Larkin grunted.
“But now that we’ve met, you strike me as more Holmesian.”
“Please get off my desk.”
Doyle twisted at the waist so he was staring at Larkin, who pointedly refused to look away from his screen. “I really was in the area.”
“A forensic artist leaving his downtown office.” Larkin made certain to not phrase his words into an actualquestionthis time. He was quite aware of his odd speech patterns without complete strangers publicly pointing them out.
“Field sketch,” Doyle confirmed. “I listened to my voicemail afterward. 9:07, wasn’t it? I’d just missed your call. I checked in with the senior artist, then drove over here.”
“This is the Cold Case Squad,” Larkin stated, finally casting Doyle a quick, sideways glance. “I assure you, the rush was unnecessary.”
“But you’ve piqued my interest,” Doyle answered. “A death mask.”
“Conjecture.”
“Maybe. How about you let me see it?”
“How about you get off my desk.”
Doyle slowly pushed off the furniture, turned, and planted his big hand on the desktop. He held his tie against his chest with his other hand and leaned down. Doyle’s cologne penetrated Larkin’s personal bubble like an arrow of masculinity—woodsy, spicy, heady,dangerous. It left him reeling, as if he’d been punched in the head. KO’d by neroli and base notes of sandalwood and cardamon.
Larkin looked up.
Doyle’s eyes were brown with flecks of gold, like those bags of pyrite chips sold to children in tourist shops. He said, without any malice to his tone, “I think we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot.”
A detective seated at the desk in front of Larkin’s snorted and looked over his shoulder, holding a phone to one ear. “No way, kid,” he said, addressing Doyle, who, by Larkin’s estimate, was in his late-thirties and by no means a child. “Grim’s justthatfucking welcoming.”
Larkin flicked a stony stare in the direction of Detective Jim Porter, a short, stocky, middle-aged man who had an unfortunate case of extreme receding hairline. Larkin narrowed his eyes, waited until Porter took a fucking hint and minded his own business, then returned his attention to Doyle.
Doyle hadn’t looked away.
“What are your qualifications,” Larkin asked.
Slowly straightening, Doyle reached into his back pocket, retrieved a wallet, then displayed his shield.
“Your artistic qualifications,” Larkin corrected. “I’ve seen enough objectively bad police sketches to know being accepted into a prominent unit doesn’t necessarily mean it was based on merit.”
That easy smile flirted across Doyle’s face again. He tucked his wallet away. “The same can be said about Cold Cases, don’t you think?”
Larkin’s mouth twitched as he considered one or two of the detectives who’dsomehowbeen promoted to his squad. “I suppose.”
“BFA in illustration from SVA,” Doyle answered. “MA in History of Art and Archeology from NYU.”
“The second degree sounds scholarly.”
“Lofty aspirations of a cushy museum job—but I was led astray by the siren’s song of less pay, long hours, bad coffee, and bureaucratic bullshit. I think it was the uniforms.” That smile again, before Doyle added, “I look good in blue.”
Larkin considered Ira Doyle. It was true that the Forensic Artists Unit consisted of only three detectives and it was a team basically impossible to finagle your way into without considerable skill or considerable connections—hence his curiosity into Doyle’s background so as to deduce which of the two got him the job. Because if Larkin was going to employ the assistance of others on one of his cases, no matter how minor in the grand scheme of things, he wanted only the best. He did not have the time nor patience to second-guess the authority of others in their select fields. And while he didn’t know where on the academics scale those two schools qualified for their respective degrees, the fact that Doyle was a traditionally trained artist with additional schooling in art history….
Spinning in his chair, Larkin picked up the evidence bag and offered it. “This morning’s storm uprooted a crabapple tree at Madison Square Park. An employee of Parks and Recreation phoned 911 at 7:06 to report a wooden crate had been unearthed. Inside was a skeleton.”
“Male?” Doyle asked as he accepted the plastic bag and studied the bronze face.
“Unofficially. And adult, based on erupted wisdom teeth. But we can’t assume the likeness of that mask is of the victim.”
Doyle didn’t answer right away. He set the mask on the desktop, went to what upon third glance appeared to be a portfolio bag, and retrieved a ruler from the outer pocket. Doyle dug out a notepad from his suit coat, flipped to a blank page, then nabbed a pen from the cup on Larkin’s desk. He began measuring various features of the face and jotting down what Larkin could only surmise to be the dimensions. “Why is it that a case not even three hours old has been handed over to you?”
