“Yeah, well, he came up through Vice, back in the day. This is his last year. Fucker’s about three hundred years old. Anyway, we’ve started going through his caseload, you know, what to keep, what to toss to you jackals.” O’Halloran paused again, shook his head, then finished with “He’s been sitting on a dead stripper since ’92. Natasha ‘Nadia’ Smirnova.” Whatever O’Halloran saw on Larkin’s face, he said, “Yeah. That Nadia. I saw the request come through from Ulmer last night. I was going to fucking ignore it because fuck you, Grim, but it bothered me. I knew I’d just come across that name recently, and it annoyed the piss out of me that you were now asking. It’s not a common name, after all. Natasha was your ’92 case. I’d done a cursory look at it a few weeks ago with Charlie.”

“You said this woman,” Larkin began, pointing at the fountain over O’Halloran’s shoulder, “was involved in Vice. How is she connected to Natasha.”

“Danielle Moreno was Natasha’s roommate back then. She was the one to identify Natasha’s body after she was found in Tompkins Square Park on April 23, 1992.”

“They both worked as strippers?” Doyle asked.

O’Halloran nodded. “That’s exactly right. Danielle’s stage name was Bettie.”

“Bettie,” Larkin repeated, raising an eyebrow.

“Like Bettie Page, only with red hair,” O’Halloran answered. “That was her schtick. At least, according to her records with Vice.” He motioned them to follow as he led the way to the scene.

The fountain, a replica of its 1843 original, wasn’t typically turned on until the warmer months, and thank God, Larkin thought, park officials were still holding off, despite that exceptionally warm week they’d had earlier in the month, which had sent sections of the park into early bloom. Rain was bad enough for evidence collection, but a body submerged in water all but promised no results. The fountain was surrounded by massive flower urns and an ornamental fence about waist-high. CSU was already down on the bare brick of the fountain, about two feet lower than the pathway. Larkin was fairly certain it was the same detective from Monday—Millett.

They stopped at the fence and peered down. Danielle Moreno’s body was like a broken doll, having likely been tossed over the handrail without a second thought. She’d landed on her side, one arm flung out and partially obscuring her face, one leg twisted back in a pose seen only by professional ballerinas. Her long red hair was wet and plastered to bloated and discolored skin. She was nude from the waist up.

Doyle quickly closed his umbrella, passed it to Larkin, and called down to CSU about joining the scene.