Page 64 of The Writer
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
“I’M NOT WEARING a wire,” Cordova tells her, but she doesn’t stop.
When his belly is exposed, she pats him down with the thoroughness of a practiced prison guard, starting with his arms, then moving on to his shoulders, torso, and legs. She turns him around and untucks his shirt in the back and doesn’t hesitate to check between his legs. Although he’s holding the gun, she doesn’t make a grab for it. She finds his phone in his back pocket, powers it off, and tosses it on the couch near hers. Then she steps back. “What exactly do you want from me?”
“An exchange of information. A chat. That’s all,” he tells her. “I want to understand why Declan had to die.”
“He was a dirty cop.”
“No, he wasn’t.”
This seems to frustrate her. She frowns and begins ticking off points on her fingers. “He broke Lucero’s arm taking him into custody. He browbeat him trying to get a confession. When the evidence wasn’t there for a conviction, he signed into police lockup as your lieutenant, pulled that book from Maggie’s possessions, and planted it in—”
Her voice cuts off with the sharpness of a whip and for several seconds she looks at the floor, her mouth moving silently as she processes the thought that just entered her head. She looks back at Cordova, and her words come out slowly as she absorbs the truth: “It wasn’t Declan, was it? It was you. ”
Cordova sighs. He’s never told anyone. He’s never spoken the words aloud. Not until now. “That monster would have walked.”
“So you planted evidence.”
“I rewrote the narrative.”
“Lucero died in prison. You put him there with false evidence. If this gets out, you’ll be charged with homicide.” For the first time, she looks confused. “Why are you admitting this?”
“Because I want you to understand I’m not here to arrest you. I’m done playing cat and mouse. You win. I can’t touch you,” he says. “You know something about me; I know something about you. I’m retiring soon and I just want to fill in the blanks so I can put this to bed.”
She doesn’t believe him and he doesn’t expect her to. Most likely she believes he’s recording this or has someone listening. He doesn’t, though. He only wants answers. He scratches the side of his chin. “I know you and Declan were sleeping together. I know he thought the two of you were going to run off somewhere. That man hasn’t left the five boroughs in his entire life, and last month he got a passport. He must have been in love to torch his career, even if he knew he’d be exonerated in the end. What did you promise him? Where were you planning to go?” When she doesn’t answer, he waves his hand dismissively. “It doesn’t really matter. We both know it was bullshit. You used him, and when you were done, you made him go away. Damn peanut allergy.” He shakes his head. “You know, I didn’t find a single EpiPen in his apartment. What’d you do? Fuck him and then round them all up while he was sleeping it off? Must have killed you to slink around that filthy place picking through drawers and cabinets. You keep your apartment immaculate.”
Denise smiles smugly. “You dusted his apartment for prints, right? How many of those prints were mine?”
Cordova holds up his hand and presses his thumb and pointer finger together. “Zero.”
“Exactly.”
Cordova runs his hand through his thinning hair. “You know, when I figured out the two of you were sleeping together, I honestly thought Declan killed David. Then I pulled the subway footage from across the street, and that drove it home—I was positive he did it. On the video recording, he comes rushing in, obviously distraught, and shoves something in a trash can. Then he gets up on the platform and spends the next two hours thinking about jumping. He sure as hell looked like a man who’d just committed murder. I’m certain he entered this building that night at six thirty, just like that eyewitness said, but when he got to your apartment, I think he found your husband already dead.”
“Geller Hoffman killed my husband hours later.”
“Drop the bullshit. We both know he didn’t.”
“What we know,” Denise says, “is the medical examiner said my husband was murdered between eight thirty and nine thirty p.m. He couldn’t have been dead at six thirty p.m. You know as well as I do that with current techniques, MEs can be fairly precise about time of death.”
Cordova nods. “Yep. From what I’ve been told, if someone has been dead for less than five hours, MEs can use body temperature to narrow time of death to a window of forty-five minutes, sometimes less. In your husband’s case, the ME is very confident on TOD. Between eight thirty and nine thirty p.m. That means Declan couldn’t have killed him. He’s on video from six forty-seven p.m. until I called him to the scene just before ten. He didn’t leave the camera frame once. He’s even on there taking my call. It’s like he knew to stand exactly there. You were at that bookstore, also on video, with dozens of people watching you. But the thing is, even Geller Hoffman is off the hook if David died before eight thirty p.m. Hoffman had appointments until eight, and then he had to go kill Mia Gomez for you. I timed the ride from that alley to the bookstore in Tribeca. Works out perfectly if he left right after killing Mia, but it falls to shit if he came up here to kill David too. There’s no way he could have killed them both. He only did Mia Gomez.”
Denise walks back across the living room and leans on the couch. “So if it wasn’t Declan and it wasn’t Geller, who killed David?”
“You did.”