"Lincoln!" Sachs walked fast into the room, sat on the old Clinitron bed and dropped to his chest, hugged him hard. He lowered his head against her hair. She was crying. He'd seen tears in her eyes perhaps twice since he'd known her.
"No first names," he whispered. "Bad luck, remember. And we've had enough of that today."
"You're okay?"
"Yes, I'm fine," he said in a whisper, stung by the illogical fear that if he spoke louder the particles of smoke would somehow puncture and deflate his lungs. "The birds?" he asked,
praying that nothing had happened to the peregrine falcons. He wouldn't have minded if they moved to a different building. But it would have devastated him if they'd been injured or killed.
"Thom said they're fine. They're on the other sill."
She held him for a moment then Thom appeared in the doorway. "I need to rotate you."
The policewoman hugged him once more then stood back as Thom stepped close to the bed.
"Search the scene," Rhyme told her. "There's got to be something that he's left behind. There was that handkerchief he put around my neck. And he had some razor blades."
Sachs said she would and left the room. Thom took over and began expertly to clear his lungs.
Twenty minutes later Sachs returned. She stripped off the Tyvek suit and carefully folded and replaced it in the crime scene suitcase.
"Didn't find much," she reported. "Got that handkerchief and a couple of footprints. He's wearing a new pair of Eccos. But I didn't find any blades. And anything else he might've dropped got vaporized. Oh, and there was a bottle of scotch too. But I assume it's yours."
"Yes, it is," Rhyme whispered. Normally he would've made a joke--something about the severity of the punishment for using eighteen-year-old single malt as an arson accelerant. But he couldn't bring himself to be humorous.
He knew there wouldn't be much evidence. Because of the extensive destruction in a fire the clues in most suspicious-origin fire scenes usually reveal only where and how the fire started. But they already knew that. Still, he thought there must be more.
"What about the duct tape? Thom pulled it off and dropped it."
"No duct tape."
"Look behind the head of the bed. The Conjurer was standing there. He might've--"
"I did look."
"Well, search again. You missed things. You must have."
"No," she said simply.
"What?"
"Forget the crime scene. It's toast--so to speak."
"We need to move this goddamn case forward."
"We're going to, Rhyme. I'm going to interview the witness."
"There was a witness?" he grumbled. "Nobody told me there was a witness."
"Well, there was."
She stepped to the doorway, called down the hall for Lon Sellitto to join them. He ambled inside, sniffing his jacket and wrinkling his nose. "A two-hundred-forty-fucking-dollar suit. History. Shit. What, Officer?"
"I'm going to interview the witness, Lieutenant. You have your tape recorder?"
"Sure." He took it out of his pocket and handed it to her. "There's a wit?"
Rhyme said, "Forget witnesses, Sachs. You know how unreliable they are. Stick with the evidence."