‘It’s not a quirk.’
‘It is a quirk, Tom. You’re sitting in someone else’s living room with a bunch of other folk saying nothing and speaking to Mr Invisible. That’s a mighty big quirk. Might be the biggest of them all.’
Tom smiled at his buddy. ‘It’s good to see you, Eddie.’
‘That’s better, man. Now give me some chest hair.’ Eddie wrapped his arms round Harper and pressed his body in tight. ‘God, I’ve missed you, man.’
Harper pushed him away. ‘Enough.’
‘I’m an emotional man, Harps, I don’t have to hide it. I love you, brother. Look at you. Can I say something?’
‘What?’
‘You look like shit. Don’t you eat? Sleep? Wash? Fuck, man, you can’t short cut the basics.’
‘How did you know I was here?’
‘You been here a few times since, you know, since she walked out. I look out for you, watch your back. I was worried.’
‘Following me?’
‘Not so much following. I see it as guarding and protecting. You need a guardian angel, Harps.’
‘If you’re my angel, then I’m in real trouble, so how about you shut up and let me sort this out with the man upstairs.’
‘Don’t be asking for a replacement, Harps. I’ll sit nice and tight here, quiet as you like.’
They paused. Eddie looked all around him. The silence lasted four seconds. ‘Harps, there ain’t no hot chicks in here. You should go gospel. I’m telling you, I nearly went evangelical myself when I saw what they got stashed in them Harlem churches. Harlem Gold. I’m telling you!’
Harper laughed. ‘Enough, Eddie. They can hear you.’
‘Come and talk to me outside or else I will not shut my mouth and I make that pledge in the eyes of Mr Invisible.’
Harper was getting several looks from other people in the cathedral. He stood up and took Eddie outside. Out on the sidewalk, Eddie breathed a huge sigh. ‘Good God, Tom, that was hard for me, being so quiet.’
‘You weren’t.’
‘Yeah, but even the notion that I might be expected to be silent freaked me out. That’s why I could never get school either. I’ve got to talk to know what’s what.’
The two men looked at each other a moment, taking in the separation of the past few months. Eddie’s tone lowered. ‘You know my feelings, Tom. I’m sorry about Lisa.’
‘Thanks. I mean it.’
‘No problem. I tried to talk to her. She wouldn’t see me.’
‘It helped to know you tried.’
‘Her loss.’
‘I’m moving on, you know. Lafayette tell you?’
‘Yeah, but he also tells me you looked over the scene at Ward’s Island. And I know Tom Harper… that’s not going to leave you alone. I bet it’s sitting in your fat head just driving you mad.’
‘That’s just about right. These are bad kills. Did Lafayette put you on Blue Team?’
‘Sure.’
‘Is it as loose as it looks?’
‘Yeah, it is, and you were right about the Ward’s Island girl. Another rich girl who won’t get a chance to spend her inheritance. Her name’s Grace Frazer. She was knocked to the floor next to her car in the city, then somehow dragged off the street and taken to Ward’s. You were right about the camera too. They found tripod marks in the grass above the rocks.’
Harper suddenly clocked a look in Kasper’s eye. ‘Aw shit, Eddie. Lafayette sent you, didn’t he?’
‘No, Tom, it’s worse than that.’ Eddie’s face was stone cold.
‘What?’
‘I just got called in. They found another body down in a parking lot right in the heart of the city.’
‘Another body already?’
‘I wanted to see if you’d ride with me. We need you, Harps. We really need you.’
‘Two corpses in two days,’ said Harper. He glanced back to the cathedral. Life, death and the afterlife all in a moment. ‘Lafayette wants me to see a shrink.’
‘Sounds like you need to, speaking to invisible people and forgetting to wash. You’re just like those Ward’s Island psychos I’ve been interviewing all day.’ He paused and looked at Harper. ‘Come on, Tom, let’s do what you do best.’
‘What’s that?’
‘End horror stories.’
Chapter Eight
Upper East Side Crime Scene
November 16, 6.45 p.m.
Tom Harper and Eddie Kasper drove in silence from the cathedral into the wealth and privilege of the Upper East Side. Harper looked up at the darkening sky between the towering buildings. His greatest memory was lying beside Lisa on the side of a razor-edged ridge with a view of the stars, watching the flocks of migrating raptors in the dark. Some things were still magical in the world; it was just getting harder and harder to find them.
The rain clouds had gathered by the time they turned on to East 82nd Street. The two detectives felt the strain of the news as the car lurched through the pull and push of rush hour traffic. Finding a third dead girl so soon was highly unusual, even with the worst of killers. Harper wasn’t sure what they were dealing with. He felt his own ignorance and chastised himself for not taking up Lafayette’s offer the day before. Up ahead, they saw the familiar parade of police cars beating out a frenzy of red and blue lights.
As Eddie pulled up to the kerb, Harper took a quick look at his cell phone. No messages — there never were any more. He closed his eyes momentarily. Life must go on.
They jumped out on to the street. It was a buzz of activity at the scene and the first officers had managed to close off both ends of East 82nd. The Crime Scene Unit had secured the area with blue screens and put up six strong floodlights that filled the air with an unreal glow and caused steam to rise from the damp sidewalk.
Harper and Kasper found the entrance to the car park and hurried down to the underground lot. Their footsteps echoed against the bare concrete walls and they could hear the low murmurings of the cops from two levels below.
Just beyond the entrance, Harper’s eyes scanned left and right, up and down. He noticed that the parking lot had limited exit points, maximum exposure, valet parking and cameras at every corner, making it a very visible and difficult spot to escape from. This killer wasn’t afraid to choose a high-risk location. Except with crimes of passion and anger, which could happen wherever those emotions exploded, such openness was highly unusual.
‘If this is the same killer he’s changing quickly,’ he said to Kasper as they moved down through the dark underground lot. ‘This is a far cry from the lonely waters of Ward’s Island.’
‘Well, we’re about to find out.’ Eddie pointed towards the rest of Blue Team gathered around a metal railing at the far end of Level 2.
Nate Williamson and Detective Mark Garcia were standing apart from the others, talking closely. Williamson was big and strong, but his hair had mostly left him; Mark Garcia was handsome and well dressed, and smelt of cologne. Together they looked like a veteran cop with a pimp informer. Harper walked across. He and Williamson had some history. Harper was given the lead on the Romario case after Williamson had got nowhere with it.
‘How’s it going?’ Harper asked. ‘What’s the situation down here?’
‘Fuck me, what’s brought you back from the dead?’ said Williamson. ‘Jarvis dropped his charge or what?’
Harper shrugged. ‘Don’t know about that. I’ve just been asked to take a look. See if I can help out.’
‘Well, we need all the help we can get,’ said Williamson, and put out his hand.
