The Cold Moon

turned slowly in a circle, glanced in a nearby alleyway, then at the bags and boxes of evidence Sachs had collected. He gave a faint laugh. He ordered, “I want Baker’s gun.”
    “His service piece?” Pulaski asked.
    “Of course not. The other one. The thirty-two. Where is it? Now, hurry!”
    Pulaski found the weapon in a plastic bag. He returned with it.
    “Field-strip it.”
    “Me?” the rookie asked.
    “Her.” Rhyme nodded at Sachs.
    Sachs spread out a piece of plastic on the sidewalk, replaced her leather gloves with latex ones and in a few seconds had the gun dismantled, the parts laid out on the ground.
    “Hold up the pieces one by one.”
    Sachs did this. Their eyes met. She said, “Interesting.”
    “Okay. Rookie?”
    “Yessir?”
    “I’ve got to talk to the medical examiner. Track him down for me.”
    “Well, sure. I should call?”
    Rhyme’s sigh was accompanied by a stream of breath flowing from his mouth. “You could try a telegram, you could go knock, knock, knockin’ on his door. But I’ll bet the best approach is to use . . . your . . . phone. And don’t take no for an answer. I need him.”
    The young man gripped his cell phone and started punching numbers into the keypad.
    “Linc,” Sellitto said, “what’s this—”
    “And I need you to do something too, Lon.”
    “Yeah, what?”
    “There’s a man across the street watching us. In the mouth of the alley.”
    Sellitto turned. “Got him.” The guy was lean, wearing sunglasses despite the dusk, a hat and jeans and a leather jacket. “Looks familiar.”
    “Invite him to come over here. I’d like to ask him a few questions.”
    Sellitto laughed. “Kathryn Dance’s really having an effect on you, Linc. I thought you didn’t trust witnesses.”
    “Oh, I think in this case it’d be good to make an exception.”
    Shrugging, the big detective asked, “Who is he?”
    “I could be wrong,” Rhyme said with the tone of a man who believed he rarely was, “but I have a feeling he’s the Watchmaker.”

Chapter 32
    Gerald Duncan sat on the curb, beside Sachs and Sellitto. He was handcuffed, stripped of his hat, sunglasses, several pairs of beige gloves, wallet and a bloody box cutter.
    Unlike Dennis Baker’s, his attitude was pleasant and cooperative—despite his being pulled to the ground, frisked and cuffed by three officers, Sachs among them, a woman not noted for her delicate touch on takedowns, particularly when it came to perps like this one.
    His Missouri driver’s license confirmed his identity and showed an address in St. Louis.
    “Christ,” Sellitto said, “how the hell’d you spot him?”
    Rhyme’s conclusion about the onlooker’s identity wasn’t as miraculous as it seemed. His belief that the Watchmaker might not have fled the scene arose before he’d noticed the man in the alley.
    Pulaski said, “I’ve got him. The ME.”
    Rhyme leaned toward the phone that the rookie held out in a gloved hand and had a brief conversation with the doctor. The medical examiner delivered some very interesting information. Rhyme thanked him and nodded; Pulaski disconnected. The criminalist maneuvered the Storm Arrow wheelchair closer to Duncan.
    “You’re Lincoln Rhyme,” the prisoner said, as if he was honored to meet the criminalist.
    “That’s right. And you’re the quote Watchmaker.”
    The man gave a knowing laugh.
    Rhyme looked him over. He appeared tired but gave off a sense of satisfaction—even peace.
    With a rare smile Rhyme asked the suspect, “So. Who was he really? The victim in the alleyway. We can search public records for Theodore Adams, but that’d be a waste of time, wouldn’t it?”
    Duncan tipped his head. “You figured that out too?”
    “What about Adams?” Sellitto asked. Then realized that there were broader questions that should be asked. “What’s going on here, Linc?”
    “I’m asking our suspect about the man we found in the alley yesterday morning, with his neck crushed. I want to know who he was and how he died.”
    “This asshole murdered him,” Sellitto said.
    “No, he didn’t. I just talked to the medical examiner. He hadn’t gotten back to us with the final autopsy but he just gave me the preliminary. The victim died about five or six P.M. on Monday, not at eleven. And he died instantly of massive internal injuries consistent with an automobile accident or fall. The crushed throat had nothing to do with it. The body was frozen solid when we found it