The Twelfth Card

coffeepot.
    “Unsub one-oh-nine. Evidence and profile charts. He’s a white male. Height?”
    Geneva said, “I don’t know. Everybody’s tall to me. Six feet, I’d guess.”
    “You seem observant. We’ll go with that. Weight?”
    “Not too big or small.” She fell quiet for a moment, troubled. “About Dr. Barry’s weight.”
    Sellitto said, “Make it one eighty. Age?”
    “I don’t know. I couldn’t see his face.”
    “Voice?”
    “I didn’t pay any attention. Average, I guess.”
    Rhyme continued, “And light brown shoes, dark slacks, dark ski mask. A pack in a bag that smells of jasmine. He smells of it too. Soap or lotion maybe.”
    “Pack?” Thom asked. “What do you mean?”
    “Rape pack,” Geneva said. A glance at Rhyme. “You don’t need to sugarcoat anything for me. If that’s what you were doing.”
    “Fair enough.” Rhyme nodded at her. “Let’s keep going.” He noticed Sachs’s face turn dark as she watched Cooper pick up the bag.
    “What’s wrong?”
    “The smiley face. On a rape pack bag. What kind of sick asshole’d do that?”
    He was perplexed by her anger. “You realize that it’s good news he used that, don’t you, Sachs?”
    “Good news?”
    “It limits the number of stores we have to search for. Not as easy as a bag with an individuated logo on it but better than unprinted plastic.”
    “I suppose,” she said, grimacing. “But still.”
    Wearing latex gloves, Mel Cooper looked throughthe bag. He took out the tarot card first. It showed a man hanging upside down by his foot from a scaffold. Beams of light radiated from his head. His face was oddly passive. He didn’t seem to be in pain. Above him was the Roman numeral for twelve, XII.
    “Mean anything to you?” Rhyme asked Geneva.
    She shook her head.
    Cooper mused, “Some kind of ritual or cult thing?”
    Sachs said, “Got a thought.” She pulled out her cell phone, placed a call. Rhyme deduced that the person she’d spoken to would be arriving soon. “I called a specialist—about the card.”
    “Good.”
    Cooper examined the card for prints and found none. Nor was any helpful trace revealed.
    “What else was in the bag?” Rhyme asked.
    “Okay,” the tech replied, “we’ve got a brand-new roll of duct tape, a box cutter, Trojan condoms. Nothing traceable. And . . . bingo!” Cooper held up a little slip of paper. “A receipt.”
    Rhyme wheeled closer and looked it over. There was no store name; the slip had been printed by an adding machine. The ink was faded.
    “Won’t tell us very much,” Pulaski said then seemed to think he shouldn’t be talking.
    What was he doing here? Rhyme wondered.
    Oh, that’s right. Helping Sellitto.
    “Sorry to differ,” Rhyme said stridently. “Tells us a lot. He bought all the items in the pack at one store—you can compare the receipt to the price tags—well, along with something else he bought for five ninety-five that wasn’t in the bag. Maybe the tarot deck. So we’ve got a store that sells duct tape, box cutters and condoms. Got to be a variety store or variety drugstore. We know it’s not a chain becausethere’s no logo on the bag or receipt. And it’s low-budget since it only has cash drawers, not computerized registers. Not to mention the cheap prices. And the sales tax tells us that the store is in . . . ” He squinted as he compared the subtotal on the receipt with the amount of tax. “Goddamnit, who knows math? What’s the percentage?”
    Cooper said, “I’ve got a calculator.”
    Geneva glanced at the receipt. “Eight point six two five.”
    “How’d you do that?” Sachs asked.
    “I just kind of can,” she said.
    Rhyme repeated, “Eight point six two five. That’s the combined New York state and city sales tax. Puts the store in one of the five boroughs.” A glance at Pulaski. “So, Patrolman, still think it’s not very revealing?”
    “Got it, sir.”
    “I’m decommissioned. Sir isn’t necessary. All right. Print everything and let’s see what we can find.”
    “Me?” the rookie asked uncertainly.
    “No. Them.”
    Cooper and Sachs used a variety of techniques to raise prints on the evidence: fluorescent powder, Ardrox spray and superglue fumes on slick surfaces, iodine vapor and ninhydrin on porous, some of which raised prints by themselves, while others displayed the results under an alternative light source.
    Looking up at the team through his large orange goggles, the tech reported, “Prints on