The Kill Room (Lincoln Rhyme 10)
Trace: Glycyrrhiza glabra--licorice. Ingredient in dish from NY restaurant.
Cynarine, chemical component of artichokes. Ingredient in dish from NY restaurant.
Evidence of torture.
All records of interpreting assignment for Robert Moreno on May 1 stolen.
No cell phone or computer.
Receipt for Starbucks where Lydia waited during Moreno's private meeting on May 1.
Rumors of drug cartels behind the killings. Considered unlikely.
Supplemental Investigation. Determine identity of Whistleblower. Unknown subject who leaked the Special Task Order.
Sent via anonymous email.
Traced through Taiwan to Romania to Sweden. Sent from New York area on public Wi-Fi, no government servers used.
Used an old computer, probably from ten years ago, iBook, either clamshell model, two tone with other bright colors (like green or tangerine). Or could be traditional model, graphite color, but much thicker than today's laptops.
Profile: Likely middle-aged male.
Uses Splenda sweetener.
Military background?
Wears inexpensive suit, in unusual blue shade.
Uses iBook.
Possibly suffers from stomach disorder, uses Zantac.
Individual in light-colored sedan following Det. A. Sachs. Make and model not determined.
Of course, of course...
"I think I've got it. I need to talk to Mychal Poitier again. And, Thom, bring the van around."
"The--"
"The van! We're going for a drive. Sachs, you're coming too. And you are armed, aren't you? Oh, and somebody call detention. Have Barry Shales released. The guy's been through enough."
CHAPTER 82
THE SKINNY FIFTY-YEAR-OLD was a lifer in the Department of Corrections.
He was not, however, a prisoner but a guard and had been all his professional days. He actually liked the job, shepherding people through the Tombs.
The nickname of the venue--technically the Manhattan Detention Complex--suggested a place that was worse than the truth. The word went back to the 1800s and was appropriate for a prison modeled after an Egyptian mausoleum, built on an incompetently filled swamp (adding to the aroma and illness that pervaded the place) and situated in the notorious Five Points district of Manhattan--described as "the most dangerous place on earth" at that time.
In fact, the Tombs nowadays was just another lockup, although a damn big one.
Calling into intercoms, using the code word for the day to open doors, the guard now strode down the hallway to a segregated set of cells reserved for special prisoners.
Like the man he was now going to see. Barry Shales.
Over his twenty-eight years as a guard here he had trained himself to have no opinion about his charges. Child killers and white-collar criminals who'd embezzled from people who probably should be embezzled from...it made no difference to him. His job was to keep order and make sure the system ran smoothly. And also to ease the difficult time these people were going through.