Lefebvre waited.
Larson suddenly looked him directly in the eye and said, “I know why you’re asking.”
Lefebvre told himself to keep his face impassive, to stay calm. “Oh?”
“It’s the boy,” Larson said.
Lefebvre didn’t answer.
“Don’t be angry with me for suggesting this, Phil, but there are those around here who think you’re too attached to Seth Randolph — a little too devoted, let’s say. Staying overnight in his room and so on. I won’t repeat the crudest comments—”
Lefebvre felt an impulse to let his fist fly into Larson’s face. With an effort, he held his temper, but Larson must have read something of the intent in his eyes, because the lab director turned pale and beads of sweat broke out on his forehead.
His voice cold, Lefebvre said, “Are you implying—”
“I’m simply warning you that there are rumors. Just a word to the wise — okay? I don’t even know who started them. Besides, most of them are saying you’re after the ex-wife.”
“Tory?” He nearly laughed.
“Yes, after all, she’s a beautiful woman and—”
Lefebvre suddenly stood, and Larson went another shade of white.
“First you suggest I’ve molested a young witness,” Lefebvre said quietly, “and then you insult my tastes. And you will not say—”
“Forget I said anything at all!” Larson said just as Dale Britton stepped into the break room, carrying a clipboard and looking owlish.
“Sorry to interrupt,” he said, “but I need your signature on this, Al.” He leaned across Lefebvre’s vacant chair with the clipboard and knocked the coffee cup over. Larson came to his feet, but not in time to prevent the lukewarm liquid from splashing over his lap, staining the front of his pants.
Britton was still apologizing to his boss when Lefebvre left the room.
Lefebvre returned to his desk some time later, so lost in anger that he pulled the top drawer open before he realized that he had not unlocked it. The list he had made earlier was missing from the drawer. He felt a cold knot form in the pit of his stomach. He looked up to see Pete Baird watching him.
“Have you been here all morning?” Lefebvre asked.
“Look,” Pete said, “you work your way, I’ll work mine. Just because I’ve been working from my desk—”
“That’s not what I meant,” he said hastily. “I just wondered — did you see anyone approach my desk while I was gone?”
“All sorts of people. Look.” He pointed to the desk tray. As usual, during the morning hours various bulletins and paperwork had been placed there.
Lefebvre didn’t miss Baird’s look of amusement. Ignoring it, he said, “Has anyone used my desk or looked through it?”
The amusement faded. “Exactly what are you getting at, Lefebvre?”
“I had some paperwork here. It was in this drawer. It’s gone now.”
“And you think someone from this squad took it.”
Too late, Lefebvre saw his mistake. “No, I just wondered if someone might have used the phone and accidentally picked up the paperwork.”
“No one has used your frickin’ phone. Or sat at your desk. Or taken anything that belongs to you.”
“I must have mislaid it, then,” Lefebvre said, and closed the drawer. When he tried to relock it, he found the lock was broken.
Baird continued to watch him, frowning. Lefebvre left the squad room without saying anything more to him.
He went downstairs, trying to walk off some of the tension he was feeling. If he had any doubt that someone within the department was involved in Trent Randolph’s murder, that doubt was gone now. He wandered near a pay phone in the hallway and got as far as fishing coins out of his pocket. He stopped before pulling the card out of his shirt pocket. Elena had a late-night surveillance assignment tonight. She might be sleeping. He did not know what he would have said to her anyway.
He went to the Records Department and requested the files for the two previous cases for which he had received calls from the anonymous tipster, hoping that they might help him discover something about the identity of the caller.
“Give me an hour or so, okay?” the harassed clerk asked. “I just got a huge list of files to be pulled for Captain Bredloe. When we take his up, I’ll have someone bring these two to your desk.”
“No,” Lefebvre said quickly, surprising the clerk. “Just hold them for me here, please. Give me a call when they’re ready.”
“It’s no trouble, I’ll be up there anyway.”
“Just give me a call.”
He left, hearing the clerk mutter behind him.
He was halfway up the stairs when he heard a familiar voice in the break room.
“Fuckin’ Lefebvre.” Pete Baird.
Lefebvre paused on the stairway, not wanting to walk by the open doorway.
“That asshole asks me if anyone has been using his desk — ‘maybe using the phone,’ he says. Like the anal little prick wouldn’t know if someone sat there. Says someone might have picked up some paper he left on the top of the desk, but he’s looking in the drawer, right? Now, number one, he locks his fucking desk all the time ’cause he thinks the rest of us are so fucking interested in his caseload, we’re gonna ignore our own cases to spy on Mr. Hotshot. So you know it’s his desk drawer he’s freaking out over, and not the top of his desk. And number two, it would be easier to find paper in the only stall on a diarrhea ward than on the top of Lefebvre’s desk.”
The others laughed, and someone razzed Pete about the messy state of his own desk. Lefebvre told himself to ignore their childishness and began to climb the stairs again just as Pete Baird stepped out of the break room and looked down at him.
Baird blushed, obviously aware that Lefebvre had heard his loud comments. Lefebvre looked straight at him, thought about his wanting to confide in this man only a few hours earlier, and turned to go back down the stairs.
Baird followed him, and from behind him, put a hand on his shoulder. “Lefebvre—”
Lefebvre shook the hand off and kept walking.
He was on the sidewalk when a slender, blue-eyed brunette hailed him. Irene Kelly hurried after him. “Hello,” he said. “How are things at the Express?”
“Are you okay?” she asked.
He felt a nearly uncontrollable urge to tell her to follow him to a restaurant, to tell her everything he knew. But even as he thought this, he realized that he could not bring himself to talk to a reporter about mere suspicions, especially ones that would damage the reputation of the entire department. “Just tired,” he said.
She studied him, then said, “Can I give you a lift somewhere?”
Behind her, he saw Vince Adams step out of the building. Adams noticed who he was with and gave him a look of disgust.
She followed Lefebvre’s glance and said, “They’re just jealous of the attention you get, you know.”
“It doesn’t help me to have them jealous,” he said.
“What’s bothering you today?”
He smiled. “Do you really care, or are you looking for a story?”
Her chin came up. He thought, wryly, that he had just given Baird the same look of disappointment.
“Sorry,” he said. “I’m in a terrible mood. Come by tomorrow and maybe I’ll be better company.”
“Lunch?”
“Sure.”
She started to walk off, then paused and said, “Take care of yourself, Phil.”
He walked with no set purpose. When he realized that he was some distance from the office, he hailed a cab.
“Where to?” the driver asked.
He started to say, “Police headquarters.” Instead, he reached into his shirt pocket, found Elena’s card, and asked the cabdriver to take him to a corner near her address. He would just take a look at her neighborhood, he told himself. Get a sense of where she lived.
She unlatched the last of the locks and opened the door, standing back as she said, “Come in.” She was wearing a short, silky yellow robe, and her hair tumbled down over her shoulders. She looked drowsy — sleep-softened and warm.