The Skin Collector (5 page)

Serpents and heights weren’t her problem; claustrophobia was. If she believed in former lives, which she didn’t, Sachs could imagine that she, in an earlier incarnation, had been buried alive. Or, if you followed the logic
of karma, more likely she’d been a vindictive queen who’d slowly interred her rivals as they begged for mercy.

Sachs, close to six feet tall, looked at the chart of her nemesis: the twenty-eight- or thirty-inch-diameter tunnel from the utility room to the bigger transport tunnel, the site of the killing. The narrow passage was, according to the chart, twenty-three feet long.

It’s a round coffin,
she thought.

The site of the killing was also accessible through a manhole thirty feet or so from where the body lay. That was probably his entrance to the kill site but Sachs knew she would have to wriggle through the smaller tunnel, collecting trace as she went, since that’s where he’d crawled to get to the basement of the boutique – and through which he’d dragged Chloe before murdering her.

‘Sachs?’ Rhyme’s voice crackled through the headset. She jumped and cranked down the volume. ‘Where are you? I can’t see anything.’ The com device Sachs wore featured not only a microphone and earpiece but also a high-def video camera. She’d just donned the unit and hadn’t activated the visual yet.

She touched a button on the surprisingly small camera – about the size of a double-A battery –
and heard, ‘Okay.’ Then a grumbled ‘It’s still pretty dark.’

‘Because it
is
dark. I’m in a basement – and about to climb into a tunnel the size of a breadbasket.’

‘I’ve never actually seen a breadbasket,’ he replied. ‘I’m not sure they exist.’ Rhyme was always in good humor when approaching a new crime scene. ‘Well, let’s get going. Scan around. Let’s see what we’ve got.’

She often wore this
equipment when she searched a scene. Rhyme would offer suggestions – many fewer now than when they began working together and she was a novice. He also liked to keep an eye out for her safety, though he never admitted that. Rhyme insisted that officers search a scene solo – too much distraction otherwise. The best forensic experts bonded with the scene psychologically. They
became
the victim,
became
the perp – and accordingly located evidence they might have missed. That connection didn’t happen, or it didn’t happen as easily, when somebody else searched with you. But being alone was a risk. It was surprising how many times a scene turned hot: The perp returned, or remained, and attacked the officer walking the grid. It even happened that, though the perp was long gone, another, unrelated
attack might occur. Sachs had once been assaulted by a homeless man, a schizophrenic who thought she’d come to steal his imaginary dog.

She looked into the utility room once more, to give Rhyme a view, and then gazed through the tunnel of hell briefly.

‘Ah,’ he said, now understanding her concern. ‘Breadbasket.’

Sachs made the final adjustments to her outfit. She was dressed in a white Tyvek
jumpsuit, hood and booties. Because poison had been the apparent weapon, she wore an N95 respirator. The toxin had been injected, the first responders reported, via the tattoo gun, and there seemed to be no airborne chemicals to worry about that they’d noted. Still, why take the chance?

Footsteps behind her, someone approaching through the moldy, damp basement of Chez Nord.

She glanced back
at an attractive crime scene officer who’d be helping process the boutique. Sachs had known Jean Eagleston for years; she was one of the stars of the CS oper-ation. Eagleston had been interviewing the store manager, who’d found the body. Sachs had wanted to know if the manager had entered the scene itself – where Chloe’s body lay – to check on her employee.

But Eagleston said, ‘No. She noticed
the door was open and looked into the utility room, saw the vic lying there. That was enough for her. She didn’t go any farther.’

Can’t blame the manager, Sachs reflected. Even if one wasn’t claustrophobic, who’d go into a deserted tunnel with an apparent murder victim lying on the ground and, possibly, the killer still there?

‘How could she see the victim?’ Rhyme asked. He’d overheard the conversation.
‘I thought I could see spotlights there now, from the medics. But wasn’t it dark then?’

Sachs relayed the question. But the crime scene officer didn’t know. ‘All the manager said was that she could see inside.’

Rhyme said, ‘Well, we’ll find out.’

Eagleston added, ‘The only other people at the kill site were one responding uniform and one medic. But they backed out as soon as they confirmed
death. To wait for us. I’ve got samples of their shoes, so we can eliminate any footprints. They tell me they didn’t touch anything other than the vic, to check on her condition. And the EMT was gloved.’

So contamination of the scene – the introduction of evidence unrelated to the crime itself or the perp – would be minimal. That was one advantage of a murder in a hellhole like this. A crime
on the street could have dozens of contaminants, from blowing dust, pouring rain and fierce sleet (like today) to passersby and even souvenir seekers. One of the worst contaminants was fellow officers, especially brass grandstanding if reporters were present and eager to grab a video bite to slap on the twenty-four-hour news cycle.

One more glance at the circular coffin.

Okay, Amelia Sachs thought:
Knuckle time …

A phrase of her father’s. The man had also been a cop, a beat patrolman working the Deuce – Midtown South; back then Times Square was like Deadwood in the 1800s. Knuckle time meant referring to those moments when you have to go up against your worst fears.

Breadbasket …

Sachs returned to the access door and climbed through it and down into the utility room below the cellar. Then
she took the evidence collection gear bag from the other officer. Sachs said, ‘You search the basement, Jean?’

‘I’ll do it now,’ Eagleston said. ‘And then get everything into the RRV.’

They’d done a fast examination of the cellar. But it was apparent that the perp had spent minimal time there. He’d grabbed Chloe, subdued her somehow and dragged her to the access door; her heel marks were visible.

Sachs set the heavy bag on the floor and opened it. She photographed and gathered evidence from the utility room, although, as with the basement, the perp and the victim would have spent little time here; he’d’ve wanted to get her out of sight as soon as possible. She bagged and tagged the trace and set the plastic and paper containers on the floor in the cellar for the other crime scene officers
to cart to the RRV.

Then Sachs turned to the tiny shaft’s opening, eyeing it the way one would glance at the muzzle of a pistol in the hand of a desperate perp.

Breadbasket …

She didn’t move. Heard her heart thudding.

‘Sachs.’ Rhyme’s voice sounded in her ear.

She didn’t respond.

He said softly, ‘I understand. But.’

Meaning: Get your ass going.

Fair enough.

‘Got it, Rhyme. No worries.’

Knuckle time …

It’s not that long, she reassured herself. Twenty three feet. That’s nothing. Though, for some inexplicable reason, Sachs found herself passionately resenting that extra yard past twenty. As she approached, her palms began to sweat fiercely; her scalp too, which itched more than normally. She wanted to scratch, dig her nails into her skin, her cuticles. A nervous habit. The urge
rose when she was unable to move – in all senses, physically, emotionally, mentally.

Static: How she hated that state.

Her breath came in short intervals and shallow gulps.

Orienting, she touched her Glock 17, which was strapped to her hip. A slight risk of contamination from the weapon, even if she didn’t blow anyone away, but there was that security issue again. And if any perp had a good
scenario for hurting a crime scene officer, it would be here.

She hooked a nylon tie-down to her evidence collection gear bag and the other end to her weapon belt, to drag it behind her.

Moving forward. Pausing before the opening. Then on her hands and knees. And into the shaft. Sachs wanted to leave the headlamp off – seeing the tunnel would be more troubling than concentrating on the goal
at the end of it – but she was afraid she’d miss some evidence.

Click.

Under the halogen beam, the metal coffin seemed to shrink and wrap its steel shell around her.

Get. Going.

She extracted a dog hair roller from her pocket and swept the floor of the tunnel as she went forward. She knew that because of the confining space and presumably the perp’s struggling with the victim, it was likely
that he had shed evidence, so she concentrated on seams and rough spots that might dislodge trace.

She thought of a joke, a Steven Wright routine from years ago. ‘I went into the hospital for an MRI. I wanted to find out if I had claustrophobia.’

But the humor and the distraction of the task didn’t keep the panic away for long.

She was a third of the way through when fear stabbed her gut, a
frozen blade.

Get out, get out, get out!

Teeth chattering despite the intense heat around her.

‘You’re doing fine, Sachs.’ Rhyme’s voice in her ear.

She appreciated his baritone reassurance, but didn’t want it. She dialed down the volume on the headset.

Another few feet. Breathe, breathe.

Concentrate on the job. Sachs tried. But her hands were unsteady and she dropped the roller, the clang
of the handle on the metal skin of the tunnel nearly making her gag.

And then the madness of fear snagged her. Sachs got it into her head that the unknown subject – the unsub – was behind her. He had somehow perched on the ceiling of the utility room and dropped to the floor after her. Why didn’t I look up? You always look up at crime scenes! Fuck.

Then a tug.

She gasped.

It wasn’t the gear
bag tethered to her. No, it was the perp’s hand! He was going to tie her down here. And then fill the tunnel with dirt, slowly, starting with her feet. Or flood it. She’d heard dripping water in the utility space; there’d been pipes. He’d undo the plug, open a valve. She’d drown, screaming, as the water rose and she couldn’t move forward or back.

No!

That this scenario was improbable at best
didn’t matter. Fear made the unlikely, even the impossible, more than plausible. Fear itself was now another occupant of the tunnel, breathing, kissing, teasing, sliding its wormy arms around her body.

She raged at herself: Don’t be crazy. You’re in danger of getting fucking shot when you climb out the other end of the tunnel, not getting suffocated by some nonexistent perp with a nonexistent
shovel. There is no way the tunnel’s going to collapse and hold you as tight as a mouse in a snake’s grip. That’s not. Going. To. Happen.

But then that image itself – snake and pinned mouse – screwed itself into her thoughts, and the panic notched up a level more.

Shit. I’m going to lose it. I’m going to fucking lose it.

The end of the tunnel was now about eight feet away, and she was possessed
by an urge to sprint out. But she couldn’t. There wasn’t enough room for her to move any more quickly than at a crawl. Anyway, Sachs knew that trying to hurry would be a disaster. For one thing, she could miss clues. And going more quickly would ratchet up the dread, which would explode within her like a chain reaction.

Also: Moving faster out of the tunnel, even if she could, would be a defeat.

Her personal mantra – which she’d also learned from her father – was: When you move they can’t getcha.

But sometimes, like now, they’ll getcha when you
do
move.

So, stop, she commanded.

And she did. Came to a complete halt. And felt the perverse arms of the tunnel embrace her ever more tightly.

Panic, cresting like waves. Panic, stabbing like that frosty knife.

Don’t move. Be with it, she
told herself. Face it. Confront it. She believed Rhyme was speaking to her, the whisper of his faraway voice perplexed or concerned or impatient. All of those, probably. Down went the headset volume to silence.

Breathe.

She did. In, out. Eyes open, looking at the disk of light ahead of her, relief a mile ahead. No, not that.
Evidence
. Look for evidence. That’s your job. Her gaze took in the
metal shell, inches away.

And the sting of panic began to detach. Not vanish completely. But it grew loose.

Okay. She continued through the tunnel, rolling for trace, collecting scraps, intentionally moving more slowly than before.

And finally her head emerged. Shoulders.

Birthing, she laughed to herself, a pallid sound, and blinked sweat from her eyes.

Then she rolled quickly into the larger
tunnel; it seemed like a concert hall by comparison. Rising to a crouch, drawing her Glock.

But no intruders were aiming weapons her way, not in the immediate area at least. The spotlights over the body were blinding and there might have been a threat in the blackness beyond but she immediately shone her Maglite in that direction. No threat.

Rising, Sachs tugged the gear bag out of the tunnel.
She gazed around and saw that the diagram from Rhyme’s database was accurate. This tunnel resembled a mine shaft, about twenty feet square. It disappeared west into the darkness. She knew it had been used, a century ago, for transporting wheeled carts of goods to and from factories and warehouses. Now the damp, moldy passageway served only as New York City infrastructure. There were large iron
pipes overhead and smaller aluminum and PVC ones, perhaps for electrical cables, running through old battered junction boxes. Newer conduits sprouted from bright-yellow boxes secured with thick padlocks. These were embossed with the letters
IFON
. She didn’t know what that meant. The iron pipes were stamped
NYC DS
and
NYC DEP
– Sanitation and Environmental Protection, the agencies that handled
the city’s sewage and water supply, respectively.

She realized it was utterly quiet and turned up the volume of the radio.