CHAPTER FOUR
On East Twenty-Sixth Street was the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, and in the basement of this uninspiring government facility was the autopsy suite where forensic pathologists and their team of unflinching medicolegals, mortuary technicians, toxicologists, anthropologists, and consulting dentists interviewed the dead of New York City.
It was the responsibility of this century-old institution to investigate any number of deaths throughout the five boroughs, including, but not limited to: criminal violence, accident, suicide, or suspicious manner.
The OCME also held jurisdiction over deaths occurring inside correctional facilities, which was why Larkin and Doyle got off the wobbly elevator that opened onto the lower level and hurried down the stark white hallway heavy with the smell of industrial disinfectant.
Larkin pushed the doors open.
Five people turned around.
The decedent remained spread out on the table like a specimen in a high school lab class.
Larkin asked, “What the hell happened.”
Among the attendees was Dr. Lawrence Baxter, wearing a set of navy scrubs and a white lab coat, his retro glasses pulled back to rest atop his head, and without the frames, he looked younger, and definitely more tired and irritated than was his typical disposition.
There was an older woman in a pair of purple scrubs and plastic apron—likely a technician—a uniformed corrections officer, an OCME driver, and Ray O’Halloran, who seemed hastily put together in a brown suit, white button-down shirt, poorly matching striped tie, and with his hair looking a bit flat on one side, likely from having slept on it while damp.
“There are too many living people in my autopsy suite,” Baxter announced. “Marsha, you stay,” he said to the tech. “Hot artist, you stay too,” he said, turning and pointing at Doyle. “The rest of you, fight among yourselves.”
O’Halloran said a few words to the corrections officer, who nodded and headed for the door without argument. The driver trailed after him, both stepping past Larkin and Doyle, and after the double doors swung shut on their exit, O’Halloran said to Baxter, “Is that better, your majesty?”
“Watch it, Straight and Narrow,” Baxter warned, pointing up at O’Halloran with an accusatory finger. “Because out of the two of you, Detective Larkin will tell me I’m cute if I ask for it.”
“ Doctor ,” Larkin snapped. “That is an unprofessional and inaccurate assumption.”
“You’re right, I’m sorry,” Baxter said. “I’m an adult. I’ve been trained in mass fatality management. If I want to be called cute, I’ll just order one of the residents to say so.”
Marsha tittered.
Baxter yanked his glasses down and then reached into a box on the counter for latex gloves. “It’s just, I was here all night piecing your Angel of Death jigsaw puzzle back together,” he explained. “Look at my hair. Does it have that sexy, tousled, bedhead thing Doyle’s got going on?”
“I comb my hair,” Doyle protested, hand automatically going to his head.
Larkin pursed his lips.
Baxter continued. “I got about an hour’s sleep before this meathead—” He pointed at O’Halloran before course-correcting with “Y’know, there’re thirty of us MEs in the city. I know I’m charming to be around, but you Homicide boys—”
“Cold Cases,” Larkin corrected.
“I’m not the only one with a telephone,” Baxter growled.
“Doesn’t the Chief want you on Detective Larkin’s investigations?” Marsha asked sincerely, her voice not quite a whisper.
“I’m trying to make a point, Marsha,” Baxter murmured.
O’Halloran puffed his chest out and plastered on his best schoolyard bully smirk, clearly considering himself on the winning end of this argument, even if it meant hitching his wagon to Larkin’s name.
He pivoted on his heel and said to Larkin, “Happened just after six this morning. Inmates were coming out of their cells, lining up to head to the chow hall. He got jumped and shanked.”
Larkin and Doyle crossed the remaining distance to the autopsy table and looked down at the bodily remains of Sal Costa.
His cropped white hair was in disarray, goatee a little overgrown, the chain of his religious medallion visible in the thick pelt of chest hair poking out at the collar of his jail-wear.
He looked like he’d put on some weight—nothing to do and all day to do it—and his chubby face was twisted into a grotesque mask of horror.
“ Sonofabitch ,” Larkin whispered.
“What’d they use?” Doyle asked O’Halloran, who stood a foot or so from the head of the table.
“A sharpened toothbrush.”
Baxter carefully lifted the tattered and bloody shirt. “I’m not speaking officially, but a stabbing certainly seems to be the case. His abdomen looks like steak tartare. Marsha, you might as well start taking external photos.”
“I can’t fucking believe this,” O’Halloran growled. “Coulda had Wagner on two dozen counts of first-degree murder. Coulda had them both on conspiracy charges. This was a slam-dunk promotion, a raise—” He looked at Larkin and motioned between them. “—a goddamn federal holiday in our honor.”
“That last one is simply not true,” Larkin replied. “Did you get the name of the inmate who attacked Costa.”
O’Halloran grit his jaw like he wanted to crack a tooth. He reached inside his suit coat, retrieved a small notepad, and flipped through the pages. “Tony Vargas,” he eventually said.
—twenty-five pounds of gear weighing down the utility belt cinched tight to his slender waist, sweat prickling under the standard-issue ballistic vest and heavy winter patrol coat, boots in need of new insoles, adjusting the eight-point cap on his head to keep his hand in a ready position as the belligerent neighbor of 2F got closer, spouting bullshit: “Vargas sellin’ pills ain’t no different than Big Pharma pushin’ a new drug every commercial break.
He ain’t no millionaire, man, just a guy tryin’na eat, tryin’na take care of his girl!
” before a scream from the crime scene at his back spurred him into action—
The weight of Larkin’s old uniform pulled at him, the bite of gunpowder hung heavy in the air, that howl of pain echoed in his ears like the reverb of a cymbal. January 3, 2013, was seven years ago, seven months ago, seven days ago, seven seconds ago.
He had been dispatched for crowd control.
Larkin had been arguing with the neighbor defending Anthony Vargas’s decision to sell ten thousand pills to an undercover cop.
An associate of Vargas’s had entered the apartment as the deal had gone down, had somehow identified the officer to be active law enforcement, and shot. The officer fired back in self-defense.
Larkin had been there for crowd control.
In the ensuing chaos, first responders hadn’t properly secured the apartment, and Vargas’s girlfriend had been hiding in the closet as it turned into a crime scene.
She’d come out screaming like a banshee and stabbed an OCME driver in the leg.
The on-site medicolegal had a panic attack afterward, and Larkin had driven the van back to the office.
He had just been there for crowd control.
What were the odds of this Tony Vargas being the very same Anthony Vargas of Larkin’s patrol days?
The probability of coincidence could be calculated by studying the base rate of two independent events.
The act of Larkin, of all available officers, having been assigned to that specific crime scene was 1 in 35,000, and the number of busts involving pharmaceutical drugs in 2013—fuck, Larkin wasn’t sure.
He hardly ever had reason to interact with the Narcotics Division.
He asked, “What was Vargas doing time for.”
“I don’t know.”
“O’Halloran.”
“Do I look like his fuckin’ CO?” O’Halloran shot back.
“I know it’s early and we’re all tired,” Doyle said cooly, “but shouting isn’t—Larkin, where’re you going?”
Larkin was already at the double doors, shoving them open, stepping into the hall. He looked toward the elevator at the far end before calling, “Wait!” and jogging toward the correctional officer just as he was stepping inside the car.
Stumbling back, the officer put a hand on the door to keep it from closing. “Something wrong, sir?”
As Larkin drew close, he took in and promptly filed away the usual details: a big guy who was a little soft around the waist, shaved head, dark eyes, name tag reading: Rodriguez. “Detective Everett Larkin with the Cold Case Squad,” he said. “Do you know the perpetrator of this crime.”
“Of…?” He pointed toward the autopsy suite before saying, “We caught Anthony Vargas in the act.”
“How long have you known Vargas.”
He shrugged. “Few years, I guess.”
“What is he serving time for.”
The elevator beeped loudly.
Rodriguez said, “I don’t make it a habit of reading inmates’ paperwork. Makes the job easier, not knowing who might’ve murdered a grandmother.”
“But you can find out.”
The elevator beeped again.
Larkin reached into his pocket, retrieved his wallet, and removed a business card. He held it out. “As soon as possible.”
Rodriguez looked at the card. He looked at Larkin. Then he halfheartedly plucked it from between Larkin’s fingers and boarded the elevator without a word.
Larkin narrowed his eyes, frowning as the elevator doors slid shut.
There typically wasn’t much, if any, serious discourse between their two departments—not in the way Larkin had heard such animosity could exist in smaller towns, with prison guards reporting that patrol treated them like mall cops who couldn’t handle the “real job.” Larkin had a more complicated relationship with Vice, Homicide—hell, his own team—than he ever had with Corrections.
Maybe Rodrigeuz had been nearing the end of a grueling twelve-hour shift when the attack happened.
Maybe Rodriguez resented having to do any kind of paperwork for outside departments.
Maybe Rodriguez just hated his job.
But still, Larkin took a step forward, reached for the call panel on the wall—