Page 47 of The Writer

MIA GOMEZ

•Murdered 11/10/2023 (Friday)

•TOD 8:30 p.m. (approximate, based on time video showed her entering alley)

•Killed with a chef’s knife (8 inches long, 2 inches wide, smooth edge), found in Morrow’s apartment

•Blood from Gomez found on Denise Morrow’s clothing

“The dumpster is less than two blocks from Morrow’s apartment,” Declan points out. “Right around the corner.”

“Video puts Mia Gomez walking into that alley at eight thirty p.m.,” Cordova tells him. “Denise Morrow was in the middle of her bookstore talk at eight thirty. Sign-in sheet has sixty people there as witnesses.” He quickly rattles off the timeline, pointing at both napkins as he goes. “Her talk started at eight. Gomez walks into the alley and is killed around eight thirty. Morrow doesn’t leave the bookstore until a few minutes after nine. Cab drops her at her building at nine twenty. She calls 911 at nine thirty-one. First responders arrive in under six minutes. There’s zero chance she killed Mia Gomez, and, let’s be honest, she couldn’t have killed her husband either. If the blood on her clothes had been his, sure, but not if it belonged to Gomez. She didn’t have a drop of the husband’s blood on her. We would have found it. CSU processed her clothing multiple times and found no trace on her clothes or her person. Shower was dry as a bone. Nothing in the sinks. We even pulled the traps. You can’t kill someone like that and vanish every sign in under eleven minutes. No way.” Cordova goes silent for a moment, then looks Declan in the eye. “Have you considered she might be telling the truth? She found him dead, just like she said? Hell, maybe somebody else killed them both.”

Declan’s shaking his head. “You didn’t see her face when I got there. She killed him. I have no doubt.” He waves at the TV. “She knows I know, and that’s why she’s spinning all this bullshit.”

“The facts don’t get you there,” Cordova states flatly. “Noway she killed him, and no way she could have killed Mia Gomez either.”

Declan takes a sip of his beer. “So how did Gomez’s blood get on her? How did Gomez’s murder weapon get into the apartment? Security in that building is tight. Nobody else went up there. You confirmed that.”

Cordova shakes his head. “I have no idea.” Driving his point home, he repeats, “She couldn’t have killed her husband, timeline doesn’t support it. And she was across town when Mia Gomez was killed. Evidence makes no sense. The whole mess makes my head hurt.”

Maddie fires up a blender, mixing some frozen concoction. Declan jumps at the sudden noise, then watches as she stops it, adds some fruit, a little tequila, and starts the blender again. An idea hits him, and he sways a little under the weight of its landing. “It’s a fucking three-card monte,” he says softly.

“Huh?”

Declan reaches for the napkins, tears them up, and shuffles the pieces around the bar top. “Morrow was somehow in on both murders and mixed up the evidence. On purpose. She confused everything so it wouldn’t make sense.”

“Not unless she was in two places at the same time,” Cordova replies. “She couldn’t have killed her husband—the window is too small to pull it off—and she couldn’t have killed Gomez; she’s got sixty witnesses placing her in the bookstore when that woman was killed.”

It’s clear what Cordova is thinking because it’s impossible not to go there—Denise Morrow had an accomplice, and it might be Declan. Declan knows that’s what Cordova is thinkingbecause of the way his partner keeps looking at him while simultaneously trying not to look at him. He’s thinking the knife that killed David Morrow came from Declan’s kitchen. He’s thinking about Declan’s blood at the scene. He’s thinking about Declan’s whereabouts when both people were killed. Whether he wants to or not, he’s trying to connect Declan to Denise Morrow. He’s thinking all these things because he’s a good cop and that’s where the evidence points. Sometimes a frame-up isn’t a frame-up—it’s fact.

Declan finishes his beer and stands. “Where’s the bookstore?”

“Tribeca. The Mysterious Bookshop.”

“You know, I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately. I think I’ll pick up a book, maybe try reading.”

“LT said you’re off the case, Dec. You wanna get suspended? Worse?”

“He said I was off the Morrow case. I’m working the Gomez murder. Try to keep up.”

Cordova eyes him, attempts to read him, can’t. Finally, he throws some cash on the bar and starts for the door. “Who needs a pension.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

THE MYSTERIOUS BOOKSHOP is located just off Broadway on Warren Street in Tribeca. Declan rarely leaves central Manhattan, so it might as well have been a world away. Cordova drives, and they get there just as some kid is packing up a book display on the sidewalk, carrying things in for the night. When Declan shows him his badge, he gets that same worried look most kids get:What have I done lately and where did I slip up?

“We need to speak to your manager,” Cordova tells him, glancing through the open door.

“You want Otto. He’s the owner,” the kid tells them. “Come on in, I’ll get him.”

They follow him inside and watch as he slips through abrown door decorated in crime scene tape and fake bloodstains.

Bookstores remind Declan of the library, and that reminds him of school, and that makes him uncomfortable. Maybe it’s that musty smell. Or maybe it’s the quiet, as if all books hate sound. His mom was a big reader. Romances, mostly, but that stopped when asshole Pops died and she had to take a second job.

Cordova nudges Declan’s shoulder and points up at a camera near the door. There’s another mounted high on one of the shelves capturing the entire room and another at the back pointing forward.

“Took you gentlemen long enough. I figured you’d come by days ago.”

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