CHAPTER ELEVEN #2
“Murder, whether heat of passion or premeditated, is a series of chances—time, proximity, and location all factors taken into consideration before the opportunity is acted upon—but none of that matters if you don’t first understand the victim.
If the woman downstairs isn’t the homeowner, would you still consider her killer to display a hunter personality. ”
“No, but, I mean, that opens up a whole new can of worms,” Hackett protested. “Is the victim a stranger? Friend? Family member? Where’s the homeowner? Because they’d now be a person of interest—”
“Your profile of place has changed completely, hasn’t it,” Larkin interrupted.
Hackett reluctantly nodded.
“You’re never wrong to say you don’t yet have enough information in which to build a profile. Is CSU in the house yet.”
Sounding a touch disillusioned, Hackett said, “I think so, yeah.”
Larkin sidestepped the Homicide detective and exited the bedroom.
The footfalls of both Hackett and Doyle followed him through the home, and while the former’s voice was too low to make out his words, Larkin picked up Doyle responding, “—already knows the answer. Admitting you don’t know something will go a lot further toward impressing him than trying to bullshit him. ”
Larkin squeezed past two uniformed officers in the vestibule and started down the basement stairs.
The stench of decomposition—a constant perfume that’d permeated the entire upstairs—grew in such intensity that by the time Larkin reached the landing, he could only theorize it’d been the adrenaline of entering the home with his pistol drawn that’d allowed him to investigate the basement at all.
He already wore gloves and booties, but helped himself to an N95 mask from the boxes of PPE set to the side of the open studio door.
Larkin stepped inside while adjusting the nose piece.
Millett turned from staring down at the body in the camping chair and said, voice muffled by his own mask, “You could have warned me this was a full-body situation.” He motioned to the white jumpsuit he was now wearing.
Larkin ignored the complaint and gave the body a wide berth as he walked toward the opposite end of the room.
He crouched before the discarded shelving, Pepsi cases, and salad dressing to study grooves in the flooring—grooves made by dragging a hundred-and-seventy-pound fridge across a soft surface like linoleum.
“Did you know that over 140 million Americans prefer ranch on their salads?” Millett asked.
“According to who.”
“NHCS.”
“Interesting.”
“I can’t stand the smell.” Millett continued, “Not since college. I woke up in the middle of the night to my roommate watching anime on his laptop and eating a bowl of canned peaches and ranch. A whole bowl. Like it was milk and cereal. I wonder what happened to that guy….”
“ Holy shit . Lookit all those maggots!”
Larkin stood and turned around.
Hackett had bum-rushed the scene and was opposite Millett, taking in all the grisly details.
His expression was hidden behind the mask, but his eyes were wide with surprise and disgust and utter fascination.
Doyle, on the other hand, stood several steps behind Hackett, his posture stiff and arms crossed.
To Millett, Larkin said, “This is Detective Val Hackett with Brooklyn Homicide.”
“Neil Millett, CSU.”
“Yeah, hi, why’re there so many?” Hackett asked, pointing.
“Ideal conditions,” Millett answered. “It’s warm, it’s humid, and they’ve got a full-grown adult body to munch on.”
“Why’re they, like, clustered in groups?” Hackett asked next.
“A mass of maggots this big can generate heat at least forty degrees above the ambient temperature. Any higher than one twenty and they’ll die.
And since it’s got to be at least ninety in this house already, they break away from the core—into these smaller groups here and here—to try and cool down. ”
“ Wow .”
Millett made a sound, something between a laugh and a snort. “How long have you been with Homicide?”
“Six months. But I haven’t seen anything like this. It’s mostly shootings out here.”
Millett said, “The presence of pupa, both hatched casings and those still in development, tells me we’re over halfway into our second lifecycle of blowflies. That’s… oh, about three weeks, at least. I’d put time of death somewhere around June 8 to June 19.”
Larkin answered as he approached the body, “That would correspond with the stack of uncollected mail and the watermelon peperomia upstairs.”
“Peperomia?” Millett echoed.
“Yes. It’s in no way as scientifically sound as the lifecycle of the blowfly, but a watermelon peperomia should be watered once it begins to exhibit signs of droopiness—every one to two weeks. The plant upstairs has completely collapsed and discolored.”
“Larkin’s a plant dad,” Doyle interjected.
“Ah. Congratulations,” Millett answered. “Boy or girl?”
“Watermelon peperomias are self-pollinating. Have you checked her pockets for an ID.”
Millett turned his attention back to the body and carefully patted down the stained overalls. Maggots plopp ed and the body squelch ed. He reached into the right pocket, retrieved a leather wallet, and passed it to Larkin.
Larkin wiped dark viscous fluid with his gloved thumb, revealing a custom monogram in the corner that read bitch .
He opened it. A New York driver’s license, debit card, and health insurance card were all in the name of…
. “Kathleen Gardner. Not the homeowner.” Larkin checked the pocket for cash, but there were only soggy and discolored business cards all stuck together.
He removed the mushy cardstock and could just make out three words. “Fur and Feather.”
“My money’s on either taxidermy or kink,” Millett said off-handedly.
“It’s an animal service,” Hackett said suddenly.
Larkin looked up. “What kind of service.”
“Dog walking and cat sitting, I think,” Hackett replied.
“I’ve seen her flyers in the neighborhood for years.
The business name always stuck out to me, since I don’t think she takes care of birds…
. That and she prints them on neon orange paper.
” Hackett stared at Kathleen’s body for a long minute before asking, “Do you think she was here to take care of the owner’s cat? ”
“What cat?” Doyle asked.
—orange tabby stretched out on the bedroom throw rug—
“Well, there’s that cat stand in the living room,” Hackett explained. “And I noticed one of those light-up balls under the dining table. Mine goes nuts for those. His name’s Murphy—my cat.”
“Doyle,” Larkin hastily said. “It’s an orange tabby.”
Doyle was already moving to the doorway as he said over his shoulder, “I’ll take a look.”
Larkin redirected his stare to Hackett, who, after a moment, shifted under its intensity. “Did you know the victim.”
“No way. But I live in Cobble Hill, and there’re nice bars here in Carroll Gardens. I’m in the area a lot.”
“I see.” Larkin paused, then added, “Thank you.”
Even with the mask on, Hackett beamed like a kindergartener who’d just gotten his first gold star sticker in class.
Larkin dropped the wallet into the evidence bag Millett held out before yanking his gloves off, turning them inside out as he did.
He moved away from the body, closer to the easel, and studied the half-finished painting still propped and awaiting further work.
Last month, Doyle had described Stephanie Sato as having a great sense of motion in her work, but all Larkin saw was art trying to be art.
He didn’t see technical skill or storytelling or those little flaws that were the foundation of an artist’s signature style.
He saw slapdash work devoid of meaning. He saw a pretentious concept with no soul.
He saw an angry green woman fingering herself and was unable to understand who would desire to hang it over their dining table.
Perhaps Stephanie’s target market was not the collectors themselves, but those who chose their partner’s art habits over their own sense of taste. Gift giving, in the language of love.
Perhaps a similar mindset would also explain the one-sided décor of the Clark-Sato home—something Larkin thought of as fauxhemian: the incorporation of bold colors and textures, layered elements, mismatching kitsch, but all curated in a very socially conventional manner.
The interior design was loud, garish, and without personality, exactly like this painting.
Oh, there was personality, Larkin course-corrected—it just wasn’t sincere.
It wasn’t a free-thinking nonconformist who lived and breathed their art, no matter how tacky Larkin thought it was.
It was someone who wished to be seen as a free-thinking nonconformist who likely did art because it brought considerable satisfaction to their inflated self-worth.
The character seen in the upstairs didn’t match who he knew Phyllis Clark to be: a no-nonsense woman of masculine tendencies who’d long-ago stripped those inclinations of their strict association to maleness by publicly wearing tube socks and cargo shorts, maintaining a short hairstyle, and riding a motorcycle for no other reason than she wanted to.
Phyllis had also presented herself to be a rather pragmatic individual, quick to credit the home’s aesthetic to Stephanie—almost like she didn’t so much enjoy it as she did put up with it.
So perhaps, then, Phyllis’s gift to her wife was the compromise of shared space, the allowance of Stephanie’s palette preferences and assertive style to dominate the home.
Except the command of décor was so overwhelming that there was no discernable indicator of where Stephanie ended and Phyllis began.
On June 12, Larkin’s sophisticated skepticism and refined understanding of the importance of place had been outfoxed by Phyllis’s well-placed confidence, distracted by Doyle’s personal shame, and now he had to contend with the consequences of that small but outrageous overlook.