Even in the weak, dirty light, he could see that the blade had been honed until it was unusually thin and sharp. On the point was a tiny drop of blood.
Chapter 5
Into a Tangle of Thorns
D espite Gurney’s efforts to persuade her, Kim refused to call the police.
“I told you, I’ve called before. I’m not doing it again. Nothing happens. Worse than nothing. They come to the apartment, they poke around the doors and windows, and they tell me there’s no sign of any forced entry. Then they ask if anyone was injured, if anything of value was stolen, if anything of value was broken. It’s like if the problem doesn’t fit one of those categories, then it’s not a problem. Last time, when I called about finding the knife in my bathroom, they lost interest when they learned it was mine—even though I kept telling them that the knife had been missing for two weeks before that. They scraped up the little drop of blood that was next to it on the floor, took it with them, never said another word about it. If they’re going to come here and give me this look like I’m some hysterical woman wasting their time, then the hell with them! You know what one of them did the last time? He yawned. He actually, unbelievably, yawned in my face!”
Gurney thought about this, thought about the instinctive triage process every busy urban cop goes through when a new incident is tossed on his plate. It’s all relative—relative to whatever else is on his plate—relative to the other urgencies of that month, that week, that day. He remembered a partner he’d had many years ago in NYPD Homicide, a guy who lived in a sleepy little town in western New Jersey, on the far edge of commutability. One day the guy brought in his local newspaper. The big front-page story was about a bird bath that had gone missing from someone’s backyard. This was at a timewhen there were an average of twenty murders a week in New York City—most of which barely rated a one-line mention in the city papers. The fact was that everything depended on context. And, although he didn’t say it to Kim, Gurney understood how the discovery of her own knife on her own bathroom floor might not have seemed like the end of the world to a cop dealing with rapes and homicides.
But he also understood how disturbed she was. More than that, there was an obviously sinister quality to the intruder’s actions that he himself found disturbing. He suggested that it might be a good idea for her to get out of Syracuse, maybe stay for a while at her mother’s house.
The suggestion converted her fear into fury. “That fucking son of a bitch!” she hissed. “If he thinks he’s going to win this battle, he doesn’t know me very well.”
Gurney waited until she was calmer, then asked if she remembered the names of the detectives who’d responded to her previous calls.
“I told you, I’m not calling them again.”
“I understand. But I’d like to talk to them myself. See if they know anything they’re not telling you.”
“About what?”
“Maybe about Robby Meese? Who knows? I won’t know till I talk to them.”
Kim’s dark eyes searched his, her lips tightening. “Elwood Gates and James Schiff. Gates is the short one, Schiff is the tall one. Same jerk, two bodies.”
D etective James Schiff had taken Gurney into a spare interrogation room a couple of corridors away from the reception area. He’d left the door open, hadn’t brought a chair, and hadn’t offered Gurney one either. The man covered his face with his hands, struggled to stifle a yawn and lost the battle.
“Long day?”
“You could say that. Been on for eighteen hours straight, six more to go.”
“Paperwork?”
“You got that right, times ten. You see, my friend, this departmentis exactly the wrong size. Just large enough to have all the bureaucratic bullshit of the big city and just small enough to have no place to hide. So we had this raid last night on a crack house that turned out to be
Chapter 5
Into a Tangle of Thorns
D espite Gurney’s efforts to persuade her, Kim refused to call the police.
“I told you, I’ve called before. I’m not doing it again. Nothing happens. Worse than nothing. They come to the apartment, they poke around the doors and windows, and they tell me there’s no sign of any forced entry. Then they ask if anyone was injured, if anything of value was stolen, if anything of value was broken. It’s like if the problem doesn’t fit one of those categories, then it’s not a problem. Last time, when I called about finding the knife in my bathroom, they lost interest when they learned it was mine—even though I kept telling them that the knife had been missing for two weeks before that. They scraped up the little drop of blood that was next to it on the floor, took it with them, never said another word about it. If they’re going to come here and give me this look like I’m some hysterical woman wasting their time, then the hell with them! You know what one of them did the last time? He yawned. He actually, unbelievably, yawned in my face!”
Gurney thought about this, thought about the instinctive triage process every busy urban cop goes through when a new incident is tossed on his plate. It’s all relative—relative to whatever else is on his plate—relative to the other urgencies of that month, that week, that day. He remembered a partner he’d had many years ago in NYPD Homicide, a guy who lived in a sleepy little town in western New Jersey, on the far edge of commutability. One day the guy brought in his local newspaper. The big front-page story was about a bird bath that had gone missing from someone’s backyard. This was at a timewhen there were an average of twenty murders a week in New York City—most of which barely rated a one-line mention in the city papers. The fact was that everything depended on context. And, although he didn’t say it to Kim, Gurney understood how the discovery of her own knife on her own bathroom floor might not have seemed like the end of the world to a cop dealing with rapes and homicides.
But he also understood how disturbed she was. More than that, there was an obviously sinister quality to the intruder’s actions that he himself found disturbing. He suggested that it might be a good idea for her to get out of Syracuse, maybe stay for a while at her mother’s house.
The suggestion converted her fear into fury. “That fucking son of a bitch!” she hissed. “If he thinks he’s going to win this battle, he doesn’t know me very well.”
Gurney waited until she was calmer, then asked if she remembered the names of the detectives who’d responded to her previous calls.
“I told you, I’m not calling them again.”
“I understand. But I’d like to talk to them myself. See if they know anything they’re not telling you.”
“About what?”
“Maybe about Robby Meese? Who knows? I won’t know till I talk to them.”
Kim’s dark eyes searched his, her lips tightening. “Elwood Gates and James Schiff. Gates is the short one, Schiff is the tall one. Same jerk, two bodies.”
D etective James Schiff had taken Gurney into a spare interrogation room a couple of corridors away from the reception area. He’d left the door open, hadn’t brought a chair, and hadn’t offered Gurney one either. The man covered his face with his hands, struggled to stifle a yawn and lost the battle.
“Long day?”
“You could say that. Been on for eighteen hours straight, six more to go.”
“Paperwork?”
“You got that right, times ten. You see, my friend, this departmentis exactly the wrong size. Just large enough to have all the bureaucratic bullshit of the big city and just small enough to have no place to hide. So we had this raid last night on a crack house that turned out to be
Similar Books
