The police academy occupied the fourth floor of the station, including physical fitness equipment. He changed clothes in the locker room, stretched, and started running on the track.
Breathe in. Breathe out. He always thought better while he was running. Then again, right now, he wouldn’t have minded not thinking at all. Frustration simmered at how little progress he’d made in the last month with the hunt for forgers.
Circles. Joe was running in circles, literally, and he was stuck in the circuitous tracks in his head. His lungs burned as he lost track of laps and pushed himself to his limits before finally calling it quits. Hitting the showers, he wished he could rinse away the foul temper he’d been soaking in all day.
By the time he was clean again, he at least felt ready to call Lauren and see if she’d had better luck arranging meetings with collectors. It was after five, so he had the operator ring her apartment. After a brief hold, he was connected.
“She’s not home yet, Detective,” one of her roommates told him. “I have to go out, but I can leave a note asking her to call you at the station.”
The last thing he wanted to do was spend another minute across from Oscar McCormick and Connor’s old desk. “I’m leaving the station for the night,” he told her. “I’ll head up your way and wait for her in the lobby.”
After a brief ride on the subway, Joe emerged and walked the rest of the distance to the Beresford. Wind bit his cheeks, announcing winter had made its entrance ahead of its calendar appointment, as it normally did in New York.
The rush of taxis on Central Park West filled his ears. Taillamps shone red as vehicles braked their way through the precipitation. Flakes swirled in the fan-shaped arcs of light cast by lampposts along the sidewalk. As he approached the Beresford, a Studebaker Six rolled up to the curb and parked, exhaust pluming from its tail pipe. The rear door opened, and a woman stepped out on unsteady legs, a lock of long hair tumbling over one shoulder as she slammed the door shut again.
Joe frowned. “Lauren?”
Adjusting her hat, she looked at him and smiled. “Joe!” Immediately, she put her hand to her head again and grimaced.
At once, he was at her elbow, supporting her. She reeked of cigarettes. “I thought you didn’t smoke.”
“I don’t, although you’d never believe that by the smell of me, would you? The Morettis both smoked in the car with me. I couldn’t get away from it.”
Her breath carried an all-too-familiar scent. “Have you been drinking?”
“Hm? Fruit cocktail,” she mumbled.
The doorman opened the door. “You all right, Dr. Westlake?”
“Fine, George. Thank you. Although...” She turned bleary eyes on Joe.
“I’ll see you safely to your apartment,” he said, fighting to keep the edge out of his voice. Something was going on.
She smiled and patted his chest. “Gentleman,” she called him.
The words forming in his mind were anything but chivalrous.By virtue of his self-control alone, he made it through the lobby, up the elevator, and down the hall to her apartment without letting any of them escape.
Inside her living room, he set her on the couch and took the armchair across from her. “What were you doing tonight?”
He didn’t bother hiding his surprise when she told him the Morettis had rolled up in the drive behind the museum as she was leaving it. “How did they know when you’d leave work? How did they know you take the rear exit?”
She frowned. “When did you get to be so suspicious? Oh, I know. It’s part of the job.”
“Actually, my father taught me that long before I wore a badge.” He found it ironic that the most valuable lesson he learned from Pop was one his father never intended to teach. As a teen, Joe couldn’t help but question why his father’s behavior didn’t match his words. Everything was fine, Pop had said. No need to worry. But he paced instead of slept. A crate of rotten tomatoes reduced him to tears, and he exploded at Joe for taking the bus when he could have walked and saved a few cents. Pop even yelled at Mama—just once—for being too generous with portion sizes, and then stormed out of the restaurant, disappearing for hours. Joe and his brother finally found Pop and peeled him off the bar where he’d apparently spent enough money to pass out drunk. The confrontation that followed Pop’s uncharacteristic behavior and binge was one Joe preferred to forget. But no one was allowed to treat Mama that way. Not even Pop.
So, yeah, Joe was suspicious, and he wouldn’t apologize for it.
“Well, in this case, there’s nothing shady going on,” Lauren said. “I usually leave at quitting time, right around five. I’m a creature of habit, and they must have noticed. It wouldn’t be hard.”
“Okay, but why couldn’t they pick up the phone instead? And are you in the habit of climbing into your patrons’ vehicles?”
Lauren waved a hand dismissively, as though he were an overreacting parent. Fine. If that was so, she was behaving like a naïve child. She closed her eyes and leaned back her head. “I didn’t want toimply they were dangerous people by refusing. All they wanted was for me to examine a recently acquired papyrus and see if it was fake.”
Nothing about this made sense. “You told me two nights ago you were sure Moretti didn’t have any forgeries.”
“Well, I’m sorry to say, I was wrong. We can’t track it, either. He purchased it from someone who bought it in Cairo. It was forged in Egypt by a true artist, but one who we’ll never meet, I’m sure. Which is why he served a round of drinks.”
Joe stifled a groan. Either Ray Moretti had served genuine alcohol smuggled in from Europe, or he’d served locally distilled alcohol, which could make a person sick, blind, paralyzed, or dead. “Tell me you didn’t,” he said.
