Warm air wrapped pleasantly behind me, and I quickly pulled the door closed to block out the wind.
“Damn, Gillian, afraid of a little cold weather?”
The nasal tenor startled me. I spun to see Detectives Boudreaux and Pellini sitting in the cramped waiting area usually reserved for people who had appointments to see one of the investigators. I straightened, instantly annoyed that I’d allowed my surprise to show.
“I’m a delicate southern flower, Boudreaux,” I said to the detective who could best be described as weasely. Skinny to the point of emaciated, he looked like a meth addict, but not as healthy. It didn’t look like he’d shaved in at least two days, but he was in no danger of growing anything resembling an actual beard. The patchy stubble on his chin looked like a fur coat left for a month in a moth factory. The stains on his khaki pants indicated he was in the long habit of wiping his hands on them instead of a napkin, his shirt had more wrinkles than a smoker’s lips, and his tie looked like it had been knotted with a square knot. Yet despite his complete lack of professional demeanor, he managed to close enough cases to stay on in Investigations. He was lazy, couldn’t investigate worth a shit, and was annoying as all hell, but rumor had it that he was a brilliant interrogator and could finesse information and confessions out of the most hard-core and stubborn types. “The chill does terrible things to my sunny disposition,” I added.
Pellini shifted on the ancient couch and pulled his belt further up under the pudge of his belly. “Delicate, my ass,” he said with a snort of sour amusement from beneath his mustache. “You could take Boudreaux here down with your eyes closed.”
I blinked. Had that been a compliment? From Pellini? Our conversational exchanges usually involved various insults, not-so-veiled slurs, and generally disagreeable banter. I had no doubt that he would have been more than happy in the “old days” of police work when respecting a suspect’s civil rights was a laughable concept. “What are you two doing sitting out here?” I asked, deciding to pretend the possible compliment hadn’t happened. Too many weird things were happening lately. A Nice Pellini would put me right over the edge.
“Our office is about thirty degrees,” Boudreaux said, face twisted in annoyance. “Maintenance is supposed to be coming by ‘any minute now.’ They said that an hour and a half ago.”
And I had no doubt that they intended to avoid all semblance of work until the climate control was fixed. I decided to not point out that they could have brought their laptops out to the lobby so that they could get caught up on their reports.
“I hear you had a fun weekend,” Pellini said.
“Yep,” I said. “A guy died out at the Nature Center. Barry Landrieu. Then a lady crashed her ride into mine and dropped in the middle of the parking lot out here.”
Pellini’s mouth pursed beneath his mustache. “Nature center guy…you said his name was Landrieu? White guy? Blond hair and a mustache?”
I nodded warily. “You know him?”
A frown curved his already dour face. “Neighbor of mine. Was it a thirty?”
He was asking me if it was a Signal 30. A homicide. “Nah. Just got back from the autopsy. Natural death.” It wasn’t a complete lie. It did look like a natural death. I wasn’t going to tell him that the woman had died in the exact same way. Pellini and Boudreaux already thought I was plenty weird. No sense giving them more reason to think so. I was probably already pegging out their “whackadoo” meter. I also wasn’t about to mention my own history with him. “Buddy of yours?” I asked.
Pellini shook his head. “Nah. Just a guy who lived down the street—about four houses down. Big-time jogger. Every fucking day, rain or shine.”
I tried not to show my surprise. Maybe it wasn’t the same guy?
“Dude was an ex-con,” he continued, putting the lie to my brief suspicion that it was someone else. “But he didn’t seem like a bad guy. Looked like he was trying hard to start over.”
I did my best to hide my shock. Pellini was being understanding? Showing a measure of actual empathy? “That’s pretty cool,” I said.
Pellini shrugged. “Yeah, but this week he got weird. Had issues with some of the neighbors.”
I leaned against the doorframe. I was pretty sure this was the longest conversation I’d ever had with Pellini where I didn’t have the urge to throw something heavy and dangerous at him. “Any issues with you?”
Pellini gave a low bark of laughter. “He tried. I was in my garage the other day and he comes walking up the driveway, stopped right before the door and starts going on about how the Saints didn’t deserve to win the Super Bowl, and that Green Bay was going to take it all the way this year.”
Boudreaux gave a snort. “Did you bust his ass?”
Pellini shrugged. “Nah. I kinda wondered if maybe he was trying to bait me and get me to take a swing at him—figured he probably had a buddy of his ready with a camera.”
I was more than a little impressed at the level of restraint and understanding Pellini had shown, but then he spoiled it by continuing.
“Instead I went by his house later that night, let all the air out of his tires, and pissed on his front mat,” he said with a satisfied smile.
“Okay, even Ithink that’s funny,” I admitted. “Well lemme go write this shit up so I can get out of here and leave you two to your little camping trip.”
“You only wish you were cool enough to hang out with us,” Pellini called after me as I continued on down the hall.
My office was frigid as well, but unlike Boudreaux and Pellini I was used to having a shit office and was prepared for it. Luckily it was about the size of a utility closet, which meant that it only took about ten minutes for the space heater in the corner to bring the ambient temperature up to the point where I could shed my coat. I pulled off the cuff as well and stuffed it into the pocket of my coat, breathing a deep sigh of relief as the simmering queasiness eased.
I plopped into my chair, then swept a frowning glance around the office as a sudden urge to rearrange the furniture seized me. I’d had it in the current configuration ever since getting this office. Maybe it was time for some change?
Easier said than done. I stood and spent several frustrating minutes trying to figure out how to turn the desk ninety degrees before realizing it was physically impossible. The desk had probably been assembled in the office, and I had a feeling that it would have be completely taken apart in order to change its position. I sat back down, annoyed at being thwarted by geometry. Maybe this weekend I can bring some tools up here and get that done.
In the meantime, I had things I wanted to check on. Ruthlessly pushing aside a stab of guilt at what I was about to do, I pulled up a search engine on my computer and typed in “Saratoga Springs, New York public records.” Within a few minutes I found records stating that a Ryan Walker Kristoff had been born to Julius Kristoff and a Catherine Rathbun Kristoff. Okay, birth records successfully faked. But how deep did the history go? Would a bit of scratching reveal the charade?
Pretty deep, I began to realize after about fifteen minutes of searching. He had a full genealogy that went back at least four generations—which was as far back as I bothered searching before giving up and looking for other details. There were school records and assorted newspaper clippings for Ryan, his parents, and his cousins, one of whom had been arrested twice for driving under the influence. A bit of finagling pulled up Ryan’s college transcript and his yearbook pictures, and more public records searches turned up name checks for various cases he’d been involved in.
In other words, it was, in every way, shape, and form, as real a background and history as anyone could possibly have. I sat back, baffled. There’s no way this is faked. So what the hell does this mean?
I glanced up at a tap on my door, surprised to see Roman Hatch standing in the doorway, carefully balancing a box that looked like it might very well contain donuts, with a coffee cup on top of that. “Morning,” he said with a wide smile. “This is the proper sort of gift for a cop, right?”