Page 83 of The Writer

It’s the other one.

Jarod Cordova.

“Declan’s in a drawer right now down at the medical examiner’s office. A goddamn drawer. I suppose that’s better than being in the dirt like your husband, David. Or did you have him cremated? That seems like something you’d do. I imagine you learned that particular lesson when you wroteBones Tell a Tale,the one about Simon Ross, the guy who was murdered in the seventies. Thirty years later, they exhumed his body and were able to match marks on a rib bone to a knife found in his stepsister’s home. She would never have been convicted had Ross’s body been cremated. You’re a quick study; I can’t imagine you making a mistake like that.”

Denise doesn’t realize she’s shaking until she looks down at her hand.

In the seat to her left, Jennifer Henke notices too and mouths,Everything okay?

Denise draws in a breath to settle her nerves, wills it to reach every inch of her body, then raises the same hand, no longer shaking, and mimes a jabbering mouth. She follows that with an eye roll and mouths,Accountant.

Her editor nods and turns to the young publicist at her side, and the two of them are quickly lost in a hushed conversation of their own. Across the table, Kirby is busy blotting Gordon Brennon’s spilled water from the tablecloth. Apparently, he knocked the glass over, but Denise had missed that entirely.

Cordova’s hushed voice drifts from her phone; the eerie calmness of it causes the back of her neck to prickle.

“Mia Gomez’s mother flew in a few hours ago to claim her daughter’s body. She’s taking her back to Iowa so she can be buried in the family plot. You ever see the look on a mother’s face when she’s thinking about how to put her dead child to rest? No one should ever be in that position. She desperately wanted to be stoic—she seemed like a strong woman—but she fell apart before she made it through the door at the ME’s office. Simply collapsed. They brought her over to Mercy, your husband’s old hospital. Had to sedate her. I rode over with them in the ambulance, held her hand, tried to calm her down. Once they got her settled, I figured I’d take the opportunity to talk to some of your husband’s coworkers.” He pauses for a second, then: “Hey, how are you holding up? You look a little flustered.”

Denise’s head jerks up, more a reflex than a conscious thought. Nobody at her table notices; they’re all wrapped in their own conversations. She looks through the large plate-glass window at the front of the restaurant, expecting to find Cordova standing outside, staring in, but there’s no sign of the older detective. She doesn’t see him inside either. Louie’s isn’t a large place, no more than twenty tables with a hundred people on a good night. Maybe two-thirds of the tables are full now, but she doesn’t see Cordova among the diners. He did order the drink, though. That had to be him. So where—

She almost misses the Harlan coat.

A long trench identical to hers.

Identical to the one Geller Hoffman had.

It’s draped over the back of a chair at an empty table on the opposite side of the restaurant, a black leather glove sticking out of one of the pockets.

She knows it’s not Geller’s coat; he burned that one. And it couldn’t be hers. NYPD returned her coat when they droppedthe charges, and she promptly shoved it in a trash receptacle on Eighty-Sixth after ensuring nobody was following or watching her.

She hadn’t been followed or watched, right?

No, she was careful. And even if someone did see her, there was nothing incriminating on that coat. And there certainly wasn’t anything illegal about throwing it away.

“I wish you could see yourself, the look on your face,” Cordova says. “You couldn’t be more pale if David walked through the door and ordered the fettuccine.”

Denise twists around in her chair and softly says, “What do you want, Detective? This is borderline harassment. Do your friends in the DA’s office know you’re contacting me? I imagine they’d be upset. I’d hate to see you get in trouble.”

The door leading to the kitchen at the back of the dining area swings open for a moment and Denise catches a glimpse of one of the chefs standing there. He’s sharpening a knife. And although it’s difficult to be sure from this distance, it looks a lot like the knife that killed David, the one they found in the garage above Geller Hoffman’s car. Five inches long, one inch wide, a serrated blade with a black handle. She’s still staring at it when the kitchen door swings shut.

“Jeffery Varano had a lot of interesting things to say,” Cordova says.

That snaps her back. Jeffery Varano was David’s best friend. He runs Mercy’s cardiology department. “How is Jeff?”

“They decided to leave David’s seat at the weekly poker game empty. Some symbolic gesture. I thought that was kinda nice.”

Is that man watching her? The one in the navy sports jacketfour tables over? He’s eating with another man. There’s a phone in his hand, but he’s holding it up slightly on the table, angled toward her. It looks like the camera is on, reversed. Is he watching her? Taping her? Photographing her? Denise can’t tell for certain, but it sure as hell looks like it, and—

That woman at the bar—she’s definitely watching. When did she sit down? She wasn’t there a minute ago. Why does she keep touching her ear? Is she wearing an earbud?She looks away when Denise meets her eyes.

“Jeff said he and your husband go back all the way to college. Shared an apartment for a while. Known each other for most of their adult lives. Same thing with the other guys at that weekly game. All lifelong friends. Jeff said there were no secrets in that group. You’d be surprised what a bunch of guys will discuss when you put them in a room with cards, cigars, and alcohol. The good, the bad; they talked about it all. They talked about you a lot.”

CHAPTER SIXTY

DENISE TWISTS IN her seat and shields her mouth with her free hand to keep the others at the table from hearing her. “Detective, I have zero interest in the gossip of middle-aged men.”

“Really? Because I found it rather interesting. Certainly not what I expected.”

“I’m hanging up, Detective.”

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