Charlotte had been arrested by Sachs on state charges and it was now Dellray’s turn to arrest her for the federal crimes—both for this incident and for the UN bombing years ago, her involvement in a federal courthouse shooting in San Francisco and some miscellaneous charges.

Charlotte said she understood her rights and then started another lecture.

Dellray wagged a finger at her. “Gimme a minute, sweetheart.” The lean man turned to Rhyme. “So how’d you figure this one out, Lincoln? We heard X, we heard Y, all ’bout some boys in blue taking money they shouldn’ta been doin’ and then some bizarre fella leavin’ clocks as callin’ cards—then next thing we know the airports’re closed and there’s a priority-one security alert at HUD innerupting my nap.”

Rhyme detailed the frantic process of kinesic and forensic work that led them to figure out the Watchmaker’s real plan. Kathryn Dance had suggested that he was lying about his mission in New York. So they’d looked into the evidence again. Some of it pointed to the possible theft of a rare artifact in the Metropolitan Museum.

But the more he thought about it, the less likely it seemed. Rhyme figured Duncan had made up the story about the undelivered package to the Met just to get them focused on the museum. Somebody as careful as the Watchmaker wouldn’t leave the trail he did. He turned in Vincent, knowing the rapist would give up the church, where he’d left other museum brochures referring to the Mechanism. He mentioned it to Hallerstein and to Vincent as well. No, he was up to something else. But what? Kathryn Dance reviewed the interview tape again, several times, and decided that he might have been lying when he said he picked the supposed victims simply because their locations meant easy getaways.

“Which meant,” Rhyme told Dellray, “that he picked them for some other purpose. So, did they have anything in common?”

Rhyme had remembered something Dance learned about the first crime scene. Ari Cobb had said that the SUV was originally parked in the back of the alley but then the Watchmaker returned to the front to leave the body. “Why? One reason was that he needed to put the victim in a particular place. What was it near? The back door to the Housing and Urban Development building.”

Rhyme had then gotten the client list from the flooring company where he’d planted the fake fire extinguisher bomb and learned that they’d provided carpeting and tile for the HUD offices.

“I sent our rookie downtown to look around. He found a building across Cedar Street that was being renovated. The crews had tarred the roof a week ago, just before the cold spell. Flakes of tar matched those found on our perp’s shoes. The roof was a perfect place to check out HUD.”