Hums and clicks from the forensic instruments filled the parlor, coins jingled in somebody's pocket.
"A man and a woman," McDaniel said. "Just what we learned from T and C. Justice For the Earth."
Rhyme exhaled a sigh. "Tucker, I could buy that if we had any evidence about the group. But we don't. Not a single fiber, print, bit of trace."
"It's all cloud zone."
"But," the criminalist snapped, "if they exist they have a physical presence. Somewhere. I don't have any proof of that."
"Well, then what do you think's going on?"
Rhyme smiled.
Almost simultaneously Amelia Sachs was shaking her head. "Rhyme, you don't think it could be, do you?"
"You know what I say: When you've eliminated all the other possibilities, the remaining one, however outlandish it seems, has to be the answer."
"I don't get it, Lincoln," Pulaski said. McDaniel's expression echoed the same. "What do you mean?"
"Well, Rookie, you might want to ask yourself a few questions: One, does Andi Jessen have blond hair about the length of what you found? Two, does she have a brother who's a former soldier who lives out of town and who might have access to weapons like a nineteen eleven Colt army forty-five? And, three, has Andi spent any time in City Hall in the last couple of days, oh, say, giving press conferences?"
Chapter 70
"ANDI JESSEN?"
As he continued to type, Rhyme replied to McDaniel, "And her brother's doing the legwork. Randall. He's the one who's actually staged the attacks. But they coordinated them together. That's why the transfer of evidence. She helped him move the generator out of the white van to the back of the school in Chinatown."
Sachs crossed her arms as she considered this. "Remember: Charlie Sommers said that the army teaches soldiers about arc flashes. Randall could've learned what he needed to know there."
Cooper said, "The fibers we found in Susan's wheelchair? The database said they might've come from a military uniform."
Rhyme nodded at the evidence board. "There was that report of an intrusion at a company substation in Philadelphia. We heard on TV that Randall Jessen lives in Pennsylvania."
"That's right," Sachs confirmed.
"He's got dark hair?" Pulaski asked.
"Yes, he does. Well, he did when he was a kid--from the pictures on Andi's desk. And Andi went out of her way to say he didn't live here. And there's something else. She told me she didn't come out of the technical side of the business. She said she got her father's talent--the business side of the energy industry. But remember that news story about her? Before the press conference?"
Cooper nodded. "She was a lineman for a while before she moved into management and succeeded her father." He pointed to the perp profile on the whiteboard. "She was lying."
Sachs said, "And the Greek food--could have come from Andi herself. Or maybe she met her brother at a restaurant near the company."
Eyes on what he was typing, Rhyme's brow furrowed as he considered something else. "And why is Bernie Wahl still alive?"
"The security chief at Algonquin?" Sellitto mused. "Fuck, I never thought about it. Sure, it would have made sense for Galt--well, the perp--to kill him."
"Randall could've delivered the second demand letter a dozen different ways. The point was to make Wahl believe it was Galt. He never saw the perp's face."
Dellray chimed in, "No wonder nobody spotted the real Galt, even after all the pictures on TV and the Internet. It was a different goddamn perp altogether."
McDaniel now looked less skeptical. "So where's Randall Jessen now?"
"All we know is he's planning something big for six-thirty tonight."
Eyeing the recent evidence, Rhyme was lost in thought for a moment, then continued to type--it was a list of instructions on how to proceed from here, one slow letter at a time.
Then the assistant special agent in charge's skeptical gaze returned. "I'm sorry, time-out here. I can see what you're saying, but what's her motive? She's screwing up her own company. She's committing murder. That makes no sense."