“Something dark. That’s all he remembered.”
“The money?”
“Said he gave it to a church.”
“Yeah, right. We’ll never see it.” Sachs continued to scan the grounds. No sign of human movement.
The officer continued, “He’s got a couple priors. Drugs. Drunk and disorderly. Even if he gets time, which I doubt, he’ll do six months. Not enough leverage to give up the money.”
And even if they found it — unlikely — what would it show? Woman X wasn’t going to give anything away by touching the bills.
She disconnected, sighed.
Spencer asked, “Did she think we’d all go running to the gunshots and leave the grave unattended?”
“It was never about her getting to the grave. She ran the scam just to see if we were on stakeout.”
“Flush us.”
“Yep. She took off the minute the officer broke cover. Hell. My fault. I should’ve told everybody to expect something like that.”
Nodding at the officers, Spencer said, “Instinct. I almost went too.”
“Yeah.”
The ESU commander called in. “She’s gone, right?”
Probably, she thought. What she said was: “Maybe.”
A pause. It was her operation. He needed her okay to leave.
“Stay in position.”
Another pause, this one more irritated, if science can radiate that trait. “Roger, Five Eight Eight Five.”
Two hours later, she got the inevitable call. “ESU to Five Eight Eight Five.”
“Go ahead.”
“Detective, we’ve gotta stand down. Sorry, but my people need to get back to watch.”
“Understood.”
The woman was surely long gone. Now that she knew there’d been surveillance once, she’d assume there would always be eyes on the grave, maybe a camera, maybe plain-clothed.
The ESU team emerged from the trees and joined Sachs, Spencer and Pulaski outside the shed. They discussed who’d write the report up — ESU glancing at her in a way that said “Your op, you do the paperwork.” She agreed. They started back to where their cars and an unmarked van were parked, in the shadows of a narrow street across 233rd. On instinct, Sachs stopped abruptly. Pulaski looked her way as she turned back.
“No,” she whispered, nearly a gasp.
She, Pulaski and Spencer jogged back to the grave. There, on the plaque that was Hale’s tombstone, was a folded piece of paper, weighed down by a red-painted ring about five inches across.
They scanned about them.
“The shots...” Sachs muttered.
Pulaski nodded. “It was a diversion.”
It sure was. But not to shift attention away from the grave while Woman X slipped up to it. No, the purpose of the assault was just what they had believed: that it was a trick to flush them — to find out what the officers on surveillance duty were wearing.
So she could dress in similar gear. She must’ve had a wardrobe in her car or van. It was just the foresight Hale himself would have.
She’d strolled right up behind the officer, invisible, because she too was in a full ESU tactical outfit.
Which Sachs now found behind a tree about forty feet from the grave.
Woman X had been among them the whole time, since delivering the gun and cash to the homeless guy.
Sachs grabbed her radio.
“Detective Five Eight Eight Five to Central. K.”
“Go ahead, Five Eight Eight Five. K.”
“We’re at the operation at Woodlawn, North Border Avenue near the lake. Suspect was here ten minutes ago. But has left. I need citywide on a fugitive. White female, thirties, brown hair braided. Medium build. Possibly dark clothing. Probably armed. I’m uploading a Domain Awareness picture now.” She lowered the phone and typed, sending the picture to Central’s secure server.
“Got it, Detective.” A pause. Woman X resembled about a hundred thousand residents of New York City. “Further to?”
She’d want vehicle, scars, footwear, other distinguishings, direction of travel, known locations.
Of which Sachs had none.
“Negative.”
“Roger, Five Eight Eight Five.”
They signed off.
She returned to Pulaski, who was looking down at the note, which he held in gloved hands.
“It’s a poem.”
Sachs couldn’t help but give a brief laugh. Well, this was a first.
After reading the words, she called Rhyme.
“I heard, Sachs. She gamed us.” He sounded amused, as if part of him had believed all along that anyone who’d been close to Hale was easily smart enough to elude an on-the-fly police trap. “What’d she leave?”
“A poem.”
“Hm. Read it.”
Sachs pulled on her own gloves and took the sheet.
Season
For C.V.H.
Somewhere in the autumn apple’s cells
A change occurs:
The curious investiture of ripeness.
So love, a type of season too,
Completes the heart
And moves us closer to fruition.
Unless...
A crow or sudden frost
Or spill of blood on parlor wall
Cuts short the time required for those ends,
And leaves behind the unfulfilled
To dwell on ways to make amends.
Rhyme grunted. Poetry, even less than prose fiction, did not figure in his world. “And it means what, do you think?”
Sachs chuckled. “It’s a love poem, Rhyme.”
“Hm. How?”
“It says that love changes us. Makes us whole, like a season ripens fruit. But that’s only part of the message.”
“What’s the rest?”
“A threat. Making amends. She’s saying she’ll be coming for us. Ah, and there’s something else?”
Rhyme said, “I caught it. The ‘blood on parlor wall.’ She knows how and where he died. She was in the park when it happened. Watching us.”
They had lost one enemy, and gained another.
“Handwriting?”
“No, computer. Generic paper.”
“Untraceable, naturally. And the hunk of metal?”
“A wheel.” She picked up a dark-red-painted metal disk about five inches across. Spokes radiated from hub to ring. “Part of a clock, I’d guess.”
“Show me.”
Sachs turned on her video camera and hit the live stream app. She held up the wheel.
“It’s not from a clock. We ran a case a year ago. The Brooklyn Museum of Industry.”
“Remember. Vaguely.”
“It’s a miniature wheel from a steam engine. A toy maybe or a hobbyist’s.” After a brief pause: “I wonder if it’s sentimental, or practical.”
“How do you mean, Rhyme?”
“Heartfelt emotion was no part of Hale’s makeup. I have a feeling Woman X is the same way. I think she left the wheel for a reason. To lead us somewhere. Or lead us away from somewhere.”
“If that’s true, then she’s as good at engineering plans as he was.”
She heard a faint laugh from the other end of the line. “How long did it take us to find Hale’s real name?”
“Years. We knew him as, what? Richard Logan, Gerald Duncan, finally Hale.”
“But we always knew him as the Watchmaker... Woman X needs a nickname too.”
“Fine with me. Can’t think of any at the moment.”