The Skin Collector (Lincoln Rhyme 11)

Pulaski asked, 'A pro then?'

'Oh, yeah, dude'd have to be a pro. Like I told him.' A nod at Sellitto. 'Or was at some point. That level of skill? He could open his own shop in a blind second. And probably he's a real artist too - I mean like with paint and pen and ink and everything. And I don't think he's from here. For one thing, I probably would've heard. Not from the tristate area, either. Doing this in fifteen minutes? Man, that's lightning. His name'd get around. Then, look at the typeface.'

Rhyme's, and everyone else's, eyes slipped to the screen.

'It's Old English, or some Gothic variation. You don't see that much now around here. I'd guess he's got rural roots: redneck, shit kicker, biker, meth cooker. On the other hand, maybe born-again, righteous, upstanding. But definitely a country boy.'

'The typeface tells you that?' Sachs asked.

'Oh, yeah. Here, if somebody wants words, they'll go for some kind of flowery script or thick sans serif. At least that's current now. Man, for a few years everybody wanted this Elvish crap.'

'Elvis Presley?' Sellitto asked.

'No, Elvish. Lord of the Rings.'

'So country,' Rhyme said. 'Any particular region?'

'Not really. There's city inking and country inking. All I can say is this smells like country. Now, look at the border. The scallops. The technique is scarification. Or cicatrization is the official name for it. That's important.'

He looked up and tapped the scallops surrounding the words 'the second'.

'What's significant is that usually people scar to draw attention to an image. It's important for this dude to make that design more prominent. It would've been easier just to ink a border. But, no, he wanted cicatrization. There's a reason for it, I'm guessing. No clue what. But there it is.

'Now, there's one other thing. I was thinking about it. I brought show-and-tell.' Gordon reached into his canvas shoulder bag and lifted out a plastic sack containing a number of metal parts. Rhyme recognized the transparent container as the sort in which surgical and forensic instruments are sterilized in an autoclave. 'These are part of a tattoo machine - you don't call them guns, by the way.' Gordon smiled. 'Whatever you hear on TV.'

He took a small Swiss Army knife from his pocket and cut open the bag. In a moment he'd assembled a tattoo gun - well, machine. 'Here's what it looks like put together and ready to ink.' The tattoo artist walked closer to the others. 'These're the coils that move the needle up and down. This's the tube for the ink and here's the needle itself, coming out the end.'

Rhyme could see it, very small.

'Needles have to go into the dermis - the layer of skin just below the outermost layer.'

'Which is the epidermis,' Rhyme said.

Nodding, Gordon disassembled the device and lifted out the needle, displaying it to everyone. Resembling a thin shish kebab skewer, about three inches long, it had a ring on one end. The other end contained a cluster of tiny metal rods soldered or welded together. They ended in sharp points.

'See how they're joined together, in a star-shaped pattern? I make 'em myself. Most serious artists do. But we have to buy blanks and combine 'em. There're two types of needles: those for lining - outlining the image - and then those for filling or shading. The dude needed to get a lot of poison into her body fast. That means he had to use filling needles after he was done with the bloodline. But these wouldn't work, I don't think. They wouldn't go deep enough. But this kind of needle would.' He reached into his bag once more and extracted a small plastic jar. He shook out two rods of metal, similar to his needles but longer. 'They're from an old-time rotary machine - the new ones, like mine, are two-coil, oscillation models. Was it a portable machine?'

'Had to be. There was no electric source,' Sachs told him.

Pulaski said, 'I've been looking for portable guns ... machines. But there're a lot of them.'

Gordon thought for a moment. Then said, 'I'm guessing it would have to be an American Eagle model. Goes way back. One of the first to run off battery power. It comes from the days when tattooing wasn't very scientific. The artist could adjust the stroke of the needles. He could make them go real deep. I'd look for somebody who's got an Eagle.'

Sellitto asked, 'Are they sold here? In supply stores?'

'I've never seen any. They're not made anymore. You could get them online, I'd guess. That'd be the only way to find them.'

'No, he's not going to be buying anything that way, too traceable,' Rhyme pointed out. 'He probably picked it up where he lives. Or maybe he's had it for years or inherited it.'

'Needles're a different story. You might be able to find somebody who's sold needles for American Eagles. Anybody who bought those recently could be he.'

'What'd you say?' Rhyme asked.

'What did I say?' The slim man frowned. 'When, now? Whoever's buying needles for an American Eagle machine, it could be your perp. Don't you say that? They do on NCIS.'

The criminalist laughed. 'No. I was noting the proper use of the pronoun. Nominative case.'

Rhyme noted Pulaski roll his eyes.