Larkin clenched his jaw, waited until Connor started for his office, then blindly grabbed the receiver. “What,” he snapped.

“Uh… It’s Millett with CSU. Is this a bad time?”

“Every time is a bad time,” Larkin muttered.

“Aren’t you chipper in the morning.”

“What do you want.”

“I think it’s more what you want,” Millett replied. “I got the test results back on Gary Reynold’s belts that were taken into evidence. No joy. Only DNA found belonged to Gary Reynold. I went the extra step for you too, and asked the ME to compare them to the wound track on your DB in the IKEA bag—also not a match.”

“So Gary Reynold didn’t kill out of some sort of panicked, self-preservation.”

“If he did, he tossed the evidence,” Millett said. “Which is your problem, not mine.”

“Your commitment to justice has been noted.”

“Hey. Did you study physics and biochemistry and then take an unpaid internship position with the state police up in goddamn Albany just to get hands-on lab experience so you could spend your best years climbing into a manhole, waist-deep with rainwater runoff, motor oil, piss, used condoms, and more than one rat carcass?”

“No,” Larkin said simply.

“Then shut up,” Millett concluded.

“Thank you for your… informative call, Detective,” Larkin said after a beat. He began to pull the phone away from his ear, then stopped. “Millett.”

“Yeah?”

“On Monday, March 30, you asked if I was acquainted with Detective Doyle and suggested I speak with him regarding the death mask found in Madison Square Park.”

“Uh, sure, that sounds right.”

“Why.”

“Why…?”

“Why did you immediately suggest Doyle.”

“Because he’s a forensic artist.”

“Yes, he is. But how did you know Doyle would have such particular insight and knowledge into an obscure art form and no-longer-practiced mourning ritual.”

“I’ve technically met him once before, prior to him joining the force. An ex of mine—let’s just say they’re into some of the more eclectic moments in history—runs an antique store, and one of my first times visiting the shop, Doyle was there. I don’t think he remembers me from back then. It was nearly… seven years ago?”

“I don’t see the correlation.”

“Doyle was a museum curator. My ex was looking for direction regarding… what the hell was it… jet buttons or brooches or something equally not-interesting. Anyway. Doyle’s quiet but he’s hard to forget. A few years later, I was down at 1PP, for a meeting, I think, and I bumped into him. He’d just gotten promoted to detective and placed in the Forensic Artists Unit.”

Hesitantly, because Larkin had the distinct and wholly accurate account of Doyle saying he’d once had lofty aspirations of a museum job, not that he did, in fact, have a museum job on his resumé, he asked, “Which museum?”