Page 43 of The Watchmaker's Hand

Orienting himself, he happened to gaze up the street, blocked off by a squad car. On the other side of it, pausing in the middle of the north-south avenue, was a sedan. The windows of the dark-red vehicle were tinted and Pulaski couldn’t see the driver clearly. It might have been merely pausing, like many others, to check out the excitement.

Then again, the minute he squinted, focusing on it, the driver sped away.

Watch yourself …

He proceeded past the CS bus, calling, “A minute” to the pair of evidence collection techs from Queens Crime Scene.

On the street, near the yellow tape, was the gold shield Lon Sellitto had put on the case. He was directing two uniforms to storefronts nearby, for the canvass. Pulaski’d never worked with Al Sanchez, but he knew of him. Out of One PP, the stocky man, with thick, wavy hair, was senior in Homicide. Sellitto had picked a senior investigator, Pulaski supposed, rather than a gold out of the local house, because of the victim—NYPD detective.

Joining him, Pulaski identified himself.

Sanchez said, “Yeah, Lon said you’d be running the scene. You work with that Lincoln Rhyme.”

“I do.”

“I gotta meet him some day. Okay. Let me show you what we got.” They walked under the yellow tape and ducked through a chain-link gate. Soon they were at the body. Sanchez clicked his tongue. “Pro. Three rounds. Double chest, one face.” He shrugged. “Don’t know why he was down here. Don’t even know what he was working on.”

“Some minor OC stuff. Mostly the DSE case.”

“What’s DSE?”

“Department of Structures and Engineering. Perp stole charts, diagrams, maps, construction permit requests, inspection schedules. Stuff like that.”

“Why?” He looked as perplexed as anyone would be at a theft that didn’t involve money, diamonds, trade secrets or the like.

“No idea.”

“You have an unsub?”

“Not yet. But …”

Meaning that Gilligan’s death might get them closer to one.

Sanchez scoffed. “You steal a bunch of paperwork, then triple tap the gold shield who drew the case? That’s a septic system of bad.”

Pulaski looked around. “Funny place for a hit. Not the street. And how’d the shooter get to him?”

Rhyme had taught him that there is no single crime scene.

The body—if we’re talking homicide—is the hub of the wheel. The unsub had to get there and then he had to leave. Those spokes’re as important as where the deed was done.

The body was in almost the direct center of a bulldozer-cleared field, beside a pit that would have been the basement of an old tenement, of which there were plenty in this neighborhood. Pulaski had checked on the property and there were no plans to do anything with it. No permit requests—not since 1978. And the developer never finished the paperwork.

The perp could have come at him from the gate, a half-dozen buildings across the field, a pathway that led to the next east-west street a block away. It was barred with chain-link, but at six feet high that fence would stop only the most out-of-shape killers.

“That’s his car?”

A white Lexus sat at the curb.

“Yeah.”

“ME?”

“Released him. You’re good.”

“Canvassing?”

“Got a half dozen on it.”

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