Page 44 of The Writer

“Let the real cops work,” Harrison mutters.

CHAPTER THIRTY

“AND YOU DIDN’T hit him?” Cordova looks stunned. “Hell, I think even I would have hit him.”

When they walk into Your Six, a local cop bar, the place is well on its way to packed. That’s the thing about cop bars—a shift is always ending somewhere. Couple that with it being Friday night, and they’ll be looking at standing room only within an hour. Declan chases two rookies away from the far end of the bar and plunks down in his regular seat. He leans back against the wall and studies the crowd. “At some point, Harrison had to be a good cop, right? You don’t come out of the academy dreaming of IAU; you get lured there.”

Cordova takes the stool next to him and shoves away a bowl of peanuts, sending it halfway down the bar. Declan is allergic,and the last thing either of them wants is a trip to the ER. “What, like Anakin Skywalker going to the dark side?”

“Yeah.”

Cordova shakes his head. “No. I think he was always a dick. IAU just gave him purpose.”

The bartender shuffles over and sets two beers and two shots in front of them. Declan catches her before she goes. “Hey, Maddie, you know how to make a grasshopper?”

Maddie is pushing sixty and she’s about fifty pounds overweight, but she’s still quick on her feet and quicker with a zinger. “What, is it 1955 up in here? You want I should offer free polio vaccines to whoever hasn’t got one yet too?”

“You know how to make one or not?”

Maddie rolls her eyes at him. “One grasshopper coming up. I’ll throw in a Shirley Temple for your partner.”

She returns with a grasshopper in a martini glass a few minutes later, and when she’s gone, Cordova asks, “Do I want to know?”

“You do not.” Declan reaches for his shot and holds it up. “To civil service and the hazards of police work, both in-house and out.”

They both drink and set the glasses down next to the beers.

Cordova’s face goes pale. “Oh, hell.”

Declan has seen the man put away half a dozen shots before getting sick. He’s about to rib him when he realizes it’s not the shot—Cordova is watching the television on the wall above Declan’s head. When Declan swivels around, he catches the text scrolling across the bottom of the screen—Dirty cop behind the murder of local celebrity’s husband?Denise Morrow is sitting on a couch with Geller Hoffman, deeplyconcerned looks painted across both their faces as Barbara Leyland, the talking head from Channel 2, leans closer, stroking her chin.

“Maddie, turn that up!”

While pulling a beer from the tap with one hand, Maddie fumbles under the bar with the other, finds the remote, and raises the volume.

Denise Morrow says, “You have to understand, I was in shock, I didn’t remember half of this until a day or two later, and even then it only came back in pieces.”

Hoffman pats the top of Morrow’s hand. “We were told Denise suffered from post-traumatic amnesia, or PTA. Seeing her dead husband, knowing someone was still in her apartment… all of that was too much, and her brain basically locked down Denise’s consciousness.”

“To protect her?” Barbara Leyland prompts.

“Exactly. She remained conscious, awake, but on some form of autopilot. People in that state are known to act in bizarre, uncharacteristic ways. It’s like sleepwalking or being under deep hypnosis. Denise was capable of simple cognitive actions, responding to verbal cues, but only in a detached manner.”

Barbara Leyland nods slowly, like this is the most fascinating thing she has ever heard, then turns back to Denise Morrow. “If we play your 911 call, are you going to be okay?”

Denise swallows. “Yes.”

Leyland nods to someone off camera, and Morrow’s voice comes from the speaker, complete with a fancy animated graphic line bouncing with the audio and captions beneath it.

Denise Morrow: My… my husband… somebody stabbed him! God, he’s… somebody stabbed him. I think they might still be here!

911 operator: Ma’am, can you confirm your location? I have two eleven Central Park West.

Morrow: Yes.

Operator: What apartment?

Morrow: Tower number two.

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