“Thanks.” Davis drank one down.

Dance’s phone hummed with an incoming email. Rather than read it on the small screen, she opened her computer and went online. She smiled at the header: Bird Shit.

The message was from Lincoln Rhyme and had to do with some additional analysis of the trace outside Edwin’s house.

Finally managed to isolate the other trace in the ammonium oxalate. They were phosphates and residue of animal matter. It’s bird shit. Exactly what kind it is, I can’t say. I didn’t bring my bird shit recognition kit with me. Nor have I been able to gin up support for a bird shit genome project. But I can say the excreting birds were most likely resident in a coastal region. Fish had been the mainstay of their diet. For what it’s worth. Here’s the whole list. Don’t understand why nobody drinks in this department.

He included the entire evidence chart and Dance read through it again, amused to note that when someone—Amelia Sachs, presumably—had added the recent discovery, she’d been a bit more delicate in her description.

• Wednesday. Edwin Sharp’s house

—outside:

—boot print probably cowboy-style, unable to determine size, male or female

—no vehicle tread marks

—unique trace materials

—triglyceride fat (lard)

—2700K color temperature (yellowish)

—melting point: 40–55 degrees F

—specific gravity: 0.91 at 40.0C

—Determined likely to be neatsfoot oil, treatment for leather sports equipment, tack and gunslings

—chemicals: limonite, goethite and calcite

—Determined likely to be gangue, ore collection and processing by-product

—fungus

—Determined likely to be used in place of chemical-based fertilizers

—mineral oil, with lime sulfur

—Determined likely to be organic pesticide

—calcium powder

—Determined likely to be human bone dust

—ammonium oxalate

—Determined likely to be bird excrement, probably from coastal area

She read through the list several times more.

And then:

A to B to Z …

Dance closed her eyes and let her mind wander where it would. Then she went to the website they’d looked at earlier, containing the threat to Davis. She scrolled through the posts.

Harutyun asked, “Anything helpful about where Edwin might be?”

“Maybe,” she answered absently, lost in thought.

Simesky sighed. “Doesn’t this guy know that if he killed the congressman, he’d get arrested and, in this state, probably end up on death row?”

Eyes still on her computer screen, Dance explained, “That doesn’t matter to him. Not at all.” A glance at Davis. “By killing you, he’s honoring her.”

The congressman laughed sourly. “So basically, I’m a sacrificial goat he’s offering up to his goddess.”

Which described the situation pretty well, Dance reflected and returned to the browser.

Chapter 57

PLAN YOUR ACTS and act your plan.

Peter Simesky’s analytical mind continued to measure the actual milestones of his plan against the projected ones, and he found it proceeding apace. In general, the events were in harmony with what he and Myra Babbage had been working on for the past ten months.

He now stood in a den behind the living room, reviewing text messages on one of his many anonymous and untraceable accounts. He peeked out into the living room where the irritatingly smart Kathryn Dance, Congressman Davis and Deputy Dennis Harutyun sat, looking at—though probably not really watching—an old TV. Some game was on. Davis wasn’t happy to be here but he didn’t look particularly scared.