What you describe is possible.
No further questions...
Rhyme said, “Any hits on the accelerant he used?”
Cooper ran some of the ash Sachs had collected near the point of ignition. Shortly the results were displayed on one of the high-def monitors.
Rhyme studied the results. “Hell. I know the brand. He could’ve bought it from any one of a hundred stations in the city. Useless.”
There was nothing else from the Inferno building. Cooper and Sachs were now looking at trace she had found in Kitt’s apartment.
Reading from the computer analyzer, Cooper said, “Have water. In addition to H2O, there’s sodium, chloride, magnesium, sulfate and calcium.”
Sachs took the sample and peered at it through the other staple of any forensic lab: the compound microscope. Compared to the chromatograph, this instrument was simplicity itself. you looked through lenses and something small became big.
She pushed a button and the image she was seeing went up on the screen for Rhyme and Spencer to view as well.
Rhyme called, “I recognize this. Algae bloom. So, seawater.”
Cooper said, “And one more thing: additional water, in which are suspended aluminum oxide, hydrotreated light petroleum distillates, glycol, white mineral oil and methyl-four-isothiazoline.”
Spencer looked toward Rhyme, expecting a repeat display of his knowledge.
“Don’t know it, but we’ve got a special database we use.”
Spencer seemed impressed. “Interesting.”
Rhyme turned to Cooper, and called, “Google.”
Spencer and Sachs both laughed.
No more than ten seconds later they had the answer: it was most likely an expensive polish used to protect wood from the elements. It was particularly popular with collectors of wood-sided cars and boats.
Spencer wrote this up on the chart.
The two in the sterile portion of the room prepared more samples.
Rhyme was looking at the photographs Sachs had taken at Kitt Whittaker’s apartment. “That stain. In the front entryway. Do you see it? You get samples from the rug there, Sachs?”
She flipped through the clear glassine envelopes. “Here, yes.” She held one up.
“Burn it.”
She prepped a sample for the GC/MS.
Rhyme shot a serious gaze to Lyle Spencer. “I need a drink. And — more important — a hand to reach it.”
A few minutes later the men were in the far corner of the parlor. Rhyme had his single malt, Spencer a Bulleit. Rhyme was a peat person. Bourbon didn’t appeal.
Sitting at a ninety-degree angle to Rhyme, the security man settled into the rattan chair that he had decided years ago to have Thom discard. Yet here it still was.
“You run many homicides?” Rhyme asked.
The man coughed briefly. “Albany? Lord, yes. Mostly street crime. Amazed some of those bozos weren’t picked up years before. But there was some sophisticated stuff too. An assassination attempt of the governor. A bill he was going to sign, don’t even remember what it was for, but not so popular among certain circles.” Spencer’s hand went to his scalp, just above the right ear. “Got clipped on that takedown. The slug singed my hair. I remember the smell as much as the fright. Vile.”
Rhyme recalled Sachs’s mentioning the scar.
PTSD...
He fell silent, eyes taking in the notes and photos on the whiteboard devoted to the Alekos Gregorios murder, for which Michael Xavier, the homeless man, was now in jail.
Then Rhyme turned his wheelchair slightly, and moved it closer to the security man’s, so that they could not be heard by Cooper or Sachs.
Spencer lifted a questioning eyebrow.
Rhyme said, “Tell me why.”
57
No elaboration was necessary.
Lyle Spencer, it was clear, knew what the criminalist was referring to.
Rhyme was talking about what he’d seen at the burning building. Spencer, standing in the top-floor window, looking out over the city. He hadn’t been thinking about how to best rappel down. He’d been thinking about leaping into the void.
Suicide.
A sip of the caramel-colored bourbon. Spencer said, “I’ve been somewhat honest with you and Amelia. Not completely honest. Yeah, Navy SEAL. Decorated. A detective in Albany. Decorated. Funny when you use that word. What does ‘decorated’ mean? You were an NYPD captain, right?”
Rhyme nodded.
“So at dress events you got to wear a lot of cabbage on your chest.”
“Some cabbage.”
“That’s what it is. That’s all it is.” After a lengthy pause. “Let me tell you about Freddy Geiger. How’s that for a name?”
“Memorable.”
Spencer was now focused on the rim of his glass. “We have a big problem in Albany with meth, fent, oxy. Also sniffing gasoline and paint thinner. Geiger stepped into the market. He wanted to class up the city.” A dark laugh. “His product was heroin.
“We had a credible tip about a deal going down, quarter million worth of H. Maybe that’s small change here, in the city, but that was a lot for the Five One Eight. I was the lead gold shield. It was a hard takedown. All went to hell.
“Make a long story short, our intel didn’t tell us Geiger’s brother and his wife were in town from Buffalo. They took off and my partner and I went after them, chased ’em to this abandoned mill — the Bechtel Building reminded me of it. We went in after them.” He shook his head. “Should’ve sealed it and waited, but we didn’t. We walked into an ambush. My partner took a load of buckshot in the chest. He had a plate but he went down and the wife tried for a kill shot, missed, and I took her out. Two shots in the back of her head. Her husband turned the scattergun my way and I took him out too.” A grimace. “No choice.”
“Tough.”
A slow nod.
“Then came the bad part.” He offered a sour laugh.
He had Rhyme’s full attention.
“Waiting for the rest of the team to get there, I looked outside. I saw a kid hiding in the bushes. I was afraid he’d rabbit so I circled around, solo, and came up behind him.”
“Your SEAL training. It helped.”
“I’m good at that, yeah. Got behind him, took him down and zipped him. Then I saw he was doing something funny. Looking at me, then into the bushes. It was a backpack he’d dumped. Cash. Three hundred K, give or take.”
Spencer took another sip, then the whisky seemed to turn on him. His face tightened and he put the glass on the floor beside the chair. “Do you get as bored with confessions as I do?”
“They can be excruciating. This one isn’t — if that’s what it is.”
“No surprise endings here, Lincoln. I cut his restraints and he took off. I hid the backpack on another part of the property and got back to my team. I picked it up the next day. The crown molding’s nice here.” The security man was looking up.
Rhyme glanced too. It was an elaborate zigzag pattern. If anyone had asked him to describe it without looking, he could not have.
“My daughter, Trudie, was diagnosed with an orphan disease. You heard of that?”
Ah, the tat: T.S.
“No.”
“It means an illness that affects less than two hundred thousand people in the country. Very rare.” He gave a soft laugh. “Trudie was proud that it was exotic. She said, ‘Don’t give me no stinkin’ ordinary disease like everybody else gets.’ Well, because there’s a small market for orphan pharmaceuticals, the companies can’t spread development costs around. So a year’s treatment for some of the diseases is off the charts. Some are seven hundred K a year.