The Cold Moon

Charlotte said she understood her rights and then started another lecture.

Dellray wagged a finger at her. "Gimme a minute, sweetheart." The lean man turned to Rhyme. "So how'd you figure this one out, Lincoln? We heard X,we heard Y,all 'bout some boys in blue taking money they shouldn'ta been doin' and then some bizarre fella leavin' clocks as callin' cards-then next thing we know the airports're closed and there's a priority-one security alert at HUD i

Rhyme detailed the frantic process of kinesic and forensic work that led them to figure out the Watchmaker's real plan. Kathryn Dance had suggested that he was lying about his mission in New York. So they'd looked into the evidence again. Some of it pointed to the possible theft of a rare artifact in the Metropolitan Museum.

But the more he thought about it, the less likely it seemed. Rhyme figured Duncan had made up the story about the undelivered package to the Met just to get them focused on the museum. Somebody as careful as the Watchmaker wouldn't leave the trail he did. He turned in Vincent, knowing the rapist would give up the church, where he'd left other museum brochures referring to the Mechanism. He mentioned it to Hallerstein and to Vincent as well. No, he was up to something else. But what? Kathryn Dance reviewed the interview tape again, several times, and decided that he might have been lying when he said he picked the supposed victims simply because their locations meant easy getaways.

"Which meant," Rhyme told Dellray, "that he picked them for some other purpose. So, did they have anything in common?"

Rhyme had remembered something Dance learned about the first crime scene. Ari Cobb had said that the SUV was originally parked in the back of the alley but then the Watchmaker returned to the front to leave the body. "Why? One reason was that he needed to put the victim in a particular place. What was it near? The back door to the Housing and Urban Development building."

Rhyme had then gotten the client list from the flooring company where he'd planted the fake fire extinguisher bomb and learned that they'd provided carpeting and tile for the HUD offices.

"I sent our rookie downtown to look around. He found a building across Cedar Street that was being renovated. The crews had tarred the roof a week ago, just before the cold spell. Flakes of tar matched those found on our perp's shoes. The roof was a perfect place to check out HUD."

This also explained why he'd poured sand on the ground at the crime scene and swept it up-to make absolutely certain they didn't find trace that'd help anyone identify him later when he came back to assemble and arm the bombs.

Rhyme also found that the other victims had a co

As for Joa

"A bomb, I guessed. We got the mayor involved and he called the press, had them hold off on the story that we were evacuating HUD so the perps wouldn't rabbit. But the device blew before the bomb squad could disarm it." Rhyme shook his head. "Just hateit when good evidence blows up. You know how hard it is to lift prints off pieces of metal that've been flying through the air at thirty thousand feet a second?"

"How'dja get Miss Congeniality here?" Dellray asked, nodding at Charlotte.

Rhyme said dismissively, "That was easy. She was careless. If Duncan was fake, then the woman helping him at the first scene in the alley had to be fake too. Our rookie got all the tag numbers of cars in the vicinity of the alley off Cedar. The car the supposed sister was driving was an Avis, rented to Charlotte Allerton. We checked all the hotels in the city until we found her."

Dellray shook his head. "An' what about yo' perp? Mr. Clockmaker?"

"It's 'Watchmaker,'" the criminalist grumbled. "And that's a different story." He explained that Charlotte's daughter, Pam, had heard that he had a place in Brooklyn but she didn't know where it was. "No other leads."

Dellray bent down. "Where in Brooklyn? Need to know. And now."

Charlotte replied defiantly, "You're pathetic! All of you! You're just lackeys for the bureaucracy in Washington. You're selling out the heart of our country and-"

Dellray leaned forward, right into her face. He clicked his tongue. "Uhuh. No politics, no phi losophy…All we want're answers to the questions. We all together on that?"

"Fuck you" was Charlotte's response.

Dellray blew air through his cheeks like a trumpet player. He moaned, "I am nomatch for this intellect."

Rhyme wished Kathryn Dance was here to interrogate the woman, though he guessed it would take a long time to pry information from her. He eased forward in the wheelchair and said in a whisper, so Pam couldn't hear, "If you help us out I can make sure you see your daughter from time to time when you're in prison. If you don't cooperate, I will guarantee that you never see her again as long as you live."

Charlotte glanced into the hallway, where Pam sat on a chair, defiantly clutching her Harry Potter. The dark-haired girl was pretty, with fragile features, but very slim. She wore faded jeans and a dark blue sweatshirt. The skin around her eyes was dark. She clicked her fingernails together compulsively. The girl seemed needy in a hundred different ways.

Charlotte turned back to Rhyme. "Then I'll never see her again," she said calmly.

Dellray blinked at this, his usually unrevealing face tightening in revulsion.

Rhyme himself could think of nothing more to say to the woman.

It was then that Ron Pulaski came ru

"What?" Rhyme asked.

It took a moment for him to be able to answer. Finally, he said, "The phones…The Watchmaker…"

"Out with it, Ron."

"Sorry…" A deep breath. "We couldn't trace his mobile but a hotel clerk saw her, Charlotte, making calls around midnight every night over the past four or five days. I called the phone company. I got the number she called. They traced it. It's to a pay phone in Brooklyn. At this intersection." He handed the slip of paper to Sellitto, who relayed it to Bo Hauma

"Good job," Sellitto said to Pulaski. He called the deputy inspector of the precinct where the phone was located. Officers would start a canvass of the neighborhood as soon as Mel Cooper emailed pictures of the composite to the DI.

Rhyme supposed that the Watchmaker might not live near the phone-it wouldn't have surprised the criminalist-but a mere thirty minutes later they had a positive identification from a patrol officer, who found several neighbors who recognized the man.

Sellitto took the number and alerted Bo Hauma

Sachs a

"Hold on," Rhyme said, glancing at her. "Why don't you sit this one out. Let Bo handle it."

"What?"

"They'll have a full tactical force."

Rhyme was thinking of the superstition that cops on short time were more likely to get killed or injured than others. Rhyme didn't believe in superstitions. That didn't matter. He didn't want her to go.

Amelia Sachs would be thinking the same thing, perhaps; she was debating, it seemed. Then he saw her looking into the hallway at Pam Willoughby. She turned back to the criminalist. Their eyes met. He gave a faint smile and nodded.

She grabbed her leather jacket and headed for the door.

In a quiet neighborhood in Brooklyn a dozen tactical officers moved slowly along the sidewalk, another six creeping through an alley behind a shabby detached house.