Hackett was staring at Larkin with that same awestruck expression as yesterday before seemingly catching himself and shaking it off.He said, “You can be happy with your education and still be disillusioned with where it leads you.Like, uh… oh, say you go to school to study acting.You do great, learn a lot, graduate, but end up slinging lattes in SoHo and getting bit parts in TV shows when you imagined being an A-list star.”
Larkin raised a brow.“That’s rather insightful.”
“Yeah?”
“Did my lieutenant tell you about Joe Sinclair’s final movements.”
“He told me that Joe’s been trying to get a tell-all interview with you,” Hackett answered.“That he wasn’t taking no for an answer.”
“Does that sound like the sort of story a man who works forOut in NYCwould spend his time covering.”Larkin could practically see the light behind Hackett’s eyes turn on.
“Now that you mention it—not really.I think the most thought-provoking article I’ve seen them publish was in support of a bi celeb who was getting dragged for their het-presenting relationship.Usually it’s porn-star gossip and reviews of new underwear lines.”
“I believe Joe had aspirations of those beyond that ofOut in NYC,” Larkin said.“I suspect he would have used an interview with me as a way of advancing into a more… heavy-hitting career in journalism.”At that, Larkin went to the double doors that hid the Murphy bed, grabbed the handles, pulled them wide open, and before he could censor himself, said, “Jesus Christ.”
Pinned across the inside of both doors were the makings of a Hollywood murder wall, complete with dozens of news clippings, crisscrossing red strings, and prominently displayed throughout, photographs of Everett Larkin.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Larkin stepped off the elevator at the fifth floor of One Police Plaza with a box in both hands and a case file balanced atop.He strode down the long hall toward the most western end, sidestepping two detectives who’d decided the middle of the corridor was an ideal place for a conversation.Their voices went from full volume to a sudden hush, one whispering, “That’s the Grim Reaper,” and the other answering, “I heard he’s playing patty-cake with the doodle squad.”Larkin stopped, turned, and stared.
Abbott and Costello scurried into their respective offices.
Larkin rolled his eyes and continued down the hall, only to be stopped a second time when he was less than six feet from Doyle’s closed door.
“Hey!Larkin!”
Larkin backtracked a few steps and peered through the partially open door of Senior Artist Bailey’s office.“Good afternoon.”
Bailey motioned him inside with a friendly wave.
Larkin glanced a final time in the direction of Doyle’s office.
“Don’t worry, he’s not going anywhere,” Bailey said.
Larkin used the box to push open the door the rest of the way before parking himself in the threshold, not so subtly suggesting he had other places to be and couldn’t stay.“It wasn’t my intention to interrupt Doyle during an interview—”
“Oh, he’s not working on a composite sketch,” Bailey answered.He sat behind his desk, hands on the back of his head, and a smile somewhere under that bushy Selleck mustache.He wore a wide polyester tie of muddy greens, sickly yellows, and rusty reds that’d been the height of men’s fashion sometime in the ’80s.“Do you know what vein pattern recognition is?”
“I understand it as a concept,” Larkin answered.
“It’s the practice of matching veins in an extremity to their corresponding individual,” Bailey answered.“They’re as unique as a fingerprint, did you know that?When it comes to child exploitation, sometimes it’s all we’ve got to work with.”
“A…vein?”Larkin asked, now confused.
Bailey lowered his hands.He drummed his messy desktop idly.“Like in a forearm or the back of the hand—something that might be in a video or photograph.Scumbags like that, they’re not big on showing their faces.We don’t have a federal budget or access to more state-of-the-art methods, but we’ve got Doyle.He’s been tinkering with image-enhancement techniques for the last year.”
“How does it work,” Larkin asked.
Bailey pursed his lips, and his mustache wriggled like it was alive.“I know you put an RGB image into grayscale and finagle the contrast levels to such a degree that veins usually invisible to the camera willbecomevisible.It’s not foolproof, and it’s pretty technical, but Doyle understands all those doodads a lot more than me or Loving does.”
“That’s fascinating,” Larkin answered, realizing now the method Doyle had used for making “Charlotte Laura Fuller” once again visible on their brooch had been repurposed from his trial and error at combating a far more insidious crime.
Bailey smiled, a combination of both pride and indulgence.“Yeah, and you know him… always taking the cases with kids.I don’t know how he stomachs it, to be honest.But they trust him and SVU likes him.I don’t get in the way of that relationship.”
“Yes.Well….”Larkin allowed his gaze to briefly wander as he considered his choice of words.He’d been inside Bailey’s office only once before—on March 30, when he’d been dropping off Andrew Gorman’s skull casting for a facial reconstruction—and the room hadn’t changed much.It was smaller than Doyle’s, with no supply closet, and instead of a flat work surface like where Doyle did his sculpting, Bailey had a large office desk laden with paperwork.
He did have a drafting desk, though, and that entire section of the room looked a bit like a bomb had gone off in an art supply store.Sketchpads lay open, loose papers with half-finished composites and warm-up exercises were scattered about, heaps of expensive pencils and messy charcoal bits appeared to have no permanent home, and by the looks of paintbrushes sticking out from among piles of tracing paper and micron pens mixed in with plastic bags of clay, had never once been organized.
