The Cold Moon (Lincoln Rhyme 7)

Rhyme said, "I tracked down Culbert's widow in Duluth. She told me he'd been deaf and mute since birth."

Sachs added, "But Duncan said that Culbert had saved his life in the army. If he was deaf he wouldn't've been in the service."

Rhyme said, "I think Duncan just read about a mugging victim and claimed he was his friend--to give some credibility to his plan to implicate Baker." The criminalist shrugged. "It might not be a problem. After all, we collared a corrupt cop. But it leaves a few questions. Can you look at Duncan's interview tape and tell us what you think?"

"Of course."

Cooper typed on his keyboard.

A moment later a wide-angle video of Gerald Duncan came on the monitor. He was sitting comfortably in an interview room downtown as Lon Sellitto's voice was giving the details: who he was, the date and the case. Then the statement proper began. Duncan recited essentially the same facts that he'd told Rhyme while sitting on the curb outside the last "serial killer" scene.

Dance watched, nodding slowly as she listened to the details of his plan.

When it was finished Cooper hit PAUSE, freeze-framing Duncan's face.

Dance turned to Rhyme. "That's all of it?"

"Yes." He noticed her face had gone still. The criminalist asked, "What do you think?"

She hesitated and then said, "I have to say . . . My feeling is that it's not just the story about his friend getting killed that's a problem. I think virtually everything he's telling you on that tape is a complete lie."

Silence in Rhyme's town house.

Total silence.

Finally Rhyme looked up from the image of Gerald Duncan, motionless on the screen, and said, "Go on."

"I got his baseline when he was mentioning the details of his plan to get Baker arrested. We know certain aspects of that are true. So when the stress levels change I assume he's being deceptive. I saw major deviations when he's talking about the supposed friend. And I don't think his name's Duncan. Or he lives in the Midwest. Oh, and he couldn't care less about Dennis Baker. He has no emotional interest in the man's arrest. And there's something else."

She glanced at the screen. "Can you cue to the middle? There's a place where he touches his cheek."

Cooper ran the video in reverse.

"There. Play that."

"I'd never hurt anybody. I couldn't do that. I might bend the law a bit. . . ."

Dance shook her head, frowning.

"What?" Sachs asked.

"His eyes . . ." Dance whispered. "Oh, this's a problem."

"Why?"

"I'm thinking he's dangerous, very dangerous. I spent months studying the interview tapes of Ted Bundy, the serial killer. He was a pure sociopath, meaning he could deceive with virtually no outward signs whatsoever. But the one thing I could detect in Bundy was a faint reaction in his eyes when he claimed he'd never killed anyone. The reaction wasn't a typical deception response; it revealed disappointment and betrayal. He was denying something central to his being." She nodded to the screen. "Exactly what Duncan just did."

"Are you sure?" Sachs asked.

"Not positive, no. But I think we've got to ask him some more questions."

"Whatever he's up to, we better have him moved to level-three detention until we can figure it out."

Since he'd been arrested for only minor, nonviolent crimes Gerald Duncan would be in a low-security holding tank down on Centre Street. Escape from there was unlikely but not impossible. Rhyme ordered his phone to call the supervisor of Detention in downtown Manhattan.

He identified himself and gave instructions to move Duncan to a more secure cell.

The jailer said nothing. Rhyme assumed this was because he didn't want to take orders from a civilian.