The Skin Collector (15 page)

‘And cut and paste would be really bad,’ Pulaski joked, drawing smiles.

But not from Gordon. ‘Oh, there’s a version of scarification where people actually cut strips
of skin out of their body.’

Rhyme then heard a click in the front door latch and the door open – or, more accurately, the wind howl and the sleet clatter from the sky.

The door closed.

After that footsteps and a light, airy laugh.

He knew who had come to visit and shot a glance to Sachs, who quickly rose and turned around the whiteboard that contained the crime scene pictures of Chloe Moore
and switched the high-def screens away from the images TT Gordon had been examining.

A moment later Pam Willoughby stepped into the room. The pretty, slim nineteen year old was enwrapped in a brown overcoat trimmed in faux fur. Her long, dark hair was tucked up under a burgundy stocking cap, and her outer garments were dusted with dots of sleet or snow, melting fast. She waved hello to everyone.

Accompanying her was her boyfriend, Seth McGuinn, a handsome, dark-haired man of about twenty-five. She introduced him to Pulaski and Mel Cooper, neither of whom he’d met.

Seth’s dark-brown eyes, which matched Pam’s, blinked when they turned to TT Gordon, who greeted the couple pleasantly. Pam had a similar reaction. Rhyme had seen athletic Seth in a T-shirt and jogging shorts, when he and Pam
had been going to the park several weeks ago, and noted he’d sported no tattoos. Pam had none either, visible at least. The young couple now tried, unsuccessfully, to hide their surprise at Rhyme’s quirky visitor.

Pam detached herself from Seth’s arm, kissed Rhyme on the cheek and hugged Thom. Seth shook everyone’s hand.

TT Gordon asked if they needed any more help with the case. Sellitto glanced
around the room at the others and when Rhyme shook his head, said, ‘Thanks for coming in. Appreciate it.’

‘I’ll keep an eye out for anything weird. In the community, you know what I mean? So long, dudes.’

Gordon stashed his gear, pulled on his pitifully thin jacket and headed out the door.

Seth and Pam shared a smile, looking after Gordon’s exit.

Sachs said, ‘Hey, Pam. I think Seth needs a
’stache.’

The clean-cut young man nodded, frowning. ‘Hell, I can outdo him. I’d go with braids.’

Pam said, ‘Naw, get pierced. That way we can swap earrings.’

Seth said he had to be going; a deadline for his ad agency loomed. He kissed Pam, chastely, as if Rhyme and Sachs were the girl’s real parents. Then he nodded a farewell to the others. At the archway he turned and reminded Sachs and Rhyme
that his parents would like to have lunch or dinner with them soon. Rhyme generally disliked such socializing but since Pam was, in effect, family, he’d agreed to go. And reminded himself to endure the pleasantries and mundane conversation with a smile.

‘Next week?’ Rhyme asked.

‘Perfect. Dad’s back from Hong Kong.’ He added that his father had found a copy of Rhyme’s book about New York crime
scenes. ‘Any chance of an autograph?’

Recent surgery had improved Rhyme’s muscle control to the point that he actually could write his name – not as clearly as before the accident but as good as any doctor writing a prescription. ‘Delighted to.’

When he’d left, Pam pulled off her jacket and hat, set them on a chair, asked Sachs, ‘So, your message? What’s up?’

The detective nodded toward the
sitting room, across the hall from Rhyme’s lab/parlor, and said, ‘How ’bout we go in there.’

‘Now,’ Sachs said, ‘listen. I don’t think there’s anything to worry about.’

In her charming lilt of an alto voice Pam said, ‘Okay,
there’s
a way to start a conversation.’ She tossed her hair, which she wore like Sachs’s, beyond shoulder length, no bangs.

Sachs smiled. ‘No, really.’ She was looking the girl over closely and decided that she had a glow about her. Maybe it was her job,
‘costuming’, Pam called it, for a theater production company. She loved behind the scenes Broadway. College too she enjoyed.

But, no, Sachs asked herself: What’m I thinking? Of course. The answer was Seth.

Thom appeared in the doorway with a tray. Hot chocolate. The smell was both bitter and sweet. ‘Don’t you just love the winter?’ he asked. ‘When the temperature’s below thirty-five hot chocolate
doesn’t have any calories. Lincoln could come up with the chemical formula for that.’

They thanked the aide. He then asked Pam, ‘When’s the premiere?’

Pam was attending NYU but she had a light class load this semester and – as a talented seamstress – was working part-time as an assistant to the assistant costumer for a Broadway revival of
Sweeney Todd
– the musical adaptation, by Stephen Sondheim
and Hugh Wheeler, of an older play detailing the life of the homicidal barber in London. Todd would slice his customers’ throats and a conspirator would bake the victims into pies. Rhyme had reported to Sachs and Pam that the perp reminded him of a criminal he’d once pursued, though he added that Todd was purely fictional. Pam had seemed playfully disappointed at that factoid.

Cutting throats,
cannibalism, Sachs reflected. Talk about body modification.

‘We open in a week,’ Pam said. ‘And I’ll have tickets for everybody. Even Lincoln.’

Thom said, ‘He’s actually looking forward to going.’

Sachs said, ‘No!’

‘Gospel.’

‘Heart be still.’

Pam said, ‘I’ve got a disabled slot reserved. And you know the theater has a bar.’

Sachs laughed. ‘He’ll be there for sure.’

Thom left, closing the
door behind him, and Sachs continued, ‘So, here’s what’s happened. The man who kidnapped you and your mother? Years ago?’

‘Oh, yeah. The Bone Collector?’

Sachs nodded. ‘It looks like there’s somebody who’s copying him. In a way. He’s not obsessed with bones, though. But skin.’

‘God. What does he …? I mean, does he skin people?’

‘No, he killed his victim by tattooing her with poison.’

Pam
closed her eyes and shivered. ‘Sick. Oh, wait. That guy on the news. He killed the girl in SoHo?’

‘Right. Now, there’s no evidence he has any interest in the surviving victims from back then. He’s using the tattoos to send a message, so he’ll pick targets in out-of-the-way places, we think – if we don’t stop him first. We checked but none of the other survivors of the Bone Collector are in the
area. You’re the only one. Now, has anybody asked you anything about being kidnapped, about what happened?’

‘No, nobody.’

‘Well, we’re ninety-nine percent sure he has no interest in you at all. The killer—’

‘The unsub,’ Pam said, offering a knowing smile.

‘The unsub won’t know about you – your name wasn’t in the press because you were so young. And your mother used a pseudonym back then anyway.
But I wanted you to know. Keep an eye out. And at night we’re going to have an officer parked outside your apartment.’

‘Okay.’ Pam didn’t seem fazed by this information. In fact, Sachs now realized something: The news that there might be a connection, however tenuous, with Unsub 11-5 whom the press had dubbed the Underground Man, was greeted with what seemed to Sachs to be such lack of concern
that she realized the girl had another topic in mind.

And it was soon placed – no, dumped – on the table.

Pam sipped some cocoa and her eyes looked everywhere but at Sachs’s. ‘So, here’s the thing, Amelia. Something
I
wanted to talk about with
you.
’ Smiling. Smiling too much. Sachs grew nervous. She too took a sip. Didn’t taste a bit of the rich brew. She thought immediately: Pregnant?

Of course.
That was it.

Sachs stifled her anger. Why hadn’t they been careful? Why—?

‘I’m not going to have a baby. Relax.’

Sachs did. Coughed a brief laugh. She wondered if her body language was that readable.

‘But Seth and me? We’re moving in together.’

This soon? Still, Sachs kept the smile on her face. Was it just as fake as the teenager’s?

‘Are you now? Well. That’s exciting news.’

Pam laughed,
apparently at the disconnect between the modifier and Sachs’s less-than-excited expression. ‘Look, Amelia. We’re not getting married. Just, it’s time for this to happen. I feel it. He feels it. It’s just right. We’re like totally compatible. He knows me, really knows me. There’re times I don’t even have to say anything and he knows what I’m thinking. And he’s just so nice, you know?’

‘It’s kind
of fast, don’t you think, honey?’

Pam’s enthusiasm, the sparkle, dimmed. Sachs recalled that her mother, who’d beaten the girl and locked her in a closet for hours on end, had called her ‘honey’, and Pam had grown to hate the endearment. Sachs regretted using it but she’d been flustered and forgotten the word was tainted.

She tried again. ‘Pam, he’s a great guy. Lincoln and I both think so.’

This was true.

But Sachs couldn’t stop herself. ‘It’s just, I mean, don’t you really think it’d be better to wait? What’s the hurry? Just hang out, date. Spend the night … Go away on a trip.’

Coward, Sachs told herself, having given the last two suggestions, since her goal was to wedge some distance between Pam and Seth. She was negotiating against herself.

‘Well, interesting you say that.’

Interesting? Sachs reflected. If she’s not pregnant … Oh, no. Her jaw tightened and the next words confirmed her fear.

‘What we’re going to do is take a year off. We’re going to travel.’

‘Oh. Okay. A year.’ Sachs was simply buying time at this point. She might’ve said, ‘How ’bout them Yankees?’ Or ‘I hear the sleet’s going to break in a day or so.’

Pam pressed forward. ‘He’s sick of copywriting
freelance. He’s totally talented. But nobody appreciates him in New York. He doesn’t complain but I can see he’s upset. The ad agencies he works for, they have budget problems. So they can’t hire him full-time. He wants to go places. He’s ambitious. It’s so hard here.’

‘Well, sure. New York is always a tough place to get ahead.’

Pam’s voice hardened as she said, ‘He’s tried. It’s not like he
hasn’t tried.’

‘I didn’t mean—’

‘He’s going to write travel articles. I’m going to help him. I’ve always wanted to travel; we’ve talked about that.’

They had, yes. Except Sachs had always imagined that she and Pam would explore Europe or Asia. Big sister and kid sister. She had a fantasy of touring the parts of Germany her ancestors had come from.

‘But school … The statistics show it’s so
hard to come back after dropping out.’

‘Why? What statistics? That doesn’t make sense.’

Okay, Sachs didn’t have any numbers. She was making that up. ‘Hon – Pam, I’m happy for you, both of you. Just, well, you have to understand. This’s a pretty big surprise. Fast, like I was saying. You haven’t known him that long.’

‘A year.’

True. In a way. They’d met last December and dated briefly. Then
Seth had gone to England for training with an ad agency planning to open a New York office, and he and Pam had joined the ranks of those keeping a relationship afloat via text, Twitter and email. The company had decided not to venture into the US market, though, and Seth had come back a month ago and resumed free-lance copywriting. Normal dating had resumed.

‘And so what if it’s fast?’ An edge
to Pam’s voice again. She’d always had a temper – you couldn’t have her upbringing and not find anger near the surface. But she pulled back. ‘Look, Amelia. Now’s the time to do this. When we’re this age. Later? If we get married and if we have kids?’

Please. Don’t go there.

‘You can’t backpack around Europe then.’

‘What about money? You can’t work over there.’

‘That’s not a problem. He’ll
sell his articles. And Seth’s been saving for a while and his parents’re totally rich. They can help us out.’

His mother was a lawyer and father an investment banker, Sachs recalled.

‘And we have the blog. I’ll keep doing that from the road.’

Seth had created a website a few years ago where people could post their support for various social and political issues, mostly left-leaning. Women’s
right to choose, support for the arts, gun control. Pam was now more involved than he was in running the site. Yes, it seemed popular, though Sachs estimated that the donations they received totaled about a thousand dollars a year.

‘But … where? What countries? Is it safe?’

‘We don’t know yet. That’s part of the adventure.’

Desperate to buy time, Sachs asked, ‘What do the Olivettis say?’

After Sachs had rescued her the girl had gone into a foster home (which Sachs had checked out as if vetting the president’s personal bodyguard). The temporary parents had been wonderful but at eighteen, last year, Pam had wanted to be on her own and – with Rhyme’s and Sachs’s help – she enrolled in college and got a part-time job. Pam had remained close to her foster mom and dad, though.

‘They’re
okay with it.’

But, of course, the Olivettis were professional parents; they’d had no connection with Pam before she’d been placed with them. They hadn’t kicked in a door and saved her from the Bone Collector and a wild dog eager to shake her to death. They hadn’t leapt into a firefight with Pam’s stepfather, who was trying to suffocate her.

And, those traumas aside, it had been Sachs who’d
spent a lot more time than the busy foster parents schlepping Pam to and from after-school activities, doctors’ appointments and counselling sessions. And it was the detective who’d used some of the few existing connections from her former fashion model career to get Pam the wardrobe department job on Broadway.

Sachs couldn’t help but note too that the girl had told the Olivettis first about
her travel plans.

Come on, I deserve a hearing, Sachs thought.

Which was not, however, Pam’s opinion. She said brusquely, ‘Anyway, we’ve decided.’

Then Pam grew suddenly giddy, though Sachs could see the emotions were fake. That was clear. ‘It’ll be a year. Two, tops.’

Now
two
?

‘Pam,’ Sachs began. ‘I don’t know what to say.’