‘Good.’
‘She’ll get everything over to you in a half hour.’
He disconnected.
Seth winced as he pressed his bandaged left wrist, the one that had taken the bulk of his weight and been cut by the handcuffs. ‘What does he want, Amelia? Why’s he doing this?’
‘We aren’t sure. It seems he was inspired by a perp Lincoln and I investigated years go. The first case we worked together.’
‘Oh, Pam told me about that. The Bone Collector, right?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘Serial killer?’
‘Not technically. Serial killing’s a sado-sexual crime — if the perp’s male. The criminal a decade ago had another agenda and so does this one. The first killer was obsessed with bones; our unsub’s obsessed with skin. ’Cause we stopped him a few times, he’s turned on us. He must’ve found out Pam and I are close and he went after her. You had the bad luck to be here at the wrong time.’
‘Better me than Pam. I—’
‘Seth!’
The front door to the building flew open and Pam, breathless after her run from the subway burst into the hall. She threw herself into his arms before he had even risen to his feet. He wobbled and nearly fell.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Fine, I guess,’ he muttered. ‘Bumped and scraped a little.’ Seth glanced at her with hollow eyes, wary eyes. It was as if he were struggling to keep from blaming her for the attack. Pam noticed, frowned. She wiped tears then swiped away strands of hair plastered to her pink cheeks.
Sachs put her arm around the girl, sensed the tension and let go. She stepped back.
‘What happened?’ Pam asked.
The detective explained, not sparing any details. Given the difficult life that Pam had experienced, she wasn’t a person you had to hand-feed hard news to.
Still, her taut face seemed to take on an accusatory gaze as she listened to the story, as if it was Sachs’s fault the killer had come here. Sachs dug a fingernail into her thumb, hard.
Cheyenne Edwards appeared in the doorway, still in coveralls but without the face mask or surgeon’s cap. She carted a milk crate containing a dozen plastic and paper bags.
‘Chey, how’s it look?’
The officer grimaced and said to Sachs, ‘Had to save his life, did you? I mean, could you get any more outsiders into that storeroom? One of the most contaminated scenes I’ve ever run.’ She laughed and then winked at the young man. ‘Can I roll you?’
‘Can you—?’
‘The perp touched you, right?’
‘Yeah, grabbed me around the chest when he injected me with that crap.’
Edwards took a dog hair roller and collected trace everywhere on his shirt that Seth indicated. She bagged the adhesive strips and headed to the CSU rapid response van, calling, ‘I’ll get this stuff to Lincoln.’
Sachs said to Pam, ‘You can’t stay here. I think you should move into your bedroom at Lincoln’s. We’ll have officers here until you pack what you need.’
The young woman looked at Seth, and the implicit question that fluttered between them was: I could stay with you, right?
He said nothing.
Sachs said, ‘And, Seth, you should probably stay with some friends or your family. He could’ve gotten your address. You’re a witness and that means you’re at risk.’ This was purely practical, not a ploy to separate Romeo and Juliet. Pam, though, shot Sachs an expression that said, I know what you’re up to.
Seth wasn’t looking at Pam as he said, ‘There’re a couple guys I know from the ad agency. Have a place in Chelsea. I can crash there.’ Sachs could see he wasn’t concealing his blame for Pam very well.
‘I hope it won’t have to be long. And?’ she asked Pam. ‘You coming to Lincoln’s?’
Her eyes looked over Seth with dismay. She said softly, ‘Think I’ll stay with my family.’
Referring to the foster family who’d raised her, the Olivettis.
A good choice. But Sachs was nonetheless stabbed by jealousy. By the subtle reproach. And the blatant choice of words.
My family.
Which doesn’t include you.
‘I’ll drive you there,’ Sachs said.
‘Or we could take the train,’ Pam said, glancing at Seth.
‘They want me to go to the hospital,’ he said. ‘For tests, I guess. After that I think I’ll just go hang with the guys downtown.’
‘Well, I could go with you. To the hospital at least.’
‘Naw, just after this … kind of want to chill. Get some alone time, you know?’
‘Sure. I guess. If you want.’
He staggered to his feet and walked into her apartment, collected his jacket and computer bag, then returned. He hugged Pam once, in a brotherly way, and pulled on his jacket and snagged his bag, then joined the EMTs outside, who helped him into the ambulance.
‘Pam—’
‘Not a word. Don’t say a word,’ the young woman growled. She pulled out her cell phone and placed a call to her ‘family’, asking for a ride. She walked inside. Sachs asked a patrolman to keep an eye on her until the Olivettis showed up. He said he would.
Then her phone hummed. She glanced at caller ID and answered, saying to Lincoln Rhyme, ‘I’m finished here. I’ll—’
The criminalist’s grim voice interrupted. ‘He got another vic, Sachs.’
Oh, no. ‘Who?’
‘Lon Sellitto.’
CHAPTER 43
Lincoln Rhyme observed that he’d have no problems getting in to the critical care unit of Hunter University Medical Center, where Lon Sellitto had been admitted not long before. The place was, of course, fully disabled accessible. Houses of healing are made for wheels as much as feet.
‘Oh, Lincoln, Amelia.’ Rachel Parker, Sellitto’s partner of many years, rose and gripped Rhyme’s hand and then hugged Sachs. She turned to Thom and threw her arms around him too.
The handsome, solid woman, whose face was red from crying, sat back down in one of the orange Fiberglas chairs in the scuffed room. Two vending machines, one of soda, the other full of sugary or salty treats in crisp cellophane bags, were the only decorations.
‘How is he?’ Sachs asked.
‘They don’t know yet. They don’t know anything.’ Rachel wiped more tears. ‘He came home. He said he had the flu and just wanted to lie down for a bit. When I was leaving for my shift he didn’t look good. I left but then I thought, no, no, he doesn’t have the flu. It’s something else.’ Rachel was a nurse and had worked trauma rooms for some years. ‘I came back and found him convulsing and vomiting. I cleared an airway and called nine one one. The medic said it seemed to be poisoning. What had he eaten or had to drink recently? They thought it was food poisoning. But no way. You should’ve seen him.’
‘Sachs, show your shield. Tell somebody that Lon was running a case involving water hemlock, tetrodotoxin, concentrated nicotine and a plant that contains atropine, hyoscyamine and scopolamine. Oh, and hypochlorous acid. That might help them.’
She scribbled this down and walked to the nurses’ station, relayed the information and then returned.
‘Was he attacked? Tattooed?’ Rhyme asked. Then explained about the unsub’s MO.
‘No. He must’ve ingested it,’ said Rachel. She straightened her mass of brown hair, laced with gray strands. ‘On the way to the hospital he came to briefly. He was pretty disoriented but he looked at me and seemed to recognize me. His eyes, they kept flipping into and out of focus. The pain was terrible! I think he broke a tooth, his jaw was pressed so tight together.’ A sigh. ‘He said a couple of things. First, that he’d had a bagel with some salmon, cream cheese. At a deli in Manhattan, downtown.’
‘Unlikely to get any poison into his food in a public facility,’ Rhyme said.
‘I thought that too. But he said something else.’
‘What was that?’ Sachs asked.
‘He said your name, Amelia. And then “coffee”. Or “the coffee”. Does that mean anything?’
‘Coffee.’ Sachs grimaced. ‘It sure does. At the Belvedere scene there was a fireman walking around with cartons of coffee. He offered some to both of us. Lon took one. I didn’t.’
‘Fireman?’ Rhyme asked.
‘No,’ Sachs said grimly. ‘It was Eleven-Five, wearing a fireman’s uniform. Goddamn it! He was right in front of us. Of course that’s who it was. I remember he was wearing gloves when he passed out the coffee. Jesus. He was two feet away from me. And had a bio mask on. Naturally.’
‘Excuse me.’ A voice behind them.
The doctor was a slight East Indian with a powdery complexion and busy fingers. He blinked when he noted the pistol on Sachs’s right hip then relaxed, seeing the gold shield on the left. Rhyme’s wheelchair received a fast, uninterested glance.
‘Mrs Sellitto?’
Rachel stepped forward. ‘It’s Parker. Ms. I’m Lon’s partner.’
‘I’m Shree Harandi. The chief toxicologist here.’
‘How is he? Please?’
‘Yes, well, he is stable. But his condition is not good, I must tell you. The substance he ingested was arsenic.’
Rachel’s face filled with dismay. Sachs put her arm around the woman.
Arsenic was an element, a metalloid, which meant it had characteristics of metals and non-metals, like antimony and boron. And it was, of course, extremely toxic. Rhyme reflected that the unsub had moved beyond plant-based toxins to a different category altogether — elemental poisons were no more dangerous but they were easier to come by since they had commercial uses and could simply be purchased in lethal strengths; you didn’t need to extract and concentrate them.
‘I see there are police here.’ Now he glanced at the wheelchair with more understanding. ‘Ah, I’ve heard about you. You are Mr Rhymes.’
‘Rhyme.’
‘And I know Mr Sellitto is a police officer too. You gave me the information about the possible poisons?’
‘That’s right,’ Sachs said.
‘Thank you for that but we determined arsenic quickly. Now, I must tell you. His condition is critical. The dose of the substance was high. The organs affected are the lungs, kidneys, liver and skin and he’s already had changes in fingernail pigmentation known as leukonychia striata. That is not a good sign.’
‘Inorganic arsenite?’ Rhyme asked.
‘Yes.’
Arsenic (III) is the most dangerous of all types of the toxin. Rhyme was quite familiar with the toxin. He’d run two cases in which it had been used as a murder weapon — in both cases spouses (one husband, one wife) had dispatched their partners with the substance.
Three other cases he’d run of suspected arsenic poisoning had turned out to be accidental. The toxin occurs naturally in groundwater, particularly where fracking — high-pressure geologic fracturing to extract oil and gas — has occurred.
In fact, throughout history, for every intentional victim of arsenic poisoning — like Francesco I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany — there were many more accidental victims: Napoleon Bonaparte, possibly done in by the wallpaper of the rooms to which he’d been exiled on St Helena; Simón Bolívar (the water in South America); and the American ambassador to Italy in the 1950s (flaking paint in her residence). It was also possible that the madness of King George was due to the metalloid.
‘Can we see him?’ Sachs asked.
‘I’m afraid not. He’s unconscious. But a nurse will call you when he comes to.’
Rhyme noted and, for Rachel’s sake, appreciated the conjunction.
When, not if.
The doctor shook hands. ‘You believe someone actually did this intentionally?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Oh, my.’
His mobile rang and without a word he turned away to answer.