The Steel Kiss

“That’s the bad news,” Mel Cooper offered. “It’s one of the most common varnishes on the market. I make it a hundred twenty retail locations in the area. And they sell it in bulk direct to furniture operations. Big ones and small. And—not to brighten everyone’s day—they also sell it online through a half-dozen resellers.”

“Write it up on the chart, would you?” a discouraged Lincoln Rhyme muttered to Archer.

Silence filled the parlor.

“I, uh.”

“Oh, right,” Rhyme said. “Sorry. Forgot. Mel, write it up.”

The officer added the brand and manufacturer in his fine penmanship.

Archer said, “Even if there’re a lot of outlets I’ll start canvassing stores that sell it. See if anybody recognizes our unsub.”

Rhyme said, “There’s also a chance that the unsub—”

Archer continued, “—works for the store. I’ve thought of that. I figured I’d do some preliminary. Check out the shops and see if they have employee pictures. Their websites, Facebook, Twitter. Maybe softball teams. Charities, blood drives.”

“Good.” Rhyme wheeled again to the charts and examined them. He felt prodded by urgency. Now that they’d confirmed that the People’s Guardian, their Unsub 40, was a serial performer, they had every reason to suspect that he would move again soon. That was often the nature of multiple criminals. Whatever motivated them, sexual pleasure or terrorist statement, lust tended to accelerate the frequency of their kills.

There came the sound of a key in the lock, the door opening and footsteps in the front hall.

Sachs and Pulaski had arrived. Sometimes the kid was in uniform, sometimes street clothes. Today he was dressing down. Jeans and a T-shirt. Sachs looked tired. Her eyes were red and her posture slumped.

“Sorry I’m late.”

“I called.”

“Busy night.” She walked to the charts and looked over them. “Well, where are we?”

Rhyme gave her a synopsis of the varnish, what Archer was doing—canvassing stores for customers who’d bought the substance. Sachs asked, “Anything more on the napkins?”

“Didn’t hear from HQ,” Mel Cooper replied.

She grimaced. “Still missing.”

Rhyme too was scanning the charts.

The answer’s there…

Except that it wasn’t. “There’s something we’re missing,” Rhyme snapped.

A man’s voice boomed from the doorway. “Of course there is, Linc. How many times I have to tell you, you gotta look at the big picture. Do I always need to hold your goddamn hand?”

And with that, rumpled NYPD detective Lon Sellitto limped slowly into the room, assisted by a dapper cane.

CHAPTER 41

Waiting for his ride, looking at the sheets on the couch of his apartment, Nick Carelli smiled. Not to himself, an actual full-faced smile.

He’d been the gentleman last night, when Amelia was over. They’d sat together on the couch—the dining table was cluttered Operation I’m Innocent paperwork—and eaten the curried chicken and finished the wine, down to the last bit, a good bottle he’d bought knowing she was coming over.

Sitting close to her, yes, but a gentleman. When she said, a bit woozy, that she couldn’t drive home and should call a cab, he’d said, “You want the couch? Or the bed, and I’ll take the couch? Don’t worry. I’m not hitting on you. You just look, well, you look like you needed to fall asleep an hour ago.”

“You don’t mind?”

“Nope.”

“Couch.”

“I’ll even make it up right.”

He hadn’t. But neither had she minded the sloppy job. In five minutes she’d been asleep. Nick had just stared at her beautiful face for two or three minutes. Maybe longer. He didn’t know.

Nick now pulled the sheets off the couch, took them into the bedroom and pitched them into the laundry hamper. He got the pillowcase too, lifted it to his face and smelled it, feeling a thud in his gut at the aroma of her shampoo. He’d been going to launder this too but changed his mind and set it on the dresser.

His mobile beeped with a text. Freddy Caruthers had arrived. He rose, pulled on his jacket and left the apartment. In front of the building he jumped into his friend’s SUV—an Escalade, an older one but well taken care of. He gave Freddy an address in Queens. Freddy nodded and started off. He turned this way and that, a dozen times. He wasn’t using GPS. Freddy seemed to know the area cold. The guy looked tiny behind the big wheel of the Caddie, but less toady this morning, for some reason.

Nick sat back in the crinkly leather and watched the urban vista mellow as they headed east. The ambience morphed from bodega and walk-up to 7-Eleven to bungalows to larger single-families surrounded by plots of lawn grass and gardens. You didn’t have to drive far in Queens to see the change.

Freddy gave him the folder. “Everything I could get on Jon Perone and his company. His contacts. Man is brilliant.”

Nick read. Took some notes. Compared what Freddy’d found to what he himself had pieced together. His heart tapped solidly. Yes, this could be just what he needed.

Salvation. Another smile.