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."
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."
I watched her eyes go. That's something you never get used to. Watching someone standing right in front of you disappear. Recede into themselves.
Then she stumbled back away from the door, her legs dancing side to side like a center fielder trying to get under a fly ball. Finally she dropped to her knees.
"No!" Brooke Thayer screamed.
I found myself on my knees with her in the dark foyer, my hand – my evil, betraying, foul hand – rubbing her thin back as she screamed louder and louder.
"NOOO! NOOO! NOOO!"
"I know," I whispered in her ear. "I know."
"YOU DON'T KNOW SHIT!" she screamed in my face, clawing me away from her. I reared back, covering myself. One of her long nails had raked a red line diagonally across my forehead. Then she collapsed sideways to the floor.
"You don't knoooow!" she cried into the hardwood floor. "You don't know! You don't!"
MIKE LIFTED BROOKE THAYER UP and put her on the couch in the family room. After I closed the front door, I spotted a blonde girl in pink Disney Three Princesses pajamas. She was staring down at me from the top of the stairs.
"Hey, sweetheart," I said. "Your mommy is going to be all right. My name's Lauren."
The adorable little girl said nothing. She just continued to stare at me with her big blue eyes.
"Maybe you should go back to sleep, honey," I said, taking a step up the stairs toward her.
She screamed then. In a pitch so high and violent, I had to avert my face and cup my ears.
Brooke shot past me up the stairs, the siren quitting immediately as the girl was scooped up into her mother's arms.
I stood there as the mother and daughter rocked back and forth. On a side table in the living room, I spotted a picture of Scott in his uniform. He had his arm around a pregnant Brooke. It looked like it was taken in a park somewhere. The sun was shining brilliantly.
When Brooke and her daughter started keening at the same pitch, I suddenly thought about the gun in my bag. I visualized it. The way its steel shone like chrome under the light. Its almost feminine curves. I imagined the cold of its barrel placed against my temple, the feel of its hair trigger on the second joint inside my right index finger.
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