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"Apparently not. Smoke inhalation mostly."
"That would've been unpleasant. Burning hair." His nostrils flared slightly.
Sachs sniffed at her red strands. Her nose wrinkled too. "I'm taking a really long shower tonight."
"What'd she have to say?"
"I didn't get a chance to interview her. . . . She's coming over here as soon as she's released."
"Here?" Rhyme asked with surprise. Not only was he skeptical of witnesses in the first place, but there was a security question about letting a stranger into the lab. If a terrorist cell was behind the attacks, they might want to sneak one of their members into the inner sanctum of the investigators.
But Sachs laughed, deducing his thoughts. "I checked her out, Rhyme. She's clean. No record, no warrants. Longtime editor of some furniture magazine. Besides, I thought it wasn't a bad idea--I wouldn't have to spend the time getting to and from the hospital. I can stay here and work the evidence."
"What else?"
She hesitated. Anothe
r smile. "I was explaining too much?"
"Uh-huh."
"Okay. She's disabled."
"Is she now? That's still not answering my question."
"She wants to meet you, Rhyme. You're a celebrity."
Rhyme sighed. "Fine."
Sachs turned to him, eyes narrowed. "You're not arguing."
Now he laughed. "Not in the mood. Let her come over. I'll interview her myself. Show you how it's done. Short and sweet."
Sachs gave a cautious look.
Rhyme then asked, "What do you have, Mel?"
Peering through the eyepiece of a microscope, the tech said, "Nothing helpful for sourcing him."
" 'Sourcing.' Missed that word when I was in verb school," Rhyme said sourly.
"But I've got one thing," Cooper said, ignoring Rhyme's remark and reading the results from the chromatograph." Traces of substances that the database is saying are ginseng and wolfberry."
"Chinese herbs, maybe tea," Rhyme announced. A case several years ago had involved a snakehead, a smuggler of illegal aliens, and much of the investigation had centered around Chinatown. A police officer from mainland China, helping in the case, had taught Rhyme about herbalism, thinking it might help his condition. The substances had no effect, of course, but Rhyme had found the subject potentially helpful in investigations. At the moment he noted the find, but agreed with Cooper that it wasn't much of a lead. There was a time when those substances would have been found only in Asian specialty shops and what Rhyme called "woo-woo stores." Now products like that were in every Rite Aid pharmacy and Food Emporium throughout the city.
"On the board, if you please, Sachs."
As she wrote, he looked over a series of small evidence bags lined up in a row, with her handwriting on the chain-of-custody cards. They were labeled with directions from the compass.
"Ten little Indians," Rhyme said, intrigued. "What do we have there?"
"I got mad, Rhyme. No, I got fucking furious."
"Good. I find anger liberating. Why?"
"Because we can't find him. So I took samples of substrate from where he might've been. I crawled around in some pretty lousy places, Rhyme."
"Hence the smudge." He looked at her forehead.
