Burn (Michael Bennett 7)

“He sold books on the street, I think,” Chast said, ignoring Doyle. “No, wait. He was a sketch artist. One of those sidewalk people who will draw your caricature for ten bucks. He was a pleasant enough character. Definitely not a troublemaker or attention-seeker. We saw plenty of them, believe me.”

“Wait, I think I heard of him, too,” Brooklyn Kale said. “Always wears, like, a dirty tuxedo kind of getup, right? Like a magician or something. He used to be a children’s book illustrator or something in the seventies. A community activist, too. Chast is right. He’s odd but not nuts. At least not completely.”

“I want this case,” Naomi said as she started tapping the table hard with her bit-to-a-nub fingernail. “I have the most seniority here, and I deserve first pick.”

“Fine,” I said, leaning back in my chair. I was a little afraid not to give her the case. She might bite off my head.

“Chast, go with Kale,” I said. “You two can go and see if there’s anything to what Mr. Du Maurier is saying.”

Chast stared at me with a hard, pissed-off look, her specialty, apparently.

“I don’t think so,” the strawberry blonde said, standing and slipping on her Windbreaker. “In fact, no way.”

“No? What do you mean, no, Chast?” I said.

“I don’t need a partner. I don’t want one. I work better and move faster alone,” she said. Then she turned and walked out the conference room door.

“Whoa, Chast. Are you kidding me? Get back in here,” I yelled as I stood up.

“Don’t bother on my account, Detective Bennett,” said Brooklyn. “You probably noticed by now that Officer Chast doesn’t exactly play well with others.”

“Brooklyn’s right, Detective. I’d just as soon let her go,” Arturo said. “Officer Chast isn’t exactly easy to work with.”

“Make that impossible,” said Noah Robertson, drumming his fingers on the table.

“Now, c’mon, guys,” said Officer Doyle. “Our colleague isn’t even here to defend herself. Besides, there was that one fugitive case two weeks back where she helped me get that guy under control. Remember that big dude outside the Duane Reade on Lenox?”

“That was me, you idiot,” Brooklyn said.

“Yeah?” Doyle said, squinting across the table at her.

Doyle turned to me with a shrug.

“I guess it’s unanimous, Detective Bennett,” he said. “Chast completely sucks as a partner.”

CHAPTER 23

I DECIDED TO LEAVE Doyle, Robertson, and Kale to man the office and took Arturo Lopez with me to check on Holly Jacobs, the woman with the pyscho boyfriend.

Holly Jacobs’s place turned out to be a dozen blocks to the south, across the street from Morningside Park near 116th Street. She lived in a beautiful six-story brownstone building that she buzzed us into after we arrived and gave her a call.

Holly Jacobs was a striking, well-dressed and well-put-together middle-aged black woman with a short Vogue-ish asymmetrical bob haircut. Her white-on-white apartment was sleek and modern and immaculate. The books on her shelves were those coffee-table artsy ones. Edward Weston, Magritte, The Drawings of Peter Paul Rubens.

She sat us down in her sunken living room on a couch near the bay window that overlooked the leafy park.

“So tell us, Holly,” I started. “You’re having some problems with your ex-boyfriend?”

Holly stood and folded her arms over her flat stomach and stared out the window for a few moments before she nodded. She took a photograph off the coffee table and handed it to me. It showed a handsome, smiling, wiry young black man with a shaved head.

“This is Roger. I met him at a club about a year ago. I thought I’d put my clubbing days in the rearview, but I’m a marketing consultant for a fashion company, and I was celebrating a deal with some young clients. He looked like a model when he came up to me at the bar. Still in his twenties, chiseled-looking. You know, somebody special.”

She took a long breath.

“We started dating. I knew it was too early when he said he wanted to move in. I mean, he didn’t even have a job, but I was flattered, I guess. He was charming, attentive, younger. The first time he hit me was when I came home from work about a week after he moved in.”

She paused for a moment.

“I was putting down the groceries at the counter, and he had his head in the fridge. When he closed the door, out of nowhere, he slapped me hard enough to give me a bloody nose. He had this far-off look in his eyes. I don’t know what the hell he was on, but after a second or two, he went into the bedroom and passed out.