Dawn Stewardson - The Man Behind The Badge

He grinned. “Yeah, well, guess we’d better send a uniform to the sister’s and let her know what’s happened. Give me that number and I’ll get an address to go with it.”

As Hank took his cell phone from his pocket, Travis handed him the card. Then he walked over to one of the techs and asked if they’d come across an address book.

“Uh-huh. There’s one in the end table.”

“Good. If it hasn’t already been checked for prints would you mind doing that right away? I’d like to take it with me. And there’s got to be an appointment book in the office. Same thing with it. Oh, and if there’s a Rolodex, it, too.”

“Sure.”

“Thanks.”

He’d have to call Parker’s Monday appointments and cancel them, then get one of the support staff to do the same for the rest of the week.

The apartment would remain a restricted crime scene until they were sure they had everything they needed. And he didn’t want any patients showing up, expecting a session, and finding yellow tape and an officer outside the door.

After glancing around the room and seeing nothing else that grabbed his attention, he headed back across to the coffee table and picked up the photo envelope. The label on it was dated a year ago; the snapshots looked as if they were from a family gathering of some sort.

On the back of each picture, in the same neat printing as on the next-of-kin card, were the names of the people in the shot.

There were three of Parker with the same older woman. Printed on them was “Me and Mom.”

After flipping past a few more pictures, Travis paused at one of “Mom” standing beside a much younger woman—an attractive blonde.

“Not bad,” Hank commented, finishing his call and sticking the phone back in his pocket. “But her hair’s too short.”

Travis turned the photo over. It bore the words “Mom and Celeste.”

“The sister,” he said, just as the officer outside the door opened it and called, “Detectives?”

“Yeah?” Hank said.

“Got a minute?”

Through the doorway, Travis could see a second uniform in the hallway—clearly dying to tell them something.

“There’s a guy who’s been staying with a friend in 501,” he began before they’d even stepped out of the apartment. “He came home around ten last night. And when he got off the elevator a woman was in the hall here, hurrying for the stairs. He’d never seen her before, but like I said, he’s only a visitor.”

Travis glanced toward the staircase at the end of the hallway. Few people on the fifth floor of a building would choose the stairs over an elevator. Not unless they were trying to avoid being seen.

“Did your guy have any idea which apartment she’d come from?” Hank was asking.

“No.”

“Would you mind checking that out for us?” Travis said. “See if anyone on this floor had a female visitor last night. And if they did, get an ID and ask what time she left.”

“Sure. But I already know nobody’s home in a few of these apartments.”

“Well, get answers where you can. And if nobody on five can tell you who she was, we’ll want to ask all the occupants about her. How good a description do you have?”

“Not very. The guy only saw her from the back. But he figured she was in her twenties or thirties and...” The officer checked his notebook. “She looked ‘stylish.’ I don’t know how he could tell that from the back, but it’s what he said. She was average height, with short blond hair, and was wearing a gray trench coat. Had a big black purse slung over her shoulder. Or it might have been a briefcase with a strap. He wasn’t sure.”

Travis barely registered the last sentence. His mind had caught on the “short blond hair.” He turned to Hank, reading his own thoughts in his partner’s eyes.

There were probably half a million young women with short blond hair in New York City. Even so, instead of sending a uniform to notify the sister they’d go themselves.

* * *

CELESTE REREAD THE SENTENCE a third time. There was something decidedly awkward about it, but she couldn’t quite figure out how to fix it. Finally, she gave up and set her pencil down on top of the manuscript.

She just hadn’t been working up to speed lately—a serious problem when publishers always wanted a fast turnaround. However, past nine-thirty at night was definitely time to give up.

After switching off the desk lamp, she wandered from the spare bedroom she used as her office to the living room and stood staring down at the street, wondering how long it would be until she began to feel human once more.

Months yet, her friends had warned her. Probably a year before she was her old self again. She’d been close to her mother, so she couldn’t expect to just bounce right back to normal.

Aunt Nancy had even suggested grief counseling, but that simply wasn’t her. She’d always coped with her problems on her own.

Telling herself that things could only get better, she absently watched a black Mustang pull up in the No Standing zone outside her building’s entrance.

The two men who climbed out were both tall, dark...and, yes, she’d give both of them handsome, too. They were somewhere in their thirties, and the driver put her in mind of Alec Baldwin.

That thought had barely formed before she recalled how annoyed her estranged husband used to get when she’d say that someone reminded her of a movie star. Bryce had always told her comparisons like that were stupid.

Of course, he’d thought a lot of things she did were stupid. Particularly toward the end.

As she looked down at the street again, to where the two men stood talking in front of the car, Snoops leaped onto the window seat and arched his back, demanding attention.

When she picked the cat up and cuddled him, he nuzzled his cold nose against her neck—his version of a kiss.

“Thanks, little guy,” she murmured. “I needed that.”

* * *

TRAVIS AND HANK had almost reached the stairs of the stately old brownstone when Travis decided the element of surprise would be a good idea. If they could simply knock on Celeste Langley’s door, without giving her any advance warning...

“Let’s wait outside a few minutes,” he suggested. “See if we can get in without pressing her buzzer.”

“Exactly what I was thinking,” Hank said.

That was hardly a news flash. Hank was three years older than Travis and had been in Homicide longer. But they’d been partners for long enough that they generally thought alike—which was exactly what they’d been doing tonight.

During the drive over from Parker’s apartment, they’d agreed there wasn’t much chance his sister was their killer. Aside from anything else, they never caught the cases that were easily solved.

And even if Langley had been visiting her brother last night, it hardly proved she was a murderer. Parker could well have been alive when she left.

Still, you never knew what the element of surprise would produce.

“I’d say we just got lucky,” Hank said as a teenager came along and started up the steps with keys in his hand.

“Excuse me?” Travis said. “NYPD detectives,” he added, showing his badge when the kid turned toward them. “You mind letting us in?”

“I...” He glanced nervously at the gold shield, then shrugged. “Yeah, I guess.”

They took the stairs and headed along the hall to 304, Travis not looking forward to what lay ahead. Informing the next of kin was never a fun job, so they took turns with the ones they did themselves. And this one belonged to him.

Hank knocked on the door, then held his badge up toward the peephole when they heard a faint noise from inside. “Police detectives, Ms. Langley.”

“How did you get in?”