"It's the boss man, Lauren," he said. "The commissioner has entered the donut bus and wants a briefing."
"Are you okay, Lauren?" Bonnie said, putting a hand on my back. "You don't look so hot."
I looked at her, at the concern in her eyes. Christ, how I longed to break down right there and then. Bonnie was a friend, a woman, and a cop. Out of everybody, she'd be the most likely to understand. Tell me what to do. Help me.
But what could I say to her? I was screwing the deceased, who, by the way, was blown away by my husband? I looked away from Bonnie. Nobody could help me, I realized. I was completely and utterly on my own.
"I'm fine," I said.
"We're all a little overwrought," Mike explained to Bonnie as he led me away toward the Command Center bus. "Even some of those dealers by the bodega teared up when that red-haired uniform was singing 'Danny Boy.' "
Mike put his arm around me as we walked. He really was a good guy, one of the best.
"Our guy is messing up, Lauren," Mike said. "At first I thought we were screwed. You know as well as I do how hard dump jobs are to solve. But look. Mistake after mistake. We're looking at an amateur. I can almost see him out there thinking he's covering his tracks, but his mind is racing and he's fucking up, just leading us closer and closer. A twelve-pack of Sam Adams says we lay hands on his sorry ass by this time tomorrow. You down?"
I shook my head as I labored to stay on my feet, to keep moving toward the bus.
"That's okay, Mike," I said. "I don't take sucker bets."
Chapter 29
A SHORT BLUR OF TIME LATER, I was making myself stand up straight in the antiseptic glare of the Command Center bus interior.
Everywhere there were cops in front of laptops. White-shirted bosses were barking into cell phones. A map of the area was projected up in a wide-screen PowerPoint display. It looked like the situation room at the Pentagon, or maybe on the TV show 24.
I could feel my heartbeat pulsing crazily in my eardrums, behind my eyes.
And Paul was the enemy.
"Commissioner," my boss was saying with a formality I was unaware he was capable of. "This is Detective Stillwell, the primary investigator on the case."
A large hand shook mine, and I looked up into the famous, fatherly black face of the police commissioner of New York, Ronald Durham.
"Pleasure to meet you, Detective Stillwell," Durham said in a warm, honey-laced tone. "Some of your reports have crossed my desk. You do very good work."
My God, I thought, feeling dizzy again. My first "attaboy" from the police commissioner. Put another shelf in the career trophy case.
Then I came down like a crackhead after a three-day binge when I remembered the utterly damning evidence of Paul's glasses.
The cottage cheese in my fridge was going to outlast my career.
"Thank you, sir," I fumbled.
"Tell me what you have so far," Durham said next. His eyes were huge and pinned on mine.
I went through it all. Scott's wounds, Amelia Phelps's perfect description of Paul and his car, the glasses we'd just found. The entire homemade recipe for my own disaster.
When I was finished with the speech, the commissioner tapped a forefinger to his lip. Unlike a lot of the top brass, Durham had actually been a detective on his way up.
"Have you looked over his open files?" the commissioner asked.
"I haven't had a chance yet, sir. That's next on our list."
Durham nodded.
"You're closing in quickly," he said. "The only thing that might soften the blow here for everyone is expedience."
Not everyone, I thought.
"Detective," the commissioner said, smiling. I knew he was going to ask me for something. What it was, I had no clue. I just knew that in the NYPD, after a boss feeds you a carrot, the stick isn't far behind.
"Sir?" I said, trying to keep the nervousness out of my voice, and failing miserably.
"I wanted to remind you to serve the death notification to Scott Thayer's family."
My jaw muscle locked and I was surprised my teeth didn't shatter. Jesus Christ, I'd forgotten! Telling the family was part of my job as the primary.
Scott had told me he had a mom and a younger sister somewhere out in Brooklyn. How excruciating was this going to be? Couldn't I just feed my hand into a wood chipper instead?
"Of course, sir," I said.
"I know it's the most unfortunate part of your job," Commissioner Durham said with a fatherly pat on my shoulder. "I just think it should be done before someone leaks Scott's name to the press. I think it would also be better to hear it from somebody out of the same office. Then I could arrive a little later. Help soothe the blow."
"I understand," I said.
Then the commissioner sighed.
"Though I know whatever way we do it, it's going to be nothing short of devastating for Scott's wife," Durham said gravely. "Not to mention his three young kids."
Chapter 30
SCOTT WAS MARRIED?
I managed to stay upright on my suddenly numb legs by a sheer act of will.
A married father of three?
He sure hadn't mentioned that.
Not the wife. Or the kids. Scott had told me he was NYPD's most eligible bachelor.
"I know," the commissioner said. "It just keeps getting worse and worse. We have ourselves a real tragedy here tonight. Scott's wife, Brooke, is only twenty-six, and his kids are four, two, and an infant."
Another fatherly pat on my shoulder signaled that our meeting had come to an end. I had the feeling there must be a section on fatherly pats on NYPD promotion tests.
"Your lieutenant has the address," the commissioner said. "Proceed, Detective. Good luck."
Twenty minutes or so after we left the commissioner in the Command Center bus, we stopped in front of a cute Dutch colonial in the middle of a long block lined with them.
All the windows of the Thayer house were dark. Bright flowers lined a curving slate path through the manicured lawn.
There was a Fisher-Price basketball backboard at the end of the short driveway. I had to tear my eyes away from it. I checked my watch. It was coming up on 4 a.m.
Wait a second, I thought insanely. Did I really have to go into that house? I could just walk away, couldn't I? Forget everything. That I was a cop. That I was a wife. I mean, why be so conventional? I was in the market for a life change. Maybe I could run off to an abbey and make cheese.
"Ready, Lauren?" Mike asked at my side.
"No," I said, opening the storm door anyway. Then I hit the brass knocker on the inside door a couple of times.
Beautiful, was my first thought when I looked into the groggy face of the petite brunette who answered the door.
Why would Scott cheat on this perfectly lovely young woman? The mother of his kids.
"Yes?" Brooke Thayer said, her eyes widening as she looked from me to Mike and back to me.
"Hi, Brooke," I said, showing her my badge. "My name's Lauren. I'm a detective from Scott's precinct."
"Oh my God," Brooke said, instantly awake and talking very fast. "It's Scotty, isn't it? No! What happened? Is he hurt? He's hurt?"
Death notices are served in different ways, none of them pleasant. Some detectives think blunt honesty is the way to go. Others soften the blow by first saying the victim was seriously injured and lead into the fact of their death.
For the first time this night, I went with honesty.
"He was shot, Brooke. I'm so sorry. He's gone."