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"He write, 'Longest journey must begin with first step.' I think he write that. Maybe somebody else. I read Mickey Spillane more than Confucius."
"Could you wait over there, Officer Li?"
"Call me Sonny, I'm saying."
He stepped aside and Sachs walked into the warehouse. The headset went on and she clicked the Motorola handy-talkie to life.
"Crime Scene Five Eight Eight Five to Central. Need a patch to a landline, K?"
"Roger, Five Eight Eight Five. What's the number, K?"
She gave them Lincoln Rhyme's phone number and a moment later she heard his voice. "Sachs, where are you? At the scene yet? We've got to move on this."
As always--and inexplicably--his feisty impatience reassured her. She scanned the carnage. "Jesus, Rhyme, this's a mess."
"Tell me," he said. "Give me the blueprint first."
"Warehouse and office combined. Thirty by fifty feet, more or less, office area about ten by twenty. A few desks and--"
"Few? Two or eighteen?"
Rhyme was hell on anyone guilty of sloppy observation.
"Sorry," she said. "Four metal desks, eight chairs, no, nine--one's overturned."
The one that Tang had been tied to when the Ghost had tortured and killed him.
"Rows of metal shelves, stacked with cardboard boxes, food inside. Canned goods and cellophane packages. Restaurant supplies."
"Okay, Thom's ready to start writing. You are ready, aren't you, Thom? Write big, so I can see it. Those words over there, I can't make them out. Redo them . . . All right, all right . . . Please redo them." He then said, "Start on the grid, Sachs."
She began to search the scene, thinking: A first step . . . the longest journey.
But twenty minutes of one-step-at-a-time searching revealed virtually nothing useful. She found two shell casings, which appeared to be the same as those from the Ghost's gun at the beach. But there was nothing that would lead them directly to where he might be hiding out in New York. No cigarettes, no matchbooks, no fingerprints--the assailants had worn leather gloves.
She studied the ceiling and smelled the s
cene--two of Rhyme's important directives to crime scene searchers--but detected nothing that would help. Sachs jumped when Rhyme's voice popped into her ear. "Talk to me, Sachs. I don't like it when you're quiet."
"The place is a mess," she repeated.
"You said that. A. Mess. That doesn't really tell us very much, now, does it? Give me details."
"It's been ransacked, drawers opened, posters torn off the walls, desks swept clean; statues, figurines, fishbowl, cups and glasses smashed."
"In a struggle?"
"I don't think so."
"Theft of anything in particular?"
"Maybe but it's mostly vandalism, I'd say."
"What're their shoe treads like?" Rhyme asked.
"All smooth."
"Stylish bastards," he muttered.
