“Most cops have thoughts like that,” Cates said. “They don’t act on it. If one bad guy gets away, they suck it up, go back out, and catch another.”
“These killers don’t think like that,” Cheryl said. “They exhibit a brash level of confidence by leaving the body on public display. It’s high risk, but they want the people of New York to know what they’re doing. And then once they have our attention, they release the video. That to me is the key to their persona. The videos tell me that the killing is not their main goal.”
“And what is their goal?”
“The confessions. Every video is telling John Q. Public that even though the police are smart enough to track down the murderers, the justice system will fail you and send them back on the street.”
Cheryl stopped and took a deep breath. The more impassioned she had become, the louder she had gotten. “Captain,” she said, lowering her voice and dialing down her excitement, “I hope for the sake of the department that these men are just a couple of impostors flashing a fake badge, but the more I think about it, the more I think they’re the real deal. These men are not just killing people; they’re making a statement. ‘This due process shit doesn’t work. It doesn’t always punish the guilty. We do.’”
Chapter 43
It was 8:30 by the time Cheryl and I got out of the office. I hailed a cab and told the driver to take us to 92nd and Madison.
“Where are we going to dinner?” she said.
“Paola’s. Great Italian food,” I said. And hopefully I’ll be so busy eating, I won’t have time to put my foot in my mouth like I did at breakfast.
The cabbie caught a light at 72nd, and Cheryl grabbed me and kissed me hard. “I’ve been wanting to do that all night,” she said.
“I’ve been wanting to do that and a whole lot more,” I said. “All night, and all this past weekend. So if you want to bail on the restaurant—”
“Sorry, I’m starved,” she said, snuggling up against me. “How about you?”
“Kylie and I had lunch in Chinatown at one, so I’ve been hungry since two. Where did you have lunch?”
“Do you mean who did I have lunch with?”
“Damn. Was I that obvious?”
“Zach, I’m a shrink, for God’s sake. You were like a neon sign.”
“Did I ever tell you how annoying it is to date a woman who gets inside people’s heads for a living?” I said.
“No, did I ever tell you how annoying it is to date a man who interrogates people for a living?”
Paola Bottero is not one of those larger-than-life chefs you see on reality TV. She’s more of a quiet legend who has been feeding finicky New Yorkers for three decades. Her son Stefano welcomed me at the door. “Signor Jordan, buona sera.”
“You’ve been here before?” Cheryl said as Stefano escorted us to a table.
“It’s my go-to place for dinner whenever I act like an asshole at breakfast.”
“Ahh…so you’ve been here often.”
Paola’s is a big, bustling, wide-open square room, and despite the soft lighting, it’s a place where everybody sees everybody, and several people stole a glance at us as we walked by. I doubted they were looking at me.
Cheryl and I made a deal. We’d keep the chitchat light. No mind games till dessert. So I talked about my day, and she talked about the one thing we couldn’t discuss when we were in Cates’s office.
Cates.
“She’s quite a role model,” Cheryl said. “A strong woman of color who made her bones in a department that’s dominated by white males. And for a cop who hates politics, she’s figured out how to work the system. She’d make a better mayor than the one we have now, or the one who’s running against him.”
I ordered a bottle of Brunello di Montalcino and drank most of it. Then I ordered another glass. And when dinner was over, another.
“Are you taking the edge off because you had a rough day,” Cheryl asked, “or are you fortifying yourself for our little talk?”
I sipped the wine, trying not to swill it down in one gulp. “I’ve never been great at relationship conversations.”
“I’m fantastic at them,” she said. “Unless the relationship is one of my own. Then I’m as bad as everyone else. So if you want to hold off, fine. Denial is the cornerstone of many relationships.”
She rested her chin on one hand, drilled those dark brown Spanish eyes into mine, and waited. Part shrink, part devil, all hypnotic. God, she was good at this shit. First she let me off the hook, and then she baited it again.