The doors opened at the fourth floor with a quiet ping and Larkin declined to answer before stepping out. He followed the hall, derbies loud against hardwood, and hooked a hard right where the corridor opened onto a bullpen with half a dozen battered desks piled high with casework and administrative documents, coffee mugs, framed family photos, one with a stress ball in the shape of a breast—areola and nipple decal included—and another with a False Rose of Jericho sitting in a shallow bowl full of pebbles, the plant a brown, dead-looking thing that would resurrect in a matter of hours, if only its keeper would splash a bit of water on the roots.
Ray O’Halloran sat at a desk at the midpoint, toward the left of the room. He busily sorted and stacked paperwork into a manila folder while arguing into the phone receiver wedged between his ear and shoulder. He looked up at the sound of shoes uncharacteristic of his bullpen and said as Larkin drew close enough to hear, “I’ll call you back.” He leaned to one side and hung up the desk phone. “Grim.”
“O’Halloran.”
“The hell are you doing down this way?”
“I’m here to speak with Charlie Stolle.”
O’Halloran’s face went blank, like a factory reset, but he asked curiously, “What about?”
Larkin pointedly stared at him.
O’Halloran’s shoulders drooped, only a little, but it was a profound reaction—a study in disillusionment.
Larkin narrowed his eyes, watched as O’Halloran turned to a framed photo on his desk—him a decade younger, wearing the navy uniform of the NYPD and participating in some sort of ceremony, likely his own promotion to detective. A tangible memory—a constant reminder of his sworn duty to maintain a higher standard of integrity and to fight crime, both in the prevention of and aggressive pursuit.
O’Halloran let out a breath, met Larkin’s gaze again, then leaned to look around him. “Charlie!”
Larkin turned.
The older detective from the elevator had just entered the bullpen. “What?” he grumbled.
“C’mere a minute.”
Stolle took his time crossing the room, stuffing his hands into his khaki pockets as he stopped to stand at an angle between the two. He stared at Larkin, an unfriendly glint in his eye.
“This is Everett Larkin,” O’Halloran murmured. “Works in Cold Cases.”
“Right… so you’re the Grim Reaper? You were the one who got your panties in a twist about some dead hookers a few months back.”
“Danielle Moreno and Natasha Smirnova were more than their chosen profession,” Larkin answered.
Stolle sniggered. “Yeah? You gonna tell me they had aspirations to be the first female Pope? Or that they were walkin’ the street just until their presidential nominations came through?”
Larkin asked, “Why must these women strive for standards above and beyond what you yourself are capable of, merely to be worthy of being alive.” Larkin didn’t allow Stolle the chance to respond before he said, “It was a rhetorical question. I’m not interested in entertaining your tired misogyny. May we speak somewhere private, Detective Stolle.”
“What for?” Stolle shot back.
“Charlie—” O’Halloran tried.
“Ray, if you think I’m at the beck and call of some goddamn faggot half my age, you’re out of your mind.”
Larkin cut into the argument by saying, “Did you know that anger is one of the seven universal facial expressions, but it’s not considered a primary emotion. Meaning that, one must first be triggered by a social thought, such as assumptions, evaluations, or interpretations, which in turn will cause an experience of shame, anxiety, fear, but most often, guilt. Anger is a psychological defense, a motivational desire to not be vulnerable, especially in front of others. Human beings are communal creatures, and we’ve held on to that primal part of our wiring that warns us: to be ostracized is to die.”
“What’re you talking about?” Stolle retorted.
Larkin purposefully leaned too close, enough to make the older man recoil on instinct. “Anger is a tool of the guilty, used to express the expected moral outrage of one who wishes to be perceived as innocent. You might notlikebeing bested by a thirty-five-year-old homosexual, but you don’t actuallybelieveI’ve violated established ethical norms. Ergo, your anger isn’t directed at me, but is masking what I know you’re guilty of, isn’t it.”
For a minute, Stolle didn’t say or do anything.
But then he smiled, laughed, shook his head.
Charlie Stolle was a man with a big ego.
And bigger secrets.
“You know, I think I need another smoke,” he said in a much cooler, even carefree tone, compared to his indignant outburst only a moment prior. Stolle patted the square shape of a cigarette pack in his breast pocket. “Why don’t you join me, Grim?” He made for the elevator without another word.
