Page 23 of The Writer

Denise watches all of this in absolute horror. She turns back to him. “Geller, you’ve got to get me out. I don’t belong in here with these wild animals.”

“I will.” He rests his hand on top of hers and gives it a gentle squeeze. He doesn’t pull away until the large guard returns and tells him to, and even then, he waits several more seconds. “But first, you need to tell me everything you know about Detective Declan Shaw.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

THE EVIDENCE LOCKUP for the Twentieth Precinct is located in the basement of 120 West Eighty-Second. When the elevator doors open, Declan finds Officer Moody in the cage, a sandwich in one hand and a crumpled Lee Child novel in the other. He grins up at Declan with coffee-stained teeth and mayonnaise on his cheek. “Saw you on TV. You looked like shit.”

“We can’t all be pretty like you.” Declan steps up to the window and nods toward the back. “Has IT been down here yet to process Denise Morrow’s laptop?”

“Not that I’ve seen.”

“When’d you get on?”

“Been here since eight.”

“Buzz me in.”

Moody takes another bite of his sandwich and nods at a clipboard resting on the counter at the window. “Sign the sheet.”

Declan scribbles down his name and badge number and steps over to the door. There’s a loud buzz, and it clacks open. “Where is it?”

Moody sets his sandwich down, wipes his hands on his uniform pants, and pecks away at his computer. The keyboard is stained with years of grime. “Row six, shelf thirty-four. Looks like they got seven boxes for Morrow—you want number five.”

Moody may not be big on personal hygiene, but he keeps the evidence room as organized as a librarian with OCD. The box is right where it should be, sealed like the others. Declan makes quick work of the tape with his pocketknife and finds Denise Morrow’s computer, a MacBook, on top. He takes it out, sets it on the shelf to his right, mashes down the power button until the familiar Apple logo appears, and goes back to the box while it boots up. The box is filled with the contents of Morrow’s desk—press clippings and the printed-out pages of the book she’s currently working on. The cover sheet stares up at him.

The Taking of Maggie Marshall Incompetence in the NYPD

By Denise Morrow

Fucking bitch.

Declan doesn’t want to go there, but hell, the fucking bitch.Who does she think she is? He did his job. Put the guy away. He wonders what the book’s title would be if Maggie had been her daughter. He flips through the pages, and there are a lot of them, three or four hundred at least. Some notes handwritten in the margins. Spelling fixes, punctuation. Not much in the way of edits. He had hoped she was only at the beginning stages of the book, but this looks like it’s close to the finish line.

Under the manuscript are dozens of newspaper clippings covering the case, the trial. There’s some notes on those too. One of the articles is titled “Detective in the Maggie Marshall Case Under Internal Investigation,” and if that isn’t bad enough, Roy Harrison’s name is written in the top corner of the clipping, a phone number below that. It’s not the prefix they use for their internal extensions, which means it’s probably his cell. Harrison is an asshole, but would he talk to the press? To some woman writing a book? Probably. Maybe the two of them got together and compared notes. Chatted over coffee. Cordova never did tell him why Harrison had called him that night at Morrow’s apartment; maybe there’s a connection. He makes a mental note to ask him when he gets back upstairs.

On the shelf, the MacBook plays a short tune and the screen fills with Denise Morrow’s desktop wallpaper. No password, just right in. Trusting woman. Declan runs a quick search and locates the file for the Maggie Marshall book. The same folder contains about a dozen subfolders, several hundred files. Information on him, the crime scene, Ruben Lucero. He retrieves a USB drive from his pocket, plugs it in, and copies everything. When he finishes, he opens the iMessage app and keys Harrison’s phone number into the search box. Nothing comes up.He doesn’t find anything when he searches for keywords likeLuceroandDeclaneither. He thinks, then triesCordova. Nothing. It’s not until he triesAnatomythat anything comes up. That brings up a single one-line message. Declan reads the sentence half a dozen times, swearing under his breath. There’s no name linked to the phone number that sent it, no other messages from that number, just the one text, but it’s enough.

You step in it and you’re gonna leave tracks, Declan’s father’s voice mutters from someplace in the back of his mind.Best you’re wearing someone else’s shoes.

Declan didn’t leave tracks. Other than Cordova, nobody knew. So who the hell is this? He takes out his own phone, snaps a pic of the text. He considers deleting the message entirely but knows that will do no good. Morrow clearly read it. There’s nothing he can do about that. He needs to understand what she did with the information once she had it. Exactly how bad is this?

Declan’s phone rings. Cordova. “Yeah?” he says.

“Can you meet me at the morgue? We’ve got a problem.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

THE CITY MORGUE is just off First near Bellevue. Declan catches a ride with a uniform and gets there in under twenty minutes. He finds Cordova waiting for him in the lobby on the third floor, a grim look on his face.

“What is it?”

Cordova shakes his head. “You need to hear it from Martinez. He’s waiting for us.”

He leads Declan through the double doors to the lockers outside the autopsy room, where they both quickly pull scrubs on over their clothing and head inside. Oscar Martinez looks up as they step into the frigid room. He’s tall and lean, with short-cropped black hair, the slightest gray aroundhis temples betraying his age. Cordova is always telling him if he dyed it, he’d shave off ten years and could pass for someone in his mid-thirties. Martinez is quick to point out he’s seen his share of dye jobs, plastic surgery, and cosmetic dentistry cross his table, and pretending you’re younger than you are does little to fool the Grim Reaper when he comes knocking.

Martinez isn’t alone in the autopsy suite. He gestures to his right and says, “You know Kim Diaz from CSU, right?”

“Sure. She collected samples at the Morrow apartment.”

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