Connor sat up at the comment, his chair screeching again.
Larkin raised the evidence bag a second time and cut off whatever comment Connor was waffling over, because he didn’t want pity, he didn’t want sympathy, he didn’t want to think of Noah, and because refusing to be wholly present to a conversation was what protected Larkin from associations. “CSU found this photograph in John Doe’s pocket.” He leveled Connor with what he thought of as his “professional expression,” although Larkin had been told that particular look was about as monotone in facial grammar as his speech tended to be, and only one step above the manner in which he scrutinized witnesses and analyzed suspects.
Everett Larkin was the star detective of the Cold Case Squad, but he was an aloof personality. He should have been promoted half a dozen times, but he didn’t seem to grasp the concept of small talk. He could have been the youngest inspector in the department’s history, but he refused to schmooze with his higher-ups. He was distant, calculating, brutal in his honesty and unnerving in his intensity. He spoke strangely. He had compulsive habits. He was queer in a career that used him as a poster child for inclusivity while those same people called him a faggot to his face.
Everett Larkin was odd.
And no one had ever wanted to know why.
Connor accepted the bag and studied the scrawled writing on the back of the photograph. “This is what O’Halloran phoned me bitching about, right?”
“Correct.”
Connor grunted.
“Why did you request control of the case,” Larkin asked next. “According to the ME, the victim has been dead no more than nine days. It hardly falls within our purview.”
“Why do you think?”
“The one viable clue is addressed to me, allegedly by a person of interest in the investigation.”
“And?” Connor pressed.
Once is chance. Twice is coincidence.
“Any correlation with the April Fools’ letter is entirely coincidental at this moment in time,” Larkin answered.
“I don’t believe in coincidences,” Connor said. “And once you’ve been doing this for as long as me, neither will you.”
“The probability of a coincidence can be calculated by looking at the base rate of two independent events. In this case, that would be the act of myself receiving an invitation to locate an unknown individual, as well as the act of an individual perpetrating a murder within the confines of the subway. The NYPD employs 35,000 uniformed officers, of which I am one, making the probability of me, specifically, garnering this person’s interest 1 in 35,000. In 2019, the Mayor’s Office reported three murders in the subway system, making the second event a 1 in 3. Together, the data would suggest a coincidence of… 0.0006.”
“Seems impossible to me.”
“Improbable, but not impossible.”
Connor wasn’t smiling, but there was a glint in his eyes that suggested amusement. “It hasn’t been the same around here without you.”
“I think it was a premature decision. I have thirty-seven open cases that haven’t seen attention in forty-nine days, and Ray O’Halloran, basic manners aside, is a decent cop.”
Connor waved the evidence bag idly. “The fact that your name is on a piece of evidence doesn’t intrigue you?”
“I didn’t say that. Itiscurious. But I’m being pragmatic.”
Connor was nodding in that way people did when they’d already come to a decision and were simply listening for their chance to speak. “I want you to take lead on the subway slaying. If it’s related to the April Fools’ letter, you’ve got a better chance of cracking it before those boys in the Bronx can even find the case number in their stacks. One of their own be damned—they’re up to their nuts in robberies and felony assaults, and that letter didn’t have a suggestion of violence against you that’d otherwise make it a priority.”
“The Theater District’s crime rate is worse than any neighborhood in the Bronx.”
“Tourists are dumbasses, Grim. Don’t use technicalities with me.”
“Yes, sir.”
“If the events are unrelated, okay, but you’ll satisfy both our curiosities as to why this”—he raised the photo in its plastic sleeve again—“has your name on it. Now, bring me up to speed.”
“The victim was an adult male, badly decomposed from heat and humidity. No wallet or ID, but there was a partially destroyed business card for St. Jude’s Mission on his person—I’ll speak with them once the ME has completed an autopsy—and of course, that photo was in his pocket.”
“Was it cleaned up?”
“Yes. By Detective Doyle of the Forensic Artists Unit. He’s logged the procedure.”
