Some folks never left the ’80s, it seemed.
“Would you allow me to theorize with only circumstantial evidence,” Larkin asked.
“Please do.”
“Lisa Murray is from Hell’s Kitchen, and although she’d have been young, hardly eighteen, I feel there’s a strong likelihood she knew Vargas, Noonan, even your—Bridget, around the time Barbara took off,” Larkin began.“Keep in mind, Vargas wasn’t the only one to get away with Westie-associated murders.”
“You think she might’ve gotten away with mob murders back then?”
“I think you were correct when you suggested the stalker was more than one person,” Larkin answered.“Someone was in the driver’s seat when Noonan shot Joe, and I believe it was Murray.In 2013, I never actually saw her face.I was a patrolman.I was on crowd control.But this woman—” He waved his phone, the mugshot still visible on the screen.“—was the mail carrier at the diner.I think I might’ve seen her again near Joe’s apartment.What better way to watch me—us—without being noticed.We expect mail carriers in a city, so we become blind to them.Worth blackmailing Noonan makes sense, but if he’s involving Murray too, he must have something big on her as well.And what’s bigger than murder.
“Here is where I’m forced to theorize, however,” Larkin said.“Wagner went to Brooklyn.Whether she knew that home on Carroll Street, knew Phyllis, or had—I don’t know—been purposefully misled, that’s where she ended up.She was shot, execution-style, with a .38 special that will undoubtably match the bullet used to kill Joe.And Murray, no stranger to knives after having stabbed the driver in 2013, helped dismember Wagner.Together, they moved the fridge from the basement and drove it to the Hudson.”
“I’m still unclear what Murray has to do with Bridget being in danger.”
“Bridget works for the post office,” Larkin answered.“Murray does not.And while I’m unaware of regulations pertaining to whether or not one is allowed to wear an out-of-date USPS emblem, it seems unlikely an employee today would still be sporting a uniform top from roughly 1990.I suspect the one she had on was acquired online.Vintage thrifting on eBay or something.”
“Have they been stalking Bridget as well?”
Larkin said, “When you suggested Worth might be trying to instill distrust or uncertainty in me, I admit I thought it was a bit tinfoil hat.”
Doyle spared Larkin a critical glance as they sped past Exit 16 at East 116th Street.
“But you’re right.That’s exactly what he’s been doing,” Larkin continued.“He’s a spider, spinning a web, and the farther it reaches, the more people who get caught up in it.”
“Where does it end?”
“I don’t think it does,” Larkin said solemnly.“Not until Worth is caught.Everyone who associates with me—and by proxy, who they associate with—might be in danger.Why else would Noah—”
It’s all my fault.
Larkin looked at his watch.
Nineteen minutes.
“We need to decide which cross streets soon.”There was a heaviness to Doyle’s voice, like he’d begun fighting against the squelching muck again in that brief interlude of silence.“We’re coming up on Ninety-Sixth Street already.”
“Of the six locations, we’re looking for one that a fully-grown,kidnappedman can be dragged to, and passersby won’t take notice.”
“None of them,” Doyle said dryly.
“Twenty-Third and Fifth is the Flatiron and Madison Square Park,” Larkin said.“So that’s out.Thirty-Second and Fifth is Koreatown.There’re old multiuses and walk-ups, yes, but it’s such a busy neighborhood that it’s highly unlikely to be the cross streets in question.”
“The farther east, generally the quieter the area,” Doyle suggested.
“Fifty-Third and Second is still Midtown.A lot of high-rises and office buildings.”
“What’s the other option?”
“Thirty-Fifth and Second.”
“Murray Hill,” Doyle said.“Pretty chill neighborhood, finance bros notwithstanding.”
Larkin closed his eyes and pulled up his mental map a second time.He placed himself in the middle of Second Avenue, looking uptown with Kips Bay at his back.The basketball and handball courts of St.Vartan Park were to the northeast, and an Armenian cathedral of the same name was to his immediate right.Once luxury condos, now outdated eyesores, loomed several blocks north, but that immediate intersection was still made up of hundred-year-old multiuses—AC units in the apartment windows overhead, and restaurants, office supply stores, and beauty salons on the ground floors, with undoubtably some sort of city maintenance on the sidewalks or roads to inconvenience—
Larkin’s eyes snapped open.The exit sign for East Seventy-First whizzed past.He pulled up the browser on his phone and navigated to the webpage for Manhattan Community Board Six.He tapped Work Notices and began scrolling through all of the approved work orders affecting the vicinity of Murray Hill.“My unmitigated obsession—what you lovingly refer to as dedication—introduced me to Community Board websites in April of 2018, when I got home from work one evening to discover Eightieth Street was closed to vehicle traffic without any posted notices explaining the reason I had to park the Audi nearly five blocks away.Turns out, our street needed substantial infrastructure upgrades and it was closed for nearly a year.I followed the progress, or lack thereof, on the Community Board website.
“But to my point: While on that phone call with Noonan, I heard the sound of what I believe to be popping wood—like old joists in a floor needing repair—and there’s currently a multiuse on the southwest corner of Thirty-Fifth and Second that’s under repair, which required the evacuation of both the storefront and all tenants in the upstairs apartments.Overhead protection and scaffolding has been installed, and construction is underway to both the interior and exterior, weekdays only, weather permitting.Expected completion is October of this year.”
