Page 28 of The Writer
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“CHRIST, DECLAN. HOW the hell do you live in this mess?” Stepping into Declan’s living room, Roy Harrison wrinkles his nose. Using the tip of a pencil, he picks up a sock from the back of the couch and holds it at arm’s length. Studies it for a second, then lets it drop to the floor. “You some kind of hoarder or just a slob?”
“I bet your apartment looks like an IKEA store and a CDC lab had a baby. All sterile and white with stickers on the furniture for tab A and slot B left over from putting that shit together. Probably keep your underwear in color-coordinated zip-lock bags. Your bunny slippers lined up nice and neat next to your bed.”
“I feel like I need a tetanus shot just stepping in here.”
Declan doesn’t need this. Not today. “Do what you gotta do and get out, Harrison.”
When his prints came back on the knife, Declan agreed to let them search his place. He had nothing to hide and knew if he said no, it would make him look bad. The thing was, he’d agreed to let Lieutenant Daniels run the search, maybe someone from the Twentieth, someone quiet, not IAU. If he’d known they’d send Harrison and friends, he would’ve called his union rep and squashed it. Nothing he can do about it now. Harrison showed up with three others, all IAU, all people Declan didn’t know, and now they’re crawling over every inch of his apartment.
“Ignore him,” Cordova says. “He’s just trying to get a rise out of you.”
Harrison smirks. “I’m getting flashbacks to the photos of Lucero’s personal shithole. The two of you must read the same decorating blogs.”
There’s a woman poking around Declan’s kitchen, someone else in his bedroom, and a third in the bathroom. Declan can see only the one in the kitchen, and she’s systematically going through every cabinet and every drawer as thoroughly as he’s ever done on a scene. It’s creepy watching someone else go through your stuff. When she frowns down at the dishes piled in the sink, he wants to tell her the dishwasher is busted, but he keeps his mouth shut.
Cordova pulls Declan to the side and says in a low voice, “Why don’t you say you touched the knife back at Hoffman’s car? Some accident. It slipped off the trunk, you grabbed it. Reflex. It happens. I’ll back you.”
Cordova’s a good friend, but Declan can’t let the man lie for him. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” he says. “I sure as shit didn’t kill Morrow.”
If the look Cordova gives him is meant to be reassuring, it’s not. Seems like it’s pitying.
“Roy?” This comes from the woman in Declan’s kitchen. When Harrison turns, she bobs her head, signaling for him to come over. Declan and Cordova follow. She’s got Declan’s old knife block on the counter, the one he uses as a paperweight for bills. Apparently she braved the stagnant water in the sink and fished out all the knives among the dirty dishes. Each has been placed back in the wood block, something Declan hasn’t bothered to do since the day he brought it home. The block has sixteen slots in total; seven are now filled with knives, and nine are empty. “We’re missing some knives,” she tells Harrison.
A grin creeps across Harrison’s face.
“It didn’t come with enough knives to fill it. When I bought it, half those slots were empty,” Declan says.
The woman has her phone out now, the screen angled so only Harrison can see. The grin on his face widens. “You sure that’s the same one? How’d you find it?”
She points to the barcode sticker on the back of the wood block. “Scanned that and brought up the listings.”
Harrison looks like he might burst.
Declan fights the urge to grab the phone. “What?”
“Show him,” Harrison says.
She turns and sets the phone down next to the knife block. Same set. Wüsthof. Little red logo on each handle. Declan points at the picture. “See all those empty slots? That’s how it came. Half empty.”
“Yeah, well, where’s this one?” Harrison taps the description. “You see a five-inch serrated utility knife here? I don’t. She don’t.”
Declan rolls his eyes. “It’s gotta be in the sink.” He steps around them, reaches into the sink, pulls out the stopper to drain the rest of the water, and then starts taking out the remaining dishes and piling them on the counter. His pulse quickens as he gets closer to the bottom.
“Where is it, Detective?” Harrison asks again. “Where’s your knife?”
When Declan doesn’t find it in the sink, he starts tugging open drawers. It’s not in any of them either. He can’t remember the last time he used it. It’s been a while. “If it’s the same one, she stole it,” he mumbles more to himself than anyone. “Must have broke in here and took it.”
Harrison laughs at that. “Denise Morrow broke into this shithole, stole your knife, and used it to kill her husband?”
Declan knows how ludicrous that sounds, but nothing else makes sense. He opens his mouth to argue, but Cordova tells him to keep quiet. “Not without a union rep,” he insists. “Not with this guy.”
That only makes Declan angrier. He pushes by all of them and goes to his apartment door. He opens it and studies the frame, hoping to find scuff marks, but there are none. Nothing on the locks to indicate they were picked or tampered with either. “She’s out to get me, and her lawyer’s in on it. Hoffman planted that knife where we’d find it! Must have. We know he walked it out of the apartment. They’re both trying to frame me. Maybe he was in here—”
Harrison cuts him off. “Or you took the murder weapon from the apartment yourself and tried to frame her attorney. We have no proof it was in that coat. We all know what she was writing about. Maybe you did too. Maybe you went there to put an end to it and the husband got in the way, that’s why she was mumbling your name on the 911 call.”
Declan’s blood begins to boil. “If I killed someone, I wouldn’t use my own knife, and I’d sure as shit wipe off my prints! I’m not an idiot. This is bullshit. I want all of you out of here!”
Harrison fixes him with a calm, determined stare. “Let me ask you a question, Detective. If we run your blood against what was found on Morrow’s door, what are we going to find?” He nods at the cut on Declan’s hand. “Why don’t you tell me how that happened?”
Cordova jumps in before Declan can respond. “I think we need a union rep before anybody says anything else. Right, Declan?”
Declan wants to punch Harrison in the face, bust the man’s nose open and watch him bleed, but he forces himself to nod. “Yeah, I want my rep.”
Harrison doesn’t seem to mind. “You’re right. Let’s have this conversation in an interview room back at the Twentieth. On the record. I’d hate for any of this to get misinterpreted. Wouldn’t want to see a fine, upstanding detective such as yourself say or do something you might regret later.”