Page 108 of The Midnight Lock (Lincoln Rhyme 14)

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.

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