AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Can I get it in writing?”
“No. And the offer’s starting to melt.”
“Okay, okay.”
“Me too!” Aaron said desperately.
Because he’d ruined Pulaski’s very comfortable car, he said, “I don’t know we’ll need you. I’ll have to think about it.”
Baskov said, “Well, it’s pretty much like you said. Burdick had a partner in the department. Somebody named Gilligan. A detective.”
Ah, interesting. He nodded for her to go on.
“But you got one thing wrong. Yeah, Burdick came to my dadand paid him to get you off Tarr’s ass. Only, the money—and the idea for the crash—came from somebody else. His name was Hale. Charles Hale, I think.”
Jesus.
So, the device that took down the last crane was one of Tarr’s IEDs.
Pulaski’s homicide murder case, seemingly unrelated, brought them full circle back to the Watchmaker.
There was noise from the hallway; uniformed officers had arrived to take Baskov to Central Booking and Aaron Stahl to the detention wing of Bellevue city hospital.
After they’d carted away the prisoners, Pulaski called Lon Sellitto to tell him how it had gone. When he disconnected he and Sloane walked down the corridor toward the exit. She asked, “How’d you put it all together, Ron?”
He told her about the hit job of a report Burdick had submitted to the Officer Involved Accident board. And Lyle Spencer’s comment about how much effort had gone into sidelining Pulaski.
“Then I was thinking about the call I got just before the intersection? From a tech in Crime Scene? It was a problem, chain of custody, the evidence from my scene. I don’t make mistakes involving chain of custody. Never. I talked to the clerk today. Burdick’d forced her to make the call just so he could claim I was distracted.”
Sloane said, “You’ve got Burdick. But the question is, you think you can turn him? To give up Tarr.”
Pulaski considered this for a moment. “Depends,” he answered.
“On what?”
“On just how much of a weasel he really is.”
•••
“Good evening, I’m Amber Andrews, here with breaking news. Agents with the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosivestoday raided the hangar at a small airport in Bergen County, New Jersey, arresting a man on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. Eddie Kevin Tarr, forty-three, has been considered one of the most dangerous bomb makers in the world and has sold an unknown number of improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, to terrorists and organized criminals over the past decade. Tarr is allegedly responsible for the bomb that brought down the tower crane in Lower Manhattan yesterday, resulting in the closing of the Holland Tunnel for nearly sixteen hours.”
III
OBIT
73.
“I THINK WE’VEgot some pix,” Pulaski said. “Her.”
Rhyme understood: Ron meant the Watchmaker’s associate.
Woman X.
The two men and Amelia Sachs were in the parlor. Pulaski had been ardently tracking the woman, who’d been fast with the tranquilizer gun and had either constructed or commissioned Hale’s magic induction device.
“I want her. Nothing personal.” He’d said this offhandedly.
Which made itsomewhatpersonal in Rhyme’s mind, but no matter. Apparently, the young officer had had some success.
