Moran watched as she turned her head left and right, as if seeing the city for the first time—or was it for the last time? The cold, disquieting, unwanted thought seeped into Moran’s mind.
Sandra slid her hand into his while he led her across the street. The thick black hair she had lost during the heavy dosages of chemotherapy was starting to grow back, and she reminded Moran of Tinkerbell—his Tinkerbell. Although Sandra made an effort to look cheery, he knew she was spent. The cancer and the chemo had taken their toll.
Moran squeezed her hand and smiled reassuringly at her when she looked up at him. Their eyes said it all—words were inadequate. A little over a year ago, along with a recipe for chicken with rice from her Sephardic Jewish roots, she had brought joy to the marriage. It saddened him to see her once twinkling, warm brown eyes dimmed by an inner sadness.
“I was thinking about returning to CCNY or maybe writing another book,” Sandra said quietly. “I spoke to the chairman of the department, and he said I could have my position back teaching night classes three times a week.”
Moran put his arm around her shoulders and drew her close. “I know you’re anxious to get back to what you do best, but I’m not comfortable with night school in that neighborhood. Writing a book sounds good.”
Sandra gazed up at her husband. “You wouldn’t be the hero,” she said, and he could hear the smile in her voice.
Moran laughed. “Who cares, I sleep with the writer.” He squeezed her shoulders.
When they reached the corner of Park Avenue, the traffic light changed to red. Moran wrinkled his face and stretched his right leg. The knee was letting him know it needed to rest.
“You’re hurting, let’s get a cab,” Sandra said.
Moran straightened and gave a dismissive wave. “Not on your life.”
While they waited to cross, Moran’s cell phone chimed. “Yeah, Frank, what is it?”
“Okay,” he said after a long moment. “I’ll be there just as soon as I drop Sandra off.” He hung up then turned to his wife. “We’ve got a floater in the East River. Commissioner Newbury’s there now.”
The sky, like Moran’s mood, had turned gray and opaque, with thin slanted rays of afternoon sunlight clawing and scratching their way through the blue-gray stratus clouds that had replaced the bright sunshine. It was typical November weather in the Big Apple: the day would start out bright and cheery and then turn overcast, windy and cold in the afternoon.
Moran’s taxi screeched to a stop at the crime scene tape stretched out across an old wooden pier. The detective climbed out and stiffened when he smelled the pungent tang of brine, oil, kelp, and rotted fish that wafted up from the East River.
With his face screwed on tight, Moran slipped under the tape, inched his way between two parked blue-and-white squad cars and stepped onto the pier. The dilapidated wooden planks of the pier creaked under Moran’s weight, making the detective feel uneasy. It was one of those abandoned piers the city never got around to demolishing.
Another thing that made Moran uneasy was the fact that Horace Newbury was at the end of the pier waiting for him.
Since Newbury had been named Police Commissioner a year earlier, he was known to be a hardnosed, by-the-book cop who had migrated from Nashville in his late teens and whose main objective was making brownie points with the City Council. Behind his folksy, seemingly easy-going nature lay a tough, uncompromising, career-driven individual.
Moran frowned and hunched his shoulders. He pulled the collar of his topcoat close around his neck to ward off the damp breeze blowing off the river. He hated this time of the year; it reminded him that winter was not far off.
A few feet ahead, the lieutenant spotted three uniforms loitering around a black vehicle with the word CORONER on the rear door. The Commissioner’s black limo was parked next to it.
“He’s over there,” said a bored-looking uniformed cop, and pointed to the middle of the pier. Moran recognized him as the limo’s driver. When Moran followed the thumb, he spotted Newbury’s tall, athletic figure talking to Detective Sergeant Frank Hernandez, Moran’s partner for the last four years. The Commissioner’s ‘they owe me and don’t pay me’ expression told Moran that bad news awaited.
“Surprised to see you here, sir,” Moran said, putting on a happy face when he reached the pair. “Don’t tell me you found Hoffa?” He gazed over Newbury’s shoulder and recognized Assistant Chief Medical Examiner Milos Chang’s trademark salt-and-pepper ponytail. The AME was chatting with two men who wore plastic protective gear as they stood over a body covered by a white sheet.
A stone-faced Newbury gave Moran his steeliest stare. “I cain’t find the humor in that,” the Commissioner said with a folksy Tennessee twang, where a nasalized vowel was placed before the letter ‘n’ so that ‘can’t’ came out ‘cain’t.
’ “I’m here to make sure that y’all fully grasp the situation,” Newbury continued.
Moran flinched. It was surreal to have the city’s top cop sound like the Sheriff of Mayberry. Hernandez shifted his weight from one leg to the other and rolled his eyes.
“We’re all ears,” Moran said.
Commissioner Newbury flipped a strand of faded brown hair from his eyebrows and eyed Moran’s left wrist. “Where’s the rubber band?”
Moran glanced at his wrist. “Finally kicked the habit.”
“Glad to hear that. Nasty habit, tobacco,” Newbury said. He drew a White Owl panatela from an inside pocket, stuck it in his mouth and applied his lighter’s flame to the end of it. “The floater’s Paul Myer.” He then pointed to an old man with a long gray beard, a wool plaid shirt and denim pants. The man was flanked by two cops who were standing next to a blue-and-white squad car. “That’s the guy who found him. Thought he’d caught Moby Dick. You want to interview him?”
Moran glanced at the man and noted the fishing pole leaning against the squad car.
“He know anything?”
Newbury puffed out a cumulous cloud of blue smoke. “He only found the body.”
Moran shrugged. “Maybe later.”
The commissioner let out another plume of smoke and inched in closer to Moran. “Myer was released six months ago. He served just one year of a life sentence in Attica for the murder of Lacy Wooden.”
“I read in the Post that DNA evidence cleared him,” Hernandez chimed in.
Newbury nodded. “Right.”
“I don’t see how this affects us. We’re a cold cases unit,” Moran added.
Newbury pursed his lips and unbuttoned his topcoat. “The detectives at the scene of the murder found Myer’s bloodstained fingerprints on the wall near Lacy’s body, his prints on the handle of the knife—”
“Hold on. I seem to recall that Lacy was shot,” Moran said.
“She was, but the bastard disfigured her—cut up her face—and then shot her,” Newbury said. “Bill Foyle, the DA at the time, was sure he had an open-and-shut case, what with the prints and witnesses that came forth. They said Lacy Wooden and Myer had a tumultuous relationship. All that, plus Paul Myer’s history of violence. He’d been arrested twice for assault on two woman who later recanted. So no one bothered to take a DNA sample from Myer and try to match it to the semen found in Lacy’s vagina. All of which now makes the DA’s office look like a bunch of dang fools.”
Moran fixed his eyes on Newbury. “I still don’t see the connection with us.”
“As of now, Lacy Wooden’s murder is a cold case with