Larkin started after Stolle.
“Hey,” O’Halloran called, but it was a breathy whisper.
Larkin paused and looked behind him.
O’Halloran cut his gaze to the right, but none of his fellow detectives seemed to have picked up on the gravity of the situation unfurling around them, like the Jericho plant had mistaken rage for water and sipped the well dry. O’Halloran stood, took a step forward, and asked under his breath, “Charlie do worse than sit on Natasha’s murder?”
“Is that not enough,” Larkin asked.
O’Halloran’s face twisted like a corkscrew.
“I think he did worse,” Larkin confirmed before walking out of the bullpen without another word. He found Stolle waiting at the elevator, holding the doors open, and stepped inside.
They returned to the first floor in silence, and Larkin followed a step behind as they exited through the lobby and out onto the sidewalk. Stolle shuffled a few steps to the right and out of sight from the interior view of the glass door, propped himself against the pale-colored stone façade, and fished a Marlboro from his half-empty pack. He stuffed the filtered end between his lips, pulled a neon green Bic lighter from his trouser pocket, and flicked the spark wheel twice before lighting the cigarette.
Stolle blew the first lungful of smoke in Larkin’s direction before saying, “You really put me in some hot water, back in April.”
Larkin said, “You did that yourself, when you decided to sit on Natasha Smirnova’s murder since April 23, 1992.”
“You think so, do you?” Stolle squinted as the fluffy white clouds shifted overhead and the sun came out in its full regalia. He took another drag from the cigarette and nodded absently, as if he were agreeing with some internalized comment. “The whole lotta you Cold Case jerks got it made. Sittin’ around on your asses, no media schooling like sharks, no commissioner breathing down your neck, no deadlines or timeframes, and you still walk away with all the good press. Butyou, Grim? Oh… no one likes you.”
“You speak as if this is a revelation,” Larkin stated. “When I’m already quite aware of what the department thinks of me.”
“That you’re a cock-sucking, OCD-freak with a God complex?”
“It’ll take more than two truths and a lie to hurt my feelings.”
“You sure are full of yourself,” Stolle observed.
“My intelligence is considerably higher than the US average.”
“Yeah?” Stolle took another drag. “Then why don’t you use that big fuckin’ head and tell me exactly what it is you think I’m guilty of.”
Larkin shifted his weight, squared his shoulders. “I think law enforcement often overlooks the psychology of place out of both ignorance and arrogance. But the neighborhoods of New York are excellent examples of functional attachment and how a location has the ability to satisfy the needs and goals of an individual. After all, if it’s the 1980s and we’re profiling someone with a sex addiction, we certainly shouldn’t expect to find them on Wall Street in their off hours. No. We’d immediately turn our attention to the Theater District—to Forty-Second Street.”
Stolle tapped the ash accumulating on the tip of his cigarette. “What’s your point?”
“You worked Vice, Detective Stolle. From ’85 to ’90. And based on Danielle Moreno’s and Natasha Smirnova’s rap sheets, your beat was the Deuce. You arrested both women on numerous occasions for solicitation and drug dealing at their places of employment in Times Square. The same places that, by the ’90s, had all been shuttered by the city, forcing the migration of thousands of out-of-work dancers to new neighborhoods in which to satisfy their own needs. Natasha Smirnova took a job at a now-defunct strip club in Alphabet City and wound up murdered on April 23, 1992. Her body was found in Tompkins Square Park, discarded like trash.
“You’d been promoted to Homicide by then. Your precinct covers Alphabet City. Tompkins Square Park is three blocks from here, in fact. You caught Natasha’s case. You knew her. You had an advantage above every other cop in deducing who’d killed her and putting him behind bars. But you didn’t. You sat on that case for nearly twenty-eight years—never even considered passing it along to Cold Cases.”
Stolle dropped the cigarette and ground out the ember with the toe of his loafer. He took a few steps forward and, despite his shorter stature and grandfatherly appearance, got in Larkin’s face. “Am I hearing what I think I’m hearing? Are you insinuating I killed that bitch?”
“No,” Larkin said cooly. “Harry Regmore murdered her. He murdered a lot of strippers in this neighborhood. Then I got involved. And here’s the thing, Stolle… people don’t like me because I hold them accountable—lawmen included. It’s enough of a reason to want to damage my career and reputation, isn’t it.”
Stolle scoffed, his brows furrowed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Someone was watching the case with Regmore unfold in real time. Someone with access to information not privy to the media or civilians.” Larkin narrowed his eyes and said, “I work in statistics and probabilities. I don’t put much stock in gut-feeling or coincidences—but my lieutenant does. My partner does. And they’re both good cops, so there must be something to instinct, despite its lack of rationale.”
Pigeons cooed from an overhead window ledge.
A car drove west past the precinct.
Two boys walked the sidewalk on the south side of the street, one bouncing a basketball.
Larkin stared at Stolle, at the holstered Glock the older man wore on his hip. The SIG under his own right arm was heavy with the weight of a living thing, coiled and ready to strike. Larkin asked, voice low, “Why the game.”
Stolle didn’t look away, but shook his head, like he wasn’t quite certain of Larkin’s meaning.
