The Steel Kiss (Lincoln Rhyme 12)

"Compare them with the control samples. Where are they, Sachs?"

She pointed out several envelopes; they would contain trace samples from parts of the roof that were nowhere near the place the unsub had stood. Cooper went to work comparing the various items microscopically.

"Okay... No other bits of glass."

And there'd been none in Todd Williams's office building--the unsub had broken in through the back door. And none downstairs here either. Where had he picked it up?

"Anything else, the trace?"

Cooper had to wait to run the samples through the GC/MS. He was still awaiting the results from the ash Sachs had collected. In a few minutes they were finished. He read the compiled data. "No accelerant."

"So that tells us he most likely didn't break in and pour gas or kerosene around the place."

"It wasn't likely anyway," Archer said.

"Why do you say that?" Sachs asked.

"Gut feel. Almost like he's proud he's using the controller as a murder weapon. It would be... I don't know, inelegant to have to add gasoline."

"Maybe," Sachs said.

Rhyme agreed with Archer but said nothing.

"Burn the other trace. From his vantage point on the roof."

For a half hour or so, Cooper ran various samples through the machine, the chromatograph separating the components, the MS identifying them. Rhyme watched impatiently. Finally Cooper listed them: Diesel fuel, no brand identified. Two soil samples, indigenous to shoreline Connecticut, Hudson River, New Jersey and Westchester County.

"Not Queens with two question marks?" Rhyme said wryly. Archer smiled his way. Sachs noted this, turned back to the whiteboard on which she was writing down their findings.

The tech continued. A number of samples of soft drinks: Sprite, and regular and Diet Coca-Cola, all in various dilutions, which meant they came from cups that contained ice; the beverage was not drunk directly from can or bottle. White wine, high sugar content. Typical of inexpensive sparkling or still white.

Silence flowed into the parlor, broken only by the tap of the gas chromatograph cooling. The device worked by subjecting its samples to temperatures that were about fifty degrees Celsius higher than the boiling point of the least volatile element of the sample. An inferno, in other words.

Sachs fielded a call. She stepped aside to take it. In a corner of the parlor, she stood with head down. Eventually she nodded and relief was obvious in her face. She disconnected. "The Borough Shooting Team was convened." Rhyme recalled--the incident review after she parked a slug in the escalator motor to try to save Greg Frommer's life. "Madino--the captain--says it's a good panel. Uniforms and shields from the street. I'll write up the FD/AR and that'll be it, he said."

Rhyme was pleased for her. The NYPD had so many regulations and formalities that they could overwhelm an officer just trying to do the job.

Cooper said, "Something else here. Traces of rubber, ammonia and the fiber, probably from paper--a paper towel." He then ran through a lengthy laundry list of trace chemicals.

"Glazing compound," Rhyme said absently.

"You knew that?" the intern asked, staring at the mouthful of substances, three lines long.

He explained. There'd been a case years ago in which a wife had slashed her husband's jugular with the sharp edge of a pane of glass she'd worked out of the rec room window. As he slept she drew the glass over his jugular and he bled out quickly. She'd cleaned the glass and replaced it in the window, glazing the pane back in place. (Her bizarre strategy was that no murder weapon, that is, knife or other blade, could be traced back to her. Not true, of course, since she neglected to clean from her blouse the traces of glazing compound she'd used on the window after the murder. It took officers all of five minutes to find the pane; a luminol test confirmed the presence of blood.) Sachs took another call. A cryptic reaction. Eyes flitting from window to floor to rococo ceiling. What was this about? he wondered.

She disconnected and grimaced. She walked to Rhyme. "I'm sorry. My mother."

"She's all right?"

"Fine. But they moved up a test." Her face remained troubled. He knew she was torn between the case and her only close family member.

"Sachs, go," he said.

"I--"

"Go. You have to."

Without a word, Sachs headed out of the parlor.