The Cold Moon

relayed it to Bo Haumann and ESU.
    “Good job,” Sellitto said to Pulaski. He called the deputy inspector of the precinct where the phone was located. Officers would start a canvass of the neighborhood as soon as Mel Cooper emailed pictures of the composite to the DI.
    Rhyme supposed that the Watchmaker might not live near the phone—it wouldn’t have surprised the criminalist—but a mere thirty minutes later they had a positive identification from a patrol officer, who found several neighbors who recognized the man.
    Sellitto took the number and alerted Bo Haumann.
    Sachs announced, “I’ll call in from the scene.”
    “Hold on,” Rhyme said, glancing at her. “Why don’t you sit this one out. Let Bo handle it.”
    “What?”
    “They’ll have a full tactical force.”
    Rhyme was thinking of the superstition that cops on short time weremore likely to get killed or injured than others. Rhyme didn’t believe in superstitions. That didn’t matter. He didn’t want her to go.
    Amelia Sachs would be thinking the same thing, perhaps; she was debating, it seemed. Then he saw her looking into the hallway at Pam Willoughby. She turned back to the criminalist. Their eyes met. He gave a faint smile and nodded.
    She grabbed her leather jacket and headed for the door.

    In a quiet neighborhood in Brooklyn a dozen tactical officers moved slowly along the sidewalk, another six creeping through an alley behind a shabby detached house.
    This was a neighborhood of modest houses in small yards, presently filled with Christmas decorations. The minuscule size of the lots had no effect on the owners’ ability to populate the land with as many Santas, reindeer and elves as possible.
    Sachs was walking down the sidewalk slowly at the head of the takedown team. She was on the radio with Rhyme. “We’re here,” she said softly.
    “What’s the story?”
    “We’ve cleared the houses on either side and behind. There’s nobody opposite.” A community vegetable garden was across the street. A ragged scarecrow sat in the middle of the tiny lot. Across his chest was a swirl of graffiti.
    “Pretty good site for a takedown. We’re—hold on, Rhyme.” A light had gone on in one of the front rooms. The cops around her stopped and crouched. She whispered, “He’s still here. . . . I’m signing off.”
    “Go get him, Sachs.” She heard an unusual determination in his voice. She knew he was upset that the man had escaped. Saving the people at the HUD building and capturing Charlotte were fine. But Rhyme wasn’t happy unless all the perps ended up in cuffs.
    But he wasn’t as determined as Amelia Sachs. She wanted to give Rhyme the Watchmaker—as a present to mark their last case together.
    She changed radio frequencies and said into her stalk mike, “Detective Five Eight Eight Five to ESU One.”
    Bo Haumann, at a staging area a block away, came on the radio. “Go ahead, K.”
    “He’s here. Just saw a light go on in the front room.”
    “Roger, B Team, you copy?”
    These were the officers behind the bungalow. “B Team leader to ESUOne. Roger that. We’re—hold on. Okay, he’s upstairs now. Just saw the light go on up there. Looks like the back bedroom.”
    “Don’t assume he’s alone,” Sachs said. “There could be somebody else from Charlotte’s outfit with him. Or he might’ve picked up another partner.”
    “Roger that, Detective,” Haumann said in his gravelly voice. “S and S, what can you tell us?”
    The Search and Surveillance teams were just getting into position on the roof of the apartment building behind and in the garden across the street from the Watchmaker’s safe house, on which they were training their instruments.
    “S and S One to ESU One. All the shades’re drawn. Can’t get a look at all. We’ve got heat in the back of the house. But he’s not walking around. There’s a light on in the attic but we can’t see in—no windows, just louvers, K.”
    “Same here—S and S Two. No visual. Heat upstairs, nothing on the ground floor. Heard a click or two a second ago, K.”
    “Weapon?”
    “Could be. Or maybe just appliances or the furnace, K.”
    The ESU officer next to Sachs deployed his officers with hand signals. He, Sachs and two others clustered at the front door, another team of four right behind them. One held the battering ram. The other three covered the windows on the ground and the second floors.
    “B Team to One. We’re in position. Got a ladder next to the