for a long time.’

‘Well, yes, you can see the pain reaction but I have a feeling that was later. She couldn’t have been conscious while he was writing his message. Even if she wasn’t trying to get away, the involuntary movement would’ve ruined his handiwork. No, he subdued her somehow. Any trauma to the head?’

She examined the woman’s scalp carefully and looked under her blouse, front and back. ‘No. And I don’t see any signs of Taser barbs. No stun gun welts … Ah but, Rhyme, see that?’ She pointed out a tiny red dot on her neck.

‘Injection site?’

‘I think so. I’m guessing sedative, not poison. There’s no sign of any swelling or other irritation that toxin would cause.’

‘The blood work will tell us.’

Sachs took pictures of the wound and then bent down and swabbed the area carefully, lifting trace. Then the rest of her body too and the ground around her. It was likely that a perp this diligent would have worn gloves – it certainly appeared that way. Yet valuable evidence from even a gloved-and-gowned perp could still easily be transferred to the victim or crime scene.

Edmond Locard, the French criminalist who lived a century before, formulated the Exchange Principle: that every time a crime occurs there is a transfer of evidence between criminal and scene, or criminal and victim. That evidence (which he referred to as ‘dust’) might be very, very difficult to detect and collect but it exists, for the diligent and innovative forensic scientist.


‘There’s something odd, Rhyme.’

‘Odd?’ A splinter of disdain for the artless word. ‘Go ahead, Sachs.’

‘I’m using only one of the first responders’ spotlights – the other’s pointed up the tunnel. But there’re two shadows on the ground.’ She looked up and walked in a slow circle to get a clear view. ‘Ah, there’s another light near the ceiling, between those two pipes. It looks like a flashlight.’

‘Not left by the first responders?’

‘What cop or medic is going to give up his Maglite?’

The big black tubed flashlights that all cops and firemen carried around were invaluable – great sources of illumination and they doubled as bone-breaking weapons in a clutch.

But she noted it wasn’t one of those expensive models. This was cheap, plastic.

‘It’s taped to the pipe. Duct tape. Why would he leave a light here, Rhyme?’

‘That explains it.’

‘What?’ she asked.

‘How the store manager found the body. The flashlight. Our perp wanted to make sure we found the message from our sponsor.’

The words seemed a little flippant to Sachs but she’d always suspected that much of Rhyme’s gruff fa?ade and sardonic delivery were defense mechanisms. Still, she wondered if he raised the barricade of protection higher than he needed to.

She preferred to leave her heart unguarded.

‘I’ll collect it last,’ Sachs told him. ‘Every bit of light helps.’

She then walked the grid, which was Rhyme’s phrase for searching a crime scene. The grid pattern was the most comprehensive approach in looking for evidence and assessing what had occurred. This technique involved walking slowly across the scene, then pivoting and moving one step to the right or left and returning to the far side. You did this over and over until you’d covered the entire space. Then you turned 90 degrees and covered the same ground again, perpendicular. Like mowing a lawn twice.

And with each step you paused to look up and down and side-to-side.

You smelled the scene too, though in this case Sachs couldn’t detect more than Chloe’s vomit. No methane or feces, which surprised her, considering that one of the pipes here was connected to the city’s sewage system.

The search didn’t reveal much. Whatever implements the perp had brought with him he’d taken – aside from the flashlight, cuffs and strips of duct tape. She did make one find, a small ball of crumpled paper, slightly yellowed.

‘What’s that, Sachs? I can’t see very clearly.’

She explained.

‘Leave it as is; we’ll open it back here. Might have trace inside. Wonder if it’s from her.’

Her. The Vic.

Chloe Moore.

‘Or maybe from the perp, Rhyme,’ Sachs added. ‘I found what looked like fibers of newsprint or paper under her nails.’

‘Ah, that could be good. Did they fight? Did she grab something of his? Or did he want something she had and rip it from her fingers – while she struggled to hold on to it? Questions, questions, questions.’

Using additional adhesive rollers and a small handheld vacuum, Sachs continued the search. Once these samples had been bagged and tagged she used a separate vacuum and a new roller to collect trace from places as far away as possible from where Chloe lay and where the unsub had walked. These were control samples – natural trace from this area. If analysis back at the lab revealed, for example, a clay-rich earth near one of the unsub’s footprints, which didn’t match any control specimens, they could conclude that he possibly lived or worked in or had some other connection to a locale loaded with clay. A small step toward finding the perp … but a step nonetheless.

‘I can’t see many shoe or boot marks, Sachs.’

She was looking down at where he’d stood or walked. ‘I can make a few out but they’re not going to be much help. He wore booties.’

‘Brother,’ the criminalist muttered.

‘I’ll roll the footfalls for trace but there’s no point in electrostaticking.’

She was referring to using sheets of plastic to lift shoe prints, in much the same way that fingerprints were lifted. The resulting tread pattern not only could suggest shoe size but might show up in the massive footwear database that Rhyme had created at the NYPD years ago, which was still maintained.

‘And I’d say he had his own adhesive roller with him. It looks like he swept up as much as he could.’

‘I hate smart perps.’

No, he didn’t, Sachs reflected. He hated stupid perps. Smart bad guys were challenging and a lot more fun. Sachs was smiling beneath her N95 respirator. ‘I’m going silent, Rhyme. Checking the entrance and exit routes. The manhole.’

She withdrew her Maglite, flicked on the powerful beam and continued down the tunnel toward the ladder leading up to the manhole, noting not a bit of pain from the persistent arthritis that had plagued her for decades; recent surgery had worked its magic. Her shadow, cast by the halogen spot behind, stretched out before her, a distorted silhouette of a puppet. The ground beneath the manhole was damp. This strongly suggested it was how he’d gotten into and out of the tunnel. She noted this fact then continued on, into the darker reaches beyond.

With every step she grew more uneasy. Not because of claustrophobia this time – the tunnel was unpleasant but spacious compared with the entrance shaft. No, her discomfort was because she’d seen the perp’s handiwork – the tattoo, the cutting, the poison. The combination of his cleverness, his calculation and his perverse choice of weaponry all conspired to suggest that he’d be more than happy to hang around and try to stop his pursuers.

The flashlight in her left hand, while her right hovered near the Glock, Sachs continued down the increasingly dark tunnel, listening for footsteps, an attacker’s breaths, the click and snap of weapons chambering rounds or going off safety or cocking.

None of those, though she did hear a hum from one or more of the conduits or the yellow IFON boxes, whatever they were. A faint rush from the water pipe.

Then a scrape, a flash of movement.

Glock out, left hand gripping the Maglite, forearm supporting her shooting hand. The muzzle followed the beam. Sweeping, scanning.

Where?

Sweat again, a thud of heartbeat.

But very different from claustrophobia’s chest-thudding panic. This wasn’t sour fear. This was anticipation. This was hunt. And Amelia Sachs lived for the sensation.

She was ready, finger off the guard, onto the trigger but feather-light; it takes little more than a breath to fire a Glock.

Scanning, scanning …

Where? Where?

Snap …

She crouched.

And the rat stepped blithely out from behind a pillar, looked her way with faint concern and turned, scuttling away.

Thank you, Sachs thought, following in the creature’s general direction – toward the distant end of the tunnel. If the rodent was walking so nonchalantly over the ground it was unlikely that an ambush awaited. She continued walking. In sixty or so yards she came to the bricked-up wall. There were no footprints here – normal or bootied – so their perp hadn’t wandered this way. She returned to the ladder.

She lifted out her cell phone – encased in uncontaminating plastic – and called up the GPS map. She noted that she was underneath Elizabeth Street, to the east, near a curb.

Sachs turned up the volume to the headset.

‘I’m below the manhole, Rhyme.’ She explained where it was and that this was likely how he’d gotten in, because there was significant moisture on the ground; the manhole cover had probably been removed in the past hour or so, she estimated. ‘It’s muddy here.’ A sigh. ‘But there’re no prints. Naturally. Let’s have Lon canvass the stores and apartments around the neighborhood, see if anybody saw the perp.’


‘I’ll call him. And get any security CCTVs too.’ Rhyme was skeptical about witnesses. He believed that in most cases they were more trouble than they were worth. They misobserved, they had bad memories – intentionally and otherwise – and they were afraid to get involved. A digital image was far more trustworthy. This was not necessarily Sachs’s opinion.

She swabbed the rungs as she climbed the ladder, depositing the adhesive cloth in plastic evidence collection bags.

At the top she rolled the underside of the manhole cover, then lifted a small alternative light source unit to check for fingerprints on the surface. ALS’s are lamps that use colors of the spectrum of visible light (like blue or green) combined with filters to make apparent evidence that’s impossible to see under regular bulbs or in daylight. ALS sources also include invisible light, like ultraviolet, which makes certain substances glow.

The scan, of course, revealed no prints or other evidence from their unsub. She tested the manhole cover’s weight; she could budge it but just barely. She supposed it weighed close to a hundred pounds. Hard to push open but not impossible for a strong individual.

She heard traffic overhead, the shushhh sound of tires cutting through the wet sleet. She was shining the light straight up, looking into the hole through which a worker would feed the hook to remove the cover. Wondering about marks that might lead them to a particular brand of tool the perp had used. Nothing.

It was then that an eye appeared through the hole.

Jesus … Sachs gasped.

Inches away, on the street above her, someone was crouching and looking through the pry hole, down at her. For a moment nothing happened; then the eye narrowed, as if the person – a man, she sensed – squinted slightly. Maybe smiling, maybe troubled, maybe curious about why a flashlight beam was firing out of a manhole cover in SoHo.

She spun away, thinking he’d seat a pistol muzzle in the hole and start shooting. The Maglite plummeted as she grabbed the top rung with both hands to keep from falling.

‘Rhyme!’

‘What? What’s going on? You’re moving fast.’

‘There’s somebody on top of the manhole. Did you call Lon?’

‘Just. You think it’s the perp?’

‘Could be. Call Dispatch! Get somebody to Elizabeth Street now!’

‘I’m calling, Sachs.’

She pressed her hand against the bottom of the manhole and pushed. Once. Twice. All her strength.

The slab of iron rose a fraction of an inch. But no more.

Rhyme said, ‘I got Lon. He’s sending uniforms. Some ESU too. They’re on their way, getting close.’

‘I think he’s gone. I tried to open the cover, Rhyme. I couldn’t. Goddamn it. I couldn’t. I was looking right at him. Had to be the perp. Who else’d kneel down in the middle of the street on a day like this and look through a manhole cover?’

She tried once more, thinking maybe he’d been squatting on it and that’s what had prevented her from pushing it up. But, no, it was impossible to move with her one free hand.

Shit.

‘Sachs?’

‘Go ahead.’

Rhyme said, ‘An officer saw somebody at the manhole in a short dark-gray coat, stocking cap. He took off running. Disappeared into the crowd on Broadway. White male. Slim or medium build.’

‘Damn it!’ she muttered. ‘It was him! Why run otherwise? Have somebody pop the cover, Rhyme!’

‘Look, there’re plenty of people after him. Keep walking the grid. That’s our priority.’

Heart racing, she shoved a palm into the manhole cover once more. Convinced, unreasonably, that if she could get to the surface she could find him, even if the others couldn’t.

She pictured his eye. She saw the narrowing lid.

She believed the perp was laughing at her, taunting her because she hadn’t been able to open the cover.

What color was the iris? she wondered. Green, gray, hazel? She hadn’t thought to register the color. This lapse infuriated her.

‘One thing occurs to me.’ Rhyme brought her back to earth.

‘What’s that?’

‘We know that’s how he got into the tunnel – through the manhole. And that means he’d’ve rigged a work zone. He’d have cones and tape or a barricade of some kind. And that might show up on video.’

‘Or a witness might’ve seen.’

‘Well. Yes, maybe. For what that’s worth.’

Sachs climbed back down the ladder and returned to the victim. She had done a fast sex-crime exam of Chloe’s body but now wanded it with the ALS to look for traces of the three S’s present in most sexual assault cases – semen, sweat and saliva.

Negative on that but it was clear he’d probed her skin with his gloved fingers – or at least the abdomen, arms, neck and face. No other parts of the body appeared to have been touched.

She used the light on the rest of the scene – from the manhole to the breadbasket – and found nothing.

All that remained for her was removing the flashlight that the unsub had left as a beacon.

‘Sachs,’ Rhyme called.

‘Yeah?’

‘Why don’t we have city workers pop the manhole and you come out that way? You’ll have to search that area on the street anyway. We know that’s how he got in – and he was there about five minutes ago. Could have some trace.’

But she knew he was suggesting this so she could avoid the smaller of the two tunnels.

The circular coffin …

Sachs glanced at the black maw. It seemed even smaller now. ‘It’s a thought, Rhyme. But I think I’ll go out the way I came in.’

She’d beaten the fear once; she wasn’t going to let it win now.

Using a rough ledge on the brick wall to support her weight, she stepped up and boosted herself to within reach of the unsub’s flashlight. She took the surgical scissors from her pocket and cut the tape.

Pulling it down, she dislodged a handful of grayish powder, which she suddenly realized the perp had set as a trap for the crime scene officers. That’s why he’d left the light! The material poured straight into her eyes and, desperately brushing it away, she dislodged the N95 respirator and inhaled a good amount of the toxin.

‘No!’

Choking, choking, drowning on the stinging powder. Instantly the fierce burn began. She fell to the ground and stumbled back, nearly tripping over Chloe’s body.

Rhyme’s voice was in her ear. ‘Sachs! What was that? I couldn’t see.’

She struggled to inhale, to clear the poison from her lungs. The barbed hooks scorched her windpipe and eyes and nose. She ripped off the face mask, spitting, aware that she was contaminating the scene but she was unable to stop.

Rhyme was shouting. It was hard for her to hear but she believed he was calling, probably into his phone, ‘Medics down there! Now!’ And ‘I don’t care.’ And ‘Poison control. Fast.’

But then she heard nothing more than the choking that consumed her.