more than one after-work session at the cop bar near their station so that the captain could offer a toast to someone’s birthday or to celebrate the confirmation, bar mitzvah, or graduation of a colleague’s child. Worse, Sigrid had been horrified to find herself the recipient of a fulsome toast on her own birthday the previous February and had already planned to be on vacation when her next one rolled around.
“That woman needs a hobby,” she had muttered to an amused Sam Hentz.
“Or a husband,” he had murmured back.
“Muffins on me!” Captain Fortesque said, setting two fragrant boxes and a stack of napkins on the conference table in front of one of the squad heads. “Lieutenant Hess became the grandmother of twins Thursday night. A girl and a boy. Amanda and Jackson, right, Lieutenant?”
“Annabelle and Jack, right,” Lieutenant Hess said, beaming proudly as she pulled the first muffin from the box. “Almost seven pounds each.”
As the others murmured congratulations, Hess passed the boxes and napkins on down the table.
“I’ve decided that bran muffins are healthier than our sugary doughnuts,” Fortesque said as the boxes made their way past Sigrid, who took a muffin and set it on the napkin before her. “Most of us could stand to cut back on the calories.” She patted her ample middle. “Not you, of course, Lieutenant Harald. In fact, you really ought to eat two. And start adding cream to your coffee.”
Sigrid forced herself to smile and broke off a piece of the muffin. This was not the first time the captain had implied that she was too skinny. It would be futile to point out to the woman that one of these “healthy” muffins— rich and buttery and thickly studded with walnuts and raisins—probably packed more calories than two or three doughnuts. Instead, having skipped breakfast this morning, she took a second bite and opened her notes.
Saturday night’s homicide put her at the top of the agenda, but did not keep her there. No sooner had she finished reporting the bare facts of Phil Lundigren’s death and what lines her squad were pursuing than Fortesque gave her a beneficent smile, said, “I’m sure you and your squad will do your usual superb job, Lieutenant,” then turned to Narcotics with happy anticipation.
During yesterday’s snowfall, a Nissan sedan with a Florida license plate had crept cautiously up Eighth Avenue. Instead of going with the flow when the green light changed to yellow, the Nissan slammed on its brakes and a cab skidded into its rear end. It was the usual snow-related fender bender with no real damage to either car.
Except that it sprung the lock on the Nissan trunk.
A passing patrol car stopped to assess the situation, whereupon the driver of the Nissan and his passenger tried to flee. One thing led to another, as it so often does. After picking the driver up from the icy pavement where he had slipped and fallen, the officers asked for and received permission to look into the trunk even though it was standing wide open and they could see several clear plastic bags full of fresh green vegetable matter, which as they now knew had been harvested the night before over in a Bensonhurst basement and was then on its way to a packager and distribution point in Morningside Heights.
“Eleven arrests so far and more to come,” Narcotics crowed. “The feds are very happy with us right now.”
Captain Fortesque was moved to tell how aspects of this incident paralleled her own rise through the ranks. “If those two on the beat had driven on past without stopping, that stuff would soon be out on the streets. Good police work makes good opportunities.”
When they were dismissed and Sigrid returned to her own squad room, she was pleased to see progress.
IAFIS had turned up a second shoplifting charge against Antoine Clarke only two years ago, and Vlad Ruzicka had been charged with an assault in what looked like a fistfight with someone in his neighborhood over a leaf- blowing incident last year. He had been fined and put on unsupervised probation. The others seemed to be as law- abiding as they claimed.
Detective Tildon was already engrossed with cross-matching the guest lists. “I’ve eliminated eight names that left before nine o’clock and four that didn’t get there till after ten,” he said, a satisfied smile on his round face. “Another bunch claim not to have left 6-C from the time they arrived till after the body was discovered, and they can cite friends to back them up.”
Although a husband and father first, Tillie loved the details and minutiae of police work, especially if they could be reduced to a list or a simple diagram. As a schoolboy, his orderly soul had found joy in diagramming compound- complex sentences or in working out complicated quadratic equations. Merging the many partial lists that the officers had collected from Luna DiSimone’s guests was a real treat for him.
Yanitelli had made rough IDs for several of the fingerprints. “I’ve matched prints from the toilet seat with the first guy who said he went in. His and Mrs. Lundigren’s were the only prints in that front bathroom. Nothing but smudges in the master bath. Our Brit, the guy with the blue Mohawk? He left one clear thumbprint on the lower outer corner of the medicine cabinet mirror and a corresponding index print on the inside corner, so he probably had a look-see at the contents. Maybe after prescription drugs?”
“Or an antacid,” Hentz said pessimistically as he took off his tailored charcoal jacket and hung it on the back of his chair. “He did imply that he was there longer than normal because he wasn’t feeling well. What about the French doors?”
“Nothing usable from them, but we found Lundigren’s on that wooden cat. They overlapped his wife’s prints.”
“That tallies with what the wife told us,” Sigrid said. “She admits taking the cat from DiSimone’s apartment and that she let Lundigren believe it came from 6-A. According to her, he went up that night not to check on the noisy party, but to return that cat.” She glanced over at Tillie. “Does anyone mention seeing the super go into 6-A?”
“Not that I can see.”
“Lieutenant?” Elaine Albee had her hand over the mouthpiece of her desk phone. “Mrs. Wall on two.”
Sigrid picked up the nearest phone. “Mrs. Wall? Lieutenant Harald here.”
“I’m sorry to bother you, Lieutenant. I have emailed you the name of the elevator man that we let go—the one that Antoine Clarke replaced—but I thought perhaps I should speak to you personally.”
“Yes?”
