Page 24 of The Midnight Lock (Lincoln Rhyme 14)

“Ron’s canvassing,” Rhyme told her.

Ron Pulaski, the earnest young patrol officer, had become an expert at crime scene work thanks to Rhyme and a solid interviewer thanks to her.

“Benny gave him a list of locksmiths in the city, and he got some himself off the internet. Quite a few, as it turns out. He’s talking to them all.” Pulaski was conducting a phone canvass to see if the locksmiths had any thoughts about who the perp might be, given his level of skill. Phone calls weren’t as efficient as in-person interviews, but Rhyme didn’t feel they had much time. Instinct told him that the Locksmith would move on another victim soon.

“Got the name of the locksmith that installed Annabelle’s locks.” She explained she’d texted it to Pulaski.

Rhyme said, “He’s also checking out locksmith conventions—what Benny was telling us about.”

But, he added, there were none in the Northeast, either presently or in the near future, though Benny had told him that the organizers often didn’t advertise the events to the general public and word of the gatherings spread only on the dark web.

Lon Sellitto was canvassing too, in a variation of Pulaski’s hunt. As he’d promised, Benny Morgenstern had given the lieutenant a list of locksmiths who’d been arrested for using their skills illegally or suspected of doing so. Sellitto was presently tracking them down for interviews—either as suspects themselves or to see if they had an idea about who the Locksmith might be.

So far, neither patrol officer nor detective had had any success.

In the sterile portion of the lab, Cooper was setting out the items Sachs had brought from Talese’s apartment.

Lincoln Rhyme missed much about the able-bodied life. There was the contented stroll for bagels Sunday morning with your partner—at 11 a.m. after waking late. There was attending plays without half the audience staring at your elaborate contraption of a wheelchair. There was pursuing and eliminating a strafing fly.

But Rhyme missed two things most dearly. The first was meandering on foot through this magnificent playground of a city, New York, and learning what he could about its people, its geography, its economy, its foliage, its underbelly. Doing so informed his work as a criminalist and helped him match evidence to place, and place to perp.

And the second absence that tugged at his heart? Slipping on the Tyvek jumpsuit, donning gloves and picking up and examining the evidence to trick from it the truth about what had happened at the scene.

“Let’s move here, okay?” Rhyme grumbled. The Locksmith was presently getting farther and farther from the Talese scene. And, possibly, getting closer and closer to another intrusion, where perhaps his goal would be different, and rather than stealing a knife he would use it.

Then too there was always the possibility that the victim might awaken and scream and fight back—a possibility that the Locksmith surely had considered; he’d be fully prepared to take a life to save himself.

Cooper first photographed the torn-out page 3 from the tabloid theDaily Herald, from February 17 of this year. He shot the back of the sheet too and loaded the images onto the high-def screens.

On the front, which had been signed by the Locksmith, apparently in Talese’s lipstick, were five articles, with these headlines:

SECRETREPORTUNCOVERED: AIDS CREATED INRUSSIANLABORATORY

U.S. SENATOR’SINTERNPREGNANT WITHLOVECHILD

BOMBSHELL: ACTRESS’SDIVORCEINVALID; ARRESTEXPECTED

WOMEN-HATINGGROUPEXPOSED

TECHCOMPANYHASPROOF OFILLEGALWIRETAPS BYFEDS TOHELPCAMPAIGN

The back of the page was ads. Get-rich-quick schemes, real estate ventures that smelled of scams, dating and massage services. Sex trade lite.

Sachs said, “None of the articles mean anything to Annabelle.”

Rhyme skimmed them. “Not exactly hard news, is it?”

She shrugged. “Maybe he just needed something to write on. He brought it with him. She said she doesn’t buy the paper.”

Cooper chuckled. “Nobody who reads theHeraldadmits they read theHerald.”

Rhyme said, “Let’s call the newspaper, legal department, and see if they have any thoughts. Since he posted the picture, they might already be aware of it.”

She looked up the company’s number on her phone and called. The company’s general counsel was on conference calls but his assistant assured Sachs he would call back. She left her and Sellitto’s numbers.

Cooper was examining evidence under a blue-glowing alternative light source.

“Hm. Knows what he’s doing. I’m not seeing a lot. No prints or fibers on the paper itself. And it was ripped apart from the otherpage folio. No cutting-instrument tool marks. The lipstick he wrote his message in is associated with what Amelia found in the apartment—the victim’s.”

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