The Skin Collector

‘Oh.’ He sounded bitter.

Rhyme said, ‘Now answer me  a question.’

‘All right.’

‘How did you get the gig? For the Stantons and their AFFC?’

‘It was time to get out of prison. I got in touch with the people who’d been involved in the domestic terror incident a few years ago when you and I went head to head. Remember?’

‘Of course.’

‘They set me up with the AFFC – another white supremacist militia. I told them I could put them on the map. Harriet and Billy came to visit me in prison and I laid out a plan. By the way, did you ever see them together, those two, aunt and nephew? Uneasy dynamic there. Gives a whole new meaning to the name American Families First.’

Rhyme demurred. The observation, true or not, didn’t interest him.

The Watchmaker continued, ‘They wanted to make a name for themselves. So we brainstormed. I came up with the idea of botulism in the drinking water. I learned that Billy was a tattoo artist. We’d tattoo victims with an Old Testament message. Apocalypse, I was saying. They just love that kind of rhetoric. Striking a blow for their idiotic values. They loved it too when I suggested they use poisons as the murder weapons. Justice for the minority and socialist values that were poisoning  society, et cetera, et cetera. Oh, they just lapped that up. Well, Matthew did. Billy and Harriet seemed a bit more tempered. You know, Lincoln, the small minded are the most dangerous.’

Not necessarily, the criminalist reflected, considering the man he was conversing with at the moment.

CHAPTER 78

‘So,’ Rhyme continued, ‘in exchange for your plan they slipped you some of the tetrodotoxin. And arranged to bribe medical perso

‘More or less.’

‘Must have been pricey.’

‘Twenty million cash total.’

‘And the funeral home charade? With you as Weller. Why that?’

‘I knew you’d send somebody to see who was collecting the ashes. I had to make you believe in your heart that the Watchmaker was dead. The best way to do that was to have the family’s indignant lawyer come to town to collect his ashes … and report your undercover officer to the authorities. That was a wonderful turn. Didn’t anticipate that.’

Rhyme then said, ‘But one thing I don’t understand: Lon Sellitto. You  poisoned him, of course. You borrowed a fireman’s outfit at the site of the Belvedere Apartment attack and gave him the laced coffee.’

‘You figured that out too?’

‘Arsenic is metalloid poison. Billy used only plant based toxins.’

‘Hm. Missed that. Mea culpa.  Tell me, Lincoln, were you one of those boys who read children’s puzzle books and could always spot what was wrong with this picture?’

Yes, he had been, and, yes, he could.

Rhyme added, ‘And you slipped the doctored painkillers into Amelia Sachs’s purse.’

A dense pause. ‘You found those?’

The minute Rhyme had deduced the Watchmaker was still alive and was probably behind Lon’s attack, he’d told Sachs, Pulaski and Cooper to be on the lookout for any attacks. She’d recalled that someone had sat near her in a coffeehouse where she’d been meeting with a witness in the Metropolitan Museum case. She’d found a second bottle of painkillers in the bag.

Rhyme asked, ‘Arsenic as well? The results aren’t back yet.’

‘I’ll tell you, since you’ve figured it out. Antimony.’

Lincoln Rhyme said, ‘See, that’s what I don’t follow: trying to kill Lon and Amelia and blame the deaths on the Stantons? It was you  dressed up like Billy Haven at the scenes? Looking at her through the manhole cover on Elizabeth Street? Outside the restaurant in Hell’s Kitchen? In the building near the Belvedere?’

‘That’s right.’

‘So why …?’ His voice faded. The thoughts were coming fast, exploding like firecrackers. ‘Unless …’

‘Catching on, are you, Lincoln?’

‘Twenty million dollars,’ he whispered. ‘To buy your freedom. There is no way the Stantons and the AFFC could have gotten you that much money to bribe the guards and medics. No, no – they’re a shoestring operation at best. Someone else  financed your escape. Yes! Somebody who needed you for another job. You used the AFFC as a cover for something else.’

‘Ah, that’s my Lincoln,’ said the Watchmaker.

The voice was condescending and a moment’s anger burst. But then the thought landed and he laughed out loud. ‘Lon. Lon Sellitto! He  was the whole point of this. You needed him killed or out of commission, and you used the AFFC as a scapegoat.’

‘Exactly,’ the man whispered. And the tone of his voice taunted: Keep going.

‘The case he’d been working on. Of course. The break in at the Metropolitan museum. He was getting close to finding out what it was all about and your employer needed to stop him.’ He considered other facts. ‘And Amelia too. Because she’d taken over the Met case … But you’re admitting it all now,’ Rhyme said slowly, troubled. ‘Why?’

‘I think I’ll let it go at that, Lincoln. Probably not good to say much more. But I will tell you that nobody is at risk anymore. Amelia’s safe. The only reason to poison her or Ron or your brilliant nerdy assistant, Mel Cooper, would be to shift the blame to the AFFC. And obviously that’s pointless now. Besides, I’ve changed tack.’

Rhyme pictured the man shrugging.

‘You’re safe too, of course. You always have been.’

Always have been?

Rhyme gave a laugh. ‘The anonymous phone call about somebody’s breaking into my town house through the back door. When Billy snuck in to poison my whisky. That was you.’

‘I was keeping tabs on him. The night he went to your town house, I was following. He wasn’t supposed to kill you, hurt you in any way. When he changed into a workman’s uniform and got a needle ready, I knew what he was up to.’

This made no sense at all.

Until a moment later another deduction. Rhyme whispered, ‘You need me for something. You need me alive. Why? To investigate a crime, of course. Yes, yes. But which one? One committed recently?’ What open major cases were there? Rhyme wondered. Then realized. ‘Or one that’s going  to happen? Next week?’

‘Or next month or next year,’ the Watchmaker offered, sounding amused.

‘The Metropolitan museum break in? Or something else?’

No word.

‘Why me?’

A pause. ‘I’ll just say that the plan I’ve put together needs you.’

‘And it needs me to be aware of it,’ Rhyme shot back. ‘So my knowing is a gear or a spring or a flywheel in your timepiece.’

A laugh. ‘How well put. It’s so refreshing to talk to somebody who gets it … But now I should be going, Lincoln.’

‘One last question?’

‘Of course. Answering may be a different matter.’

‘You told Billy to find that book, Serial Cities .’

‘That’s right. I needed to make sure he and the Stantons appreciated how good you were – and how much you and Amelia had learned about the militias and their tactics.’

Rhyme said ruefully, ‘You had no particular interest in the Bone Collector? I got that wrong.’

‘I guess you did.’

A laugh and Rhyme said, ‘So the co

A pause.

‘You found a co

‘There’s a famous watch on display here in Manhattan. It’s made entirely out of bone. Some Russian, I think. I wondered if stealing that was on your agenda.’

‘There’s a Mikhail Semyonovitch Bro

‘I think that was it. And you didn’t know?’

The Watchmaker said, ‘I’ve been rather … preoccupied lately. But I’m familiar with the piece. It’s quite astonishing. Mid 1860s. And you’re right: made entirely of bone, one hundred percent.’

‘I suppose it wouldn’t make sense for you to risk getting caught – and waste the time, so to speak – trying to break into a Manhattan antiques store to steal a watch.’