The Cutting Edge (Lincoln Rhyme #14)(33)

Sachs picked up some collection gear and headed along the sidewalk, nodding to the curious and concerned bystanders and deflecting questions. One woman asked, “Was it a hate crime?”

“We’re investigating,” Sachs told her and walked on. After two blocks she slowed, seeing no other cops. Had she misheard? But then she looked down a side street and saw a patrol officer, a Latina in her late twenties, waving. Sachs turned and joined the woman.

“Officer.”

“Detective.” The solidly built woman had a beautiful face, round. And she had applied makeup with care that morning. Sachs was pleased to see that Officer M. López was able to balance her personal inclinations with her profession. This small thing told Sachs she’d have a long career in blue. “I was going south, like you sent us, but thought I’d try this way. It’s a shortcut to the subway, up a block. Nobody heard any tires squealing away after the shots so I thought he might’ve done an MTA.”

Jumping on a Metropolitan Transportation Authority subway car could put distance between a criminal and a crime scene faster than a Ferrari.

López continued, “And since he got spotted by that wit—the woman with the dog—I was thinking, it’d been me, I would’ve lost the jacket. I’ve been checking trash cans and”—she pointed to the grate at her feet—“storm drains. Looks like some clothing in there. Didn’t touch it.”

“Good.” Sachs lay a number next to the grating and photographed it herself with her phone. “Did you—”

“I canvassed apartments. Nobody saw him.”

Sachs smiled in reply. She bent down and flashed her Maglite into the opening. It was a wad of dark cloth and it didn’t appear wet, which meant it hadn’t been there for very long. Drizzle had been the order of the day.

Pulling on gloves, she fished out the garment. It was a wool jacket and fairly new. Unsub 47 had worn a similar one, according to the anonymous 911 report and the video from the store on 47th Street, near Patel’s building.

López added, “Don’t know for certain it’s his. Maybe you can get gunshot residue off the sleeve to make sure.”

Which was on the program. Sachs bagged the jacket and fished in the drain but could find nothing else.

“Which subway?”

López told her and she jotted the numbers of the train lines.

“Thanks, Officer. Good work.”

“I’ll keep on with the canvass.”

“Thanks. I’m sending an ECT crew out. You can help ’em. And I’ll send a note to your file.”

The woman tried not to beam. “’Preciate it.”

Sachs encircled the area with yellow tape. She placed a call to the CSU’s main office, asking for an evidence collection tech she knew. She told the man the location of the storm drain and asked for a more thorough examination. A team would use fiber-optic cameras and lights to peer into the drain and see if the unsub—if it was indeed him—had thrown out the mask or anything else.

She returned to the scene at Saul Weintraub’s home to find that the crowds had largely dissipated. She stripped out of the overalls and gloves and wrote chain-of-custody notations on the cards.

Her phone buzzed. She glanced at the caller ID.

“Rhyme. We’re finished here. I’ll bring the evidence—”

“Sachs.”

The tone of his voice made clear that there was a problem.

“What is it?”

“Have the techs bring the stuff to me. You need to get down to Gravesend.”

“Brooklyn?”

“Yeah. Our unsub’s not wasting any time, Sachs. You’ve got another scene to run.”





Chapter 16



Lincoln Rhyme loved cloth.

When stitched into garments, the complex substance reveals the size of the perp, possibly age and maybe site of storage and, often, the source of purchase. It can shed fibers faster than a golden retriever blows his coat. And even better, cloth captures and retains wonderful trace evidence and in some rare instances fingerprints. Not to mention it can serve as a sponge to soak up and store that most wonderful of substances, deoxyribonucleic acid. Also known as DNA. Three letters that, Rhyme would theatrically tell his criminalistics students, spelled bad news for perps.

Rhyme was presently watching Mel Cooper process the jacket discarded by Unsub 47 in the storm drain in Queens.

They knew the garment was his because it contained traces of gunshot residue that was nearly identical in composition to residue on Weintraub’s body and found at the crime scenes in Patel’s building in the Diamond District. Cooper also discovered traces of the same rock dust near Weintraub’s body that was found at Patel’s: that kimberlite. The substance was proving helpful. The bullet striking the stone had blown a significant amount of rock dust and tiny chips throughout Patel’s shop, some settling on the unsub. It was acting like a marker to link him to locations and contacts.

Locard’s Principle, after Edmond Locard, the French criminalist, holds that in every exchange between criminal and victim, or criminal and crime scene, there is a transfer of matter. (“Every contact leaves a trace.”) If the forensic scientist is diligent enough, and clever enough, he or she can find that substance and determine what it is. That doesn’t mean, of course, that it will lead you to the perp’s door, but it can start you on the path.