The Twelfth Card (Lincoln Rhyme 6)

"No, whistling a tune. Songs."

"Oh. Okay. Hold on." Five impossibly long minutes later he came back on the line. "Sorry. Nobody could remember anything about anybody whistling, or having bad eyes, not particular. But we'll keep looking."

Rhyme thanked him and disconnected. He stared at the evidence chart in frustration. In the early 1900s, one of the greatest criminalists who ever lived, Edmond Locard of France, came up with what he called the exchange principle, which holds that at every crime scene there is some exchange of evidence, however minute, between the criminal and the scene or the victim. Finding that evidence was the goal of the forensic detective. Locard's principle, however, didn't go on to guarantee that simply establishing that connection would lead you to the perp's door.

He sighed. Well, he'd known it would be a long shot. What'd they have? A vague computer drawing, a possible eye condition, a possible habit, a grudge against a prison guard.

What else should the--?

Rhyme frowned. He was staring at the twelfth card in the tarot deck.

The Hanged Man does not refer to someone being punished . . . .

Maybe not, but it still depicted a man dangling from a scaffold.

Something clicked in his mind. He glanced at the evidence chart again. Noting: the baton, the electricity hookup on Elizabeth Street, the poison gas, the cluster of bullets in the heart, the lynching of Charlie Tucker, the rope fibers with traces of blood . . .

"Oh, hell!" he spat out.

"Lincoln? What's the matter?" Cooper glanced over at his boss, concerned.

Rhyme shouted, "Command, redial!"

The computer responded on the screen: I did not understand what you said. What would you like me to do?

"Redial the number."

I did not understand what you said.

"Fuck it! Mel, Sachs . . . somebody hit redial!"

Cooper did and a few minutes later the criminalist was speaking once again to the warden in Amarillo.

"J. T., it's Lincoln again."

"Yes, sir?"

"Forget inmates. I want to know about guards."

"Guards?"

"Somebody who used to be on your staff. With eye problems. Who whistled. And he might've worked on Death Row before or around the time Tucker was killed."

"We all weren't thinkin' 'bout employees. And, again, most of our staff wasn't here five, six years ago. But hold on here. Lemme ask around."

The image of The Hanged Man had put the thought into Rhyme's head. He then considered the weapons and the techniques that Unsub 109 had employed. They were methods of execution: cyanide gas, electricity, hanging, shooting a group of bullets into the heart, like a firing squad. And his weapon to subdue his victims was a baton, like a prison guard would carry.

A moment later he heard, "Hey there, Detective Rhyme?"

"Go ahead, J. T."

"Sure 'nough, somebody said that rings a bell. I called one of our retired guards at home, worked execution detail. Name of Pepper. He's agreed to come into the office and talk to you. Lives nearby. Should be here in just a few minutes. We'll call you right back."

Another glance at the tarot card.

A change of direction . . .

Ten insufferably long minutes later the phone rang.