The December day wasn’t particularly cold but the ancient furnace in Rhyme’s town house was on the fritz and everyone in his ground floor lab huddled in thick jackets. Clouds of steam blew from their mouths with every exhalation, and extremities were bright red. Amelia Sachs wore two sweaters and Pulaski was in a padded green jacket from which dangled Killington ski lift tickets like a veteran soldier’s campaign medals.

A skier cop, Rhyme reflected. That seemed odd, though he couldn’t say why exactly. Maybe something about the dangers of hurtling down a mountain with a hair-trigger 9-millimeter pistol under your bunny suit.

“Where’s the furnace repair guy?” Rhyme snapped to his aide.

“He said he’ll be here between one and five.” Thom was wearing a tweed jacket, which Rhyme had given him last Christmas, and a dark purple cashmere scarf, which had been one of Sachs’s presents.

“Ah, between one and five. One and five. Tell you what. Call him back and—”

“That’s what he told—”

“No, listen. Call him back and tell him we got a report there’s a crazed killer loose in his neighborhood and we’ll be there to catch him between one and five. See how he likes them apples.”

“Lincoln,” the patient aide said. “I don’t—”

“Does he know what we do here? Does he know that we serve and protect? Call him and tell him that.”

Pulaski noted that Thom wasn’t reaching for the phone. He asked, “Uhm, you want me to? Call, I mean?”

Ah, the sincerity of youth . . .

Thom replied to the young officer, “Don’t pay him any attention. He’s like a dog jumping up on you. Ignore him and he’ll stop.”

“A dog?” Rhyme asked. “I’m a dog. That’s a bit ironic, isn’t it, Thom? Since here you are biting the hand that feeds you.” Pleased with the retort, he added, “Tell the repairman I think I’m suffering from hypothermia. I really think I am, by the way.”

“So you can feel—” the rookie asked, his question braking to a halt.

“Yes, I goddamn well can feel uncomfortable, Pulaski.”

“Sorry, wasn’t thinking.”

“Hey,” Thom said, laughing. “Congratulations!”

“What’s that?” the rookie asked.

“You’ve graduated to last-name basis. He’s beginning to think of you as a step above a slug. . . . That’s how he refers to the people he really likes. I, for instance, am merely Thom. Forever Thom.”

“But,” Sachs said to the rookie, “tell him you’re sorry again and you’ll be demoted.”

The doorbell sounded a moment later and first-name Thom went to answer it.

Rhyme glanced at the clock. The time was 1:02. Could it be that a repairman was actually prompt?