The Cold Moon

helped her up and she leaned against the wall of the alley.
    “Who did it? Why?” Her voice rose to a screech as she stared at the terrible tableau of her brother’s death. “Who’d do something like this? Who?”
    “We don’t know, ma’am,” Sachs said. “I’m sorry. But we’ll find him. I promise you.”
    Gasping for breath, she turned. “Don’t let my daughter see, please.”
    Sachs looked past her to a car, parked half on the curb, where she’d left it in her panic. In the passenger seat was a teenage girl, who was staring at Sachs with a frown, her head cocked. The detective stepped in front of the body, blocking the girl’s view of her uncle.
    The sister, whose name was Barbara Eckhart, had jumped from her car without her coat and was huddling against the cold. Sachs led her through the open door into the service lobby that she’d just run. The hysterical woman asked to use the restroom and when she emerged she was still shaken and pale, though the crying was under control.
    Barbara had no idea what the killer’s motive might be. Her brother, a bachelor, worked for himself, a freelance advertising copywriter. He waswell liked and had no enemies that she knew of. He wasn’t involved in any romantic triangles—no jealous husbands—and had never done drugs or anything else illegal. He’d moved to the city two years earlier.
    That he had no apparent OC connection troubled Sachs; it moved the psycho factor into first place, far more dangerous to the public than a mob pro.
    Sachs explained how the body would be processed. It would be released by the medical examiner to the next of kin within twenty-four to forty-eight hours. Barbara’s face grew stony. “Why did he kill Teddy like that? What was he thinking?”
    But that was a question for which Amelia Sachs had no answer.
    Watching the woman return to her car, Sellitto helping her, Sachs couldn’t take her eyes off the daughter, who was staring back at the policewoman. The look was hard to bear. The girl must know by now that this man was in fact her uncle and he was dead, but Sachs could see what seemed to be a small bit of hope in the girl’s face.
    Hope, about to be destroyed.

    Hungry.
    Vincent Reynolds lay on his musty bed in their temporary home, which was, of all things, a former church, and felt his soul’s hunger, silently mimicking the grumbling of his bulging belly.
    This old Catholic structure, in a deserted area of Manhattan near the Hudson River, was their base of operation for the killings. Gerald Duncan was from out of town and Vincent’s apartment was in New Jersey. Vincent had said they could stay at his place but Duncan had said, no, they could hardly do that. They should have no contact whatsoever with their real residences. He’d sounded sort of like he was lecturing. But not in a bad way. It was like a father instructing his son.
    “A church?” Vincent had asked. “Why?”
    “Because it’s been on the market for fourteen and a half months. Not a hot property. And nobody’s going to be showing it this time of year.” A fast look at Vincent. “Don’t worry. It’s desanctified.”
    “It is?” asked Vincent, who figured that he’d committed enough sins to be guaranteed a direct route to hell, if there was one; trespassing in a church, sanctified or de-, was the very least of his offenses.
    The real estate agent kept the doors locked, of course, but a watchmaker’sskills are essentially those of a locksmith (the first clock makers, Duncan had explained, were locksmiths) and the man easily picked one of the back door locks then fitted it with a padlock of his own, so they could come and go, unseen by anyone on the street or sidewalk. He changed the lock on the front door too and left a bit of wax on it so they’d know if anybody tried to get in when they were away.
    The place was gloomy and drafty and smelled of cheap cleansers.
    Duncan’s room was the former priest’s bedroom on the second floor in the rectory portion of the structure. Across the hall was Vincent’s room, where he was now lying, the old office. It contained a cot, table, hotplate, microwave and refrigerator (Hungry Vincent, of course, got the kitchen, such as it was). The church still had electricity in case brokers needed the lights, and the heat was on so the pipes wouldn’t burst, though the thermostat was set very low.
    When he’d first seen it, knowing Duncan’s obsession with time, Vincent had said, “Too bad there’s no