‘I can’t see many shoe or boot marks, Sachs.’
She was looking down at where he’d stood or walked. ‘I can make a few out but they’re not going to be much help. He wore booties.’
‘Brother,’ the criminalist muttered.
‘I’ll roll the footfalls for trace but there’s no point in electrostaticking.’
She was referring to using sheets of plastic to lift shoe prints, in much the same way that fingerprints were lifted. The resulting tread pattern not only could suggest shoe size but might show up in the massive footwear database that Rhyme had created at the NYPD years ago, which was still maintained.
‘And I’d say he had his own adhesive roller with him. It looks like he swept up as much as he could.’
‘I hate smart perps.’
No, he didn’t, Sachs reflected. He hated stupid perps. Smart bad guys were challenging and a lot more fun. Sachs was smiling beneath her N95 respirator. ‘I’m going silent, Rhyme. Checking the entrance and exit routes. The manhole.’
She withdrew her Maglite, flicked on the powerful beam and continued down the tunnel toward the ladder leading up to the manhole, noting not a bit of pain from the persistent arthritis that had plagued her for decades; recent surgery had worked its magic. Her shadow, cast by the halogen spot behind, stretched out before her, a distorted silhouette of a puppet. The ground beneath the manhole was damp. This strongly suggested it was how he’d gotten into and out of the tunnel. She noted this fact then continued on, into the darker reaches beyond.
With every step she grew more uneasy. Not because of claustrophobia this time – the tunnel was unpleasant but spacious compared with the entrance shaft. No, her discomfort was because she’d seen the perp’s handiwork – the tattoo, the cutting, the poison. The combination of his cleverness, his calculation and his perverse choice of weaponry all conspired to suggest that he’d be more than happy to hang around and try to stop his pursuers.
The flashlight in her left hand, while her right hovered near the Glock, Sachs continued down the increasingly dark tunnel, listening for footsteps, an attacker’s breaths, the click and snap of weapons chambering rounds or going off safety or cocking.
None of those, though she did hear a hum from one or more of the conduits or the yellow IFON boxes, whatever they were. A faint rush from the water pipe.
Then a scrape, a flash of movement.
Glock out, left hand gripping the Maglite, forearm supporting her shooting hand. The muzzle followed the beam. Sweeping, scanning.
Where?
Sweat again, a thud of heartbeat.
But very different from claustrophobia’s chest thudding panic. This wasn’t sour fear. This was anticipation. This was hunt. And Amelia Sachs lived for the sensation.
She was ready, finger off the guard, onto the trigger but feather light; it takes little more than a breath to fire a Glock.
Scanning, scanning …
Where? Where?
Snap …
She crouched.
And the rat stepped blithely out from behind a pillar, looked her way with faint concern and turned, scuttling away.
Thank you, Sachs thought, following in the creature’s general direction – toward the distant end of the tunnel. If the rodent was walking so nonchalantly over the ground it was unlikely that an ambush awaited. She continued walking. In sixty or so yards she came to the bricked up wall. There were no footprints here – normal or bootied – so their perp hadn’t wandered this way. She returned to the ladder.
She lifted out her cell phone – encased in uncontaminating plastic – and called up the GPS map. She noted that she was underneath Elizabeth Street, to the east, near a curb.
Sachs turned up the volume to the headset.
‘I’m below the manhole, Rhyme.’ She explained where it was and that this was likely how he’d gotten in, because there was significant moisture on the ground; the manhole cover had probably been removed in the past hour or so, she estimated. ‘It’s muddy here.’ A sigh. ‘But there’re no prints. Naturally. Let’s have Lon canvass the stores and apartments around the neighborhood, see if anybody saw the perp.’
‘I’ll call him. And get any security CCTVs too.’ Rhyme was skeptical about witnesses. He believed that in most cases they were more trouble than they were worth. They misobserved, they had bad memories – intentionally and otherwise – and they were afraid to get involved. A digital image was far more trustworthy. This was not necessarily Sachs’s opinion.
She swabbed the rungs as she climbed the ladder, depositing the adhesive cloth in plastic evidence collection bags.
At the top she rolled the underside of the manhole cover, then lifted a small alternative light source unit to check for fingerprints on the surface. ALS’s are lamps that use colors of the spectrum of visible light (like blue or green) combined with filters to make apparent evidence that’s impossible to see under regular bulbs or in daylight. ALS sources also include invisible light, like ultraviolet, which makes certain substances glow.
The scan, of course, revealed no prints or other evidence from their unsub. She tested the manhole cover’s weight; she could budge it but just barely. She supposed it weighed close to a hundred pounds. Hard to push open but not impossible for a strong individual.
She heard traffic overhead, the shushhh sound of tires cutting through the wet sleet. She was shining the light straight up, looking into the hole through which a worker would feed the hook to remove the cover. Wondering about marks that might lead them to a particular brand of tool the perp had used. Nothing.
It was then that an eye appeared through the hole.
Jesus … Sachs gasped.
Inches away, on the street above her, someone was crouching and looking through the pry hole, down at her. For a moment nothing happened; then the eye narrowed, as if the person – a man, she sensed – squinted slightly. Maybe smiling, maybe troubled, maybe curious about why a flashlight beam was firing out of a manhole cover in SoHo.
She spun away, thinking he’d seat a pistol muzzle in the hole and start shooting. The Maglite plummeted as she grabbed the top rung with both hands to keep from falling.
‘Rhyme!’
‘What? What’s going on? You’re moving fast.’
‘There’s somebody on top of the manhole. Did you call Lon?’
‘Just. You think it’s the perp?’
‘Could be. Call Dispatch! Get somebody to Elizabeth Street now!’
‘I’m calling, Sachs.’
She pressed her hand against the bottom of the manhole and pushed. Once. Twice. All her strength.
The slab of iron rose a fraction of an inch. But no more.
Rhyme said, ‘I got Lon. He’s sending uniforms. Some ESU too. They’re on their way, getting close.’
‘I think he’s gone. I tried to open the cover, Rhyme. I couldn’t. Goddamn it. I couldn’t. I was looking right at him. Had to be the perp. Who else’d kneel down in the middle of the street on a day like this and look through a manhole cover?’
She tried once more, thinking maybe he’d been squatting on it and that’s what had prevented her from pushing it up. But, no, it was impossible to move with her one free hand.
Shit.
‘Sachs?’
‘Go ahead.’
Rhyme said, ‘An officer saw somebody at the manhole in a short dark gray coat, stocking cap. He took off running. Disappeared into the crowd on Broadway. White male. Slim or medium build.’
‘Damn it!’ she muttered. ‘It was him! Why run otherwise? Have somebody pop the cover, Rhyme!’