Bobby’s response wasn’t nearly so tender. “Where are you?” he demanded as soon as I answered.

“Wandering around the city like a demented ghost,” I said. “I understand you wanted to talk to me.”

“I want to see you at once.”

I looked at Karen Lennon’s scarred desktop. “You know, Bobby, that is not going to happen. I am hiding from George Dornick, hoping I find Petra before he does.”

“If Dornick’s on your ass, I’ll give him a medal for bringing you in.”

“That would be one you would hand him at my funeral, then, and you could congratulate each other on laying me and a lot of ugly department history to rest.”

I wasn’t sure how much time I would have before Bobby’s tech team figured out where I was calling from. I decided I could stay on the phone for three more minutes.

“Victoria, you have crossed an acceptable line. You’ve always imagined that you could do my job and that of thirteen thousand other good, decent cops better than we can. You’ve always imagined when we chew you out, it’s because we’re stupider or more corrupt than you. But now you have gone further than I will allow.”

“By criticizing George Dornick?” I asked.

“By fingering, if not murdering, Larry Alito.”

I had been watching the second hand go round on the institutional clock on Karen Lennon’s wall, but that news jolted me.

“Alito is dead?” I repeated stupidly.

“Get your head out of your butt.” Bobby was truly furious to use such coarse language talking to me. Even though he disapproves of me, he usually sticks to his no-swearing-at-women-and-children code when we’re speaking. “His body was found down by the river near Cortlandt this afternoon. And Hazel says you’d called up there this morning, threatening him.”

44 - ESCAPE IN CONTAMINATED LAUNDRY

44

ESCAPE IN CONTAMINATED LAUNDRY

WHILE I’D BEEN SPEAKING TO BOBBY, KAREN HAD BEEN standing at her window, aimlessly twitching the blind pull. She turned to me as I hung up. “There are a lot of police cars out front. We don’t usually get so many here. Do you think—?”

“I think I don’t want to find out.” I looked wildly around, hoping a hiding place would open up, but all I saw was my mop. The cops wouldn’t be fooled by a generic jumpsuit and an unused mop. They’d be inspecting all the janitors, even the one I’d seen in the elevator.

“Linen carts … They’re taking dirty linen someplace. Where?”