Page 71 of Hudson River Homicides
Doyle had already shed his suit coat and was rolling back the sleeves of his shirt when he asked, “What is it?”
“We have to begin the arduous process of manually digging through Jane Does to find Esther’s homicide report, but I won’t be able to focus on that knowing this”—Larkin indicated by making a circle with his index finger in the direction of the mess—“is sitting here, getting worse by the hour.”
“How about I tidy up for you?”Doyle suggested.
Larkin was good at keeping his dislike to himself when it meant protecting the emotional well-being of a romantic partner—a necessary white lie, they were sometimes called—but Doyle still knew,somehow, that Larkin utterly despised even the thought of him touching the desk.Larkin quickly said, “It’s not that I think you can’t put things away.It’s just—I’m very particular.”
“I know,” Doyle answered, his tone indulgent and not the least bit hurt.“How about I check on the status of the composite sketch?”He raised the business card.“And then I’ll touch base with Homicide.You can work on organizing while I do that.”
“I suppose that’s acceptable.”
Doyle walked around to the left side of Larkin’s desk, leaned over Baker’s, pulled the phone forward, and punched in a few numbers.
“What is my tell,” Larkin asked.
Doyle turned, receiver to his ear, looking expectant.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Exactly.”Doyle winked before his call was answered and he said, “Debra, it’s Ira.Have they got you working Saturdays now?”
While Doyle did his usual flirting with Debra Baan of Public Relations, Larkin sifted through the stack of newly acquired cold case files—some decades old—scanning cracked typeset and regulating details to his infallible long-term memory before putting them away.And while each name and date and cause of death activated the recall of Larkin’s initial requestforthe paperwork, they also triggered associations with other cases already in his rotation.
New case, Antonio Williams, found stabbed to death on Bleecker Street, January 3, 1974, had the same date of death as Destiny Marshall.New case, Gracie Feinberg, a transgender sex worker whose nude body had been discovered in the early hours of September 29, 1988, in the Meatpacking District, had the same circumstances of death as Kristal Black, one year prior.New case, Billy Donovan, pushed from a sixth-story window on September 13, 2003, had the same name but different spelling asBillieDonovan, a Hell’s Kitchen local who’d been shot execution-style on April 6, 1984, and whose body had been found dismembered and distributed between two black trash bags in the East River.
Larkin snapped shut the folder in his hands.
So often, his associations were too personal, too conceptual, too tortured to be anything but a disruption and a burden on every second of every day of his life.But every once in a while, those associations were like pins in a tumbler lock finally lining up.
Click.
Larkin leaned over the open second drawer of his desk—hanging files all precisely aligned and organized—and snatched Hell’s Kitchen Billie Donovan out of it.He’d been unable to dedicate much time to Billie’s murder since adopting the case early in his career, had even considered recommending Porter to take it on instead, as the circumstances screamed gang violence and the senior detective was far more versed in organized crime than Larkin was, but despite the most noble of intentions to see Billie’s case solved, here Billie sat.
Still waiting for justice all these years later.
Larkin next collected Wagner’s crisp new file and, while holding them both up, said, “Porter.”
Porter turned in his chair.
“Was it common for a mob hit to be made to disappear.”
“Depends on the mob, but sure,” Porter said, looking between the two manila folders with mild interest.“The Italian mafia’s buried more than a few bodies along the border of Brooklyn and Queens.That was one of my first investigations when I came to Cold Cases back in 2004, you know.Just me, the FBI, and Bonanno crime family vics found at the Hole.”
Larkin gave Billie’s case a shake.“Gunshot, execution-style.Body dismembered, placed into trash bags, and dumped into the East River.”
“When?”
“1984.”
Porter snorted.“Sounds an awful lot like some of the Irish wackos from back in the day.”
“What do you mean.”
“Used to be, the last Irish mobsters in the city would hack up bodies in a tub, put the pieces in trash bags, and drive ’em to the river for dumping.”
“Are you talking about the Westies?”
Both Larkin and Porter directed their attention to Doyle, who was hanging up the phone.
