Pulaski held up a plastic bag containing a brown fleck that he'd found just above the victim's ear. Analysis revealed it to be tobacco. "What's the story with that, Mel?"
The tech's examination revealed that it was a fine-cut piece, the sort used in cigarettes, but it was not the same as the Tareyton sampler in the database. Lincoln Rhyme was one of the few nonsmokers in the country who decried the bans on smoking; tobacco and ash were wonderful forensic links between criminal and crime scene. Cooper couldn't tell the brand. He decided, though, that because the tobacco was so desiccated it was probably old.
"Did Myra smoke? Or the people in the loft?"
"I didn't see any evidence of it. And I did what you're always telling us. I smelled the scene when I got there. No smell of smoking."
"Good." Rhyme was pleased with the search so far. "What's the friction-ridge situation?"
"Checked fingerprint samples of the homeowners--from the medicine cabinet and things in the bedside table."
"So you weren't fudging. You really did read my book." Rhyme had devoted a number of paragraphs in his forensic text to the importance of collecting control prints at crime scenes and where to best find them.
"Yes, sir."
"I'm so pleased. Did I make any royalties?"
"I borrowed my brother's." Pulaski's twin was a cop down at the Sixth Precinct in Greenwich Village.
"Let's hope he paid for it."
Most of the prints found in the loft were the couple's--which they determined from the samples. The others were probably from visitors but it wasn't impossible that 522 had been careless. Cooper scanned all of them into the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System. The results would be available soon.
"Okay, tell me, Pulaski, what was your impression of the scene?"
The question seemed to throw him. "Impression?"
"Those are the trees." Rhyme lowered his eyes toward the evidence bags. "What did you think of the forest?"
The young officer thought. "Well, I did have a thought. It's stupid, though."
"You know I'll be the first one to say if you've come up with a stupid theory, rookie."
"It's just, when I first got there my impression was that the struggle seemed off."
"How do you mean?"
"See, her bike was chained to a lamppost outside the loft. Like she'd parked it, not thinking anything was wrong."
"So he didn't just grab her on the street."
"Right. And to get into the loft you went through a gate and then down a long corridor to the front door. It was real narrow and it was packed with things the couple stored outside--jars and cans, sports things, some stuff to be recycled, tools for their garden. But nothing was disturbed." He tapped another photo. "But look inside--that's where the struggle began. The table and the vases. Right by the front door." His voice went soft again. "Looks like she fought real hard."
Rhyme nodded. "All right. So Five Twenty-Two lures her to the loft, smooth-talking her. She locks up the bike, walks down the corridor and they go into the loft. She stops in the entryway, sees he's lying and tries to get out."
He considered this. "So he must've known enough about Myra to put her at ease, and
make her feel that she could trust him. . . . Sure, think about it: He's got all this information--about who people are, what people buy, when they're on vacation, whether they have alarms, where they're going to be. . . . Not bad, rookie. Now we know something concrete about him."
Pulaski struggled to keep a smile off his face.
Cooper's computer dinged. He read the screen. "No hits on the prints. Zero."
Rhyme shrugged, not surprised. "I'm interested in this idea--that he knows so much. Somebody give DeLeon Williams a call. Was Five Twenty-Two right about all the evidence?"
Sellitto's brief conversation revealed that, yes, Williams wore size-13 Sure-Track shoes, he regularly bought Trojan-Enz brand condoms, he had forty-pound fishing line, he drank Miller beer and he'd recently been to Home Depot for duct tape and hemp rope to use as a tie-down.
Looking at the evidence chart of the earlier rape, Rhyme noted that the condoms used by 522 in that crime were Durex. The killer had used those because Joseph Knightly bought that brand.