Jeffery Deaver - The burning wire

The shackles were sturdy and the cuffs tight but Lon Sellitto sat nearby anyway, keeping an eye on the man, as if the cop thought that Logan was using his considerable mental prowess to plan an escape.

But Rhyme believed not. The prisoner's darting eyes had taken in the room and the other officers and had concluded that there was nothing to be gained by resisting.

"So," Logan said evenly, "how did you do it?" He seemed genuinely curious.

As Sachs and Cooper logged and bagged the new evidence, Rhyme, with no small ego himself, was pleased to indulge him. "When our FBI agent told me that it was somebody else, not Galt, that jarred me out of my rut. You know the risk of making assumptions… I'd been assuming all along that Galt was the perp. But once that idea got turned upside down, I started thinking about the whole"-Rhyme smiled at the fortuitous word that popped into his mind-"the whole arc of the crimes. Take the trap at the school: What was the point of trying to hurt only two or three officers? And with a noisy generator? It occurred to me that that'd be a good way to get some planted evidence inside the lab-and big enough to hide a microphone.

"I took the chance that the generator was bugged and that you were listening. So I started rambling about new theories involving Andi Jessen and her brother, which is where the evidence was obviously leading us. But at the same time I was typing out instructions for everybody in the lab. They were all reading over my shoulder. I had Mel-my associate-scan the generator for a bug… and there it was. Well, if you wanted the generator to be found, that meant that any evidence in it was planted. So whoever it pointed to was not involved in the crimes: Andi Jessen and her brother were innocent."

Logan was frowning. "But you never suspected her?"

"I did, yes. We thought Andi'd lied to us. You heard that on the microphone?"

"Yes, though I wasn't sure what you meant."

"She told Sachs that she got her skills from her father. As if she was hiding the fact that she'd been a lineman and could rig arc flashes. But if you think about what she said, she wasn't denying that she'd worked in the field but that she was simply saying her talent was mostly on the business side of the operation… Well, if it wasn't Andi or her brother, then who? I kept going back over the evidence." A glance at the charts. "There were some items unaccounted for. The one that stuck in my mind was the spring."

"Spring? Yes, you mentioned that."

"We found a tiny hairspring at one of the scenes. Nearly invisible. We thought it could have been from a timer in some switchgear. But I decided if it could come from a timer, it could also be used in watchmaking. That put me in mind of you, of course."

"A hairspring?" Logan's face fell. "I always use a roller on my clothes"-he nodded to a rack of pet-hair rollers near an examination table-"to make sure I pick up any trace before I go out on a job. That must've fallen into my cuff. And you want to know something funny, Lincoln? It probably got there because I was putting away a lot of my old supplies and tools. What I told you before… I'd become fascinated with the idea of electronic timekeeping. That's what I was going to try next. I wanted to make the most perfect clock in the world. Even better than the government's atomic clock. But an electronic one."

Rhyme continued, "And then all the other pieces fell into place. My conclusion about the letters-that they were written by Galt under threat-worked if you were the one dictating them. The alternative jet fuel? It was being tested mostly in military jets-but that means it was also being tested in some private and commercial flights. I decided it wouldn't make sense for anybody to plan an attack at an airport or a military base; the security around the electrical systems would be too high. So where did that trace come from? The only aviation scenario that had come up recently didn't involve this case at all; it involved you-in Mexico. And we found a green fiber at one of the scenes… it was the exact shade of Mexican police uniforms. And it had aviation fuel in it."

"I left a fiber?" Angry with himself now. Furious.

"I supposed you picked it up from meeting with Arturo Diaz at the airport before you flew back to Philadelphia to kidnap Randall Jessen and drive to New York."

Logan could only sigh, confirming Rhyme's theory.

"Well, that was my theory, that you were involved. But it was purely speculation-until I realized I had the answer right in front of me. The definitive answer."

"What do you mean?"

"The DNA. We had the analysis of the blood we found on the access door near the first substation attack. But I never ran it through CODIS-the DNA database. Why should we? We knew Galt's identity."

This was the final check. Not long ago Rhyme had typed instructions to Cooper-he couldn't tell him orally because of the bug in the generator-to have the DNA lab send a copy of the sample to CODIS. "We had a sample of your DNA from your assignment in New York a few years ago. I was reading the confirmation that they were the same when you showed up. I scrambled to switch screens pretty quickly."

Logan's face tightened with anger at himself. "Yes, yes… In the substation, at the access door, I cut my finger on a burr of metal. I wiped the blood off as best I could but I was worried that you'd find it. It's why I rigged the battery to blow and burn off the DNA."

"Locard's principle," Rhyme said, citing the early-twentieth-century criminologist. He quoted, " 'In every crime there is an exchange'-"

Logan finished, "-'between criminal and victim or criminal and the site of the crime. It may be very difficult to find, but the connection exists. And it is the obligation of every crime scene professional to find that one common bit of evidence that will lead to the perpetrator's identity, if not his doorstep.' "

Rhyme couldn't help but laugh. That particular quotation was his own, a paraphrase of Locard's. It had appeared in an article about forensics he'd written only two or three months ago. Richard Logan had apparently been doing his homework too.

Or was it more than research?

That's why I took the job… I needed to get close to you…

Logan said, "You're not only a good criminalist, you're a good actor. You had me fooled."

"You've done some of that yourself now, haven't you?"

The men's eyes met and their gaze held steady. Then Sellitto's phone rang and he answered, had a brief conversation and hung up. "Transport's here."

Three officers arrived in the doorway, two uniforms and a brown-haired detective in blue jeans, blue shirt and tan sports coat. He had an easy-going smile, which was tempered by the fact he wore two very large automatic pistols, one on each hip.

"Hey, Roland," Amelia Sachs said, smiling.

Rhyme offered, "Haven't seen you for a while."

"Howdy. Well, you got yourself some catch here." Roland Bell was a transplant from a sheriff's office in North Carolina. He'd been a detective on the NYPD for some years but had yet to lose the Southern Mid-Atlantic twang. His specialty was protecting witnesses and making sure suspects didn't escape. There was nobody better at the job. Rhyme was pleased that he'd be the one shepherding the Watchmaker down to detention. "He'll be in good hands."

At a nod from Bell, the patrolmen helped Logan to his feet. Bell checked the shackles and cuffs and then searched the man himself. He nodded and they headed for the door. The Watchmaker turned back, saying coyly, "I'll see you again, Lincoln."

"I know you will. I'm looking forward to it."

The suspect's smile was replaced by a perplexed look.

Rhyme continued, "I'll be the expert forensic witness at your trial."

"Maybe there. Maybe someplace else." The man glanced at the Breguet. "Don't forget to keep it wound."