Jeffery Deaver - The Cold Moon

Dear Mr. Rhyme:

I will be gone by the time you receive this. I have by now, of course, learned that none of the attendees at the conference was injured. I concluded you had anticipated my plans. I then anticipated yours and delayed my trip to Charlotte's hotel, which gave me the chance to spot your officers. I assume you saved her daughter. I am pleased about that. She deserves better than that pair.

So congratulations. I thought the plan was perfect. But I was apparently wrong.

The pocket watch is a Breguet. It is the favorite of the many timepieces I have come across. It was made in the early 1800s and features a ruby cylinder escapement, perpetual calendar and parachute antishock device. I hope you appreciate the phases-of-the-moon window, in light of our recent adventures. There are few specimens like this watch in the world. I give it to you as a present, out of respect. No one has ever stopped me from finishing a job; you're as good as they get.

(I would say you're as good as I, but that is not quite true. You did not, after all, catch me.) Keep the Breguet wound (but gently); it will be counting the time until we meet again.

Some advice: If I were you, I would make every one of those seconds count.

– The Watchmaker

Sellitto grimaced.

"What?" Rhyme asked.

"You get classier threats than me, Linc. Usually my perps just say, 'I'm gonna kill you.' And what the hell is that?" He pointed to the note. "A semicolon? He's threatening you and he's using semicolons. That's fucked up."

Rhyme didn't laugh. He was still furious about the man's escape-and furious too that he apparently had no desire to retire. "When you get tired of making bad jokes, Lon, you might want to notice that his grammar and syntax are perfect. That tells us something else about him. Good education. Private school? Classically trained? Scholarships? Valedictorian? Put those on the chart, Thom."

Sellitto was unfazed. "Fucking semicolons."

"Got something here," Cooper said, looking up from the computer. "The green material from his place in Brooklyn? I'm pretty sure it's Caulerpa taxifolia. A noxious weed."

"A what ?"

"It's a seaweed that spreads uncontrollably. Causes all kinds of problems. It's been banned in the U.S."

"And presumably, if it spreads, you can find it everywhere," Rhyme said sourly. "Useless as evidence."

"Actually, no," Cooper explained. "So far, it's been found only on the Pacific Coast of North America."

"Mexico to Canada?"

"Pretty much."

Rhyme added sarcastically, "That's virtually a street address. Call out the SWAT team."

It was then that Kathryn Dance frowned. "The West Coast?" She considered something for a moment. Then she asked, "Where's the interview with him?"

Mel Cooper found the file. He hit PLAYand for the dozenth time they watched the killer look into the camera and lie to them all. Dance leaned forward intently. She reminded Rhyme of himself gazing at evidence.

He'd been through the interview so often he was numb to the words; it provided nothing helpful now that he could tell. But Dance gave a sudden laugh. "Got a thought."

"What?"

"Well, I can't give you an address but I can give you a state. My guess is that he comes from California. Or lived there for some time."

"Why do you think that?"

She backed up with the rewind command. Then played part of the interview again, the portion where he talked about driving to Long Island to take delivery of the confiscated SUV.

Dance stopped the tape and said, "I've studied regional expressions. People in California usually refer to their interstate highways with the article 'the.' The four-oh-five in L.A., for instance. In the interview he referred to 'the four ninety-five' here in New York. And did you hear him say freeway ? That's common in California too, more so than expressway or interstate. Which is what you hear on the East Coast."

Possibly helpful, Rhyme thought. Another brick in the wall of evidence. "On the chart," he said.

"When I get back I'll open a formal investigation in my office," she said. "I'll put out everything we've got statewide. We'll see what happens. Okay, I better be going… Oh, I'll be expecting you both out in California sometime soon."

The aide glanced at Rhyme. "He needs to travel more. He pretends he doesn't like to but the fact is, once he gets someplace he enjoys it. As long as there's scotch and some good crime to keep him interested."

"It's Northern California," Dance said. "Wine country, mostly, but not to worry, we have plenty of crime."

"We'll see," Rhyme said noncommittally. Then he added, "But one thing-do me a favor?"

"Sure.

"Shut your cell phone off. I'll probably be tempted to call you again on the way to the airport if something else comes up."

"If I didn't have the children to get back to I might just pick up."

Sellitto thanked her again and Thom saw her out the door.

Rhyme said, "Ron, make yourself useful."

The rookie looked at the evidence tables. "I already called about the rope, if that's what you mean."

"No, that's not what I mean," Rhyme muttered. "I said useful. " He nodded at the bottle of scotch sitting on a shelf across the room.

"Oh, sure."

"Make it two," Sellitto grumbled. "And don't be stingy."

Pulaski poured the whiskey and handed out two glasses-Cooper declined. Rhyme said to the rookie, "Don't neglect yourself."

"Oh, I'm in uniform."

Sellitto choked a laugh.

"Okay. Maybe just a little." He poured and then sipped the potent-and extremely expensive-liquor. "I like it," he said, though his eyes were telling a different story. "Say, you ever mix in a little ginger ale or Sprite?"

Before and After.

People move on.

For one reason or another, they move on, and Before becomes After.

Lincoln Rhyme heard these words floating through his head, over and over. Broken record. People move on.

He'd actually used the phrase himself-when he'd told his wife he wanted a divorce, not long after his accident. Their relationship had been rocky for some time and he had decided that whether or not he survived the broken neck, he was going to go forward on his own and not tie her down to the difficult life of a gimp's wife.

But back then "moving on" meant something very different from what Rhyme was facing now. The life he'd constructed over the past few years, a precarious life, was about to change in a big way. The problem, of course, was that by going to Argyle Security, Sachs wasn't really moving on. She was moving back.

Sellitto and Cooper were gone and Rhyme and Pulaski were alone in the downstairs lab, parked in front of an examination table, organizing evidence in the 118th Precinct scandal cases. Finally confronted with the evidence-and the fact they'd unwittingly hired a domestic terrorist-Baker, Wallace and Henson copped pleas and were diming out everybody involved at the 118th. (Though nobody would say a word about who'd hooked the Watchmaker up with Baker. Understandable. You simply don't give up the name of a senior member of an OC crew when you're headed off to the same prison he might end up in, thanks to your testimony.)

Preparing himself for Sachs's departure, Rhyme had concluded that Ron Pulaski would eventually be a fine crime scene cop. He had ingenuity and intelligence and was as dogged as Lon Sellitto. Rhyme could wear the rough edges off him in eight months or a year. Together, he and the rookie would run scenes, analyze evidence and find perps, who'd go to jail or die trying not to. The system would keep going. The process of policing was bigger than just one man or woman; it had to be.