NYPD Red 2(15)

I let her go, turned, and reached for the lock. And then someone on the other side kicked the door. Not knocked. Kicked. Hard.

“Just a minute!” I yelled, and waited for Cheryl to scramble back to her desk and button up.

I opened the door. It was Matt Smith.

“Zach, how are you, mate?” he said. “I didn’t know you’d be here, or I’d have brought you a coffee.”

A true New Yorker would have said kaw-fee, but Matt is a British import, so it came out kah-fee.

He had a Starbucks cup in each hand, which was why he’d kicked at the door instead of just opening it and walking in.

“I thought you could use a bit of a bracer,” Matt said, setting one on Cheryl’s desk. “Soy latte with an extra shot of espresso—right?”

Her eyes lit up. “Thank you, Matt. You didn’t have to do that.”

“My pleasure. And thank you for that book. I read it over the weekend. Quite the eye-opener. I have a few questions, but they can wait. You two look busy. Zach, I heard you’re on the Hazmat case. I ran a trace on the latest video he posted and came up empty, but I hope you’ll still be needing a tech-head.”

Matt is an übergeek who could probably hack the Pentagon if we asked him. He’s smart, analytical, and fun to work with. Hands down, he’s our best IT guy. There’s only one small problem. He doesn’t look like a nerd. In fact, he looks more like David Beckham than Bill Gates, and right now that was annoying the hell out of me.

“Oh, I’ll definitely be calling you,” I said.

“Super,” he said, and broke into a wide, perfect smile that totally contradicted everything I’d ever heard about shoddy British dental practices.

He left the room and started to close the door behind him.

“Leave it open,” Cheryl said. “Zach and I could use a little air in here.”

“I guess this means we’re not going to pick up where we left off?” I said as soon as Smith was out of earshot.

“I don’t know what happened,” she said, “but now that I’ve had a minute to think, I remembered that this is a police station.”

“So? It’s not like we were going to commit a crime.”

“Get a grip, cowboy,” she said. “We’ll finish this after hours, and I promise you it will be worth the wait.”

I had no doubt that it would.

Like I said, God bless Fred Robinson.





Chapter 15



The furniture in Cheryl’s office was too well designed and too comfortable to be department issue. She had decorated at her own expense, picking fabrics and colors that struck a nice balance between her professional and feminine sides. Her degrees were on the wall, but there were no personal photos. She was, after all, a shrink.

“Have a seat, Detective,” she said, sitting down behind the glass-topped table that was her desk.

I sat across from her in a guest chair that was covered in peach fabric.

“So, you and Kylie picked up the Hazmat case,” she said, all business.

“His latest victim is Evelyn Parker-Steele,” I said.

“I know. I saw the video. That poor woman. How can I help?”

“The case files on the first three victims are pretty slim. Kylie and I still have to go through them. But there was a fourth file—a profile of the killer. I wanted you to take a look at it.”

I put the file on her desk.

She looked at it, but instead of picking it up, she slipped the lid off the latte and took a small sip. “Who’s the profiler who pulled this together?”

“His name is Donald Li.”

“I don’t know him,” she said.

“I doubt if he’s in your league. He’s a detective with the Chinatown precinct. He has a master’s in social work.”

She slid the file back to my side of the desk. “I’m happy to help, but I’m not going to look at this. Just let me see what you’ve got on the victims, and I’ll give you a fresh take.”

“That’s what I planned to do,” I said. “Maybe I came over a little too soon, but I just wanted to get you in the loop.”

“I think you just wanted to get me on that sofa,” she said, and took another sip.

“Yeah, that too,” I said. “I haven’t seen you in four days, and I needed an excuse to stop by your office. This file was a lame idea. I’d have been better off bringing you coffee. Soy latte with an extra shot of espresso—I didn’t know that was your drug of choice.”

“That’s because when I see you at night, I prefer Chardonnay, but the department frowns on that during the day.”

“And Matt Smith knows what you drink?” I said.