The Broken Window

“You don’t mean it.”

“Thom.”

“All right.”

“‘Myra Weinburg Crime Scene.’”

The aide wrote the heading and stood ready with the marker, as Rhyme asked, “Now, Pulaski, I understand it wasn’t her apartment?”

“That’s right, sir. A couple owned it. They’re on vacation, on a cruise ship. I managed to get through to them. They’d never heard of Myra Weinburg. Man, you should’ve heard them; they were way upset. They didn’t have any idea who it might’ve been. And to get in he broke the lock.”

“So he knew it was empty and that there was no alarm,” Cooper said. “Interesting.”

“Whatta you think?” Sellitto was shaking his head. “He just picked it for location?”

“It was real deserted around there,” Pulaski put in.

“And what was she doing, do you think?”

“I found her bike outside-she had a Kryptonite key in her pocket and it fit.”

“Biking. Could be that he’d checked out her route and knew she’d be by there at a certain time. And somehow he knew the couple were going to be away so he wouldn’t have any disturbances… Okay, rookie, run through what you found. Thom, if you would be so kind as to write this down.”

“You’re trying too hard.”

“Ha. Cause of death?” Rhyme asked Pulaski.

“I told the doctor to have the medical examiner expedite the autopsy results.”

Sellitto laughed gruffly. “And what’d he say to that?”

“Something like ‘Yeah, right.’ And a couple other things too.”

“You need a bit more starch in your collar before you can make requests like that. But I appreciate the effort. What was the preliminary?”

He looked over his notes. “Suffered several blows to the head. To subdue her, the M.E. thought.” The young officer paused, perhaps recalling his own, similar injury a few years ago. He continued, “Cause of death was strangulation. There were petechiae in the eyes and inside the eyelids-pinpoint hemorrhages-”

“I know what they are, rookie.”

“Oh, sure. Right. And venous distention in the scalp and face. This is the probable murder weapon.” He held up a bag containing a length of rope about four feet long.

“Mel?”

Cooper took the rope and carefully opened it over a large sheet of clean newsprint, dusting to dislodge trace. He then examined what he’d found and took a few samples of the fibers.

“What?” Rhyme asked impatiently.

“Checking.”

The rookie took refuge in his notes again. “As far as the rape, it was vaginal and anal. Postmortem, the tour doctor thought.”

“Posing of the body?”

“No…but one thing I noticed, Detective,” Pulaski said. “All her fingernails were long, except one. It was cut really short.”

“Blood?”

“Yes. It was cut right down to the quick.” He hesitated. “Probably premortem.”

So 522’s a bit of a sadist, Rhyme reflected. “He likes pain.”

“Check the other crime-scene photos, from the earlier rape.”

The young officer hurried off to find the pictures. He shuffled through them and found one, squinting. “Look at this, Detective. Yeah, he cut off a fingernail there too. The same finger.”

“Our boy likes trophies. That’s good to know.”

Pulaski nodded enthusiastically. “And think about it-the wedding ring finger. Probably something about his past. Maybe his wife left him, maybe he was neglected by his mother or a mother figure-”

“Good point, Pulaski. Reminds me-we forgot something else.”

“What’s that, sir?”

“Did you check your horoscope this morning before we started the investigation?”

“My…?”

“Oh, and who got the tea-leaf-reading assignment? I forget.”

Sellitto was chuckling. Pulaski was blushing.

Rhyme snapped, “Psychological profiling isn’t helpful. What’s helpful about the nail is knowing that Five Twenty-Two now has in his possession a DNA connection to the crime. Not to mention that if we can decide what kind of implement he used to remove the trophy, we might be able to trace the purchase and find him. Evidence, rookie. Not psychobabble.”

“Sure, Detective. Got it.”

“‘Lincoln’ is fine.”

“Okay. Sure.”

“The rope, Mel?”

Cooper was scrolling through the fiber database. “Generic hemp. Available in thousands of retail outlets around the country.” He ran a chemical analysis. “No trace.”

Crap.

“What else, Pulaski?” Sellitto asked.

He went through the list. Fishing line, binding her hands, and cutting through the skin, which resulted in the bleeding. Duct tape covered her mouth. The tape was Home Depot brand, of course, torn off the roll 522 had ditched; the ragged ends matched perfectly. Two unopened condoms were discovered near the body, the young officer explained, holding up the bag. They were Trojan-Enz brand.

“And here are the swabs.”

Mel Cooper took the plastic evidence bags and checked the vaginal and rectal swabs. The M.E.’s office would give a more detailed report but it was clear that among the substances were traces of a spermicidal lubricant similar to that used with the condoms. There was no semen anywhere at the scene.