Both were big, tough-looking. Manual-labor sort of guys. One had his back to the subjects, and the other walked backward, his face angled toward the camera, dark hair partially hidden under a baseball cap.Blue and orange.
Larkin looked at the wall again. “Did the Mets always wear blue caps.” He turned to Roger.
“Blue with orange embroidery. Well, with the exception of one year in the ’90s—”
“Which year.”
“1997. They tried white but phased it out pretty quick.”
“But in 1992, it would have been blue.”
“That’s right,” Roger answered.
Doyle’s brows were knit together. “Larkin?”
Larkin looked at the photo again on the phone.
You were there. In the beginning.
Alphabet City had been a home for the wretched.
A haven for the desperate.
A hunting ground for the villain.
You were there.
Surrounded by out-of-work dancers shunned by society, their lives left to collect dust on the desk of a cop without empathy or remorse. You had family who was a little off in the head, who was easy to manipulate, easy to extort.
You were there.
An apartment building no more than fifteen minutes from some of Manhattan’s smaller parks. Parks inundated with crime. Parks no one would be surprised to find a body in. Tompkins and Madison. Would there be more cases in the stacks at Homicide of women found in Washington or Union Square during the ’90s with the same MO?
You were there.
When you first arrived, you didn’t notice the fallen crabapple. You had a body in the trunk—Danielle Moreno. She was an anniversary kill—Andrew’s anniversary. You were going to dump her at Madison like you’d done before.
The night Andrew went missing, he was leaving to visit Roger. Andrew saw you loading a body, perhaps. Andrew had to go. Who that woman was you were loading, she had a name, she had dreams, but you didn’t care. You didn’t even care about what happened to her mortal remains. Because now you had a problem.
The problem was Andrew.
Because he knew you.
Had threatened you to stay away from Jessica Lopez.
Except you didn’t know Andrew had a history of abuse and hadn’t told anyone about you. He had the courage to defend Jessica, but the fear of retaliation was too much to shake for a kid still trying to navigate his new life. So he never warned anyone other than a not-quite-boyfriend that you gave offbad vibes. That he feared for Jessica’s safety whenever you came around to visit your family. Your cousin.
You were there.
You were there because you work for Parks & Recreation and knew how to get in and out of the park before opening hours. But then you saw the crabapple, your secret coming back to haunt you twenty-two years later, and that jogger—in this storm, the fuckin’ douche—he wouldn’t leave until you called police. You couldn’t remove Andrew from the crate. You couldn’t grab the death mask you’d had the compulsion to make but too much fear to keep.
You were there, wearing a retro Mets cap like a talisman. Wearing the cap Natasha Smirnova had clawed at, the blue and orange threads trapped under caked blood and a broken fingernail.
“Evie?” Doyle grabbed Larkin’s shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
Looking up, Larkin said, “I know who did it.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
