Page 56 of The Writer
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
CORDOVA STEPS INTO the bullpen at the precinct house in a daze, his heart heavy with an overwhelming mix of disbelief and anguish. It’s midafternoon, and nearly everyone is out in the field. Daniels’s office is empty and the handful of people there don’t know where he is. News of Declan’s death hasn’t spread yet, and Cordova doesn’t tell anyone. On some level, he feels like it’s not real and it won’t be real unless he talks about it. So he won’t; he just won’t.
He can’t.
Because this isn’t done yet.
Not even close.
Rubbing the back of his neck, he drops into his chair and stares at Declan’s cluttered desk. Every muscle in his body is twisted into a tangled knot and growing tighter.
Declan was sleeping with Denise Morrow.
He tries to wrap his head around that and can’t.
Denise Morrow was out to destroy Declan. She trashed him on television. Her book systematically dismantled his career, attacked his character. Hell, Declan was ready to kill himself over the IAU investigation and she’d done nothing but throw gasoline on their roaring fire. How the hell did he end up sleeping with her?
Cordova glances up at the whiteboards detailing the murders of David Morrow and Mia Gomez and grows more confused, because none of it is right. It can’t be. Not when you factor in Declan’s affair and Geller Hoffman. Especially Geller Hoffman. Not when you consider what Cordova found in the man’s apartment and at his office. Not when you add in what Lucero told him. What Lucero had apparently told Daniels, and Daniels never shared…
Cordova picks up the landline and dials his lieutenant again. Again, he gets voicemail. He slams the receiver back in the cradle and is about to dial one more time when it rings. “What?”
“Jarod?” It’s Oscar Martinez from the ME’s office.
“Sorry, Oscar. It’s been… a day.” He doesn’t tell him about Declan; he can’t.
“Did you get my email?”
“Your…” Cordova hasn’t checked his email. “Hold on a second.” He scans the various messages, finds one from Martinez, and opens it. Attached is a picture of a man’s bare chest. “What exactly am I looking at?”
“That’s Geller Hoffman. COD is certainly asphyxiation, but I can’t explain that mark on his chest. I don’t know what it is. There’s nothing in the database. I can’t pin it down.”
“What mar—” Then Cordova sees it. A small, round bruise about the size of a dime in the center of Hoffman’s chest, between the attorney’s flabby pecs.
“I believe it’s a compression bruise,” Martinez says.
“From something pressing down?”
“Yeah. Or it could be nothing. Might be completely unrelated. I’ve got no reason to connect it, it just seems… off. You know?”
Cordova does know. Everything about this damn case is off.
“I wanted you to see it,” Martinez says. “If you find something that’s round and about three-eighths of an inch wide, I might be able to match it up.”
Cordova thanks him and hangs up. He prints out the picture, tacks it up on the evidence board under the photograph of Hoffman, then steps back to take it all in.
He thinks of the napkins back at the Six, how he and Declan had written everything out and how Declan tore them apart and mixed up the pieces.
Three-card monte.
Was that Declan being a cop and sharing an actual realization, or was that Declan being Denise Morrow’s lover, her pawn, and telling Cordova what she wanted him to hear?
How long had they been sleeping together?
Was she pulling the strings?
Had to be.
Nothing else fit.
This woman has been three steps ahead of them from the jump. That means she was playing him, and Declan too—maybe even Geller Hoffman—and nothing on the evidence board is really what it appears to be.
Things get worse when Cordova glances up at the television they keep in the office and sees ADA Saffi and her boss standing on the courthouse steps, hands at their sides, heads hanging, a picture of contrition and self-loathing. The words Famed author Denise Morrow cleared of all charges scroll across the bottom of the screen. A photograph of Morrow is superimposed over the top corner.
He fumbles with the remote and turns up the sound as Saffi speaks.
“While we’re still working diligently to uncover all the facts, it is the opinion of our office that local defense attorney Geller Hoffman was responsible for the deaths of Mrs. Morrow’s husband, a woman named Mia Gomez, and possibly others. Any involvement by Mrs. Morrow appears to be the result of a detailed blackmail scheme hatched by Hoffman. She was acting under duress. We would like to extend our deepest apologies to Mrs. Morrow for any inconvenience our office put her through as a result of the misdirection perpetrated by Mr. Hoffman. His duplicity was far-reaching and skillfully deployed. If not for the untiring efforts of the NYPD, it might not have been uncovered.”
“In other words, ‘Please drop your lawsuit, Mrs. Morrow,’” Cordova mutters. “‘We’ll give you the key to the city if you do. Don’t make us write that check.’”
From somewhere in the swarm of media people, a male voice shouts, “What about Detective Declan Shaw?”
Rather than addressing the reporter, Saffi looks directly into the camera. “Detective Shaw is as much a victim in all this as Mrs. Morrow. Hoffman painted a target on his back, and he was relentless in his efforts to discredit a fine officer. More on that will follow in the coming days.” She looks out over the large group for a moment, then adds, “Thank you all for coming out. There will be a formal written statement later today detailing—”
Another voice interrupts her. “Can you comment on the death of Ruben Lucero?”
The words come and go so quickly, Cordova isn’t sure he heard them correctly, but the text at the bottom of the screen changes from the message about Denise Morrow to Convicted killer Ruben Lucero found dead in his prison cell.
Saffi turns to the DA at her side; he gives her a slight nod. She clears her throat and continues. “We learned of this only moments before coming out here, but apparently someone gained access to Lucero’s cell and beat him with a sock containing several cans of soup pilfered from the kitchen. When Lucero was discovered, a doctor was summoned from the infirmary and rushed to his cell. He informed the duty officer and the warden that Lucero had been dead for at least an hour, possibly longer, and had suffered multiple blunt-force traumas. The improvised weapon was left behind and is currently being processed. I expect the warden will release additional information as it becomes available.”
Cordova quickly keys Lucero’s name into Google, and his computer screen fills with stories about the convict’s death. More speculation than fact. An inside job? Did someone open his cell, or did they get to him through the bars? Where were the guards? New evidence suggests he might have been innocent; was this some sort of retaliation?
On the television, the text at the bottom of the screen shifts again, replaced with a scrolling message:
STATEMENT JUST RELEASED BY DENISE MORROW: I WOULD PERSONALLY LIKE TO THANK THOSE WHO WORKED TIRELESSLY TO CLEAR MY NAME. THIS HAS BEEN A TRYING TIME FOR ALL INVOLVED AND I’M GLAD IT IS BEHIND US SO I CAN FINALLY MOURN THE LOSS OF MY HUSBAND, MY PARTNER IN LIFE, MY GREATEST LOVE, DAVID. I HAVE NOTHING BUT THE DEEPEST RESPECT FOR THOSE IN LAW ENFORCEMENT AND ALL THEY DO, THE CHALLENGES THEY FACE, AND THE HURDLES THEY OVERCOME IN THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. I HOLD NO ILL WILL AGAINST THOSE WHO INITIALLY THOUGHT ME GUILTY; I TAKE SOLACE IN KNOWING THAT THE MAN RESPONSIBLE CAN NO LONGER HARM OTHERS. I WOULD ALSO LIKE TO EXTEND MY HEARTFELT SYMPATHY TO THE FAMILY OF RUBEN LUCERO. HE WAS A HORRIBLY MISUNDERSTOOD MAN, AND WHILE HE WAS DEEPLY FLAWED, I BELIEVE THE WORLD WILL SOON LEARN HE WAS NOT THE MAN HE WAS PAINTED TO BE.
By the time Cordova finishes reading the message, the live shot of ADA Saffi is over and has been replaced with a still image of Lucero in a suit and tie being led into the courthouse. Cordova remembers that day well, the start of Lucero’s trial. When the broadcast returns to the studio, Denise Morrow’s photo is once more in the top corner of the screen, and the anchor begins reading Denise Morrow’s statement, her face filled with sympathy.
Cordova’s vision goes red. He sees nothing but Declan lying dead on the floor, that damn shirt inches away from his swollen hand.
The anchor drones on; he can’t hear her anymore.
It’s bullshit. Every bit of it. Well-orchestrated bullshit.
He turns off the TV and throws the remote across the room. It cracks against the far wall and showers the floor with pieces.
The single word starts in Cordova’s chest and barrels up his throat. It escapes with a violent shout that burns his vocal cords: “Fuck!”
It’s the first time he’s cursed aloud in maybe a decade, and it feels damn good. He clambers to his feet, comes around his desk, and knocks over both whiteboards, and that feels even better.
Several people in the bullpen glance over at him, then go back to whatever they were doing. Just another day. Nobody says a word when he rakes everything off his desk with one arm, then does the same with the mess on Declan’s. Papers, pens, binders, books, computer, crusty coffee mugs—it all crashes to the floor. He doesn’t stop until it’s all on the ground, then he drops down with it, breathing heavily.
“Better?” a cop across the room asks.
Exhausted, Cordova waves a hand at him dismissively.
He sits there for maybe five minutes before his eyes fall on a page from Denise Morrow’s book; Declan must have printed it out from the file he pilfered from evidence. It’s a transcript from their initial interview with Lucero.
Because it was introduced as evidence, it’s currently in the public record, accessible by anyone. Authors regularly use transcripts when writing about crimes. That isn’t the part that jumps out at him. Cordova is staring at the bottom of the page, trying to make sense of what he’s found:
[ End of recording .]
/MG/GTS