ow many?" Rhyme said, shaking his head as he repeated what Sellitto had just told him. "He's planning ten victims?"

"Looks that way."

Sitting on either side of Rhyme in the lab, Kathryn Dance and Sellitto showed him the composite picture of the Watchmaker that the detective had made at the clock store, using EFIT — Electronic Facial Identification Technology, a computerized version of the old Identi-Kit, which reconstructed a suspect's features from witness prompts. The image was of a white man in his late forties or early fifties, with a round face, double chin, thick nose and unusually light blue eyes. The dealer had added that the killer was a little over six feet tall. His body was lean and his hair black and medium length. He wore no jewelry. Hallerstein recalled dark clothes but couldn't remember exactly what he was wearing.

Dance then recounted Hallerstein's story. A man had called the shop a month earlier, asking for a particular kind of clock — not a specific brand but any one that was compact, had a moon-phase feature and a loud tick. "Those were the most important," she said. "The moon and a loud tick."

Presumably so that the victims could hear the sound as they died.

The dealer ordered ten clocks. When they'd arrived the man came in and paid cash. He didn't give his name or where he was from or why he wanted the clocks but he knew a great deal about timepieces. They talked about collectibles, who'd recently bought certain well-known timepieces at auctions and what horologic exhibits were presently in the city.

The Watchmaker wouldn't let Hallerstein help him out to the car with the clocks. He'd made several trips, carrying them himself.

As for evidence at the shop there was very little. Hallerstein didn't do much cash business, so most of the nine hundred dollars and change that the Watchmaker had paid him was still in the till. But the dealer had told Sellitto, "Won't do you much good if you want fingerprints. He wore gloves."

Cooper scanned the money for prints anyway and found only the dealer's, which Sellitto had taken as controls. The serial numbers on the bills weren't registered anywhere. Brushing the cash for trace revealed nothing but dust with no distinguishing characteristics.

They'd tried to determine exactly when the Watchmaker had contacted the dealer and, reviewing the telephone logs, they found the likely calls. But it turned out that they'd been made from pay phones, located in downtown Manhattan.

Nothing else at Hallerstein's was of any help.

A call came in from Vice, reporting that the officers had no luck finding the prostitute Tiffanee, with e or y, in the Wall Street area. The detective said he'd keep on it but since there'd been a murder most of the girls had vanished from the neighborhood.

It was then that Rhyme's eyes settled on one entry on the evidence chart.

Soil with fish protein...

Dragged from vehicle to alley...

He then looked at the crime scene photos again. "Thom!"

"What?" the aide called from the kitchen.

"I need you."

The young man appeared instantly. "What's wrong?"

"Lie down on the floor."

"You want me to do what?"

"Lie down on the floor. And, Mel, drag him over to that table."

"I thought something was wrong," Thom said.

"It is. I need you to lie down on the floor. Now!"

The aide looked at him with an expression of wry disbelief. "You're kidding."

"Now! Hurry."

"Not on this floor."

"I tell you to wear jeans to work. You're the one who insists on overpriced slacks. Put that jacket on — the one on the hook. Then hurry up. On your back."

A sigh. "This is going to cost you big-time." The aide pulled the jacket on and lay down on the floor.

"Wait, get the dog out of there," Rhyme called. Jackson the Havanese had jumped out of his box, apparently thinking it was playtime. Cooper scooped the dog up and handed him to Dance.

"Can we get on with it? No, zip up the jacket. It's supposed to be winter."

"It is winter," Cooper replied. "It's just not winter inside."

Thom zipped the jacket up to the neck and lay back.

"Mel, put some aluminum dust on your fingers and then drag him across the room."

The tech didn't even bother to ask the purpose of the exercise. He dipped his fingers in the dark gray fingerprint powder and stood over Thom.

"How do I drag him?"

"That's what I want to figure out," Rhyme said. He squinted. "What's the most efficient way?" He told Cooper to grab the bottom of the jacket and pull it up over Thom's face and drag him that way, headfirst.

Cooper pulled off his glasses and gripped the jacket.

"Sorry," he muttered to the aide.

"I know, you're just following orders."

Cooper did as Rhyme told him. The tech was breathing heavily from the effort but the aide moved smoothly along the floor. Sellitto watched impassively and Kathryn Dance was trying to keep from smiling.

"That's far enough. Take the jacket off and hold it open for me."

Sitting, Thom disrobed. "Can I get up off the floor now?"

"Yes, yes, yes." Rhyme was staring at the jacket. The aide climbed to his feet and dusted himself off.

"What's this all about?" Sellitto asked.

Rhyme grimaced. "Damnit, the rookie was right and he didn't even know it."

"Pulaski?"

"Yep. He assumed the fish trace was from the Watchmaker. I assumed it was the victim's. But look at the jacket."

Cooper's fingers had left traces of the aluminum fingerprint powder inside the garment, in exactly the places where the soil had been found on Theodore Adams's jacket. The Watchmaker himself had left the substance on the victim when he was dragging him in the alley.

"Stupid," Rhyme repeated. Careless thinking infuriated him — especially his own. "Now, next step. I want to know everything there is to know about fish protein."

Cooper turned back to the computer.

Rhyme then noticed Kathryn Dance glancing at her watch. "Missed your plane?" he asked.

"I've got an hour. Doesn't look good, though. Not with security and Christmas crowds."

"Sorry," the rumpled detective offered.

"If I helped, it was worth it."

Sellitto pulled his phone off his belt. "I'll have a squad car sent round. I can get you to the airport in a half hour. Lights and sirens."

"That'd be great. I might make it." Dance pulled on her coat and started for the door.

"Wait. I've got an offer for you."

Both Sellitto and Dance turned their heads to the man who'd spoken.

Rhyme looked at the California agent. "How'd you like an all-expenses-paid night in beautiful New York City?"

She cocked an eyebrow.

The criminalist continued. "I'm wondering if you could stay for another day."

Sellitto was laughing. "Linc, I don't believe it. You're always complaining that witnesses are useless. Changing your ways?"

Rhyme frowned. "No, Lon. What I complain about is how most people handle witnesses — visceral, gut feel, all that woo-woo crap. Pointless. But Kathryn does it right — she applies a methodology based on repeatable and observable responses to stimuli and draws verifiable conclusions. Obviously it's not as good as friction ridges or reagent A-ten in drug analysis but what she does is..." He looked for a word. "Helpful."

Thom laughed. "That's the best compliment you could get. Helpful."

"No need to fill in, Thom," Rhyme snapped. He turned to Dance. "So? How 'bout it?"

The woman's eyes scanned the evidence board and Rhyme noticed she wasn't focused on the cold notations of the clues, but on the pictures. Particularly the photographs of Theodore Adams's corpse, his frosted eyes staring upward.

"I'll stay," she said.

Vincent Reynolds walked slowly up the steps of the Metropolitan Museum on Fifth Avenue, out of breath by the time he got to the top. His hands and arms were very strong — helpful for when he had his heart-to-hearts with the ladies — but he got zero aerobic exercise.

Joanne, his flower girl, floated into his thought. Yes, he'd followed and come close to raping her. But at the last minute another of his incarnations had taken charge, Smart Vincent, who was the rarest of the brood. The temptation had been great but he couldn't disappoint his friend. (Vincent also didn't think it was a wise idea to give any grief to a man whose advice for dealing with conflict was to "slash the eyes.") So he'd merely checked up on her again, eaten a huge lunch and taken the train here.

He now paid and entered the museum, noticing a family — the wife resembled his sister. He'd just written the previous week asking her to come to New York for Christmas but hadn't heard back. He'd like to show her the sights. She could hardly come at the moment, of course, not while he and Duncan were busy. He hoped she'd visit soon, though. Vincent was convinced that having her more in his life would make a difference. It would provide a stability that would make him less hungry, he believed. He wouldn't need heart-to-hearts quite so often.

I really wouldn't mind changing a little bit, Dr. Jenkins.

Don't you agree?

Maybe she'd get here for New Year's. They could go to Times Square and watch the ball drop.

Vincent headed into the museum proper. There wasn't any doubt about where to find Gerald Duncan. He'd be in the area that held the important touring exhibits — the treasures of the Nile, for instance, or jewels from the British Empire. Now, the exhibit was "Horology in Ancient Times."

Horology, Duncan had explained, was the study of time and timepieces.

The killer had come here several times recently. It drew the older man the way porn shops drew Vincent. Normally distant and unemotional, Duncan always lit up when he was staring at the displays. It made Vincent happy to see his friend actually enjoying something.

Duncan was looking over some old pottery things called incense clocks. Vincent eased up next to him.

"What'd you find?" asked Duncan, who didn't turn his head. He'd seen Vincent's reflection in the glass of the display case. He was like that — always aware, always seeing what he needed to see.

"She was alone in the workshop all the time I was there. Nobody came in. She went to her store on Broadway and met this delivery guy there. They left. I called and asked for her —"

"From?"

"A pay phone. Sure."

Meticulous.

"And the clerk said she'd gone out for coffee. She'd be back in about an hour but she wouldn't be in the store. Meaning, I guess, she'd go back to the workshop."

"Good." Duncan nodded.

"And what'd you find?"

"The pier was roped off but nobody was there. I saw police boats in the river, so they haven't found the body yet. At Cedar Street I couldn't get very close. But they're taking the case real seriously. A lot of cops. There were two that seemed in charge. One of them was pretty."

"A girl, really?" Hungry Vincent perked up. The thought of having a heart-to-heart with a policewoman had never occurred to him. But he suddenly liked the idea.

A lot.

"Young, in her thirties. Red hair. You like red hair?"

He'd never forget Sally Anne's red hair, how it cascaded on the old, stinky blanket when he was lying on top of her.

The hunger soared. He was actually salivating. Vincent dug into his pocket, pulled out a candy bar and ate it fast. He wondered where Duncan was going with his comments about red hair and the pretty policewoman but the killer said nothing more. He stepped to another display, containing old-time pendulum clocks.

"Do you know what we have to thank for precise time-telling?"

The professor is at the lectern, thought Clever Mr. V, having replaced Hungry Mr. V for the moment, now that he'd had his chocolate.

"No."

"Trains."

"How come?"

"When people's entire lives were limited to a single town they could start the day whenever they decided. Six A.M. in London might be six eighteen in Oxford. Who cared? And if you did have to go to Oxford, you rode your horse and it didn't matter if the time was off. But with a railroad, if one train doesn't leave the station on time and the next one comes barreling through, well, the results are going to be unpleasant."

"That makes sense."

Duncan turned away from the display. Vincent was hoping they'd leave now, go downtown and get Joanne. But Duncan walked across the room to a large case of thick glass. It was behind a velvet rope. A big guard stood next to it.

Duncan stared at the object inside, a gold-and-silver box about two feet square, eight inches deep. The front was filled with a dozen dials that were stamped with spheres and pictures of what looked like the planets and stars and comets, along with numbers and weird letters and symbols, like in astrology. The box itself was carved with images too and was covered with jewels.

"What is it?" Vincent asked.

"The Delphic Mechanism," Duncan explained. "It's from Greece, more than fifteen hundred years old. It's on tour around the world."

"What does it do?"

"Many things. See those dials there? They calculate the movement of the sun and moon and planets." He glanced at Vincent. "It actually shows the earth and planets moving around the sun, which was revolutionary, and heretical, for the time — a thousand years before Copernicus's model of the solar system. Amazing."

Vincent remembered something about Copernicus from high school science — though what he remembered most was a girl in the class, Rita Johansson. The recollection he enjoyed most was of the pudgy brunette, late one autumn afternoon, lying on her tummy in a field near the school, a burlap bag over her head, and saying in a polite voice, "Please, no, please don't."

"And look at that dial," Duncan said, interrupting Vincent's very pleasant memory.

"The silver one?"

"It's platinum. Pure platinum."

"That's more valuable than gold, right?"

Duncan didn't answer. "It shows the lunar calendar. But a very special one. The Gregorian calendar — the one we use — has three hundred and sixty-five days and irregular months. The lunar calendar's more consistent than the Gregorian — the months are always the same length. But they don't correspond to the sun, which means that the lunar month that starts on, say, April fifth of this year will fall on a different day next year. But the Delphic Mechanism shows a lunisolar calendar, which combines the two. I hate the Gregorian and the pure lunar." There was passion in his voice. "They're sloppy."

He hates them? Vincent was thinking.

"But the lunisolar — it's elegant, harmonious. Beautiful."

Duncan nodded at the face of the Delphic Mechanism. "A lot of people don't believe it's authentic because scientists can't duplicate its calculations without computers. They can't believe that somebody built such a sophisticated calculator that long ago. But I'm convinced it's real."

"Is it worth a lot?"

"It's priceless." After a moment he added, "There've been dozens of rumors about it — that it contained answers to the secrets of life and the universe."

"You think that?"

Duncan continued to stare at the light glistening off the metal. "In a way. Does it do anything supernatural? Of course not. But it does something important: It unifies time. It helps us understand that it's an endless river. The Mechanism doesn't treat a second any differently than it does a millennium. And somehow it was able to measure all of those intervals with nearly one hundred percent accuracy." He pointed at the box. "The ancients thought of time as a separate force, sort of a god itself, with powers of its own. The Mechanism is an emblem of that view, you could say. I think we'd all be better off looking at time that way: how a single second can be as powerful as a bullet or knife or bomb. It can affect events a thousand years in the future. Can change them completely."

The great scheme of things...

"That's something."

Though Vincent's tone must have revealed that he didn't share Duncan's enthusiasm.

But this was apparently all right. The killer looked at his pocket watch. He gave a rare laugh. "You've had enough of my crazy rambling. Let's go visit our flower girl."

Patrolman Ron Pulaski's life was this: his wife and children, his parents and twin brother, his three-bedroom detached house in Queens and the small pleasures of cookouts with buddies and their wives (he made his own barbecue sauce and salad dressings), jogging, scraping together babysitter money and sneaking off with his wife to the movies, working in a backyard so small that his twin brother called it a grass throw rug.

Simple stuff. So Pulaski was pretty uneasy meeting Jordan Kessler, Benjamin Creeley's partner. When the coin toss in Sachs's Camaro earned him the businessman, rather than the bartender, he'd called and arranged to see Kessler, who'd just returned from a business trip. (His jet, meaning really his, not a, jet, had just landed, and his driver was bringing him into the city.)

He now wished he'd picked the bartender. Big money made him uneasy.

Kessler was at a client's office in lower Manhattan and wanted to postpone seeing Pulaski. But Sachs had told him to be insistent and he had been. Kessler agreed to meet him in the Starbucks on the ground floor of his client's building.

The rookie walked into the lobby of Penn Energy Transfer, quite a place — glass and chrome and filled with marble sculptures. On the wall were huge photographs of the company's pipelines, painted different colors. For factory accessories they were pretty artistic. Pulaski really liked those pictures.

In the Starbucks a man squinted the cop's way and waved him over. Pulaski bought himself a coffee — the businessman already had some — and they shook hands. Kessler was a solid man, whose thin hair was distractingly combed over a shiny crown of scalp. He wore a dark blue shirt, starched smooth as balsa wood. The collar and cuffs were white and the cuff links rich gold knots.

"Thanks for meeting down here," Kessler said. "Not sure what a client would think about a policeman visiting me on the executive floor."

"What do you do for them?"

"Ah, the life of an accountant. Never rests." Kessler sipped his coffee, crossed his legs and said in a low voice, "It's terrible, Ben's death. Just terrible. I couldn't believe it when I heard... How're his wife and son taking it?" Then he shook his head and answered his own question. "How would they be taking it? They're devastated, I'm sure. Well, what can I do for you, Officer?"

"Like I explained, we're just following up on his death."

"Sure, whatever I can do to help."

Kessler didn't seem nervous to be talking to a police officer. And there was nothing condescending in the way he talked to a man who made a thousand times less money than he did.

"Did Mr. Creeley have a drug problem?"

"Drugs? Not that I ever saw. I know he took pain pills for his back at one time. But that was a while ago. And I don't think I ever saw him, what would you say? I never saw him impaired. But one thing: We didn't socialize much. Kind of had different personalities. We ran our business together and we've known each other for six years but we kept our private lives, well, private. Unless it was with clients we'd have dinner maybe once, twice a year."

Pulaski steered the conversation back on track. "What about illegal drugs?"

"Ben? No." Kessler laughed.

Pulaski thought back to his questions. Sachs had told him to memorize them. If you kept looking at your notes, she said, it made you seem unprofessional.

"Did he ever meet with anybody who you'd describe as dangerous, maybe someone who gave you the impression they were criminals?"

"Never."

"You told Detective Sachs that he was depressed."

"That's right."

"You know what he was depressed about?"

"Nope. Again, we didn't talk much about personal things." The man rested his arm on the table and the massive cuff link tapped loudly. Its cost was probably equal to Pulaski's monthly salary.

In Pulaski's mind, he heard his wife telling him, Relax, honey. You're doing fine.

His brother chimed in with: He may have gold links but you've got a big fucking gun.

"Apart from the depression, did you notice anything out of the ordinary about him lately?"

"I did, actually. He was drinking more than usual. And he'd taken up gambling. Went to Vegas or Atlantic City a couple times. Never used to do that."

"Could you identify this?" Pulaski handed the businessman a copy of the images lifted from the ash that Amelia Sachs had recovered at Creeley's house in Westchester. "It's a financial spreadsheet or balance sheet," the patrolman said.

"Understand that." A little condescending now but it seemed unintentional.

"They were in Mr. Creeley's possession. Do they mean anything to you?"

"Nope. They're hard to read. What happened to them?"

"That's how we found them."

Don't say anything about them being burned up, Sachs had told him. Play it close to the chest, you mean, Pulaski offered, then decided he shouldn't be using those words with a woman. He'd blushed. His twin brother wouldn't have. They shared every gene except the one that made you shy.

"They seem to show a lot of money."

Kessler looked at them again. "Not so much, just a few million."

Not so much.

"Getting back to the depression. How did you know he was depressed? If he didn't talk about it."

"Just moping around. Irritated a lot. Distracted. Something was definitely eating at him."

"Did he ever say anything about the St. James Tavern?"

"The...?"

"A bar in Manhattan."

"No. I know he'd leave work early from time to time. Meet friends for drinks, I think. But he never said who."

"Was he ever investigated?"

"For what?"

"Anything illegal."

"No. I would've heard."

"Did Mr. Creeley have any problems with his clients?"

"No. We had a great relationship with all of them. Their average return was three, four times the S and P Five Hundred. Who wouldn't be happy?"

S and P... Pulaski didn't get this one. He wrote it down anyway. Then the word "happy."

"Could you send me a client list?"

Kessler hesitated. "Frankly, I'd rather you didn't contact them." He lowered his head slightly and stared into the rookie's eyes.

Pulaski looked right back. He asked, "Why?"

"Awkward. Bad for business. Like I said before."

"Well, sir, when you think about it, there's nothing embarrassing about the police asking a few questions after someone's death, is there? It is pretty much our job."

"I suppose so."

"And all your clients know what happened to Mr. Creeley, don't they?"

"Yes."

"So us following up — your clients'd expect us to."

"Some might, others wouldn't."

"In any case, you have done something to control the situation, haven't you? Hired a PR firm or maybe met with your clients yourself to reassure them?"

Kessler hesitated. Then he said, "I'll have a list put together and sent to you."

Yes! Pulaski thought, three-pointer! And forced himself not to smile.

Amelia Sachs had said to save the big question till the end. "What'll happen to Mr. Creeley's half of the company?"

Which contained the tiny suggestion that Kessler had murdered his partner to take over the business. But Kessler either didn't catch this or didn't take any offense if he did. "I'll buy it out. Our partnership agreement provides for that. Suzanne — his wife — she'll get fair market value of his share. It'll be a good chunk of change."

Pulaski wrote that down. He gestured at the photo of the pipelines, visible though the glass door. "Your clients're big companies like this one?"

"Mostly we work for individuals, executives and board members." Kessler added a packet of sugar to his coffee and stirred it. "You ever involved in business, Officer?"

"Me?" Pulaski grinned. "Nope. I mean, worked summers for an uncle one time. But he went belly up. Well, not him. His printshop."

"It's exciting to create a business and grow it into something big." Kessler sipped the coffee, stirred it again and then leaned forward. "It's pretty clear you think there's something more to his death than just a suicide."

"We like to cover all bases." Pulaski had no clue what he meant by that; it just came out. He thought back to the questions. The well was dry. "I think that'll be it, sir. Appreciate your help."

Kessler finished his coffee. "If I can think of anything else I'll give you a call. You have a card?"

Pulaski handed one to the businessman, who asked, "That woman detective I talked to. What was her name again?"

"Detective Sachs."

"Right. If I can't get through to you, should I call her? Is she still working on the case?"

"Yessir."

As Pulaski dictated, Kessler wrote Sachs's name and mobile number on the back of the card. Pulaski also gave him the phone number at Rhyme's.

Kessler nodded. "Better get back to work."

Pulaski thanked him again, finished his coffee and left. One last look at the biggest of the pipeline photographs. That was really something. He wouldn't mind getting a little one to hang up in his rec room. But he supposed a company like Penn Energy hardly had a gift shop, like Disney World.