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Of course, only part of this was sanitizing to protect himself from poisons and infection. There was a second reason as well: What better way to sever any link between you and your victims than to burn it away at 130 degrees Celsius?
Might even make hash of your 'dust' theory, don't you think, Monsieur Locard?
CHAPTER 8
Lincoln Rhyme was waiting impatiently.
He asked Thom, 'And Amelia?'
The aide hung up the landline. 'I can't get through.'
'Goddamn it. What do you mean you can't get through? Which hospital?'
'Manhattan General.'
'Call them again.'
'I just did. I can't get through to the main line. There're some problems.'
'That's ridiculous. It's a hospital. Call nine one one.'
'You can't call emergency to find out the status of a patient.'
'I'll call.'
But just then the front door buzzer sounded. Rhyme bluntly ordered Thom to 'answer the damn bell' and a moment later he heard footsteps in the front hall.
Two crime scene officers, the ones who'd assisted Sachs at the Chez Nord boutique homicide, entered the parlor, carrying large milk crates, filled with evidence bags - both plastic and paper. Rhyme knew the woman, Detective Jean Eagleston, who nodded a greeting, which he acknowledged a nod. The other officer, a large body-build of a cop, said, 'Captain Rhyme, an honor to work with you.'
'Decommissioned,' Rhyme muttered. He was noting that weather must have been worse - the officers' jackets were dusted with ice and snow. He noted that they'd wrapped the evidence cartons in cellophane. Good.
'How is Amelia?' asked Eagleston.
'We don't know anything yet,' Rhyme muttered.
'Anything else we can do,' said her burly male partner, 'just give us a call. Where do you want them?' A nod at the crates.
'Give them to Mel.'
Rhyme was referring to the latest member of the team, who'd just arrived.
Slim and with a retiring demeanor, NYPD Detective Mel Cooper was a renowned forensic lab man. Rhyme would bully anybody, all the way up to and including the mayor, to get Cooper assigned to him, especially for a case like this, in which toxin seemed to be the murder weapon of choice. With degrees in math, physics and organic chemistry, Cooper was perfect for the investigation.
The CS tech cop nodded greetings to Eagleston and her partner, who like him were based in the massive NYPD crime scene oper-ation in Queens. Despite the ornery weather and a chill in the parlor, Cooper wore a short-sleeved white shirt along with baggy black slacks, giving him the appearance of a crusading Mormon elder or high school science professor. His shoes were Hush Puppies. People usually weren't surprised to learn that he lived with his mother; the astonishment came when they met his towering and beautiful Scandinavian girlfriend, a professo
r at Columbia. The two were champion ballroom dancers.
Cooper, in a lab coat, latex gloves, goggles and mask, gestured to an empty evidence examination table. His colleagues set the cartons on it and nodded goodbye, then went out once more into the storm.
'You too, rookie. Let's see what we've got.'
Ron Pulaski pulled on similar protective gear and stepped up to the table to help.
'Careful,' Rhyme said unnecessarily, since Pulaski had done this a hundred times and no one was more careful than he with evidence.
But the criminalist was distracted; his thoughts returned to Amelia Sachs. Why wasn't she calling? He remembered seeing the powder pour into the video camera lens at the same time it hit her face. Remembered her choking.
And then: a key in the door.
