Larkin rolled his eyes while he pulled the addresses up on his phone to confirm they were legitimate, still-existing locations. “Why did Marco have one of those photos in his possession,” he eventually asked.
“I don’t know. I have no idea. I swear to God.”
“God doesn’t give a shit what you say,” Larkin stated, tucking his cell back in his pocket. “Did Marco find out about you and your buddy.”
“I don’tknow,” Reynold repeated. “I found out Marco died the next day, at school, like everyone else.”
Larkin felt as if he were running face-first into a wall.
Like the world was hellbent on proving that even a star detective and shepherd of the dead and forgotten couldn’t win them all, save them all, or remember them all.
Taking a deep breath and recollecting himself, Larkin reconsidered the clues at present and asked instead, “Who’s Creepy Dicky.”
Reynold groaned and turned his head away.
Larkin snapped his fingers in front of Reynold’s face. “Look at me when I talk to you.”
“He’s just some homeless schitzo.”
“Mr. Reynold,” Larkin began with a frown. “Need I remind you, I was tased earlier this afternoon, and suffice it to say, I am not in a particularly amicable mood. So if you bullshit me one more time—”
“He—he was just someone Archie mentioned in the old forums!” Reynold wailed, his mustache quivering so much that it looked like it’d sprout wings and fly away. “After the YEC closed down, I guess Archie kept in touch with Dicky. He’d posted that he had a point of contact who knew the kids, where they went for free meals or what tunnels they slept in. The kids are always changing, like… like a revolving door. But Dicky knows them all.”
“And when Archie, whom I presume is the individual you were texting on that burner phone, ceased all communication, did you take it upon yourself to find Dicky and his band of Lost Boys.”
Reynold hesitated.
Larkin narrowed his eyes a second time.
“Archie let slip enough details over the years that I was able to piece together the area that Dicky panhandled when above ground. And about a year ago, I saw him waiting in line for lunch at St. Jude’s Mission over on the East Side—that’s his neighborhood. It’s rich, you know? And lots of kids go to St. Jude’s, but you can’t… you can’t approach them there.”
“Yes, whatever would Jesus think of you, preying on the weak in his own home,” Larkin said. “Why the falling out with Archie after all these years.”
“I wish I knew,” Reynold answered. “The forums closed years ago. The only regular communication we’ve had since then is through burner numbers. Do you think he’s been hurt?”
“I certainly hope you’re not asking a police officer to be concerned about the well-being of your molester bestie.”
Reynold clamped his mouth shut.
Larkin laid out the present murder’s timeline in his head and then spun the mental Rolodex in reverse, stopping on Sunday, May 10, the estimated date of death for John Doe in the utility closet. He shifted forward again. Three days. “On Wednesday, May 13, at 7:12 in the morning, you texted Archie a final time, suggesting you’d find a girl on your own. Where were you that night.”
“I was at home.”
“Mr. Reynold, this is my good cop persona. I have a DB at Fifty-Seventh Street station with a connection to St. Jude’s Mission that is painting you in a very bad light.”
“W-wait…what? I didn’t—I mean, holy crap, no. Is Dicky dead? I didn’t kill him. I went to St. Jude’s last Saturday to see if he was there, to ask about girls he might know, and pay him.”
“Pay him in what.”
“Uh… Archie said he’d give you whatever you asked for if you offered heroin. And I’ve been a public school teacher a long time. You learn a thing or two about how to buy drugs.”
“Brilliant.” Larkin sighed and pressed his thumb against his left eye again—he still had a throbbing headache, despite the Tylenol.
“He wasn’t there,” Reynold insisted. “And since they’re closed on Sundays, I took a chance and followed some of the punk kids who had been eating there.”
“Was one of them Megan.”
“Yeah,” he whispered. “They went down to the Fifty-Seventh Street station—the F. They were down there for hours, so I thought, maybe that was one of their spots. I went back to the subway Monday night.”
