She pocketed it without replying.
Outside, the night air was heavy and metallic.The city hummed around them — taxis, sirens, steam hissing from a vent.
Torres’s unmarked sedan was parked at the curb.“Tomorrow I’ll introduce you to my pal Mankovitz,” she said, unlocking the doors.“He’s in financial crimes, knows this world better than anyone.But he’s… different.Takes a bit of getting used to.”
Kate and Marcus smiled at each other.Torres spotted it.
“Something I said?”
“It’s just we have a colleague back in Portland who sounds very similar,” Kate explained.
“It’s the territory,” Torres said.“Forensics and finance are disproportionately filled with people who don’t like other humans much.”
They drove uptown, the rain starting again — light at first, then heavier.The windshield wipers beat time against the low hum of traffic.
For a while, no one spoke.Then Marcus said, “You buy that story from the wife?”
“Parts of it,” Kate said.“She loved him, maybe.Or loved the life.But there’s guilt in her voice.And she’s too aware of what people will assume about her.”
Torres glanced at her.“Meaning?”
“Meaning she’s already rehearsing the statement for the press.The grieving spouse who insists it couldn’t be personal.”
Torres made a low noise of agreement.“You think she’s covering for someone?”
“Coveringsomething.But everyone is.”
They crossed the bridge into Queens, the skyline shrinking behind them.The rain turned to mist.
Torres’s phone buzzed against the dash.She checked it at a red light, eyes narrowing.
“M.E.with some preliminary remarks,” she said.“Time of death somewhere between twelve hundred and seventeen hundred hours Sunday.He thinks the murder weapon was a standard, steel filleting knife. Deployed in a distinct order – the stab to the left side, between the 6thand 7thribs, came first, and nicked the diaphragm.That would have impaired the victim’s breathing, incapacitating him whilst the killer delivered the second blow, which was a deeper, slower cut to the jugular, more like carving the Sunday roast.”
“Ugh!”Kate couldn’t help herself.
“Sorry.Blame the M.E.You know how they do.The killer would then have been able to maneuver the victim to the position in which he was found, in front of the desk, before nailing him to it.”
“Messy,” Marcus said.“I wonder how a man soaked in someone else’s blood manages to get away to wherever, without being seen.”
“Good point,” Torres replied.“I’m also wondering how come the elevator isn’t full of bloody foot- and hand-prints.”
“Took the stairs?”
“Ok, but even so, what about the foyer, the revolving doors, the entrance? We might have missed something.We’ve shut the building down and there’s two officers on guard at present.Want me to brief them?”
“Please,” Kate replied.“Tell them to check everywhere, within reason.Any smudge or smear.”
They reached Astoria just after two a.m.Torres’s mother’s brownstone stood on a quiet street lined with plane trees.The porch light glowed faintly.
Inside, the air smelled of coffee and lavender.Family photos lined the hallway — Torres as a teenager in NYPD cadet uniform, a man in an old baseball jersey, a much younger Torres holding a trophy almost bigger than her head.
Torres pointed them towards the apartment, which had clearly been a garage at some point in the past.“Sheets are clean, shower’s through the door on the left, kitchen’s stocked.Try to get some sleep.Mankovitz will meet us at eight.”
Kate nodded.“Thanks.”
They were both bruised by exhaustion, capable of only grunting a goodnight to each other.Chivalrous as ever, Marcus took the fold-down in the living room, while Kate had a small double in a bedroom that couldn’t actually contain much else. She lay there in the dark, expecting sleep to come, but it refused her.That made her angry which, in turn, made her even less likely to fall asleep.
In the end, she sat by the window, gazing out at the eerie, orange light of the darkest hours, hugging a pillow.She tried to describe her thoughts and her feelings, an old therapist’s trick.
