The Cold Moon

the floor. Now!”
    The aide looked at him with an expression of wry disbelief. “You’re kidding.”
    “Now! Hurry.”
    “Not on this floor.”
    “ I tell you to wear jeans to work. You’re the one who insists on overpricedslacks. Put that jacket on—the one on the hook. Then hurry up. On your back.”
    A sigh. “This is going to cost you big-time.” The aide pulled the jacket on and lay down on the floor.
    “Wait, get the dog out of there,” Rhyme called. Jackson the Havanese had jumped out of his box, apparently thinking it was playtime. Cooper scooped the dog up and handed him to Dance.
    “Can we get on with it? No, zip up the jacket. It’s supposed to be winter.”
    “It is winter,” Cooper replied. “It’s just not winter inside.”
    Thom zipped the jacket up to the neck and lay back.
    “Mel, put some aluminum dust on your fingers and then drag him across the room.”
    The tech didn’t even bother to ask the purpose of the exercise. He dipped his fingers in the dark gray fingerprint powder and stood over Thom.
    “How do I drag him?”
    “That’s what I want to figure out,” Rhyme said. He squinted. “What’s the most efficient way?” He told Cooper to grab the bottom of the jacket and pull it up over Thom’s face and drag him that way, headfirst.
    Cooper pulled off his glasses and gripped the jacket.
    “Sorry,” he muttered to the aide.
    “I know, you’re just following orders.”
    Cooper did as Rhyme told him. The tech was breathing heavily from the effort but the aide moved smoothly along the floor. Sellitto watched impassively and Kathryn Dance was trying to keep from smiling.
    “That’s far enough. Take the jacket off and hold it open for me.”
    Sitting, Thom disrobed. “Can I get up off the floor now?”
    “Yes, yes, yes.” Rhyme was staring at the jacket. The aide climbed to his feet and dusted himself off.
    “What’s this all about?” Sellitto asked.
    Rhyme grimaced. “Damnit, the rookie was right and he didn’t even know it.”
    “Pulaski?”
    “Yep. He assumed the fish trace was from the Watchmaker. I assumed it was the victim’s. But look at the jacket.”
    Cooper’s fingers had left traces of the aluminum fingerprint powder inside the garment, in exactly the places where the soil had been found on Theodore Adams’s jacket. The Watchmaker himself had left the substance on the victim when he was dragging him in the alley.
    “Stupid,” Rhyme repeated. Careless thinking infuriated him—especially his own. “Now, next step. I want to know everything there is to know about fish protein.”
    Cooper turned back to the computer.
    Rhyme then noticed Kathryn Dance glancing at her watch. “Missed your plane?” he asked.
    “I’ve got an hour. Doesn’t look good, though. Not with security and Christmas crowds.”
    “Sorry,” the rumpled detective offered.
    “If I helped, it was worth it.”
    Sellitto pulled his phone off his belt. “I’ll have a squad car sent round. I can get you to the airport in a half hour. Lights and sirens.”
    “That’d be great. I might make it.” Dance pulled on her coat and started for the door.
    “Wait. I’ve got an offer for you.”
    Both Sellitto and Dance turned their heads to the man who’d spoken.
    Rhyme looked at the California agent. “How’d you like an all-expenses-paid night in beautiful New York City?”
    She cocked an eyebrow.
    The criminalist continued. “I’m wondering if you could stay for another day.”
    Sellitto was laughing. “Linc, I don’t believe it. You’re always complaining that witnesses are useless. Changing your ways?”
    Rhyme frowned. “No, Lon. What I complain about is how most people handle witnesses—visceral, gut feel, all that woo-woo crap. Pointless. But Kathryn does it right—she applies a methodology based on repeatable and observable responses to stimuli and draws verifiable conclusions. Obviously it’s not as good as friction ridges or reagent A-ten in drug analysis but what she does is . . .” He looked for a word. “Helpful.”
    Thom laughed. “That’s the best compliment you could get. Helpful.”
    “No need to fill in, Thom,” Rhyme snapped. He turned to Dance. “So? How ’bout it?”
    The woman’s eyes scanned the evidence board and Rhyme noticed she wasn’t focused on the cold notations of the clues, but on the pictures. Particularly the photographs of Theodore Adams’s corpse, his frosted eyes staring upward.
    “I’ll stay,” she said.

    Vincent