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 didn't really register.
"You find anything on him?" Rhyme asked.
"Just the thirty-two and latex gloves," Pulaski said. "And some personal effects."
A moment later Amelia Sachs joined them, holding a carton containing a dozen plastic evidence bags. She'd been searching Baker's car. "It's getting better by the minute, Rhyme. Check this out." She showed Rhyme and Sellitto the bags one by one. They contained cocaine, fifty thousand in cash, some old clothing, receipts from clubs and bars in Manhattan, including the St. James. She lifted one bag that seemed to contain nothing. On closer examination, though, he could see fine fibers.
"Carpeting?" he asked.
"Yep. Brown."
"Bet they match the Explorer's."
"That's what I'm thinking."
Another link to the Watchmaker.
Rhyme nodded, staring at the plastic bag, which rippled in the chill wind. He felt that burst of satisfaction that occurred when the pieces of the puzzle started to come together. He turned to the squad car where Baker sat and called through the half-open window. "When were you assigned to the One One Eight?"
The man stared back at the criminalist. "Fuck you. You think I'm saying anything to you pricks? This is bullshit. Somebody planted all that on me."
Rhyme said to Sellitto, "Call Personnel. I want to know his prior assignments."
Sellitto did and, after a brief conversation, looked up and said, "Bingo. He was at the One One Eight for two years. Narcotics and Homicide. Promoted out to the Big Building three years ago."
"How did you meet Duncan?"
Baker hunkered down in the backseat and returned to his job of staring straight ahead.
"Well, isn't this a tidy little confluence of our cases," Rhyme said, in good humor.
"A what?" Sellitto barked.
"Confluence. A coming together, Lon. A merger. Don't you do crosswords?"
Sellitto grunted. "What cases?"
"Obviously, Sachs's case at the One One Eight and the Watchmaker situation. They weren't separate at all. Opposite sides of the same knife blade, you could say." He was pleased with the metaphor.
His Case and the Other Case . . .
"You want to explain?"
Did he really need to?
Amelia Sachs said, "Baker was a player in the corruption at the One One Eight. He hired the Watchmaker--well, Duncan--to take me out 'cause I was getting close to him."
"Which pretty much proves there is indeed something rotten in Denmark."
Now it was Pulaski's chance not to get it. "Denmark? The one in Europe?"
"The one in Shakespeare, Ron," the criminalist said impatiently. And when the young officer grinned blankly Rhyme gave up.
Sachs took over again. "He means it's proof there was major corruption at the One One Eight. Obviously they're doing more than just sitting on investigations for some crew out of Baltimore or Bay Ridge."
Looking up absently at the office building, Rhyme nodded, oblivious to the cold and the wind. There were some unanswered questions, of course. For instance, Rhyme wasn't sure if Vincent Reynolds really was a partner or was just being set up.
Then there was the matter of where the extortion money was, and Rhyme now asked, "Who's the one in Maryland? Who're you working with? Was it OC or something else?"
"Are you deaf?" Baker snapped. "Not a fucking word."
"Take him to CB," Sellitto said to the patrol officers standing beside the car. "Book him on assault with intent for the time being. We'll add some other ornaments later." As they watched the RMP drive away, Sellitto shook his head. "Jesus," the detective muttered. "Were we lucky."
"Lucky?" Rhyme grumbled, recalling that he'd said something similar earlier.
"Yeah, that Duncan didn't kill any more vics. And here too--Amelia was a sitting duck. If that piece hadn't misfired . . ." His voice faded before he described the tragedy that had nearly occurred.
Lincoln Rhyme believed in luck about as much as he believed in ghosts and flying saucers. He started to ask what the hell did luck have to do with anything, but the words never came out of his mouth.
Luck . . .
Suddenly a dozen thoughts, like bees escaping from a jostled hive, zipped around him. He was frowning. "That's odd. . . ." His voice faded. Finally he whispered, "Duncan."
"Something wrong, Linc? You okay?"
"Rhyme?" Sachs asked.
"Shhhhh."
Using the touch-pad controller he 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 the next morning, so the tour doc couldn't do an accurate field test for cause or time of death." Rhyme cocked his eyebrow. "So, Mr. Duncan. Who and how?"
Duncan explained, "Just some poor guy killed in a car crash up in Westchester. His name's James Pickering."
Rhyme urged, "Keep going. And remember, we're eager for answers."
"I heard about the accident on a police scanner. The ambulance took the body to the morgue in the county hospital. I stole the corpse from there."
Rhyme said to Sachs, "Call the hospital."
She did. After a brief conversation she reported, "A thirty-one-year-old male ran off the Bronx River Parkway about five Monday night. Lost control on a patch of ice. Died instantly, internal injuries. Name of James Pickering. The body went to the hospital but then it disappeared. They thought it might've been transferred to another hospital by mistake but they couldn't find it. The next of kin aren't taking it too well, as you can imagine."
"I'm sorry about that," Duncan said, and he did look troubled. "But I didn't have any choice. I have all his personal effects and I'll return them. And I'll pay for the funeral expenses myself."
"The ID and things in the wallet that we found on the body?" Sachs asked.
"Forgeries." Duncan nodded. "Wouldn't pass close scrutiny but I just needed people fooled for a few days."
"You stole the body, drove him to the alley and set him up with an iron bar on his neck to make it look liked he'd died slowly."
A nod.
"Then you left the clock and note too."
"That's right."
Lon Sellitto asked, "But the pier, at Twenty-second Street? What about the guy you killed there?"
Rhyme glanced at Duncan. "Is your blood type AB positive?"
Duncan laughed. "You're good."
"There never was a victim on the pier, Lon. It was his own blood." Looking over the suspect, Rhyme said, "You set the note and clock on the pier, and poured your blood around it and on the jacket--which you tossed into the river. You made the fingernail scrapings yourself. Where'd you get your blood? You collect it yourself?"
"No, I got it at a hospital in New Jersey. I told them I wanted to stockpile it before some surgery I was planning."
"That's why the anticoagulants." Stored blood usually has a thinning agent included to prevent it from clotting.
Duncan nodded. "I wondered if you'd check for that."
Rhyme asked, "And the fingernail?"
Duncan held up his ring finger. The end of the nail was missing. He himself had torn it off. He added, "And I'm sure Vincent told you about a young man I supposedly killed near the church. I never touched him. The blood on the box cutter and on some newspaper in the trash nearby--if it's still there--is mine."
"How did that happen?" Rhyme asked.
"It was an awkward moment. Vincent thought the kid saw his knife. So I had to pretend that I killed him. Otherwise Vincent might suspect me. I followed him around the corner, then ducked into an alley, cut my own arm with the knife and smeared some of my own blood on the box cutter." He showed a recent wound on his forearm. "You can do a DNA test."
"Oh, don't worry. We will. . . ." Another thought. "And the carjacking--you never killed anybody to steal the Buick, did you?" They'd had no reports either of missing students in Chelsea or of drivers murdered during the commission of a carjacking anywhere in the city.
Lon Sellitto was compelled to chime in again with, "What the hell's going on?"
"He's not a serial killer," Rhyme said. "He's not any kind of killer. He set this whole thing up to make it look like he was."
Sellitto asked, "No wife killed in an accident?"
"Never been married."
"How'd you figure it out?" Pulaski asked Rhyme.
"Because of something Lon said."
"Me?"
"For one thing, you mentioned his name, Duncan."
"So? We knew it."
"Exactly. Because Vincent Reynolds told us. But Mr. Duncan is someone who wears gloves twenty-four/seven so he won't leave prints. He's way too careful to give his name to a person like Vincent--unless he didn't care if we found out who he was.
"Then you said it was lucky he didn't kill the recent victims and Amelia. Pissed me off at first, hearing that. But I got to thinking about it. You were right. We didn't really save any victims at all. The florist? Joanne? I figured out he was targeting her, sure, but she's the one who called nine-one-one after she heard a noise in the workshop--a noise he probably made intentionally."
&n
bsp; "That's right," Duncan agreed. "And I left a spool of wire on the floor to warn her that somebody'd broken in."
Sachs said, "Lucy, the soldier in Greenwich Village--we got an anonymous phone call from a witness about a breakin. But it wasn't a witness at all, right? It was you making that call."
"I told Vincent that somebody in the street called nine-one-one. But, no, I called from a pay phone and reported myself."
Rhyme nodded at the office building behind them. "And here--the fire extinguisher was a dud, I assume."
"Harmless. I poured a little alcohol on the outside but it's filled with water."
Sellitto was on the phone, calling the Sixth Precinct, the NYPD Bomb Squad headquarters. A moment later he hung up. "Tap water."
"Just like the gun you gave Baker, the one he was going to use to kill Sachs here." Rhyme glanced at the dismantled .32. "I just checked it out--the firing pin's been broken off."
Duncan said to Sachs, "I plugged the barrel too. You can check. And I knew he couldn't use his own gun to shoot you because that would tie him to your death."
"Okay," Sellitto barked. "That's it. Somebody, talk to me."
Rhyme shrugged. "All I can do is get us to this station, Lon. It's up to Mr. Duncan to complete the train ride. I suspect he's planned to enlighten us all along. Which is why he was enjoying the show from the grandstand across the street."
Duncan nodded and said to Rhyme, "You hit it on the head, Detective Rhyme."
"I'm decommissioned," the criminalist corrected.
"The whole point of what I've done is what just happened--and, yes, I was enjoying it very much: watching that son of a bitch Dennis Baker get arrested and dragged off to jail."
"Keep going."
Duncan's face grew still. "A year ago I came here on business--I own a company that does lease financing of industrial equipment. I was working with a friend--my best friend. He saved my life when we were in the army twenty years ago. We were working all day drafting documents then went back to our hotels to clean up before dinner. But he never showed. I found out he'd been shot to death. The police said it was a mugging. But something didn't seem right. I mean, how often do muggers shoot their victims point-blank in the forehead--twice?"
"Oh, shooting fatalities during the commission of robberies are extremely rare, according to recent . . ." Pulaski's voice trailed off, under Rhyme's cool glance.
Duncan continued. "Now, the last time I saw him my friend told me something odd. He said that the night before, he'd been in a club downtown. When he came out, two policemen pulled him aside and said they'd seen him buying drugs. Which was bullshit. He didn't do drugs. I know that for a fact. He knew he was being shaken down and demanded to see a police supervisor. He was going to call somebody at headquarters and complain. But just then some people came out of the club and the police let him go. The next day he was shot and killed.