Page 51 of The Writer
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, Declan and ADA Saffi cross Central Park West toward the Beresford, and he’s still fuming. Talking it out with Saffi after they left the precinct just made Declan angrier. All those things in Hoffman’s safe were damning, but his employee file ? He knows that’s the kicker, and he plays it up. It’s his ticket to making a bunch of problems disappear. He laces his voice with anger as he tells her, “Come on, you know it was either Harrison or Daniels. Who else had access?”
Walking faster, Saffi starts to tick off people on her fingers. “Your lieutenant’s boss, your lieutenant’s boss’s boss, whoever is above them, their assistants, the department shrinks, file clerks, secretaries, janitor with a screwdriver… come on, Dec, if you wanted to walk a file out of there, you know you could. Anyone could have pulled it.”
“It wasn’t just anybody. It was Harrison or Daniels.”
“We’ll follow the money,” Saffi states flatly. “Cordova found more than enough to get Hoffman’s financials. Nobody gave him that file out of the goodness of their heart—they got paid. We’ll figure it out.”
They won’t find any money to follow, Declan is sure of that. “I doubt he cut a personal check. Hoffman was many things, but an idiot wasn’t one of them.”
They stop at the corner, waiting for the light. Both are quiet for a moment, then Declan asks, “What do you think this means for the IAU investigation?”
Saffi is silent for a beat, then kicks at the edge of the sidewalk. “You want my honest opinion?”
Declan nods.
“This is so far off the record that if you repeat it to anyone, I will have you killed. You get me? You don’t tell a soul what I’m about to tell you. Not even Cordova.”
“It stays between us. I swear.”
“If I were you, I’d use this as leverage. If IAU continues to come at you, you file a suit against the department on the stolen employee file. They drop it, you drop it. It’s called mutually assured destruction. Both sides have a finger on the nuke button but nobody presses because nobody wants to deal with the consequences. You’ll have your shield back untainted, and there’s zero chance they’ll hold you down in the coming years on rank. Just the opposite—they’ll promote you to keep you happy. You’ve got the department by the short-and-curlies, Declan. Hell, if this happened to me, I’d be running the DA’s office inside of two years or on a beach somewhere.”
This is exactly what Denise said would happen.
Declan tries not to smile.
When the light changes, they cross with the crowd, and Saffi says, “I need to prep for the blowback on Hoffman. The way they found him, what they found with him. When the press gets wind of all that, my office will get bombarded.”
“Do you think Lucero walks on all this?”
Saffi blows out a breath. “Honestly, I don’t know. His attorney will file an appeal for sure. Odds are he’ll get a new trial, but the evidence against him is still damning. Geller Hoffman gives the defense another suspect, that’s reasonable doubt, but it doesn’t mean a jury will buy it. It’s too early to guess how all this will play out.”
When they reach the Beresford’s service entrance, Declan opens the door for her and they step inside.
In one corner, a technician is on a ladder repairing the broken security camera. Cordova is sitting in a chair on the far side of the room, a banker’s box resting on his lap. His eyes are heavy from lack of sleep but he perks up at the sight of them and motions them over. He sets the box on a small table and removes the lid. “This is everything we pulled from Hoffman’s safe.”
Both Saffi and Declan know better than to touch anything, but they lean over and study the contents. Declan lets out a soft whistle. “That motherfucker.”
Cordova produces a latex glove from his pocket, slips it on his right hand, and removes a large plastic bag containing the shoes he mentioned. He holds them up. “Look familiar?”
Declan’s eyes go wide. He lifts his leg and points at the shoe on his foot—it’s identical. “We spend so much time on our feet, I burn through shoes. I usually buy a few pairs of these whenever they’re on sale. I probably have two or three boxes on the shelf in my closet. He must have snagged them from there.” The blood from Mercy is in the box. And his file. Beer bottle in another zip-lock. The bag of hair. A wad of it, like he plucked whatever was on Declan’s hairbrush in his bathroom. “What do you think he planned to do with that?”
Cordova shakes his head. “Who knows.”
The box also contains one of Declan’s shopping lists. The last time he saw it, it was stuck on his fridge with a magnet. “He plan to buy my groceries?”
“I’m thinking he wanted a handwriting sample,” Cordova says.
“Jesus.”
Saffi takes it all in. She’s obviously reeling. “I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that Geller Hoffman is a murderer, and not just of Mia Gomez but possibly of young girls. What if Maggie Marshall wasn’t the start of all this? What are we going to find when we run Hoffman’s DNA against other open cases? Cold cases?” She shakes her head. “As a defense attorney, he knew exactly how the system worked. This box isn’t something a first-timer puts together—this is practiced behavior.”
Cordova meets her eyes. “I think we’ve got him for David Morrow too.”
Saffi tries not to look at Declan when she replies, but she can’t help herself. “He told Denise he had a partner. Are you saying he didn’t?”
“He wanted her to think he had someone in her apartment when he made her put on those clothes, but that seems unlikely,” Cordova says. “I think he killed Mia Gomez, killed David Morrow right after, then cleaned up, changed, and went to the bookstore. There was no partner. Certainly not a cop.” He puts everything back in the box.
“There’s zero sign of him on security footage,” Saffi points out. “First visual on Hoffman is long after the murder, when the rest of you are already on scene.”
“If he came through the Central Park West entrance, correct.”
“You said there was no other way to get to the Morrows’ apartment.”
Cordova calls over to the maintenance man on the ladder. “Hey, how do we get to tower number two from here?”
The man has a new camera in one hand and a wire nut in the other. Without turning, he says, “You can’t get there from here. Go back out and around to the Central Park West entrance. No other way to get there.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’ve worked here for eleven years. I’m sure.”
Cordova thanks him and reaches back into the box. He removes blueprints so old, they look hand-drawn. A path has been marked with a yellow highlighter. “You’re gonna love this,” he tells Declan and Saffi, then he closes the box, picks it up, puts the blueprints on top, and starts for the service elevator at the far end of the room.