The Stone Monkey

Finally came back to work and’s been going like a greyhound ever since. One of my best agents.”
    Except for minor flaws like letting suspects escape, Rhyme thought wryly.
    Peabody and the ASAC left, reassuring Rhyme and Sellitto once again that they’d have a new FBI liaison agent inthe morning and the SPEC-TAC team en route. “It’s definitely agendaed,” the ASAC called.
    “Good night,” said Webley from State formally and followed the men out the door.
    “Okay, back to work,” the criminalist said to Sellitto, Sachs, Cooper and Li. Eddie Deng was at home, nursing his badly bruised chest. “What else did the Wus tell you, Sachs?”
    She gave them the details she’d learned at the clinic. The Wus included Qichen; his wife, Yong-Ping; a teenage daughter named Chin-Mei and a young son, Lang. The Changs were Sam, Mei-Mei, William and Ronald, as well as Chang’s father, who was known by his full Chinese name, Chang Jiechi. In China, Sam had arranged for jobs for himself and William but Wu didn’t know where or even in what line of work. Then she said that the family also had a baby whose mother had drowned on the Dragon. “Po-Yee. It means ‘Treasured Child.’ ”
    Rhyme noticed a certain look in Sachs’s eyes when she mentioned the infant. He knew how much Sachs wanted a child—and wanted a child with him. As bizarre as this idea would have seemed to him several years ago he now secretly liked it. Part of his motive wasn’t completely paternal, though. Amelia Sachs was one of the best crime scene searchers he’d ever seen. Most important was her empathy. She, more than any other CS professional he’d known, except himself, had the ability to transport herself into the mind of the perpetrator at the scene and, in that persona, find evidence that most other officers would have missed. Sachs, however, had another aspect to her psyche. What drove her to perfection at crime scenes drove her into danger. A champion pistol shot, an expert driver, she was often first on the scene at takedowns, ready to pull her weaponand engage a perp. Just like tonight, in the alleyway beside the Wus’ apartment.
    Rhyme would never ask her to give that up. But with a child at home he hoped she’d restrict herself to the crime scene work, where her true talent as a cop lay.
    Then Mel Cooper interrupted his thoughts. “Chromatograph results from the carpet.” He explained that it was a wool-nylon blend. He determined the color temperature of the gray shade and then went online, logging into the FBI’s carpet-fiber database.
    A few minutes later the results popped onto the screen. “It’s Lustre-Rite brand and the manufacturer’s Arnold Textile and Carpeting in Wallingham, Mass. I’ve got phone numbers,” the slim man said.
    “Get somebody calling them,” Rhyme said. “We want to know about installations in Lower Manhattan. Recent, you think, Mel?”
    “Probably. With this many fibers.”
    “Why that?” Li asked.
    The tech explained, “Most fiber loss from carpets happens within six months of installation, give or take.”
    “I’ll do it,” Sellitto said. “Only don’t hope for miracles, considering the company’s probably been closed for hours.” He nodded at the clock. It was nearly 11 P.M .
    Rhyme said, “It’s a manufacturing company. And what does that mean?”
    “I don’t know, Linc. Why don’t you tell me?” Sellitto grumbled. Nobody was in the mood for object lessons.
    “That there’s probably a night shift. And a night shift means a foreman, and a foreman’ll have the boss’s number at home. In case of fire or some such.”
    “I’ll see what I can do.”
    Cooper was testing the trace Sachs had found in theBlazer. “More of the bentonite,” he said. “On both the Ghost’s shoes and on his partners’.” The slim man turned to the microscope and examined another bit of material. “What do you think, Lincoln. Is this mulch?” He looked up from the ’scope. “Came from the SUV’s carpet, driver’s side.”
    “Command, input, microscope,” Rhyme ordered. The image that Cooper was looking at in the microscope came up on Rhyme’s computer screen. The criminalist saw what he recognized immediately as traces of fresh cedar mulch, the sort used in decorative gardens. “Good.”
    “Lot of landscaping around Battery Park City,” Sellito pointed out, referring to the large residential development in downtown Manhattan, where the trace evidence they’d found earlier had