“It means this asshole is really starting to fuck with us,” said Frankel.

Grant would be the first to say there was quite a difference in the way Americans and Brits described things.

But he couldn’t have put it better if he tried.

Chapter 5

5

Sitting in a cafeteria in the bowels of the building that housed the morgue, Grant found the concept of food nauseating after Marcus’s discovery from the dead priest’s stomach. It didn’t stop Frankel from gobbling down two hot dogs slathered with mustard, sauerkraut, and ketchup. The detective polished off the second with a swig of Coke, then wiped his mouth and noticed Grant staring at him.

“I know. My ex used to say I was raised in a barn.”

“I didn’t realize you were divorced,” Grant observed, his eyes drifting to the detective’s left ring finger and the simple, slightly tarnished gold band on it.

“This?” Frankel waved the finger. “Almost two years now. I keep meaning to take it off but then don’t know what to do with it. I’m not going to throw it in the trash and it’d just clog up a toilet. I stick it in a drawer, I’ll come across it when I least expect and it’ll make me feel like shit for not working things out with Julia.”

“Does that mean you hope she’s coming back?”

“Fat chance of that. She took off with the super in my building. They’re running a beach bar on the Big Island in Hawaii.” Frankel shook his head. “A shrink told me I keep wearing it so I won’t have to explain what happened. If I take it off, it’s going to end up being some kind of big thing.” He polished off the rest of the Coke. “Maybe I’m just waiting for the right girl to get rid of it for.”

Grant, not knowing how to respond, retreated to an old British standby: polite empathy by way of a simple nod. It seemed to do the trick as Frankel switched the conversation to their current conundrum.

“9888,” Frankel said. “What do you suppose we’re looking at here?”

“First thing that comes to mind is a location or address,” suggested Grant.

Frankel already had his iPhone out and started to work Google Maps. “988 Eighth Avenue is an apartment building on the corner of Fifty-Eighth Street and Eighth Avenue—that puts it just south of Columbus Circle.”

“How many apartments or tenants are we looking at?”

“I’ve got no idea till we get there,” Frankel replied. “But I imagine a whole bunch of them are occupied by mothers and fathers.”

“Or their sons and daughters,” said Grant.

As Frankel navigated the unmarked sedan through clogged Midtown Manhattan, Grant suggested making the twenty-block journey on foot.