The Skin Collector (Lincoln Rhyme 11)

That was it, Sachs reported. No fingerprints, no footprints, no other trace.

Nor had any leads been discovered at or near the Belvedere apartment building. No one had seen a man impersonating a fireman, handing out poisoned coffee. A team sent to check the trash cans in the area had found no other containers of tainted beverage. Security videos were not helpful.

Lon Sellitto was still in critical condition and unconscious - and therefore unable to give them any more information about the unsub, though Rhyme doubted that he'd have been so careless as to reveal anything about himself, as he'd handed out the tainted coffee.

Mel Cooper checked with the research team that Lon Sellitto had put together and learned they had not been able to find anything having to do with the numeric message. They did receive something, though. A memorandum had come in from other Major Cases officers Sellitto had 'tasked', his verb, with researching the centipede tattoo.

From: Unsub 11-5 Task Force

To: Det. Lon Sellitto, Capt. Lincoln Rhyme

Re: Centipede

We have not had much luck in finding connections between specific perpetrators in the past and the unsub in this case, regarding centipede tattoos. We have learned this: Centipedes are arthropods in the class Chilopoda of the subphylum Myriapoda. They have one pair of legs per body segment but don't necessarily have one hundred legs. They can have as few as two dozen, as many as three hundred. The largest are about a foot long.

Only centipedes have 'forcipules,' which are modified front legs, just behind the head. These legs grab prey and through needle-like openings deliver venom that paralyzes or kills. They have venom glands on the first pair of legs, forming a pincer-like appendage always found just behind the head. Forcipules are not true mouthparts, although they are used in the capture of prey items, injecting venom and holding on to captured prey. Venom glands run through a tube almost to the tip of each forcipule.

Culturally, centipedes are depicted for two purposes: One, to intimidate enemies. The image of a walking snake, armed with venom-delivering fangs, taps into root fears of humans. We came across this quotation from a Tibetan Buddhist: 'If you enjoy frightening others, you will be reincarnated as a centipede.'

Two, centipedes represent invasion of apparently safe places. Centipedes will make their homes in shoes, beds, couches, cradles, dresser drawers. The theory is that the insect represents the idea that what we think is safe really isn't.

Note that some people have tattoos based on The Human Centipede, a particularly bad gross-out film in which three people are sewn together to form what the title suggests. These tattoos have nothing to do with the centipede insect.

'Reads like a bad term paper,' Rhyme muttered. 'Mumbo-jumbo but print it out, tape it up.'

The door buzzer sounded and he was amused to notice everyone else in the room start. Cooper and Sachs dropped their hands near their weapons - the aftershock of the attempted attack earlier today. Though he doubted their unsub would return, much less announce his arrival with the bell.

Thom checked the door and let Ron Pulaski into the town house.

He walked in, noticed everyone's troubled faces and asked, 'What's up?'

He was told about the attempted attack.

'Poison you, Lincoln? Oh, man.'

'It's okay, rookie. Still here to torment you. How did the undercover job go?'

'I think I did okay.'

'Tell us.'

He explained how the trip to the funeral home had gone, meeting the lawyer, the man's reluctance to say much or reveal his clients.

A lawyer. Interesting.

Pulaski continued, 'I think I won him over. I called you a son of a bitch, Lincoln.'

'That work for you?'

'Yeah, felt good.'

Rhyme barked a laugh.

'Then I did what you told me. I suggested - didn't say anything exactly - but I suggested that I'd worked with Logan. And that I'd been in touch recently.'

'Did you get a card?'

'No. And Weller didn't offer. He was keeping his cards close to his chest.'