“It’s French,” Larkin interjected.“It meansset.”
Doyle continued, “—but they’re typically inscribed with the name of the individual who’s passed.Did the brooch belong to the perpetrator who murdered Wagner?Was it a family heirloom of hers?Or was it possibly a long-kept trophy of yet another victim?We might be able to trace ownership via the name and death date.”
Connor had leaned forward a little, his elbows propped on the desktop.
Doyle reached inside his suit coat and held up the evidence bag with the earring.“We found another piece of the set.”
“That is speculation until we can get the brooch back from the lab and make a comparison,” Larkin corrected.
“I know you’ve got this thing about patterns and coincidences,” Connor said, accepting the bag, “but if Hieronymus Bosch here is the expert on art and mourning and the reason I’m gonna have to expense additional office furniture for an unofficial eleventh member of my squad, let’s give him the benefit of the doubt.”Connor stared at the earring.“Where’s the rest of the set?”
“I believe Wagner took it with her, prior to her disappearance,” Larkin said.“It meant something to her.What, specifically, it’s too soon to say.”
“So whoever offed her has the other pieces?”Connor asked.
“That’s a reasonable assumption.”
Connor returned the bag to Doyle before saying in a low voice, “The sender is back.”
“Yes,” Larkin said.
“And will this be like the other investigations?A case from our unsolved stacks becoming relevant the same way the Garcia boy and Baby Hope did?”
Larkin said, “In theory.Unfortunately, the circumstances of each past discovery have not availed themselves to any sort of predictable pattern, so it’s impossible to say which cold case might become relevant.The discovery of Andrew Gorman’s body led to Regmore’s murdered sex workers in a fairly straightforward manner, but Niederman was already dead, which forced us to work backward in order to link him to the murders of the kids living in the subway system and their relationship to Marco Garcia.Esther Haycox’s murder caught Matilde Wagner and inadvertently led us back to Niederman’s first victim: the mother of Baby Hope, Mia Ramos.”
“Just like the little Russian nesting dolls or whatever,” Connor concluded.
“Mise en abyme,” Larkin corrected.“Adam Worth—therealAdam Worth—lived a very effective double life, and the sender is doing a considerable job in mimicking that success.By day, he’s an unsuspecting cog in the wheel of society.By night, he plies a very particular sort of trade: he offers means by which the criminal class can fulfill their most depraved desires.And when that mutualistic relationship has run its inevitable course, when the sender has reaped all there is of ill-gotten gains, he turns that money, that information, thatpowerback onto the offender.He becomes a parasite.Murder within murder.Duality within duality.”
Connor looked from Larkin, to Doyle, then said abruptly, “Give us a minute alone.”
Doyle was a little taken aback, a surprised, “Oh,” escaping his lips.But he nodded, stood, and exited the office without a word of protest.
Connor waited until the door closed before he said to Larkin, “I know there was some concern over him being targeted last month….If you’re worried the sender might lean that way a second time, I’ll put in a call to his boss and clip his wings.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“If it’s about needing an artist,” Connor continued into the disquiet, “That unit has two other guys.”
“It’s not only about composite sketches and facial reconstructions,” Larkin answered.“It’s about grief and mourning and remembrance, and Doyle’s professional credentials make him uniquely qualified.”Even though this was a surefire way to keep Doyle out of reach from the madman he called Adam Worth, Larkinknew, even if the decision were framed as a direct order from Connor, it would come at the cost of everything he’d been building with Doyle: trust, understanding, even love.Larkin took a breath and said evenly, “I don’t have to worry when I have Doyle at my back.And I don’t need to wonder who has his.”
“If you insist.”
“I do.”
“All right.And Grim?If the media finds out our manhunt for Wagner ended in half a dozen pieces off the bank of the Hudson, they’re gonna be champing at the bit for all the gruesome gossip we’ve got.I don’t need some plucky muckraker coming in and connecting the same dots you have.If a story on the sender gets published before we’re able to grab him, we’re screwed seven ways to Sunday.”He pointed a meaty finger at Larkin.“You say,no comment, and send ’em my way.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good.”
Larkin got to his feet.
“You aren’t on any of those dating apps, are you?”
“Dating apps?”
Connor shrugged and leaned back in his chair.“People don’t realize how much information they pack into those online profiles.A good journalist with an inkling of which app you might be on—you being gay isn’t a secret—casts a net with enough generic ‘preferences’ to include you in the results andbam.One of those reverse image searches of a profile picture might connect to your social media accounts or identify your neighborhood from a visual landmark in the background.A little more digging might expose some not-so-safe-for-work kinks, and wouldn’t the subway rags just love—”
