The Skin Collector (Lincoln Rhyme 11)

'Whatever, dude. As long as it's clear.'

Pulaski asked, 'You seen The Big Lebowski?'

'Oh, man.' Gordon grinned and punched a fist Pulaski's way. The rookie reciprocated.

Rhyme wondered: Maybe Tarantino.

The pictures appeared on the largest monitor in the room. They were extremely high-definition images of the tattoo on Chloe Moore's abdomen. TT Gordon gave one blink of shock at the worried skin, the welts, the discoloration. 'Worse than I thought, the poisoning and everything. Like he created his own hot zone.'

'What's that?'

Gordon explained that tattoo parlors were divided into zones, hot and cold. The cold zone was where there was no risk of contamination by one customer's blood getting into another's. No unsterilized needles or machine parts or chairs, for instance. Hot, obviously, was the opposite, where the tattoo machine and needles were tainted by customers' blood and body fluids. 'We do everything we can to keep the two separate. But here, this dude did the opposite - intentionally infected, well, poisoned her. Man. Fucked up.'

But then the artist settled into an analytic mode that Rhyme found encouraging. Gordon eyed a computer. 'Can I?'

'Sure,' Cooper said.

The artist hit keys and scrolled through the images, enlarging some.

Rhyme asked, 'TT, are the words "the second" significant in any way in the tattoo world?'

'No. Has no meaning that I know about and I've been inking for nearly twenty years. Guess it's something significant to the dude who killed her. Or maybe the victim.'

'Probably the perp,' Amelia Sachs explained to Gordon. 'There's no evidence that he knew Chloe before he killed her.'

'Oh. She was Chloe.' Gordon said this softly. He touched his beard. Then scrolled once more. 'Well, it's weird for a client to make up a phrase or a passage for a modding. Sometimes I'll ink a poem they've written. I'll tell you, mostly they suck, big time. Usually, though, if somebody wants text, it's a passage from something like their favorite book. The Bible. Or a famous quote. Or a saying, you know. "Live Free or Die." "Born to Ride." Things like that.' Then he frowned. 'Hm. Okay.'

'What?'

'Could be a splitter.'

'And that is?' Rhyme asked.

'Some clients split their mods. They get half a word on one arm, the other half on another. Sometimes they'll get part of the tat inked on their body, and their girlfriend or boyfriend get the other part on theirs.'

'Why?' Pulaski asked.

'Why?' Gordon seemed perplexed by the question. 'Tats connect people. That's one of the whole points of getting inked. Even if you've got unique works, you're still part of the ink world. You got something in common, you know. That connects you, see, dude?'

Sachs said, 'You seem to've done some thinking about all this.'

Gordon laughed. 'Oh, I could be a shrink, I tell you.'

'Freud,' Sellitto said.

'Dude,' Gordon responded with a grin. That fist again. Sellitto didn't take the offer.

Sachs asked, 'And can you tell us anything concrete about him?'

Sellitto added, 'We're not going to quote you. Or get you on the witness stand. We just want to know who this guy is. Get into his head.'

Gordon was looking at the equipment, hesitating.

'Well, okay. First, he's a natural, a total talent as an artist, not just a technician. A lot of inkers are paint-by-numbers guys. They slap on a stencil somebody else did and fill it in. But' - a nod at the picture - 'there's no evidence of a stencil there. He used a bloodline.'

'Which is what?' Rhyme asked.

'If they're not using a stencil, most artists draw an outline of the work on the skin first. Some draw freehand with a pen - water-soluble ink. But there's no sign of that here. Your guy didn't do that. He just turned on his tattoo machine and used a lining needle for the outline, so instead of ink you have a line of blood that's the outer perimeter of your design. So, bloodline. Only the best tat artists do that.'