XO (37 page)

“Evidence,” Harutyun muttered, a sour tone that Dance counted as yet another shred of emotion from the reserved detective. “Life’s not like
CSI,
I’m sorry. Charlie’s folks are good but you need more than finding. You need figuring out.”

Yet another dust devil whirled up nearby. Dance cocked her head as she stared at it.

“What?” O’Neil asked, perusing her face. He sensed something was up.

The miniature cyclone vanished.

Kathryn Dance pulled out her phone and made a call.

TWO HOURS LATER
this foursome reconvened in the sheriff’s office—in the digs of ousted P. K. Madigan, specifically. It was the largest in the Detective Division, the only one with room for more than two or three people at one time.

Dance noted, with some sad poignancy, that the chief detective had been clipping coupons from Safeway. Maybe he did the family shopping. Only one coupon was for ice cream. Buy one pint, get another free.

She received a text, read it and then asked the deputies, “Can you show me your service door?”

Harutyun and Stanning regarded each other and she said, “Sure, I guess. Follow me.”

Dance and others did and after a brief walk stopped at a wide doorway in a delivery area at the back of the main building, opening onto a ramp that led to the parking lot.

“Good. This’ll do.” She made a call and gave directions to this entrance. Dance disconnected and explained, “I’m having some houseguests this weekend. They’ve been in San Jose at a conference. I took the liberty of asking them here. I had our San Francisco office lend them a set of flashing lights. They made better time than I thought.”

Just then a white van pulled up and stopped. The side door opened and a disabled-passenger ramp extended to the ground. A moment later a handsome man with dark hair and a fleshy nose drove a red motorized wheelchair quickly down the ramp and through the doorway of the service area. Wearing tan slacks and a long-sleeved burgundy shirt, he was pale, as befits someone who does not get outside very much. Joining him was a tall, redheaded woman in jeans, black T-shirt and black jacket, and a slim, younger man with perfectly trimmed hair. He wore well-tailored slacks, a white shirt and a striped tie.

“Lincoln!” Dance bent down, pressing her cheek against that of the man in the wheelchair. “Amelia.” She embraced the redhead, Amelia Sachs, Lincoln Rhyme’s partner.

“Hello, Thom,” she said to Rhyme’s caregiver, who also hugged her warmly.

“Been way, way too long,” the aide said.

“Kathryn … and Michael O’Neil,” Rhyme said, casting his eyes quickly on the detective.

Surprised, O’Neil said, “That’s right.” He’d never met Rhyme. “How’d you know?”

“A few observations. You’re carrying a weapon so you’re public safety and those Fresno-Madera folks there”—a nod toward Harutyun and Stanning—“are in uniform but their name badges show they’re detectives. So, the policy here is that even detectives wear uniforms. You’re not, so you’re probably from another jurisdiction. There’s a car outside with a Monterey County wharf pass on it. You’re tanned and pretty fit—the way somebody who boats or fishes in the ocean would be. I know you and Kathryn work together frequently. Therefore … you were Michael O’Neil. Or, maybe I could tell that from the body language between the two of you.” This was delivered, like most of Lincoln Rhyme’s wry comments, without a smile.

Rhyme made a slight movement of his neck and his right arm extended smoothly. He shook O’Neil’s hand. Dance knew he’d recently had some surgery to improve his condition—he was quadriplegic, mostly paralyzed from the neck down; he’d been injured on the job as head of the NYPD Crime Scene Unit some years ago. The operation had been successful and he’d regained nearly all the use of his right arm and hand, which he controlled by subtle gestures of his neck, shoulder and head muscles.

He similarly greeted Harutyun and Stanning, and Sachs introduced Thom Reston, Rhyme’s caregiver.

Harutyun continued, “Kathryn said she’d called in an expert but I never thought it’d be someone like you. Well, thanks for coming. You’re based in New York, I heard. What brings you to California?”

“Came for a visit,” the man said shortly. And let it go at that. He was not a conversationalist—even less of one than Michael O’Neil.

Sachs filled in, “He’s been lecturing at a forensics conference in San Jose. Then we were going to spend a few days with Kathryn and her family in Pacific Grove.”

Dance had known and worked with Rhyme for several years. She’d been after him and Sachs to come for a visit. Rhyme was disinclined to travel—certainly there were logistical issues and he was naturally a bit of a recluse—but he was in demand as a consultant in forensics and crime scene work and he decided to accept a lecture assignment on that subject in San Jose.

The preparations for her house that her father was taking care of in anticipation of the visit involved building a ramp to let Rhyme motor up to the front door and some modifications to a bathroom. Rhyme had told them not to bother, they’d stay at a motel but retired Stuart Dance loved any excuse to use his many woodworking tools.

Harutyun said, “Well, it’s a true pleasure to meet you, Detective Rhyme.”

A fast: “‘Lincoln’ is fine. I’m decommissioned.” He revealed a hint of pleased irritation at the man’s comment.

“Amelia drove, I assume,” Dance said, with a wry glance at Thom. This was a reference to the timing. It was about 120 miles from San Jose to Fresno and they’d made the trip in an hour and a half—and in a disabled-accessible van, no less. Unlike Dance, the policewoman from New York was a car aficionado—she actually worked on them herself—and would take her muscle car out to the track to “relax” at 180 miles per hour.

Sachs smiled. “It was pretty much a straightaway. The flashing blue lights always help too.”

Rhyme looked around the storage facility with a grimace as if he expected this to be the crime lab. “Now. You have some things you’d like me to look over?” The criminalist was never one for socializing, Dance recalled.

“We have a pretty good lab,” Harutyun offered.

“Do you now?” There was cynicism in his voice. Dance had been to Rhyme’s town house on Central Park West in Manhattan; he’d turned the parlor into a well-equipped forensics lab, where he, as a consultant, Sachs and other officers would run the crime scene side of major cases in the metro area.

Not picking up on the sardonic tone, Stanning said proudly, “Yes, sir. Sheriff Madigan’s fought pretty hard to build up our CSU. Officers as far away as Bakersfield send samples here. And I don’t mean just rape kits. Pretty complicated things.”

“Bakersfield,” Rhyme said, even more ironically, drawing a sharp glance from Thom, a reminder that condescension was not necessary. Dance guessed his attitude had nothing to do with a prejudice against small towns, though. Rhyme was a nondenominational curmudgeon. He gave the NYPD, Scotland Yard and the FBI a lot of crap too. The New York governor’s and mayor’s offices had not escaped his wrath either.

“Well, we better get to it, you don’t mind.”

“Let’s go this way,” Harutyun said and led them inside, then out the front door.

As they walked and wheeled toward the crime lab, Dance briefed them on the case, explaining that their main suspect had proved to be very slippery. “His name’s Edwin Sharp. He could be the perp, he could be a fall guy, could be completely innocent.”

Harutyun said, “The UNSUB announces the attacks by playing a verse from one of Kayleigh’s songs.”

This clearly intrigued Rhyme. “Interesting, good,” he said, then decided he was exhibiting too much glee. “And he’s smart, right? He started with phones, then switched to other ways to play the song, like radio call-in requests?”

“Very good, sir,” Stanning said. “Not call-ins but most recent he played a song over a high-school-stadium PA system.”

Rhyme frowned. “Didn’t think of that one. Interesting, like I said.”

Dance added, “We’re tracking down a witness now, maybe an alibi. And he claims somebody’s been conducting surveillance on
him,
presumably to set him up for the crimes. That’s part of the evidence we need you to look at.”

Sachs asked, “You’ve interviewed him?”

“Yes. But the kinesics were inconclusive. I can say, though, that he’s got a stalker’s personality: reduced affect, attachment issues, reality problems.”

The woman from New York nodded. Kathryn Dance glanced down; she loved shoes and she couldn’t help but admire Amelia Sachs’s black, high-heeled boots, which sent the tall woman—a former fashion model—even further into the stratosphere.

Rhyme asked, “Samples from Edwin’s house or apartment?”

Dance said, “House. He gave us permission, though he might’ve scrubbed the place down before the team searched.”

Harutyun added that an earlier search, without a warrant, had resulted in getting the chief of detectives and another deputy suspended. The perp had also stolen the gun of another detective, temporarily removing him from the force.

“Crazy like a fox,” Rhyme commented and seemed oddly pleased at this news—maybe because he liked adversaries who were particularly smart and challenging. His number-one nemesis was boredom.

Then they were entering the lab and meeting Charlie Shean. If Harutyun was impressed that Rhyme was here, Shean was beside himself, having a crime scene legend in his “modest abode.”

Rhyme, though, was visibly impressed at the sophistication of the operation, despite his apparent misgiving earlier. Some people, Dance knew, are easier to read than others and although his body language was obviously severely limited, Rhyme was, to her, an open book.

Charlie Shean now briefed the criminalist on where they needed his expertise. “We’ve searched and we’ve done the analysis. But most of the results’re just raw data. We don’t know what to make of it. If you could offer some thoughts it’d be much appreciated.”

Rhyme was taking all this in as his eyes swept the ceiling. Then abruptly: “Sachs, let’s get a chart going.”

Rhyme used graphics in running his cases—having someone write down the evidence that had been gathered—in front of which he would then wheel back and forth, frowning and muttering to himself, as deductions and conclusions came or didn’t come. Shean explained what they’d found and she wrote.

• Sunday. Robert Prescott homicide, convention center stage/orchestra pit/scaffolding

—strip lamp

—no matching friction ridge prints

—no matching tool marks (unit removed by wing nuts)

—fifty-foot power cord

—no matching fingerprints

—smoke detectors in pit, disabled

—no matching fingerprints

—smudges determined to be produced by latex gloves, brand unknown, not associated with gloves in Edwin Sharp’s possession

—cardboard cartons moved from projected path of victim

—no matching fingerprints

—smudges determined to be produced by latex gloves, brand unknown, not associated with gloves in Edwin Sharp’s possession

—unique trace from stage/orchestra pit/scaffolding

—triglyceride fat (lard)

—2700K color temperature (yellowish)

—melting point: 40–55 degrees F

—specific gravity: 0.91 at 40.0 C

—no footprints/vehicle tread marks

• Monday. Frederick Blanton homicide, gas station, near San Joaquin River

—two 9 mm shell casings

—weapon possibly Det. Gabriel Fuentes’s, no casings for comparison

—no friction ridge prints

—extractor marks match those found at Sheri Towne scene

—one 9 mm slug recovered

—lands and grooves match slugs from Sheri Towne scene

—accelerant

—Shell gasoline, 89 octane

—gasoline container destroyed

—no footprints/vehicle tread marks

• Monday. Frederick Blanton’s residence, Fresno

—no relevant friction ridge prints, footprints, vehicle tread marks

• Monday. Public phone in classroom building at Fresno College

—No relevant friction ridge prints

—unique trace collected

—calcium powder. Medical/dietary supplement?

—chemicals: limonite, goethite and calcite

—no footprints/vehicle tread marks

• Tuesday. Sheri Towne crime scene

—cigarette ash

—twenty-three 9 mm shell casings

—weapon possibly Det. Gabriel Fuentes’s, no casings for comparison

—no friction ridge prints

—extractor marks match those at gas station scene

—seven 9 mm slugs

—lands and grooves match those at Frederick Blanton scene

—no friction ridge prints

—no footprints/vehicle tread marks

• Tuesday. Emerson High School stadium, PA system facility

—no friction ridge prints