CHAPTER FIVE
“James David Porter, the cake batter isn’t for you!”
“Grim ain’t even here!”
“Yes, I am.”
Porter jostled in his chair and abruptly spun toward Larkin.
“Thank God,” Miyamoto muttered. She wriggled open the box top and revealed half a dozen fresh Krispy Kreme donuts. “I’ve been fending this animal off for the last ten minutes. Take your cake batter.”
“Thank you,” Larkin said, but started for his desk instead. “I’ll eat it later.” He shrugged out of his coat and draped it over his chair before realizing both Miyamoto and Porter were staring at him. “What.”
“You’ll eat a donut later ?” Porter repeated.
Miyamoto closed the box and shot Doyle an accusatory look. “You fed him, didn’t you?”
“Ain’t you a peach,” Porter added with a sly smirk.
Miyamoto stalked off to the breakroom without another word.
Larkin picked up the receiver of his desk phone and dialed voicemail to listen to his missed messages.
Doyle pulled the strap of his portfolio bag over his head, saying to Porter, “I didn’t realize runny eggs would put me on a watch list.”
Porter snorted. He leaned back in his chair again, picked up his coffee mug, and asked, “Where’d you guys go?”
“Good Enough,” Doyle said as he propped his bag against Larkin’s desk. “Down in Alphabet City.”
“Hmm. Great coffee,” Porter said by way of approval. To Larkin, he added, “It’s a good thing I ain’t into men or you’d have some competition.”
Larkin furrowed his brow in response. He leaned to one side and hit a button for the next message.
Doyle slid his hands into his pockets and countered good-naturedly, “I’ve always been weak for blonds, Jim. But thank you.”
“You can afford to be choosy. I bet guys line up around the block for you.”
“You think?”
“With an ass that Delta would consider checked luggage? C’mon.”
Doyle turned back to Larkin with a huge smile.
Larkin finished with the voicemail and set the receiver back on the cradle before saying, “I’d prefer we not discuss during business hours what God gave my partner.”
Thankfully, before the conversation had the opportunity to go completely off the rails, Lieutenant Mike Connor appeared in the open doorway of his office and called, “Grim!”
“Yes, sir.”
Connor pointed at Doyle. “Monet.”
“Good morning, Lieutenant.”
“Both of you get in here.”
“Are we in trouble?” Doyle whispered, following close behind Larkin.
“I think he’s missed you,” Larkin corrected. He ushered Doyle into the office first, shut the door, and turned as Connor shook Doyle’s hand.
“How’s life at 1PP?” Connor asked, taking a seat.
A fifth-generation officer of the NYPD, Connor told anyone who’d listen about how he’d gotten his start as a patrolman, worked his way up the ladder, and was eventually promoted to lieutenant of the elite but woefully understaffed Cold Case Squad.
He was a formidable Irishman, with a booming voice and build that rivaled doorframes.
A smattering of freckles across his face and forearms was all that tempered his grizzly bear appearance.
“Never a dull moment,” Doyle confirmed, mirroring Connor and sitting across from him in one of the two chairs positioned before the desk.
“They keeping you busy?”
“Unfortunately.”
“I’d say that having you uptown is a breath of fresh air—”
As Larkin approached, he really had to marvel at Doyle’s innate likeability. Not one, but two middle-aged straight men had professed their undeniable affection for his partner that morning, and Doyle hadn’t even rolled back his shirtsleeves yet.
“—but seeing you here, and after O’Halloran requested Grim at Pier 34 last night, you’re probably not delivering a cookie bouquet, eh?”
Larkin took a seat, crossed his legs, and settled his hands in his lap. He said, “Miyamoto brought in donuts.”
Connor made a face and tsk ’d. “’Course she did… when my doc told me Monday I need to start watching my sugar.” He made a “what can you do” gesture before asking Larkin, “So what happened?”
“A refrigerator got caught up in the pile fields,” Larkin began. “Inside was the dismembered remains of Matilde Wagner.”
Connor’s face took on a distinct red hue. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I’m aware that my delivery is often stifled by my tone of voice, but I assure you, this is not a joke.
We just returned from a meeting with the ME,” Larkin continued, motioning to Doyle.
“Wagner was shot point-blank in the head and taken apart with what was likely a meat cleaver and possibly a bread knife.”
“And Sal Costa’s dead,” Doyle added.
“He’s what?”
“He was jumped at morning roll call,” Larkin explained. “Stabbed to death with a sharpened toothbrush by another inmate.”
“What the absolute fuck .”
“O’Halloran called last night because of the message left at the crime scene,” Larkin said. “Written on the refrigerator door was ‘Pin me to Detective Larkin.’” And when Connor cocked his head to one side, he added, “Wagner had an antique brooch pierced through her tongue.”
“That explains you,” Connor said, sharp eyes cutting toward Doyle.
“Yes, sir. It’s mourning jewelry—hair jewelry. Larkin had the idea to return to the Wagners’ apartment—”
“Doyle did,” Larkin corrected.
Connor raised both hands and said, “You both had the same damn idea and the accolades will be split accordingly. Why’d you go back?”
Doyle said, “There was a question of provenance, I suppose, for the brooch. The thing about mourning jewelry is not only are they often found in a parure—”
“It’s French,” Larkin interjected. “It means set .”
Doyle continued, “—but they’re typically inscribed with the name of the individual who’s passed.
Did the brooch belong to the perpetrator who murdered Wagner?
Was it a family heirloom of hers? Or was it possibly a long-kept trophy of yet another victim?
We might be able to trace ownership via the name and death date. ”
Connor had leaned forward a little, his elbows propped on the desktop.
Doyle reached inside his suit coat and held up the evidence bag with the earring. “We found another piece of the set.”
“That is speculation until we can get the brooch back from the lab and make a comparison,” Larkin corrected.
“I know you’ve got this thing about patterns and coincidences,” Connor said, accepting the bag, “but if Hieronymus Bosch here is the expert on art and mourning and the reason I’m gonna have to expense additional office furniture for an unofficial eleventh member of my squad, let’s give him the benefit of the doubt.
” Connor stared at the earring. “Where’s the rest of the set? ”
“I believe Wagner took it with her, prior to her disappearance,” Larkin said. “It meant something to her. What , specifically, it’s too soon to say.”
“So whoever offed her has the other pieces?” Connor asked.
“That’s a reasonable assumption.”
Connor returned the bag to Doyle before saying in a low voice, “The sender is back.”
“Yes,” Larkin said.
“And will this be like the other investigations? A case from our unsolved stacks becoming relevant the same way the Garcia boy and Baby Hope did?”
Larkin said, “In theory. Unfortunately, the circumstances of each past discovery have not availed themselves to any sort of predictable pattern, so it’s impossible to say which cold case might become relevant.
The discovery of Andrew Gorman’s body led to Regmore’s murdered sex workers in a fairly straightforward manner, but Niederman was already dead, which forced us to work backward in order to link him to the murders of the kids living in the subway system and their relationship to Marco Garcia.
Esther Haycox’s murder caught Matilde Wagner and inadvertently led us back to Niederman’s first victim: the mother of Baby Hope, Mia Ramos. ”
“Just like the little Russian nesting dolls or whatever,” Connor concluded.
“ Mise en abyme ,” Larkin corrected. “Adam Worth—the real Adam Worth—lived a very effective double life, and the sender is doing a considerable job in mimicking that success. By day, he’s an unsuspecting cog in the wheel of society.
By night, he plies a very particular sort of trade: he offers means by which the criminal class can fulfill their most depraved desires.
And when that mutualistic relationship has run its inevitable course, when the sender has reaped all there is of ill-gotten gains, he turns that money, that information, that power back onto the offender.
He becomes a parasite. Murder within murder. Duality within duality.”
Connor looked from Larkin, to Doyle, then said abruptly, “Give us a minute alone.”
Doyle was a little taken aback, a surprised, “Oh,” escaping his lips. But he nodded, stood, and exited the office without a word of protest.
Connor waited until the door closed before he said to Larkin, “I know there was some concern over him being targeted last month…. If you’re worried the sender might lean that way a second time, I’ll put in a call to his boss and clip his wings.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“If it’s about needing an artist,” Connor continued into the disquiet, “That unit has two other guys.”
“It’s not only about composite sketches and facial reconstructions,” Larkin answered.
“It’s about grief and mourning and remembrance, and Doyle’s professional credentials make him uniquely qualified.
” Even though this was a surefire way to keep Doyle out of reach from the madman he called Adam Worth, Larkin knew , even if the decision were framed as a direct order from Connor, it would come at the cost of everything he’d been building with Doyle: trust, understanding, even love.
Larkin took a breath and said evenly, “I don’t have to worry when I have Doyle at my back.
And I don’t need to wonder who has his.”
“If you insist.”
“I do.”