“My facial grammar might be limited,” Larkin said, “my voice might be monotone, and my words might not be very romantic… but your touch is summer mornings and cool sheets and gooseflesh and the ticking of my wristwatch and—andpeace.”
The spool of film snapped back into place, and all around them, the city marched back to life. People hurried by—a flurry of young folks in business casual, nannies pushing strollers, and retirees out for fresh air. A woman argued on her cell that if Denisewanteda party, she shouldn’t have told everyone the contrary because we’re too fucking old for high school mind games, two dogs barked furiously at each other in the crosswalk, and a bicyclist plowed into a FreshDirect cart, knocking over the plastic crates of groceries, a carton of organic nut milk exploding all over the bike lane.
Doyle leaned down and kissed Larkin. His sunglasses dropped from his head and bumped them both in the face.
Larkin broke the kiss first and watched Doyle push the sunglasses up the bridge of his nose. He said, “Sometimes you make the associations better. Other times, youarethe association.” Larkin smiled. “And I don’t hate that.”
Chapter Eight
Larkin’s phone buzzed with an incoming call as he and Doyle reached the corner of Sixty-Seventh Street and Lexington Avenue. He pulled his cell free and had to briefly shield the screen to read the ID. “Detective Larkin.”
The now familiar tenor of Doctor Lawrence Baxter of the Office of Chief Medical Examiner answered, “Why, if it isn’t my favorite Cold Case detective!”
“Don’t sound surprised—you called me. Is it pertaining to my autopsy results or did you just want to hear my somnolent monotone.”
Doyle didn’t bother smothering his laugh this time.
“There’s no shooting the shit with you, is there?” Baxter asked.
“I don’t do small talk, no.”
“In that case, I’ve called with both a request and invitation. Which would you like to hear first?”
Larkin stopped walking. “The request.”
“Please stop sending me unidentified remains. It’s summer and we get busy with the heat waves. It’s a matter of space, you understand.”
“I won’t do that.”
Baxter sighed melodramatically. “In that case… how about swinging down my way? I’d like to talk to you about Miss Deuce.”
“Her legal identity, until otherwise determined, is Jane Doe, Number—”
“Is your artist on hand too?” Baxter asked.
Larkin asked warily, “Why.”
“Because if he’s going to make it a habit of asking for a skull casting once a quarter, I feel I have a right to an audience. That, and the tech who took his call earlier described his voice aspanty-melting—this particular mortuary technician is a boxer-wearing, happily married straight man, and father of three, so imagine how titillated my gay ass was by his account.”
“I think I’m more surprised you know a straight coworker’s undergarment preferences than I am of Detective Doyle’s baritone making this man feel a certain way.”
Doyle interjected, “Wait,what?”
“So, you coming?” Baxter asked.
“Thirty minutes,” Larkin answered before ending the call. “Dr. Baxter has requested our presence at the OCME.”
“Did you want to explain that comment?”
“As if you aren’t already aware of the effect your voice has on people.”
Doyle grinned like the Cheshire Cat. “The casting is ready?”
“Sounds like it.”
It took twenty-three minutes to reach the Office of Chief Medical Examiner on East Twenty-Sixth Street. Larkin maneuvered down the one-way crammed tight with ambulances and blue-and-white vans of the medical examiners. He came to a stop midway and backed into a parking spot that was likely only available because it was beside a long line of overflowing dumpsters and no one was willing to skirt the stink of sulfur compounds to and from work. Which was ironic, Larkin thought, since staff at the OCME made a living of digging through the mortal remains of their fellow man, which when in a state of decomposition, gave off the samedimethyl sulfide stench as those dumpsters.
Larkin and Doyle crossed the street, entered the cement courtyard, and stepped inside the unassuming and air-conditioned building. They signed in at the front desk and were informed by the burly administrator, who really needed to be told that Big & Tall stores still existed, that Dr. Baxter was in the autopsy suite and they could take the elevator at the end of the hall.
