CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Doyle wiped his cheek with the heel of his hand. He turned his back to Larkin and took a few steps before his shoulders shuddered, hunched, the same hand came up to his mouth, and he dropped into a squat.
Doyle began to cry.
First a crack, a tear, then a fissure opened, and everything ugly poured out of him in one great big heartbreaking sob.
Larkin’s immediate panic kept him frozen on the spot.
Doyle’s love language was touch. He craved physical affection.
Hugs, kisses, fingertips following a path pebbled with gooseflesh.
He wanted it when he was awake, when he was falling asleep, after a long day, a hard day, a good day, and he freely offered that affection in return—even when he must have known Larkin would turn it down—because Doyle’s love language was touch, and his hug meant: I’m here .
But Larkin didn’t move.
Because this wasn’t a long day or a hard day.
This was a wound Doyle had been inflicted with at too young an age, a wound that had been poisoning him for decades, and now it’d ruptured, and Larkin didn’t know what to do.
Doyle had seen him at some of his worst and weakest moments.
He’d seen Larkin’s suicide ideation, the near overdose, the out-of-control addiction.
He’d seen Larkin’s tics when compulsions flared into overdrive, and he’d seen violent reactions to memories relived. But what had Larkin seen of Doyle?
A man who weaponized his own empathy.
Who atoned for the sins of others.
Who was ashamed of his inner child.
Larkin had only ever seen a man who knew how to heal everyone but himself.
Who betrayed your trust and broke your heart. Who made such a gentle man so angry inside.
Your mother.
Spurred into motion, Larkin first went to the door, shutting and then locking it, before cautiously approaching his partner.
Doyle was still in a low crouch, the manila folder crushed between his chest and arms. Larkin got down on one knee.
He tried to reach for the file, to simply get it out of the way, but Doyle tightened his hold, needing something, anything, to protect him as his world crumbled.
Larkin went back to the table and returned with his coat.
Carefully, he draped it over Doyle’s shoulders, waited, and then breathed a sigh of considerable relief as Doyle’s gut-wrenching sobs began to wane.
Doyle slowly dropped to the floor, crossed his legs, and pulled the coat around to his chest, discarding the file in the process, which Larkin quickly moved out of sight.
Taking a seat on the floor beside him, Larkin watched Doyle bury his face into the coat.
His shoulders shook. He was still crying.
“I lie awake and try to pinpoint the exact moment that our trajectories intertwined,” Larkin began.
“Surely it’s something less than fate but more than chance.
But I end up somewhere around the Big Bang and realize the thought is too enormous.
It’s an existential crisis.” He was thoughtful for a moment before continuing.
“You are everything quiet and beautiful in this world. You’re a field of sunflowers and the iridescence on a soap bubble.
You’re sunlight refracting on water and fog settled deep in a valley.
“I love you more than you’ll ever really understand. And I’ve come to accept that my difficulty in articulating these emotions might not be the fault of my TBI, but is instead because this love is ineffable. For me, you transcend words—you exist in a place of nature and emotion.”
Doyle lowered the suit coat. It was spotted with tear stains. His mouth trembled, but the crying had come to a slow and uneasy rest.
Larkin said, “For the first time in eighteen years, I’ve been able to associate death not with guilt, but with love.
Because of you. And if an old dog like me can still learn new tricks, then someday you’ll see yourself the way I see you.
You’ll see you’ve become the adult you needed as a child.
And the day you believe it is the day you begin healing. ”
Doyle didn’t move, didn’t speak.
Larkin hesitantly asked, “Do you want a hug.”
Doyle nodded without looking up.
Larkin moved onto one knee and loosely wrapped his arms around Doyle’s shoulders, but then Doyle pulled him closer—gripped him so tight around the waist that Larkin didn’t think a pry bar could separate them—so he pressed Doyle’s head to his chest and stroked the mess of dark hair.
“She worked at the Kitten Klub,” Doyle murmured.
Larkin wanted to say, I know .
“I don’t—” Doyle cleared his throat. “I don’t know who my father is.”
Larkin wanted to shout, I know .
“Bridget had a lot of issues, and she attracted the wrong kind of men. When Grandma found out about the last guy and what he—” Doyle pushed out of Larkin’s hold while shaking his head.
He was trying so hard to keep his anger tucked away, out of sight, but it’d finally been shown the light after decades of darkness, and it couldn’t escape fast enough. “I was nine .”
Larkin wanted to scream, I know .
Doyle wiped a few more tears from his face—a product not of sadness, but of liberated rage—and said, “It’s been thirty years and she’s never reached out, never once asked how I was doing.
She knows my name—she gave it to me. It’s Ira Doyle .
” He finally looked at Larkin, and the brightness in Doyle’s eyes was like the spark on a long, long fuse having finally reached a bundle of dynamite.
“Despite everything, I have two degrees. I have a home, a career. I was a dad.” Doyle flinched at his own words before amending with a quiet intensity, “I was a good dad. I did everything no one in my family could, and I—I just want someone to be proud of me.”
Larkin didn’t hate most people. He fervently disliked them and rarely kept that truth to himself, but to loathe, abhor, utterly detest another human being?
He saved such sentiments for the truly evil among us.
But to see Doyle, who was so kind and so tender, who rivaled the holiness of those saints of yore, reduced to such crippling heartache—there was no other way for Larkin to describe how he felt toward Bridget Cohen.
He hated her.
Doyle shook his head and expelled a painful sigh. “All my life, I’ve felt like a falling tree.”
Larkin narrowed his eyes and said, “Berkeley’s philosophy is garbage.
He argues that only the mind exists. If what we perceive is only an idea—and we perceive with our physical senses—then aren’t our senses only an idea.
And if our physical self is an idea, then that would imply our ideas are only ideas.
It’s reductio ad absurdum . I hear you.”
Doyle met Larkin’s steady stare.
Larkin got to his feet. He held out both hands and pulled Doyle to stand in one smooth motion.
“ I see you,” he continued, seeking out the familiar callus on Doyle’s ring finger—years of holding not a pistol, but a pencil—and rubbed the pad of his thumb over the spot. “And I am so proud of you, Ira.”
Doyle’s chin quivered. He didn’t say anything.
Larkin kissed the back of Doyle’s hand before letting go. He stepped away just long enough to collect a box of ULINE tissues from the shelf behind the drafting desk. Doyle was setting the now-wrinkled coat aside and leaning back against the table, arms tightly crossed. Larkin offered the box.
Doyle took a few tissues—they tore, of course, but that was to be expected from the money-saving brand the department opted for.
He wadded the one-ply mess into a ball and wiped his eyes and nose.
He drew in a breath—the steadiest so far—and crossed his arms again, not quite hugging himself, but almost. “Are you going to speak with Bridget?”
“Yes,” Larkin answered, intently watching Doyle for a reaction.
But all that hurt and all that sadness and all that anger—it’d whipped through Doyle like a tornado without a warning, and he looked absolutely spent. “Cohen isn’t her real name” was all he said before shrugging a little. “I mean, it is, but she didn’t marry.”
“Ghosting was a form of identity theft, back in the day.”
Larkin did his best to soften his tone, to speak not as a cop, but as a partner. “Why did she change it.”
“I don’t know. If she wanted to distance herself from the neighborhood, or from Grandma, maybe, that could’ve been why.” He spared Larkin a sideways glance before adding, “They didn’t have a great relationship.”
“What about Detective Noonan.”
“What about him?”
“Noonan knew her—named her in his report.”
Doyle did a sort of shoulder-shrug-headshake.
“Bridget’s arrests prior to October of ’82 were made by Vice. Noonan worked Homicide.”
“Maybe he transferred departments,” Doyle suggested. “Like Charlie Stolle did.”
Larkin had his doubts, but he said nothing as he crossed in front of Doyle, scooped up the discarded folder from the floor, and made his way around the far side of the table—providing a sort of buffer between Doyle and the explosive contents therein.
“They could’ve known each other,” Doyle said. He turned and set his hands on the tabletop before leaning forward a little. “They would’ve known each other,” he corrected. “Bridget and Barbara.”
“That’s what I hope,” Larkin agreed. He set the folder beside the unopened evidence box.
“If we factor in location—the Hudson—and historical context—the toothpick representative of Hell’s Kitchen longshoremen—then Wagner’s homicide very much has the trappings of a mob killing.
We might be looking for a former Westie, or perhaps an old associate.
And the mourning jewelry has led us all the way back to Barbara again, who worked at the same club as your mother—who was also from Hell’s Kitchen, yes. ”
Doyle nodded.
“Who Barbara really was,” Larkin said, “that’s where the final clue lies. And the only person alive, the only person who might have that answer, is Bridget Cohen,” he finished, tapping the folder.
Doyle was quiet again.
“Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“I’m thinking… how terrible it is that you hold me in such high regard,” Doyle answered.
He ran his hand over his closed laptop—back and forth, back and forth—not looking up.
“Because I don’t care who took out a serial killer—I really don’t.
And because I don’t give a fuck what my mother might contribute to the investigation.
I don’t want to see her or hear her or—” Doyle’s hand stilled.
“I want you to choose me over this case, but I know you won’t and I hate that I’m pitting you against your job.
” Doyle finally looked up. “I’m not a good person—”
“You’re my person,” Larkin interrupted, like the brutal honesty of Doyle’s words hadn’t just hit him so hard in the chest that they could’ve formed a crater.
“And that makes you perfect.” He flipped the file open and sifted through the yellowed, curled pages.
He found the document associated with Bridget Cohen.
“I want to solve this case,” he confirmed.
“But I believe my first and most important job is loving you.”
“What’re you—”
Larkin raised the paperwork and promptly tore it in two.
“ Evie !” Doyle dashed around the table.
Larkin held the report out of reach and said, “I told you that I would kill for you, Ira. That wasn’t an exaggeration. I will always choose you.”
“You can’t destroy evidence,” Doyle protested, grabbing for it a second time. “Come on—no, no, I’ve changed my mind. I’ve changed my mind, Evie!”
Larkin narrowed his eyes, cocking his head in uncertainty.
Doyle quickly snatched the report on the third try.
He looked at the torn pieces.
He looked back at Larkin.
And maybe Doyle understood then just how much power he had in their relationship, because he wrapped his arms around Larkin’s shoulders and didn’t let go for a very long time.
Bridget Cohen’s rap sheet lay to one side on the worktable, mended together with three strips of Scotch tape.
Doyle lifted the lid on the evidence box before saying without his usual humor, “Smells like Reaganomics and rock ’n’ roll.”
Larkin snapped his latex gloves on. He removed a paper bag, read the tag, and said, “Gym bag.”
Doyle took out the next and read, “Clothes.” He reached inside it and removed a skimpy top that appeared to have been cut from the same crape material they’d seen of the costumes Phyllis had kept in a vacuum-sealed bag.
“Fabric is nineteenth century,” Doyle murmured, studying the handiwork closely.
“I’d say it’s a visual match to the other upcycled pieces.
” He tucked it back into the evidence bag.
Larkin retrieved a handful of crime scene photos next.
He sifted through them in quick succession, but even a flipbook of the past couldn’t reanimate the sad, half-naked body on the mattress.
He dropped them to the tabletop and reached for the last bag—this a pair of blue satin pumps in size six. Larkin made a tsk sound.
“Looking for something in particular?” Doyle asked. He reached across the table and pulled free an empty, red nylon duffel from one of the paper bags.
“Something concrete.” Larkin gestured at the evidence before them. “The circumstantial evidence is good: We’ve one hundred percent linked the mourning clothes from Barbara Fuller’s homicide case to Esther Haycox’s missing person report, proving they are, in fact, the same person.”
Doyle leaned to one side, picked up his cell from the tabletop, turned on the flashlight app, and used it to illuminate the inside of the duffel.
Larkin continued. “But the jewelry has only been linked to her via the surname, and there are thousands of people in the United States with the name Fuller. I don’t like such a critical clue standing on unsure ground in a courtroom setting.
I want tangible proof that the brooch found on Wagner once belonged—what is that. ”
Doyle was pinching something tiny between his thumb and index finger. He set his phone aside and dropped the item into his gloved palm, rolling it this way and that. “It’s a seed pearl.”
Larkin moved to the edge of the table to stand beside Doyle. “That was inside the gym bag.”
“Stuck in the lining,” Doyle confirmed.
“Where’s the brooch.”
“On the shelf—behind my desk,” Doyle said, pointing with his free hand.
Larkin spun on his heel, strode across the room, and collected the plastic evidence bag. He returned to the table, removed the brooch, and handed it over.
Doyle accepted it and, while squinting, tried fitting the pearl back into place. One setting was too big, the second too small, but the third— “Bingo.”
“This jewelry belonged to Barbara.”
“Yeah.”
“She’s the cold case link that’ll solve Wagner’s murder.”
“Yeah.”
“We have to interview Bridget.”
And Doyle said, very quietly, “Yeah.”