James Patterson: French Kiss

After the second week, I had my exercise bike and weights sent over.

After a month I hired a company to deliver the three most valuable pieces from my contemporary Chinese art collection: the Zao Wou-Ki, the Zhang Xiaogang, and the Zeng Fanzhi. Dalia refers to them as the Z-name contemporary art collection. She said that when those paintings were hung in her living room, she knew I planned to stay.

But now we have this night. The night of Maria’s death. A night that’s the emotional opposite of that joyful night months ago.

“Will you be hungry later on?” Dalia asks.

“I doubt it,” I say. I pour us each another glass of wine. “Anyway, if we get hungry later on, I’ll make us some scrambled eggs.”

She smiles and says, “An eight-burner Garland range and we’re making scrambled eggs.”

That statement should be cute and funny. But we both know that nothing can be cute and funny this evening.

“I want to ask you something,” I say.

“Yeah, of course,” she says. She wrinkles her forehead a tiny bit. As if she’s expecting some scary question. I proceed.

“Are you angry that I’m so sad about Maria’s murder?”

Dalia pauses. Then she tilts her head to the side. Her face is now soft, tender, caring.

“Oh, Luc,” she says. “I would only be angry if you were not sad.”

I feel that we should kiss. I think Dalia feels the same way. But I also think something inside each of us is telling us that if we did kiss, no matter how chaste the kiss might be, it would be almost disrespectful to Maria.

We sit silently for a long time. We finish the bottle of Chardonnay.

It turns out that we never were hungry enough to scramble some eggs. All we did was wait for the day to end.

The person responsible for whatever skill I have in speaking decent English-very little French accent, pretty good English vocabulary-is Inspector Nick Elliott. No one has mastered the art of plain speaking better than he has.

“Morning, Pretty Boy. Looks like it’s going to be a shitty day” is a typical example.

This morning Elliott and a woman I’ve never seen before appear at my desk. Looks like I’m about to receive an extra lesson in basic communication skills.

“Moncrief, meet Katherine Burke. You two are going to be partners in the Martinez investigation. I don’t care to discuss it.”

I barely have time to register the woman’s face when he adds, “Good luck. Now get the hell to work.”

“But sir…” I begin.

“Is there a problem?” Elliott asks, clearly anxious to hit the road.

“Well, no, but…”

“Good. Here’s the deal. Katherine Burke is a detective, a New York detective, and has been for almost two years. She knows police procedure better than most people know their own names. She can teach you a lot.”

I go for the end-run charm play.

“And I’ve got a lot to learn,” I say, a big smile on my face.

He doesn’t smile back.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Elliott says as he turns and speaks to Burke. “Moncrief has the instincts of a good detective. He just needs a little spit and polish.”

As he walks away, I look at Katherine Burke. She is not Maria Martinez. So, of course, I immediately hate her.

“Good to meet you,” she says.

“Same here.” We shake, more like a quick touch of the hands.

My new partner and I study each other quietly, closely. We are like a bride and groom in a prearranged marriage meeting for the first time. This “marriage” means a great deal to me-joy, sorrow, and whether or not I can smoke in the squad car.

So what do I see before me? Burke is thirty-two, I’d guess. Face: pretty. No, actually très jolie. Irish; pale; big red lips. A good-looking woman in too-tight khakis. She seems pleasant enough. But I’m not sensing “warm and friendly.”

And what does she see? A guy with an expensive haircut, an expensive suit, and-I think she’s figured out already-a pretty bad attitude.

This does not bode well.

“Listen,” she says. “I know this is tough for you. The inspector told me how much you admired Maria. We can talk about that.”

“No,” I say. “We can forget about that.”

Silence again. Then I speak.

“Look. I apologize. You were trying to be nice, and I was just being…well…”

She fills it in for me: “A rude asshole. It happens to the best of us.”

I smile, and I move a step closer. I read the official ID card that hangs from the cord around her neck. It shows her NYPD number and, in the same size type, her title. These are followed by her name in big bold uppercase lettering:

K. BURKE

“So you want to be called K. Burke?” I ask her as we walk back to the detective room.

“No. Katherine, Katie, or Kathy. Any of those are fine,” she says.

“Then why do you have ‘K. Burke’ printed on your ID?”

“That’s what they put there when they gave me the ID,” she says. “The ID badge wasn’t high on my priority list.”

“K. Burke. I like it. From now on, that’s what I’m going to call you. K. Burke.”

She nods. For a few moments we don’t speak. Then I say, “But I must be honest with you, K. Burke. I don’t think this is going to work out.”

She speaks, still seriously.

“You want to know something, Detective Moncrief?”

“What?”

“I think you’re right.”

And then, for the first time, she smiles.

The lobby of the Auberge du Parc Hotel is somebody’s idea of elegance. But it sure as hell is not mine.

“Pink marble on the walls and the floor and the ceiling. If Barbie owned a brothel it would look like this.” I share this observation with my new partner as I look out the floor-to-ceiling windows that face Park Avenue.

K. Burke either doesn’t get the joke or doesn’t like the joke. No laughter.

“We’re not here to evaluate the decor,” she says. “You know better than I do that Auberge du Parc is right up there with the Plaza and the Carlyle when it comes to expensive hotels for rich people.”

“And it affords a magnificent view of the building where Maria Martinez was killed,” I say as I gesture to the tall windows.

Burke looks out to the corner of 68th Street and Park Avenue. She nods solemnly. “That’s why we’re starting the job here.”

“The job, you will agree, is fairly stupid?” I ask.

“The job is what Inspector Elliott has assigned us, and I’m not about to second-guess the command,” she says.

Elliott wants us to interview prostitutes, streetwalkers, anyone he defines as “high-class lowlife.” Enormously upscale hotels like the Auberge often have a lot of illegal sex stuff going on behind their pink marble walls. But asking the devils to tell us their sins? I don’t think so.

This approach is ridiculous, to my way of thinking. Solutions come mostly by listening for small surprises-and yes, sometimes by looking for a few intelligent pieces of hard evidence. Looking in the unlikely places. Talking to the least likely observers.

Burke’s theory, which is total NYPD style, is way more traditional: “You accumulate the information,” she had said. “You assemble the puzzle piece by piece.”

“Absolutely not,” I replied. “You sink into the case as if it were a warm bath. You sense the situation. You look for the fingerprint of the crime itself.” Then I added, “Here’s what we’ll do: you’ll do it your way. I’ll do it mine.”

“No, not your way or my way,” she had said. “We’ll do it the NYPD way.”

That discussion was a half hour ago. Now I’m really too disgusted and frustrated to say anything else.