“That’s fine. I’m still in Inwood.”
“Ouch. All right. I’ll see you soon, partner.” Doyle hung up.
Larkin lowered the cell from his ear and smiled as the screen went black.
Larkin usually gotwhat he wanted—professionally speaking, that was—and while his request to partner with Doyle a second time had come as a mild surprise to Connor, his lieutenant promised to make it happen. Larkin returned to searching the bedroom after his two calls, but after thirty-seven minutes, he found nothing more problematic than that Marco’s ideal woman seemed to have been an even split between Daria and Kate Moss, and Larkin wasn’t certain which Marco would have had a better chance with. He collected the copy ofHamletbefore exiting the room, and after twenty-three years of the photograph being wedged against the spine, it allowed for the pages to fall open to the exact hiding spot again and again. Scene ii—Polonius’s conversation with Hamlet.
“Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.”
Larkin grunted, snapped the book shut, and walked down the hall. He stopped in the open doorway of the kitchen and said, “Mrs. Garcia, if I may have a moment.”
Camila paused from scrubbing the already-sparkling countertop. She projected an air of casualness, nonchalance, but the lie was in the way her face hardened. “Yes?”
Larkin offered the evidence bag. “Do you recognize this girl. We believe this was taken between 1985 and 1990.”
The creases around Camila’s mouth and forehead smoothed as whatever she’d been braced for gave way to curiosity. She took the photo and studied it for a moment. “No, I don’t think so. Why?”
“Did Marco have female friends.”
“A few, when he was younger. You know high school boys… they can get so shy around girls.”
“Did he have a girlfriend.”
“One or two. Nothing serious.” Camila gave the photo a shake before staring at the image a second time. “Not her, though. Marco wouldn’t have even been in junior high yet—way too young for a girlfriend.”
“Infatuation among preteens and teenagers rarely includes logic,” Larkin replied. “The human brain isn’t fully developed until our midtwenties, and with the onset of puberty, rising levels of testosterone and estrogen collide with the concept, or idea, of what love is—it’s been described as a high not unlike what you’d experience with cocaine.
“I estimate that girl’s age to be thirteen, perhaps fourteen, which, when you consult the United States Census, age differences between couples in a heterosexual relationship were reported to be an average of three years. Of course, the census has only just this year agreed to include data on LGBT couples, although it is sorely lacking in many significant ways, so an insightful study was done based on public Facebook data that determined LGBT couples are far more likely to be part of a more significant age gap relationship, with an average of seven years. It’s an interesting subject when you consider the biological imperative to produce offspring versus—” Larkin paused, recalibrated. “My apologies. I’ve gotten off topic.”
Camila said, after a considerable span of silence, “You’re not like any cop I’ve met before.” She glanced at the picture a final time and added, “I don’t know her, Detective.” She started to hand it back but paused, brought it closer, and asked, “Is she sleeping?”
Larkin gently plucked the bag from Camila’s hand. He held up, but didn’t extend, the photo he’d uncovered in Marco’s room. “Do you recognize this child.”
Camila considered the picture, and then her eyes darted to the book in Larkin’s hand. She asked, “Did—was that in Marco’s room? Where was it?”
“Mrs. Garcia.”
She bristled. “No, I don’t know them. Where did you find it?”
Larkin exchanged the photo for the copy ofHamlet. “Inside this book, under the mattress.”
“Under the—but I make that bed. How did I not notice it?”
“People don’t see what they don’t expect to find. You had no reason to suspect Marco hid anything from you.”
She looked distraught and chafed her arms.
“Was Marco interested in photography.”
“What?”
“Did he ever borrow your camera equipment.”
“No, no, no, Marco did not take those—those creepy pictures.”
“What about the art classes he assisted with at the Center,” Larkin asked next. “Were any of them photography.”
“Detective!”
