Lieutenant George had invited Serrano to work out with him one morning a few years back. After a few years of hitting the bottle a little too hard, Serrano agreed, figuring it was about time to whip himself back into shape. He met the lieutenant at his health club and squeezed into a pair of old swim trunks that had fit better fifteen pounds prior. Ten laps in, Serrano was reasonably sure he was going to die. Twenty laps in, he wished he had died.
And in the locker room, Serrano got to see George in all his glory: he had muscle definition no fiftysomething should possess. He’d slipped on an undershirt and liberally doused himself in Yves Saint Laurent cologne.
Lieutenant George wore that cologne every single goddamn day, and Serrano could smell him coming from down the block. Everything about the man was by the book, but there was a kindness behind the resolve. He’d scored a big payday by working as a technical adviser on one of those cop shows where every detective had impeccable hair and makeup. Serrano regularly worked sixteen-hour shifts, and there wasn’t enough hairspray and pancake makeup in the world to make him look TV ready. George drove a light-blue Chevy Camaro that other officers referred to behind his back as the Smurfmobile. But he was a good cop. Thirty-five years on the force. And Serrano would follow him into battle any day of the week.
Serrano walked up to the double-wide windows and peered out onto Tellyfair Green, a six-acre park outside Bauman Hall currently covered in a thick blanket of snow. Serrano could tell which TV crews were local based on how they dressed. Locals wore heavy knit gloves, thick, chunky scarves, and puffy jackets. The out-of-towners were decked out in Burberry coats and thin gloves that looked good on camera but had the insulation of toilet paper. They were the ones doing laps around their news vans to stay warm while the local reporters waited patiently for the presser to begin.
“This is already a madhouse,” Lieutenant George said. “This investigation is going to be watched very closely. It’s imperative that we keep things in-house. After today, I don’t want anyone talking to the media without my say-so.”
“We can’t help leaks from within the department,” Tally said. “Those news vans at the bridge the other night. Somebody in the department tipped them off.”
George nodded, sighed. “I’ve been dealing with that for twenty years. That’s why the flow of crucial information doesn’t go beyond the three of us.”
“You got it,” Serrano said.
“Constance Wright was a good woman,” Lieutenant George added. “She was a good mayor. The media loves a scandal. But beyond all that tabloid crap, she supported the department and gave us every resource we needed. She had friends on the force.”
“Constance Wright’s family had more enemies than Julius Caesar,” Serrano said. “A lot of powerful people lost a lot of money when the Wright Corporation went belly up.”
“And with Constance’s family either dead or disgraced, the debts passed to her,” Tally said. She looked at Lieutenant George. Her voice trembled with anger, remorse. “Why didn’t we do more? If she had friends on the force, where were we?”
“Beg your pardon?” George said.
“You said it yourself,” Tally replied. “She gave us everything we needed. Always had the department’s back. Did we have hers? Did we ever send a squad car to check on her after the town turned on her? No. And so she slipped through the cracks. We could have caught her, Lieutenant.”
Lieutenant George remained silent but bowed his head.
“Not everyone on the force was such a big fan of Constance Wright,” Serrano said.
“If you can’t keep your personal grudges out of this, Detective,” George said bluntly, “I’m happy to reassign this investigation.”
“You’ll have my best, sir,” Serrano replied. George nodded warily.
Serrano’s phone vibrated. He took it out and checked his email.
“We got Wright’s phone records from Verizon,” he said. He opened up the file and skimmed quickly, looking for the last batch of calls and texts prior to her death.
“Holy crap,” Serrano said.
“What is it?” George said.
“Guess the last two people Constance Wright called before she died.”
They waited. Finally Tally said, “You’re not actually going to make us guess, are you? OK, Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston.”
“Close. Nicholas Drummond and Samuel J. Wickersham.”
“Well, holy shit,” Tally said. “Her ex-husband and the kid she had the affair with? That’s better than my guess. Why in the hell would she be calling them? Drummond, maybe. Ex-husband, there are always issues to go over. Taxes and whatnot. But Wickersham? He ruined her.”
“Guess we’ll have to talk to Misters Drummond and Wickersham,” Serrano said.
Serrano showed Tally the call logs. “Look: both calls were only a couple of seconds long. Which means she either hung up or didn’t leave a message.”
Lieutenant George thumbed his chin, thinking. “Keep this from the press until we know more.”
“I would have believed this was a suicide in a heartbeat,” Tally said. “Her life is ruined, she pulls a J. D. Salinger recluse deal. The pregnancy . . . I still can’t wrap my head around that.”
“If not for that Marin woman,” Serrano said, “we just might have chalked this up to suicide.”
Tally said, “I think that Marin woman just got lucky.”
“Didn’t sound like luck to me,” Serrano replied. “The toenails, the tooth, those could all be chalked up as circumstantial. And she also knew it was Constance Wright before it was released to the public. Hector didn’t pick up on the wind trajectory and rate-of-fall stuff. Neither did Montrose or Beene.”
“She’s a civilian,” Tally said, curtly. “A nobody.”
Lieutenant George interrupted them. “Done chatting? Ready?”
“I think I see Anderson Cooper out there,” Tally said.
“Really?” Serrano said, perking up.
“No.”
“You’re a dick sometimes, Leslie.”
She smiled and took a bow.
Lieutenant George said, “Let’s get this circus started.”
The harsh wind bit into their faces as they opened the doors to Bauman Hall. Lieutenant George walked to the podium, jaw clenched. The severity of the situation was etched on his face. Serrano and Tally flanked George on either side. It was a bright afternoon, no shade. The sun reflected off the snow, making it hard to see the crowd. Serrano held his hands together in front of his stomach. At his first press conference, twelve years ago, Serrano had clasped his hands behind his back. He’d figured it would make him look stoic. Afterward, Lieutenant George had told him he’d looked like he’d needed to take a piss.
So from that day forward: hands folded in front.
They waited as Lieutenant George adjusted the microphone. Serrano had given press conferences before. But not like this. And not for people with the notoriety of Constance Wright. He’d never seen the press corps so quiet. They didn’t want to miss a word.
The wind blew east to west, meaning Serrano inhaled the lieutenant’s pungent cologne with every breath. Even for this, he had to smell like a French brothel.