“Love and sex can only be used for good.”
“Oh.” Doyle gave the notion a brief consideration before nodding. “I guess it works.”
Larkin looked over Doyle’s shoulder toward the waiting room and then said, “How about a compromise.”
Doyle put his hands on his hips. “To quote you, no.”
Larkin did frown that time. “Charlie Stolle was being blackmailed.”
“What? By who?”
“He claimed to not know. But this individual was aware of bribes he took throughout his career, including one from Harry Regmore at the time of Natasha Smirnova’s murder.”
Doyle’s thick brows threaded together. “Stolle knew what Regmore was doing?”
“Yes. And to keep from being fired and losing his pension only months before retirement, Stolle was asked by his blackmailer to write two notes. The first being the message on the back of Mia Ramos’s postmortem photograph. And the second—”
“The fax,” Doyle concluded. “They were both the same handwriting.”
Larkin nodded once. “I surmised originally that the person who wrote them was using their left hand as a means of concealing otherwise recognizable penmanship. Stolle was righthanded. I’m sure that if we were to take a sample of his handwriting for analysis, we’d find enough similarities to confirm everything.” Larkin gave Doyle a moment to digest the news. “Thirty seconds after he admitted this, he was shot dead by a man I can place at the Dollhouse—now a part of another mystery initiated by the sender. The same sender responsible for the case involving Niederman, where the messages written by Stolle originated. Ihaveto speak with Earl Wagner’s wife.”
The muscles in Doyle’s jaw worked, and he rubbed a hand over his stubbled chin a few times. “We go home afterward,” he eventually said.
“Fine.”
“Promise me, Evie.”
“I promise.”
Doyle took a reluctant sidestep.
Larkin walked to the waiting room and pushed open the door. Inside, it smelled clean, not like the chemical antiseptic of the ER, but like humans simply hadn’t ever occupied the space within those four walls until now. The AC was set to High, and as Doyle entered, walking underneath an overhead vent, his cologne of neroli and sandalwood and cardamom struck Larkin like the drop of a beat, a midnight kiss.
It was mildly alarming how easily Ira Doyle could bring Larkin to his knees.
Doyle spoke first. “Mrs. Wagner?”
Matilde Wagner sat alone in the room. She appeared to be at least sixty, wore a face of foundation, bronzer, eyeshadow, and mascara that bordered on the definition of “caked on,” and had her treated blond hair in a bob cut. She wore pleated white slacks, a salmon-colored top with three-quarter sleeves, and a religious pendant around her neck. She looked up from a home décor magazine opened to a full-page spread of a cottage interior. “Matilde,” she said. “Tilly, if you don’t mind. Are you Earl’s doctors?”
“No, ma’am.” Doyle retrieved his wallet and displayed his shield. “I’m Detective Ira Doyle with the NYPD, and this is my partner, Everett Larkin.”
“Well… I’ve already spoken with the police.”
Doyle said, “You’ll likely be speaking with us a few more times as we work to understand what happened this afternoon. May we sit down?”
“Of course.”
Doyle moved to a seat along the left wall, sitting at an angle to Matilde with a corner table separating them. Larkin pulled the chair on Doyle’s left forward a foot or two before sitting so that he could see Matilde without having to lean around his partner.
Matilde held up the magazine. “This is cute, isn’t it? They’re calling it cottagecore.”
Larkin immediately said, “It’s very popular with lesbians. The aesthetic is characterized by its incorporation of rustic and cozy traditional countryside elements, and lesbians have adopted the movement not only as an anticapitalist means of living, but as a sense of fashion—linen dresses, quilted jackets, knitted sweaters, sunhats, etcetera.”
Matilde awkwardly closed the magazine and returned it to the table.
Doyle shifted in his chair, gave Larkin a pointed stare like:now is not the time, and then he said to Matilde, “Mrs. Wagner—”
“Tilly,” she corrected with a pleasant enough smile.
