The Writer

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3

•••

CHAPTER ONE

Log 10/18/2018 18:58 EDT

Transcript: Audio recording

[Detective Declan Shaw] Maggie Marshall?

[Voice unidentified] Yeah. Fourteen years old. Student at Barrett’s Academy. She went —

[Shaw] I know who she is. We’ve all had eyes out for her since the Amber Alert. Transcriber, for the record, Maggie Marshall was reported missing two and a half days ago by her mother. Last seen leaving school, and she never made it home. She’s been all over the news. The whole city’s looking. Has she been touched or moved in any way?

[Voice unidentified] No. That’s exactly how she was found.

[Shaw] Electrical repair team found her?

[Voice unidentified] Yeah.

[Shaw] Where are they?

[Voice unidentified] We’re holding them at Eighty-Sixth Street.

[Shaw] Central Park Precinct?

[Voice unidentified] Yeah.

[Shaw] Okay, give me a little space. [Clears throat.] We’ve had rain the last three nights. She’s lying in the mud about a foot off the northeast exterior wall of Blockhouse in Central Park. Severely bloated and discolored from exposure. Same shoulder-length brown hair as in the photo circulated. Do you have positive ID?

[Voice unidentified] We found her backpack in the bushes over there. Student ID card inside, and her name is written in a few of the textbooks. It’s her.

[Shaw] We’ll confirm ID back at the ME office, but high probability this is Maggie Marshall. Aside from her left sock, she is naked from the waist down. I have eyes on her jeans, other sock, and shoes, all discarded randomly about four feet from her body.

Left sock is still in place. Her underwear is twisted around the base of her left foot. The ground immediately around her has been severely disturbed. Even with the standing water, maybe because of it, I can see deep indents on either side of her where it’s clear he stood over her. There are also trenches approximately six to eight inches in width both on her sides and between her legs. They appear to be marks left by our unsub’s knees. There are obvious signs of struggle — kick marks and gouges in the mud and dirt around her feet and hands, almost like . . . almost like she tried to dig out from under him.

[Twelve seconds of silence.]

I can see clear bruising around her neck consistent with a single hand — right — about the same size as mine. Thumbprint begins about one and a half inches to the left of the hyoid bone with the other four fingers rounding the right side. He used a single-hand grip.

There is another large bruise directly above her navel, giving the impression he held her down with his knee. Additional bruising visible on the undersides of her wrists. If he strangled her with his right hand, he most likely pinned both her hands above her head with his left hand as he did it. It’s clear from the surrounding ground she put up a struggle, but she didn’t stand much of a chance. Both eyes are bloodshot. Petechiae in the right supports strangulation. This is an isolated spot, but why the hell didn’t anyone hear her screaming? She must have screamed. [Sniffle.] Upon closer examination of her hands, her fingernails are caked with dirt from clawing at the ground. It’s possible she scratched her attacker, but retrieval of trace may prove to be problematic. We’ve got a mess of footprints. We’ll get elimination prints from all first responders and the crew that found her; maybe we’ll get lucky.

[Nine seconds of silence.] Where’s that backpack?

[Voice unidentified] Over here. [Shuffling.]

[Shaw] Transcriber, confirming for the record we’ve got a student ID in the front flap of the backpack for Barrett’s Academy reading “Margaret Marshall.” Three textbooks inside, got some math homework, and a paperback copy of Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. Library card being used as a bookmark at page ninety-seven also reads “Margaret Marshall.”

[Voice unidentified] Detective, you’ll want to see this!

[Shuffling. Eighteen seconds of silence.]

[Shaw] [Shouted but muffled.] Hey, get a few pictures of this before we move it. Up close and at a distance to establish proximity. Get these tracks around it too . . . [Unintelligible, then muttered.] Goddamn rain. We’ve got a Citizen watch. Old. Tan face with a tachymeter bezel. Brown leather stitched band. Looks like the top pin broke. Fell off the owner’s wrist. It’s a windup and still ticking, which means it was lost recently. Surrounding tracks appear similar, possibly the same as the ones around Maggie. Fresher, though. With the rain, less than twenty-four hours old.

[Voice unidentified] You think your guy came back?

[Shaw] Maybe he came back to move her or something. Could be he just wanted to revisit. They do that. Based on the tracks, looks like he stood here and . . . ah, there it is. Cigarette butt. Bag that.

[Voice unidentified] Fucker stood here and smoked?

[Shaw] Looks like it. There’s an inscription on the back of the watch. It says “Lucky.”

[Second voice unidentified] I think I know who that belongs to.

[Shaw] You do?

[Second voice unidentified] Robert Morter. Head of park services.

[Shaw] You recognize this watch?

[Morter] Not the watch, the name. Lucky. We’ve got a guy on grounds crew who goes by Lucky.

[End of recording.]

/MG/GTS

•••

CHAPTER 2

DECLAN SHAW WAS a good cop.

Is a good cop, he tells himself.

Because until he actually jumps, he is still living in the present tense. And that’s the rub, right? Anyone can find a deserted subway station; anyone can inch up to the edge of the platform and wait for the next train. But how many can actually work up the balls to launch themselves from the platform to the tracks? There is a science to it. Jump too early, and you’ll end up under the train. Too late, and you’re bouncing off the side. The key is to be in the air, meet the metal head-on. No pain, just lights-out.

The Eighty-First Street station is a dirty little secret known to New York’s Finest. It’s directly under the Museum of Natural History on the A/B/C lines, and once the museum closes for the night, the platform becomes a ghost town. Also a suicide hot spot. Few trains stop. Most speed up as they shoot through because there is a tacit understanding among engineers: If you’re going to hit a jumper (and odds of that are high at the Eighty-First), you want to do it quick.

The faint rumble of a train in the tunnel, maybe a minute out.

“Do it, you pussy. You’re bleeding all over the nice white paint.” Declan’s voice sounds foreign to him, and the second the words leave his mouth, he gets all self-conscious about it, like talking to himself is the craziest thing in his life at the moment, like that is where all concerned observers should be pointing their fingers.

The blood is coming from a cut on his hand. Nothing too serious, just a scrape. But enough to make a mess of the metal pipe above his head. The one he’s been holding for the better part of an hour. Without letting go, he inches closer to the edge of the pavement and stops when his shoes are half on, half off the concrete.

Declan tests the angle. The balance.

Tenses his leg muscles. Relaxes.

Tenses again.

Draws an oily, humid breath, lets it coat his throat when he swallows.

The train grows louder.

In his fourteen years with NYPD, Declan knows of four other cops who died in this very spot. Probably holding the same damn pipe. There’s no plaque or commemorative photo on the wall, but when he closes his eyes, he can feel them standing right there with him. He can hear them quietly counting down the seconds until that train emerges from the tunnel. He can feel their hands on him, ready to give him a little shove. A little encouragement.

Ain’t nothing, one of them mutters. We got you.

Bend your knees. Makes it easier to push off, says another.

It was the next one that got him. The next one struck him like a gut punch, because it sounded like his father.

You best be sure. ’Cause there’s no coming back.

“There’s no coming back from what I’ve done either,” he tells him. His voice carries a faint echo with all the tile.

The train grows louder. The pipe, the concrete, the air — all come alive with the vibration of it.

Maybe twenty seconds out now.

Declan has very few memories of his father. He was only seven when he died in a construction accident over on Forty-First. One that wouldn’t have happened if the foreman hadn’t been pushing everyone to put in double hours to hit some ridiculous deadline nobody gave two shits about all these years later. His father lost his footing — that’s what they told him and his mother. Would he have slipped if he hadn’t been on fifteen straight hours? Not his father. No fucking way. Declan can barely picture the man’s face anymore, but his voice . . . his father’s voice, that thick Irish brogue — it’s as clear today as it was when Declan was a kid.

You don’t run from your problems, boy. You grab ’em by the fucking throat.

“Pops, you don’t know.”

A drop of blood falls from his hand, hits Declan’s cheek. He wipes it away and catches a glimpse of the small tattoo on the skin between his thumb and forefinger: MM.

“Sometimes you dig a hole and there’s no climbing back out.”

Lights visible now.

The train just beyond the tunnel bend. Ten seconds.

Every muscle in Declan’s body goes tense. His fingertips are electric. Every sound, smell, and color are amplified.

Seven.

When the train rounds the corner, it’s moving so fast it has no business staying on the tracks, but somehow it does. Sparks fly. There’s a harsh screech. Declan’s eyes find the engineer and a moment later the engineer spots him, and for that quick instant, their gazes lock. Declan tells himself he looks stoic, hard. Resolved. But in truth, he can’t hide his fear any more than the engineer can.

Three.

The world slows.

The engineer reaches for the emergency brake. His fingers curl around it. But he doesn’t pull. They both know it’s too late for that.

Two.

Declan closes his eyes. “Sorry, Pops.”

One.

•••

CHAPTER 3

DECLAN’S PHONE RINGS.

In the instant it takes for his brain to process that, the train screams by at a mind-bending speed followed by a rush of air that nearly sucks him from the platform in a whirlwind of dust. It’s his grip on the pipe that keeps him from tumbling over the edge and maybe under the ass end of one of the cars, maybe not, certainly not into the sweet spot at the train’s nose, and that deduction — which he comes to in a millisecond — is enough for Declan to push off from the pipe, swing back, and drop awkwardly to the ground against a support pillar.

The train vanishes.

The sound fades.

Drenched in sweat, Declan sucks in a sharp breath. Every fiber of his body is screaming. Protesting. This isn’t the first time he’s tried to jump tonight, it’s the fourth, and he knows the next train will arrive in under seven minutes. He’ll regroup and get it right. Declan is many things, but a failure isn’t one of them.

His phone gives another shrill ring and vibrates in his pocket. He fumbles it out and glances at the display — his partner, Jarod Cordova.

Declan clicks Decline.

At sixty, Cordova is twenty-four years older than Declan and three short years from forced retirement. While most cops slip into low gear for this phase of their career, Cordova seems to view the ticking clock as some sort of personal challenge — how many jackets can he close before they slap an imitation-gold Apple watch on his wrist and buy him a one-way ticket to Boca Raton? Because their current workload isn’t enough for him, he’s gotten in the habit of taking cold-case files home and working them in his spare time. These late-night calls usually mean he’s at his kitchen table elbow-deep in yellowed paperwork and wants to talk something out.

Nope.

Not tonight.

Declan’s got a full dance card. Five minutes until the next train.

He’s brushing the dust from his jeans when his phone buzzes again. This time it’s a text:

Pick up, you shit!

When the phone starts to ring again, he has half a mind to chuck it against the far wall but decides not to. Sometimes it’s better to rip off the Band-Aid. He thumbs the side button.

“Look, man, I’m a little into something right now. Can this wait?”

Cordova’s scratchy voice comes back at him. “Where are you?”

“Busy.”

“Busy where? You near the Upper West Side?”

Declan glances around the empty subway station. At the dirt and grime. The streaks on the ground around him left by his shoes, his fingers. There’s a poster on the wall opposite for a new shark exhibit coming to the museum next month. The date grabs him — next month.

He swallows.

“Declan, you there?”

“Yeah, sorry.”

“Call came in. Sounds like a B and E gone bad.”

The clock at the far end of the platform reads 9:52 p.m.

“Sounds like someone else’s problem.”

“Got at least one dead with shots fired at the responding officers. Your name came up.”

“Came up how?”

“I don’t know the details, but LT wants us there. How fast can you get to two eleven Central Park West? The Beresford.”

Four minutes until the next train. He doesn’t have to do this.

He doesn’t have to do a damn thing but get back up on the edge of the platform and count to a little over two hundred and —

Cordova says, “You need me to send a car for you?”

Somewhere behind Declan, a woman giggles; the sound echoes off the subway tiles. A moment later, two twenty- somethings come down the steps from the street. Pretty girl in a slinky black dress leaning heavily on a guy in a sports coat, jeans, and Birkenstocks, both of them drunk. Probably looking for a little privacy. Evidently, neither one is happy to see him standing there, because they quickly turn around and stumble back up the steps.

Life goes on.

Declan blows out a defeated breath and looks down at the scrape on his hand. Pink and ugly, but no longer bleeding. “I’m in the park. I can be there in a few minutes.”

“Take the Central Park West entrance. You want the tower apartment. I’ll meet you. Move.”