Page 64 of Subway Slayings
Larkin startled. His hold on the cell phone was sweaty. He set it down and looked toward Connor’s open door. “Yes, sir.”
Connor inclined his head inside before disappearing back into the office.
Larkin stood, smoothed his tie, and walked across the bullpen and into the room. He closed the door and took a seat in front of Connor’s imposing desk. “I was at 1PP this morning,” he explained without any prompting. “We found a disposable camera in the home of a suspect, so I opted to have Detective Doyle do the developing himself, rather than wait for the labs—”
Connor held up a big freckled hand. “I know you’re working when you’re not at your desk. This isn’t about that.”
Larkin crossed his legs and set his hands in his lap. “Okay.”
Connor picked up a piece of paper from his desk and passed it over. “This fax came in shortly before you did.”
Larkin accepted and studied the handwritten facsimile:UMOS sexual misconduct. Everett Larkin, 19th Precinct. Ira Doyle, 1PP.
That was it. No information as to its origin, as was the relative anonymity of faxes, and it wasn’t addressed to anyone specific, nor had it been signed by the sender.
“What’s this about, Grim?” Connor asked, his tone unusually subdued.
Larkin frowned slightly and shook his head. He was still studying the handwriting. “I’m not certain.”
“Are you and da Vinci knocking boots or what?”
Larkin glanced up, raising one eyebrow. “No, we are not.”
Connor waited.
“Detective Doyle and myself are… testing the waters, romantically, but this is an extremely new development. One I don’t believe anyone could have proper notice of, which makes this fax hearsay and an obvious attempt at defamation of character. I like to entertain the notion that you know me well enough to believe I would never engage in inappropriate behavior such as this.”
Connor leaned back in his chair and let out a heavy breath, like he’d been holding it. “I do know you well enough.”
“The facts are,” Larkin continued, “Detective Doyle and I do not have a supervisor-and-subordinate relationship on the force, which makes our decision to date within regulations.”
“You’re the first grade detective, not him,” Connor pointed out.
“That might be true, but I’m still not his commanding officer. We don’t work in the same squads, or even the same precincts. He’s flown uptown due to the special circumstances regarding my caseload and that’s all.”
Connor chewed on his thumbnail a moment before pointing to the memo. “Who’d be responsible for sending that?”
“I couldn’t say without fear of false accusations.”
“Grim.”
“I don’t know,” Larkin repeated, a bit firmer. He looked at the paper once again. “UMOS—uniformed members of service—that’s not an acronym well-known outside of the NYPD.”
“You piss off another cop recently?”
“It’s never my intention, but entirely within the realm of possibilities.” Larkin studied the slant, the distinct tremor especially visible in the lowercasee’s and promptly stood from his chair. “I know this handwriting.”
“What’s—Grim, get your ass back in here!”
But Larkin was already in the bullpen. He ignored the sidelong look from Porter as he opened John Doe’s accordion file, which he’d rubber-banded to Marco Garcia’s, and removed the first piece of evidence that’d not only led to the correct conclusion that the DB in the IKEA bag could be tied to Marco’s murder twenty-three years after the fact, but that both unsolved murders were no longer cold, due to the prompting of the April Fools’ letter.
I HAVE A BETTER MEMENTO FOR YOU
The death portrait of the teenage girl, circa 1985.
Larkin turned it facedown on the desk and set the fax beside it just as Connor loomed over his shoulder. “This handwriting is quite distinct,” he said before his lieutenant could speak. “See how it slants up and down—here and here—with this very consistent shake in certain letters—you’ll see it especially in the curve of the lowercasee’s. It’s identical to that seen on the back of this postmortem photograph.”
“This writer have a stroke or get conked on the head?” Connor grumbled as he studied the two side-by-side.
