“Get out now.”
“He knew you from before, didn’t he,” Larkin pressed.“From Hell’s Kitchen.And when he interviewed you that night, when he mocked you for identifying yourself as Bridget Cohen, you didn’t budge, didn’t pretend to be anyone else.He probably made a grandiose gesture of writing your new name down, like an asshole.Bullies target those they perceive as weak, but not always in a traditional sense,” Larkin explained.“You were a threat to his social dominance.Because Noonan was a Homicide detective being paid to keep Vargas and other Westies out of handcuffs.He couldn’t have a young female sex worker blow the whistle on Barbara’s murder.He promised you dismemberment and garbage bags and East River dumps if you talked.And because you’d known the kind of man Vargas was, it never occurred to you anyone else would want to hurt Barbara.You said nothing all these years—”
Bridget was breathing hard from her nose, and she spat, “I didn’t say nothing because Vargas is still alive.”
“He’s been in prison since 2013.”
“Yeah?Well, Noonan sure as hell isn’t!”
“Bridget,” Larkin said firmly, insistently.“I can help, but I need you to—”
“All my fucking life, I’ve been doing what men’ve told me to do,” she said, and her face grew flushed as all those negative emotions mixed together like a violent chemical reaction.“Men like you, with your fancy suit and expensive watch and posh attitude, treating me like a dumpster you can leave your fuckin’ trash in—”
“Please—”
“Get the fuck out of my apartment!”she screamed.
Larkin held one hand up in defense as he reached for his wallet.He removed a business card, turned, and set it on the love seat cushion.“If you want to talk,” Larkin said, “I’ll listen.”
He saw himself to the door without another word, exited, and took the stairs slowly—not because he expected Bridget to change her mind, to run after him, to spill her darkest and dirtiest secrets in the stairwell between the second and third floors, but because he needed to catch his breath.He needed to present a calm and controlled front for Doyle.
Larkin left the vestibule and stepped into an early evening still bright with the summer sun.Nervous sweat had bunched the fabric of his shirt under his arms, and his upper back felt as if it was cooking like a cracked egg on asphalt.He took a deep breath, slid his hands into his pockets, and started for the corner.Larkin wasn’t surprised to see Doyle back on the sidewalk, restlessly pacing before the Audi.
And when Doyle turned to cross back in front of the passenger door, catching sight of Larkin as he did, he took to a jog.“What happened?”he asked impatiently.“Was—was it her?”
“Yes.”
Doyle took his sunglasses off.“And?”
“Do you want me to tell you about the case or about Bridget.”
Doyle’s uncertainty played out across his face like a game of tug-of-war.He admitted, “I don’t know.”
That makes two of us, Larkin thought.He said, “Barbara was a Hell’s Kitchen native.She was engaged to a Westie in the late ’70s.”
“Do you know who?”
“Anthony Vargas, their half-Italian buddy and connection to the Gambino family.”
Doyle put his hands on his hips.“I don’t understand.He couldn’t have possibly murdered Wagner frominsideprison.”
“It’s not about Vargas,” Larkin explained, “I think it’s about those he surrounded himself with.Bridget says he was abusive toward Barbara—that’s why she left, why she sought a new identity.Allegedly, Vargas swore he’d kill Barbara if he ever found her.Apparently, he had no qualms with mob killings or keeping mistresses, but it was Barbara’s leaving that was the unforgivable sin.”
“And despite her caution, Barbara still wound up a victim.”
“There’s more,” Larkin cautioned.“Ralph Noonan, the lead investigator—”
Doyle interrupted, his tone uncharacteristically bitter, as he asked, “Vargas paid him to look the other way, didn’t he?Like what happened with Stolle?”
“Arguably worse.Bridget says Noonan was on mob payroll.By day, he investigated the Westies—by night, he protected them.”
“Then there’s no way on God’s green Earth he’d have not known who Barbara was,” Doyle said.“Not if she was the fiancée of the guy he was protecting.”
“That’s my belief as well.And while I couldn’t get Bridget to confirm, she didn’t deny when I suggested she knew Noonan.”
Doyle’s brows rose.“Knew him?”he echoed.“Knew himhow?”
Larkin realized the connotation his choice of words held for someone who wasn’t sure of his parentage and said, “I’m sorry.I only meant Bridget was familiar with Noonan from when she still lived in Hell’s Kitchen—familiar with his Westie connection.And because she knew Vargas to be a dangerous man, when Noonan confronted her on the night of October 2, 1982, she made the reasonable assumption that Barbara had been murdered by her violent ex.She never said anything because both of those men are still alive, and the system has always been rigged in favor of the predator.And as she pointed out rather emphatically, Vargas might be in prison, but Noonan is enjoying his retirement.”
