"Fuck you" was Charlotte's response.
Dellray blew air through his cheeks like a trumpet player. He moaned, "I am no match for this intellect."
Rhyme wished Kathryn Dance was here to interrogate the woman, though he guessed it would take a long time to pry information from her. He eased forward in the wheelchair and said in a whisper, so Pam couldn't hear, "If you help us out I can make sure you see your daughter from time to time when you're in prison. If you don't cooperate, I will guarantee that you never see her again as long as you live."
Charlotte glanced into the hallway, where Pam sat on a chair, defiantly clutching her Harry Potter. The dark-haired girl was pretty, with fragile features, but very slim. She wore faded jeans and a dark blue sweatshirt. The skin around her eyes was dark. She clicked her fingernails together compulsively. The girl seemed needy in a hundred different ways.
Charlotte turned back to Rhyme. "Then I'll never see her again," she said calmly.
Dellray blinked at this, his usually unrevealing face tightening in revulsion.
Rhyme himself could think of nothing more to say to the woman.
It was then that Ron Pulaski came running into the room. He paused to catch his breath.
"What?" Rhyme asked.
It took a moment for him to be able to answer. Finally, he said, "The phones . . . The Watchmaker . . ."
"Out with it, Ron."
"Sorry . . ." A deep breath. "We couldn't trace his mobile but a hotel clerk saw her, Charlotte, making calls around midnight every night over the past four or five days. I called the phone company. I got the number she called. They traced it. It's to a pay phone in Brooklyn. At this intersection." He handed the slip of paper to Sellitto, who relayed it to Bo Haumann and ESU.
"Good job," Sellitto said to Pulaski. He called the deputy inspector of the precinct where the phone was located. Officers would start a canvass of the neighborhood as soon as Mel Cooper emailed pictures of the composite to the DI.
Rhyme supposed that the Watchmaker might not live near the phone--it wouldn't have surprised the criminalist--but a mere thirty minutes later they had a positive identification from a patrol officer, who found several neighbors who recognized the man.
Sellitto took the number and alerted Bo Haumann.
Sachs announced, "I'll call in from the scene."
"Hold on," Rhyme said, glancing at her. "Why don't you sit this one out. Let Bo handle it."
"What?"
"They'll have a full tactical force."
Rhyme was thinking of the superstition that cops on short time were more likely to get killed or injured than others. Rhyme didn't believe in superstitions. That didn't matter. He didn't want her t
o go.
Amelia Sachs would be thinking the same thing, perhaps; she was debating, it seemed. Then he saw her looking into the hallway at Pam Willoughby. She turned back to the criminalist. Their eyes met. He gave a faint smile and nodded.
She grabbed her leather jacket and headed for the door.
In a quiet neighborhood in Brooklyn a dozen tactical officers moved slowly along the sidewalk, another six creeping through an alley behind a shabby detached house.
This was a neighborhood of modest houses in small yards, presently filled with Christmas decorations. The minuscule size of the lots had no effect on the owners' ability to populate the land with as many Santas, reindeer and elves as possible.
Sachs was walking down the sidewalk slowly at the head of the takedown team. She was on the radio with Rhyme. "We're here," she said softly.
"What's the story?"
"We've cleared the houses on either side and behind. There's nobody opposite." A community vegetable garden was across the street. A ragged scarecrow sat in the middle of the tiny lot. Across his chest was a swirl of graffiti.
"Pretty good site for a takedown. We're--hold on, Rhyme." A light had gone on in one of the front rooms. The cops around her stopped and crouched. She whispered, "He's still here. . . . I'm signing off."
"Go get him, Sachs." She heard an unusual determination in his voice. She knew he was upset that the man had escaped. Saving the people at the HUD building and capturing Charlotte were fine. But Rhyme wasn't happy unless all the perps ended up in cuffs.