They started to work, Sachs and the tech. Cooper made photocopies of the prints, reducing two so they were all the same size. Then he and Sachs began fitting them together like a jigsaw puzzle. They were like children, trying variations, rearranging, arguing playfully. Sachs went so far as to take out a pen and connect several lines over a gap in the print.
"Cheating," Cooper joked.
"But it fits," she said triumphantly.
Finally they cut and pasted a print together. It represented about three-quarters of a friction ridge print, probably the right index finger.
Cooper held it up. "I have my doubts about this, Lincoln."
But Rhyme said, "It's art, Mel. It's beautiful!"
"Don't tell anyone at the identification association or they'll drum us out."
"Put it through AFIS. Authorize a priority search. All states."
"Oooo," Cooper said. "That'll cost my annual salary."
He scanned the print into the computer.
"It could take a half hour," said Cooper, more realistic than pessimistic.
But it didn't take that long at all. Five minutes later--long enough only for Rhyme to speculate whom he could con into pouring him a drink, Sachs or Cooper--the screen fluttered and a new image came up.
Your request has found . . . 1 match. 14 points of comparison. Statistical probability of identity: 97%.
"Oh, my God," Sachs muttered. "We've got him."
"Who is he, Mel?" Rhyme asked, softly, as if he were afraid the words would blow the fragile electrons off the computer screen.
"He's not the Dancer anymore," Cooper said. "He's Stephen Robert Kall. Thirty-six. Present whereabouts unknown. LKA, fifteen years ago, an RFD number in Cumberland, West Virginia."
Such a mundane name. Rhyme found himself experiencing an unreasonable tug of disappointment. Kall.
"Why was he on file?"
Cooper read. "What he was telling Jodie . . . He did twenty months for manslaughter when he was fifteen." A faint laugh. "Apparently the Dancer didn't bother to tell him that the victim was his stepfather."
"Stepfather, hm?"
"Tough reading," Cooper said, poring over the screen. "Man."
"What?" Sachs asked.
"Notes from the police reports. Here's what happened. Seems like there'd been a history of domestic disputes. The boy's mother was dying of cancer and her husband--Kall's stepfather--hit her for doing something or other. She fell and broke her arm. She died a few months later and Kall got it into his head her death was Lou's fault."
Cooper continued to read and he actually seemed to shiver. "Want to hear what happened?"
"Go ahead."
"A couple months after she died Stephen and his stepfather were out hunting. The kid knocked him out, stripped him naked, and tied him to a tree in the woods. Left him there for a few days. Just wanted to scare him, his lawyer said. By the time the police got to him, well, let's just say the infestation was pretty bad. Maggots, mostly. Lived for two days after that. Delirious."
"Man," Sachs whispered.
"When they found him, the boy was there, just sitting next to him, watching." Cooper read, " 'The suspect surrendered without resistance. Appeared in a disoriented state. Kept repeating, "Anything can kill, anything can kill . . . " Taken to Cumberland Regional Mental Health Center for evaluation.' "
The psychological makeup didn't interest Rhyme very much. He trusted his forensic profiling techniques far more than the behavioral law enforcers'. He knew the Dancer was a sociopath--all professional killers were--and the sorrows and traumas that made him who he was weren't much help at the moment. He asked, "Picture?"
"No pictures in juvie."