Hospital surveillance had only been able to supply law enforcement with a grainy image of a nondescript individual in a dark hoodie, baseball cap, and sunglasses. The nurse who’d accepted the envelope couldn’t remember any corroborating details—she’d been nearing the end of a twelve-hour shift, hadn’t had a bathroom break in almost as much time, had half a dozen ER patients bleeding, seizing—no, she didn’t pay any mind to the individual. The contents had been dusted for fingerprints, but all that’d come back were the nurse’s and Larkin’s own. The incident had been concerning, but with the absence of any evidence to pursue, local precinct detectives who’d caught the investigation had considered it DOA.
But not Larkin.
He had gleaned exactly four clues.
First: The usage of the Parks’ Department logo within the cut-and-pasted letters, before Harry’s identity had been shared with the public, before he’d even had his mugshot snapped, implied someone internal. Someone with knowledge of who Harry was, what he’d been doing in those parks since 1991, with the suggestion that they could do it all and more.
Second: The quote about death masks had, in fact, been from the third sentence in the introduction of Laurence Hutton’sPortraits in Plaster, the same book Doyle had mentioned reading while attending art school. The book had been published in 1894 by Harper & Brothers Publishers, now existed within the public domain, and was, as Doyle suggested, not exactly a bestseller. That provided further background into the sort of individual who’d quote such an obscure reference.
Third: The letter had come with an MTA token—the solid quarter-size used throughout the eighties with the iconic Y logo, although lacking its predecessor’s cut-out shape. It’d been issued in 1980 when the fare was sixty cents a ride and had lived through two additional price hikes before the style had been discontinued in 1986.
Fourth: This individual had wantedLarkin’sattention. And now here he was, investigating a curious murder in the depths of the subway system, with his literal name on the only discernable piece of evidence.
Larkin frowned.
Once is chance. Twice is coincidence.
“Evie.”
Larkin startled and looked up. Doyle was staring at him. “Hmm?”
Doyle smiled as he repeated, “I asked if you were solving the case without me.”
“No. Just thinking.”
Doyle didn’t know about the April Fools’ letter.
Larkin studied Doyle as he carefully removed the stained and damaged photo from the evidence bag, set it in the first pan of water, and began to scrape away human fluids with one of the brushes that’d been laid out on the table. Doyle’s actions were attentive, purposeful, gentle.
—Blunt fingertips trailing up every link of Larkin’s spine, engrossed in the story of skin and bone, the caress so tender, so heartfelt, Larkin could identify Doyle by the lines and ridges of his fingerprints alone.—
“You look nice,” Doyle stated into the quiet. He hadn’t glanced up as he transferred the photo to the second bath and rinsed it.
“Yes, thank you. I showered today.”
Doyle’s sunshiny smile was back and he chuckled under his breath. “Gold compliments you.” He set the photograph on a paper towel and began to blot it dry. “It brings out your eyes.”
“You’ve used this line on me before.”
“Were you wearing a gold pocket square at the time?”
“Yes.”
“Then that’s why.” Doyle picked up the photo by its edges, studied the image briefly, then said, “That residue came off easier than I expected.” He turned it around before adding, “I don’t want to use emulsion cleaner too and risk damage to this writing.” Setting the photo facedown on a fresh towel, Doyle continued. “I can tell you right off the bat that this print is… maybe thirty… thirty-five years old.”
Larkin moved forward, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Doyle. “How can you tell.”
“A few ways.” Doyle tapped the gray logo stamped repetitively across the back. “This brand of photo paper was local to the tristate area, but they couldn’t compete with the volume produced by companies like Kodak and Agfa. They went out of business, I want to say, just before 1990?” Doyle flipped the photo to show Larkin the now-cleaned-up teenage girl on a bench. “In most cases regarding storage, colored paper won’t last even ten years, but this image has no fogging, so it wasn’t a recent development with a batch of old, expired paper.” He turned it back around a second time. “And this string of gibberish is data relevant to the minilab that did the printing.”
Larkin met Doyle’s eyes and asked, “A date. A location.”
“Nothing so useful. Part of the information is applicable to the machine itself. Say a small business owned and operated three of them—002 might be the second machine. This number here might imply the job or roll number done that given day. And this section here, I believe, is in regard to any manual color correction done by the operator. In this instance, it looks like a default code, so they probably didn’t make any adjustments during printing.”
Larkin asked, “Hundreds, if not thousands, of retro family photos in the city might have similar to the exact same code on the back.”
“Right.”
“Perfect,” he muttered.
