The Stone Monkey

had worn leather gloves.
    She studied the ceiling and smelled the scene—two of Rhyme’s important directives to crime scene searchers—but detected nothing that would help. Sachs jumped when Rhyme’s voice popped into her ear. “Talk to me, Sachs. I don’t like it when you’re quiet.”
    “The place is a mess,” she repeated.
    “You said that. A. Mess. That doesn’t really tell us very much, now, does it? Give me details.”
    “It’s been ransacked, drawers opened, posters torn off the walls, desks swept clean; statues, figurines, fishbowl, cups and glasses smashed.”
    “In a struggle?”
    “I don’t think so.”
    “Theft of anything in particular?”
    “Maybe but it’s mostly vandalism, I’d say.”
    “What’re their shoe treads like?” Rhyme asked.
    “All smooth.”
    “Stylish bastards,” he muttered.
    He was, she knew, hoping for some dirt or fibers that might lead them to the Ghost’s safehouse but, while the gullies in deep-tread-soled shoes can retain such evidence for months, smooth-soled shoes lose trace far more quickly.
    “Okay, Sachs, keep going. What do the footprints tell you?”
    “I’m thinking that—”
    “Don’t think, Sachs. That’s not the way to understand a crime scene. You know that. You have to feel it.”
    His seductive, low voice was hypnotizing and with each word he spoke she felt herself uneasily being transported back to the crime itself, as if she were a participant. Her palms began to sweat copiously in the latex gloves.
    “He’s there. Jerry Tang is at his desk and they—”
    “‘We,’ ” Rhyme corrected sternly. “You’re the Ghost, remember.”
    “—we kick the door in. He gets up and runs toward the back door but we get him and drag him back to his chair.”
    “Let’s narrow it down, Sachs. You’re the snakehead. You’ve found the man who’s betrayed you. What are you going to do?”
    “I’m going to kill him.”
    I saw crow on road picking at food. Another crow tried steal it and first crow not just scare other away—he chase and try to peck eyes out.
    Suddenly she was filled with a burst of unfocused anger. It nearly took her breath away. “No, wait, Rhyme. It’s like his death is secondary. What I really want is to hurt him. I’ve been betrayed and I want to hurt him bad.”
    “What do you do? Exactly.”
    She hesitated, sweating hard in the hot suit. Several places on her body itched at once. She felt like ripping a hole in the suit to scratch her skin.
    “I can’t—”
    “ ‘I,’ Sachs. Who’s ‘I’? You’re the Ghost, remember?” Solidly in her own persona, though, she said, “I’m having trouble with this one, Rhyme. There’s something abouthim, about the Ghost. He’s way on the other side.” She hesitated. “It feels really bad there.”
    A place where families die, where children are trapped in the holds of sinking ships, where men and women are shot in the back scrabbling for the only sanctuary they can find: a heartless, cold ocean. A place where they die for no reason other than that they are irritations and stumbling blocks.
    Sachs stared at the ever-open eyes of Jerry Tang.
    “Go there, Sachs,” Rhyme murmured. “Go on. I’ll get you back. Don’t worry.”
    She wished she could believe him.
    The criminalist continued, “You’ve found your betrayer. You’re furious with him. What do you do?”
    “The other three men with me tie Tang to a chair and we use knives or razors on him. He’s terrified, screaming . . . .We’re taking our time. All around me—there’re bits of flesh. What looks like part of an ear, strips of skin. We cut his eyelids off . . . . ” She hesitated. “But I don’t see any clues, Rhyme. Nothing that’ll help us.”
    “But there are clues there, Sachs. You know there are. Remember Locard.”
    Edmond Locard was an early French criminalist who stated that at every crime scene there’s an evidence exchange between the victim and the perpetrator, or between the scene itself and the perp. It might be difficult to identify the evidence that’s been exchanged and harder yet to trace it to its source but, as Rhyme had said dozens of times, a criminalist must ignore the apparent impossibilities of the job.
    “Keep going—further, further . . .You’re the Ghost. You’re holding your knife or razor.”
    Then, suddenly, the phantom anger she felt vanished, replaced by an eerie serenity. This shocking, yet oddlymagnetic, sensation filled her. Breathing