The Cold Moon

doing.
    Twenty feet away was Dennis Baker, his eyes wide. In his gloved hand was a tiny pistol, a .32, she thought, pointed her way, as he worked the slide. She noted that it was an Autauga MKII, the type of gun that Rhyme speculated the Watchmaker might have.
    Baker blinked. Couldn’t speak for a moment. “I heard something,” he said quickly. “I thought he’d come back, the Watchmaker.”
    “You pulled the trigger.”
    “No, I was just chambering a round.”
    She glanced at the floor, where the bum shell lay. The only reason for it to be there was if he’d tried to shoot, then ejected the defective bullet.
    Taking the tiny .32 in his left hand, Baker lowered his right. It strayed to his side. “We have to be careful. I think he’s back.”
    Sachs centered the sights directly on Baker’s chest.
    “Don’t do it, Dennis,” she said, nodding toward his hip, where his regulation pistol rested. “I will fire. I’m assuming you’ve got armor under your suit. My first slug’ll be on your chest but two and three’ll go higher. It won’t be nice.”
    “I . . . You don’t understand.” His eyes were wide, panicked. “You have to believe me.”
    Wasn’t that one of the key phrases that signaled deception, according to Kathryn Dance?
    “What’s going on?” Pulaski asked.
    “Stay there, Ron,” Sachs ordered. “Don’t pay attention to a thing he says. Draw your weapon.”
    “Pulaski,” Baker said, “she’s going nuts. Something’s wrong.”
    But from the corner of her eye she saw the rookie pull his weapon and aim it in Baker’s direction.
    “Dennis, set the thirty-two on the table. Then with your left hand take your service piece by the grip—thumb and index finger only. Set it down too then move back five steps. Lie facedown. Okay. You clear on that?”
    “You don’t understand.”
    She said calmly, “I don’t need to understand. I need you to do what I’m telling you.”
    “But—”
    “And I need you to do it now.”
    “You’re crazy,” Baker snapped. “You’ve had it in for me ever since you found out I was checking into you and your old boyfriend. You’re trying to discredit me. . . . Pulaski, she’s going to kill me. She’s gone rogue. Don’t let her bring you down too.”
    Pulaski said, “You’ve been apprised of Detective Sachs’s instructions. I’ll disarm you if it’s necessary. Now, sir, what’s it going to be?”
    Several seconds passed. It seemed like hours. Nobody moved.
    “Fuck.” Baker set the pistols where he’d been told and lowered himself to the floor. “You’re both in deep shit.”
    “Cuff him,” Sachs told Pulaski.
    She covered Baker while the bewildered rookie got the man’s hands behind him and ratcheted on the cuffs.
    “Search him.”
    Sachs grabbed her Motorola. “Detective Five Eight Eight Five to Haumann. Respond, K.”
    “Go ahead, K.”
    “We’ve got a new development here. I’ve got somebody in cuffs I need escorted downstairs.”
    “What’s going on?” the ESU head asked. “Is it the perp?”
    “That’s a good question,” she replied, holstering her pistol.

    With this latest twist in the case, a new person was present in front of the Midtown office building where Detective Dennis Baker had apparently just attempted to kill Amelia Sachs and Ron Pulaski.
    Using the touch-pad controller, Lincoln Rhyme maneuvered the red Storm Arrow wheelchair along the sidewalk to the building’s entrance. Baker sat in the back of a nearby squad car, cuffed and shackled. His face was white. He stared straight ahead.
    At first he’d claimed that Sachs was targeting him because of the Nick Carelli situation. Then Rhyme decided to check with the brass. He asked the senior NYPD official who’d sent the email about it. It turned out that it was Baker who’d brought up a concern about Sachs’s possible connection with a crooked cop and the brass had never sent the email at all; Baker’d written it himself. He’d created the whole thing as cover in case Sachs caught him following or checking up on her.
    Using the touch pad, Rhyme eased closer to the building, where Sellitto and Haumann had set up their command post. He parked and Sellitto explained what had happened upstairs. But added, “I don’t get it. Just don’t get it.” The heavy detective rubbed his bare hands together. He glanced up at the clear, windy sky as if he’d just realized it was one of the chilliest months on record. When he was on a case, hot and cold