Doyle was quiet. He took a deep breath in, slowly let it out. “I’m sorry about earlier. It was extremely unprofessional of me.”
“I’ve gotten upset plenty of times during a case.”
Doyle laughed dryly. “I’m sure you haven’t tried to assault a suspect.”
“August 11, 2015, my first day working Cold Cases,” Larkin began, “I was given a stack of twenty-two files and told to pick one. I chose Baby Hope. She was a nine-month-old found strangled to death and left in a burlesque theater restroom in Times Square, 1988. No security, no witnesses, no suspects—due to the transient lifestyle of the neighborhood at the time. I even had her exhumed from Potter’s Field to take DNA samples. And on Tuesday, June 6, 2017, the results of that test came back. No matches with NCMEC or NamUs. No one missed her. No one even knew her real name. So I stepped out of the precinct, collected a tire iron from my car, and beat the shit out of a trash can on the street corner.” Larkin looked out the windshield as he concluded, “I still haven’t solved that case.”
“You beat a trash can with a tire iron?”
“We’re deviating from the point of my question.”
Doyle took another calculated breath before shaking his head and saying, “It wasn’t wrong of you, to ask for my help. I can handle this. And I’ve got your back.”
“ThatI never had doubt of.” Larkin left it at that, because throwing yourself into work was a necessity he knew all too well—manufactured distance from crushing emotions that offered the psyche a moment of respite. He gave Doyle a crooked smile, the expression never seeming to sit right on his face, then opened the driver’s side door and climbed out of the Audi. Larkin buttoned his suit coat, watching over the roof as Doyle mirrored his motions. “Reynold wouldn’t say where he hid the pictures he took of Megan, but if CSU hasn’t found them yet, I’m certain we will.”
“You think those are necessary clues?” Doyle asked, moving between bumpers before quickly crossing the street with Larkin.
“If we want the multitude of charges against Reynold to stick, yes.”
“But specifically regarding both subway murders—you think they’re going to be at all relevant?”
Larkin considered the question. He’d given Doyle a brief, bare-bones account of his interview with Gary Reynold on their drive back to said man’s apartment—from his claims of Marco unknowingly instituting a relationship between Reynold and this mysterious Archie Bunker, their anonymous method of buying and selling abusive material, all the way to Dicky’s connection to St. Jude’s kitchen and the Fifty-Seventh Street station, as well as the probability that they might have uncovered the identity of the man in the IKEA bag as that of Creepy Dicky.
But even with what Larkin had learned from his conversation with Reynold, he was still left with a multitude of unanswered questions: Who pushed Marco in front of an incoming Q train twenty-three years ago? Why had Archie suddenly ceased any and all communication—and before Larkin was ever put on his trail? If that John Doe in the IKEA tote was in fact Dicky, who killed him? What was their reason? Why had the photograph addressed to Larkin been left on his person?
It felt a little like a game of sudoku.
Larkin had, for over a month now, been watching Doyle work his way through a book of ever-increasingly difficult puzzles each morning. Doyle had an eye for detail, of course, but also the ability to comprehend the bigger picture. It was a particular kind discipline that made him so suited for forensic artwork. He understood how to capture unique elements when working on a composite sketch, but he managed his time and was mindful that his job was to construct an entire portrait and not to spend three hours capturing a certain glint a suspect had in their eyes.
Larkin had backseat-helped for a few puzzles. He’d been overly confident while pointing to an empty square and explaining, based on the established results of the vertical column, the only possible answer was four, and Doyle would smile kindly, sweetly, drag his pen along the horizontal column that Larkin had overlooked, and point out that four was already in play. After Larkin had made the same mistake a few times, he stopped trying to beat Doyle at sudoku.
It wasn’t that Larkin couldn’t step away and take in the scene as a whole. It was only that by his very nature, he hyperfixated on the smallest details first. So the questions he had regarding their ongoing investigation were like his preoccupation with trying to fit that four into a box it wasn’t meant to be in. Maybe by finding thatone right clue, Doyle would be able to point out that the four was really a six and Larkin would be able to make all the remaining pieces fall into place.
“I think it would be irresponsible of us to write off anything as a potentially useful clue at this point,” Larkin concluded.
They walked uptown on Bennett Avenue until reaching the congestion of police vehicles—two cruisers and a CSU van—and one irate civilian having a shouting match with a uniformed officer, claiming the NYPD gave his parked ’90s Ford Festiva a fender bender, although Larkin was unsure of how the owner came to such a conclusion, considering the car was so banged up that it’d have been difficult to point out a bullet hole in its Surf Blue exterior. They flashed their badges to the second officer at the building’s front door, made their way back across the lobby and down the basement stairs, only to be recognized by the female officer who’d originally run her sirens on Larkin for speeding.
“Detectives,” she addressed, before giving Larkin a surprised once-over. “You’re back.”
Larkin figured she’d seen him taken out by EMTs nearly—he checked his watch—four hours ago. “Is CSU inside,” he asked, motioning to the open door of the garden apartment just beyond.
She nodded, moved against the wall to allow them passage, and said with a nod of her chin, “Gloves and booties.”
Larkin followed the motion to the left wall. Beside the sledgehammer were boxes of latex gloves and shoe covers. He collected the PPE, passed Doyle a set, and once Larkin had pulled the elastic polypropylene over his green derbies and slid the gloves on with a loud snap, he entered the apartment. “Cold Case Squad,” he called loudly, so as not to startle whoever was working inside.
Neil Millett peered around the open door from inside the bedroom. He wore the same gloves and booties, but it was the first time Larkin had seen the CSU detective out of his shapeless PPE jumpsuit. He had a camera strap around his neck and wore a suit in a medium brown with a pale pink button-down and solid navy blue tie. The slim cut suited his tall, lean frame, and the color combinations, while on the tame side, Larkin thought, complemented his fair complexion and honey-colored hair. “Larkin. I’m flattered you requestedmespecifically to root around a pedo’s desk drawers,” he began in that ever-sardonic tone, underlain by only the faintest nasally quality. “But just so you know, I’m missing a drive-by shooting in East Harlem to be here.”
“Our condolences,” Doyle said from where he stood at Larkin’s side.
Millett cracked a smile. “Kaltman got that assignment. Serves her right. She called out sick on the last full moon and I had to pull a thirty-hour shift. She wasn’t even sick. She was in Vegas.” Millett motioned to two evidence markers on the floor near their feet. “Be careful. I’ve got some taser darts and cast off over there.”
“That’s mine,” Larkin stated.
“What?”
“Reynold tased me.”
“Twice,” Doyle added, raising two fingers. “I pulled out the darts before EMS arrived.”
