Page 72 of The Midnight Lock (Lincoln Rhyme 14)

He was huge and imposing, a born fighter or wrestler. He was gazing at Rhyme with … what was it? He seemed intimidated. Odd, as he outweighed Rhyme by a hundred pounds easily, and was purely physical.

Then his eyes swayed to the equipment on the sterile side of the room. The look shifted to awe.

Sachs introduced Rhyme to Lyle Spencer.

So this was the security man she had told him about.

He set down a thick file folder. “The Whittaker Media complaints and threats, from the public and from employees.”

“That many?” It had to contain five hundred documents.

Spencer said, “And these are just the ones in the past year.”

Sachs said, “We’ll scan them and get started.” Rhyme’s turning frame could handle bound books but there was no device in the lab that could display and sequence single sheets of paper. She took a call on her mobile.

“Mel Cooper,” came the voice from inside the sterile portion of the lab.

“Lyle Spencer.”

Lincoln Rhyme rarely thought to introduce people.

Spencer studied the lab. “Quite the setup. But you’ve heard that before.”

“It suits. When I need something sophisticated, we farm it out.”

Spencer said, “My first job, we didn’t have anything like this in the entire county. Everything had to go to the state lab. Took forever to get results.”

“Amelia said you were L.E.”

“Detective. Albany.”

Just like Rhyme, he’d left law enforcement for a different, though allied, job. In his case, though, the move would have been voluntary. More money and less risk.

Disconnecting the call, Sachs joined them.

“That was the super of Kitt’s building.”

She’d explained that Averell’s son, the slim, gaunt-faced young man Rhyme recalled from the online pictures, had not been seen for several days. The superintendent knew this because his mailbox was full and the postman complained to him.

“Think it’s related?” Rhyme asked.

Sachs said, “The papers in the two apartments set the stage, then the Locksmith, or the Apollos, or somebody else kidnap or kill Whittaker’s son? Makes sense.”

She asked Spencer, “And he has hardly any connection to the family?”

“Not that I ever heard of.”

Rhyme said, “Where does he work?”

Sachs explained that the family didn’t know what he did. All she had was the one mobile number and email and he wasn’t responding.

“DMV,” Rhyme said.

Sachs went online to the state’s secure website and entered her username and passcode.

“He owns an Audi A6. I’ll send the tag to LPR.”

The NYPD’s license plate recognition system was made up of cameras mounted to squad cars. As officers drove through the streets of the city, the cameras constantly scanned for license plates and recorded images of the tags, along with the time and the location of each one. The result was exabytes of data. The system was a big help in finding cars whose drivers had fled accidents or were registered to suspects or those with outstanding warrants. The whole concept was controversial in that it sucked up and recorded hundreds of thousands of innocent citizens’ plates too. Civil liberties groups complained, raising privacy concerns.

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