CHAPTER ONE
It was Thursday, July 9, 11:07 p.m., and there was a body in a fridge.
Everett Larkin stood in a pool of tungsten lamplight on Pier 34, brackish wind running invisible fingers through his ash-blond hair.The choppy currents of the Hudson River were capped white from the glow of several strategically placed mobile lighting units, while members of Port Authority and the NYPD’s Harbor Unit worked in tandem near the pile fields.Directly ahead, the black framework of downtown skyscrapers stood out against an even blacker night sky, their illuminated windows like monsters with a thousand teeth or a thousand eyes.Law enforcement had parked alongside the deserted bike lane of West Street to the left of the pier—a mix of patrol cars with flashing red and blue lights, as well as vans from the Crime Scene Unit and Office of Chief Medical Examiner.Just beyond those were parked news vehicles, members of the press being kept outside a wall of yellow crime tape.
Homicide detective Ray O’Halloran—the bulky Irishman with strawberry blond hair, a ruddy complexion, and a personality not unlike that of a schoolyard bully—was approaching from the throng of uniformed officers and PPE-wearing scientists, skirting a truck-mounted crane with its boom extended beyond the guardrail and into the water.“That you, Grim?”he called over the crane’s engine.O’Halloran dipped in and out of the overhead light before coming to a stop at Larkin’s side.“Almost didn’t see you in that Funeral Director Special.”
Larkin wore his usual uniform of a charcoal-gray suit, crisp white shirt, pink tie, artfully arranged paisley pocket square of white and gray, and mint-green derbies.He diverted his gaze from the aquatic recovery effort to level his reaper-gray stare on O’Halloran.
O’Halloran pointed and said, “I guess I shoulda just looked to the shoes for confirmation.”
Larkin quoted, “One does want a hint of color.”
O’Halloran’s brows scrunched together.
“Albert Goldman,” Larkin stated.“The Birdcage.You called me in the middle of date night.”
“Your idea of date night is Nathan Lane in drag?”
“You’re lucky it wasn’t a Marilyn Monroe film—otherwise, I’d have not picked up at all.Why have you called me to an active crime scene.”
As if in answer to Larkin’s inquiry, someone from the water shouted the go-ahead, which was echoed by another individual, and then the crane began to retract and hoist a secured refrigerator from the river.Water gushed from the bottom panel as the unit was lifted high enough overhead to get it over the pier railing.It gradually rotated midair to face Larkin and O’Halloran, and scrawled across the door in all caps with what was likely permanent black Sharpie was the message:PIN ME TO DETECTIVE LARKIN.
“Port Authority called it in,” O’Halloran explained.“Asked if we had a Larkin on the force.Considering you’ve become something of a household name… didn’t take Dispatch long to confirm.”O’Halloran looked over his shoulder and pointed toward the news vans.“Your fan club must have been listening to the scanner.”
At that, Larkin said in a clipped tone, “I’m not interested in giving them material for another write-up that compares my real-life detective skills to that of a century-old fictional character.”
“So sayeth the cop with enough commendations to rival the damn commissioner.”
A man with the recovery effort jogged onto the pier, approached the suspended kitchen appliance, and gave the crane operator a series of hand gestures until the white, Marcom brand refrigerator—standard in every typical New York rental—was laid on its condenser on a tarp that’d been set out in advance.
“I take it that your presence is a formality,” Larkin stated, watching as the slings were removed from the fridge.
“It’s being treated as a homicide,” O’Halloran confirmed.“If you want it, you gotta play ball.”
“It’s incredible, the asinine amount of red tape justice must contend with.”
A third voice interrupted the two.“That you, Larkin?”
Larkin sidestepped O’Halloran.Approaching the scene, wearing a shapeless PPE jumpsuit, with a black Pelican case in one hand and a camera strapped around his neck, was Neil Millett—the perpetually cynical and sharp-tongued detective with the Crime Scene Unit who Larkin had worked alongside of on three cases since Monday, March 30.Millett was several inches taller and a few years older than Larkin, with honey-brown hair and a pulse on fashionable attire—although he shied away from Larkin’s more extreme color combinations.
Walking beside Millett and hastily pulling on a navy-blue windbreaker with the emblem of the OCME on the left breast was Dr.Lawrence Baxter.Given the number of years a forensic pathologist dedicated to schooling, residency, and fellowship alone, Larkin logically knew that the good doctor had to beat leasthis own age of thirty-five.But when taking in Baxter’s slight frame, coppery red hair done up in a classic James Dean quiff, those retro browline glasses, and a solid skincare regiment, it all had a way of aging him like a particularly vague autopsy report:Decedent is between twenty and fifty years of age.
Millett came to a stop on the opposite side of the fridge and set his kit down on the cement walkway.“I’d say it’s nice to see you again, but a crime scene is hardly the place for such platitudes.”
Larkin’s mouth twitched.
Baxter said, “I don’t attend scenes for just anyone, you know.Where’s your hunky forensic artist for me to ogle?”
“Contrary to what my recent caseload would suggest, Detective Doyle is not typically at my side in an official capacity,” Larkin answered.
“What about unofficial?”Baxter countered.
“All right, all right,” O’Halloran started.“Before someone starts crying ‘always the bridesmaid, never the bride.’”
Larkin replied, “In a 2015 report presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, a six-year study that followed the same 2,262 heterosexual couples—aged nineteen to ninety-four—found that women initiated sixty-nine percent of all divorces and consistently reported lower levels of relationship quality than their male counterparts.A particularly interesting takeaway from this research was that, among theunmarriedheterosexual couples who broke up, there was no statistically significant difference between who initiated the split, suggesting that nonmarital relationships are more equal, flexible, and adaptable to the rapid-fire changes of today’s society.”
“Good fucking God,” O’Halloran said under his breath while pinching the bridge of his nose.
