CHAPTER TEN
—sun-bleached planks rough against his skin, beads of water dripping like tears, dandelion heads a breadcrumb trail leading out farther, deeper, the lake a black hole of tannins and misery, and Patrick had jumped off the dock, swallowed whole by its gravitational pull.
Larkin sank down after him and Patrick was there, asking, “Do you think we’ll be together forever, Everett?
” But Larkin couldn’t breathe underwater, couldn’t speak underwater, couldn’t tell Patrick’s memory that next month would be the eighteenth anniversary of his passing, the eighteenth year that Larkin was haunted by childish rhymes: he loves me, he loves me not , the eighteenth year that Larkin had grown older without him, had become a man without him.
A night of alcohol and kisses and murder for the hundredth, thousandth, millionth time, only this memory, this confrontation with death, was met with being pulled up, toward the breath of now, the luminosity of today, life and love forevermore—
“Evie?”
Larkin blinked. He sat on the curb, elbows on his knees, a half-empty water bottle in one hand that he didn’t remember taking a drink from.
Doyle was crouched before him, and the way the evening sun hit his dark brown eyes—pyrite flecks shining like stardust—it was an all-access pass to his soul.
Larkin saw a man who wanted to cry, to scream, to rage .
He saw the ugly tragedies that had fashioned Doyle into the man he’d become, the knives in his back and Band-Aids holding his heart together.
But despite the twisted shapes Doyle’s hope and happiness had become, they cracked pavement like tree roots—stubborn and unrelenting—striving for the light.
It felt like the world had gone silent and still around them.
“Since the day we met—I knew I was in love.”
Into that quiet, Larkin realized for the first time that he’d associated dying, not with guilt, but with love.
And in doing so, he’d glimpsed an understanding of what it meant to exist: of life and death as a spectrum.
Man’s will yearned for purpose, and the purpose of senseless suffering was guilt.
All that anger, uncertainty, could haves, should haves, would haves gave humanity something to cling to when cast out into the stormy sea of mourning.
We didn’t dare let go of what remained of those we so dearly loved, despite the certainty that this guilt was going to drown us, because this was all that remained .
To release ourselves of guilt would be to forget.
And remembrance was the greatest act of love there was.
But Nietzsche had said that man was a bridge, not a goal, so could such an interpretation of his philosophy of “perhaps” be that, like life, death was just another physical interim? A bridge along the spectrum?
Those we loved weren’t gone. They were simply beyond the bridge, beyond the veil, somewhere that was difficult for us to see. And if they weren’t gone—would never be gone—what use was guilt? It wasn’t a life preserver, but an anchor, pulling us away from the jubilance of heaven.
Man’s will yearned for purpose, so what if, instead, that purpose was to love, and love again?
Over and over.
Forevermore.
Larkin shifted forward, dropped onto one knee, and pulled Doyle into a sudden embrace.
He felt as if he’d returned from some faraway mountain peak, born again with a newly learned revelation ready to be shared with the world.
But Larkin was conscious of how his complex relationship with dying, with death, was decidedly at odds with typical Western thinking, and that to exclaim no one is truly dead , especially to a bereaved father, wasn’t so simple.
Speaking frankly of death had its time and place, and that wasn’t now or here.
What was here was life and love and Ira Doyle.
Larkin placed a hand on the back of Doyle’s head and whispered, “ I’m right here .”
Doyle drew Larkin to his feet as he stood, bringing their bodies closer.
“We’re okay,” Larkin said.
Doyle nodded, his posture a bit stooped so as to press his face to the crook of Larkin’s neck and shoulder.
“I love you more than you know.”
Doyle tightened his hold but said nothing.
Because everything had already been said.
Like the sun coming up over the horizon to wake the world for another day, Larkin became aware of his senses, of his surroundings: the flashing lights of a parked ambulance, the voices of uniformed officers directing traffic and civilians around the cordoned-off crime scene, the stink of a corrupted body.
“’Scuse me, sir?”
Larkin let go of Doyle before turning to his right. An EMT stood several feet away, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “What.”
“Did you want to go to the hospital?”
“No.” And with all honestly, he added, “I’m okay.
” Larkin watched as the EMT left, shut the back doors of the bus, then walked around to the driver’s side door.
His attention wandered next to the street corner, to the body of Joe Sinclair with a white sheet draped over him. Dried blood stained the pavement.
“Death doesn’t seem to come for one of its own, does it?”
Both Larkin and Doyle looked in the opposite direction of the body and departing ambulance to see Neil Millett approaching. He wore partial PPE—booties over his shoes, gloves on his hands—with a digital camera hanging from his neck and his trusty evidence kit in one hand.
Larkin asked, “Why are you here.”
Millett shrugged. “Ask my supervisor. I don’t dole out the assignments.” He set his kit down, scrutinized Larkin carefully, then said, “It first came over the radio as a 10-13. Someone had reported an officer down.”
Larkin plucked at his bloody shirt. “Not yet.”
Millett looked over Larkin’s shoulder at the covered body, exchanged a knowing look with Doyle, then said with the usual toughness of a seasoned cop, “Glad to hear it.” With that, he proceeded to take photos of Larkin’s clothes, performed a GSR swab of his hands, confirmed the SIG hadn’t been fired, and finished his evidence collection by saying, “I’m gonna need to take your clothes. ”
“That leaves me in an interesting predicament,” Larkin answered, but he dutifully shrugged out of his suit coat and dropped it into the paper bag Millett held.
“You don’t have a spare set for emergencies?”
Larkin unbuckled his shoulder holster and passed it to Doyle. “Field work is actually atypical to solving cold cases.”
“What’s your waist size?”
“Twenty-nine,” Larkin answered.
“Wow, really?”
“Did you want my inseam too.”
Doyle failed to entirely suppress a laugh, and Larkin was grateful for its authenticity.
Millett pushed the bag into Larkin’s hands, said, “I’ll be right back,” then jogged toward Clinton Street where the CSU van was parked.
Doyle’s introduction of some levity to the moment was a bit obvious when compared to smoother efforts of the past, but compartmentalizing was a vital tool in law enforcement, and now wasn’t the time for either of them to ponder Larkin’s near brush with death.
In that gorgeous baritone, Doyle asked, “You think Millett’s into you? ”
Larkin set the bag at his feet and said, while handing Doyle the rest of his personal effects, “Millett’s into the new ME.”
That was a sufficient enough distraction, and Doyle’s thick brows drew up as he clarified, “Dr. Baxter?”
“I’m uncertain if it’s only mutual attraction or something more—”
“Are you serious?”
“Was it not obvious.”
Doyle looked instinctively toward Clinton Street, then asked, “Anything else you want to share with the class?”
“It’s not polite to gossip.”
“Yeah, but I’m your work husband,” Doyle reminded him. “You’re morally and ethically obligated to keep me informed on matters of the heart.”
“I wasn’t aware the exchange of hot goss was part of my duties and responsibilities.”
Doyle’s smile was almost whimsical. “You’re so cute.”
Larkin’s mouth twitched. He slid his tie free, unbuttoned his shirt, dropped the bloody mess into the bag, and had started on his trousers when Millett returned with a set of folded clothes in his hands.
“I’ve got— okay , you’re not modest,” Millett stated.
“No, I’m not,” Larkin said as he maneuvered out of his trousers, standing on the side of the road in nothing but his mint-green derbies and a pair of low-rise black trunks.
Millett hastily offered the clothes. “Working CSU, you never know when you might find yourself in the garbage chute of a luxury high rise, helping to retrieve a decomposing body.”
“Your nine-to-five is full of surprises,” Doyle observed.
“You’ve no idea,” Millett replied. As Larkin accepted the jeans, he added, “They might be a little big on you, but they’re clean.”
Larkin pulled on the jeans, which, yes, were both too big in the waist and too long in the leg, but after rolling the cuffs twice, they were at least manageable. He accepted a navy T-shirt that had CRIME SCENE UNIT printed in bold letters across the back.
“What’s wrong?” Millett asked.
Doyle answered for Larkin, “He doesn’t like wearing blue-on-blue.”
Larkin pulled the T-shirt on. “A good wardrobe should have contrasting colors. Pink, orange—mustard pairs particularly well with dark blue jeans.”
“I just don’t see the NYPD adopting mustard as an official color anytime soon,” Millett said.
“Thank you for the clothes.”
“No problem.” A van from the ME’s office pulled onto the scene, and Millett murmured, “Looks like my long-lost medicolegal is finally here. I’ll finish up with this DB and meet you guys at the house for the second one.”
Larkin watched Millett greet the approaching medicolegal, the two of them pulling back the sheet from Joe Sinclair’s body. He absently accepted his holster back from Doyle, strapping it on while saying, “He tried to interview me during the Regmore case. Joe Sinclair with Out in NYC .”
Doyle looked incredulous. “They write about how to pair jockstraps with summer fashion trends.”