The Coffin Dancer

skidded the RRV station wagon around the corner at forty miles per hour. She saw a dozen tactical agents trotting along the street.
    Fred Dellray’s teams were surrounding the building where Sheila Horowitz lived. A typical Upper East Side brownstone, next door to a Korean deli, in front of which an employee squatted on a milk crate, peeling carrots for the salad bar and staring with no particular curiosity at the machine-gun-armed men and women surrounding the building.
    Sachs found Dellray, weapon unholstered, in the foyer, examining the directory.
    S. Horowitz. 204.
    He tapped his radio. “We’re on four eight three point four.”
    The secure federal tactical operations frequency. Sachs adjusted her radio as Dellray peered into the Horowitz woman’s mailbox with a small black flashlight. “Nothin’ picked up today. Got a feeling that girl’s gone.” He then said, “We got our folk on the fire escape and floor above and below with a SWAT cam and some mikes. Haven’t seen anybody inside. But we’re pickin’ up some scratching and purring. Nothing sounds human, though. She got cats, remember. That was a feather in his cap, thinking of the vets. Our man Rhyme, I mean.”
    I know who you mean, she thought.
    Outside, the wind was howling and another line of black clouds was trooping over the city. Big slabs of bruise-colored clouds.
    Dellray snarled into his radio. “All teams. Status?”
    “Red Team. We’re on the fire escape.”
    “Blue Team. First floor.”
    “Roger,” Dellray muttered. “Search and Surveillance. Report.”
    “Still not sure. We’re getting faint infrared readings. Whoever or whatever’s in there isn’t moving. Could be a sleeping cat. Or a wounded victim. Or might be a pilot light or lamp that’s been burning for a while. Could be the subject, though. In an interior part of the apartment.”
    “Well, what do you think?” Sachs asked.
    “Who’s that?” the agent asked over the radio.
    “NYPD, Portable Five Eight Eight Five,” Sachs responded, giving her badge number. “I want to know what your opinion is. Do you think the suspect is inside?”
    “Why you askin’?” Dellray wanted to know.
    “I want an uncontaminated scene. I’d like to go in alone if they think he’s not there.” A dynamic entry by a dozen tactical officers was probably the most efficient way to utterly decimate a crime scene.
    Dellray looked at her for a moment, his dark face creased, then said into his stalk mike, “What’s your opinion, S&S?”
    “We just can’t say for sure, sir,” the disembodied agent reported.
    “Know you can’t, Billy. Just gimme what your gut’s telling you.”
    A pause, then: “I think he’s rabbited. Think it’s clean.”
    “Hokay.” To Sachs he said, “But you take one officer with you. That’s an order.”
    “I go in first, though. He can cover me from the door. Look, this guy just isn’t leaving any evidence anywhere. We need a break.”
    “All right, Officer.” Dellray nodded to several of the federal SWAT agents.
    “Entry approved,” he muttered, slipping out of hipster as he spoke words of law enforcement art.
    One of the tactical agents had the lobby door lock disassembled in thirty seconds.
    “Hold up,” Dellray said, cocking his head. “It’s a call from Central.” He spoke into the radio. “Give ’em the frequency.” He looked at Sachs. “Lincoln’s calling you.”
    A moment later the criminalist’s voice intruded. “Sachs,” he said, “what’re you doing?”
    “I’m just—”
    “Listen,” he said urgently. “Don’t go in alone. Let them secure the scene first. You know the rule.”
    “I’ve got backup—”
    “No, let SWAT secure it first.”
    “They’re sure he’s not there,” she lied.
    “That’s not good enough,” he shot back. “Not with the Dancer. Nobody’s ever sure with him.”
    This again. I don’t need it, Rhyme. Exasperated, she said, “This’s the sort of scene he’s not expecting us to find. He probably hasn’t hosed it. We could find a fingerprint, a shell casing. Hell, we could find his credit card.”
    No response. It wasn’t often that Lincoln Rhyme was rendered silent.
    “Quit spooking me, Rhyme, okay?”
    He didn’t respond and she had a strange feeling that he wanted her to be spooked. “Sachs . . . ?”
    “What?”
    “Just be careful” was his only advice and the words were offered tentatively.
    Then suddenly five tactical agents appeared, wearing Nomex gloves and