A Textbook Case (3 page)

Rhyme had been on the show to discuss the benefits and the risks of evidence in investigations. He’d commented that all it took was one or two minuscule bits of trace or foreign objects to throw a case off entirely.

In
this
situation, Unsub 26 had managed to taint the scene with thousands of smokescreens.

Rhyme glanced at Cooper. “How long before we can get started?”

“Still be an hour or two just to categorize everything.”

“Ah.” He wasn’t pleased.

Sachs asked Sellitto, “What’d you and the canvassing teams find out about the vic?”

“Okay,” the detective said, pulling out his notebook, “her name was Jane Levine, thirty-one. Assistant marketing manager for a brokerage firm downtown. No criminal history. She’d been going out with her boyfriend for seven, eight months. He was the guy who reported her missing then found the body. I talked to him for a while but then he lost it. I mean, totally.”

Rhyme noticed Sachs’s abundant lips tighten at this news and he guessed her reaction was how not only the loss but witnessing the horror would affect the man for the rest of his life: that last searing image of his lover dying under such unthinkable circumstances. Rhyme knew that Sachs struggled with the human side of crime—not, as one would think, pushing it away. Rather, she embraced the horror and wanted to keep it raw. She believed it made her a more empathetic and therefore, a better cop.

Though he took the opposite approach—remaining aloof—this was one of the things he loved her for.

He turned his attention back to Sellitto, who was continuing his discussion. “Now, I checked. He’s alibi’d out, the boyfriend.” Family and acquaintances are the number-one suspects—and the number-one guilty perps—in homicides. Sellitto continued, “He was in Connecticut with his parents last night. He got back in the city about eight this morning and went to her apartment. We data mined him. Wits, tickets and security cams confirm he was there when she died. GPS, too. He’s clean.”

That young crime scene guy asked, “Rape, Detective?”

“Nothing sexual, no. No robbery. She still had her keys, wallet, purse, jewelry.”

Sachs asked, “Any former boyfriends, stalkers?”

“According to the boyfriend and her sister, over the last couple years she went out with one guy from work, one guy from her health club, one guy from church. Real casual. The sister said they all ended okay and there were no hard feelings. Anyway the last one she broke up with was about six months ago just before she met the current guy.”

The detective continued, “No organized crime connection, not surprising, and she wasn’t a whistleblower or witness. I can’t find a motive at all.”

Rhyme didn’t much care for motive. His theory was that why people killed was largely irrelevant. A paranoid schizophrenic could kill someone because he believed that person was part of the advance guard from a planet in Alpha Centauri bent on capturing the world. What got him convicted was his prints on the knife, not his mad thinking.

“Well, that tells us
something
, right?” Rhyme asked, grimacing. “If there’s no boyfriend-done-it, rapist-done-it, mugger-done-it scenario, I’m thinking it’s a psycho.” He happened to be looking at the young crime scene officer. “Oh, I know they don’t use that word anymore. But it’s a lot more felicitous than ‘individual displaying antisocial personality disorder traits.’ ”

Marko nodded, obviously having no idea what to think about that pronouncement.

It was Sellitto who explained, “What Linc’s saying is that he could be a serial doer. Meaning he’s going to strike again.”

“You think so, sir?” the young man asked.

“If that’s the case it also means he’s picking victims at random. And somewhere in that morass—” a nod toward the mountains of evidence “—is the answer to who the next one’s going to be.”

Mel Cooper was wrong.

It took nearly seven more hours to finish just categorizing the evidence. At 3:15 in the morning they decided to knock off for the night.

Sachs stayed with Rhyme, as she did three or four nights a week, and Cooper slept in the guest room. Sellitto returned to his house, where his partner, Rachel, whom he described as his “Better Other,” was waiting for him. Marko headed back to his home, wherever that might be.

By nine the next morning the team, minus the young CS officer, was back.

As in every case they worked, Rhyme asked for a whiteboard chart listing the evidence. Sachs did the honors. She moved stiffly to the board. Rhyme noted the hitch in her leg; she suffered from arthritis and the extended search in a damp, subterranean garage had taken its toll. Once or twice, reaching to the top to start a new entry, she winced.

Finally she finished—all three boards in Rhyme’s parlor were required. And that was just to list what the teams had found. There was no analysis at all, much less insightful deductions that could be made about sources or inferences as to prospective victims.

Everyone in the room fell silent and stared.

Evidence: