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Authors: Jeffery Deaver
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Rhyme offered. “And what’re you up to, Parker?”
“Oh, getting into trouble. Nearly caused an international incident. The British Cultural Society in the District wanted me to authenticate a notebook of King Edward’s they’d purchased from a private collector. Note the tense of the verb, Lincoln.”
“They’d already paid for it.”
“Six hundred thousand.”
“Little pricey. They wanted it that badly?”
“Oh, it had some real nice juicy gossip about Churchill and Chamberlain. Well, not in that sense, of course.”
“Of course not.” As usual Rhyme tried to be patient with those from whom he was seeking gratuitous help.
“I looked it over and what could I do? I had to question it.”
The innocuous verb, from a respected document examiner like Kincaid, was synonymous with branding the diary a bad-ass forgery.
“Ah, they’ll get over it,” he continued. “Though, come to think of it, they haven’t paid my bill yet. . . . No, honey, we don’t make the frosting till the cake cools. . . . Because I said so.”
A single father, Kincaid was the former head of the FBI’s documents department at headquarters. He’d left the bureau to run his own document examination service so he could spend more time with his children, Robby and Stephanie.
“How’s Margaret?” Sachs called into the speaker.
“That you, Amelia?”
“Yup.”
“She’s fine. Haven’t seen her for a few days. We took the kids to Planet Play on Wednesday and I was just starting to beat her at laser tag when her pager goes off. She had to go kick in somebody’s door and arrest them. Panama or Ecuador or someplace like that. She doesn’t give me the details. So, what’s up?”
“We’re running a case and I need some help. Here’s the scenario: perp was seen writing his name in a security desk sign-in book. Okay?”
“Got it. And you need the handwriting analyzed?”
“The problem is we don’t have any handwriting.”
“It disappeared?”
“Yep.”
“And you’re sure the writer wasn’t faking?”
“Positive. There was a guard who saw ink going on paper, no question.”
“Anything visible now?”
“Nothing.”
Kincaid gave a grim laugh. “That’s smart. So there was no record of the perp entering the building. And then somebody else wrote their name over the blank space and ruined whatever impression there might’ve been of his signature.”
“Right.”
“Anything on the sheet below the top one?”
Rhyme glanced at Cooper, who shone a bright light at an acute angle on the second sheet in the log—this, rather than covering the page with pencil lead, was the preferred method to raise impression evidence. He shook his head.
“Nothing,” Rhyme told the document examiner. Then asked, “So how’d he pull that off?”
“He Ex-Laxed it,” Kincaid announced.
“How’s that?” Sellitto called.
“Used disappearing ink. We call it Ex-Laxing in the business. The old Ex-Lax contained phenolphthalein. Before it was banned by the FDA. You’d dissolve a pill in alcohol and make a blue ink. It had an alkaline pH. Then you’d write something. After a while, exposure to the air would make the blue disappear.”
“Sure,” said Rhyme, recalling his basic chemistry. “The carbon dioxide in the air turns the ink acidic and that neutralizes the color.”
“Exactly. You don’t see phenolphthalein muchanymore. But you can do the same thing with thymolphthalein indicator and sodium hydroxide.”
“Can you buy this stuff anyplace in particular?”
“Hm,” Kincaid considered. “Well. . . . Just a minute, honey. Daddy’s on the phone. . . . No, it’s okay. All cakes look lopsided when they’re in the oven. I’ll be there soon. . . . Lincoln? What I was going to say was that it’s a great idea in theory but when I was in the bureau there were never any perps or spies who actually used disappearing ink. It’s more of a novelty, you know. Entertainers’d use
“Oh, getting into trouble. Nearly caused an international incident. The British Cultural Society in the District wanted me to authenticate a notebook of King Edward’s they’d purchased from a private collector. Note the tense of the verb, Lincoln.”
“They’d already paid for it.”
“Six hundred thousand.”
“Little pricey. They wanted it that badly?”
“Oh, it had some real nice juicy gossip about Churchill and Chamberlain. Well, not in that sense, of course.”
“Of course not.” As usual Rhyme tried to be patient with those from whom he was seeking gratuitous help.
“I looked it over and what could I do? I had to question it.”
The innocuous verb, from a respected document examiner like Kincaid, was synonymous with branding the diary a bad-ass forgery.
“Ah, they’ll get over it,” he continued. “Though, come to think of it, they haven’t paid my bill yet. . . . No, honey, we don’t make the frosting till the cake cools. . . . Because I said so.”
A single father, Kincaid was the former head of the FBI’s documents department at headquarters. He’d left the bureau to run his own document examination service so he could spend more time with his children, Robby and Stephanie.
“How’s Margaret?” Sachs called into the speaker.
“That you, Amelia?”
“Yup.”
“She’s fine. Haven’t seen her for a few days. We took the kids to Planet Play on Wednesday and I was just starting to beat her at laser tag when her pager goes off. She had to go kick in somebody’s door and arrest them. Panama or Ecuador or someplace like that. She doesn’t give me the details. So, what’s up?”
“We’re running a case and I need some help. Here’s the scenario: perp was seen writing his name in a security desk sign-in book. Okay?”
“Got it. And you need the handwriting analyzed?”
“The problem is we don’t have any handwriting.”
“It disappeared?”
“Yep.”
“And you’re sure the writer wasn’t faking?”
“Positive. There was a guard who saw ink going on paper, no question.”
“Anything visible now?”
“Nothing.”
Kincaid gave a grim laugh. “That’s smart. So there was no record of the perp entering the building. And then somebody else wrote their name over the blank space and ruined whatever impression there might’ve been of his signature.”
“Right.”
“Anything on the sheet below the top one?”
Rhyme glanced at Cooper, who shone a bright light at an acute angle on the second sheet in the log—this, rather than covering the page with pencil lead, was the preferred method to raise impression evidence. He shook his head.
“Nothing,” Rhyme told the document examiner. Then asked, “So how’d he pull that off?”
“He Ex-Laxed it,” Kincaid announced.
“How’s that?” Sellitto called.
“Used disappearing ink. We call it Ex-Laxing in the business. The old Ex-Lax contained phenolphthalein. Before it was banned by the FDA. You’d dissolve a pill in alcohol and make a blue ink. It had an alkaline pH. Then you’d write something. After a while, exposure to the air would make the blue disappear.”
“Sure,” said Rhyme, recalling his basic chemistry. “The carbon dioxide in the air turns the ink acidic and that neutralizes the color.”
“Exactly. You don’t see phenolphthalein muchanymore. But you can do the same thing with thymolphthalein indicator and sodium hydroxide.”
“Can you buy this stuff anyplace in particular?”
“Hm,” Kincaid considered. “Well. . . . Just a minute, honey. Daddy’s on the phone. . . . No, it’s okay. All cakes look lopsided when they’re in the oven. I’ll be there soon. . . . Lincoln? What I was going to say was that it’s a great idea in theory but when I was in the bureau there were never any perps or spies who actually used disappearing ink. It’s more of a novelty, you know. Entertainers’d use
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