The Broken Window (24 page)

It was a tiny fleck of something pale. “You could see that?” the tech whispered. “I missed it completely.”

With a needle probe he worked it out and put it on an examination slide. He looked at it through a microscope. He started with lower magnifications, which are enough, 4 to 24 power, unless you need the magic of a scanning electron microscope. “Crumb of food, looks like. Something baked. Orange tint.

Spectrum suggests oil. Maybe junk food. Like Doritos. Or potato chips.”

“Not enough to run through the GC/MS.”

“No way,” Cooper confirmed.

“He wasn’t going to plant something as small as that at the fall guy’s house. It’s some other bit of real information about Five Twenty-Two.”

What the hell was it? Something from his lunch the day of the killing?

“I want to taste it.”

“What? There’s blood on it.”

“The handle, not the blade. Just where that fleck is. I want to find out what it is.”

“There’s not enough to taste. This little chip? You can hardly see it. I
didn’t
see it.”

“No, the knife itself. Maybe I can find a flavor or spice that’ll tell us something.”

“You can’t lick a murder weapon, Lincoln.”

“Where’s that written down, Mel? I don’t remember reading that. We need information about this guy!”

“Well… okay.” The tech held the knife close to Rhyme’s face and the criminalist leaned forward and touched his tongue to the place where they’d found the fleck.

“Jesus Christ!” He reared his head back.

“What’s wrong?” Cooper asked, alarmed.

“Get me some water!”

Cooper tossed the knife onto the examination table and went to call Thom, as Rhyme spit on the floor.

His mouth was on fire.

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Thom came running. “What’s wrong?”

“Man… that hurts. I asked for water! I just ate some hot sauce.”

“Hot sauce, like Tabasco?”

“I don’t know what kind!”

“Well, you don’t want water. You want milk or yogurt.”

“Then get some!”

Thom came back with a carton of yogurt and fed Rhyme several spoonfuls. To his surprise the pain went away immediately. “Phew. That hurt… Okay, Mel, we’ve learned something else—maybe. Our boy likes his chips and salsa. Well, let’s just go with a snack food and hot sauce. Put it on the chart.”

As Cooper wrote, Rhyme glanced at the clock and snapped, “Where the hell is Sachs?”

“Well, she’s at SSD.” Cooper looked confused.

“I know
that
. What I mean is why the hell isn’t she back here?… And, Thom, I want some more yogurt!”

UNSUB 522 PROFILE

· Male

· Possibly smokes or lives/works with someone who does, or near source of tobacco

· Has children or lives/works near them or near source of toys

· Interest in art, coins?

· Probably white or light-skinned ethnic

· Medium build

· Strong—able to strangle victims

· Access to voice-disguise equipment

· Possibly computer literate; knows OurWorld. Other social-networking sites?

· Takes trophies from victims. Sadist?

· Portion of residence/workplace dark and moist

· Lives in/near downtown Manhattan?

· Eats snack food/hot sauce

NONPLANTED EVIDENCE

· Old cardboard

· Hair from doll, BASF B35 nylon 6

· Tobacco from Tareyton cigarettes

· Old tobacco, not Tareyton, but brand unknown

· Evidence of Stachybotrys Chartarum mold

· Dust, from World Trade Center attack, possibly indicating residence/job downtown Manhattan

· Snack food with hot sauce

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The conference room where Sachs and Pulaski had been led was as minimalist as Sterling’s office. She decided a good way to describe the entire company would be “austere deco.”

Sterling himself escorted them to the room and gestured to two chairs, beneath the logo of the window atop the watchtower. He said, “I don’t expect to be treated any differently than anyone else. Since I have all-access rights I’m a suspect too. But I have an alibi for yesterday—I was on Long Island all day. I do that a lot—drive to some of the big discount stores and the membership shopping clubs to see what people are buying, how they buy, what times of day. I’m always looking for ways to make our business more efficient, and you can’t do that unless you know our clients’ needs.”

“Who were you meeting with?”

“Nobody. I never tell anyone who I am. I want to see the operation the way it actually works. Blemishes and everything. But my car’s E-ZPass records should show that I went through the Midtown Tunnel tollbooth about nine A.M. eastbound and then came back through about five-thirty. You can check with DMV.” He recited his tag number. “Oh, and yesterday? I called my son. He took the train up to Westchester to go hiking in some forest preserve. He went by himself and I wanted to check on him. I called about two in the afternoon. The phone records’ll show a call from my Hampton house. Or you can take a look at the incoming call list on his mobile. It should have the date and time. His extension is seven one eight seven.”

Sachs wrote this down, along with the number of Sterling’s summer house’s phone. She thanked him, then Jeremy, the “outside” assistant, arrived and whispered something to his boss.

“Have to take care of something. If there’s anything you need, anything at all, just let me know.”

A few minutes later the first of their suspects arrived. Sean Cassel, the director of Sales and Marketing.

He struck her as quite young, probably midthirties, but she’d seen very few people in SSD who were over forty. Data was perhaps the new Silicon Valley, a world of youthful entrepreneurs.

Cassel, with a long face, classically handsome, seemed athletic; solid arms, broad shoulders. He was wearing the SSD “uniform,” in his case a navy suit. The white shirt was immaculate and the cuffs clasped with heavy gold links. The yellow tie was thick silk. He had curly hair, rosy skin and peered steadily at Sachs through glasses. She hadn’t known Dolce & Gabbana made frames.

“Hi.”

“Hello. I’m Detective Sachs, this is Officer Pulaski. Have a seat.” She shook his hand, noting the firm grip that lingered longer than the clasp with Pulaski.

“So you’re a detective?” The sales director had not a shred of interest in the patrolman.

“That’s right. Would you like to see my ID?”

“No, that’s okay.”

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“Now, we’re just getting information about some of the employees here. Do you know a Myra Weinburg?”

“No. Should I?”

“She was the victim of a murder.”

“Oh.” A flash of contrition, as the hip façade vanished momentarily. “I heard something about a crime. I didn’t know it was a murder, though. I’m sorry. Was she an employee here?”

“No. But the person who killed her might have had access to information in your company’s computers.

I know you have full access to innerCircle; is there any way somebody who works for you could assemble an individual’s dossier?”

He shook his head. “To get a closet you need three passcodes. Or a biomet and one.”

“Closet?”

He hesitated. “Oh, that’s what we call a dossier. We use a lot of shorthand in the knowledge service business.”

Like secrets in a closet, she assumed.

“But nobody could get my passcode. Everyone’s very careful about keeping them secret. Andrew insists on it.” Cassel removed his glasses and polished them with a black cloth that appeared magically in his hand. “He’s fired employees who’ve used other people’s passcodes even with their permission. Fired on the spot.” He concentrated on his glass-polishing task. Then looked up. “But let’s be honest. What you’re
really
asking about isn’t passcodes but alibis. Am I right?”

“We’d like to know that too. Where were you from noon to four P.M. yesterday?”

“Running. I’m training for a mini-triathlon… You look like you run too. You’re pretty athletic.”

If standing still while punching holes in targets at twenty-five and fifty feet is athletic, then yes. “Could anybody verify that?”

“That you’re athletic? It’s pretty obvious to me.”

Smile. Sometimes it was best to play along. Pulaski stirred—which Cassel noted with amusement—but she said nothing. Sachs didn’t need anybody to defend her honor.

With a sideways glance at the uniformed officer, Cassel continued, “No, I’m afraid not. A friend stayed over. But she left about nine-thirty. Am I a suspect or anything?”

“We’re just getting information at this point,” Pulaski said.

“Are you now?” He sounded condescending, as if he were talking to a child. “Just the facts, ma’am. Just the facts.”

A line from an old TV show. Sachs couldn’t remember which one.

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Sachs asked where he’d been at the times of the other killings—the coin dealer, the earlier rape and the woman who’d owned the Prescott painting. He replaced the glasses and told her he didn’t recall. He seemed completely at ease.

“How often do you go into the data pens?”

“Maybe once a week.”

“Do you take any information out?”

He frowned slightly. “Well… you can’t. The security system won’t let you.”

“And how often do you download dossiers?”

“I don’t know if I ever have. It’s just raw data. Too noisy to be helpful for anything I do.”

“All right. Well, I appreciate your time. I think that’ll do it for now.”

The smile and flirt faded. “So is this a problem? Something I should be worried about?”

“We’re just doing some preliminary investigation.”

“Ah, not giving anything away.” A glance at Pulaski. “Play it close to the chest, right, Sergeant Friday?”

Ah, that was it, Sachs realized.
Dragnet
. The old police show she and her father would watch in rerun years ago.

After he’d left, another employee joined them. Wayne Gillespie, who oversaw the technical side of the company—the software and hardware. He didn’t exactly fit Sachs’s impression of a geek. Not at first.

He was tanned and in good shape, wore an expensive silver—or platinum—bracelet. His grip was strong. But on closer examination she decided he was a classic techie after all, somebody dressed by his mother for class photographs. The short, thin man wore a rumpled suit and a tie that wasn’t knotted properly. His shoes were scuffed, his nails ragged and not properly scrubbed. His hair could use a trim. It was as if he was playing the role of corporate exec but infinitely preferred to be in a dark room with his computer.

Unlike Cassel, Gillespie was nervous, hands constantly in motion, fiddling with three electronic devices on his belt—a BlackBerry, a PDA and an elaborate cell phone. He avoided eye contact—flirt was the last thing on his mind, though, like the sales director, his wedding ring finger was bare. Maybe Sterling preferred single men in positions of power at his company. Loyal princes rather than ambitious dukes.

Sachs’s impression was that Gillespie had heard less than Cassel about their presence here and she snagged his attention when she described the crimes. “Interesting. Okay, interesting. That’s sleek, he’s pianoing data to commit crimes.”

“He’s what?”

Gillespie flicked his fingers together with nervous energy. “I mean, he’s finding data. Collecting it.”

No comment about the fact that people had been murdered. Was this an act? The real killer might have
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feigned horror and sympathy.

Sachs asked his whereabouts on Sunday and he too had no alibi, though he launched into a long story of code he was debugging at home and some role-playing computer game he was competing in.

“So there’d be a record of when you were online yesterday?”

A hesitation now. “Oh, I was just practicing, you know. I wasn’t online. I looked up and suddenly it was late. You’re so nod, everything else kind of disappears.”

“Nod?”

He realized he was speaking a foreign language. “Oh, I mean, like, you’re in a zone. You get caught up in the game. Like the rest of your life dozes off.”

He claimed not to know Myra Weinburg either. And no one could have gotten access to his passcodes, he assured her. “As for cracking my words, good luck—they’re all sixteen-digit random characters. I’ve never written them down. I’m lucky I’ve got a good memory.”

Gillespie was on his computer “in the system” all the time. He added defensively, “I mean, it’s my job.”

Though he frowned in confusion when asked about downloading individual dossiers. “There’s, like, no point. Reading about everything John Doe bought last week at his local grocery store. Hello… I’ve got better things to do.”

He also admitted that he spent a lot of time in the data pens, “tuning the boxes.” Her impression was that he liked it there, found it comfortable—the same place that she couldn’t escape from fast enough.

Gillespie too was unable to recall where he’d been at the times of the other killings. She thanked him and he left, pulling his PDA off his belt before he was through the doorway and typing a message with his thumbs faster than Sachs could use all her fingers.

As they waited for the next all-access suspect to arrive, Sachs asked Pulaski, “Impressions?”

“Okay, I don’t like Cassel.”

“I’m with you there.”

“But he seems too obnoxious to be Five Twenty-Two. Too yuppie, you know? If he could kill somebody with his ego, then, yeah. In a minute… As for Gillespie? I’m not so sure. He tried to seem surprised about Myra’s death but I’m not sure he was. And that attitude of his—‘pianoing’ and ‘nod’?

You know what those are? Expressions from the street. ‘Pianoing’ means looking for crack, like your fingers are all over the place. You know, frantic. And ‘nod’ means being drugged out on smack or a tranquilizer. It’s how kids from the burbs talk trying to sound cool when they’re scoring from dealers in Harlem or the Bronx.”

“You think he’s into drugs?”

“Well, he seemed pretty twitchy. But my impression?”

“I asked.”

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“It’s not drugs he’s addicted to, it’s this—” The young officer gestured around him. “The data.”