The Cold Moon (8 page)

Rhyme asked Cooper to find out where the poem itself had come from but he found nothing even close in dozens of poetry websites. The tech also called a professor of literature at New York University, a man who helped them on occasion. He'd never heard of it. And the poem was either too obscure to turn up in a search engine or more likely it was the Watchmaker's own creation.

Cooper said, "As for the note itself, it's generic paper from a computer printer. Hewlett-Packard LaserJet ink, nothing distinctive."

Rhyme shook his head, frustrated at the absence of leads. If the Watchmaker was in fact a cyclical killer he could be somewhere right now, checking out — or even murdering — his next victim.

A moment later Amelia Sachs arrived, pulled off her jacket. She was introduced to Dennis Baker, who told her he was glad she was on the case; her reputation preceded her, the wedding-ring-free cop added, smiling a bit of flirt her way. Sachs responded with a brisk, professional handshake. All in a day's work for a woman on the force.

Rhyme briefed her on what they'd learned from the evidence so far.

"Not much," she muttered. "He's good."

"What's the story on the suspect?" Baker asked.

Sachs nodded toward the door. "He'll be here in a minute. He took off when we tried to get him but I don't think he's our boy. I checked him out. Married, been a broker with the same firm for five years, no warrants. I don't even think he could carry it." She nodded at the iron span.

There was a knock on the door.

Behind her, two uniformed officers brought in an unhappy-looking man in handcuffs. Ari Cobb was in his midthirties, good-looking in a dime-a-dozen businessman way. The slightly built man was wearing a nice coat, probably cashmere, though it was stained with what looked like street sludge, presumably from his arrest.

"What's the story?" Sellitto asked him gruffly.

"As I told
her
" — a cool nod toward Sachs — "I was just walking to the subway on Cedar Street last night and I dropped some money. That's it right there." He nodded toward the bills and money clip. "This morning I realized what happened and came back to look for it. I saw the police there. I don't know, I just didn't want to get involved. I'm a broker. I have clients who're real sensitive about publicity. It could hurt my business." It was only then that the man seemed to realize that Rhyme was in a wheelchair. He blinked once, got over it, and resumed his indignant visage once more.

A search of his clothing found none of the fine-grained sand, blood or other trace to link him to the killings. Like Sachs, Rhyme doubted this was the Watchmaker, but given the gravity of the crimes he wasn't going to be careless. "Print him," Rhyme ordered.

Cooper did so and found that the friction ridges on the money clip were his. A check of DMV revealed that Cobb didn't own a car, and a call to his credit card companies showed that he hadn't rented one recently using his plastic.

"When did you drop the money?" Sellitto asked.

He explained that he'd left work about seven thirty the previous night. He'd had some drinks with friends, then left about nine and walked to the subway. He remembered pulling a subway pass out of his pocket when he was walking along Cedar, which was probably when he lost the clip. He continued on to the station and returned home, the Upper East Side, about 9:45. His wife was on a business trip so he went to a bar near his apartment for dinner by himself. He got home about eleven.

Sellitto made some calls to check out his story. The night guard at his office confirmed he'd left at seven thirty, a credit card receipt showed he was at a bar down on Water Street around nine, and the doorman in his building and a neighbor confirmed that he had returned to his apartment at the time that he said. It seemed impossible for him to have abducted two victims, killed one at the pier and then arranged the death of Theodore Adams in the alley, all between nine fifteen and eleven.

Sellitto said, "We're investigating a very serious crime here. It happened near where you were last night. Did you notice
anything
that could help us?"

"No, nothing at all. I swear I'd help if I could."

"The killer could be going to strike again, you know."

"I'm sorry about that," he said, not sounding very sorry at all. "But I panicked. That's not a crime."

Sellitto glanced at his guards. "Take him outside for a minute."

After he was gone, Baker muttered, "Waste of time."

Sachs shook her head. "He knows something. I've got a hunch."

Rhyme deferred to Sachs when it came to what he called — with some condescension — the "people" side of being a cop: witnesses, psychology and, God forbid, hunches.

"Okay," he said. "But what do we
do
with your hunch?"

It wasn't Sachs who responded, though, but Lon Sellitto. He said, "Got an idea." He opened his jacket, revealing an impossibly wrinkled shirt, and fished out his cell phone.

Chapter 6

Vincent Reynolds was walking down the chilly streets of SoHo, in the blue light of this deserted part of the neighborhood, east of Broadway, some blocks from the area's chic restaurants and boutiques. He was fifty feet behind his flower girl — Joanne, the woman who would soon be his.

His eyes were on her, and he felt a hunger, keen and electric, as intense as the one he'd felt the night he met Gerald Duncan for the first time, which had proved to be a very important moment for Vincent Reynolds.

After the Sally Anne incident — when Vincent got arrested because he lost control — he told himself that he'd have to be smarter. He'd wear a ski mask, he'd take the women from behind so they couldn't see him, he'd use a condom (which helped him slow down, anyway), he'd never hunt close to home, he'd vary the techniques and the neighborhoods of the attacks. He'd plan the rapes carefully and be prepared to walk away if there was a risk he'd get caught.

Well, that was his theory. But in the past year it'd been getting harder and harder to control the hunger. Impulse would take over and he'd see a woman by herself on the street and think, I
have
to have her. Now! I don't care if anybody sees me.

The hunger does that to you.

Two weeks earlier he'd been having a piece of chocolate cake and a Coke at a diner up the street from the office where he regularly temped. He glanced at the waitress, a new one. She had a round face and a slim figure, curls of golden hair. He noticed her tight blue blouse that was two buttons open and, in his soul, the hunger erupted.

She smiled at him as she brought his check and he decided he had to have her. Right away.

He heard her say to her boss she was going into the alley for a cigarette. Vincent paid and stepped outside. He walked to the alley and then glanced into it. There she was, in her coat, leaning against the wall, looking away from him. It was late — he preferred the 3 to 11
P.M.
shift — and though there were some passersby on the sidewalk, the alley was completely empty. The air was cold, the cobblestones would be colder, but he didn't care; her body would keep him warm.

It was then that he heard a voice whisper in his ear, "Wait five minutes."

Vincent jumped and swiveled around to look at a man with a round face and lean body, in his fifties, with a calm way about him. He was gazing past Vincent into the alley.

"What?"

"Wait."

"Who're you?" Vincent wasn't afraid, exactly — he was two inches taller, fifty pounds heavier — but the odd look in the man's shockingly blue eyes spooked him.

"That doesn't matter. Pretend we're just friends, talking."

"Fuck that." Heart pounding, hands shaking, Vincent started to walk away.

"Wait," the man said softly once more. His voice was almost hypnotic.

The rapist waited.

A minute later he saw a door open in a building across the alley from the back of the restaurant. The waitress walked to the doorway and spoke to two men. One was in a suit, the other was in a police uniform.

"Jesus," Vincent whispered.

"It's a sting," the man said. "She's a cop. The owner's running numbers out of the restaurant, I think. They're setting him up."

Vincent recovered fast. "So? That doesn't matter to me."

"If you'd done what you had in mind you'd be in cuffs now. Or shot dead."

"Had in mind?" Vincent asked, trying to sound innocent. "I don't know what you're talking about."

The stranger only smiled, motioning Vincent up the street. "Do you live here?"

A pause then Vincent answered, "New Jersey."

"You work in the city?"

"Yeah."

"You know Manhattan well?"

"Pretty good."

The man nodded, looking Vincent up and down. He identified himself as Gerald Duncan and suggested they go someplace warm to talk. They walked three blocks to a diner and Duncan had coffee and Vincent had another piece of cake and a soda.

They talked about the weather, the city budget, downtown Manhattan at midnight.

Then Duncan said, "Just a thought, Vincent. If you're interested in a little work I could use somebody who isn't overly concerned with the law. And it might let you practice your... hobby." He nodded back in the direction of the alley.

"Collecting sitcoms from the seventies?" asked Clever Vincent.

Duncan smiled again and Vincent decided he liked the man.

"What do you want me to do?"

"I've only been to New York a few times. I need a man who knows the streets, the subways, traffic patterns, neighborhoods... who knows something about the way police work. The details, I'll save for later."

Hmm.

"What line are you in?" Vincent had asked.

"Businessman. We'll let it go at that."

Hmm.

Vincent told himself to leave. But he felt the lure of the man's comment — about practicing his hobby. Anything that might help him feed the hunger was worth considering, even if it was risky. They continued to talk for a half hour, sharing some information, withholding some. Duncan explained that
his
hobby was collecting antique watches, which he repaired himself. He'd even built a few from scratch.

As he'd finished his fourth dessert of the day Vincent asked, "How did you know she was a cop?"

Duncan seemed to debate for a moment. Then he said. "I've been checking out somebody at the diner. The man at the end of the counter. Remember him? He was in the dark suit."

Vincent nodded.

"I've been following him for the past month. I'm going to kill him."

Vincent smiled. "You're kidding."

"I don't really kid."

And Vincent had learned that was true. There was no Clever Gerald. Or Hungry Gerald. There was just one: Calm and Meticulous Gerald, who expressed his intention that night to kill the man in the diner — Walter somebody — in the same matter-of-fact way that he'd made good on that promise by cutting the son of a bitch's wrists and watching him struggle until he fell from a pier into the freezing brown water of the Hudson River.

The Watchmaker had gone on to tell Vincent that he was in town to kill other people too. Among them were some women. As long as Vincent was careful and didn't spend more than twenty or thirty minutes, he could have their bodies after they were dead — to do what he wished. In exchange, Vincent would help him — as a guide to the city and its roads and transportation system, and to stand guard and sometimes drive the getaway car.

"So. You interested?"

"I guess," Vincent said, though his private response was a lot more enthusiastic than that.

And Vincent was now hard at work on this job, following the third victim: Joanne Harper, their flower girl, Clever Vincent had dubbed her. He watched her take out a key and disappear through the service door to her workshop. He eased to a stop, ate a candy bar and leaned against a lamp pole, looking through the shop's grimy window.

His hand touched the bulge at his waistband, where the Buck knife rested. Staring at the vague form of Joanne, turning on lights, taking her coat off, moving around the workshop. She was alone.

Gripping the knife.

He wondered if she had freckles, he wondered what her perfume smelled like. He wondered if she whimpered when she was in pain. Did she —

But, no, he shouldn't think like this! He was here only to get information. He couldn't break the rules, couldn't disappoint Gerald Duncan. Vincent inhaled the painfully cold air. He should wait.

But then Joanne walked near the window. He got a good look at her. Oh, she's pretty...

Vincent's palms began to sweat. Of course, he could simply take her now and leave her tied up for Duncan to kill later. That would be something that a friend would understand. They'd both get what they wanted.

After all, sometimes you just
can't
wait.

The hunger does that to you...

Next time, pack warm. What
were
you thinking?

Riding in a pungent cab, thirty-something Kathryn Dance held her hands out in front of a backseat heater exhaling air that wasn't hot, wasn't even warm; at best, she decided, it was uncold. She rubbed together her fingers, tipped in dark red nails, and then gave her black-stockinged knees a chance at the air.