CHAPTER TWO #3
“I know….” Larkin lingered a moment longer, then said into the quiet, “I’ll let you go.”
“Be safe.”
“Sleep well.” Larkin ended the call. He pocketed the phone and started to turn, but something—movement?
—from within a double-parked blue Honda caught his eye.
For a split-second, Larkin thought it was Doyle’s car.
But of course not. His boyfriend was in a bed over fifty blocks south of there, falling asleep this very minute with his face pressed into his pillow, like he always did.
As far as associations went, this one was harmless.
But as Larkin studied the vehicle, tried to determine in the dirty glow of surrounding streetlights if the model was indeed a Civic or perhaps an Accord, he considered: had it been there this whole time or had it parked during his call?
Larkin couldn’t be sure.
He’d been a little distracted, a little worked up when he’d exited the building.
It was an odd place, though, to perform a traffic violation—in front of a police precinct.
Larkin took the steps down to the sidewalk, but as he approached the car, the Honda’s engine suddenly turned over and the headlights flashed the high beam. He instinctively raised a hand to shield his eyes, and from between the black spots in his vision, watched as the Honda sped off.
It was 3:48 a.m. and Larkin stood at the breakroom counter, his hands resting on its laminated top as he waited for a fresh pot of coffee to finish brewing.
He tapped his bare ring finger to the steady drip , drip , drip , and when the water reservoir gurgled and the machine beeped, Larkin took the carafe by the handle and refilled his mug.
He took a sip. It tasted like the coffee maker needed to be cleaned.
The printer in the bullpen had been left unsupervised to spit out the preliminary crime scene report and accompanying photographs, and all those moving components had a way of sounding louder during the witching hour, as if the spirit bound to that particular case were trying to break free of where the veil was most thin.
So when Larkin heard quiet footsteps intermingled with the tired buzzes and whirrs of inkjet and paper, for a heartbeat he imagined Matilde Wagner pacing the rows of unoccupied desks, still bleeding from the bullet hole in the middle of her forehead.
Larkin stepped out of the breakroom, rounded the corner, and was both relieved and confused by the sight of— “Ira.”
Doyle turned around from where he stood at Larkin’s desk, and his smile breathed a sense of life into the empty space.
“There you are.” He pulled the strap of his portfolio bag over his head before resting the bag against the side of the desk.
Doyle’s chocolate-brown hair had that usual appearance of having been finger-combed before leaving the house, and while Larkin gave him a hard time about the ever-present stubble, he’d also become so accustomed to Doyle’s whiskers, their grit and rasp against his own skin, that Larkin found pictures of his partner when younger and clean-shaven to be like looking at a doppelganger—almost, but not quite right.
Doyle was wearing a light-gray suit—a shade he didn’t typically favor—but in Larkin’s opinion, as a card-carrying gay man, the color really complemented Doyle’s physical blessings. He’d paired it with a powder-blue button-down and a navy tie with the knot just the slightest bit askew.
“It’s the middle of the night,” Larkin stated before crossing the bullpen. “Why’re you here.”
“I couldn’t sleep,” Doyle answered as he shrugged out of his suit coat. “It didn’t seem fair—not when you’re here working on the same case I’ll inevitably be a part of by midmorning.”
“Who said I had any intention of having you assigned.”
Doyle paused as he made to drape his coat over one of the many molded plastic chairs that migrated around the bullpen. He looked at Larkin in blatant confusion—thick eyebrows raised, mouth slightly ajar.
“I’m joking,” Larkin said, cracking a smile.
Doyle’s laugh was tinged with relief. “I thought we were about to have it out.”
“I’ve already emailed Bailey.”
“Thanks.”
“But you should have told me you were coming in.”
“Would it have made a difference?” Doyle asked. He unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt and began to roll back the sleeves.
Yes , Larkin wanted to say. Because what if it happens in the dead of night, when I have no reason to suspect you’re anywhere but your bed.
The sender leaves you bleeding out on the sidewalk until the early-morning hours, the hospital calls me because I’m your emergency contact, and they say: I’m very sorry, Mr. Larkin, and then you’re simply gone —
Larkin shoved his thumb into the corner of his left eye, pressed hard, and said, “Never mind. Would you like some coffee.” He about-faced and returned to the breakroom without waiting for an answer.
Larkin set his own mug down with a clatter, coffee sloshing over the edge and onto the counter.
He snapped the hair tie around his left wrist hard.
Again.
And again.
Larkin only stopped when he heard Doyle’s heels echo on the high-traffic linoleum at his back. His wrist stung as he reached overhead and selected a mug at random from the cupboard. “I’m sorry about date night,” he began, going to the fridge for cream and adding a splash to the cup.
“It’s not your fault,” Doyle answered.
Larkin had cooked chicken Milanese for dinner, which had paired wonderfully with Doyle’s arugula salad and delicious blood orange and tonic water mocktails, and the evening had quickly become one of good food and even better company.
In fact, it had been shaping up to be one of the best stay-in dates Larkin had had in years—and then O’Halloran had phoned.
Larkin topped the mug with freshly brewed coffee, picked up his own a second time, and turned. “I’d like to make it up to you.”
Doyle met Larkin halfway, accepting the extended cup.
He glanced at the red mark on Larkin’s wrist, but somehow, he seemed to know when it wasn’t about what was bothering Larkin, so much as how it was bothering him.
Doyle had become rather exceptional at redirecting intrusive thoughts and quieting the endlessly repetitive bullshit that haunted Larkin day in and day out, and he did so without the expectation that he was now privy to the finer details of such horrors.
All he said was, “It’s a date,” and then he leaned down and kissed Larkin.
This close, Larkin could smell Doyle’s warm, freshly scrubbed skin, as well as the neroli and sandalwood and cardamom of his cologne. He was so alive and so vibrant, and Larkin couldn’t resist deepening the kiss, shocking his partner with a hint of unexpected tongue.
“ Mm —gon’ make me spill coffee,” Doyle murmured before reluctantly breaking the kiss. He licked his lower lip and blinked a few times. “Are you standing on your toes?”
“What. No.” Larkin set his feet flat on the floor.
“Oh my God, you were.” Doyle leaned back and took Larkin in as a grin spread across his face. “Do you do that a lot? Have I never noticed?”
“No, I don’t do it a lot,” Larkin admonished. “Only when you… don’t lean down far enough.” He was quick to add, “Five foot nine is the average for American men, Ira. My proportions are—”
“Perfect?”
“I was going to say, within norm. In fact, I’m taller than the world average, which for men, is five foot seven.”
“Hm-hm, but you see, I’ve been getting this crick in my neck,” Doyle said as they left the breakroom. He gave his nape a rub for good measure. “From being so tall, you know?”
“Jesus Christ.”
“I think you’ll need to stand on your toes for a kiss more often.”
“It creases my shoes,” Larkin answered. He strode across the bullpen, collected his paperwork from the printer, and then motioned for Doyle to follow. “I’d like to show you some of the photos CSU just sent me.”
They walked past Connor’s closed and unoccupied office, two interview rooms, and down the hall to the Fuck It.
The room was sometimes used by detectives seeking a bit of solitude, when the only other spot in the precinct that promised one could remain undisturbed for a minute or two was inside a toilet stall, but mostly, the Fuck It was the squad’s dumping ground for a hodgepodge collection of garbage.
The piles of worn-out furniture and obsolete technology were shadows in the dark room, faintly outlined in orange from the streetlights outside that came in through the blinds on the far side of the room that someone had left partially open.
Larkin turned on the overhead light and started for the right side of the room.
He set his mug down, pushed two towers of bankers boxes, stacked five and six tall respectively, to one side, and revealed a large bulletin board still installed on the wall.
It was discolored from sun exposure, darker squares but memories of once-important documentation now lost to time.
There were bits of cork missing throughout, and what remained was heavily riddled with leftover staples.
He began to tack the photos up while saying, “A refrigerator was found caught up in the pile fields of Pier 34. On the door, written in permanent marker, was this message: Pin me to Detective Larkin. Inside were the dismembered remains of who I’ve been able to tentatively ID as Matilde Wagner.”
Doyle came to stand beside him. “What the hell is she covered in?”
“Adipocere,” Larkin said. “More commonly known as corpse wax.”
“Gross.”
“According to Dr. Baxter, for the adipocere to form, her body would need to be placed in ideal conditions no later than mid-June.”
“And when was Wagner last seen alive?”