Page 8 of The Writer

Declan and the tech quickly exit the apartment and close the door. The tech presses a series of buttons on the remote and studies the screen as images begin flooding in. In under a minute, the camera captures every inch of the room. Once it’s run through the software back at the precinct, they’ll be able to zoom in on anything with incredible detail. Circle around. Go up. Down. Declan does not miss the days of flat photographs. “Run images in every room. Get the terrace off the main bedroom too. Who do you have taking samples?”

Another woman dressed in an identical jumpsuit raises her hand. “That would be me. Kim Diaz.”

Declan glances at the L-Tron monitor, Denise Morrow centered on the screen. He’s half hoping she’ll do something incriminating when she thinks nobody is watching. Stash something. Reposition something. The guilty ones can’t help themselves. But she’s not moving, and he knows he’s got a ticking clock. He’s left her there too long as is. He turns back to the CSU tech. “Diaz, you said?”

She nods.

“I want you to get some help and process every inch of that woman as quickly as possible. Get samples of all the blood. Anything under her fingernails. In her hair. Get it all. She’s part of this crime scene. I want everything. We may not get another chance. The second she lawyers up, we’re behind a wall.”

“Understood.”

Declan quickly scans the remaining uniforms huddled around the elevator, lands on Lori Hunter. “Hunter—you’re with us. I need a female officer as a witness.”

Declan grabs a pair of latex gloves and glances back at Cordova—who’s on the phone again. Declan tells Hernandez, “When he finishes with his girlfriend, can you tell him to talk to the doorman and maybe pull security footage? We need to get a timeline together.”

“You got it.”

Back inside, Declan finds Denise Morrow still frozen on the floor. He gestures toward the CSU tech. “Mrs. Morrow, this is the medic I mentioned,” he lies. “She’s going to check you for any injuries. We’re also going to need your clothing. She’ll help with that too. Is there someplace private you can change other than your main bedroom? If the person who hurt David exitedthat way, it’s best we stay out until my team has had a chance to gather any evidence.”

“There’s a guest room.”

“Good.” Declan nods at Officer Hunter. “Lori here will go with you too. Keep you safe. You need anything at all, you ask her, okay?” As he reaches out a hand to help her to her feet, Declan catches movement out of the corner of his eye. In a flash of gray and black, something heavy drops from the top of the bookcase and slams into his head. Sharp claws dig into his scalp. Declan grabs a fist of fur, yanks, and tosses the largest cat he’s ever seen halfway across the room. The cat lands on his feet, gives Declan a disdainful glance, and scrambles away, disappearing somewhere near the kitchen.

“Quimby,” Denise Morrow says in barely a whisper before starting down the hall, followed by the officer and CSU tech.

“Quimby,” Declan repeats, tentatively touching his scalp with the back of his gloved hand, thankful to find no blood. Shaking it off, he takes out his phone and opens the department’s transcriber app, clicks the record button, and turns back to the body on the floor. Time to go to work—

“Transcriber, this is Detective First Class Declan Shaw of the NYPD Twentieth. It is Friday, November tenth, 2023. The time is twenty-two eighteen. Current location is two eleven Central Park West. Apparent homicide of one David Morrow…”

CHAPTER SEVEN

TEN MINUTES LATER, when Declan clicks off the transcriber app, he finds Cordova standing behind him, a glum look on his face.

Declan slips his phone back into his pocket. “Do I want to hear what that business with IAU was about?”

“You do not,” Cordova tells him. “I wish I didn’t have to hear about it either. I’ll fill you in later.” He glances around. “Where is she?”

“Guest room with CSU and Hunter.”

Unlike Declan, who’s in a T-shirt and jeans, Cordova is wearing a sports jacket, matching pants, and a tie. Old-school NYPD. The man has even been known to wear a fedora,although he catches shit for it. They’re four hours off the clock, but he looks freshly shaven. Fucking Cordova. The notebook he pulls from his breast pocket is new; Declan doesn’t have to see it up close to know that. Cordova keeps a stack of them on hand and starts fresh with each case. “David Morrow. Thirty-nine years old. Cardiologist over at Mercy. Brought in seven hundred and ninety thousand last year before taxes, which is about two hundred K higher than the average for New York. Seems aboveboard; he’s just good. Brings the hospital a lot of out-of-state business. Married to Denise Morrow, writer, wed sixteen years ago. They own this place as well as a lake house in the Catskills. No mortgages. No outstanding debt. At least that we’ve found. I’ve got the folks in financial digging deeper.” He takes a few tentative steps closer and stops several paces from David Morrow’s body, letting out a low whistle. “We’ve got ourselves an overachiever. How many stab wounds you count?”

“Six obvious. Maybe more. Tough to say with all the blood,” Declan says. “Best I can tell, the assailant clipped the heart a couple of times but kept going. Maybe he didn’t go down, or the attacker was in some kind of rage. This is telling, though.” He kneels and, using the tip of a pencil, turns Morrow’s left palm toward Cordova. “Not a single defensive wound. Nothing on the other hand either.”

Cordova considers that, then looks down the hall to the front door. “That’s, what, at least twenty feet?”

“Twenty-three. I measured.”

He knows what Cordova is thinking. It’s the condition of the lock; he keeps going back there too. If (and it’s a bigif)someone tried to pick it, he didn’t succeed. It’s possible David Morrow heard him trying, maybe opened the door, surprised the guy. But in that scenario, the altercation would have happened near the door, not twenty-three feet away. There would be a high probability of defensive wounds, and David Morrow has none. The theory doesn’t track.

“He knew his attacker,” Cordova mutters.

“You think?” Declan stands, jerks his thumb toward the back bedroom. “Come on, Cordova, it’s clear what this is.”

“Doesn’t mean we don’t have to prove it.”

“She was covered in blood.”

“She’ll say she tried to revive him.”

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