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He nodded.
Neither of them looked.
“You can see all the gears. It’s interesting.”
“They’re not called gears.”
“No?”
“They’re wheels.”
“Even with the teeth?”
“Yes. Gears’re what’s used in transmissions. In timepieces they’re ‘wheels.’ The mechanism’s called the wheelwork. Or train.”
“Are you making one now?”
“A watch? Not here.”
She cocked her head and said, “There’s a crane above the drop spot.”
He didn’t look into the bag for the address. “Where?”
“West Thirty-Eighth.”
Hale offered a faint, and rare, smile. “No, that’s not the next target. Though it would be ironic. We should leave.” He set money down for the bill. “That mural on your phone. Why Langston Hughes?”
“Poetry’s an interest.”
“So you really want to see it?”
“Yes.”
So the trip to Harlem was a pilgrimage for both of them.
She rose. Hale did too. The script required a pressing together of cheeks and a sincere “Thanks”—for the birthday present belatedly delivered.
He said, “I’ll text you about the next step. Tomorrow.”
Her eyes still on his, she offered, “My time’s yours.” Then she turned, blending seamlessly into a throng of passersby.
27.
SACHS WALKED INTOthe parlor, carrying what was not even a carton full of evidence. Just a few bags with chain-of-custody cards attached.
She vetted everything through the security devices in the lobby, then handed the material to Mel Cooper. After a hit of oxygen, she explained to Rhyme, Sellitto and Cooper, “The crane’s operator lived. It was another worker who died.”
Lon Sellitto asked, “How the hell?”
She set the tank aside and gave a faint laugh. “Rappelled from the top just before it went over. Apparently, the man loves his heights. A rock climber, mountaineer.”
“Lord,” Mel Cooper murmured, flipping through the evidence bags. “Heights.”
She continued, “The unsub, well, theWatchmaker, found out he was a witness and set a device to take him and his wife out.”
“Did any neighbors see anything?”
“No. One saw some mist coming from a window, but she thought it was steam. Nothing else.”
