“Two minutes later we ran into the snag,” Bell said. “Our sergeant called us in. Some mope snatched a purse from a woman in the park. A couple of uniforms could have handled it, but the victim was a British nanny who works for a diplomat’s family, so now it was all hands on deck, and we got pulled in to canvass the area. We were caught up in it for four hours, and we didn’t get back to Donovan and Boyle again till one o’clock.”
“They were having lunch at the Big Wong King on Mott Street,” Casey said. “After that, they answered a robbery call at an optical store on Franklin, and then they got called to the Pu Chao Buddhist Temple on Eldridge.”
“We didn’t pick up on the radio what they were called in for, but they only stayed twenty minutes, so we figured it was no major crime,” Bell said. “Maybe just somebody disturbing the enlightenment.”
Kylie and I laughed. These guys were light-years more fun to work with than Donovan and Boyle.
Casey flipped through pictures of the restaurant, the optical store, and the Buddhist temple in a hurry.
“All those places are in the Five,” Kylie said. “So basically they stayed close to their own precinct.”
“Until around three this afternoon,” Casey said. “Then they drove uptown to a storefront on East Fifty-Fifth Street.”
He flipped to the next picture.
“Holy shit,” Kylie said. “That’s Muriel Sykes’s campaign headquarters.”
“Do you know if Sykes was there at the same time?” I asked.
Casey scrolled to the next shot. It was the three of them—Donovan, Boyle, and Sykes—walking out of the campaign office together.
“We have no idea what they talked about because we couldn’t get close enough to hear anything, but whatever it was, they were in there with her for over an hour.”
“If that’s the good news,” I said, “I can’t wait to hear the great news.”
Casey grinned and flipped to another picture on his iPhone. It was a pretty young woman with curly red hair. “She’s the nanny whose purse got snatched. She gave me her phone number. Wants me to call on her day off.”
I took the phone out of his hand and flipped back to the shot of Donovan, Boyle, and Sykes. “As impressed as Kylie and I are at your ability to hit on crime victims, we’re even happier about this.”
“It’s a big help,” Kylie said.
“We were hoping you’d say that,” Bell said, “but we don’t know enough about the case to understand why.”
“Because the two cops who could be the Hazmat Killer are in cahoots with the politician who will most benefit if the murders aren’t solved,” I said.
“And I bet the reason Donovan and Boyle showed up to pick our brain last night is because they’re reporting everything we know to Sykes,” Kylie said.
“So they’re like double agents,” Bell said.
“You’re being generous,” Kylie said. “They’re more like dirty cops. Zach is right. You guys did some great work in a big hurry. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Casey said, “but it goes both ways. We appreciate getting a shot to work with Red, so thank you, Detective Jordan. And thank you, Detective MacDonald.”
“Hey—we’re having beers and breaking bread here,” Kylie said. “You don’t have to be so formal. Call me Kylie. And he’s Zach.”
“Kylie and Zach it is,” Casey said. “I’m Dave.”
Bell raised his beer and toasted us. “And I’m Gideon.”
Part Three
La famiglia fornirà giustizia
Chapter 71
Friday started way too early. My cell phone rang at 3:02 a.m. I fumbled for it and focused on the name of the caller, glowing at me in the dark.
Delia Cates.
In my stupor, I could come up with only one reason my boss would call in the middle of the night. She’d found out that Kylie and I were playing fast and loose with the chain of command, and she couldn’t wait till morning to get me started on my new assignment writing tickets to unlicensed street vendors in Jackson Heights.
I pressed the green button on my phone and mumbled something that sounded like “This is Jordan.”
“The Rachael O’Keefe case just blew through the roof,” Cates said. “I need you and MacDonald at Gracie Mansion in twenty minutes.”
And just like that, I was wide awake. “What’s going on with O’Keefe?” I said.
“I’ll tell you when you get here. Call your partner. Repeat—Gracie Mansion. Twenty minutes. You got it?”
“Yeah, I got—”