Текст книги "The Skin Collector"

Автор книги: Jeffery Deaver

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Текущая страница: 20 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

CHAPTER 54

Rhyme phoned Rachel Parker and happened to get Lon Sellitto’s son.

The young man had come to town from upstate New York, where he was working after graduating from SUNY in Albany. Rhyme remembered the boy as being quiet and pleasant enough, though he’d had some anger issues and mood problems – common among the children of law enforcers. But that was years ago and now he seemed mature and steady. In a voice missing any of Lon’s Brooklyn twang, Richard Sellitto told Rhyme that his father’s condition was largely unchanged. He was still categorized as critical. Rhyme was pleased that the young man was doing everything he could to support Rachel and Sellitto’s ex, Richard’s mother.

After he disconnected, Rhyme gave Cooper the update – which was really no update at all. He reflected that this was one of the most horrific aspects of poisoning: The substance wormed its way into your cells, destroying delicate tissues for days and weeks afterward. Bullets could be removed and wounds stitched. But poisons hid, residing, and killed at their leisure.

Rhyme now returned to the chart containing the pictures of the tattoos.

What on earth are you trying to say? he wondered yet again.

A puzzle, a quotation, a code? He kept returning to the theory that the clues referred to a location. But where?

His phone buzzed once more. He frowned looking at the caller ID. He didn’t recognize it.

He answered. ‘Rhyme here.’

‘Lincoln.’

‘Rookie? Is that you? What’s wrong?’

‘Yes, I–’

‘Where the hell have you been? The team’s at the hotel, where you’re meeting Weller. Or were supposed  to be meeting. They’ve been in place for an hour. You never showed up.’ He added sternly, ‘We were, you can imagine, a little concerned.’

‘There was a problem.’

Rhyme fell silent. ‘And?’

‘I kind of got arrested.’

Rhyme wasn’t sure he’d heard. ‘Say again.’

‘Arrested.’

‘Explain.’

‘I didn’t get to the hotel. I got stopped before.’

‘I said explain. Not confuse.’

Mel Cooper looked his way. Rhyme shrugged.

‘There’s an agent with the NYBI here. He wants to talk to you.’

The New York Bureau of Investigation?

‘Put him on.’

‘Hello, Detective Rhyme?’

He didn’t bother to correct the title.

‘Yes.’

‘This’s Agent Tom Abner, NYBI.’

‘And what’s going on, Agent Abner?’ Rhyme was trying to be patient, though he had a feeling that Pulaski had screwed up the undercover set and ruined whatever chance they had to learn more about the associates of the late Watchmaker. And given the ‘I got arrested’ part, the screwup must’ve been pretty bad.

‘We’ve found out that Ron is an NYPD patrol officer in good standing, active duty. But nobody at headquarters knew about any undercover set he was running. Can you confirm that Ron was working for you on an operation?’

‘I’m civilian, Agent Abner. A consultant. But, yes, he was running an op under the direction of Detective Amelia Sachs, Major Cases. An opportunity presented itself very fast. We didn’t have time to go through channels. Ron was just making initial contact with some possible perps this morning.’

‘Hm. I see.’

‘What happened?’

‘Yesterday, an attorney named David Weller, based in LA, contacted us. He was retained by the family of a decedent, Richard Logan – the convict who died?’

‘Yes.’ Rhyme sighed. And the whole fiasco began to unfold before him.

‘Well, Mr Weller said that somebody had come to the funeral home and was asking a lot of questions about Mr Logan. He seemed to want to meet the family or associates and suggested that he might want to participate in some of the illegal deals that Logan had started before he died. I suggested a sting to see what this fellow had in mind. Mr Weller agreed to help. We wired him up and he mentioned some crime in Mexico that Mr Logan had been involved in. Ron offered money to participate in another attempt to kill same official. As soon as he mentioned a figure we moved in.’

Jesus. Like the most common prostitution sting.

Rhyme said, ‘Richard Logan had orchestrated some pretty complicated crimes when he was alive. He couldn’t have been operating alone. We were trying to find some of his associates.’

‘Got it. But your officer was really pushing the bounds of undercover ops.’

‘He hasn’t done that kind of thing before.’

‘That doesn’t surprise me. Attorney Weller wasn’t too happy about the whole thing, as you can imagine. But he’s not going to pursue any complaint.’

‘Tell him we appreciate that. Can you have Ron call me?’

‘Yessir.’

They disconnected and a moment later the parlor phone rang once more. It was Pulaski’s undercover phone.

‘Rookie.’

‘I’m sorry, Lincoln. I–’

‘Don’t apologize.’

‘I didn’t handle it very well.’

‘I’m not so sure it worked out badly.’

There was a pause. ‘What do you mean?’

‘We learned one thing: Weller and his clients – the Logan family – don’t  have any connection with any of the Watchmaker’s associates or any planned crimes. Otherwise, they wouldn’t’ve dimed you out.’

‘I guess.’

‘You’re free to go?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well, the good news is we can let the Watchmaker rest in peace. No more distractions. We’ve got an unsub to catch. Get your ass back here. Now.’

He disconnected before the young officer said anything more.

It was then that Rhyme’s phone rang and he received the news that there’d been a fourth attack.

And when he heard that the killing had been in a tattoo parlor in downtown Manhattan, he asked immediately which one.

Upon hearing that – not surprisingly – it was TT Gordon’s shop, Rhyme sighed and lowered his head. ‘No, no,’ he whispered. For a moment Views of Death No. One and Two vied. Then the first prevailed and Rhyme called Sachs to tell her she had yet another scene to run.

CHAPTER 55

Amelia Sachs returned from the most recent crime scene in the Unsub 11 5 case. TT Gordon’s tattoo parlor in the East Village.

It turned out, though, that Gordon himself was not the victim. He’d been out of the parlor when the unsub snuck inside, locked the door and proceeded into the back room for the lethal tattooing session. The body was that of one of the artists who worked in the parlor, a man named Eddie Beaufort. He was a transplant from South Carolina who’d moved to New York a few years ago and was, Sachs had learned from Gordon, making a name for himself in the inking world.

‘We should’ve had somebody on the tattoo parlor, Rhyme,’ she said.

‘Who would’ve thought he’d be at risk?’ Rhyme was truly surprised that the unsub had tracked the artist down. How? It seemed unlikely but possible that he’d followed Gordon from Rhyme’s. But the tat community would be a small one and word must’ve gotten back to the killer that Gordon was helping with the case. The unsub would have heard and gone to the parlor to kill him. Finding he wasn’t there, maybe he had just decided to make clear that it was a bad idea to assist the police and picked for a victim the first employee he found.

It was also time to send another message.

Sachs described the scene: Beaufort, lying on his back. His shirt was off and the unsub had tattooed another part of the puzzle on his abdomen. She slid the SD card from her camera and displayed the pictures on the screen.

Ron Pulaski, back from his car wreck of an undercover assignment, stood in front of the display with his arms crossed. ‘They’re not numerical order: the second, forty, seventeenth and the six hundredth.’

Rhyme said, ‘Good point. He could have gone numerically if he’d wanted to. Either the order is significant – or he wanted to scramble them for some reason. And we’re ordinal again, not cardinal. “Fort”Y is the only cardinal number.’

Mel Cooper now suggested, ‘An encryption?’

That was a possibility. But there were far too many combinations and no common reference point. In breaking a simple code in which letters are converted to numbers, you can start with the knowledge that the letter ‘e’ appears most frequently in the English language and preliminarily assign that value to the most commonly occurring numbers in the code. But here, they had far too few numbers – and they were combined with words, which suggested that the numbers did not mean anything other than what they appeared to be, cryptic though that meaning was.

It could still be a location, but this number eliminated longitude or latitude. One or more addresses?

Pulaski said, ‘Beaufort wasn’t killed underground.’

Rhyme pointed out, ‘No, the unsub’s motive was different here: to kill TT Gordon specifically or at least somebody in the parlor. He didn’t need to follow his standard MO. Now, let’s look at what else you collected, Sachs.’

She and Cooper walked to the examination table. Both donned gloves and face masks.

‘No prints, finger or footwear,’ she said. ‘ME has the blood workup. I told him we needed the results yesterday. He said it was all hands on deck.’

‘Other trace?’ Rhyme asked.

Sachs nodded at several bags.

The criminalist barked, ‘Mel, get on that.’

As Cooper picked up and examined each one, then analyzed the contents, Sachs ran through the other pictures of the scene. Eddie Beaufort, hands cuffed behind him and lying on his back, like the others. It was obvious he’d suffered gastrointestinal symptoms and severe vomiting.

The phone rang with a familiar number.

Sachs gave a laugh. ‘That’s as ASAP as it gets.’

‘Doctor, it’s Lincoln Rhyme,’ he said to the medical examiner. ‘What do you have?’

‘Odd, Captain.’ Using Rhyme’s old title. It never failed to be both jarring and familiar.

‘How? Exactly.’

‘The victim was killed by amatoxin alpha amanitin.’

‘Death cap mushroom,’ Cooper said. ‘Amanita phalloides .’

‘That’s it,’ the medical examiner said.

Rhyme knew them well. Amanitas are known for three things: a smell like honey, a very pleasant taste and the ability to kill more efficiently than any other fungus on earth.

‘And the odd part?’

‘The dosage. I’ve never seen a concentration this high. Usually it takes days to die, but he lasted about an hour I’d guess.’

‘And a pretty bad hour,’ Sachs said.

‘Well, that’s right,’ said the medical examiner, as if this had never occurred to him.

‘Any other substances?’

‘More propofol. Just like the others.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Nope.’

Rhyme grimaced and began to hit disconnect. Sachs called, ‘Thanks.’

‘You’re–’

Click.

‘Keep going, Mel,’ Rhyme said.

Cooper ran another sample of trace through the gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer. ‘This is–’

‘Don’t say “odd”,’ Rhyme snapped. ‘I’ve had enough odd.’

‘Troubling. That was the word.’

‘Go on.’

‘Nitrocellulose, di ethylene glycol dinitrate, dibutyl phthalate, diphenylamine, potassium chloride, graphite.’

Rhyme frowned. ‘How much?’

‘A lot.’

‘What is it, Lincoln?’ Pulaski asked.

‘Explosives. Gunpowder, specifically. Smokeless – modern formulation.’

Sachs asked the tech, ‘From a discharged weapon?’

‘No. Some actual grains. Pre burn.’

Pulaski asked, ‘He reloads his own ammunition?’

It was a reasonable suggestion. But Rhyme considered this for a moment and then said, ‘No, I don’t think so. Usually it’s only snipers and hunters who reload. And our unsub hasn’t left any evidence that he’s either. Not much interest in firearms at all.’ Rhyme stared at the computer printout of the GC/MS. ‘No, I think he’s using the raw powder for an improvised explosive device.’ He sighed. ‘Poison’s not enough. Now he wants to blow something up.’

537 St. Marks Street

Victim: Eddie Beaufort, 38

– Employee at TT Gordon’s tattoo parlor

– Probably not intended victim

Perpetrator: Presumably Unsub 11 5

COD: Poisoning with amatoxin alpha amanitin (from Amanita phalloides, death cap mushroom), introduced via tattooing

Tattoo reads: ‘the six hundredth’

Sedated with propofol

– How obtained? Access to medical supplies? (No local thefts)

Handcuffs

– Generic, unable to source

Trace

– Nitrocellulose, di ethylene glycol dinitrate, dibutyl phthalate, diphenylamine, potassium chloride, graphite: smokeless gunpowder

• Planning to use improvised explosive device?

CHAPTER 56

‘You know how skeptical I am of motives.’

Sachs said nothing, but a cresting smile told her reaction.

Easing his wheelchair up to the evidence boards, Rhyme continued, ‘But there’s a time when it’s appropriate to ask about them – particularly when we’ve built up a solid evidentiary base. Which we have. The possibility of a bomb – possibility, mind you – may take this out of psychotic perp world. There’s a rational motive at work possibly. Our unsub’s not necessarily satisfying deep seated yearnings to do the Bone Collector one better. I think he may have something more calculated in mind. Yes, yes, this could be good,’ he added enthusiastically. ‘I want to look at the victims again.’

The team perused the charts. Rhyme said, ‘We can take Eddie Beaufort out of the equation. He was killed because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Lon and Seth and I were attacked to slow us down. There were four intended attacks as part of his plan: We ruined two of them – Harriet Stanton at the hospital and Braden Alexander at the Belvedere Apartments. And two were successful. Chloe and Samantha. Why those four?’ Rhyme whispered, ‘What about them beckoned?’

Sachs said, ‘I don’t know, Rhyme. They seemed purely random … happenstance victims.’

Rhyme stared up at the board in front of him. ‘Yes, the victims themselves  are random. But what if–’

Pulaski blurted, ‘The places  aren’t? Did he pretend to be psycho to take attention away from the fact that there’s something at the scenes he wants to blow up?’

‘Ex actly, rookie!’ Rhyme scanned the boards. ‘Location, location, location.’

Cooper said, ‘But blow up what? And how?’

Rhyme scanned the crime scene photos again. Then: ‘Sachs!’

She lifted an eyebrow.

‘When we weren’t sure where the hypochlorous acid came from we sent patrolmen to the scenes, remember? To see if there were chlorine distribution systems there.’

‘Right. The boutique in SoHo and the restaurant. They didn’t find any.’

‘Yes, yes, yes, but it’s not the acid I’m thinking of.’ Rhyme wheeled closer to the monitor, studying the images. ‘Look at those pictures you took, Sachs. The spotlights and batteries. Did you  set them up?’

‘No, the first responders did.’ She was frowning. ‘I assumed  they did. They were there when I arrived. Both scenes.’

‘And the officer who searched the tunnel for chlorine later said he was standing by the spotlights. They were still there. Why?’ He frowned and said to Sachs, ‘Find out who set them up.’

Sachs grabbed her phone and called the Crime Scene Unit in Queens. ‘Joey, it’s Amelia. When your people were running the Unsub Eleven Five scenes, did you bring halogens to any of them? … No.’ She was nodding. ‘Thanks.’ Disconnected.

‘They never set them up, Rhyme. They weren’t our lights.’ She then called a friend at the fire department and asked the same question. After a brief conversation she disconnected and reported, ‘Uh uh. They weren’t the FD’s either. And patrol doesn’t carry around spots in their RMPs. Only Emergency Service does and they didn’t respond until later.’

‘And, hell,’ Rhyme snapped, ‘I’ll bet there’re lights in the tunnel under the Belvedere.’

Sachs: ‘That’s what the bombs’re in, right? The batteries.’

Rhyme looked over the images. ‘The batteries look like twelve volt. You can run halogens on batteries that’re a lot smaller. The rest of the casing’s filled with gunpowder, I’m sure. It’s brilliant. Nobody’d question spotlights and batteries sitting in a crime scene perimeter. Any other mysterious packages’d be reported and examined by the Bomb Squad.’

‘But what’s the target?’ Cooper asked.

The brief silence was broken by Amelia Sachs. ‘My God.’

‘What, Sachs?’

‘IFON.’ She dug what seemed to be a business card out of her purse. And walked fast to the crime scene photos. ‘Hell, I missed it, Rhyme. Missed it completely.’

‘Go on.’

She tapped the screen. ‘Those yellow boxes with IFON  printed on the side? They’re Internet cables, owned by International Fiber Optic Networks.’ She held up the card. ‘And the building directly over the Samantha Levine crime scene was IFON’s headquarters. She worked for them. I interviewed the CEO just after she died.’ Sachs then called up the photos of the Chloe Moore scene. ‘There. The same boxes.’

And there was another box visible in the tunnel beneath the parking garage in the Belvedere Apartments.

Sachs said, ‘In the hospital, in Marble Hill, where Harriet Stanton was attacked, I didn’t go underground to look for any tunnels. But I’ll bet there’re IFON routers or whatever they are somewhere.’

Pulaski said, ‘Somebody wants to blow up the boxes.’ His face finally grew inscrutable. ‘Hey – think about it – the Internet outages? The rumors of the traditional cable companies sabotaging the new fiber optic systems? I’ll bet that’s it.’

Sachs said, ‘Our Skin Collector may feel like he’s the Bone Collector’s heir but, bottom line? That’s just a cover. He was hired to smuggle bombs underground to take out International Fiber Optic’s routers.’

Pulaski asked, ‘What would happen if they detonated?’

‘Assume the entire Internet in Manhattan would go down,’ Cooper said.

‘Banks,’ Rhyme muttered. ‘And hospitals, police, national security, air traffic control. Call Dellray and have him alert Homeland Security. I’m guessing hundreds of deaths and billions of dollars in losses. Get our computer man, Rodney Szarnek, on the phone. Now.’

CHAPTER 57

Harriet Stanton was returning with her husband, Matthew, from Upper Manhattan Medical Center in Marble Hill.

They were in a cab, which was – so far – about seventeen dollars in fare.

‘Look at that,’ Matthew muttered, eyeing the meter. ‘Can you believe it? It’ll be thirty by the time we get to the hotel. Subway would’ve been cheaper.’ Matthew had always been a bit of a curmudgeon. Now, after the brush with death – or with New York City health care – his mood hadn’t improved.

Harriet, in her yes dear mode, replied that given the neighborhood they’d been driving through – the Bronx and Harlem – wouldn’t it be better to spend the money? ‘And look at the weather.’

Where they lived, in downstate Illinois, the weather could be just as cold and sloppy. It didn’t seem, though, so dirty  cold and sloppy. Tainted was the word that came to mind.

Matthew took her hand, which was a way of saying, You’re right, I suppose.

His bill of health was, if not clean, then not as bad as it might’ve been. Yes, the incident had been a heart attack – or the ten dollar phrase, myocardial infarction – but no surgery was called for. Medication and a slow, steady increase in the amount of exercise should do the trick, the doctor had told them. Aspirin, of course. Always aspirin.

She called their son, Josh, back at the hotel, and told him to collect Matthew’s prescriptions, which the doctor had called in to a nearby pharmacy. Matthew sat back silently in the seat of the taxi and stared at the sights. The people were what interested him, she judged, from the way his eyes danced from one cluster of passersby to another.

The cab dropped them in front of their hotel. The place had been built in the 1930s or so, Harriet guessed, and clearly hadn’t undergone a renovation for years. The colors were gold and yellow and gray. The scuffed walls and over washed curtains had brash, geometric designs, ugly. The place reminded her of the Moose Lodge at home.

The decor, along with the persistent scent of Lysol and onions, set her on edge. But maybe that was just the disappointment about her husband’s heart attack, the disruption of their plans. They rode the elevator to the tenth floor and stepped out, walked to their room.

Harriet felt like she should help her husband into bed or, if he chose to stay up, help him on with his slippers and into some comfortable clothing and order some food. But he waved her off – though with a faint smile – and sat at the battered desk, going online. ‘See. I was saying. Fifteen dollars a day for the Internet. At Red Roof it’s free. Or Best Western. Where’s Josh?’

‘Getting your prescriptions.’

‘He probably got lost.’

Harriet placed a load of dirty clothing into the room’s dry cleaning bag, which she’d take to the guest self serve laundry room in the basement. This was one thing that she would not pay for, hotel valet service. It was ridiculous.

She paused to look at herself in the mirror, noting that her tan skirt needed no pressing and the brown sweater, clinging to her voluptuous figure, was largely hair free. Largely but not completely. She plucked off several strands and let them fall to the floor; they had three German shepherds at home. She wound together stray strands of her own hair, milking to white, and pinned them into her severe bun.

She noted that in her haste to get to the hospital she’d hooked her silver necklace on backward and she fixed it now, though the design appeared abstract; no one would have noted the mistake.

Then a grimace; don’t be so vain.

Leaving Matthew, she walked into the hallway with the laundry and took the elevator to the lobby. It was crowded. She waited in line at the front desk, to get change. A gaggle of Japanese tourists clustered around their suitcases like pioneers protecting their women. A couple that appeared to be honeymooning stood nearby, adoring each other. Two men – gay, she could see – chatted enthusiastically about some plans that night. Young, leather jacketed musicians lounged, their feet up on battered instrument cases. An obese couple pored over a map. The husband was in shorts. In this weather. And with those legs!

New York. What a place.

Harriet suddenly had a sense that somebody was watching her. She looked up quickly. But didn’t see anyone. Still, she was left with an uneasy feeling.

Well, after the close call at the hospital, it was natural for her to be a little paranoid.

‘Ma’am?’ she heard.

‘Oh, sorry.’ She turned back to the desk clerk and got change for a ten.

She took the elevator to the basement and followed signage down two corridors to the laundry room, a dim space, dusted with spilled detergent and smelling of dryer exhaust and hot lint. Like the hallways, the room was deserted.

She heard the click and then the rumble of the elevator going up. A moment later there came the sound of a car returning to this level. If it was the same one, it had only traveled to the main floor.

Two dollars for a one use container of detergent? She should have had Josh pick up a bottle of Tide at the drug store. Then reminded herself: Don’t be like Matthew. Don’t worry about the petty things.

Were those footsteps coming from the direction of the elevator?

She glanced toward the doorway, the shadowy corridor. Heart thudding a bit faster, her palms dampening.

Nothing.

She added the clothing to the least dirty machine and shoved in the six quarters.

Then footsteps again, growing louder.

She turned, staring at the young man in the tan leather jacket and green NY Mets cap. He carried a backpack and a canvas work bag.

Silence for a moment.

Then she smiled. ‘Billy.’

‘Aunt Harriet.’ Billy Haven looked around to make certain they were alone and then stepped inside the room. He set down the bags.

She lifted her hands, palm up. Like summoning a child.

Billy hesitated then came to her and let himself be drawn into her arms, which closed around him, enwrapping him tightly. They were about the same height – she was just under six feet herself – and Harriet easily maneuvered her face to his, kissing him hard on the mouth.

She sensed him resist for a moment but then he gave in and kissed her back, gripping her lips with his, tasting her. Not wanting to but unable to stop.

It had always been this way with him: reluctant at first, then yielding … then growing commanding as he pushed her down on her back and wrestled off clothing.

Always this way – from the very first time, more than a decade ago, when she’d pulled the boy into the study above the garage, the Oleander Room, for their afternoon trysts, while Matthew was busy with – aunt and nephew sometimes joked – God knew what.