The Cold Moon (24 page)

There... there...

Almost have it.

No, not quite.

Hell.

Don't think, don't force.
Let
it in.

His mind sped through memories whole and memories fragmented, the way his feet would pound over fragrant grass and hot earth, through rustling reeds and cornfields, under massive thunderheads boiling up miles high and white in the blue sky.

A thousand images from homicides, and kidnappings and larcenies, crime scene photos, department memos and reports, evidence inventories, the art captured in microscope eyepieces, the mountain peaks and valleys on the screen of a gas chromatograph. Like so many whirlygigs and puff balls and grasshoppers and katydids and robin feathers.

Okay, close... close...

Then his eyes opened.

"Luponte," he whispered.

Satisfaction filled the body that could feel no sensation.

Rhyme wasn't sure but he believed there was something significant about the name Luponte.

"I need a file." Rhyme glanced at Sellitto, who was now sitting at a computer monitor, examining the screen. "A file!"

The big detective looked over at him. "Are you talking to me?"

"Yes, I'm talking to you."

Sellitto chuckled. "A file? Do I have it?"

"No. I need you to find it."

"About what? A case?"

"I think so. I don't know when. All I know is the name Luponte figures." He spelled it. "Was a while ago."

"The perp?"

"Maybe. Or maybe a witness, maybe an arresting or a supervisor. Or even brass. I don't know."

Luponte...

Sellitto said, "You're looking like the cat that got the cream."

Rhyme frowned. "Is that an expression?"

"I don't know. I just like the sound of it. Okay, the Luponte file. I'll make some calls. Is it important?"

"With a psychotic killer out there, Lon, do you think I'm going to have you waste time finding me something that's
not
important?"

A fax arrived.

"Our ASTER thermal images?" Rhyme asked eagerly.

"No. It's for Amelia," Cooper said. "Where is she?"

"Upstairs."

Rhyme was about to call her but just then she walked into the lab. Her face was dry and no longer red, her eyes clear. She rarely wore makeup but he wondered if she'd made an exception to hide the fact she'd been crying.

"For you," Cooper told her, looking over the fax. "Secondary analysis of the ash from what's-his-name's place."

"Creeley."

The tech said, "The lab finally imaged the logo that was on the spreadsheet. It's from software that's used in corporate accounting. Nothing unusual. It's sold to thousands of CPAs around the country."

She shrugged, taking the sheet and reading. "And Queens had a forensic accountant look over the recovered entries. It's just standard payroll and compensation figures for executives in some company. Nothing unusual about it." She shook her head. "Doesn't seem important. I'm guessing whoever broke in just burned whatever they could find to make sure they destroyed everything connecting them to Creeley."

Rhyme looked at her troubled eyes. He said, "It's also common practice to burn materials that have nothing to do with the case just to lead investigators off."

Sachs nodded. "Yeah, sure. Good point, Rhyme. Thanks."

Her phone rang.

The policewoman listened, frowning. "Where?" she asked. "Okay." She jotted some notes. "I'll be right there." She said to Pulaski, "May have a lead to the Sarkowski file. I'll check it out."

Uneasily he asked, "You want me to go with you?"

Calmer now, she smiled, though Rhyme could see it was forced. "No, you stay here, Ron. Thanks."

She grabbed her jacket and, without saying anything else, hurried out.

As the front door clicked shut behind her, Sellitto's phone rang. He tensed as he listened. Then he looked up, announced, "Get this. There was a hit on the EVL. Tan Explorer, two white males inside. Evading an RMP. They're in pursuit." He listened some more. "Got it." He hung up. "They followed it to that big garage on the river at Houston by the West Side Highway. Exits're sealed. This could be it."

Rhyme ordered his radio to pick up the scrambled transmissions, and everyone in the lab stared at the small black plastic speakers. Two patrol officers reported that the Explorer had been spotted on the second floor but was abandoned. There was no sign of the men who'd been inside.

"I know the garage," Sellitto said. "It's a sieve. They could've gotten out anywhere."

Bo Haumann and a lieutenant reported that they had squads combing the streets around the garage, but there was no sign yet of the Watchmaker or his partner.

Sellitto shook his head in frustration. "At least we've got their wheels. It'll tell us plenty. We should get Amelia back to run the scene."

Rhyme debated. He'd been anticipating that the conflict between the two cases might come to a head, though he'd never thought it would happen this fast.

Sure, they should get her back.

But the criminalist decided not to. He knew her perhaps even better than he knew himself and he understood that she needed to run with the St. James case.

There's nothing worse than a crooked cop...

He'd do this for her.

"No. Let her go."

"But, Linc —"

"We'll find somebody else."

The tense silence, which seemed to go on forever, was broken with: "I'll do it, sir."

Rhyme glanced to his right.

"You, Ron?"

"Yessir. I can handle it."

"I don't think so."

The rookie looked him in the eye and recited, "'It's important to note that the location where the victim's corpse is actually found is often the least important of the many crime scenes created when a homicide occurs — since it is there that conscientious perpetrators will cleanse the scene of trace and plant false evidence to lead off investigators. The more important — '"

"That's —"

"Your textbook, sir. I've read it. A couple of times, actually."

"You memorized it?"

"Just the important parts."

"What's
not
important?"

"I meant I memorized the specific rules."

Rhyme debated. He was young, inexperienced. But he at least knew the players and he had a sharp eye. "All right, Ron. But you don't take a single step into the scene unless we're online with each other."

"That's fine, sir."

"Oh, it's
fine
?" Rhyme asked wryly. "Thanks for your approval, rookie. Now, get going."

They were out of breath from the run.

Duncan and Vincent, both carrying large canvas bags containing the contents of the Band-Aid-mobile, slowed to a walk at a park near the Hudson River. They were two blocks from the garage where they'd abandoned the SUV in their flight from the cops.

So wearing the gloves — which Vincent had first thought of as way too paranoid — had paid off after all.

Vincent looked back. "They're not following. They didn't see us."

Duncan leaned against a sapling, hawked and spit into the grass. Vincent pressed his chest, which ached from the run. Steam flowed from their mouths and noses. The killer still wasn't angry but was even more curious than before. "The Explorer too. They knew about the car. I don't understand it. How did they know? And who's after us?... That red-haired policewoman I saw on Cedar Street — maybe it's she."

She...

Then Duncan looked down at his side and frowned. The canvas bag was open. "Oh, no," he whispered.

"What?"

The killer dropped to his knees and began to rummage through it.

"Some things're missing. The book and ammunition are still in the car."

"Nothing with our names on it. Or fingerprints, right?"

"No. They won't identify us." He glanced at Vincent. "All your food wrappers and the cans? You wore gloves, right?"

Vincent lived in terror of disappointing his friend and was always careful. He nodded.

Duncan looked back at the garage. "But still... every bit of evidence they get is like finding another gear from a watch. With enough of them, if you're smart, you can understand how it works. You can even figure out who made it." He pulled his jacket off, handed it to Vincent. He wore a gray sweatshirt underneath. He took a baseball cap out of the bag and pulled it on.

"Meet me back at the church. Go straight there. Don't stop for anything."

Vincent whispered, "What're you going to do?"

"The garage's dark and it's big. They won't have enough cops to cover it all. And that side door we used, it's almost impossible to see from outside. They might not have anybody stationed there... If we're lucky they might not've found the Explorer yet. I'll get the things we left."

He took out the box cutter and slipped it into his sock. Then he reached into his pocket, pulled out his small pistol and checked to make sure it was loaded. He replaced it.

Vincent asked, "But what if they have? Found it, I mean."

In his calm voice Duncan answered, "Depending, I may try to get them anyway."

Chapter 17

Ron Pulaski didn't believe he'd ever felt pressure like this, standing in the freezing-cold garage, staring at the tan Explorer, brilliantly lit by spotlights.

He was alone. Lon Sellitto and Bo Haumann — two legends in the NYPD — were at the command post, downstairs from this level. Two crime scene techs had set up the lights, thrust suitcases into his hands and left, wishing him good luck in what seemed like a pretty ominous tone of voice.

He was dressed in a Tyvek suit, without a jacket, and he was shivering.

Come on, Jenny, he said silently to his wife, as he often did in moments of stress, think good thoughts for me. He added, though speaking only to himself, Let me not fuck this up, which is what he'd share with his brother.

Headsets sat on his ears and he was told he was being patched into a secure frequency directly to Lincoln Rhyme, though so far he'd heard nothing but static.

Then abruptly: "So what've you got?" Lincoln Rhyme's voice snapped through the headsets.

Pulaski jumped. He turned the volume down. "Well, sir, there's the SUV in front of me. Approximately twenty feet away. It's parked in a pretty deserted part of the —"

"
Pretty
deserted. That's like being fairly unique or kind of pregnant. Are there cars nearby or not?"

"Yes."

"How many?"

"Six, sir. They range from ten to twenty feet away from the subject vehicle."

"Don't need the 'sir.' Save your breath for the important things."

"Right."

"Are the cars empty? Anybody hiding in them?"

"ESU cleared them."

"Are the hoods hot?"

"Uhm, I don't know. I'll check." Should've thought of that.

He touched them all — with the back of his hand, in case fingerprints might become an issue. "No. They're all cold. Been here for a while."

"Okay, so no witnesses. Any sign of recent tread marks heading toward the exit?"

"Nothing looks fresh, no. Other than the Explorer's."

Rhyme said, "So they probably didn't have backup wheels. Which means they took off on foot. That's better for us... Now, Ron, take in the totality of the scene."

"Chapter Three."

"I wrote the fucking book. I don't need to hear it again."

"Okay, the totality — the car's parked carelessly, across two lines."

"They bailed out fast, of course," Rhyme said. "They knew they were being followed. Any obvious footprints?"

"No. The floor's dry."

"Where's the closest door?"

"A stairwell exit, twenty-five feet away."

"Which's been cleared by ESU?"

"That's right."

"What else about the totality?"

Pulaski stared, looking around him, three-sixty. It's a garage. That's all it is... He squinted, willing himself to see something helpful. But there was nothing. Reluctantly he said, "I don't know."

"We never
know
in this business," Rhyme said in an even voice, momentarily a gentle professor. "It's all about the odds. What
strikes
you? Impressions. Just throw some out."

Pulaski could think of nothing for a moment. But then something occurred to him. "Why'd they park here?"

"What?"

"You asked what struck me. Well, it's weird they parked here, this far from the exit. Why not drive right to it? And why not try to hide the Explorer better?"

"Good point, Ron. I should've asked the question myself. What do you think? Why would they park there?"

"Maybe he panicked."

"Could be. Good for us — nothing like fear to make somebody careless. We'll think about it. Okay, now walk the grid to and from the exit and then around the car. Look underneath and on the roof. You know the grid?"

"Yes." Swallowing the "sir."

For the next twenty minutes Pulaski walked back and forth, examining the garage floor and ceiling around the car. He didn't miss a millimeter. He smelled the air — and drew no conclusion from the exhaust/oil/disinfectant aroma of the garage. Troubled again, he told Rhyme that he hadn't found anything. The criminalist gave no reaction and told Pulaski to search the Explorer itself.