The Bone Collector

•Gloves are dark

•Aftershave = Brut

Residence

•ShopRite 8th Ave. & 24th,

•ShopRite Houston & Lafayette,

Vehicle

•Lt. gray, silver, beige

•Rental car: prob. Stolen

Other

•“Old” appeals to him

•Called one vic “Ha

•Knows basic German

•Underground appeals to him

•Dual personalities

UNSUB 823 (page 3 of 5)

Appearance

•Hair color not brown

•Deep scar, index finger

Residence

•Old building, pink marble

•At least 100 years old, prob. mansion or institutional

Vehicle

•Hertz, silver Taurus, this year’s model

Other

•Maybe priest, soc. worker, counselor

•Unusual wear on shoes, reads a lot?

•Listened as he broke vic’s finger

UNSUB 823 (page 4 of 5)

Appearance

•Casual clothes

Residence

•Federal-style building, Lower East Side

Vehicle

Other

•Left snake as slap at investigators

•Wanted to flay vic’s foot

•Called one vic “Maggie”

•Mother & child, special meaning to him?

UNSUB 823 (page 5 of 5)

Appearance

•Gloves are black

Residence

•Located near archaeologic dig

Vehicle

Other

•Book “Crime in Old NY,” his model?

•Bases crimes on James Schneider, the“ Bone Collector”

•Has hatred of police

He glanced at the clock on the wall. It was 11:00 a.m. Here he was, just like two days ago, awaiting Berger’s arrival. That’s life, he thought: postponement upon postponement but ultimately, with some luck, we get to where we’re meant to be.

He watched television for twenty minutes, trolling for stories about the kidnappings. But all the stations were doing specials on the opening day of the UN conference. Rhyme found it boring and turned to a rerun of Matlock, flipped back to a gorgeous CNN reporter standing outside UN headquarters and then shut the damn set off.

The telephone rang and he went through the complicated gestures of answering it. “Hello.”

There was a pause before a man’s voice said, “Lincoln?”

“Yes?”

“Jim Polling. How you doin’?”

Rhyme realized that he hadn’t seen much of the captain since early yesterday, except for the news conference last night, where he’d whispered prompts to the mayor and Chief Wilson.

“Okay. Any word on our unsub?” Rhyme asked.

“Nothing yet. But we’ll get him.” Another pause. “Hey, you alone?”

“Yep.”

A longer pause.

“Okay if I stop by?”

“Sure.”

“A half hour?”

“I’ll be here,” Rhyme said jovially.

He rested his head in the thick pillow and his eyes slipped to the knotted clothesline hanging beside the profile poster. Still no answer about the knot. It was – he laughed aloud at the joke – a loose end. He hated the idea of leaving the case without finding out what kind of knot it was. Then he remembered that Polling was a fisherman. Maybe he’d recognize -

Polling, Rhyme reflected.

James Polling…

Fu

Now that he thought about it, Polling’s whole involvement in the case was a mystery. Eight twenty-three wasn’t the kind of perp you took on voluntarily – even if you were looking for juicy cases to hang on your collar record. Too many chances to lose vics, too many opportunities for the press – and the brass – to snipe at you for fucking up.

Polling… Recalling how he’d breeze into Rhyme’s bedroom, check out their progress and leave.

Sure, he was reporting to the mayor and the chief. But – the thought slipped unexpectedly into Rhyme’s mind – was there someone else Polling was reporting back to?

Someone who wanted to keep tabs on the investigation? The unsub himself?

But how on earth could Polling have any co

And then it struck him.

Could Polling be the unsub?

Of course not. It was ridiculous. Laughable. Even apart from motive and means, there was the question of opportunity. The captain had been here, in Rhyme’s room, when some of the kidnappings had occurred…

Or had he?

Rhyme looked up at the profile chart.

Dark clothing and wrinkled cotton slacks. Polling’d been wearing dark sports clothes over the past several days. But so what? So did a lot of -

Downstairs a door opened and closed.

“Thom?”

No answer. The aide wasn’t due back for hours.

“Lincoln?”

Oh, no. Hell. He started to dial on the ECU.

9- 1

With his chin he bumped the cursor to 2.

Footsteps on the stairs.

He tried to redial but he knocked the joystick out of reach in his desperation.

And Jim Polling walked into the room. Rhyme had counted on the babysitter’s calling upstairs first. But of course a beat cop would let a police captain inside without thinking twice.

Polling’s dark jacket was unbuttoned and Rhyme got a look at the automatic on his hip. He couldn’t see if it was his issue weapon. But he knew that.32 Colts were on the NYPD list of approved personal weapons.

“Lincoln,” Polling said. He was clearly uneasy, cautious. His eyes fell to the bleached bit of spinal cord.

“How you doing, Jim?”

“Not bad.”

Polling the outdoorsman. Had the scar on the fingerprint been left by years of casting a fishing line? Or an accident with a hunting knife? Rhyme tried to look but Polling kept his hands jammed into his pockets. Was he holding something in there? A knife?

Polling certainly knew forensics and crime scenes – he knew how not to leave evidence.

The ski mask? If Polling was the unsub he’d have to wear the mask of course – because one of the vics might see him later. And the aftershave… what if the unsub hadn’t worn the scent at all but had just carried a bottle with him and sprayed some at the scenes to make them believe he wore Brut? So when Polling showed up here, not wearing any, no one would suspect him.

“You’re alone?” Polling asked.

“My assistant -”

“The cop downstairs said he wouldn’t be back for a while.”

Rhyme hesitated. “That’s right.”

Polling was slight but strong, sandy-haired. Terry Dobyns’s words came back: Someone helpful, upstanding. A social worker, counselor, politician. Somebody helping other people.

Like a cop.

Rhyme wondered now if he was about to die. And to his shock he realized that he didn’t want to. Not this way, not on somebody else’s terms.

Polling walked to the bed.

Yet there was nothing he could do. He was at this man’s complete mercy.

“Lincoln,” Polling repeated gravely.

Their eyes met and the feeling of electrical co

“Wondering?”

“Why I wanted you on the case.”

“I figured it was my personality.”

This drew no smile from the captain.

“Why did you want me, Jim?”

The captain’s fingers knitted together. Thin but strong. The hands of a fisherman, a sport that, yes, may be genteel but whose purpose is nonetheless to wrench a poor beast from his home and slice through its smooth belly with a thin knife.

“Four years ago, the Shepherd case. We were on it together.”

Rhyme nodded.

“The workers found the body of that cop in the subway stop.”