Patch stood in the hallway three full minutes before she knocked.
Jonah heard the not-knocking through the door a shuffle, a breath held and let go the sound of someone deciding whether early looked better than exactly on time.
Jonah opened the door.
Patch stood there with two coffees and a clipboard.
“Detective,” he said.
“Vega.” She looked at him for two seconds.
Looked past him into the apartment for one.
Looked back at his hands.
“You didn’t sleep.”
“I slept some.”
“You look like a man who’s been lying to a detective.”
“I look like a man who had a visitor yesterday.”
She held out one of the coffees.
He took it.
She did not move.
She stood in the doorway the way cops stood in doorways when they were deciding whether the room was secure enough to enter or whether the interview needed to happen at the precinct with a recorder and a witness.
Jonah stepped back.
She came in.
Closed the door behind her.
Walked to the table.
Put the clipboard down.
Looked at the couch.
Looked at the window.
Looked at the doorjamb where Klaus’s number was still written in careless strokes.
“You had company,” she said.
“I did.”
“The kind of company that writes phone numbers on your doorframe.”
“The kind.”
She turned.
Looked at him.
He had not moved from the door.
He was holding the coffee the way a man held a coffee when he was deciding whether to drink it or put it down so his hands were free.
“The interview,” she said.
“It’s in two hours.
Nine a.m.
at the precinct.
Lieutenant Ramos wants you on record.
I want you on record.
You said you’d come in Monday morning.”
“I did.”
“So we’re good.”
Jonah looked at the clipboard.
It was a rotation schedule clipped to the top.
Under it, visible at the edge, was a consent form.
Witness protection.
He could see the header.
He could see the signature line.
He looked back at Patch.
“What’s under the rotation schedule,” he said.
She did not look at the clipboard.
She looked at him.
“A form.”
“What kind of form.”
“The kind that says if you’re being threatened by people outside NYPD jurisdiction, we can move you.
Quietly.
No paperwork that leaves the building.
You sign it, you’re on my ledger officially, and I can work the case without my lieutenant asking why I’m running a protection detail on a guy who hasn’t been charged with anything.”
“And if I don’t sign it.”
“Then the interview is just an interview.
You walk out by lunch.
I close the file the way Ramos wants it closed.
We’re done.”
Jonah set the coffee down on the table.
Sat.
Patch stayed standing.
She watched him.
He looked at the clipboard.
He did not touch it.
“Carl,” he said.
“The man at the docks.
Two weeks ago.
You told me he jumped.”
“He did.”
“He didn’t.”
Patch went still.
The stillness was the kind cops learned when a witness said something that changed the shape of the case and the witness did not know yet whether they were about to be believed or arrested.
“Walk me through it,” she said.
“I can’t.”
“Vega.”
“I can’t tell you how I know.
I can tell you he didn’t jump.
Someone put him there.
Someone cleaned it.
You won’t find prints.
You won’t find the someone.
But it wasn’t a suicide.”
Patch crossed to the table.
Sat down across from him.
Pulled the clipboard toward her.
Did not open it.
She looked at him the way she had looked at him the first time they met, when she had asked him where he had been the night a man died in an alley three blocks from his apartment and he had told her the Walgreens and she had written it down without believing it.
“How do you know,” she said.
“I can’t tell you.”
“Are you being watched.”
Jonah did not answer.
Patch leaned back.
The chair creaked.
She looked at the doorjamb again.
Looked at the window.
Looked at the couch where Ben had sat and waved and left.
“By people not in my jurisdiction,” she said.
“Yes.”
“People who don’t leave prints.”
“Yes.”
She picked up her coffee.
Drank.
Put it down.
She did not look at the clipboard.
She looked at him.
“I’m going to do a thing,” she said.
“And you’re going to tell me if I’m wrong.”
Jonah waited.
“You’re going to take the interview,” she said.
“But not today.
You need time to set the room.
You need time to figure out what you can tell me and what you can’t.
You need time to make sure the people who are watching you know that I’m asking questions and that you’re cooperating and that the file is going to close cleanly.”
Jonah looked at her.
“Am I wrong,” she said.
“No.”
She stood.
Picked up the clipboard.
The consent form stayed under the rotation schedule.
She tucked the clipboard under her arm.
Picked up her coffee.
Walked to the door.
“Twenty-four hours,” she said.
“Tomorrow.
Tuesday.
Nine a.m.
Same precinct.
Same lieutenant.
You don’t show, I come here with a warrant and two uniforms and we do it the other way.”
“Understood.”
She opened the door.
Stepped into the hallway.
Turned.
“Carl had a daughter,” she said.
“She’s sixteen.
She thinks her dad jumped because he was broke and she wasn’t enough to keep him here.
If you’re right, I’m going to tell her.
So don’t be wrong.”
“I’m not wrong.”
Patch looked at him for a long moment.
The hallway was quiet.
The neighbor’s TV was off.
The rain from the weekend was gone and the light through the window at the end of the hall was thin and cold and October.
“Eat something,” she said.
“You look like hell.”
She walked down the stairs without looking back.
Jonah closed the door.
Locked it.
Walked to the table.
Sat down.
The coffee she had brought him was still warm.
He drank it.
It was burnt.
It was exactly as bad as precinct coffee always was.
He pulled the notebook from his back pocket.
Opened it.
Found the page.
Wrote one line.
Patch gave me twenty-four hours.
Carl’s daughter is sixteen.
I chose my major on a Tuesday in September and I cannot remember which major it was.
He stopped.
Looked at the line.
Read it back.
The memory was gone.
He had paid for the stall.
The cost was a Tuesday in September six years ago when he had sat in a registrar’s office and chosen a major and walked out and called his mother to tell her and she had been proud and he could not remember what he had chosen or why or what her voice had sounded like when she said his name.
He closed the notebook.
Put it back in his pocket.
Stood.
The apartment was quiet.
The couch was empty.
The doorjamb still had Klaus’s number written in careless strokes.
The coffee was still warm.
Jonah went to the window.
Looked out at the street.
The sky was thin and cold.
The morning was ordinary.
Nobody was watching the building.
Nobody was standing on the corner.
Nobody was waiting.
He had twenty-four hours to set the room.
He counted doors in Spanish under his breath.
Uno, dos, tres.
He had work to do.