Jeffery Deaver - The Cold Moon

Mel Cooper looked up from the computer screen. "Getting some hits here…We've got sixty-eight Gerald Duncans in fifteen midwestern states. I'm running warrants and VICAP first then cross-referencing approximate ages and professions. You can't narrow down the location any more?"

"I would if I could. He never talked about himself."

Dance nodded. She believed him.

Lon Sellitto asked the question that Rhyme had been about to. "We know he's targeting specific victims, checking 'em out ahead of time. Why? What's he up to?"

The rapist answered, "His wife."

"He's married?"

"Was."

"Tell us."

"His wife and him came to New York on vacation a couple years ago. He was at a business dinner somewhere and his wife went to a concert by herself. She was walking back to the hotel on this deserted street and she got hit by a car or truck. The driver took off. She screamed for help but nobody came to save her, nobody even called the police or fire department. The doctor said that she probably lived for ten, fifteen minutes after she was hit. And even somebody who wasn't a doctor could've stopped the bleeding, he said. Just a pressure point or something like that. But nobody helped."

"Run all the hospitals for admissions under the name Duncan, eighteen to thirty-six months ago," Rhyme ordered.

But Vincent said, "Don't bother. Last year he broke into the hospital and stole her chart. The police report too. Bribed a clerk or something. He's been planning this ever since."

"But why's he picking these victims?"

"When the police investigated they got the names of ten people who were nearby when she died. Whether they could have saved her or not, I don't know. But Gerald, he convinced himself they could have. He's spent the past year finding out where they live and what their schedules are. He needed to get them alone so they could die slowly. That's the important thing to him. Like his wife died slowly."

"The man on the pier Tuesday? Is he dead?"

"He's gotta be. Duncan made him hold on and then cut his arms and just stood there watching him until he fell into the river. He said he tried to swim for a while but then he just stopped moving and floated under the pier."

"What was his name?"

"I don't remember. Walter somebody. I didn't help him with the first two. I didn't, really." He glanced at Dance with fear in his eyes.

"What else do you know about Duncan?" she asked.

"That's about it. The only thing he really liked to talk about was time."

"Time? What about it?"

"Anything, everything. The history of time, how clocks work, about calendars, how people sense time differently. He'd tell me, like, the term 'speed up' comes from pendulum clocks. You'd move the weight up on the pendulum to make the clock run faster. 'Slow down'-you moved the weight down to slow it… With anybody else it would've been just boring. But the way he talked about it, well, you kind of got caught up in what he was saying."

Cooper looked up from his computer screen. "We've got a couple of replies from the watchmaker associations. No record of a Gerald Duncan…Wait, here's Interpol…Nothing there either. And I can't find anything in VICAP."

Sellitto's phone rang. He took the call and spoke for a few minutes. He eyed the rapist coolly as he talked. Then he disconnected.

"That was your sister's husband," he said to Vincent.

The man frowned. "Who?"

"Your sister's husband."

Vincent shook his head. "No, you must've talked to the wrong person. My sister's not married."

"Yes, she is."

The rapist's eyes were wide. "Sally Anne's married?"

With a disgusted glance at Vincent, Sellitto said to Rhyme and Dance, "She was too upset to return the call herself. Her husband did. Thirteen years ago he locked her in the basement of their house for a week while their mother and stepfather were on their honeymoon. His own sister… He tied her down and sexually assaulted her repeatedly. He was fifteen, she was thirteen. He did juvie time and was released after counseling. Records were sealed. That's why we had no hits on IAFIS."

"Married," Vincent whispered, ashen-faced.

"She's been treated for depression and eating disorders ever since. He was caught stalking her a dozen times, so she got a restraining order. The only contact between them in the past three years is letters he's been sending."

"He's been threatening her?" Dance asked.

Sellitto muttered, "Nope. They're love letters. He wanted her to move here and live with him."

"Oh, man," muttered the unflappable Mel Cooper.

"Sometimes he'd write recipes in the margins. Sometimes he'd draw porn cartoons. The brother-in-law said if there's anything they can do to make sure he stays in jail forever, they'll do it." Sellitto looked at the two patrol officers standing behind Vincent. "Get him out of here."

The officers helped the big man to his feet and they started out the door. Vincent Reynolds could hardly walk, he was so shaken. "How could Sally Anne get married? How could she do this to me? We were going to be together forever… How could she?"

Like assaulting a medieval castle.

Sachs, Baker and Pulaski joined Bo Haumann around the corner from the church in the nondescript Chelsea section of town. The ESU troops had deployed quietly up and down the streets surrounding the place, keeping a low profile.

The church had only enough doors to satisfy the fire code, and steel bars on most of the windows. This would make it difficult for Gerald Duncan to escape, of course, but it also meant that ESU had few options for access. That, in turn, increased the likelihood that the killer had booby-trapped the entrances or would wait for them with a weapon. And the stone walls, two feet thick, also made the risk greater than it might otherwise have been because the Search and Surveillance team's thermal-and sound-sensing equipment was largely useless; they simply couldn't tell if he was inside.

"What's the plan?" asked Amelia Sachs, standing next to Bo Haumann in the alley behind the church. Dennis Baker was beside her, his hand close to his pistol. His eyes danced around the streets and sidewalk, which told Sachs that he hadn't been on a tactical entry for a long time-if ever. She was still pissed about the spying; she wasn't very sympathetic that he was sweating.

Ron Pulaski was nearby, his hand resting on the grip of his Glock. He too rocked nervously on his feet as he gazed at the imposing, sooty structure.

Haumann explained that the teams would do a simple dynamic entry through all doors, after taking them out with explosive charges. There was no choice-the doors were too thick for a battering ram-but charges would clearly announce their presence and give Duncan a chance to prepare at least some defense within the building. What would he do when he heard the explosions and the footsteps of the cops charging inside?

Give up?

A lot of perps do.

But some don't. They either panic or cling to some crazy idea that they can fight their way though a dozen armed officers. Rhyme had told her about Duncan's mission of revenge; she didn't figure somebody that obsessed would be the surrendering type.

Sachs took her position with a side-door entry team while Baker and Pulaski remained at the command post with Haumann.

Through her headset she heard the ESU commander say, "Entry devices are armed… Teams, report, K."

The A, B and C teams called in that they were ready.

In his raspy voice, Haumann called, "On my count…Five, four, three, two, one."

Three sharp cracks resounded as the doors blew open simultaneously, setting off car alarms and shaking nearby windows. Officers poured inside.