“Where do you live, Mr. Regmore,” Larkin inquired.
“Sorry?”
“Do you still live in the Bronx.”
Harry adjusted his cap again. “Are you asking? Yeah, I do. Concourse.”
“How did you see the downed tree from the road when you live nearly ten miles away in a different borough.”
“I’d been at my cousin’s. Used to be, we’d get a little stoned, eat about four roast beef sandwiches each, with onions and gravy and mozzarella, and spend the entire night coming up with answers to all of life’s questions. Now, I smoke a joint and pass the fuck out. I was heading back to the Bronx.”
“You were taking Madison uptown.”
“That’s right.”
“Instead of the FDR.”
“They was saying on the radio there was some collision. Because of the rain. I was gonna avoid it.”
Larkin said, “You are, of course, lying, Mr. Regmore.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You specified you were going back uptown. So your starting point was somewhere south of the Flatiron,” Larkin explained, making a quick motion to the angular building barely visible through the fog and rain from where it loomed on Twenty-Third Street. “The Battery is the southernmost point of Manhattan and gives us a radius of about three miles, which, even taking surface streets, could get you to the park within ten to twenty minutes, no matter where your starting point was. But that implies you awoke and immediately jumped in your vehicle, and while you do stink of weed and day-old clothes, Mr. Regmore, you look as if you’ve taken a moment to freshen up, and, of course, gathered your shoes, wallet, keys, phone.
“That is not to say you weren’t concerned about making it back home to properly shower and get ready for the day, but even avoiding the FDR, you could reach Concourse in under an hour with some savvy driving. You claim to have been living here since the ’70s, to have been visiting your cousin for a number of years now, so you would be familiar with the ideal routes. Which means you could have gotten a bit more sleep and not left before the sun was up.”
“Well, I—”
“Now, see, in order for me to be here,” Larkin continued, “dispatch would send a patrol car. Average response, from call to travel time, is about eight minutes. Patrol would then request Homicide. O’Halloran phoned my lieutenant before he’d even arrived—you wouldn’t know that of course, but I do. You see, he’s very fair-skinned and his nose hadn’t quite gotten red from the cold, so he hadn’t been here more than a minute or two prior to my arrival. In fact, CSU likely beat him to the scene, which is quite typical of his behavior, but I digress. My lieutenant phoned me at 7:55, but seeing as I was already dressed and on my way out the door, it was quite easy to segue downtown. I arrived at—” Larkin checked his watch again, merely for a touch of dramatic effect. “—8:21. Are you certain you were here at 6:30.”
Harry blinked once or twice, looked toward the hole and the crate again, then said, “I guess it was probably closer to seven. Look, man, they got me on a special project at work this week. I was supposed to get in early. But I was running late because of the fuckin’ skunk weed my cousin buys. If I said I got wrapped up in allthisshit a little earlier, it’d look like I wasn’t scrambling, you know?”
Larkin narrowed his eyes. “Are you certain it was 7:00.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Harry removed an iPhone from his flannel shirt in Lumberjack Red, swiped, and said, “I called 911 at 7:06.”
“Thank you, Mr. Regmore.”
“Can I go now? The patrol cops had me waiting this whole time.”
“Did you touch anything.”
“What?” Harry gave an overt expression of shock. “Hell no. I was waitin’ under the Shake Shack roof until youse all started showing up.”
Larkin dismissed Harry and watched him walk toward the park gates, where he was swallowed whole by the storm.
Millett said, his voice puncturing the steadypat,pat,patof rain on the tarp overhead, “I bet the in-laws love that human polygraph trick come Thanksgiving, huh?”
Larkin shoved his left hand into his trouser pocket and stared.
Millett looked away first. He crouched in the hole, disappearing briefly from view, then straightened and offered up a plastic evidence bag. “This was near John Doe’s feet. I don’t think it was visible when Cheech called it in.”
Larkin accepted the bag and spun it around. Inside was a face.
Specifically, a bronze casting of a face. It was an impressive piece of artistry—adult male with a chin cleft and horribly crooked nose that suggested whoever the model had been had once found himself on the losing end of a brawl. His cheeks were slack and eyes closed—a study in sleep. It took an additional moment of examination for Larkin to deduce why something about the face wasoff, only to realize the artist hadn’t thought to include eyebrows or eyelashes.
“Are you acquainted with Detective Doyle?” Millett asked, staring at Larkin from within the hole.
