"Yes?"
"I was thinking. Locard was talking about 'material' or 'dust'?" A glance toward Juliette in the front row, center. An attractive woman, long hair, straight and the color of polished mahogany.
"Correct."
"Couldn't there also be a psychological transference?"
"How do you mean?"
"Say the perp threatens to torture the victim before he kills him. The victim has a look of terror on his face. We can infer that the perp was a sadist. Add that to the psychological profile. Maybe narrow down the field of suspects."
Proper use of infer, Rhyme noted. Often confused with the transitive imply. He said, "A question. Did you enjoy that series of books? Harry Potter? Movies too, right?" As a rule, cultural phenomena didn't interest him much--not unless they might help solve a crime, which happened, more or less, never. But Potter was, after all, Potter.
The young man squinted his dark eyes. "Yeah, sure."
"You do know that it was fiction, right? That Hogworths doesn't exist?"
"Hogwarts. And I'm pretty aware of that, yes."
"And you concur that casting spells--like voodoo, ghosts, telekinesis and your theory of the transfer of psychological elements at crime scenes--"
"Are hogwash, you're saying?"
Drawing laughs.
Rhyme's brows veed, though not at the interruption; he liked insolence (and in fact the pun was rather clever). It was a substantive complaint. "Not at all. I was going to say that all of those theories have yet to be empirically proven. You present me with objective studies repeatedly duplicating incidents of your purported psychological transference, including a valid sampling size and controls, and I'll consider the question. I myself wouldn't use it. Focusing on more subjective aspects of an investigation distracts from the important task at hand. Which is?"
"The evidence." Juliette Archer again.
"Crime scenes change like a dandelion under a sudden breath. Those three ligands started out as a million only a minute earlier. A drop of rain can wash away a speck of the killer's DNA, which happens to be in the CODIS database, identifying him by address, phone number, social and shirt size." A look over the room. "Shirt size was a joke." People tended to believe everything that Lincoln Rhyme said.
The hipster cop nodded, unconvinced. Rhyme was impressed. He wondered if the student would in fact look into the subject. There might actually be something to it.
"We'll speak more about Monsieur Locard's dust--that is, trace evidence--in a few weeks. Today our subject will be making sure that we have dust to analyze. Preserving the crime scene. You will never have a virgin crime scene. That does not exist. Your job will be to make sure your scenes are the least contaminated they can be. Now, what is the number one contaminant?" Without waiting for a response he said, "Yes, fellow cops, often the brass. How we control that...and still keep our jobs?"
The laughter died down and Rhyme began his lecture.
An hour later he noted the time and dismissed the class. He wheeled to the ramp that led off the low stage (the school was totally compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, and then some).
All the students filed out, except one.
Juliette Archer, whom he estimated to be in her mid-thirties, about ten years younger than he, was still in the first row. Her eyes were quite remarkable, Rhyme had noted when he'd seen her for the first time, in class last week. There are no blue pigments in human iris or aqueous humor; that shade comes from the amount of melanin in the iris pigment epithelium, combined with the Rayleigh scattering effect. Archer's were rich cerulean.
He wheeled up to her. "Locard. You did some supplemental reading. My book. That was the language you paraphrased." He hadn't assigned his own textbook to the class.
"Needed some reading material to go with my wine and dinner the other day."
"Ah."
She said, "Well?"
Nothing more by way of explanation was necessary.
Her eyes remained steadily on his. "I'm just not sure it would be that good an idea."
"Not a good idea?"
"Not helpful, I mean. For you."
"I disagree."
She certainly didn't hem or haw. Archer let the silence unspool. It was the way Rhyme himself won arguments. She then smiled a lipstick-free smile. "You checked me out, didn't you?"
"I did."
"You thought I was a spy? Working my way into your good graces, steel case secrets or something?"
Had occurred to him.
A shrug, a gesture he was capable of. "I did a bit of homework." Rhyme had in fact learned a number of things about Juliette Archer. She was a former medical researcher. She lived on the Upper East Side. She had a bachelor's degree from NYU, where she'd favored science classes. And she'd earned credits toward a masters in organic chemistry, no less. Not an easy subject, as he well knew. Her son, by a former marriage, was a star soccer player. She herself had gotten some favorable notices for her modern dance performances in Manhattan and Westchester. She'd lived in Bedford, New York, before the divorce. There'd been a few other things, as well.
None of them relevant to deciding how to respond to her request.
No, those factors were her intelligence.
And her brash pigheadedness.
She continued to gaze into his eyes. An eyebrow rose.
On impulse--exceedingly rare for him--he said, "All right."
"Thank you. I can start today?"
"Tomorrow."
Archer seemed amused. As if she might easily have negotiated an earlier time and won but was simply choosing not to do so.
"I'll be there."
"You need the address?"
"I have it," Archer replied.
In lieu of shaking hands they both nodded, sealing the agreement. Archer smiled and then her right index finger moved to the touchpad of her own wheelchair, a silver Storm Arrow, the same model that Rhyme had had until a few years ago. She turned the unit and eased up the aisle and out the doorway.
About the Author
A former journalist, folksinger and attorney, Jeffery Deaver is an international number-one bestselling author. His novels have appeared on bestseller lists around the world, including the New York Times, The Times of London, Italy's Corriere della Sera, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Los Angeles Times. His books are sold in 150 countries and translated into twenty-five languages.
The author of thirty-seven novels, three collections of short stories and a nonfiction law book, and a lyricist of a country-western album, he's received or been shortlisted for dozens of awards. His The Bodies Left Behind was named Novel of the Year by the International Thriller Writers association, and his Lincoln Rhyme thriller The Broken Window and a stand-alone, Edge, were also nominated for that prize. He has been awarded the Steel Dagger and the Short Story Dagger from the British Crime Writers' Association and the Nero Award, and he is a three-time recipient of the Ellery Queen Readers Award for Best Short Story of the Year and a winner of the British Thumping Good Read Award. The Cold Moon was recently named the Book of the Year by the Mystery Writers of Japan, as well as by Kono Mystery ga Sugoi magazine. In addition, the Japanese Adventure Fiction Association awarded The Cold Moon and Carte Blanche their annual Grand Prix award. His book The Kill Room was awarded the Political Thriller of the Year by Killer Nashville. And his collection of short stories, Trouble in Mind, was nominated for best anthology by that organization, as well.
Deaver has been honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Bouchercon World Mystery Convention and by the Raymond Chandler Lifetime Achievement Award in Italy.
He contributed to the anthology Books to Die For, which won the Agatha Award and the Anthony.
His most recent novels are Solitude Creek, a Kathryn Dance novel; The October List, a thriller told in reverse; The Skin Collector and The Kill Room, Lincoln Rhyme novels. For his Dance novel XO Deaver wrote an album of country-western songs, available on iTunes and as a CD; and before that, Carte Blanche
, a James Bond continuation novel, a number-one international bestseller.
Deaver has been nominated for seven Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America, an Anthony, a Shamus and a Gumshoe. He was recently shortlisted for the ITV3 Crime Thriller Award for Best International Author. Roadside Crosses was on the shortlist for the Prix Polar International 2013.
His book A Maiden's Grave was made into an HBO movie starring James Garner and Marlee Matlin, and his novel The Bone Collector was a feature release from Universal Pictures, starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie. Lifetime aired an adaptation of his The Devil's Teardrop. And, yes, the rumors are true; he did appear as a corrupt reporter on his favorite soap opera, As the World Turns. He was born outside Chicago and has a bachelor of journalism degree from the University of Missouri and a law degree from Fordham University.
Readers can visit his website at www.jefferydeaver.com.
Also by Jeffery Deaver
Solitude Creek**
The Skin Collector*
The Starling Project, an original radio play Trouble in Mind, Collected Stories, Volume Three Ice Cold, Stories of the Cold War (Editor) Books to Die For (Contributor) The October List, a Thriller in Reverse The Kill Room*
XO**/*
XO: The Album (Music CD of original songs) Carte Blanche, a James Bond Novel Edge
The Burning Wire*
Best American Mystery Stories 2009 (Editor) The Watch List (The Copper Bracelet and The Chopin Manuscript) (Contributor) Roadside Crosses**
The Bodies Left Behind The Broken Window*
The Sleeping Doll**
More Twisted: Collected Stories, Volume Two The Cold Moon*/**
The Twelfth Card*
Garden of Beasts
Twisted: Collected Stories The Vanished Man*
The Stone Monkey*
The Blue Nowhere
The Empty Chair*
Speaking in Tongues
The Devil's Teardrop
The Coffin Dancer*
The Bone Collector*
A Maiden's Grave
Praying for Sleep
The Lesson of Her Death Mistress of Justice
Hard News
Death of a Blue Movie Star Manhattan Is My Beat
Hell's Kitchen
Bloody River Blues
Shallow Graves
A Century of Great Suspense Stories (Editor) A Hot and Sultry Night for Crime (Editor) Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (Introduction)
*Featuring Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs **Featuring Kathryn Dance
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
I
II
A Preview of The Steel Kiss
About the Author
Also by Jeffery Deaver
Newsletters
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright (c) 2016 Gunner Publications, LLC.
Excerpt from The Steel Kiss copyright (c) 2016 Gunner Publications, LLC.
Cover design by Elizabeth Connor.
Cover photo by Ivica Markota EyeEm Getty Images.
Cover copyright (c) 2016 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author's intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at
[email protected] Thank you for your support of the author's rights.
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First Edition: February 2016
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ISBN: 978-1-45556801-7 (ebook)
E3
Jeffery Deaver, The Deliveryman
(Series: Lincoln Rhyme # 11.50)
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