Flaherty wasn’t completely convinced but she said, “Okay, we’ll try it your way. But you keep me informed. Me and nobody else.”

A huge sense of relief flooded through Sachs. “Of course.”

“Informed by phone or in person. No e-mails or memos . . .” Flaherty frowned. “One thing, you have any other cases on your plate?”

Inspectors don’t rise to this level without a sixth sense. The woman had asked the one question Sachs was hoping she wouldn’t.

“I’m assisting on the homicide—the Watchmaker.”

Flaherty frowned. “Oh, you’re on that one? I didn’t know that. . . . Compared with a serial doer, this St. James situation isn’t as important.”

Rhyme’s words, echoing: Your case is colder than the Watchmaker. . . .

Wallace was lost in thought for a moment. Then he glanced at Flaherty. “I think we have to be adults here. What’s going to look worse for the city? A man who kills a few people or a scandal in the police department that the press breaks before we control it? Reporters go for crooked cops like sharks after blood. No, I want to move on this. Big.”

Sachs bridled at Wallace’s comment—kills a few people—but she couldn’t deny that their goals were the same. She wanted to see the Creeley case through to the end.

For the second time in one day she found herself saying, “I can handle both cases. I promise you it won’t be a problem.”

In her mind she heard a skeptical voice saying, Let’s hope, Sachs.

Chapter 9

Amelia Sachs collected Ron Pulaski from Rhyme’s, a kidnapping she gathered the criminalist wasn’t too pleased about, though the rookie didn’t seem very busy at the moment.

“How fast’ve you had her up to?” Pulaski touched the dashboard of her 1969 Camaro SS. Then he said quickly, “I mean ‘it,’ not ‘her.’”

“You don’t need to be so politically correct, Ron. I’ve been clocked at one eighty-seven.”

“Whoa.”

“You like cars?”

“More, I like cycles, you know. My brother and I had two of ’em when we were in high school.”

“Matching?”

“What?”

“The cycles.”

“Oh, because we’re twins, you mean. Naw, we never did that. Dress alike and stuff. Mom wanted us to but we were dorky enough as it was. She laughs now, of course—’cause of our uniforms. Anyway, when we were riding, it wasn’t like we could just go out and buy whatever we wanted, two matching Hondas 850s or whatever. We got whatever we could, second- or third-hand.” He gave a sly grin. “One night, Tony was asleep, I snuck into the garage and swapped out the engines. He never caught on.”

“You still ride?”

“God gives you a choice: children or motorcycles. The week after Jenny got pregnant, some lucky dude in Queens got himself a real fine Moto Guzzi at a good price.” He grinned. “With a particularly sweet engine.”

Sachs laughed. Then she explained their mission. There were several leads she wanted to follow up on: The other bartender at the St. James—Gerte was her name—would be arriving at work soon and Sachs needed to talk to her. She also wanted to talk to Creeley’s partner, Jordan Kessler, who was returning from his Pittsburgh business trip.