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After she left, Rhyme said to Sellitto, “Leave us alone, would you?”
“Linc …”
“I’ve got the panic button.”
The detective nodded. “All right, but the uniforms stay outside.”
“Fine.”
Sellitto took a last glance at the Watchmaker, poured a cardboard cup of coffee from Thom’s urn and walked outside.
Rhyme wheeled closer.
The man’s frowning silence asked the obvious question. How?
“We got intel from England that they’d intercepted traffic about an attempt to kill me. Someone in the UK, communicating with someone here about the job.
“I asked a student of mine—really quite the brilliant mind—to pretend to be the killer. What would be the best way to do it? He decided the assassin would get to me through a weakness. Something vitally important to me. Something I couldn’t be without. And that would make me careless. He posited evidence. And had the idea that the killer would plant botulinum in something Amelia collected at a crime scene.”
Hale nodded and, despite the circumstances, seemed impressed. “Clever boy, your student. A not-unreasonable tactic. But botulinum? It’s the devil to handle. Even worse than acid.”
Rhyme continued, “And I decided sabotaging evidence was too obvious. But his premise was solid. Get to me through somethingvitally important. I have a reputation for being a curmudgeon, dyspeptic, rude. ‘Asshole’ is used on occasion too. But I actuallydocare for people. Well, some people. Ron is one of them. Amelia. Mel Cooper. Lon. A few others. People I would sacrifice myself for.
“I assumed you’d take Sellitto, Amelia or Ron, and probably Ron. He’d be easier to grab than my wife. She carries a switch-blade, you know. And she’s the best shot in the department. I had NYPD Tech Services hide a tracker in their shoes. We got to Ron ten minutes after he woke up in your cell.
“As for your visit here, the park.” Rhyme nodded out the window. “You tried to kill the first crane operator because of what he’d seen in your SUV. Binoculars. And that book? With the gaudy jacket? We found it, finally.Birds of New York.”
“How did you figure out the hypodermics?”
“My hand’s too unsteady for a firearm. Can hardly hang myself, now, can I? Poison would be perfect. How would you get it to me? Well, Andy Gilligan was working for you. He could’ve hidden something inside. He was interested in the old books, so that’s where we searched first. We found the needles. Swapped the fentanyl out for distilled water and rigged a pulse oximeter that could be controlled remotely so it would count down to zero.”
Hale’s eyes radiated his dismay. “The falcons … That’s why the falcons. I was going to have you hook up the full EKG down here.” He nodded to the box. “But you’d planned on that. You went upstairs so the only vital sign indicator was the pulsimeter.Tu es egregie excogitator.”
“I accept the compliment. And mine to you.” Rhyme shook his head with genuine admiration. “Allthe complications in your plot—to keep us misdirected. Impressive, Charles. First, the affordable housing demand. Kommunalka?”
“Did you like that, Lincoln? I pictured a bunch of bearded radicals living in a frame house in Astoria, taking turns readingDas Kapitalto each other late into the night.”
“When that turned out to be a sham, we decided it was all about real estate manipulation.”
“What?” He seemed confused.
“Someone hiring you to sabotage the cranes to crash the real estate market. You were in the pay of a robber baron—if they still have those—who was going to scoop up property for a song.”
Now a laugh from the man’s lips. “Never even considered it.”
“Really?”
“Youget credit for that one, Lincoln. No, I wanted to lead you right to the assassination plot. A mysterious cell in Philadelphia, resentful of the president’s infrastructure bill. The cranes tumbling down, the last one blocking the Holland Tunnel. The president has to get out of town via some alternative route and, bang.”
“And so we’d think of that, you intentionally flew the drone in front of the Domain Awareness camera. The drones led us to Senator Talese. And Talese led us to the president. I assume it was Gilligan who gave you the details of his trip to New York and the meeting with the senator.”
“Andy was a wealth of information.”
“A good plan. It kept us from looking at other places, like, say, Emery Digital Solutions. So you could plant your device there.”
“No,” came the dismayed whisper. So emotionless otherwise, Hale didn’t seem the sort of man who would ever give a response like this. What Rhyme saw actually chilled him.
Until this moment, the man would have the hope that his primary mission was still on track. Now he knew the plans were shattered.
