Loren looks at the house, in the direction Hoskins disappeared, considering.
“You’re gonna have a long wait.” Then he walks away, leaving her standing alone in the middle of the street. Farther down, a van pulls up, and a man jumps out with a big camera propped up on his shoulder, followed by a woman holding a microphone. It won’t be long before the street is crawling with media, every reporter in the city will be looking for a story. It’s a race against the clock now, so she scrambles, unlocks her car, and fumbles around in the dark, searching for a pen and paper. She’s going to find out what’s happening, even if it means standing out in the cold all night.
HOSKINS
“Why’re you doing this now?” Hoskins asks when Loren joins him in the yard behind the house. They’re standing ankle-deep in snow, looking at the house, at the police swarming in and out. “You never did that shit for Seever before.”
“I never had a chance last time,” Loren says. “We didn’t have to hunt for Seever at all, he was practically dumped into our laps. You should see how the ladies drop their panties at the sight of these suits. Especially my powder-blue one.”
“Very dapper,” Hoskins says dryly, but he knows Loren’s not giving him the whole truth, he’s holding something back. Loren doesn’t do anything without a reason, and he must think Jacky Seever is connected to all this, otherwise he’d be in his own clothes, without all the shitty gel in his hair. But Loren isn’t going to come out and say what’s going on, Hoskins knows him better than that—no, Hoskins will have to figure it out on his own.
“Since you’re here, you might as well take a look,” Loren says, generously. He hooks a finger into the tiny pocket sewn onto his vest. The same way Seever used to do it. “I shouldn’t send you home without at least getting a peek of what’s going on. For old time’s sake, you know?”
“Yeah, right,” Hoskins mutters, following Loren as he steps out of the snow and onto the sidewalk. The crime scene isn’t in the main house but the tiny building behind it. It’s a guesthouse, a few hundred square feet built so the owner could take a tenant, make some extra income. The victim is just inside, but it doesn’t feel right to call her the victim; this is Carrie Simms, this isn’t like coming to a crime scene and seeing a stranger, someone you don’t know, someone you’ll never know. It’s easy if you don’t know the victim, if you don’t recognize the freckle on the bridge of their nose or the amber color of their eyes, those little things can be easily dismissed if you haven’t seen them before. A corpse you don’t know is nothing. Less than nothing. It is something to study, to examine, to look over for evidence. It is stiff limbs and fingernails gone black and brittle, it is hair and blood and skin and organs, everything swept neatly into separate compartments, because it isn’t a person anymore, just a body. A thing. But this is different, because he knows Carrie Simms, he’d recognize her voice if he heard it, he remembers how she laughed. This feels wrong somehow, seeing a girl he once knew like this, curled up on her side like a shrimp, her mouth filled with blood that’s gone clotted and black. She could be sleeping, except for the awkward angles of her arms. And the blood. Oh, all the blood. It’s not suicide, no, Carrie Simms didn’t do this to herself. This is murder, cold-blooded and vicious.
“Looks like most of it occurred in the bedroom. How do you think she ended up in here?” Loren asks. He’s standing in the doorway that leads from the kitchen and out into the yard, out on the concrete stoop, the toes of his loafers barely on the other side of the door’s transition, he’s pulled a pack of cigarettes out and sticks one between his lips. “Dragged?”
“You don’t have some ideas of your own?” Hoskins asks, pulling a pair of gloves from his pocket and smoothing the latex over his hands, making sure to work it down into the valleys between his fingers. He hasn’t been at a crime scene in a long time, but he’s still got the old habits, still keeps the trunk of his car stocked with everything he needs. “I thought you were letting me look around outta the kindness of your own heart.”
“Don’t bust my balls, Paulie. I ain’t in the mood.”
“Then tell me what I want to hear.”
“What’s that?”