The Cold Moon

to slow it. . . . With anybody else it would’ve been just boring. But the way he talked about it, well, you kind of got caught up in what he was saying.”
    Cooper looked up from his computer screen. “We’ve got a couple of replies from the watchmaker associations. No record of a Gerald Duncan . . . Wait, here’s Interpol . . . Nothing there either. And I can’t find anything in VICAP.”
    Sellitto’s phone rang. He took the call and spoke for a few minutes. He eyed the rapist coolly as he talked. Then he disconnected.
    “That was your sister’s husband,” he said to Vincent.
    The man frowned. “Who?”
    “Your sister’s husband.”
    Vincent shook his head. “No, you must’ve talked to the wrong person. My sister’s not married.”
    “Yes, she is.”
    The rapist’s eyes were wide. “Sally Anne’s married?”
    With a disgusted glance at Vincent, Sellitto said to Rhyme and Dance, “She was too upset to return the call herself. Her husband did. Thirteen years ago he locked her in the basement of their house for a week while their mother and stepfather were on their honeymoon. His own sister. . . . He tied her down and sexually assaulted her repeatedly. He was fifteen, she was thirteen. He did juvie time and was released after counseling. Records were sealed. That’s why we had no hits on IAFIS.”
    “Married,” Vincent whispered, ashen-faced.
    “She’s been treated for depression and eating disorders ever since. He was caught stalking her a dozen times, so she got a restraining order. The only contact between them in the past three years is letters he’s been sending.”
    “He’s been threatening her?” Dance asked.
    Sellitto muttered, “Nope. They’re love letters. He wanted her to move here and live with him.”
    “Oh, man,” muttered the unflappable Mel Cooper.
    “Sometimes he’d write recipes in the margins. Sometimes he’d draw porn cartoons. The brother-in-law said if there’s anything they can do to make sure he stays in jail forever, they’ll do it.” Sellitto looked at the two patrol officers standing behind Vincent. “Get him out of here.”
    The officers helped the big man to his feet and they started out the door. Vincent Reynolds could hardly walk, he was so shaken. “How could Sally Anne get married? How could she do this to me? We were going to be together forever. . . . How could she?”

Chapter 28
    Like assaulting a medieval castle.
    Sachs, Baker and Pulaski joined Bo Haumann around the corner from the church in the nondescript Chelsea section of town. The ESU troops had deployed quietly up and down the streets surrounding the place, keeping a low profile.
    The church had only enough doors to satisfy the fire code, and steel bars on most of the windows. This would make it difficult for Gerald Duncan to escape, of course, but it also meant that ESU had few options for access. That, in turn, increased the likelihood that the killer had booby-trapped the entrances or would wait for them with a weapon. And the stone walls, two feet thick, also made the risk greater than it might otherwise have been because the Search and Surveillance team’s thermal- and sound-sensing equipment was largely useless; they simply couldn’t tell if he was inside.
    “What’s the plan?” asked Amelia Sachs, standing next to Bo Haumann in the alley behind the church. Dennis Baker was beside her, his hand close to his pistol. His eyes danced around the streets and sidewalk, which told Sachs that he hadn’t been on a tactical entry for a long time—if ever. She was still pissed about the spying; she wasn’t very sympathetic that he was sweating.
    Ron Pulaski was nearby, his hand resting on the grip of his Glock. He too rocked nervously on his feet as he gazed at the imposing, sooty structure.
    Haumann explained that the teams would do a simple dynamic entrythrough all doors, after taking them out with explosive charges. There was no choice—the doors were too thick for a battering ram—but charges would clearly announce their presence and give Duncan a chance to prepare at least some defense within the building. What would he do when he heard the explosions and the footsteps of the cops charging inside?
    Give up?
    A lot of perps do.
    But some don’t. They either panic or cling to some crazy idea that they can fight their way though a dozen armed officers. Rhyme had told her about Duncan’s mission of revenge; she didn’t figure somebody that obsessed would be