The Devils Teardrop

again.”
    The layout of the lab was coming back to him. He walked to a cabinet, opened it and pulled out an examining board and some sheets of collecting paper. Holding the note by its corner, he ran a camel-hair brush over the surface to dislodge trace elements. There was virtually nothing. He wasn’t surprised. Paper is one of the most absorbent of materials; it retains a lot of substances from the places it’s been but generally they remain firmly bound into the fibers.
    Parker took a large hypodermic syringe from his attaché case and punched several small disks of ink and paper out of the note and the envelope. “You know how it works?” he asked Geller, nodding at the gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer in the corner.
    “Oh, sure,” he said. “I took one apart once. Just for the fun of it.”
    “Separate runs—for the note and the envelope,” Parker said, handing him the samples.
    “You got it.”
    “What’s it do?” C. P. asked again. Undercover and tactical agents generally don’t have much patience for lab work and know little about forensic science.
    Parker explained. The GC/MS separated chemicals found at crime scenes into their component parts and then identified them. The machine rumbled alarmingly—in effect it burned the samples and analyzed the resulting vapors.
    Parker brushed more trace off the note and envelope and this time managed to collect some material. He mounted the slides on two different Leitz compoundscopes. He peered into one, then the other, turned the focusing knobs, which moved with the slow sensuality of oiled, precision mechanisms.
    He stared at what he saw then looked up, said to Geller, “I need to digitize images of the trace in here.” Nodding at a microscope. “How do we do that?”
    “Ah, piece of proverbial cake.” The young agent plugged optical cables into the base of the microscopes. They ran to a large gray box, which sprouted cables of its own. These cables Geller plugged into one of the dozen computers in the lab. He clicked it on and a moment later an image of the particles of trace came on the screen. He called up a menu.
    Said to Parker, “Just hit this button. They’re stored as JPEG files.”
    “And I can transfer them on e-mail?”
    “Just tell me who they’re going to.”
    “In a minute—I’ll have to get the address. First, I want to do different magnifications.”
    Parker and Geller captured three images from each microscope, stored them on the hard drive.
    Just as he finished, the GC/MS beeped and data began to appear on the screen of the computer dedicated to the unit.
    Lukas said, “I’ve got a couple of examiners standing by in Materials and Elemental.” These were the Bureau’s two trace evidence analysis departments.
    “Send ’em home,” Parker said. “There’s somebody else I want to use.”
    “Who?” Lukas asked, frowning.
    “He’s in New York.”
    “N.Y.P.D.?” Cage asked.
    “Was. Civilian now.”
    “Why not somebody here?” Lukas asked.
    “Because,” Parker answered, “my friend’s the best criminalist in the country. He’s the one set up PERT.”
    “ Our evidence team?” C. P. asked.
    “Right.” Parker looked up a number and made a call.
    “But,” Hardy pointed out, “it’s New Year’s Eve. He’s probably out.”
    “No,” Parker said. “He hardly ever goes out.”
    “Not even on holidays?”
    “Not even on holidays.”
    * * *
    “Parker Kincaid,” the voice in the speaker phone said. “I wondered if someone from down there might be calling in.”
    “You heard about our problem, did you?” Parker asked Lincoln Rhyme.
    “Ah, I hear everything,” he said, and Parker remembered that Rhyme could bring off dramatic delivery like no one else. “Don’t I, Thom? Don’t I hear everything? Parker, you remember Thom, don’t you? Long-suffering Thom?”
    “Hi, Parker.”
    “Hi, Thom. He giving you grief?”
    “Of course I am,” Lincoln said gruffly. “I thought you were retired, Parker.”
    “I was. Until about two hours ago.”
    “Funny about this business, isn’t it? The way they never let us rest in peace.”
    Parker had met Rhyme once. He was a handsome man, about Parker’s age, dark hair. He was also paralyzed from the neck down. He consulted out of his townhouse on Central Park West. “I enjoyed your course, Parker,” Rhyme said. “Last year.”
    Parker remembered Rhyme, sitting in a fancy candy-apple-red wheelchair in the front row of the lecture hall at the John Jay