The Kill Room (Lincoln Rhyme 10)

Cooper read, "DHA, C22:6n-3--docosa

hexaenoic acid."

"Fish oil," Rhyme said, looking at the screen on which the microscopic image was being projected. "And with that membrane, see in the upper right corner? I'd say fish eggs: Roe. Or caviar."

"Also some C8H8O3," Cooper said.

"You've got me," Rhyme muttered.

The lookup took thirty seconds. "Vanillin."

"As in vanilla extract?"

"That's right."

"Thom! Thom, get in here. Where the hell are you?"

The aide's voice drifted into the room. "What do you need?"

"You. Present. Here. In the room."

Rolling down his sleeves, the aide joined them. "How could I resist such a polite summons?"

Sachs laughed.

Rhyme frowned. "Look over those charts, Thom. Put your culinary skills to work. Tell me what you think about those entries, knowing that the docosahexaenoic acid and the C8H8O3 are, respectively, caviar and vanilla."

The aide stood for a moment, looking over the charts. His face shifted into a smile. "Familiar...Hold on a minute." He went to a nearby computer and pulled up the New York Times. He did some browsing. Rhyme couldn't see exactly what he was looking at. "Well, that's interesting."

"Ah, could you share the interesting part?"

"The other two scenes--Lydia Foster and the Java Hut--have traces of artichoke and licorice, right?"

"Right," Cooper confirmed.

He spun the computer for them to look at. "Well, combine those ingredients with caviar and vanilla and you have a real expensive dish that's served at the Patchwork Goose. There was just an article about it in the Food section recently."

"Patchwork...the fuck is that?" Sellitto muttered.

Sachs said, "It's one of the fanciest restaurants in town. They serve seven or eight courses over four hours and pair the wine. They do weird things like cook with liquid nitrogen and butane torches. Not that I've ever been, of course."

"That's right," Thom said, nodding at the screen. It appeared to be a recipe. "And that's one of the dishes: trout served with artichoke cooked in licorice broth and garnished with roe and vanilla mayonnaise. Your perp left traces of those ingredients?"

"That's right," Sachs said.

Sellitto asked, "So he works in the restaurant?"

Thom shook his head. "Oh, I doubt it. You're committed to working six days a week, twelve-hour days at a place like that. He wouldn't have time to be a professional hit man. And I doubt it's a customer. I don't think the ingredients would transfer or last more than a few hours on his clothes. More likely he made the dish at home. From the recipe here."

"Good, good," Rhyme whispered. "Now we know Unsub Five Sixteen went to the Bahamas on May fifteenth to kill Annette Bodel, set the IED at Java Hut and killed Lydia Foster. He was probably the one at the South Cove Inn just before Moreno was shot. He was helping Barry Shales prep for the killing."

Sachs said, "And we know he likes to cook. Maybe he's a former pro. That could be helpful."

Cooper lifted his phone and took a call; Rhyme hadn't heard it ring and wondered if the tech had the unit on vibrate or if he himself was suffering from water on the ear from his swim. Lord knew his eyes still stung.

The crime scene tech thanked the caller and announced, "We ran the bulb of the brown hair that Amelia recovered from Lydia Foster's. That was the results of the CODIS analysis. Nothing. Whoever the unsub is, he's not in any criminal DNA databases."

As Sachs wrote their latest findings on the whiteboard Rhyme said, "Now we're making some progress. But the key to nailing Metzger is the sniper rifle and the key to the rifle is the bullet. Let's take a look at it."