CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Larkin checked his watch.
“Evie.”
Larkin turned around.
Doyle was a few feet away, leaning against the passenger side of the Audi and hugging himself. “I feel like I’m going to be sick.”
Larkin quickly returned to the car. He took Doyle’s forearm and pulled him away, enough to open the door, then said, “Sit down.” He put a hand on Doyle’s head, gently guiding him into the seat, and once his partner had one leg in the footwell and the other on the curb, Larkin reached over him, opened the center console, and collected a water bottle from within.
He cracked the top off and handed it to Doyle, and even though it wasn’t cold—in fact, was probably a little too warm—he downed half of it in one long swallow.
Larkin tugged his trousers at the knees before crouching. He took Doyle’s free hand, gave him a reassuring squeeze, and even though it was too hot for skin-on-skin—Doyle’s hand was uncomfortably clammy—Larkin didn’t let go.
“I can’t do this.” Doyle tucked the bottle between his legs before pulling his sunglasses back to rest on his head. His eyes were dry, but he brushed his cheeks anyway. “I’m sorry.”
Larkin moved into a stoop so that he could press his forehead to Doyle’s.
He asked, voice low, “Do you remember what you said, when you were the one standing here, in the rain, pacifying a heartbroken drug addict who just wanted to feel alive again. You said, ‘I don’t want you to be sorry. I want you to be okay.’” Larkin crouched again so he could look at Doyle properly.
“You’re so good with the living. You’re able to read their hearts when I have to read their faces.
I have to empathize in a way that leaves me vulnerable to negative associations—something I think you know, because you’ve been shielding me from outrageous fortune since we began working together.
But a partnership means we both carry those burdens. ”
Doyle tightened his hold on Larkin’s hand.
“I promised you, when you were ready, that I would listen. And now I hear you telling me you’re at your limit, so I want you to stay in the car—”
“What?” Doyle interjected.
Larkin arched one eyebrow.
“I can’t let you do the interview alone,” Doyle said, but there wasn’t any fight in his voice.
“Why.”
“She’s my mother.”
“I hesitate to credit her with anything beyond birthing you, Ira.” Larkin fished his keys from his pocket and pushed them into Doyle’s hand. “Your selflessness is beautiful, dear, but I need you to put yourself first. Just this once.”
Doyle tightened his hold on the set of keys.
“Please.”
He finally nodded once and whispered, “All right.”
Larkin leaned in, kissed Doyle, then straightened and moved onto the sidewalk.
He headed toward the apartment entrance on the street side and only looked back once to confirm Doyle was still in the car.
Larkin stepped through the unlocked front door and into the vestibule.
He considered the intercom beside the wall of mailboxes.
He had Bridget’s apartment number, thanks to DMV records, but experience had taught him that when dealing with a witness who had a long (and legitimate) history of distrust when it came to law enforcement, it was ideal to introduce yourself face-to-face.
You only had one chance at that first impression.
The vestibule door was suddenly wrenched open, and a little girl, no older than five or six, wearing a cartoonishly pink princess dress and complete with a plastic crown atop her head, didn’t even spare Larkin a glance as she ran past and out onto the sidewalk.
He automatically put a hand on the heavy vestibule door, holding it as the girl’s mother maneuvered a stroller through the tight threshold while calling after her in Spanish.
The mother gave Larkin one of those subtle New York nods that indicated appreciation without the need to exchange words, then went out the front door, which her daughter thankfully came back to hold open.
Larkin slipped inside after that.
The building felt a bit like Doyle’s—a little worn, a little frayed, but well lived-in.
A century of memories, of experiences, of people, all coming and going, hoping and dreaming, existing and loving right up until Death rang the bell and told them it was time but not to worry—he’d be there to see them off.
Larkin took the stairs that dipped a little in the middle all the way up to the top floor, the still air markedly warmer.
He approached the door to 4D and listened.
Someone was home.
He could hear the squeak of swollen wood—a dresser drawer being yanked open, maybe—followed by the loud ping of something being dropped on the hardwood floor.
“I want you to choose me over this case, but I know you won’t.”
Larkin winced and jerked his head to one side, like he’d been slapped.
He could walk away.
Right now.
He could turn around, go downstairs, get in the car, and however their investigation played out, Bridget Cohen would not be a central figure.
Except when he had chosen Doyle, Doyle told him no, and Larkin’s keen insight into the inner mechanics of neurotypical individuals had failed to identify which request was the real one.
Maybe it was both.
Or neither.
Larkin put a hand to his stomach as it gave a nauseous flutter.
Time and again, Doyle reminded him that he didn’t exist in a binary, that Larkin was as complex and human as the rest of the population, but even if that were true, he seemed to have no idea how to navigate such gray nuance without making Doyle’s hurt even more unbearable.
The dead bolt turned, a chain lock disengaged, and the door suddenly swung open, catching Larkin off guard.
She looked to be about sixty hard years, was petite in both build and height, and had to look up at Larkin.
She wore a pair of navy slacks and a light blue top with a USPS emblem on the breast. She had a small beauty mark above her lip and thick, dark brown hair with a streak of steel gray along one side, pulled back into a no-nonsense ponytail that showed off split ends in need of trimming.
She smelled of one too many spritzes of cheap floral perfume and wore eyeliner on only one eye.
She held the pencil and a tube of mascara in her hand.
Her brown eyes were devastatingly pretty, but her stare was sharp, dangerous, that of an individual who’d lived through New York’s darkest chapter and still bore its scars.
“I knew I heard someone out here. Who’re you?” she asked, reaching into the collar of the top and snapping a bra strap into place.
“Are you Bridget Cohen,” Larkin asked.
“Yes. Who’re you ?”
He reached for his badge and held it up. “My name is Everett Larkin. I’m a detective with the NYPD—”
Bridget slammed the door.
Larkin tucked the badge away, considered for a long minute, then knocked.
He called through the door, “Ms. Cohen, I’m a detective with the Cold Case Squad.
I’m investigating a murder from 1982, and I’m here because you’re the only lead I have.
” Larkin waited. He could sense Bridget still standing at the door, listening, and continued.
“She worked at the Kitten Klub on Broadway, and on the night of October 2, 1982, she was murdered at the Hotel Cavalier. You might have known her by the name of Esther Haycox.”
She was watching him through the peephole now, Larkin knew it.
He was quiet, still, his face a carefully composed neutral belying the anxiety swelling inside.
He didn’t want to come back here, wait in this boiling hallway, knock on this door.
Larkin couldn’t bear having to tell Doyle his attempt to speak with Bridget was mirroring the difficult experience he’d had with Camila Garcia and would require he return again and again and again.
The door opened a crack.
Bridget studied Larkin critically. “Esther wasn’t her name.”
“Was it Barbara Fuller.”
Bridget stepped back. She held the door open, took Larkin in from head to toe, then inclined her head to one side.
Larkin entered the apartment.
It was a studio, three hundred square feet at best, with two windows overlooking the avenue.
The right window, near the foot of the twin-size bed, was open.
A sad-looking cardboard box with a Home Depot decal sat in front of it, an off-white box fan propped on top and turned on.
It sucked in the hot air from outside, circulating it around the room.
The distant sound of the Spanish sports station from the bodega below grew distorted as it filtered through the plastic blades of the fan.
To the left of the bed stood a wooden five-drawer dresser that’d seen a tough life.
It was covered in scratches and dings, and the top was cluttered with what looked mostly like unfolded laundry—Larkin was uncertain if it was clean or dirty—but there was also a loose pile of drugstore brand makeups, a hairbrush, several black hair ties, a hand mirror, and a few perfume bottles.
He took a brief look at the kitchen nestled into a small alcove just big enough for a sink, about six inches of usable countertop, and a compact stove.
A mini fridge sat just outside the nook, a plastic shelving unit precariously balanced on top.
It was packed with dry goods—canned beans and vegetables, rice, store-brand cereals.
Larkin guessed the one cupboard above the sink was probably for cups and dishes.
A short hallway ended with a closed door to what was likely the bathroom, and all of the available wall space along the way was packed with…
stuff . Not junk, just everyday items and belongings that had no practical home or storage: a jug of laundry detergent, a pair of sneakers, a pair of winter boots, a metal folding chair, an old plug-in vacuum, a plastic take-out bag full of empty Sprite bottles destined for the recycling bin.