The Watchmaker’s Hand

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.”

After a brief silence Rhyme said, “Maybe here’s one. Just thinking about her plots, all the planning. How does ‘the Engineer’ sound?”

“I like it. But you know what I’d like more?”

“Which is?”

“To see her in detention.”

“That day will come, Sachs. That day will come.”

She hoped so.

Though she could not push from her mind the last stanza of the poem.

And leaves behind the unfulfilled

To dwell on ways to make amends.

They disconnected.

Ron Pulaski had been on his phone, and he now disconnected. “I just called for a CS bus. I’ll get started on the spiral.”

“The what?”

“Oh, I’m searching in spirals now. Not grids.”

Interesting idea. She’d watch him and maybe try it herself on her next scene.