Клео Коул - Roast Mortem

That was true. A single recliner, a standing lamp, and a barstool subbing for a table were the extent of Michael Quinn’s living room furniture. He’d set a small television on top of a stack of cardboard boxes, but the shattered unit had been knocked down and the contents of those boxes — mostly clothing — were scattered all over the parquet floor.

“Does anything appear missing?” I asked.

“We generally learn that kind of thing from the victim,” Hoyt replied in a tone that indicated I’d just asked the stupidest question in the world.

“Okay, well... here. You better take this...” I dug into my handbag pocket, held out the damp glove.

“And what’s this, Ms. Cosi?”

“I found it in the puddle in front of this building. I’m betting it belongs to Mrs. Josephine Fairfield. She and the captain used to be engaged. There was a scene at the pub. He rejected her pass. I think you should question her.”

The detective waved over a uniform officer who bagged the glove for the detective. “Okay, Ms. Cosi, spell that name for me. Fairfield, you said?”

“I said : Get the hell out of my way! I want to see my captain!”

The roaring male voice echoed up the staircase, an audio assault on my tired brain. The Bad Lieutenant was here — Oat Crowley. He’d either heard the 911 call while buffing, seen the emergency vehicles down the street, or both.

A few seconds later, Detective Ramirez appeared. He stood on the landing, just beyond the open front door. Oat Crowley loomed behind him — at more than a head taller than the detective, Crowley could easily see into the apartment.

“What the hell is she doing here?!” the lieutenant bellowed.

Ramirez jerked a thumb in Oat’s direction, announced his name. “This guy claims to know the victim.”

“Victim?” Oat said, now looking alarmed. “Where the hell is Michael Quinn?”

Hoyt narrowed his eyes on the blustering firefighter. “By now I’d say he was in the intensive care unit at Elmhurst. Unless he graduated to the morgue.”

“It’s her fault!” Oat rushed toward me. Hoyt blocked him, the cop in uniform stepped up to help. “I don’t know what story she’s telling you, but she started this thing, and her cop boyfriend obviously tried to end it — ”

“You’re crazy!” I shouted.

“Ask her!” he shouted right back, stabbing the air with his finger. “Ask her how she played two men against each other: my captain and Mike Quinn.”

“I didn’t play anybody!”

Hoyt exchanged a glance with his partner.

“You want them separated, Sarge?” Detective Ramirez asked.

“Not yet. Let’s see where this goes...” Hoyt turned to Oat. “You clear this up, okay? Mike Quinn is the name of the victim .”

“It’s a family name,” Oat said. “Michael Quinn is my captain, Mike Quinn is an NYPD detective with some hotshot squad in Manhattan. The two are first cousins — and she’s the reason it came down to fists earlier this evening.”

“How do you know about that?” I challenged. “You weren’t even there.”

“Half the firehouse was there, lady! It’s all the shift’s talking about tonight!”

“Then you haven’t heard yet?” I said, hardly able to believe it. “None of you have heard about James?”

“James?” Oat said. “What about James?”

“Quiet! Both of you!” Hoyt said. Now he turned to me. “What was this fistfight about earlier in the evening, Ms. Cosi? You didn’t mention it to me.”

“It was nothing,” I said. “A misunderstanding, that’s all.”

“That’s what you call it?” Oat barked a laugh. “Listen to me, Sarge , earlier this evening, in front of a dozen witnesses, her boyfriend — Detective Mike Quinn of the NYPD — worked over his cousin at Saints and Sinners pub in Woodside after he caught her making out with him — ”

“I was doing no such thing!”

“Call it what you want, honey, your lousy cop boyfriend obviously came here to finish the job he started on his cousin.”

“Well, it didn’t go down like a fistfight here,” Hoyt said. “It appeared the victim was struck from behind with a blunt instrument. The attacker shook down the premises, stole the victim’s watch, wallet, rifled his pockets, and then fled with the weapon.”

“To make it look like a robbery,” Oat said. “Quinn’s been on the job all his life! He knows how to cover up his own crime!”

“You’re wrong!” I said. “Mike might have thrown a punch in a bar, but he would never ambush a man with a club, beat him into a coma.”

“Calm down, Ms. Cosi,” Hoyt said. “I’m just looking at all the angles, and it sounds like this fight was a heat of the moment thing, except that you never mentioned it, which makes it clear to me that you’re far from an objective party.”

“But that fight has nothing to do with what happened here,” I said.

“Bull!” Oat bellowed. “There’s been bad blood between the pair of them for years. A real history. Listen to me, Hoyt, you better not try to protect Detective Quinn just because he’s another cop, or I’ll — ”

“You don’t want to threaten me,” Hoyt said, his own threat clear under the tight reply. “Just tell me about the history.”

I expected Oat to spill that old Kevin Quinn story or tell Hoyt how betrayed Michael felt about his cousin quitting the fire academy. Instead, he said a name that I never expected to hear.

“Leila Quinn.”

“Mike’s ex-wife?” I whispered, feeling a creeping sense of dread. “What about her?”

“So your boyfriend never told you?” Surprised by my ignorance, Oat turned disgustingly smug. He played to Hoyt. “About ten years ago, my captain nailed her boyfriend’s wife, Leila — a real hot broad, too, former lingerie model. The captain invited Leila down to Atlantic City for a weekend. She took him up on it. Who knows what lie she told her dumb-ass cop husband to get away for the weekend, but off she scampered making herself very available.”

I felt cold inside, so cold I shivered. Matt was up the stairs by now, lingering on the landing beside a uniformed officer. Needing a friend, I met his eyes.

“Was there any violence back then?” Hoyt asked.

“Oh yeah,” Oat replied. “Detective Quinn didn’t find out for months. The wife finally brought it up when they were having some fight, just to stick it to Mikey, and when she told him the truth” — Oat looked skyward and made a fist — “ whammo .”

“Define ‘whammo’ please,” Hoyt said.

“Your fellow detective went nuts , how’s that? The captain’s got a gold tooth in his mouth for a reason. Mike Quinn knocked out the real one.”

Hoyt exchanged a long glance with Ramirez — and the sight made my stomach turn. They’re making Mike for this.

Oat folded his arms. “That guy is no damn good. What he did to my cousin Pete, I’ll never forget.”

“Pete,” I said. “Pete who?”

“Pete Hogarth ,” Oat replied. “My mother’s family knows all about Mike Quinn. The prick framed Pete’s old man on some trumped-up murder charge, planted evidence in his bird coop on the roof of his building.”

“That’s not true,” I said, struggling now to hold my temper. Matt stepped up behind me, put a hand on my shoulder.

“What do you know about it?” Oat spat. “Quinn wasn’t even a cop back then, just some rat kid with a Hardy Boys complex. He even got some phony civilian award from the mayor. The jerk was working the angles before he even set foot in the police academy, laying the groundwork to move right up the ladder.”

“Pete Hogarth’s father was a killer !” I shouted, moving fast toward Oat. The man actually took a step back. “He murdered a Dominican bodega owner in cold blood while he was robbing him — ”