The Bone Collector

this leaf? A cell of skin? A dot of sweat? It was a stunning thought. She felt a trill of excitement, of fear, as if the killer were right here in this tiny airless room with her.
    Back to the COC cards. For ten minutes she filled them out and was just finishing the last one when the door burst open, startling her. She spun around.
    Fred Dellray stood in the doorway, his green jacket abandoned, his starched shirt rumpled. Fingers pinching the cigarette behind his ear. “Step inside a minute’r two, officer. It’s payoff time. Thought you might wanna be there.”
    Sachs followed him down the short corridor, two steps behind his lope.
    “The AFIS results’re comin’ in,” Dellray said.
    The war room was even busier than before. Jacketless agents hovered over desks. They were armed with their on-duty weapons—the big Sig-Sauer and Smith & Wesson automatics, 10mm and .45s. A half-dozen agents were clustered around the computer terminal beside the Opti-Scan.
    Sachs hadn’t liked the way Dellray’d taken the case away from them, but she had to admit that beneath the slick-talking hipster Dellray was one hell of a good cop. Agents—young and old—would come up to him with questions and he’d patiently answer them. He’d yank a phone from the cradle and cajole or berate whoever was on the other end to get him what he needed. Sometimes, he’d look up across the bustling room and roar, “We gonna nail this prick-dick? Yep, you betcha we are.” And the straight-arrows’d look at him uneasily but with the obvious thought in mind that if anybody could nail him it’d be Dellray.
    “Here, it’s coming in now,” an agent called.
    Dellray barked, “I want open lines to New York, Jersey and Connecticut DMVs. And Corrections and Parole. INS too. Tell ’em to stand by for an incoming ID request. Put everything else on hold.”
    Agents peeled off and began making phone calls.
    The computer screen filled.
    She couldn’t believe that Dellray actually crossed his stickish fingers.
    Utter silence throughout the room.
    “Got him!” the agent at the keyboard shouted.
    “Ain’t no unsub anymore,” Dellray sang melodically, bending over the screen. “Listen up, people. We gotta name: Victor Pietrs. Born here, 1948. His parents were from Belgrade. So, we got a Serbian connection. ID brought to us courtesy of New York D of C. Convictions for drugs, assault, one with a deadly. Two sentences served. Okay, listen to this—psychiatric history, committed three times on involuntary orders. Intake at Bellevue and Manhattan Psychiatric. Last release date three years ago. LKA Washington Heights.”
    He looked up. “Who’s got the phone companies?”
    Several agents raised their hands.
    “Make the calls,” Dellray ordered.
    An interminable five minutes.
    “Not there. No current New York Telephone listing.”
    “Nothing in Jersey,” another agent echoed.
    “Negative, Connecticut.”
    “Fuck-all,” Dellray muttered. “Mix the names up. Try variations. An’ lookit phone-service accounts canceled in the past year for nonpayment.”
    For several minutes voices rose and fell like the tide.
    Dellray paced manically and Sachs understood why his frame was so scrawny.
    Suddenly an agent shouted, “Found him!”
    Everyone turned to look.
    “I’m on with NY DMV,” another agent called. “They’ve got him. It’s coming through now. . . . He’s a cabbie. Got a hack license.”
    “Why don’ that s’prise me,” Dellray muttered. “Shoulda thoughta that. Where’s home sweet home?”
    “Morningside Heights. A block from the river.” The agent wrote down the address and held it aloft as Dellray swept past and took it. “Know the neighborhood. Pretty deserted. Lotta druggies.”
    Another agent typed the address into his computerterminal. “Okay, checking deeds . . . Property’s an old house. A bank’s got title. He must be renting.”
    “You want HRT?” one agent called across the bustling room. “I got Quantico on the line.”
    “No time,” Dellray announced. “Use the field office SWAT. Get ’em suited up.”
    Sachs asked, “And what about the next victim?”
    “What next victim?”
    “He’s already taken somebody. He knows we’ve had the clues for an hour or two. He’d’ve planted the vic awhile ago. He had to.”
    “No reports of anybody missing,” the agent said. “And if he did snatch ’em they’re probably at his house.”
    “No, they wouldn’t be.”
    “Why not?”
    “They’d