The Watchmaker’s Hand

“Her name’s Leppert, former prosecutor too. She went after the cartels in South Texas. I like her.”

“Really?” he asked absently. “So, I think that confirms it. Affordable housing? It’s just one of his complications.”

Charles Vespasian Hale was a killer and a scam artist and a burglar and a mercenary.

But he was something else as well: he was an illusionist. He took his lead from the concept of complications in watchmaking: any function of a watch or clock other than telling the time. Complications could be hidden within the instrument, like a bell-striking mechanism; or they could be visible on the display, such as dials indicating the phases of the moon, tides, seasons. Watches with many such features were called “grande complications.”

The term could also be used to describe Hale’s plots.

Rhyme had done considerable research into the subject of horology, to better understand his adversary. He’d learned that the watch with the most complications is the Franck Muller Aeternitas Mega 4. Thirty-six features and nearly fifteen hundred parts.

He wondered if Hale owned one. Maybe he’d made a watch himself with even more complications than that.

“All right,” he said slowly, “we’ll put affordable housing off the table temporarily. Then who hired him and what’s he really got planned?”

Sachs asked, “If it’s something else, then what does that do to the deadline?”

In thirteen hours, the Watchmaker had promised, another crane would come crashing to earth.

“We assume he’ll keep going. Whatever he’s up to, the sabotage is part of it.”

The front door buzzer sounded. Rhyme and Sachs both looked at the monitor, each with an at-this-time-of-night? expression.

A nondescript man, Black, middle-aged, was looking up at the camera. He wore a dark suit, blue or black, and a white shirt with a tie. On his belt was a gold badge.

“Yes?”

“Captain Rhyme. Lawrence Hylton. Internal Affairs. Sorry to bother you this late. Can I speak with you?” The accent was Caribbean, Rhyme judged. Jamaican, maybe.

Rhyme let him inside and Sachs went to greet and usher him into the parlor.

When he stepped inside, he scanned the impressive laboratory and then focused on Rhyme. Once again, a visitor’s face glowed with minor adulation.

Rhyme’s own expression was clouded. Not because of the man’s presence, or the somewhat irritating awe, but because of his learning just now that he had absolutely no idea what the Watchmaker was up to.

Thom swung through the room, surprised there was a guest. He asked about coffee or another beverage — missing, or ignoring, Rhyme’s frown meant to discourage anything that kept Hylton here a moment longer than necessary.

But the detective declined with a grateful nod.

Sachs stifled a cough and motioned to a chair.

Bad news. He sat. The stay might be longer than Rhyme had hoped.

“We understand Detective Gilligan was behind the Department of Structures and Engineering theft and was working with the man behind the crane attacks.”

“Yes, that’s how it appears.”

Hylton removed a well-worn notebook from his inside breast pocket, a gold pen too. He jotted something at the top of the small sheet. Date and place, most likely. In the old days, when he was a line detective, this is what Rhyme did too. Even then, though, he found himself taking more notes about the evidence at the scene than what the witnesses had to say. He sometimes missed their testimony entirely.

“And who is that other man?”

Rhyme had alerted One PP and the mayor’s office the minute they learned that Hale was in town. He supposed Internal Affairs wasn’t kept informed of cases out of their bailiwick, though given Hale’s reputation and his history of jobs in New York, it seemed odd that Hylton didn’t know.

“Charles Vespasian Hale. Professional criminal. He’s got a file, NYPD and FBI, if you want to read more.”

“Is he the one who killed Detective Gilligan?”

“We believe so.”

Notes were jotted, examined, and then added to. “And the reason for that?”

“Unknown at this point.”

Hylton’s eyes returned to the lab. He seemed about to ask a question regarding it, but then sensed Rhyme’s impatience. He gave a near smile and turned his eyes back to the criminalist. “What evidence do you have against Detective Gilligan?”

Rhyme nodded at Sachs and she explained what they’d found.

More jotting, and then Hylton was frowning. “I mean, all this to make housing available for the poor?”

A shrug. “We’ve decided that Hale is up to something else,” said Sachs. “We don’t know what at this point.”

“Though we do know one item on his agenda,” offered Rhyme. “To kill me.”

The gold pen paused.

“Some outfit has a contract on you? OC — the mob?”

“No. It’s personal. And that’s one of the reasons Hale hired Gilligan. To get inside here and find out what kind of security I have.”

Hylton looked at the X-ray and the nitrate detector. “I wondered about those.” He then asked, “You have any idea where this Hale is now?”

“No.”

If we did...