The Cold Moon (Lincoln Rhyme 7)

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.

"On the ground, face down."

"Come on. I--"

"Now!" she snapped.

He glanced at her gun and then complied. Winded from the run, her joints in pain, she dropped a knee into the middle of his back to cuff him. He winced. Sachs didn't care. She was just in one of those moods.

"They got a suspect. At the scene."

Lincoln Rhyme and the man who delivered this interesting news were sitting in his lab. Dennis Baker, fortyish, compact and handsome, was a supervisory lieutenant in Major Cases--Sellitto's division--and had been ordered by City Hall to make sure the Watchmaker was stopped as fast as possible. He'd been one of those who'd "insisted" that Sellitto get Rhyme and Sachs on the case.

Rhyme lifted an eyebrow. Suspect? Criminals often did return to the scene of the crime, for various reasons, and Rhyme wondered if Sachs had actually collared the killer.

Baker turned back to his cell phone, listening and nodding. The lieutenant--who bore an uncanny resemblance to the actor George Clooney--had that focused, humorless quality that makes for an excellent police administrator but a tedious drinking buddy.

"He's a good guy to have on your side," Sellitto had said of Baker just before the man arrived from One Police Plaza.

"Fine, but is he going to meddle?" Rhyme had asked the rumpled detective.

"Not so's you'd notice."

"Meaning?"

"He wants a big win under his belt and he thinks you can deliver it. He'll give you all the slack--and support--you need."

Which was good, because they were down some manpower. There was another NYPD detective who often worked with them, Roland Bell, a transplant from the South. The detective had an easy-going manner, very different from Rhyme's, though an equally methodical nature. Bell was on vacation with his two sons down in North Carolina, visiting his girlfriend, a local sheriff in the Tarheel State.

They also often worked with an FBI agent, renowned for his antiterrorism and undercover work, Fred Dellray. Murders of this sort aren't usually federal crimes but Dellray often helped Sellitto and Rhyme on homicides and would make the resources of the Bureau available without the typical red tape. But the Feds had their hands full with several massive Enron-style corporate fraud investigations that were just getting under way. Dellray was stuck on one of these.

Hence, Baker's presence--not to mention his influence at the Big Building--was a godsend. Sellitto now disconnected his cell phone call and explained that Sachs was interviewing the suspect at the moment, though he wasn't being very cooperative.

Sellitto was sitting next to Mel Cooper, the slightly built, ballroom-dancing forensic technician that Rhyme insisted on using. Cooper suffered for his brilliance as a crime scene lab man; Rhyme called him at all hours to run the technical side of his cases. He'd hesitated a bit when Rhyme called him at the lab in Queens that morning, explaining that he'd planned to take his girlfriend and his mother to Florida for the weekend.

Rhyme's response was, "All the more incentive to get here as soon as possible, wouldn't you say?"

"I'll be there in a half hour." He was now at an examination table in the lab, awaiting the evidence. With a latex-gloved hand, he fed some biscuits to Jackson; the dog was curled up at his feet.

"If there's any canine hair contamination," Rhyme grumbled, "I won't be happy."

"He's pretty cute," Cooper said, swapping gloves.

The criminalist grunted. "Cute" was not a word that figured in the Lincoln Rhyme dictionary.

Sellitto's phone rang again and he took the call, then disconnected. "The vic at the pier--Coast Guard and our divers haven't found any bodies yet. Still checking missing persons reports."

Just then Crime Scene arrived and Thom helped an officer cart in the evidence from the scenes Sachs had just run.

About time . . .

Baker and Cooper lugged in a heavy, plastic-wrapped metal bar.

The murder weapon in the alleyway killing.

The CS officer handed over chain-of-custody cards, which Cooper signed. The man said good-bye but Rhyme didn't acknowledge him. The criminalist was looking at the evidence. This was the moment that he lived for. After the spinal cord accident, his passion--really an addiction--for the sport of going one-on-one with perps continued undiminished, and the evidence from crimes was the field on which this game was played.