The Stone Monkey

treatment plant.
    • Ghost uses feng shui practitioner to arrange his living space.

Chapter Thirty-five
    Lon Sellitto said, “But the evidence on the ship’d be messed up, wouldn’t it, Linc? Because of the water.”
    Sachs said, “‘Although submersion in water may destroy or degrade certain types of evidence, such as water-soluble chemicals, other forms of physical evidence, even trace, may be preserved and readily discovered, depending on the currents and the depth and temperature of the water. Indeed, some may be better preserved than had the scene been on dry land.’ How’d I do, Rhyme?”
    “Good, Sachs. I’m impressed.” The passage was from Rhyme’s textbook on criminalistics.
    “Somebody call the Coast Guard, patch me through to whoever’s in charge of the rescue out there.”
    Sellitto finally got through and put the call on speaker-phone.
    “This is Fred Ransom speaking. I’m captain of the Evan Brigant .” The man was shouting; the wind whistled loudly over the mouthpiece of his radio mike.
    “This is Detective Sellitto, NYPD. I talked to you before?”
    “Right, sir. I recall.”
    “I’m here with Lincoln Rhyme. Where are you now?”
    “Just above the Dragon . We’re still looking for survivors but haven’t had any luck.”
    Rhyme asked, “What’s the status of the ship, Captain.”
    “She’s on her starboard side about eighty, ninety feet down.”
    “What’s the weather like now?”
    “Lot better’n it was. Ten-foot seas, wind about thirty knots. Light rain. Visibility, probably two hundred yards.”
    “You have divers available who can check out the interior?” Rhyme asked.
    “Yessir.”
    “Can they dive in that weather?”
    “Conditions aren’t the best but they’re acceptable. You know, sir, we’ve already scanned for survivors. Negative on that.”
    “No, I’m talking about searching for evidence.”
    “I see. We could send some folks down. The thing is, though, that my divers’ve never done that. They’re S and R.”
    Search and Rescue, Rhyme recalled.
    The captain asked, “Could somebody walk them through what to do?”
    “Sure,” Rhyme said, though he was discouraged at the idea of explaining a lifetime of crime scene investigation to a novice.
    Then Amelia Sachs’s voice interrupted. “I’ll search it.”
    Rhyme said, “I’m talking about the ship itself, Sachs.”
    “I understand that.”
    “It’s ninety feet underwater.”
    She bent down and said into the speakerphone, “Captain, I can be down in Battery Park in thirty minutes. Can you have a chopper get me out to your location?”
    “Well, we can fly in this weather. But—”
    “I’m open-water certified—PADI.” Meaning she had been trained in scuba diving by the Professional Association of Diving Instructors. Rhyme knew that she and herformer boyfriend Nick had taken the course together and gone on a number of dives. Not surprisingly, though, speed-lover Sachs had found cigarette boats and Jet Skiing more to her liking.
    “But you haven’t been diving for years, Sachs,” he pointed out.
    “Like riding a bike.”
    “Miss . . .”
    “That’d be Officer Sachs, Captain,” she said.
    “Officer, there’s a big difference between recreational dives and what it’s like down there today. My people’ve been diving for years and I wouldn’t feel real comfortable sending them into an unstable wreck under these conditions.”
    “Sachs,” Rhyme said, “you can’t. You’re not trained for that.”
    “There’re a million things they’d miss. You know that. They’d be the same as civilians. All respect, Captain.”
    “Understood, Officer. But my vote is it’s too risky.”
    Sachs paused and then said, “Captain, you have children?”
    “I’m sorry?”
    “You have a family?”
    “Well,” he said, “yes, I do.”
    “This perp we’re after is the man who sank that ship and killed most of the people inside. And right now he’s trying to kill some immigrants who escaped—a family with two children and a baby. I’m not going to let that happen. There may be some evidence inside that ship that could tell us where he is. My expertise is finding clues—under all conditions.”
    Sellitto said, “Use our divers.” Both the NYPD and the city’s fire department had experienced scuba divers.
    “They’re not Crime Scene,” Sachs argued. “They’re just S and R too.” She looked at Rhyme, who hesitated for a long moment. But then nodded, indicating that, yes,