The Cold Moon

by Jeffery Deaver

  Vincent and Duncan were opposites in many ways but they had one thing in common: dark secrets in their hearts. And anyone who's ever shared that knows it makes up for vast differences in lifestyle and politics.

  Oh, yes, Vincent was definitely going to give their friendship a shot.

  He now washed up, again thinking of Joanne, the brunette they'd be visiting today: the flower girl, their next victim.

  Vincent opened the small refrigerator. He took out a bagel and cut it in half with his hunting knife. It had an eight-inch blade and was very sharp. He smeared cream cheese on the bagel and ate it while he drank two Cokes. His nose stung from the chill. Meticulous Gerald Duncan insisted that they wear gloves here too, which was kind of a pain, but today, because it was so cold, Vincent didn't mind.

  He lay back on the bed, imagining what Joanne's body looked like.

  Later today . . .

  Feeling hungry, starving to death. His gut was drying up from the craving. If he didn't have his little heart-to-heart with Joanne pretty soon he'd waste away to steam.

  Now he drank a can of Dr Pepper, ate a bag of potato chips. Then some pretzels.

  Starving . . .

  Hungry . . .

  Vincent Reynolds would not on his own have come up with the idea that the urge to sexually assault women was a hunger. That idea was courtesy of his therapist, Dr. Jenkins.

  When he was in detention because of Sally Anne--the only time he'd been arrested--the doctor had explained that he had to accept that the urges he felt would never go away. "You can't get rid of them. They're a hunger in a way. . . . Now, what do we know about hunger? It's natural. We can't help feeling hungry. Don't you agree?"

  "Yessir."

  The therapist had added that even though you couldn't stop hunger completely you could "satisfy it appropriately. You understand what I mean? With food, you'd have a healthy meal when it's the appropriate time, you don't just snack. With people, you have a healthy, committed relationship, leading up to marriage and a family."

  "I get it."

  "Good. I think we're making progress. Don't you agree?"

  And the boy had taken great heart in the man's message, though it translated into something a little different from what the good doctor intended. Vincent reasoned that he'd use the hunger analogy as a helpful guide. He'd only eat, that is, have a little heart-to-heart with a girl, when he really needed to. That way he wouldn't become desperate--and careless, the way he had with Sally Anne.

  Brilliant.

  Don't you agree, Dr. Jenkins?

  Vincent finished the pretzels and soda and wrote another letter to his sister. Clever Vincent drew a few cartoons in the margins. Pictures he thought she might like. Vincent wasn't a terrible artist.

  There was a knock on his door.

  "Come in."

  Gerald Duncan pushed the door open. The men said good morning to each other. Vincent glanced into Duncan's room, which was perfectly ordered. Everything on the desk was arranged in a symmetrical pattern. The clothes were pressed and hanging in the closet exactly two inches apart. This could be one hurdle to their friendship. Vincent was a slob.

  "You want something to eat?" Vincent asked.

  "No, thanks."

  That's why the Watchmaker was so skinny. He rarely ate, he was never hungry. That could be another hurdle. But Vincent decided he'd ignore that fault. After all, Vincent's sister never ate much either and he still loved her.

  The killer made coffee for himself. While the water was heating he took the jar of beans out of the refrigerator and measured out exactly two spoons' worth. These clattered as he poured them into the hand grinder and turned the handle a dozen times until the noise stopped. He carefully poured the grounds into a paper cone filter inside a drip funnel. He tapped it to make sure the grounds were level. Vincent loved watching Gerald Duncan make coffee.

  Meticulous . . .

  Duncan looked at his gold pocket watch. He wound the stem very carefully. He finished the coffee--he drank it fast like medicine--and then looked at Vincent. "Our flower girl," he said, "Joanne. Will you go check on her?"

  A thud in his gut. So long, Clever Vincent.

  "Sure."

  "I'm going to the alley on Cedar Street. The police will be there by now. I want to see whom we're up against."

  Whom . . .

  Duncan pulled his jacket on and slung his bag over his shoulder. "You ready?"

  Vincent nodded and donned his cream-colored parka, hat and sunglasses.

  Duncan was saying, "Let me know if people are coming by the workshop to pick up orders or if she's working alone."

  The Watchmaker had learned that Joanne spent a lot of time in her workshop, a few blocks away from her retail flower store. The workshop was quiet and dark. Picturing the woman, her curly brown hair, her long but pretty face, Hungry Vincent couldn't get her out of his mind.

  They walked downstairs and into the alley behind the church.

  Duncan hooked the padlock. He said, "Oh, I wanted to say something. The one for tomorrow? She's a woman too. That'd be two in a row. I don't know how often you like to have your . . . what do you call it? A heart-to-heart?"

  "That's right."

  "Why do you say that?" Duncan asked. The killer, Vincent had learned, had a tireless curiosity.

  That phrase too came from Dr. Jenkins, his buddy the detention center doc, who'd tell him to come to his office anytime he wanted and talk about how he was feeling; they'd have themselves a good old heart-to-heart.

  For some reason, Vincent liked the words. The phrase also sounded a lot better than "rape."

  "I don't know. I just do." He added that he'd have no problem with two women in a row.

  Sometimes eating makes you even hungrier, Dr. Jenkins.

  Don't you agree?

  As they stepped carefully over the icy patches on the sidewalk, Vincent asked, "Um, what are you going to do with Joanne?"

  In killing his victims Duncan had one rule: Their deaths could not be quick. This wasn't as easy as it sounded, he'd explained in that precise, detached voice of his. Duncan had a book titled Extreme Interrogation Techniques. It was about terrifying prisoners into talking by subjecting them to tortures that would eventually kill them if they didn't confess: putting weights over their throats, cutting their wrists and letting them bleed, a dozen others.

  Duncan explained, "I don't want to take too long, in her case. I'll gag her and tie her hands behind her. Then get her on her stomach and wrap a wire around her neck and her ankles."

  "Her knees'll be bent?" Vincent could picture it.

  "That's right. It was in the book. Did you see the illustrations?"

  Vincent shook his head.

  "She won't be able to keep her legs at that angle for very long. When they start to straighten, it pulls the wire around her neck taut and she'll strangle herself. It'll take about eight, ten minutes, I'd guess." He smiled. "I'm going to time it. As you suggested. When it's over I'll call you and she's all yours."

  A good old heart-to-heart . . .

  They stepped out of the alley as a blast of freezing wind struck them. Vincent's parka, which was unzipped, blew open.

  He stopped, alarmed. On the sidewalk a few feet away was a young man. He had a scrawny beard and wore a threadbare jacket. A backpack was slung over a shoulder. A student, Vincent guessed. Head down, he kept walking briskly.

  Duncan glanced at his partner. "What's the matter?"

  Vincent nodded at his side, where the hunting knife, in a scabbard, was stuck into his waistband. "I think he saw it. I'm . . . I'm sorry. I should've zipped my jacket, but . . ."

  Duncan's lips pressed together.

  No, no . . . Vincent hoped he hadn't made Duncan unhappy. "I'll go take care of him, if you want. I'll--"

  The killer looked toward the student, who was walking quickly away from them.

  Duncan turned to Vincent. "Have you ever killed anyone?"

  He couldn't hold the man's piercing blue eyes. "No.
"

  "Wait here." Gerald Duncan studied the street, which was deserted, except for the student. He reached into his pocket and took out the box cutter he'd used to slash the wrists of the man on the pier last night. Duncan walked quickly after the student. Vincent watched him catching up until the killer was only a few feet behind him. They turned the corner, heading east.

  This was terrible . . . Vincent hadn't been meticulous. He'd put everything at risk: his chance for friendship with Duncan, his chance for the heart-to-hearts. All because he'd been careless. He wanted to scream, he wanted to cry.

  He reached into his pocket, found a KitKat and wolfed it down, eating some of the wrapper with the candy.

  Five agonizing minutes later Duncan returned, holding a wrinkled newspaper.

  "I'm sorry," Vincent said.

  "It's all right. It's okay." Duncan's voice was soft. Inside the paper was the bloody box cutter. He wiped the blade with the paper and retracted the razor blade. He threw away the bloody paper and gloves. He put a new pair on. He insisted they carry two or three pairs with them at all times.

  Duncan said, "The body's in a Dumpster. I covered it up with trash. If we're lucky it'll be in a landfill or out to sea before somebody notices the blood."

  "Are you all right?" Vincent thought there was a red mark on Duncan's cheek.

  The man shrugged. "I got careless. He fought back. I had to slash his eyes. Remember that. If somebody resists, slash their eyes. That stops them resisting right away and you can control them however you want."

  Slash their eyes . . .

  Vincent nodded slowly.

  Duncan asked, "You'll be more careful?"

  "Oh, yes. Promise. Really."

  "Now go check on the flower girl and meet me at the museum at quarter past four."

  "Okay, sure."

  Duncan turned his light blue eyes on Vincent. He gave a rare smile. "Don't be upset. There was a problem. It's been taken care of. In the great scheme of things, it was nothing."

  Chapter 5

  The body of Teddy Adams was gone, the grieving relatives too.

  Lon Sellitto had just left for Rhyme's and the scene was officially released. Ron Pulaski, Nancy Simpson and Frank Rettig were removing the crime scene tape.

  Still stung by the look of desperate hope in the face of Adams's young niece, Amelia Sachs had gone over the scene yet again with even more diligence than usual. She checked other doorways and possible entrance and escape routes the perp might've used. But she found nothing else. She didn't remember the last time a complicated crime like this had yielded so little evidence.

  After packing up her equipment she mentally shifted back to the Benjamin Creeley case and called the man's wife, Suzanne, to tell her that several men had broken into their Westchester house.

  "I didn't know that. Do have any idea what they stole?"

  Sachs had met the woman several times. She was very thin--she jogged daily--and had short frosted hair, a pretty face. "It didn't look like much was missing." She decided to say nothing about the neighbor boy; she figured she'd scared him into going straight.

  Sachs asked if anyone would have been burning something in the fireplace, and Suzanne replied that no one had even been to the house recently.

  "What do you think was going on?"

  "I don't know. But it's making the suicide look more doubtful. Oh, by the way, you need a new lock on your back door."

  "I'll call somebody today. . . . Thank you, Detective. It means a lot that you believe me. About Ben not killing himself."

  After they hung up, Sachs filled out a request for analysis of the ash, mud and other evidence at the Creeleys' house and packed these materials separately from the Watchmaker evidence. She then completed the chain-of-custody cards and helped Simpson and Rettig pack up the van. It took two of them to wrap the heavy metal bar in plastic and stow it.

  She was just swinging shut the van's door when she glanced up, across the street. The cold had driven off most of the spectators but she noted a man standing with a Post in front of an old building being renovated on Cedar Street, near Chase Plaza.

  That's not right, Sachs thought. Nobody stands on the street corner and reads a newspaper in this weather. If you're worried about the stock market or curious about a recent disaster, you flip through quickly, find out how much money you lost or how far the church bus plummeted and then keep on walking.

  But you don't just stand in the windy street for Page Six gossip.

  She couldn't see the man clearly--he was partially hidden behind the newspaper and a pile of debris from the construction site. But one thing was obvious: his boots. They'd have a traction tread, which could have left the distinctive impressions she found in the snow at the mouth of the alley.

  Sachs debated. Most of the other officers had left. Simpson and Rettig were armed but not tactically trained and the suspect was on the other side of a three-foot-high metal barricade set up for an upcoming parade. He could escape easily if she approached him from where she was now, across the street. She'd have to handle the take-down more subtly.

  She walked up to Pulaski, whispered, "There's somebody at your six o'clock. I want to talk to him. Guy with the paper."

  "The perp?" he asked.

  "Don't know. Maybe. Here's what we're going to do. I'm getting into the RRV with the CS team. They're going to drop me at the corner to the east. Can you drive a manual?"

  "Sure."

  She gave him the keys to her bright red Camaro. "You drive west on Cedar toward Broadway, maybe forty feet. Stop fast, get out and vault the barricade, come back this way."

  "Flush him."

  "Right. If he's just out reading the paper, we'll have a talk, check his ID and get back to work. If not, I'm guessing he'll turn and run right into my arms. You come up behind and cover me."

  "Got it."

  Sachs made a show of taking a last look around the scene and then climbed into the big brown RRV van. She leaned forward. "We've got a problem."

  Nancy Simpson and Frank Rettig glanced toward her. Simpson unzipped her jacket and put her hand on the grip of her pistol.

  "No, don't need that. I'll tell you what's going down." She explained the situation then said to Simpson, who was behind the wheel, "Head east. At the light make a left. Just slow up. I'll jump out."

  Pulaski climbed into the Camaro, fired it up and couldn't resist pumping the gas to get a sexy whine out of the Tubi exhausts.

  Rettig asked, "You don't want us to stop?"

  "No, just slow up. I want the suspect to be sure I'm leaving."

  "Okay," Simpson said. "You got it."

  The RRV headed east. In the sideview mirror Sachs saw Pulaski start forward--easy, she told him silently; it was a monster engine and the clutch gripped like Velcro. But he controlled the horses and rolled forward smoothly, the opposite direction from the van.

  At the intersection of Cedar and Nassau the RRV turned and Sachs opened the door. "Keep going. Don't slow up."

  Simpson did a great job keeping the van steady. "Good luck," the crime scene officer called.

  Sachs leapt out.

  Whoa, a little faster than she'd planned. She nearly stumbled, caught herself and thanked the Department of Sanitation for the generous sprinkling of salt on the icy street. She started along the sidewalk, coming up behind the man with the newspaper. He didn't see her.

  A block away, then a half block. She opened her jacket and gripped the Glock that rode high on her belt. About fifty feet past the suspect, Pulaski suddenly pulled to the curb, climbed out and--without the guy's noticing--easily jumped over the barricade. They had him sandwiched in, separated by a barrier on one side and the building being renovated on the other.

  A good plan.

  Except for one glitch.

  Across the street from Sachs were two armed guards, stationed in front of the Housing and Urban Development building. They'd been helping with the crime scene and one of them glanced at Sachs. He waved to her, calling, "Forget
something, Detective?"

  Shit. The man with the newspaper whirled around and saw her.

  He dropped the paper, jumped the barrier and sprinted as fast as he could down the middle of the street toward Broadway, catching Pulaski on the other side of the metal fence. The rookie tried to leap it, caught his foot and went down hard in the street. Sachs paused but saw he wasn't badly hurt and she continued after the suspect. Pulaski rolled to his feet and together they sprinted after the man, who had a thirty-foot head start and was increasing his lead.

  She grabbed her walkie-talkie and pressed TRANSMIT. "Detective Five Eight Eight Five," she gasped. "In foot pursuit of a suspect in that homicide near Cedar Street. Suspect is heading west on Cedar, wait, now south on Broadway. Need backup."

  "Roger, Five Eight Eight Five. Directing units to your location."

  Several other RMPs--radio mobile patrols, squad cars--responded that they were nearby and en route to cut off the suspect's escape.

  As Sachs and Pulaski approached Battery Park, the man suddenly stopped, nearly stumbling. He glanced to his right--at the subway.

  No, not the train, she thought. Too many bystanders in close proximity.

  Don't do it. . . .

  Another glance over his shoulder and he plunged down the stairs.

  She stopped, calling to Pulaski, "Go after him." A deep breath. "If he shoots, check your backdrop real carefully. Let him go rather than fire if there's any doubt at all."

  His face uneasy, the rookie nodded. Sachs knew he'd never been in a firefight. He called, "Where're you--"

  "Just go!" she shouted.

  The rookie took a breath and started sprinting again. Sachs ran to the subway entrance and watched Pulaski descend three steps at a time. Then she crossed the street and trotted a half block south. She drew her gun and stepped behind a newsstand.

  Counting down . . . four . . . three . . . two . . .

  One.

  She stepped out, turning to the subway exit, just as the suspect sprinted up the stairs. She trained the gun on him. "Don't move."

  Passersby were screaming and dropping to the ground. The suspect's reaction, though, was simply disgust, presumably that his trick hadn't worked. Sachs had thought he might be coming this way. The surprise in his eyes when he saw the subway could've been phony, she'd decided. It told her that maybe he'd been making for the station all along--as a possible feint. He raised his hands lethargically.