Michelangelo_s Notebook

8

Finn sat huddled on the end of the couch as the paramedic dabbed at her temple with an alcohol swab. The woman was black and fat and very gentle.

“Must have used some kind of sap or something. Skin’s barely broken. There’ll be a bump but not much else. You were lucky, girl.”

Finn nodded slowly and tried not to look at the huge stain on the carpet runner closer to the door. She didn’t think she was lucky at all, but at least she was alive. Not like Peter. She felt the hot tears welling up in her eyes again and swallowed hard. The sound she’d heard before dropping down the dark well into unconsciousness had been Peter dying, his throat opened up in a single slashing sweep that had murmured past her like the wing of a night bird and then turned into that final, horrible liquid gurgle.

The apartment was crowded. Two paramedics, packing up now, at least three uniformed cops and two detectives. A crime scene technician was covering everything with fingerprint powder and whistling softly under his breath. The paramedic was speaking to her again.

“Sure you don’t want to come to the hospital, let the docs take a look at you. You maybe got a concussion. I don’t think so, but still, you never know.” The paramedic frowned. “There’s the other thing too, maybe you want to have that checked.”

“I’d know if I’d been raped,” said Finn. “I wasn’t.”

“Okay then, sweetie-pie,” the woman said. She snapped her plastic equipment case shut. “We’ll be on our way then. Sorry for your trouble and your loss.”

“Thank you.”

“You bet.” The paramedics edged out the door, skirting the bloodstain. One of the detectives came out of her bedroom, and she wondered why he’d been there in the first place. He’d introduced himself as Detective Tracker, which she’d thought was hysterically funny when he’d first said it. And it had been just that-a matter of near hysteria. He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off her boobs and he had bad breath. He was tall, broad-shouldered and had greasy hair.

“You and this Peter kid friends for long?”

“A couple of months.”

“Sleeping with him?”

“I don’t think that’s any of your business.”

“Sure it is. You were sleeping with him. Some other guy gets jealous, breaks in and waits, like that. You’re not sleeping with him, you got to wonder why, see?”

“I wasn’t sleeping with him.”

“So you didn’t know the guy who killed him.”

“No.”

“How can you be sure? You said it was dark.”

“I don’t know anyone who goes around killing people.”

“Anything taken?”

“I haven’t really looked.”

“Could have been a robbery then.”

“I guess.”

“Not much to steal.”

“No.”

“Student, right?”

“Yes. NYU.”

“Peter too?”

“Yes.”

“How’d you get together-same classes, mutual friends, what?”

“He’s… was in the fine arts program.”

“So? What’s that got to do with anything.”

“He took a life drawing class. I model.”

“Like, naked?” His eyes dropped to her breasts again. For the first time in years stares actually bothered her.

“Nude.”

“Same difference, sweetheart. You don’t have any clothes on.”

“It’s different, Detective Tracker, believe me.”

“You think maybe it could have been someone else in the class?”

“No.”

“Nuts everywhere in New York.”

Her head was pounding. All she wanted to do was curl up on the couch and go to sleep.

“It wasn’t anyone from the goddamn class, all right?”

“Slow down, honey, I’m not the bad guy here.”

“Then stop acting like it.”

One of the uniformed cops smiled. Tracker frowned. There was a knock at the door and it opened. A tall, very thin man stood there. He had dark hair that needed cutting and a pinched angular face with deep-set eyes that matched his hair color. He had a smear of five-o’clock shadow on his cheeks and chin. He looked Irish. The man stared down at the pool of blood congealing on the carpet runner and frowned.

“Who the fuck are you?” asked Tracker. “This is a fucking crime scene and you’re in the way.”

The thin man reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and brought out a small, worn leather folder. As he pulled it out Finn saw that he was wearing a shoulder holster. Tracker saw it too. The man flipped open the folder and pushed it into Tracker’s face.

“Delaney. Lieutenant Vincent Delaney, Special Action Squad.” He smiled. “You are?”

“Tracker, Twenty-third Precinct.”

“That’s nice. This is Miss Ryan?”

“That’s it, Loo.”

“I’d like to speak to her if you don’t mind.”

“I’m in the middle of an investigation here.”

“No, you’re not,” said Delaney. “Not anymore.”