Page 24 of The Writer
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
DECLAN FINDS DENISE Morrow at the third restaurant on Susan’s list, an Asian bistro called Flaming Sun that serves hibachi and sushi and is within walking distance of her Central Park West apartment. He’d learned earlier in the day that she’d already moved back in. Geller Hoffman had arranged for some crime scene cleanup company called Aftermath to come in and erase all traces of what happened to her husband. Cordova called Saffi, but she said there was nothing she could do. Her boss was riding her to drop the charges, and they couldn’t keep the apartment locked down forever. Without new evidence, she had to agree to the location release. There was a bright side—Saffi also said if they managed to make the case stick, the fact that Denise Morrow moved back in so fast wouldn’t play well with the jury. Not much solace, but something.
Declan isn’t the only one who’s found her. Two photographers are busy snapping pictures through the front window with long lenses. A reporter Declan recognizes from Fox 5 is fixing her hair as her cameraman sets up on the sidewalk.
His head low, avoiding eye contact, Declan brushes by them and goes inside. Denise Morrow is alone at a table in the back corner, glasses on, lost in a stack of pages next to her half-eaten meal.
The ma?tre d’ steps into Declan’s path near the hostess station. “Sir? Do you have a reservation?”
“I’m meeting someone.” Declan skirts around the man and beelines for Morrow’s table.
She doesn’t look up from her work until he takes the seat across from her, and when she does lift her head, she doesn’t appear surprised to see him. She gives him a cursory glance, returns to the pages, and scribbles something in the margin. “What can I do for you, Detective?”
“Provide a written confession so I can get to bed early tonight.”
Her face remains expressionless.
Back at her apartment, next to her husband’s dead body, she’d shown no real emotion. There was no fear, anxiety, sorrow, nothing. Declan blamed that on shock, but now he isn’t so sure. During his career, he’d come across his share of psychopaths—people who lacked empathy and remorse. People who had no trouble manipulating others for personal gain with little or no guilt. Always men, though. Never women. Not once. He’d found that those people had trouble maintaining eye contact, something Denise Morrow has no problem doing. When she looks at him now, it’s with laser focus, like she can see through him. Like she’s learned all that’s worth learning about him, has cataloged the data, and has determined the most efficient way to manage him. He has no idea if she’s a psychopath, but she sure as shit is cold.
Although he’s traveled less than fifty feet, the ma?tre d’ is out of breath when he reaches the table, flustered. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Morrow. He got by me.”
“It’s fine, Bobby. I know him.” She sets her pen aside and glances at Declan. “What would you like to drink, Detective?”
“I’m on the clock.”
“No, you’re not.”
When Declan doesn’t respond to her question, she narrows her eyes and studies his face for a moment. “Get him a grasshopper, Bobby. He’ll like that.” She taps the rim of her own glass. “I’ll take another cosmo.”
Reading upside down, Declan realizes she’s working on the Maggie Marshall book. The weird part is that half her handwritten notes in the margins are puns about cops:
Honorable police officers are hard to find. Hope they don’t go extinct, like the tricera-cops!
The cops found a dead cartoonist in his apartment, but the details are still sketchy.
The police investigated the murder of the crows and came up with the most probable caws.
He doesn’t hide the fact that he’s reading. “Is this all some kind of joke to you?”
“If you know where to look, there’s humor in everything. Life’s too short to get caught up in the ugly parts, Detective. That’s how you find yourself staring down the center of an empty Jameson bottle.”
Declan’s father drank Jameson. For more than a year after he’d died, Declan found half-empty fifths hidden around their apartment—bathroom, sofa cushions, cabinets. She can’t possibly know that. She knows he’s Irish and she’s just assuming he fits the stereotype. That has to be it, right?
Their drinks arrive. Declan stares at his, a fluorescent-green concoction in a martini glass.
“Trust me,” Denise says, “you’ll like it.” She raises her cosmo. “To New York’s Finest.”
Declan doesn’t touch the drink. He says, “Why are you writing a book about Maggie Marshall?”
“It’s an intriguing case.”
“Her killer is locked up. Do you really want to stir that up? She has a family.”
“So did the man you put away.”
Declan nearly laughs at that. Lucero’s parents were dead. His only family is a half sister who’s spent most of her life in institutions and the rest on the street. When the police interviewed her, she all but said her half brother molested her when she was younger. He’d taken lewd photos of her and sold them to his friends. She hated him. Declan never saw the woman smile until the judge read the verdict and put her brother away for good. When that happened, she beamed.
Denise can tell what he’s thinking. “Nobody asked you to like him, Detective, only to treat him objectively.”
“Objectively, I found him to be a piece of shit.” He taps her stack of pages. “What’s your goal here? To get me fired? Put him back on the street?”
“My goal is to put the facts out on the street where everyone can see them, then let the chips fall where they may.”
“You get Lucero out, and we pull another dead girl out of the park a month later, then what?”
She doesn’t hesitate. “Then I’d expect you to do your job. Properly. If you still have your job, that is.”
“There was plenty of evidence against Lucero.”
“I agree. It was damning.”
“Then why do this?”
“Because it wasn’t conclusive.”
“Do you have any idea how few of these cases are?” He tries not to raise his voice. “We don’t find every murderer hovering over the body of their victim.”
At that, her eyes narrow and a thin smile edges the corner of her mouth. “If you wanted an easy job, maybe you should have gone into construction.”
Another dig at his father. She’s clearly done her homework. Declan isn’t going to bite. Anyway, he doesn’t get the chance. His phone buzzes with a text from Cordova—they got the warrant to search Geller Hoffman’s apartment. Unable to suppress his smile, he quickly types back, Go, I’ll meet you there. Then he shows the texts to Denise Morrow and says, “Why don’t you tell me about your coat?”
“My…” She settles back in her chair and tilts her head. “It’s a Harlan from Loro Piana. Made from vicuna fur. David bought it for me in Milan. Generous man.” She reaches back and lifts the sleeve of the coat draped over her chair. “Would you like to touch it? It’s soft.”
“Not that coat,” Declan says. “The one you let your attorney borrow.”
She smiles again and nods at his drink. “You haven’t tried your grasshopper.”
He leans forward and whispers, “We know you switched the coats, Denise. The knife. You think we wouldn’t figure that out?” Declan sits back and takes her in. The black-framed glasses, her hair slightly tousled. Thin sweater tracing the curves of a body that clearly is no stranger to the gym. The mousy-librarian thing she wants people to see is hiding something else. Something darker. How much is an act? How much is real? There’s a brilliance hidden behind the facade. Like she’s tamped it down, doesn’t want it to show. Why does Declan get the feeling that he’s playing checkers and she’s playing chess?
“It’s not polite to stare, Detective.”
“I’m just trying to understand you.”
“Is that what you told Ruben Lucero after you broke his arm?”
Declan swallows. “You could have divorced your husband. David didn’t have to die.”
She raises her cosmo again. “Here’s to you catching the man who did it.” She takes a sip, sets the glass down, and retrieves her pen. “If there’s nothing else, Detective, I really need to get back to work. I’m about a week behind schedule.”
“Couldn’t write in jail?”
“Too many distractions.”
Declan gets to his feet and taps the top of her manuscript with his index finger. “Maybe you should practice, seeing as how you’ll need to write the next one from a cell.”