You've Been Warned

In fact, given different circumstances, I’d be reaching for my camera to shoot it. Not now, though.

I’ve taken enough scary pictures for a while.

As I walk inside, two young policemen are walking out, deep in conversation. One glances my way, giving me a quick nod and a smile. I’m about to ask him if Delmonico is here, when from the corner of my eye I see what looks like the front desk.

Behind it sits another officer, a hard-nosed type, much older, bulky, red faced, Irish as Paddy’s pig. He’s typing something into a computer as I approach him.

“Help you?” he says without so much as looking up from the monitor. So far he’d never be able to pick me out of a lineup.

“Yes,” I answer. “I’m here to see Detective Frank Delmonico.”

His stubby fingers practically freeze on the keyboard. Slowly, he turns to me, his eyes collapsing into a squint. “Excuse me?”

What’s that supposed to mean? “Is Detective Delmonico here or isn’t he?”

He shakes his head. “No, he’s not here.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“Matter of fact, I do. He’s dead. That’s where he is.”

I take a wobbly step back. “What? I just saw him. He came to my apartment.”

The officer leans forward in his chair.

“When was this?”

“A few days ago.”

“I think you’re mistaken, Miss—I don’t think I caught the name?”

“No, I’m sure of it. He was at my apartment.”

He nods, stifles a chuckle. “Oh, yeah?”

How can he be so cavalier about this? “I’m telling you the truth. Actually, I talked to him several times in the past week. He’s very thin. Older?”

The officer leans forward even farther, stone-faced. “Now, let me tell you the truth,” he says slowly. “Delmonico has been dead for over three years.”

I stand there in stunned silence as the precinct lobby begins to whirl around me. I can feel the blood draining from my head. My knees are starting to go.

“Hey, you okay?”

No, I’m not. I’m absolutely, positively not okay. “Are you sure we’re talking about the same guy?” I ask. “Detective Frank Delmonico? Homicide?”

“Yep. Frank Delmonico.” He mutters something else under his breath.

“What? I didn’t hear that last part.”

“It was nothing.”

“It was obviously something. What was it?”

He glares at me. Who does this chick think she is?

But I don’t back down. I actually raise my voice. “I want to know what you said!”

The cop shrugs. “Hey, if you insist. I said, the cocksucker.”

As if I’m not confused enough. “Why would you say that about him?”

“You a reporter?” he snaps.

“No. Hardly.”

“All the same, we’re not supposed to talk about it. It was in all the papers at the time. Press has a ball with those kind of stories.”

“I didn’t live here then. What happened?”

“Let’s just say the detective’s not exactly missed around here.”

“Why? I need to hear this. Please? This is very important to me.”

“Because he almost single-handedly brought down this precinct, that’s why.”

I open my mouth to ask how, but he cuts me off. “Seriously, I can’t talk about it. It’s over with. And so is this conversation.”

I begin walking away. Then something occurs to me, and I quickly turn back. “At least let me ask you this,” I say. “Does it have anything to do with the murders at the Fálcon Hotel the other day?”

The officer looks at me with a completely blank stare. “What murders?”

And then—what can I say?—I faint.

Chapter 88

FIFTEEN OR TWENTY minutes later, still dazed and with another good-sized bump on my noggin, I walk a block before I even realize it’s raining. I’m too busy replaying every single encounter with Detective Delmonico in my mind.

Is that where all of this has happened? In my mind?

It’s impossible. Has to be.

I talked to him. He talked to me. He gave me his card. How does a dead man do that?

Wait a minute! Hold on!

I stop short in the middle of the sidewalk, the raindrops feeling icy cold against my face. Pulling Delmonico’s card from my pocket, I rub it between my fingers just to prove to myself that it’s real. It sure feels like it.

“Taxi!”

The first thing I do after rushing into my apartment is turn on my computer. I should be too freaked out, too bewildered to think straight. And yet the obsession to learn the truth about Delmonico—what happened and what is happening—has me focused like never before.

“It was in all the papers,” said the cop at the precinct.

Let’s see about that.

I Google away, and the hits on Frank Delmonico’s name number more than a thousand. Jeez, Louise! Some of the sites are the venomous rantings of bloggers, but most are indeed news stories—all archived—from the city’s papers. The pages never turn yellow on the Internet.