Page 87 of Stay Awake
“I joined the NYPD,” answered Halliday, hoping that would end that line of discussion. She was loath to talk about the dark days she’d experienced when she was first discharged. Regret mixed with relief was a potent combination. There was guilt, too, at leaving behind local translators and assets whose lives would always be at risk if the Taliban ever so much as suspected they’d helped the US military.
Halliday had fought hard for one of her informants in particular to be moved stateside. He was Emad, a medical student whose brother was in the Taliban. Emad had risked his life to bring her valuable intel on plans to bomb a humanitarian convoy. Her efforts to get Emad out had come to nothing other than her being ordered to redeploy two weeks ahead of schedule. It had taken a long time for her to come to terms with her abrupt departure from Afghanistan, leaving Emad and others in the lurch without being able to tell them that she’d failed them. For a while, the guilt had eaten into her so deep that it had almost overwhelmed her.
“Being a cop gave me purpose. It’s the ones who can’t find a purpose that get into trouble.”
Halliday quickly changed the subject. “I’ll let you in on a secret. I’m a little afraid of you, Jack,” she joked. “In fact, I think most of the detectives at the precinct feel the same way.”
“You don’t strike me as the kind of person who’s afraid of anything.”
“Okay. Let’s say I’m intimidated by you, not afraid,” she clarified. “You have the highest solve rate of any detective in the city. You prefer to work alone. You turn down promotions routinely. It’s considered a monumental feat to get you to attend Thursday night drinks.”
“I signed up to be a homicide detective. Not a pencil pusher with a fancy title, even if they do get more money. As for the rest, I’m picky when it comes to partners. Eventually, the captain gave up and allowed me to work alone.”
“You didn’t answer my question about drinks night.”
“My son sleeps over most Thursday nights. I get little enough time with him as it is.” Lavelle turned on the car radio.
They listened in silence as Alicia Keys sang about dreams being made in concrete jungles to the faint orchestra of clattering pots and pans and cutlery scraping against plates drifting down from apartments along the street. Halliday felt a stab of hunger. Dinner, she told herself, would have to wait until later.
“I’m betting Al’s not coming back,” she said.
“That’s the rumor.”
“The precinct rumor mill is more accurate than the evening news,” Halliday observed. “I’m guessing the captain partnered us up on this case because he wants you to vet me?”
“The captain wants to know how you think, and most importantly how you act under pressure. He also wants to know if you’re a team player. Al’s a great detective. His will be big shoes to fill.”
“What are you going to tell the captain about me?” Halliday asked.
“It’s too early to say, although so far I’m impressed.”
“Even though we disagree over whether Liv Reese should be our prime suspect in this case?”
“Especially because we disagree,” he said. “I prefer to work with people who aren’t afraid to speak up. There are too many people who self-censor because they’re afraid they’ll rile people up or say something that goes against the consensus. I’m not like that. I value open, well-reasoned debate. I think it makes us better detectives.”
Farther down the street, a man arriving home from work pushed a garbage can to the curb. Lavelle watched him with rapt attention.
“Look at both sides of the street,” he told Halliday. “What does it tell you?”
Halliday looked around. Cans lined the curbs on both sides of the street.
“Tomorrow must be trash day.”
“Now ask yourself, what were the two things missing from the Ted Cole murder scene?” Lavelle asked.
“The murder weapon and… Liv Reese.”
“Exactly,” said Lavelle. “Rosco messaged me while we were heading over here to say the search team still hasn’t found the murder weapon near the crime scene. It occurs to me there’s a possibility that Liv Reese might have tossed the weapon when she was here early this morning. The garbage cans along this street are going to be collected first thing tomorrow morning. I’d feel a heck of a lot better if I knew what was in them.”
“You want to search every can on the street?”
“Not the whole street. But I sure would like to poke about in the trash over there.” Lavelle pointed to a row of cans near the entrance to Liv Reese’s old building.
He unclipped his seat belt. “Come on, Detective,” he said, swinging open his car door. “It’ll be fun. This is the glamorous part of detective work they don’t show on TV.”
Chapter
Forty-Nine
