The Steel Kiss

A woman’s voice said firmly from the front row: “With every crime there is a transfer of material between perpetrator and the scene or the victim or most likely both. Edmond Locard, the French criminalist, used the word ‘dust’ but ‘material’ is generally accepted. Trace evidence, in other words.” The responder tossed aside long chestnut hair framing a heart-shaped face. She added, “Paul Kirk elaborated. ‘Physical evidence cannot perjure itself. It cannot be wholly absent. Only human failure to find it, study and understand it can diminish its value.’ ”

Lincoln Rhyme nodded. Correct answers might be acknowledged but never praised; that was reserved for an insight that transcended the baseline. He was impressed nonetheless, as he had not yet assigned any readings that discussed the great French criminalist. He gazed out at the faces, as if perplexed. “Did you all write down what Ms. Archer said? It appears some of you did not. I can’t fathom why.”

Pens began to skitter, laptop keyboards to click and fingers danced silently over two-dimensional keys of tablets.

This was only the second class session of Introduction to Crime Scene Analysis and protocols had yet to be established. The students’ memories would be supple and in good form but not infallible. Besides, recording on paper or screen means possessing, not just comprehending.

“The answer is there,” Rhyme repeated, well, professorially. “With criminalistics—forensic science—there is not a single crime that cannot be solved. The only question is one of resource, ingenuity and effort. How far are you willing to go to identify the perp? As, yes, Paul Kirk said in the nineteen fifties.” He glanced at Juliette Archer. Rhyme had learned the names of only a few students. Archer’s had been the first.

“Captain Rhyme?” From a young man in the back of the classroom, which contained about thirty people, ranging from early twenties to forties, skewed toward the younger. Despite the stylish, spiky hipster hair, the man had police in him. While the college catalog bio—not to mention the tens of thousands of Google references—offered up Rhyme’s official rank at the time he’d left the force on disability some years ago, it was unlikely that anyone unconnected to the NYPD would use it.

With a genteel move of his right hand, professor turned his elaborate motorized wheelchair to face student. Rhyme was quadriplegic, largely paralyzed from the neck down; his left ring finger and, now, after some surgery, right arm and hand were the only southern extremities working. “Yes?”

“I was thinking. Locard was talking about ‘material’ or ‘dust’?” A glance toward Archer in the front row, far left.

“Correct.”

“Couldn’t there also be a psychological transference?”

“How do you mean?”

“Say the perp threatens to torture the victim before he kills him. The victim is discovered with a look of terror on his face. We can infer that the perp was a sadist. You could add that to the psychological profile. Maybe narrow down the field of suspects.”

Proper use of the word infer, Rhyme noted. Often confused with the transitive imply. He said, “A question. Did you enjoy that series of books? Harry Potter? Movies too, right?” As a rule, cultural phenomena didn’t interest him much—not unless they might help solve a crime, which happened, more or less, never. But Potter was, after all, Potter.

The young man squinted his dark eyes. “Yes, sure.”

“You do know that it was fiction, right. That Hogworths doesn’t exist?”

“Hogwarts. And I’m pretty aware of that, yes.”

“And you’ll concede that wizards, casting spells, voodoo, ghosts, telekinesis and your theory of the transfer of psychological elements at crime scenes—”

“Are hogwash, you’re saying?”

Drawing laughs.

Rhyme’s brows V’d, though not at the interruption; he liked insolence and in fact the play on words was rather clever. His was a substantive complaint. “Not at all. I was going to say that each of those theories has yet to be empirically proven. You present me with objective studies, repeatedly duplicating results of your purported psychological transference, which include a valid sampling size and controls, supporting the theory, and I’ll consider it valid. I myself wouldn’t rely on it. Focusing on more intangible aspects of an investigation distracts from the important task at hand. Which is?”

“The evidence.” Juliette Archer again.

“Crime scenes change like a dandelion under a sudden breath. Those three ligands are all that remain of a million only a moment earlier. A drop of rain can wash away a speck of the killer’s DNA, which destroys any chance of finding him in the CODIS database and learning his name, address, phone number, Social…  and shirt size.” A look over the room. “Shirt size was a joke.” People tended to believe everything that Lincoln Rhyme said.