The Broken Window

conversation revealed that, yes, Williams wore size-13 Sure-Track shoes, he regularly bought Trojan-Enz brand condoms, he had forty-pound fishing line, he drank Miller beer and he’d recently been to Home Depot for duct tape and hemp rope to use as a tie-down.
    Looking at the evidence chart of the earlier rape, Rhyme noted that the condoms used by 522 in that crime were Durex. The killer had used those because Joseph Knightly bought that brand.
    On the speakerphone he asked Williams, “Is one of your shoes missing?”
    “No.”
    Sellitto said, “So he bought a pair. Same type, same size as you’ve got. How’d he know that? Have you seen anybody on your property recently, maybe in your garage, going through your car or trash? Or have you had a break-in recently?”
    “No, we sure haven’t. I’m out of work and here most days taking care of the house. I’d know. And it’s not the best neighborhood in the world; we’ve got an alarm. We always put it on.”
    Rhyme thanked him and they disconnected.
    He stretched his head back and gazed at the chart, as he dictated to Thom what to write.
    MYRA WEINBURG CRIME SCENE
----
    • COD: Strangulation. Awaiting final M.E. report
    • No mutilation or arranging of body but ring fingernail, left hand, was cut short. Possible trophy. Premortem most likely
    • Condom lubricant, from Trojan-Enz
    • Unopened condoms (2), Trojan-Enz
    • No used condoms, or body fluids
    • Traces of Miller beer on floor (source other than crime scene)
    • Fishing line, 40-pound monofilament, generic brand
    • Four-foot length of brown hemp rope (MW)
    • Duct tape on mouth
    • Tobacco flake, old, from unidentified brand
    • Footprint, Sure-Track man’s running shoe, size 13
    • No fingerprints
    Rhyme asked, “Our boy called nine-one-one, right? To report the Dodge?”
    “Yeah,” Sellitto confirmed.
    “Find out about the call. What he said, what his voice sounded like.”
    The detective added, “The earlier cases too—your cousin’s and the coin theft and earlier rape.”
    “Good, sure. I didn’t think about that.”
    Sellitto got in touch with central dispatch. Nine-one-one calls are recorded and kept for varying periods of time. He requested the information. Ten minutes later he received a callback. The 911 reports from Arthur’scase and today’s murder were still in the system, the dispatch supervisor reported, and had been sent to Cooper’s e-mail address as .wav files. The earlier cases had been sent to archives on CD. It could take days to find them but an assistant had sent in a request for them.
    When the audio files arrived, Cooper opened and played them. They were of a male voice telling the police to hurry to an address where he’d heard screaming. He described the get-away vehicles. The voices sounded identical.
    “Voice print?” Cooper asked. “If we get a suspect, we can compare it.”
    Voice prints were more highly regarded in the forensic world than lie detectors, and were admissible in some courts, depending on the judge. But Rhyme shook his head. “Listen to it. He’s talking through a box. Can’t you tell?”
    A “box” is a device that disguises a caller’s voice. It doesn’t produce a weird, Darth Vader sound; the timbre is normal, if a little hollow. Many directory assistance and customer service operations use them to make employees’ voices uniform.
    It was then that the door opened and Amelia Sachs strode into the parlor, carrying a large object under her arm. Rhyme couldn’t tell what it was. She nodded, then gazed at the evidence chart, saying to Pulaski, “Looks like a good job.”
    “Thanks.”
    Rhyme noted that what she held was a book. It seemed half disassembled. “What the hell is that?”
    “A present from our doctor friend, Robert Jorgensen.”
    “What is it? Evidence?”
    “Hard to say. It was really an odd experience, talking to him.”
    “Whatta you mean by odd, Amelia?” Sellitto asked.
    “Think Batboy, Elvis and aliens behind the Kennedy assassination. That sort of odd.”
    Pulaski exhaled a fast laugh, drawing a withering look from Lincoln Rhyme.

Chapter Fourteen
    She told a story of a troubled man whose identity had been stolen and his life ruined. A man who described his nemesis as God, and himself as Job.
    Clearly he was unhinged; “odd” didn’t go far enough. Yet if even partly true, his story was moving and hard to listen to. A life completely in tatters, and the crime pointless.
    But then Sachs