The Steel Kiss (Lincoln Rhyme 12)

"What do you think?" Sachs asked. "One's brown, the other reddish?"

"Can't tell. If we had our hands on them ourselves, we could do a color temperature to be sure. At Lincoln's, I mean."

Tell me about it.

Sachs said, "I'm thinking, on one napkin, chocolate and strawberry milk shakes. Reasonable deduction. And the other? That stain is definitely chocolate. Another stain too, less viscous, like a soft drink. From two different visits. One, he has two shakes. The other, a shake and a soda."

"Skinny guy but he can sure pack the calories away."

"But more important, he likes White Castle. A repeat customer."

"If we're lucky, he lives nearby. But which one?" Pulaski was online, checking out the restaurant chain in the area. There were several.

A click in her thoughts: the motor oil.

"Maybe the oil's a bomb or maybe he goes to the White Castle in Queens," she said. "It's on Astoria Boulevard, Automotive Row. My dad and I used to buy car parts there Saturday morning, then go back home and play amateur mechanics. Maybe he picked up the oil trace getting lunch. Long shot, but I'm going to go talk to the manager there. You call the lab in Queens and have somebody go over those napkins again. Fine-tooth cliche. Friction ridges. DNA too. Maybe he ate with a friend and the buddy's DNA is in CODIS. And stay on the sawdust, I want the type of wood. And keep after them for the manufacturer of the varnish. And I don't want the analysts who did this report. Call Mel."

Quiet, self-effacing Detective Mel Cooper was the best forensic lab man in the city, perhaps in all of the Northeast. He was also an expert at human identification--friction ridge prints, DNA and forensic reconstruction. He had degrees in math, physics and organic chemistry and was a member of the prestigious International Association for Identification and the International Association of Bloodstain Pattern Analysts. Rhyme had hired him away from a small-town police department to work the NYPD Crime Scene Unit. Cooper was always a part of the Rhyme team.

As Sachs pulled on her jacket and checked her weapon, Pulaski made a call to the CSU to request Cooper's assistance.

She was at the door when he disconnected and said, "Sorry, Amelia. Have to be somebody else."

"What?"

"Mel's on vacation. All week."

She exhaled a fast laugh. In all the years they'd worked together she'd never known the tech to take more than a day off.

"Find somebody good then," she said, walking briskly into the hallway and thinking: Rhyme retires and everything goes to hell.

CHAPTER 8

Is that... That's an escalator. Yes, it is. Well, a portion of one. The top part. Sitting in your hallway. But I guess you know that."

"Mel. Come on in. We've got work to do."

Cooper, diminutive, slim and with a perpetual, faint smile on his face, walked into the parlor of Rhyme's town house, shoving his dark-rimmed glasses higher on his nose. He moved silently; he wore his standard footgear, Hush Puppies. The men were alone. Evers Whitmore had returned to his Midtown law firm.

When no immediate explanation for the partial escalator, which was encased in a scaffolding, was f

orthcoming, he slipped off his brown jacket, hooked it and set down a gym bag. "I wasn't really planning on a vacation, you know."

Rhyme had suggested--in Lincoln Rhyme's inimitable way--that Cooper take some time off. That is, time off from his official job at Crime Scene headquarters and come in to help on the civil case of Frommer v. Midwest Conveyance.

"Yes, well. Appreciate it." Rhyme's thanks were subdued, as always. He didn't have much interest in, or skill at, social niceties.

"Is it... I mean, I thought I should check. Are there any ethical problems with me being here?"

"No, no, I'm sure there aren't," Rhyme said, eyes on the escalator, which reached to the ceiling. "As long as you don't get paid."

"Ah. So. I'm volunteering."

"Just a friend helping in a good cause, Mel. A noble cause. The victim's widow has no money. She has a son. Good boy. Promising." Rhyme assumed this was likely. He didn't know a thing about young Frommer, whose given name he'd forgotten. "If we can't get her a settlement, she'll be living in a garage in Schenectady for the immediate future. Maybe the rest of her life."

"Nothing so terrible about Schenectady."

"The operative word is 'garage,' Mel. Besides, it'll be a challenge. You like challenges."