The Cold Moon by Jeffery Deaver Read Free Book Online

to tell her that several men had broken into their Westchester house.
    "I didn't know that. Do have any idea what they stole?"
    Sachs had met the woman several times. She was very thin — she jogged daily — and had short frosted hair, a pretty face. "It didn't look like much was missing." She decided to say nothing about the neighbor boy; she figured she'd scared him into going straight.
    Sachs asked if anyone would have been burning something in the fireplace, and Suzanne replied that no one had even been to the house recently.
    "What do you think was going on?"
    "I don't know. But it's making the suicide look more doubtful. Oh, by the way, you need a new lock on your back door."
    "I'll call somebody today... Thank you, Detective. It means a lot that you believe me. About Ben not killing himself."
    After they hung up, Sachs filled out a request for analysis of the ash, mud and other evidence at the Creeleys' house and packed these materials separately from the Watchmaker evidence. She then completed the chain-of-custody cards and helped Simpson and Rettig pack up the van. It took two of them to wrap the heavy metal bar in plastic and stow it.
    She was just swinging shut the van's door when she glanced up, across the street. The cold had driven off most of the spectators but she noted a man standing with a Post in front of an old building being renovated on Cedar Street, near Chase Plaza.
    That's not right, Sachs thought. Nobody stands on the street corner and reads a newspaper in this weather. If you're worried about the stock market or curious about a recent disaster, you flip through quickly, find out how much money you lost or how far the church bus plummeted and then keep on walking.
    But you don't just stand in the windy street for Page Six gossip.
    She couldn't see the man clearly — he was partially hidden behind the newspaper and a pile of debris from the construction site. But one thing was obvious: his boots. They'd have a traction tread, which could have left the distinctive impressions she found in the snow at the mouth of the alley.
    Sachs debated. Most of the other officers had left. Simpson and Rettig were armed but not tactically trained and the suspect was on the other side of a three-foot-high metal barricade set up for an upcoming parade. He could escape easily if she approached him from where she was now, across the street. She'd have to handle the take-down more subtly.
    She walked up to Pulaski, whispered, "There's somebody at your six o'clock. I want to talk to him. Guy with the paper."
    "The perp?" he asked.
    "Don't know. Maybe. Here's what we're going to do. I'm getting into the RRV with the CS team. They're going to drop me at the corner to the east. Can you drive a manual?"
    "Sure."
    She gave him the keys to her bright red Camaro. "You drive west on Cedar toward Broadway, maybe forty feet. Stop fast, get out and vault the barricade, come back this way."
    "Flush him."
    "Right. If he's just out reading the paper, we'll have a talk, check his ID and get back to work. If not, I'm guessing he'll turn and run right into my arms. You come up behind and cover me."
    "Got it."
    Sachs made a show of taking a last look around the scene and then climbed into the big brown RRV van. She leaned forward. "We've got a problem."
    Nancy Simpson and Frank Rettig glanced toward her. Simpson unzipped her jacket and put her hand on the grip of her pistol.
    "No, don't need that. I'll tell you what's going down." She explained the situation then said to Simpson, who was behind the wheel, "Head east. At the light make a left. Just slow up. I'll jump out."
    Pulaski climbed into the Camaro, fired it up and couldn't resist pumping the gas to get a sexy whine out of the Tubi exhausts.
    Rettig asked, "You don't want us to stop?"
    "No, just slow up. I want the suspect to be sure I'm leaving."
    "Okay," Simpson said. "You got it."
    The RRV headed east. In the sideview mirror Sachs saw Pulaski start forward — easy, she told him