The waitress interrupted them to drop off another round of cocktails. Once again, Hutton kept his eyes on Cat; she realized he was deliberately ignoring every other woman in the restaurant. His focus on her was so steady that she found herself wondering if it was a show for her benefit.
She filled Hutton in on the remaining details of her experience at Vittoria’s shop in fits and starts, between poetic asides on the beauty of the ivy draped overhead, the beams of sunshine breaking through the spaces between the leaves—Doesn’t he see how beautiful it is?
“I think I should call you a doctor,” he said when she finished.
She looked confused.
“Cat, you’re very charming. But you’re not sober,” he explained gently. “Whatever’s in this”—he shook the metal tube of hand cream—“got you high. How do you feel?”
Cat felt a rush of blood hit her cheeks, pooling in bright round circles of embarrassment as it drained from the back of her head. Holy shit, she realized. He’s right. Her jaw fell open slightly and her eyes grew even wider.
“Oh shit…I am high. Am I in trouble?” she whispered, her embarrassment turning to panic. “I…I didn’t mean to…I would never…not on purpose, not in front of a police officer.”
“I know,” he said gently. “If it wasn’t for this,” he said, holding up the Bedford Organics bag, “I would have just thought you had a mood disorder.”
She laughed, her embarrassment briefly alleviated. “I have flaws, but not that.”
“Good,” he said, smiling. “I think…I think I should take you home, though. Unless you need a doctor.”
Cat shook her head. “I’ll be fine,” she said, feeling rejected and humiliated, despite his considerate tone.
“Okay, beautiful,” he said, and he took her hand to help her up, knowing that he should take her into custody right now and get a blood sample. “I’m taking you home.”
Hutton threw some cash on the table and shoved the Bedford Organics products back into their bag before leading her out onto the street and hailing a taxi. She trailed behind him into the car’s backseat and stared listlessly out the window as they rode silently back to her apartment.
After helping Cat into her building, Hutton caught the train back to Manhattan. He’d taken the whole bag of Bedford Organics products, despite Cat’s attempt to keep the bottle labeled “Happiness” (“Please! I’m going to be so sad when this wears off!”), intending to get the case back in gear as soon as possible.
As he exited the subway and waited to cross Thirty-Fourth Street, he thought about Cat: the wide strap of red lace cutting into her shoulder, the ribbon she tied around her wrist, the way she popped the collar of her exaggerated shirtdress like a Japanese teenager imitating a frat boy. Her big brown eyes, both kind and sharp. He’d never met someone so…studied, who was also smart. He felt like she was daring him to solve a puzzle he didn’t yet understand.
It was 8:00 p.m. The lab would be open until midnight. Hutton pulled open the double doors to the Midtown South Precinct, nodded to the patrolman on night duty at the desk, and buzzed his way through several more sets of doors before he arrived at his office. He divided the products, labeled them, processed requests for each analysis into the computer, and then ran them across the street where the lab assistant pointed wordlessly to a deposit tray.
Back in his office he searched for more details about Hillary Whitney that might help him gain access to her belongings. He punched her address into Google and found a current sale listing for the apartment from the Cormorant Group; it was still on the market. Jackpot.
He dialed the number on the listing. Though it was already after ten, a sharp voice answered right away.
“Betty Cormorant,” a voice squawked after just two rings.
“This is Detective Mark Hutton, NYPD. I’m calling about an apartment you have listed for sale, from the estate of Hillary Whitney.”
“You wanna see it? I can set something up for the morning. I think ten percent above asking and it’s yours before noon.”
“I need to see the belongings you took out of it, actually. Any chance you put a hold on the personal effects for the family?”
“Shit,” she said. “Get a warrant.”
“Listen, Betty, you know how it is. I got so much paperwork. I’ll get the warrant, but first I need to know if the personal items are in storage. Can you take a look for me?”
“So what?” Betty snapped. “I just lost my seat at the bar to take this call. I thought you were a buyer. Paperwork sounds like a you problem.”
“The next body I get in a good building, you’re the first one I call.”
“What precinct?”
“Midtown South. I got a few blocks of Park below Grand Central and all of NoMad.”
“Deal,” she said. “I’ll call you right back.”
Five minutes later, his phone rang. “You’re lucky,” she said. “The personal effects are all in a storage facility on the West Side.”
“You got keys to the unit?”
“That I don’t know. But I can give you the address and the contact. You’re gonna have to make the warrant for the unit anyway or they won’t let you in.”
“I take it this isn’t your first rodeo.”
“How do you think we find listings in the first place? You’re the third cop I’ve talked to this week.”
He laughed and hung up, then spent the next two hours filing paperwork. At midnight he finally locked up his office and hustled down the stairs and out the front door of the precinct, hailing a cab within seconds.
“Hey boss,” said the driver. Three separate cellphones were attached to his dash, all running different hailing apps.
“Hi. Good evening. Brooklyn, Lincoln and Ocean, please.” The television screen embedded in the divider blared as a doe-eyed waif wearing an NYC-branded T-shirt pretended to eat a hot dog on the Staten Island Ferry. Hutton jammed his finger into the screen, eventually turning it off.
“Okay, no problem.” The driver popped his earbud back in and resumed laughing and joking in a language wholly foreign to Hutton as he lurched and surged the cab over to Brooklyn.
He briefly fell asleep in the cab, waking up when his own phone buzzed.
You free tonight?
He let the text from Callie Court—his longtime close friend and frequent hookup—float on the screen. Callie had lately been tending bar at three different places, singing in two bands, and working for the avant-garde and occasionally outré designer Jonathan Sprain as a “muse,” in addition to her dwindling modeling gigs, and she had more energy than anyone he’d ever known.
Another text popped up.
B/c I have an extra ticket to see guantanamo baywatch / hoodie & the blowjobs @ Grasslands, done with my shift in 20.
Shit. I would so go to that. But he desperately needed to go to sleep. He texted back:
I need to sleep Cal, I’m two feet from bed
Ok but set time is 1 am! So soon?
Before he could reply, the cab screeched to a halt in front of his apartment. Hutton pocketed his phone and dropped two twenties through the partition. “Keep the change,” he said, hopping out the door. He waved to his doorman, climbed the stairs two at a time, and collapsed on the couch next to his laptop.
Chapter Six