The Bone Collector

assistant director of the Bureau in Washington. The FBI is a nest of hierarchy and Dellray couldn’t imagine why the big man himself was calling. Until he heard the AD’s somber voice break the news that Toby Dolittle, along with an assistant U.S. attorney from Manhattan, had been on the ground floor of the Oklahoma City federal building that morning, preparing for the deposition session that Dellray himself was just about to depart for.
    Their bodies were being flown back to New York the next day.
    Which was the same day that Dellray put in the first of his RFT-2230 forms, requesting a transfer to the Bureau’s Anti-Terror Division.
    The bombing had been the crime of crimes to Fred Dellray, who, when no one was looking, devoured books on politics and philosophy. He believed there was nothing essentially unAmerican about greed or lust—hey, those qualities were encouraged everywhere from Wall Street to Capitol Hill. And if people making a business of greed or lust sometimes stepped over the border of legality, Dellray was pleased to track them down—but he never did so with personal animosity. But to murder people for their beliefs—hell, to murder children before they even knew what they believed—my God, that was a stab at the heart of the country. Sitting in his two-room, sparsely furnished Brooklyn apartment afterToby’s funeral, Dellray decided that this was the kind of crime he wanted a crack at.
    But unfortunately the Chameleon’s reputation preceded him. The Bureau’s best undercover agent was now their best handler, running agents and CIs throughout the East Coast. His bosses simply couldn’t afford to let him go to one of the more quiescent departments of the FBI. Dellray was a minor legend, personally responsible for some of the Bureau’s greatest recent successes. So it was with considerable regret that his persistent requests were turned down.
    The ASAC was well aware of this history and he now added a sincere, “I wish I could help out, Fred. I’m sorry.”
    But all Dellray heard in these words was the rock cracking a little further. And so the Chameleon pulled a persona off the rack and stared down his boss. He wished he still had his fake gold tooth. Street man Dellray was a tough hombre with one mother-fucker of a mean stare. And in that look was the unmistakable message anybody on the street would know instinctively: I done for you, now you do for me.
    Finally the smarmy ASAC said lamely, “It’s just that we need something. ”
    “Somethin’?”
    “A hook,” the ASAC said. “We don’t have a hook.”
    A reason to take the case away from NYPD, he meant.
    Politics, politics, polifuckingtics.
    Dellray lowered his head but the eyes, brown as polish, didn’t waver a millimeter from the ASAC. “He cut the skin off that vic’s finger this morning, Billy. Clean down to the bone. Then buried him alive.”
    Two scrubbed, federal-agent hands met beneath a crisp jaw. The ASAC said slowly, “Here’s a thought. There’s a deputy commissioner at NYPD. Name’s Eckert. You know him? He’s a friend of mine.”
    * * *  
    The girl lay on her back on a stretcher, eyes closed, conscious but groggy. Still pale. An IV of glucose raninto her arm. Now that she’d been rehydrated she was coherent and surprisingly calm, all things considered.
    Sachs walked back to the gates of hell and stood looking down into the black doorway. She clicked on the radio and called Lincoln Rhyme. This time he answered.
    “How’s the scene look?” Rhyme asked casually.
    Her answer was a curt: “We got her out. If you’re interested.”
    “Ah, good. How is she?”
    “Not good.”
    “But alive, right.”
    “Barely.”
    “You’re upset because of the rats, aren’t you, Amelia?”
    She didn’t answer.
    “Because I didn’t let Bo’s men get her right away. Are you there, Amelia?”
    “I’m here.”
    “There are five contaminants of crime scenes,” Rhyme explained. She noticed he’d gone into his low, seductive tone again. “The weather, the victim’s family, the suspect, souvenir hunters. The last is the worst. Guess what it is?”
    “You tell me.”
    “Other cops. If I’d let ESU in they could’ve destroyed all the trace. You know how to handle a scene now. And I’ll bet you preserved everything just fine.”
    Sachs needed to say, “I don’t think she’ll ever be the same after this. The rats were all over her.”
    “Yes, I imagine they were. That’s their nature.”
    Their nature