The Cold Moon

reporters had been alerted too, including a photographer connected with the Los Angeles Times ).
    All in a day’s news.
    A month later Hale’s real estate project broke ground and he received from his fellow investors in Mexico a bonus of $500,000 U.S. in cash.
    He was pleased with the money. He was more pleased, though, with the connections he’d made through the Mexican businessman. It wasn’t long before the man put him in touch with someone in America who needed similar services.
    Now, several times a year, between his business projects, he would take on an assignment like this. Usually it was murder, though he’d also engaged in financial scams, insurance fraud and elaborate thefts. Hale would work for anyone, whatever the motive, which was irrelevant to him. He had no interest in why somebody wanted a crime committed. Twice he’d murdered abusive husbands. He killed a child molester one week before he’d murdered a businesswoman who was a major contributor to the United Way.
    Good and bad were words whose definitions were different for Charles Vespasian Hale. Good was mental stimulation. Bad was boredom. Good was an elegant plan well executed. Bad was either a sloppy plan or one carelessly carried out.
    But his current plot—certainly his most elaborate and far-reaching—was humming along perfectly.
    God created the complex mechanism of the universe, then wound it up and started it running. . . .
    Hale got off the subway and climbed to the street, his nose stinging from the cold, his eyes watering, and started along the sidewalk. He was about to push the button that would set the hands of his real chronograph in motion.

    Lon Sellitto’s phone rang and he took the call. Frowning, he had a brief conversation. “I’ll look into it.”
    Rhyme glanced up expectantly.
    “That was Haumann. He just got a call from the manager of a delivery service on the same floor as the company that the Watchmaker broke into in Midtown. He said a customer just called. A package they were supposed to deliver yesterday never showed up. Looks like somebody broke in and stole it around the time that we were sweeping the offices looking for the perp. The manager asked if we knew anything about it.”
    Rhyme’s eyes slipped to the photographs that Sachs had taken of the hallway. Bless her, she’d taken pictures of the entire floor. Below the name of the delivery service were the words High Security—Valuable Deliveries Guaranteed. Licensed and Bonded.
    Rhyme heard the white noise of people talking around him. But he didn’t hear the words themselves. He stared at the photograph and then at the other evidence.
    “Access,” he whispered.
    “What?” Sellitto asked, frowning.
    “We were so focused on the Watchmaker and the fake killings—and then on his scheme to flush out Baker—we never looked at what else was going on.”
    “Which was?” Sachs asked.
    “Breaking and entering. The crime he actually committed was trespass. All of the offices on that floor were unguarded for a time. When they evacuated the building, they left the doors unlocked?”
    “Well, yeah, I suppose,” the big detective said.
    Sachs said, “So while we were focused on the flooring company the Watchmaker might’ve put on a uniform or just hung a badge over his neck then strolled right inside the delivery service and helped himself to that package.”
    Access . . .
    “Call the service. Find out what was in the package, who sent it and where it was going. Now.”

Chapter 36
    A taxicab pulled up in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, on Fifth Avenue. The huge building was decorated for Christmas, dolled up in the tasteful Victorian regalia that you’d expect on the Upper East Side. Subdued festive.
    Out of this cab climbed Charles Vespasian Hale, who looked around carefully on the remote chance that the police were following him. It would have been exceedingly unlikely that he’d be under surveillance. Still, Hale took his time, looked everywhere for anyone showing him the least attention. He saw nothing troubling.
    He leaned down to the open taxi window and paid the driver—tendering the cash in gloved hands—and, hooking a black canvas bag over his shoulder, he climbed the stairs into the large cathedral-like lobby, which echoed with the sound of voices, most of them young; the place was lousy with kids freed from school. Evergreens and gold and ornaments and tulle were everywhere. Bach two-part inventions plucked away