The Vanished Man

fire scenes usually reveal only where and how the fire started. But they already knew that. Still, he thought there must be more.
    “What about the duct tape? Thom pulled it off and dropped it.”
    “No duct tape.”
    “Look behind the head of the bed. The Conjurer was standing there. He might’ve—”
    “I did look.”
    “Well, search again. You missed things. You must have.”
    “No,” she said simply.
    “What?”
    “Forget the crime scene. It’s toast—so to speak.”
    “We need to move this goddamn case forward.”
    “We’re going to, Rhyme. I’m going to interview the witness.”
    “There was a witness?” he grumbled. “Nobody told me there was a witness.”
    “Well, there was.”
    She stepped to the doorway, called down the hall for Lon Sellitto to join them. He ambled inside, sniffing his jacket and wrinkling his nose. “A two-hundred-forty-fucking-dollar suit. History. Shit. What, Officer?”
    “I’m going to interview the witness, Lieutenant. You have your tape recorder?”
    “Sure.” He took it out of his pocket and handed it to her. “There’s a wit?”
    Rhyme said, “Forget witnesses, Sachs. You know how unreliable they are. Stick with the evidence.”
    “No, we’ll get something good. I’ll make sure we do.”
    A glance at the doorway. “Well, who the hell is it?”
    “You,” she said, pulling a chair close to the bed.

Chapter Twenty-seven
    “Me? Ridiculous.”
    “No. Not ridiculous.”
    “Forget it. Walk the grid again. You missed things. You searched way too fast. If you were a rookie—”
    “I’m not a rookie. I know how to search a scene fast and I know when it’s time to stop searching and go on to more productive things.” She examined Sellitto’s small recorder, checked the tape, and clicked it on.
    “This is NYPD Patrol Officer Amelia Sachs, Badge Five Eight Eight Five, interviewing Lincoln Rhyme, witness in a ten-twenty-four assault and ten-twenty-nine arson at three-four-five Central Park West. The date is Saturday, April twentieth.” She set the recorder on the table near Rhyme.
    Who glanced at the unit as if it were a snake.
    “Now,” she said. “Description.”
    “I told Lon—”
    “Tell me. ”
    A sarcastic look at the ceiling. “He was medium-built, male, approximately fifty to fifty-five years of age, wearing a police officer’s uniform. No beard this time. Scar tissue and discoloration on his neck and on his chest.”
    “His blouse was open? You could see his chest?”
    “Excuse me,” he said with bright sarcasm. “Scar tissue at the base of his neck presumably continuing down to his chest. Little and ring fingers of his left hand were fused together. He had . . . appeared to have brown eyes.”
    “Good, Rhyme,” she said. “We didn’t have his eye color before.”
    “And we may not now if he’s wearing contacts,” he snapped, feeling he’d scored a point here. “I could probably remember better with something to help.” He looked toward Thom.
    “Something to help?”
    “I assume you have an unincinerated bottle of Macallan somewhere in the kitchen.”
    “Later,” Sachs said. “Let’s keep a clear head.”
    “But—”
    Worrying her scalp with a nail, she continued, “Now. I want to go through everything that happened. What did he say?”
    “I can’t remember very much,” he said impatiently. “It was mostly crazy ramblings. And I was hardly in the mood to pay attention.”
    “Maybe they sounded crazy to you. But I’ll bet there was something we could use.”
    “Sachs,” he said sardonically, “do you think I might’ve been a little spooked and confused? I mean, just a little distracted maybe?”
    She touched his shoulder, a place where he could feel the contact. “I know you don’t trust witnesses. But sometimes they do see things. . . . This’s my specialty, Rhyme.”
    Amelia Sachs, the people cop.
    “I’ll walk you through it. Just like you walk me through the grid. We’ll find something important.”
    She rose, walked to the door and called, “Kara?”
    Yes, he distrusted witnesses, even those who had good vantage points and weren’t part of the action itself. Anyone involved in the actual crime—especially a victim of violence—was totally unreliable. Even now, thinking about the killer’s visit, all Rhyme could see was a random series of incidents—the Conjurer behind him, standing over him, lighting the fire. The razor blades. The smell of the scotch, the boiling smoke. He