The Vanished Man (Lincoln Rhyme 5)

But then, the former protege explained, Weir had called out of the blue about two months ago. Around the same time, Rhyme reflected, he'd called his other assistant. Loesser's wife had taken the call. "He didn't leave a number and said he'd call back but he never did. Thank God. I'll tell you, I don't know that I could've handled it."

"Do you know where he was when he called?"

"No. I asked Kathy--I was afraid he was back in town--but she said he didn't say and the call came up 'out-of-area' on caller ID."

"He didn't tell your wife what he might be calling about? Any clue where he might be?"

"She said he sou

nded odd, agitated. He was whispering, hard to understand. I remember that from after the fire. His lungs'd been damaged. Made him even scarier."

Tell me about it, Rhyme thought.

"He asked if we'd heard anything about Edward Kadesky--he was the producer of the Hasbro show when the fire happened. That was it."

Loesser couldn't provide any other helpful information and they hung up.

Thom let two policewomen into the lab. Sachs nodded a greeting and introduced them to Rhyme. Diane Franciscovich and Nancy Ausonio.

They were, he recalled, the respondings at the first murder and had been given the assignment of tracking down the antique handcuffs.

Franciscovich said, "We talked to all the dealers the director of the museum recommended." Beneath their crisp uniforms both the tall brunette and the shorter blonde looked exhausted. They'd taken their assignment seriously, it seemed, and probably hadn't gotten any sleep the night before.

"The handcuffs are Darbys, like you thought," Ausonio said. "They're pretty rare--and expensive. But we've got a list of twelve people who--"

"Oh, my God, look." Franciscovich was pointing to the evidence chart, where Thom had written: * Perp's identity: Erick A. Weir.

Ausonio flipped through the sheets she held. "Erick Weir placed a mail order for a pair of the cuffs from Ridgeway Antique Weapons in Seattle last month."

"Address?" Rhyme asked excitedly.

"Post office box in Denver. We checked. But the lease lapsed. There're no records of a permanent address."

"And no record that Weir ever lived in Denver."

"Method of payment?" Sachs asked.

"Cash," was the simultaneous response from Ausonio and Rhyme, who added, "He's not going to make stupid mistakes. Nope. That trail's dead. But at least we've got a confirmation that this's our boy."

Rhyme thanked the officers and Sachs walked them to the door.

Another call came in on Rhyme's phone. The area code on the caller ID looked familiar but Rhyme couldn't place it. "Command, answer phone. . . . Hello?"

"Yessir. This's Lieutenant Lansing, State Police. I'm trying to reach Detective Roland Bell. I was given this number as his temporary command post."

"Hey, Harv," Bell called, walking closer to the speakerphone. "I'm here." He explained to Rhyme, "Our liaison on the Constable case up in Canton Falls."

Lansing continued, "We got the evidence you sent up here this morning. Our forensic boys're going through it. We had a couple of detectives go and talk to Swensen's wife--that minister you folks took down last night. She didn't say anything helpful and my boys didn't find anything in the trailer to connect him to Constable or anybody else in the Patriot Assembly."

"Nothin'?" Bell sighed. "Too bad. I figured him to be poke-easy careless."

"Maybe the Patriot boys got there first and scoured the place clean."

"That's more'n half likely. Man, I'm feeling we're due a little luck here. Okay, keep at it, Harv. Thanks."

"We'll let you know, we come up with anything else, Roland."

They hung up.