Page 76 of Madison Square Murders
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Traffic was backed up on Fifth Avenue due to the morning commute, and Larkin and Doyle didn’t reach Madison until 8:49 a.m. It was still raining, but nothing like the storm on Monday that’d uprooted the crabapple tree and put Larkin on this head-first collision with Noah, with Doyle, with the ghost of Andrew Gorman. He parked the Audi on Twenty-Third Street, popped the trunk, and collected the spare umbrella for Doyle.
“I think it makes sense,” Doyle was saying.
“Yes?” Larkin did too, but his line of deduction often lost people, and it honestly felt good to be backed up by someone who perhaps came to conclusions in a different way, but was as equally intelligent as himself.
“Yes,” Doyle echoed, opening the borrowed umbrella before they started for the entrance of the park. “The city was already cracking down on the strip clubs in Times Square when I was a kid.” He cast Larkin a teasing, sideways look. “Daddy has a few years on you.”
“I hate you.”
Doyle chuckled. “Anyway. Times Square was the original den of prostitution, drugs, and decay. I think that’s how one of the papers put it. But by the late ’90s, most of those places were out of business. Something like three thousand performers were jobless.”
“They’d move into any club they could find. They couldn’t afford to be picky.”
“And that’s not to say there weren’t women in the industry at the time who weren’t content and empowered by their careers. Because there were. It just wasn’t the norm,” Doyle explained. “After all, if you’ve been giving lap dances for half a decade and suddenly find yourself unemployed, what’s going to happen? Realistically, you’re going to wind up giving more lap dances.”
They each removed their badges and flashed ID to the uniformed officer standing at the yellow crime scene tape that cordoned off the fountain.
Doyle was still talking. “Most of the clubs these days are in Midtown—prime tourist real estate.”
“I’m curious as to your extensive knowledge on the stripping industry.”
Doyle stopped. His umbrella bumped Larkin’s, and the gentlethrumof rain tapped on the plastic overhead. “I only mean, the odds of small, hole-in-the-wall joints existing along the Bowery, East Village, or Alphabet City that are no longer there today are pretty good. They could have very well been the clubs some of these girls moved on to, which would put them in the vicinity of Ricky’s apartment, and by your account, our perpetrator’s hunting grounds.”
“Well, well, well, if it ain’t the motherfuckin’ Grim Reaper.” Detective Ray O’Halloran strode toward them from the fountain. “Did you forget a body on your first pass? Don’t worry, it happens. After all, you boys in Cold Cases aren’t used to dealing with homicides in real time, are you?”
“No,” Larkin admitted. “But I am quite adept at cleaning up your messes after the fact.”
O’Halloran’s face colored, and it wasn’t due to the chilly air. But whether he wasn’t looking for a repeat of what happened the last time he’d insulted Larkin to his face, or O’Halloran simply didn’t want a witness, he swallowed his pride and shot Doyle an irritated look. “And who the hell are you?”
“Ira Doyle. I’m with Forensic Artists.”
O’Halloran snorted and laughed. He pointed at Doyle while saying to Larkin, “You brought Bob Ross as your backup, Grim?”
Doyle smiled, but it was calculated, cool—a man who had to fight for his title on the regular, even with Larkin. “Happy accidents aside, I’m a detective too.”
“Maybe you can draw me a picture of your qualifications sometime.”
Doyle’s expression didn’t waver. “I’d be happy to.”
“Detective Doyle was able to put a face to and identify Monday’s skeletal remains in less time it takes you to find your ass with a flashlight, O’Halloran,” Larkin said dully. “Tell me why we’re here.”
That ruddy complexion was back, but O’Halloran only gripped the handle of his umbrella tighter, spit at Larkin’s feet, then said, “I knew the vic. Well, no, I recognized her name: Danielle Moreno. Park employee called the body in when they opened at six this morning. When I got here, I checked the ID she had in her purse and the name niggled at me. I called it in, had it run, and sure enough, she’s got a long history with Vice. Prostitution and drug-dealing at peep shows she worked at back in the ’80s and ’90s.”
Larkin frowned a little. O’Halloran was in his midforties. The math wasn’t adding up. Never mind he worked Homicide, not Vice. “Please expound.”
O’Halloran cracked his jaw and seemed to struggle with an inner demon. “You know Charlie? Charlie Stolle.”
“Homicide detective, yes.”
“Yeah, well, he came up through Vice, back in the day. This is his last year. Fucker’s about three hundred years old. Anyway, we’ve started going through his caseload, you know, what to keep, what to toss to you jackals.” O’Halloran paused again, shook his head, then finished with “He’s been sitting on a dead stripper since ’92. Natasha ‘Nadia’ Smirnova.” Whatever O’Halloran saw on Larkin’s face, he said, “Yeah.ThatNadia. I saw the request come through from Ulmer last night. I was going to fucking ignore it because fuck you, Grim, but it bothered me. I knew I’d just come across that name recently, and it annoyed the piss out of me that you were now asking. It’s not a common name, after all. Natasha was your ’92 case. I’d done a cursory look at it a few weeks ago with Charlie.”
“You said this woman,” Larkin began, pointing at the fountain over O’Halloran’s shoulder, “was involved in Vice. How is she connected to Natasha.”
“Danielle Moreno was Natasha’s roommate back then. She was the one to identify Natasha’s body after she was found in Tompkins Square Park on April 23, 1992.”
“They both worked as strippers?” Doyle asked.
