“We’re in Alphabet City. The vic’s apartment. I can be there in twenty if you can get uniform from the precinct here to secure the apartment. Hold tight, Loo, okay? I’ll check.”
Mike leaned over the sink and looked out the window, up and down the street. “Coop, you want to go out and give a yell to the cops in the patrol car?”
“Sure.”
“She’ll sit with the guys till Crime Scene gets here. It’s not a big job. I just want them to photograph the place and do a routine check.”
“Don’t even think about parking me here. Wherever you’re going, I’m with you,” I said, opening the door to summon the officers while Mike gathered the papers and books he wanted to bring along. “It’s Naomi, isn’t it?”
“Suit yourself,” he said as he nodded to me.
When I returned to take a last look around the small apartment, Mike was on the phone again, his back to the sink. I passed by him and he took a firm grasp of my forearm, stopping me in place until he finished his conversation.
We were face-to-face as he flipped his cell closed with his free hand. “You don’t have to prove anything to me by coming along, Coop.”
“What would ever make you think that was my purpose?” I said, raising my right hand to shield my eyes from the glare of the late-afternoon sun that streamed in over Mike’s shoulder, while trying to wriggle free from his grip. “It’s ridiculous. What’s eating at you today?”
I didn’t mean to sound as arch and strident as I did with just those few words.
“Easy, girl. I know you’ve got balls as big as any guy in the squad, and I know you can outthink me from here to the moon, but you don’t belong on the streets with all the garbage we’re used to chasing after and corralling. You should be in the courtroom, Coop—”
“Battaglia threw me out of the trial I was handling,” I said, confused by the tender tone of Mike’s voice. The sentiment was familiar, but he was softer and calm, not baiting me as he always did in front of the cops. “I told you that.”
“Then sit behind your desk and write a brief, for Chrissakes. Analyze the latest Court of Appeals decisions. Break some defense attorney’s chops.”
“What is it you don’t want me to see today?”
“It’s gonna get to you, kid. It gets to every one of us sooner or later. The street has a way of settling in your gut like a malignancy, small at first, then spreading till it infiltrates every pore in your body. It’s not just about today. Not just this case.”
He let go and I thought for a second that he was going to touch my face, cup my chin between his fingers. “I understand that, Mike. I’ve seen my friends, our friends—”
“But you think you’re different, is that it?”
“Not for a minute. There’s nobody here but us, you know? You don’t have to make me the butt of your jokes. Take out your frustration on something else.”
“Trust me, Coop. I’m not frustrated. You’d be the last to know about that.” He turned away from me and opened the faucet, splashing some cold water on his face. The moment had passed and now the edge was back in his voice. “You’ve got some kryptonite coating that protects all this shit from creeping into your soul and your brain and that underutilized thing you call your heart? You think you’re immune from it?”
“Not in the least. You asked for my help last night. I started out with you because you thought I had something to give you.”
“My mistake,” he said, wiping his face with a piece of paper towel. “I didn’t guess I’d be dragging you into what came next.”
I wanted to reach up and straighten the lock of hair that had lodged itself below his shirt collar at the nape of his neck, but when he stood, it fell into place. The line between my annoyance at his sniping and the affection that had grown for years was pencil-thin. “I might surprise you, Mike. Maybe I can help with the bigger picture.”
“Then saddle up, Coop. Let’s see if you can cross-examine a severed head.”
FOURTEEN
MIKE’S estimate of how long it would take us to get uptown was off by half an hour. The circuitous route from the narrow one-way streets of lower Manhattan, up the