It made Doyle laugh, and he reached across the center console and squeezed Larkin’s thigh. “Watched. Past tense. My troublemaking shit friends got their hands on a copy and I couldn’t be seen as the only guy not interested in double-Ds. Plus, the title was really misleading.”
Larkin cracked a smile. “Yes, well, Mrs. Ward-Flynn used to work at the Dollhouse.”
Doyle asked, “When in the timeline?”
“She’d transitioned to movies in ’79 and moved to California in ’85, but both her agent and numerous interviews confirm she had a habit of returning yearly to the Dollhouse and putting on, I suppose you could say, limited-engagement events. She was longtime friends with the owner. I’m curious to learn if she might recall any fellow female employees.”
“The mummy,” Doyle stated.
“Yes.” Larkin hit the gas again. “And it was Graham Byrd who said that victims from this period often lied about their age, carried fake IDs, and provided false telephone numbers. So how do we confirm the validity of thirty-plus-year-old facts if typical law enforcement methods—driver’s license, social security number, home address, family name, etcetera—were fabricated.”
Doyle listened thoughtfully before answering, “No one’s going to recognize the mummy in death.”
“What are you suggesting.”
“That we stick to the source—her bones can’t lie.”
“So… a facial reconstruction,” Larkin asked.
Doyle made a sound of agreement.
Larkin briefly took one hand from the wheel and tugged his cell from his pocket. He handed it over, saying, “If you’d be so kind as to call the OCME. Their number is in my address book.”
Doyle took the phone and said, while scrolling through Larkin’s almost never-ending list of contacts, “I’ve raised my commission rates, you know.”
Larkin stopped at the light on East Ninetieth Street. He looked at Doyle and asked, “I see. And what’s your new fee.”
Doyle lowered the phone, pulled his sunglasses up to rest atop his head, and tugged the seat belt strap from his chest. He leaned left, carded his fingers through Larkin’s hair, and when Larkin didn’t indicate he was averse to further physical contact, Doyle kissed his mouth.
Slowly.
Deeply.
Larkin opened his eyes and watched Doyle lean back in his seat and replace his sunglasses. His upper lip tingled from the rasp of Doyle’s stubble, and his lower lip tasted like lemon candy and male heat. Looking toward the road just as the light changed, Larkin said, “Inflation is a bitch, Ira. You really ought to consider updating your pricing model with long-term financial stability in mind.”
“There’s not enough room in the car for that. I’ve nowhere to put my legs.”
Larkin overcorrected and swore. He shot Doyle a glare, his partner trying to smother a very un-cop-like giggle while putting the phone to his ear. And while Doyle spoke with someone on staff at the Chief Medical Examiner’s office about a skull casting, Larkin noted each street they passed, getting closer and closer to the heart of East Harlem, where Mia Ramos’s mother and aunt still resided.
They’d just reached East Ninety-Ninth when Doyle ended the call and said, “One of the mortuary techs is running the request down to the autopsy room now.” He passed Larkin back the cell. “I guess her remains are already being looked at this morning.”
“If only the entire system worked with the same expediency as the OCME.”
“If only,” Doyle echoed before saying, “so… do you know what’s interesting about what that talent agent told you?”
“What.”
“Ghosting was a form of identity theft, back in the day. There was a guide sold in 1970 about how to properly obtain a new name and all the corresponding documentation. I think it was originally more for draft dodgers, but it became a legitimate tool of escape for people—some not-so-scrupulous characters, for sure, but women too. If you think about it, that’d be worth its weight in gold if you’re trying to leave a dangerous homelife or getting out from under your parents’ thumb.” Doyle shrugged, leaned his arm against the passenger door, and finished with, “If either of our vics went this route, it’s going to open up a whole different can of worms, because even if the identity was stolen, that book taught readers how to obtainrealpaperwork.”
Larkin was quiet, deliberating on what Doyle had just said.
Because sometimes, when Doyle spoke, it was like he read aloud an ingredients list of scraped knees and broken asphalt, prewar tenements and IOUs at the bodega. A butchered recipe of childhood—sunken and burned—the blackened corners methodically scraped away by a boy starving for touch, affection, theneedto be a conscious thought insomeone’smind. A meal of letdown and loneliness, each bite more frantic, more desperate—is it my fault?—tasting like survival, defying the statistics—what did I do wrong?—until the boy had grown into a man so betrayed and so angry that he’d weaponized his own heart—his tenacious love for others a form of self-flagellation.
When the ghost of Doyle’s upbringing peered out from between his words, when he unknowingly shared more of his past than of insightful tidbits for future policing, Larkin could practically hear Doyle begging,screamingfor someone to notice him, to listen to him, to just fucking once tell him that the shame he carried wasn’t his cross to bear—that it’s never the child’s fault—but Doyle had already made it very clear that he wasn’t ready to talk about… any of it.
Jubilance was an admirable goal.
But the depression in which to reach it was like the trenches of war.
