Larkin didn’t answer. He’d been a detective for seven of his ten years on the force, and found that when it came to interviews or interrogations, silence was one of the best and most underutilized tools. Because most people? They wanted to talk. Humans were social creatures. They craved communication. If Larkin didn’t provide an outlet, whoever sat opposite would often do whatever was necessary to get Larkin to engage. Sometimes that meant offering a sliver of information, a vital clue that would bring life back to a cold case. Sometimes it meant snitching to make a deal. And sometimes, if they weren’t very bright, they’d implicate themselves.

Of course, there were some people who simply had nothing to say. Larkin had both a good cop and bad cop routine for those sorts—the former being deducing a mutual connection and offering a piece of himself to establish trust, the latter being his stare. He’d been told it was like looking death in the eye, but unlike the old saying, Larkin was never the one to blink first.

Harry, it turned out, was the talkative sort. “I was smokin’ some yesterday, that’s all.” He looked back to the hole as Millett’s camera shutter snap, snap, snapped. “But then this storm hit… the tree’s a public safety hazard, you know? I have to remove it.”

“I don’t care that you smoked weed on your day off.”

A puff of cold air surrounded Harry’s mouth as he exhaled.

“How old is this crabapple.”

Harry shrugged. “I’m just here to remove it,” he said again. But after another short stretch of silence, Harry reached into his other back pocket and removed a wallet. His big fingers pawed through a collection of business cards before he found the one he wanted. “Give Mable a call, over at Parks and Rec. She oversees most of what goes on at Madison. She could probably tell you about the crabapple tree, if you actually wanted to know.”

Larkin studied the card before slipping it into his pocket. “When did you arrive at the park.”

“What time is it now?”

Larkin tugged back the sleeve of his suit coat. “8:33.”

“Most people would say eight thirty.”

“I’m not most people.”

“Right. Okay. Six thirty, I guess. I saw the tree from the road, so I parked and came to check it out. Some jogger—in this storm, the fuckin’ douche—came from that way, and we both saw them bones in the box,” Harry explained, pointing toward the hole Millett was once again waist-deep in. “I called 911 because I’m not about to fuck with that.”

“Where did the jogger go.”

Another shrug. “I don’t know. He left, I guess.”

“Where do you live, Mr. Regmore,” Larkin inquired.

“Sorry?”

“Do you still live in the Bronx.”

Harry adjusted his cap again. “Are you asking? Yeah, I do. Concourse.”