9,022 cases, Larkin wanted to correct. He was only concerned with the recorded murders that had gone unsolved. The everyday victims. The ones whose names never made the newsprint. The ones people didn’t want to know about. And that number was 9,022. Their dreams, their fears, first loves and first heartbreaks—everything that had once made them human, all now consolidated into a tidy pile of DD5 forms with the same notation made year after year until the lead Homicide detective officially deemed the case a loser:No progress to report.
That’s when the lost cause was punted to Larkin’s desk. And in a city of nine million, Everett Larkin stood alone, unmoored. The only one who hadn’t forgotten—couldn’tforget—those 9,022 lost souls. Their case numbers were a memento mori by which he mourned. Each day was an anniversary of another victim awaiting justice, andyes, Detective Millett, Larkin wanted to say,I know every single one.
“When you take samples—” Larkin paused when he caught sight of a man standing near the yellow tape, looking out of place. “—please take some of the crate too.”
“You’re going to have to fight the department to pay for that test.”
“Take the sample.” Larkin detached from Millett. He flicked his wrist in a quick, come-hither motion to the older man, who pointed to himself in confirmation, spoke to a nearby uniformed officer, and then was allowed under the tape. “Detective Everett Larkin, Cold Case Squad,” he said as the stranger hurried to join him under the tent.
“Harry Regmore, Parks and Recreation. I, uh, I called in the—erm….”
“Body.”
“Yeah.” Harry adjusted the brim of his torn-to-hell Mets ballcap. A pair of UV safety glasses were perched on top.
Larkin was already cataloguing everything about Harry Regmore in that uncontrollable, compulsive manner that had, at least in part, turned his burden into the foundation of what made Larkin a good cop. Harry was middle-aged and built like an ox, with dark, dark eyes in a face that hadn’t seen enough protection from the sun. He wore a flannel shirt in what Larkin decided to refer to as Lumberjack Red, Levi’s with some black staining strictly below the knees, and boots—steel-toed, most likely. Harry’s eyes cut toward Millett on Larkin’s left, and he swallowed hard. He retrieved a pair of dirty, well-used gloves from his back pocket, unfolded and refolded them, then returned them to the pocket.
Larkin said, “Death makes some people nervous.”
Harry chuckled a little. “I’ve seen death before, detective. Grew up in the Bronx in the ’70s.”
“Then why are you anxious.”
“Huh? No. It’s just early, you know? Only had one cup of coffee, and then this whole—”
“Don’t lie.”
Harry pulled his gaze away from the scene and asked, “You’re not gonna run a drug test, are you?”
Larkin didn’t answer. He’d been a detective for seven of his ten years on the force, and found that when it came to interviews or interrogations, silence was one of the best and most underutilized tools. Because most people? They wanted to talk. Humans were social creatures. They craved communication. If Larkin didn’t provide an outlet, whoever sat opposite would often do whatever was necessary to get Larkin to engage. Sometimes that meant offering a sliver of information, a vital clue that would bring life back to a cold case. Sometimes it meant snitching to make a deal. And sometimes, if they weren’t very bright, they’d implicate themselves.
Of course, there were some people who simply had nothing to say. Larkin had both a good cop and bad cop routine for those sorts—the former being deducing a mutual connection and offering a piece of himself to establish trust, the latter being his stare. He’d been told it was like looking death in the eye, but unlike the old saying, Larkin was never the one to blink first.
Harry, it turned out, was the talkative sort. “I was smokin’ some yesterday, that’s all.” He looked back to the hole as Millett’s camera shuttersnap,snap,snapped. “But then this storm hit… the tree’s a public safety hazard, you know? I have to remove it.”
“I don’t care that you smoked weed on your day off.”
A puff of cold air surrounded Harry’s mouth as he exhaled.
“How old is this crabapple.”
Harry shrugged. “I’m just here to remove it,” he said again. But after another short stretch of silence, Harry reached into his other back pocket and removed a wallet. His big fingers pawed through a collection of business cards before he found the one he wanted. “Give Mable a call, over at Parks and Rec. She oversees most of what goes on at Madison. She could probably tell you about the crabapple tree, if you actually wanted to know.”
Larkin studied the card before slipping it into his pocket. “When did you arrive at the park.”
“What time is it now?”
Larkin tugged back the sleeve of his suit coat. “8:33.”
“Most people would say eight thirty.”
“I’m not most people.”
“Right. Okay. Six thirty, I guess. I saw the tree from the road, so I parked and came to check it out. Some jogger—in this storm, the fuckin’ douche—came from that way, and we both saw them bones in the box,” Harry explained, pointing toward the hole Millett was once again waist-deep in. “I called 911 because I’m not about to fuck with that.”
“Where did the jogger go.”
Another shrug. “I don’t know. He left, I guess.”
