The Watchmaker’s Hand

Beneath it sat a copy of Title 18 of the U.S. Code. The federal criminal statutes. Post-it notes protruded. They were pink, blue and yellow.

Dellray was wearing a very un-FBI suit in powder blue, along with the equally nonconforming yellow shirt and pink tie. He could get away with offending J. Edgar Hoover’s ghost because he was the best runner of undercover agents and CIs in the Bureau — and he got out into the field himself from time to time to play the role of an obscenely rich warlord or arms dealer or the corrupt government official with a gambling problem eager to take a bribe from a contractor.

He disconnected the call and returned to Zoom. “So. Anything interesting on the crane situation? I’ll tell you, all I have to do is peek outside my window and there’s one there, looming. All our counterterror people decided to decamp to the other side of the building in case it does a Humpty Dumpty. It’s. A. Distraction. What do you need?”

“Any unauthorized entries into the U.S. three days ago, or so, of a male, white, forties. Originating in the UK, but he might’ve transited anywhere in the world. And I’ve sent a picture. Mug shot.”

“I’ll do some rings here, Lincoln. I’ll get back. Who’s this arch vill-i-an?”

Rhyme had tried to categorize Dellray’s syntax, grammar and patois. It was not possible.

“The Watchmaker.”

A silence descended. A rarity with Dellray. “Well...”

“Yes, Fred. I know what he’s here for.”

“Keep this line open. I’m headin’ west, where my fearless colleagues’re hiding out from falling cranes. Be right back.”

The lanky man vanished.

22

Abby was watering the gardenias, in a hanging basket on the porch, when she heard the noise.

What was that?

A pop.

It was coming from the neighbor’s house.

The forty-four-year-old mother of three and part-time librarian looked across the narrow strips of side yards to the bungalow that was almost identical to the one she and her husband owned — identical to many of them, actually, in this part of Queens. Only, the next-door couple had gone with red trim, not yellow.

Abby decided she liked red better, but would never go to the expense of painting something that didn’t need to be painted. How stupid was that? Besides, that’d look like she did it because the neighbors had and even though that was true, she didn’t want anybody to think it was true.

Pop.

Her eyes on the bungalow, wondering about the sound. She was thinking what a time they’ve been through, the folks who lived there. The poor husband, the construction worker who’d nearly died in that terrible crane incident that morning.

Abby’s hubby, Tim, was a mechanic at Harbey’s Automotive — yes, not Harvey’s — and had never been in any danger even during the fire.

And the pregnant wife? Going to drop at any minute.

What a time...

One pour for you, she thought to the largest of the hanging plants — secretly her favorite.

One pour for you.

Good drinks, everybody.

Abby loved her plants. She talked to them and believed they did better because of the conversation.

She looked at their house once more.

Wait, what was that?

She was alarmed. Smoke? Was there a fire?

Grabbing her phone, she started to dial 911. Then she paused. No. She realized she was looking at the bathroom. It was steam. A few wisps slid from the partially open window and vanished quickly. And there was no smoke anywhere else.

That’s all it was. Steam.

She herself just loved hot baths.

Abby walked into the kitchen and filled her watering can once again. She walked through the house, careful not to spill on the carpet, and out the door to the front porch, where four more plants waited.

“One pour for you,” she said. And turning to the others, she whispered, “Just be patient. It’s almost your turn.”

As they waited for the lanky FBI agent to return, Rhyme noted some other aspects of Dellray’s office: photos of his wife and three children. So the couple had had another youngster... Then again, maybe he’d had three the last time the subject of his family came up.

The criminalist was perpetually short on knowledge of his colleagues’ personal lives.

Sellitto began to ask something. But Rhyme held up a finger as he stared forward — not at the evidence whiteboard, but out the window. Branches and leaves and clouds, and some striking blue sky beyond.

Dellray returned. He dropped into his chair. “Gotcha one for the ages, Lincoln. Didn’t come across my desk ’cause I’m spending my precious hours and brain cells putting some racist skinheads away. Now, this is most interesting. Three days ago, incident at JFK. No collateral intel, no chatter, no hot box alerts. Not. A. One. We all together on that?”

“I will be when you tell me what you found out.”

A chuckle. “Triple Seven on an international flight. Parks at the gate, everybody hightails it off the big steel bird, passengers, flight crew. Now, this is where it gets good.