The Cold Moon (Lincoln Rhyme 7)

&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.

"Too much of a coincidence. I kept going back to the club and asking questions. Cost me five thousand bucks but finally I found somebody willing to tell me that Dennis Baker and some of his fellow cops ran shakedown scams in the city."

Duncan explained about a scheme of planting drugs on businessmen or their children and then dropping the charges for huge extortion payments.

"The missing drugs from the One One Eight," Pulaski said.

Sachs nodded. "Not enough to sell but enough to plant as evidence, sure."

Duncan added, "They were based out of some bar in lower Manhattan, I heard."

"The St. James?"

"That's it. They'd all meet there after their shifts at the station house were over."

Rhyme asked, "Your friend. The one who was killed. What was his name?"

Duncan gave them the name and Sellitto called Homicide. It was true. The man had been shot during an apparent mugging and no perp was ever collared.

"I used my connection I'd made at the club--paid him a lot of money--to get introduced to some people who knew Baker. I pretended I was a professional killer and offered my services. I didn't hear anything for a while. I thought he'd gotten busted or gone straight and I'd never hear from him. It was frustrating. But finally Baker called me and we met. It turns out he'd been checking me out to see if I was trustworthy. Apparently he was satisfied. He wouldn't give me too many details but said he had a business arrangement that was in jeopardy. He and another cop had taken care of some 'problems' they'd been having."

Sachs asked, "Creeley or Sarkowski? Did he mention them?"

"He didn't give me any names but it was obvious that he was talking about killing people."