Saturday, 4:00 p.m., to Saturday, 10:15 p.m. 11 page

Their bodies were being flown back to New York the next day.

Which was the same day that Dellray put in the first of his RFT-2230 forms, requesting a transfer to the Bureau’s Anti-Terror Division.

The bombing had been the crime of crimes to Fred Dellray, who, when no one was looking, devoured books on politics and philosophy. He believed there was nothing essentially un-American about greed or lust—hey, those qualities were encouraged everywhere from Wall Street to Capitol Hill. And if people making a business of greed or lust sometimes stepped over the border of legality, Dellray was pleased to track them down—but he never did so with personal animosity. But to murder people for their beliefs—hell, to murder children before they even knew what they believed—my God, that was a stab at the heart of the country. Sitting in his two-room, sparsely furnished Brooklyn apartment after Toby’s funeral, Dellray decided that this was the kind of crime he wanted a crack at.

But unfortunately the Chameleon’s reputation preceded him. The Bureau’s best undercover agent was now their best handler, running agents and CIs throughout the East Coast. His bosses simply couldn’t afford to let him go to one of the more quiescent departments of the FBI. Dellray was a minor legend, personally responsible for some of the Bureau’s greatest recent successes. So it was with considerable regret that his persistent requests were turned down.

The AS AC was well aware of this history and he now added a sincere, “I wish I could help out, Fred. I’m sorry.”

But all Dellray heard in these words was the rock cracking a little further. And so the Chameleon pulled a persona off the rack and stared down his boss. He wished he still had his fake gold tooth. Street man Dellray was a tough hombre with one mother-fucker of a mean stare. And in that look was the unmistakable message anybody on the street would know instinctively: I done for you, now you do for me.

Finally the smarmy ASAC said lamely, “It’s just that we need something.”

“Somethin’?”

“A hook,” the ASAC said. “We don’t have a hook.”

A reason to take the case away from NYPD, he meant.

Politics, politics, polifuckingtics.

Dellray lowered his head but the eyes, brown as polish, didn’t waver a millimeter from the ASAC. “He cut the skin off that vic’s finger this morning, Billy. Clean down to the bone. Then buried him alive.”

Two scrubbed, federal-agent hands met beneath a crisp jaw. The ASAC said slowly, “Here’s a thought. There’s a deputy commissioner at NYPD. Name’s Eckert. You know him? He’s a friend of mine.”

The girl lay on her back on a stretcher, eyes closed, conscious but groggy. Still pale. An IV of glucose ran into her arm. Now that she’d been rehydrated she was coherent and surprisingly calm, all things considered.

Sachs walked back to the gates of hell and stood looking down into the black doorway. She clicked on the radio and called Lincoln Rhyme. This time he answered.

“How’s the scene look?” Rhyme asked casually.

Her answer was a curt: “We got her out. If you’re interested.”

“Ah, good. How is she?”

“Not good.”

“But alive, right.”

“Barely.”

“You’re upset because of the rats, aren’t you, Amelia?”

She didn’t answer.

“Because I didn’t let Bo’s men get her right away. Are you there, Amelia?”

“I’m here.”

“There are five contaminants of crime scenes,” Rhyme explained. She noticed he’d gone into his low, seductive tone again. “The weather, the victim’s family, the suspect, souvenir hunters. The last is the worst. Guess what it is?”

“You tell me.”

“Other cops. If I’d let ESU in they could’ve destroyed all the trace. You know how to handle a scene now. And I’ll bet you preserved everything just fine.”

Sachs needed to say, “I don’t think she’ll ever be the same after this. The rats were all over her.”

“Yes, I imagine they were. That’s their nature.”

Their nature ...

“But five minutes or ten wasn’t going to make any difference. She—”

Click.

She shut off the radio and walked to Walsh, the medic.

“I want to interview her. Is she too groggy?”

“Not yet. We gave her locals—to stitch the lacerations and the bites. She’ll want some Demerol in a half hour or so.”

Sachs smiled and crouched down beside her. “Hi, how you doing?”

The girl, fat but very pretty, nodded.

“Can I ask you some questions?”

“Yes, pleece. I want you get him.”

Sellitto arrived and ambled up to them. He smiled down at the girl, who gazed at him blankly. He proffered a badge she had no interest in and identified himself.

“You all right, miss?”

The girl shrugged.

Sweating fiercely in the muggy heat, Sellitto nodded Sachs aside. “Polling been here?”

“Haven’t seen him. Maybe he’s at Lincoln’s.”

“No, I just called there. He’s gotta get to City Hall pronto.”

“What’s the problem?”

Sellitto lowered his voice, his doughy face twisted up. “A fuckup—our transmissions’re supposed to be secure. But those fucking reporters, somebody’s got an unscrambler or something. They heard we didn’t go in right away to get her.” He nodded toward the girl.

“Well, we didn’t,” Sachs said harshly. “Rhyme told ESU to wait until I got here.”

The detective winced. “Man, I hope they don’t have that on tape. We need Polling for damage control.” He nodded to the girl. “Interviewed her yet?”

“No. Just about to.” With some regret Sachs clicked on the radio and heard Rhyme’s urgent voice.

“... you there? This goddamn thing doesn’t—”

“I’m here,” Sachs said coolly.

“What happened?”

“Interference, I guess. I’m with the vic.”

The girl blinked at the exchange and Sachs smiled. “I’m not talking to myself.” Gestured toward the mike. “Police headquarters. What’s your name?”

“Monelle. Monelle Gerger.” She looked at her bitten arm, pulled up a dressing and examined a wound.

“Interview her fast,” Rhyme instructed, “then work the scene.”

Hand covering the microphone stalk, Sachs whispered fiercely to Sellitto, “This man is a pain in the ass to work for. Sir.”

“Humor him, officer.”

“Amelia!” Rhyme barked. “Answer me!”

“We’re interviewing her, all right?” she snapped.

Sellitto asked, “Can you tell us what happened?”

Monelle began to talk, a disjointed story about being in the laundry room of a residence hall in the East Village. He’d been hiding, waiting for her.

“What residence hall?” Sellitto asked.

“The Deutsche Haus. It’s, you know, mostly German expatriates and students.”

“What happened then?” Sellitto continued. Sachs noted that although the big detective appeared gruffer, more ornery than Rhyme, he was really the more compassionate of the two.

“He threwed me in the trunk of car and drove here.”

“Did you get a look at him?”

The woman closed her eyes. Sachs repeated the question and Monelle said she hadn’t; he was, as Rhyme had guessed, wearing a navy-blue ski mask.

“Und gloves.”

“Describe them.”

They were dark. She didn’t remember what color.

“Any unusual characteristics? The kidnapper?”

“No. He was white. I could tell that.”

“Did you see the license plate of the taxi?” Sellitto asked.

“Was?” the girl asked, drifting into her native tongue.

“Did you see—”

Sachs jumped as Rhyme interrupted: “Das Nummernschild.”

Thinking: How the hell does he know all this? She repeated the word and the girl shook her head no then squinted. “What you mean, taxi?”

“Wasn’t he driving a Yellow Cab?”

“Taxicab? Nein. No. It was regular car.”

“Hear that, Lincoln?”

“Yup. Our boy’s got another set of wheels. And he put her in the trunk so it’s not a station wagon or hatchback.”

Sachs repeated this. The girl nodded. “Like a sedan.”

“Any idea of the make or color?” Sellitto continued.

Monelle answered, “Light, I think. Maybe silver or gray. Or that, you know, what is it? Light brown.”

“Beige?”

She nodded.

“Maybe beige,” Sachs added for Rhyme’s benefit.

Sellitto asked, “Was there anything in the trunk? Anything at all? Tools, clothes, suitcases?”

Monelle said there wasn’t. It was empty.

Rhyme had a question. “What did it smell like? The trunk.”

Sachs relayed the query.

“I don’t know.”

“Oil and grease?”

“No. It smelled ... clean.”

“So maybe a new car,” Rhyme reflected.

Monelle dissolved into tears for a moment: Then shook her head. Sachs took her hand and, finally, she continued. “We drove for long time. Seemed like long time.”

“You’re doing fine, honey,” Sachs said.

Rhyme’s voice interrupted. “Tell her to strip.”

“What?”

“Take her clothes off.”

“I will not.”

“Have the medics give her a robe. We need her clothes, Amelia.”

“But,” Sachs whispered, “she’s crying.”

“Please,” Rhyme said urgently. “It’s important.”

Sellitto nodded and Sachs, tight-lipped, explained to the girl about the clothes and was surprised when Monelle nodded. She was, it turned out, eager to get out of the bloody garments anyway. Giving her privacy, Sellitto walked away, to confer with Bo Haumann. Monelle put on a gown the medic offered her and one of the plain-clothes detectives covered her with his sportscoat. Sachs bagged the jeans and T-shirts.

“Got them,” Sachs said into the radio.

“Now she’s got to walk the scene with you,” Rhyme said.

“What?”

“But make sure she’s behind you. So she doesn’t contaminate any PE.”

Sachs looked at the young woman, huddling on a gurney beside the two EMS buses.

“She’s in no shape to do that. He cut her. All the way to the bone. So she’d bleed and the rats’d get her.”

“Is she mobile?”

“Probably. But you know what she’s just been through?”

“She can give you the route they walked. She can tell you where he stood.”

“She’s going to the ER. She lost a lot of blood.”

A hesitation. He said pleasantly, “Just ask her.”

But his joviality was fake and Sachs heard just impatience. She could tell that Rhyme was a man who wasn’t used to coddling people, who didn’t have to. He was someone used to having his own way.

He persisted, “Just once around the grid.”

You can go fuck yourself, Lincoln Rhyme.

“It’s—”

“Important. I know.”

Nothing from the other end of the line.

She was looking at Monelle. Then she heard a voice, no, her voice say to the girl, “I’m going down there to look for evidence. Will you come with me?”

The girl’s eyes nailed Sachs deep in her heart. Tears burst. “No, no, no. I am not doing that. Bitte nicht, oh, bitte nicht ...”

Sachs nodded, squeezed the woman’s arm. She began to speak into the mike, steeling herself for his reaction, but Rhyme surprised her by saying, “All right, Amelia. Let it go. Just ask her what happened when they arrived.”

The girl explained how she’d kicked him and escaped into an adjoining tunnel.

“I kick him again,” she said with some satisfaction. “Knock off his glove. Then he get all pissed and strangle me. He—”

“Without the glove on?” Rhyme blurted.

Sachs repeated the question and Monelle said, “Yes.”

“Prints, excellent!” Rhyme shouted, his voice distorting in the mike. “When did it happen? How long ago?”

Monelle guessed about an hour and a half.

“Hell,” Rhyme muttered. “Prints on skin last an hour, ninety minutes, tops. Can you print skin, Amelia?”

“I never have before.”

“Well, you’re about to. But fast. In the CS suitcase there’ll be a packet labeled Kromekote. Pull out a card.”

She found a stack of glossy five-by-seven cards, similar to photographic paper.

“Got it. Do I dust her neck?”

“No. Press the card, glossy side down, against her skin where she thinks he touched her. Press for about three seconds.”

Sachs did this, as Monelle stoically gazed at the sky. Then, as Rhyme instructed, she dusted the card with metallic powder, using a puffy Magna-Brush.

“Well?” Rhyme asked eagerly.

“It’s no good. A shape of a finger. But no visible ridges. Should I pitch it?”

“Never throw away anything at a crime scene, Sachs,” he lectured sternly. “Bring it back. I want to see it anyway.”

“One thing, I am thinking I forget,” said Monelle. “He touch me.”

“You mean he molested you?” Sachs asked gently. “Rape?”

“No, no. Not in a sex way. He touch my shoulder, face, behind my ear. Elbow. He squeezed me. I don’t know why.”

“You hear that, Lincoln? He touched her. But it didn’t seem like he was getting off on it.”

“Yes.”

“Und ... And one thing I am forgetting,” Monelle said. “He spoke German. Not good. Like he only study it in school. And he call me Hanna.”

“Called her what?”

“Hanna,” Sachs repeated into the mike. “Do you know why?” she asked the girl.

“No. But that’s all he call me. He seemed to like saying the name.”

“Did you get that, Lincoln?”

“Yes, I did. Now do the scene. Time’s awasting.”

As Sachs stood, Monelle suddenly reached up and gripped her wrist.

“Miss ... Sachs. You are German?”

She smiled and answered, “A long time ago. A couple generations.”

Monelle nodded. She pressed Sachs’s palm to her cheek. “Vielen Dank. Thank you, Miss Sachs. Danke schön.”

FIFTEEN

THE THREE ESU HALOGENS CLICKED TO LIGHT, bringing an eerie tide of white glare to the grim tunnel.

Alone now at the scene Sachs gazed at the floor for a moment. Something had changed. What?

She drew her weapon again, dropped into a crouch. “He’s here,” she whispered, stepping behind one of the posts.

“What?” Rhyme asked.

“He’s come back. There were some dead rats here. They’re gone.”

She heard Rhyme’s laughter.

“What’s so funny?”

“No, Amelia. Their friends took the bodies away.”

“Their friends?”

“Had a case up in Harlem once. Dismembered, decomposed body. A lot of the bones were hidden in a big circle around the torso. The skull was in an oil drum, toes underneath piles of leaves ... Had the borough in an uproar. The press was talking about Satanists, serial killers. Guess who the perp turned out to be?”

“No idea,” she said stiffly.

“The vic himself. It was a suicide. Raccoons, rats and squirrels made off with the remains. Like trophies. Nobody knows why but they love their souvenirs. Now, where are you?”

“At the foot of the ramp.”

“What do you see?”

“A wide tunnel. Two side tunnels, narrower. Flat ceiling, supported by wooden posts. The posts’re all battered and nicked. The floor’s old concrete, covered with dirt.”

UNSUB 823

Appearance

Residence

Vehicle

Other

• Caucasian male, slight build

•Dark clothing

• Old gloves, reddish kidskin

• Aftershave; to cover up other scent?

• Ski mask? Navy blue?

• Gloves are dark

• Prob. has safe house

• Yellow Cab

• Recent model sedan

• Lt. gray, silver, beige

• knows CS proc.

• possibly has record

• knows FR prints

• gun = .32 Colt

• Ties vics w/ unusual knots

• “Old” appeals to him

• Called one vic “Hanna”

• Knows basic German

“And manure?”

“Looks like it. In the center, right in front of me’s the post she was tied to.”

“Windows?”

“None. No doors either.” She looked over the wide tunnel, the floor disappearing into a black universe a thousand miles away. She felt the crawl of hopelessness. “It’s too big! There’s too much space to cover.”

“Amelia, relax.”

“I’ll never find anything here.”

“I know it seems overwhelming. But just keep in mind that there’re only three types of PE that we’re concerned about. Objects, body materials and impressions. That’s all. It’s less daunting if you think of it that way.”

Easy for you to say.

“And the scene isn’t as big as it looks. Just concentrate on the places they walked. Go to the post.”

Sachs walked the path. Staring down.

The ESU lights were brilliant but they also made the shadows starker, revealing a dozen places the kidnapper could hide. A chill trickled down her spine. Stay close, Lincoln, she thought reluctantly. I’m pissed, sure, but I wanna hear you. Breathe or something.

She paused, shone the PoliLight over the ground.

“Is it all swept?” he asked.

“Yes. Just like before.”

The body armor chafed her breasts despite the sports bra and undershirt and as hot as it was outside it was unbearable down here. Her skin prickled and she felt a ravenous desire to scratch under her vest.

“I’m at the post.”

“Vacuum the area for trace.”

Sachs ran the Dustbuster. Hating the noise. It covered up any sound of approaching footsteps, guns cocking, knives being drawn. Involuntarily she looked behind her once, twice. Nearly dropped the vacuum as her hand strayed to her gun.

Sachs looked at the impression in the dust of where Monelle’s body had lain. I’m him. I’m dragging her along. She kicks me. I stumble ...

Monelle could have kicked in only one direction, away from the ramp. The unsub didn’t fall, she’d said. Which meant he must’ve landed on his feet. Sachs walked a yard or two into the gloom.

“Bingo!” Sachs shouted.

“What? Tell me?”

“Footprints. He missed a spot sweeping up.”

“Not hers?”

“No. She was wearing running shoes. These are smooth soles. Like dress shoes. Two good prints. We’ll know what size feet he’s got.”

“No, they won’t tell us that. Soles can be larger or smaller than the uppers. But it may tell us something. In the CS bag there’s an electrostatic printer. It’s a small box with a wand on it. There’ll be some sheets of acetate next to it. Separate the paper, lay the acetate on the print and run the wand over it.”

She found the device and made two images of the prints. Carefully slipped them into a paper envelope.

Sachs returned to the post. “And here’s a bit of straw from the broom.”

“From?—”

“Sorry,” Sachs said quickly. “We don’t know where it’s from. A bit of straw. I’m picking it up and bagging it.”

Getting good with these pencils. Hey, Lincoln, you son of a bitch, know what I’m doing to celebrate my permanent retirement from crime scene detail? I’m going out for Chinese.

The ESU halogens didn’t reach into the side tunnel where Monelle had run. Sachs paused at the day-night line then plunged forward into the shadows. The flashlight beam swept the floor in front of her.

“Talk to me, Amelia.”

“There isn’t much to see. He swept up here too. Jesus, he thinks of everything.”

“What do you see?”

“Just marks in the dust.”

I tackle her, I bring her down. I’m mad. Furious. I try to strangle her.

Sachs stared at the ground.

“Here’s something—knee prints! When he was strangling her he must have straddled her waist. He left knee prints and he missed them when he swept.”

“Electrostatic them.”

She did, quicker this time. Getting the hang of the equipment. She was slipping the print into the envelope when something caught her eye. Another mark in the dust.

What is that?

“Lincoln ... I’m looking at the spot where ... it looks like the glove fell here. When they were struggling.”

She clicked on the PoliLight. And couldn’t believe what she saw.

“A print. I’ve got a fingerprint!”

“What?” Rhyme asked, incredulous. “It’s not hers?”

“Nope, couldn’t be. I can see the dust where she was lying. Her hands were cuffed the whole time. It’s where he picked up the glove. He probably thought he’d swept here but missed it. It’s a big, fat beautiful one!”

“Stain it, light it and shoot the son of a bitch on the one-to-one.”

It took her only two tries to get a crisp Polaroid. She felt like she’d found a hundred-dollar bill in the street.

“Vacuum the area and then go back to the post. Walk the grid,” he told her.

She slowly walked the floor, back and forth. One foot at a time.

“Don’t forget to look up,” he reminded her. “I once caught an unsub because of a single hair on the ceiling. He’d loaded a .357 round in a true .38 and the blowback pasted a hair from his hand on the crown molding.”

“I’m looking. It’s a tile ceiling. Dirty. Nothing else. Nowhere to stash anything. No ledges or doorways.”

“Where’re the staged clues?” he asked.

“I don’t see anything.”

Back and forth. Five minutes passed. Six, seven.

“Maybe he didn’t leave any this time,” Sachs suggested. “Maybe Monelle’s the last.”

“No,” Rhyme said with certainty.

Then behind one of the wooden pillars a flash caught her eye.

“Here’s something in the corner ... Yep. Here they are.”

“Shoot it ’fore you touch it.”

She took a photograph and then picked up a wad of white cloth with the pencils. “Women’s underwear. Wet.”

“Semen?”

“I don’t know,” she said. Wondering if he was going to ask her to smell it.

Rhyme ordered, “Try the PoliLight. Proteins will fluoresce.”

She fetched the light, turned it on. It illuminated the cloth but the liquid didn’t glow. “No.”

“Bag it. In plastic. What else?” he asked eagerly.

“A leaf. Long, thin, pointed at one end.”

It had been cut sometime ago and was dry and turning brown.

She heard Rhyme sigh in frustration. “There’re about eight thousand varieties of deciduous vegetation in Manhattan,” he explained. “Not very helpful. What’s underneath the leaf?”

Why does he think there’s anything there?

But there was. A scrap of newsprint. Blank on one side, the other was printed with a drawing of the phases of the moon.

“The moon?” Rhyme mused. “Any prints? Spray it with ninhydrin and scan it fast with the light.”

A blast of the PoliLight revealed nothing.

“That’s all.”

Silence for a moment. “What’re the clues sitting on?”

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“You have to know.”

“Well, the ground,” she answered testily. “Dirt.” What else would they be sitting on?

“Is it like all the rest of the dirt around there?”

“Yes.” Then she looked closely. Hell, it was different. “Well, not exactly. It’s a different color.”

Was he always right?

Rhyme instructed, “Bag it. In paper.”

As she scooped up the grains he said, “Amelia?”

“Yeah?”

“He’s not there,” Rhyme said reassuringly.

“I guess.”

“I heard something in your voice.”

“I’m fine,” she said shortly. “I’m smelling the air. I smell blood. Mold and mildew. And the aftershave again.”

“The same as before?”

“Yes.”

“Where’s it coming from?”

Sniffing the air, Sachs walked in a spiral, the Maypole again, until she came to another wooden post.

“Here. It’s strongest right here.”

“What’s ‘here,’ Amelia? You’re my legs and my eyes, remember.”

“One of these wooden columns. Like the kind she was tied to. About fifteen feet away.”

“So he might have rested against it. Any prints?”

She sprayed it with ninhydrin and shone the light on it.

“No. But the smell’s very strong.”

“Sample a portion of the post where it’s the strongest. There’s a MotoTool in the case. Black. A portable drill. Take a sampling bit—it’s like a hollow drill bit—and mount it in the tool. There’s something called a chuck. It’s a—”

“I own a drill press,” she said tersely.

“Oh,” Rhyme said.

She drilled a piece of the post out, then flicked sweat from her forehead. “Bag it in plastic?” she asked. He told her yes. She felt faint, lowered her head and caught her breath. No fucking air in here.

“Anything else?” Rhyme asked.

“Nothing that I can see.”

“I’m proud of you, Amelia. Come on back and bring your treasures with you.”

SIXTEEN

CAREFUL,” RHYME BARKED.

“I’m an expert at this.”

“Is it new or old?”

“Shhh,” Thom said.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake. The blade, is it old or new?”

“Don’t breathe. ... Ah, there we go. Smooth as a baby’s butt.”

The procedure was not forensic but cosmetic.

Thom was giving Rhyme his first shave in a week. He had also washed his hair and combed it straight back.

A half hour before, waiting for Sachs and the evidence to arrive, Rhyme had sent Cooper out of the room while Thom slicked up a catheter with K-Y and wielded the tube. After that business had been completed Thom had looked at him and said, “You look like shit. You realize that?”

“I don’t care. Why would I care?”

Realizing suddenly that he did.

“How ’bout a shave?” the young man had asked.

“We don’t have time.”

Rhyme’s real concern was that if Dr. Berger saw him groomed he’d be less inclined to go ahead with the suicide. A disheveled patient is a despondent patient.

“And a wash.”

“No.”

“We’ve got company now, Lincoln,”

Finally Rhyme had grumbled, “All right.”

“And let’s lose those pajamas, what do you say?”

“There’s nothing wrong with them.”

But that meant all right too.

Now, scrubbed and shaved, dressed in jeans and a white shirt, Rhyme ignored the mirror his aide held in front of him.

“Take that away.”

“Remarkable improvement.”

Lincoln Rhyme snorted derisively. “I’m going for a walk until they get back,” he announced and settled his head back into the pillow. Mel Cooper turned to him with a perplexed expression.

“In his head,” Thom explained.

“Your head?”

“I imagine it,” Rhyme continued.

“That’s quite a trick,” Cooper said.

“I can walk through any neighborhood I want and never get mugged. Hike in the mountains and never get tired. Climb a mountain if I want. Go window-shopping on Fifth Avenue. Of course the things I see aren’t necessarily there. But so what? Neither are the stars.”

“How’s that?” Cooper asked.

“The starlight we see is thousands or millions of years old. By the time it gets to Earth the stars themselves’ve moved. They’re not where we see them.” Rhyme sighed as the exhaustion flooded over him. “I suppose some of them have already burned out and disappeared.” He closed his eyes.

“He’s making it harder.”

“Not necessarily,” Rhyme answered Lon Sellitto.

Sellitto, Banks and Sachs had just returned from the stockyard scene.

“Underwear, the moon and a plant,” cheerfully pessimistic Jerry Banks said. “That’s not exactly a road map.”

“Dirt too,” Rhyme reminded, ever appreciative of soil.

“Have any idea what they mean?” Sellitto asked.

“Not yet,” Rhyme said.

“Where’s Polling?” Sellitto muttered. “He still hasn’t answered his page.”

“Haven’t seen him,” Rhyme said.

A figure appeared in the doorway.

“As I live and breathe,” rumbled the stranger’s smooth baritone.

Rhyme nodded the lanky-man inside. He was somber-looking but his lean face suddenly cracked into a warm smile, as it tended to do at odd moments. Terry Dobyns was the sum total of the NYPD’s behavioral science department. He’d studied with the FBI behaviorists down at Quantico and had degrees in forensic science and psychology.

The psychologist loved opera and touch football and when Lincoln Rhyme had awakened in the hospital after the accident three and a half years ago Dobyns had been sitting beside him listening to Aïda on a Walkman. He’d then spent the next three hours conducting what turned out to be the first of many counseling sessions about Rhyme’s injury.

“Now what’s this I recall the textbooks sayin’ ’bout people who don’t return phone calls?”

“Analyze me later, Terry. You hear about our unsub?”

“A bit,” Dobyns said, looking Rhyme over. He wasn’t an M.D. but he knew physiology. “You all right, Lincoln? Looking a little peaked.”

“I’m getting a bit of a workout today,” Rhyme admitted. “And I could use a nap. You know what a lazy SOB I am.”

“Yeah, right. You’re the man’d call me at three in the morning with some question about a perp and couldn’t understand why I was in the sack. So what’s up? You fishin’ for a profile?”

“Whatever you can tell us’ll help.”

Sellitto briefed Dobyns, who—as Rhyme recalled from the days they worked together—never took notes but managed to retain everything he heard inside a head crowned with dark-red hair.

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 545