The Cold Moon

Public speaking was higher on the fear scale than skydiving. “And how big’s the event going to be?”
    “I don’t know. A hundred. Maybe two.”
    “Is your family going?”
    “Oh, yeah. Everybody. We’re going to have a reception here afterward.”
    “As my daughter says,” Dance offered, “parties rock. What’s on the menu?”
    “Forgeddabout it,” Lucy joked. “We’re in the Village. It’ll be Italian. Baked ziti, scampi, sausage. My mother and aunt’re cooking. I’m making dessert.”
    “My downfall,” Dance said. “Sweets . . . I’m getting hungry.” Then she said, “Sorry, I got distracted.” Leaving the notebook closed, she looked into the woman’s eyes. “Back to your visitor. You were saying, you made your tea. Running the bath. You feel a breeze. You go into the bedroom. The window’s open. What was I asking? Oh, was there anything else you saw that was out of the ordinary?”
    “Not really.” She said this quickly, as before, but then she squinted. “Wait. You know . . . there was one thing.”
    “Really?”
    Dance had done what’s known as “flooding.” She’d decided that it wasn’t only the Watchmaker that was bothering Lucy but rather her duty overseas, as well as the upcoming awards ceremony, for some reason. Dance had gone back to the topics and kept bombarding her with questions, in hopes of numbing her and letting the other memories break through.
    Lucy rose and walked to the bedroom. Saying nothing, Dance followed her. Amelia Sachs joined them.
    The soldier looked around the room.
    Careful, Dance told herself. Lucy was onto something. Dance kept silent. Too many interviewers ruin a session by pouncing. The rule with vague memories is that you can let them surface but you can rarely reel them in.
    Watching and listening are the two most important parts of the interview. Talking comes last.
    “There was something that bothered me, something other than the window being open. . . . Oh, you know what? I’ve got it. When I walked to the bedroom earlier, to see about the ticking, something was different—I couldn’t see the dresser.”
    “Why was that unusual?”
    “Because when I left to go to the health club I glanced at it to see if my sunglasses were there. They were and I picked them up. But then when I looked into the room later, when I heard the ticking, I couldn’t see the dresser—because the closet door was partly open.”
    Dance said, “So after the man left the clock he was probably hiding in the closet or behind the door.”
    “Makes sense,” Lucy said.
    Dance turned to Sachs, who nodded with a smile and said, “Good. I better get to work.” And she pulled open the closet door with her latex-gloved hand.

    A second time they’d failed.
    Duncan was driving even more carefully, meticulously, than he usually did.
    He was silent and completely calm. Which bothered Vincent even more. If Duncan slammed down his fist and screamed, like his stepfather, Vincent would have felt better. (“You did what ?” the man had raged, referring to the rape of Sally Anne. “You fat pervert!”) He was worried that Duncan had had enough and was going to give up the whole thing.
    Vincent didn’t want his friend to go away.
    Duncan merely drove slowly, stayed in his lane, didn’t speed, didn’t try to beat yellow lights.
    And didn’t say a word for a long time.
    Finally he explained to Vincent what had happened: As he’d started to climb to the roof—planning to get into the building, knock on Lucy’s door and get her to hang up the phone, he’d glanced down and seen a man in the alley, staring at him, pulling his cell phone from his pocket, shouting for Duncan to stop. The killer had hurried to the roof, run west several buildings then rapelled into the alley. He’d then sprinted to the Buick.
    Duncan was driving meticulously, yes, but without any obvious destination. At first Vincent wondered if this was to lose the police but there didn’t seem to be any risk of pursuit. Then he decided that Duncan was on automatic pilot, driving in large circles.
    Like the hands of a clock.
    Once again the shock of a narrow escape faded and Vincent felt the hunger growing again, hurting his jaw, hurting his head, hurting his groin.
    If we don’t eat, we die.
    He wanted to be back in Michigan, hanging out with his sister, having dinner with her, watching TV. But his sister wasn’t here, she was miles and miles away, maybe thinking of him right now—but