Jeffery Deaver - The Stone Monkey

"Go ahead," Rhyme said grimly. How it hurt to hear the pain in his voice. For years she'd heard so much flat emotion, so much lethargy, so much resignation. That had been tough but it didn't compare to the pain now in Rhyme's voice.

"He was shot three times in the chest but we've got four casings. One casing's from a Model 51, probably the one we saw before. The others are.45. He was killed with that one, it looks like. Then I found the Walther that Sonny was carrying. There was trace on his leg – yellow paper flecks and some kind of dried plant material. And there was a pile of the same material on the cobblestones."

"What's your scenario, Sachs?"

"I think Sonny spots the Ghost leaving a store, carrying something in a yellow bag. Sonny follows him. He collars him in the alley here and gets the Ghost's new gun, the.45. He assumes that's his only weapon. Sonny relaxes and tells the Ghost to get onto the ground. But the Ghost pulls out his backup – the Model 51 – and shoots through the bag, spattering the plant material and flecks of paper on Sonny. The bullet misses but the Ghost jumps him. There's a fight. The Ghost gets the.45 and kills Sonny."

"Because," Rhyme said, "the yellow paper and the plant material were on Sonny's legs – meaning the Ghost had the Model 51 in an ankle holster and fired low. The gunshot residue was high on his body – from the.45."

"That's what it looks like."

"And how do we use that scenario?"

"Wherever the Ghost bought that stuff that was in the bag, a clerk might know him and have an idea where he lives."

"You want to canvass all the stores near there to see who has yellow bags?"

"No, that'd take too long. It'd be better to find out what the plant material is first."

"Bring it in, Sachs. Mel'll run it through the chromatograph."

"No, I've got a better idea," she said. A glance at Sonny Li's body. She forced herself to look away. "It's probably Chinese herbs or spices. I'm going to stop by John Sung's apartment with a sample of it. He should be able to tell me right away what it is. He only lives a few blocks from here."

Wednesday, the Hour of the Rooster, 6:45 p.m.,

to Monday, the Hour of the Monkey, 3 p.m.

He stared out the window at the gray dusk, premature because of the lingering storm. His head drooped forward, heavy, heavy, immobile. This wasn't from damaged fibers of nerve but from sorrow. Rhyme was thinking of Sonny Li.

When he'd run the forensic unit he'd had the chance to hire dozens, probably hundreds of employees and to finagle – or bully – onto his staff men and women from other assignments because he knew they were damn good cops. He couldn't tell exactly what appealed to him about these people. Oh, sure, they had the textbook qualifications: persistence, intelligence, patience, stamina, keen powers of observation, empathy.

Yet there was another quality. Something that Rhyme, for all his rational self, couldn't define, though he recognized it immediately. There was no better way to say it than the desire – even the joy – of pursuing a prey at all costs. Whatever else Sonny Li's failings – his cigarettes at crime scenes, his reliance on omens and the woo-woo factor, he had this essential aspect. The lone cop had traveled literally to the ends of the earth to collar his suspect. Rhyme would've traded a hundred eager rookies and a hundred cynical veterans for one cop like Sonny Li: a small man who wanted nothing more than to offer to the citizens on his beat some retribution for the harms done to them, some justice, some comfort in the aftermath of evil. And for his reward Li was content to enjoy a good hunt, a challenge and, perhaps, just a little respect from those he cared about.

He glanced at the book he'd inscribed to Li.

To my friend …

"Okay, Mel," he said evenly. "Let's put this one together. What've we got?"

Mel Cooper was hunched over the plastic bags the patrolman had raced here from the crime scene in Chinatown. "Footprints."

"We sure it was the Ghost?" Rhyme asked.

"Yep," Cooper confirmed. "They're identical." Looking at the electrostatic prints that Sachs had taken.

Rhyme agreed they were the same.

"Now the slugs." He was examining the two bullets, one flattened, one intact, both bloody. "Check the lands and grooves."

This referred to the angular marks left in the soft lead bullet by the rifling in the barrel of the gun – the spiral grooves that spin the slug to make it go faster and more accurately. By examining the number of grooves and the degree of the twist, a ballistics expert can often determine the type of gun the shooter used.

Cooper, wearing latex gloves, measured the undamaged slug and the marks cut in the side from the rifling. "It's a forty-five ACP. Octagonal profile on the lands and grooves, right-hand twist. I'm guessing one complete twist every fifteen, sixteen inches. I'll look that up and -"

"Don't bother," Rhyme said shortly. "It's a Glock." The unsexy but dependable Austrian pistols were increasingly popular throughout the world, among criminals and police alike. "What's the wear on the barrel?"

"Sharp profile."

"So it's new. Probably the G36." He was surprised. This compact but extremely powerful handgun was expensive and wasn't widely available yet. In the United States you found it mostly among federal agents.

Useful, useful? he wondered.

Not yet. All it told them was the type of gun, not where the weapon or the ammunition had been purchased. Still, it was evidence and it belonged on the board.

"Thom… Thom!" Rhyme shouted. "We need you!"

The aide appeared immediately. "There're other things I need -"

"No," Rhyme said. "There aren't other things. Write."

The aide must have sensed Rhyme's despondency over the death of Sonny Li and said nothing in response to the sharp command. He picked up the marker and walked to the whiteboard.

Cooper then opened Li's clothes over a large sheet of clean, blank newsprint. He dusted the items of clothing with a brush and examined the trace that had fallen onto the paper. "Dirt, flecks of paint, the yellow paper particles that probably were from the bag and the dried plant material – spices or herbs – that Amelia mentioned," Cooper said.

"She's checking out the plant stuff right now. Just bag them and put them aside for the time being." Rhyme, who over the years had grown immune to the horror of crime scenes, nonetheless felt a pang as he looked at the dark blood on Li's clothing. The same clothing he'd worn in this very room not long ago.

Zaijian, Sonny. Goodbye.

"Fingernail scrapings," Cooper announced, examining the label on another plastic bag. He mounted the trace on a slide in the compound microscope.

"Project it, Mel," Rhyme said and turned to the computer screen. A moment later a clear image appeared on the large flat screen. What do we have here, Sonny? You fought with the Ghost, you grabbed him. Was there anything on his clothes or shoes that was transferred to you?

And if so, will it send us to his front door?

"Tobacco," the criminalist said, laughing sadly, thinking of the cop's addiction to cigarettes. "What else do we see? What are those minerals there? What do you think, Mel? Silicates?"

"Looks like it. Let's run some through the GC/MS."

The gas chromatograph / mass spectrometer would determine exactly what the substance was. Soon the results came back – magnesium and silicate.