Doyle set his hands on his hips.“It doesn’t make any sense.”
Larkin prided himself on being attracted to, and involved with, smart men, but he’d have given his left nut for Doyle to have been dead wrong about this.
Because Larkin had no idea where to go from here.
Doyle made a sound of being intrigued under his breath.He said, “I’ll be right back,” then headed toward Millett and the medicolegal, still hovering over the body.
Larkin pulled out his phone.He dialed a number, put it to his ear, and said when his call was answered, “Have you spoken to an individual by the name of Joe Sinclair.”
“Who?”Noah asked.
“He wrote forOut in NYC.”
“Is he the guy with the beard and biceps?”
“What did you say to him.”
“Nothing.”
“Noah.”
“Basically nothing,” Noah course-corrected.“He called me, out of the blue, a few weeks ago.He introduced himself, said he was a reporter writing a piece on some cases you’d worked, and….”
“And what.”
Defensively, Noah said, “No one’s ever wanted to know about me.Four years we were married, and all I ever got asked were questions about you.From your coworkers, frommycoworkers, our friends, family, even your psychiatrist.”
“And you let a reporter butter you up.”
“They weren’t serious questions,” Noah argued.“He asked where I grew up, what I did for a living, if I enjoyed it—and when’s the last time someone gave a shit about a public school teacher?He asked if we were married and I said yes.”
“Despite the contrary.”
“Wearestill married, Everett.”
“Goddamn it, this is not the time,” Larkin said sternly.“What else did you tell him.”
“That’s all, I swear.After that, he started getting more interested in you, and I told him I wasn’t going to answer on behalf of a cop.”
“But you know what he looks like.”
“I guess it wouldn’t be too difficult for a reporter with basic research skills and an internet connection to have found our address, right?He came around and tried again, but I told him he needed to back off.That was the last time I heard from him.”
“Why didn’t you tell me.”
“Because I handled it.”
Larkin took in the active crime scene surrounding him—the investigators, the dead man, the bloody sheet.So much for handling it, he thought.“Did you see the Honda Civic before or after Joe Sinclair came to the apartment.”
Noah’s quiet had a thinking quality to it, and he said, “After.Maybe, like, only a day or two later.”He hastened to ask, “What’s going on?”
“It’s an ongoing case,” Larkin said by way of explanation.“Thank you, Noah.”He ended the call as Doyle returned, now wearing a pair of latex gloves and studying the screen of Joe’s camera.It seemed to be working, despite visible nicks and scratches on its body.Larkin said, “Joe tapped Noah for information.First on the phone, then again in person.”
Doyle briefly looked up, and while Larkin hadn’t ever met Doyle’s grandmother, hadn’t even seen a photograph of her, in fact, he could so easily imagine that same expression of skepticism time and again on the matriarch’s face during Doyle’s tumultuous boyhood years.Evenly, Doyle asked, “What’d Noah tell him?”
“He claims to have said nothing about me.”
Doyle looked back down at the camera menu.
