The Squad Room (32 page)

Koreski played it cool; she didn’t want to come across as too anxious by approaching him—she normally avoided him overtly whenever possible—so she made her way into the squad room kitchen, banking on the enjoyment he’d shown previously for cornering her there. Galipoli had always taken every opportunity to get her alone there, standing wide in the entryway to force her to make contact with him as she left. Today, she knew, it would probably make her skin crawl to touch him. It occurred to her that if everything went as planned, he’d have plenty of chances to touch her later, and the thought made her shudder.

Galipoli, true to form, wasn’t ten seconds behind her.

“Hey, beautiful,” he said, sidling up next to her so he could stare down her shirtfront. “I see you’re giving them some fresh air this morning.”

She ignored him, busying herself in washing her coffee cup.

“Come on,” he insisted. “Don’t tell me you didn’t do that for me. I’m sure Boston’s made you think at least a
little
about what you have in front of you—?”

Koreski closed her eyes, imagining McNamara listening from the van outside. Guy probably wished he had a bucket to puke into.

“Come on, Lou,” she sighed, playing along, though with restraint. “You’re the same egotistical man as always.”

It was perhaps the first time she hadn’t cursed at him after a comment like the one he’d made, and he didn’t fail to notice. He moved closer, and when he spoke again, his voice was softer, more earnestly insinuating.

“Tina, you know you want me,” he said. “What’s the problem with admitting it? No one else is gonna hear you.”

Despite her revulsion at the situation, Tina had to suppress a laugh thinking of McNamara on the other end of the wire. She turned her face away from Galipoli to hide her reaction; it came off as evasiveness on her part, which he took up like an encouragement.

“Hey, I can be quiet about it too,” he said breathily, moving still closer.

Normally this would have been the point where she would have gotten rougher in brushing him off; but not this time.

“Look, Lou,” she said quietly, allowing her voice to falter just a bit as she looked around. “It’s not—all right, yes, if you have to know, you looked pretty impressive walking those guys out in Boston.”

For an instant she worried she’d given up the game, his expression seemed so surprised. But then, as quickly, he recovered.

“Yeah?” he asked, the cockiness in his voice tempered with a wheedling note of self-deprecation. “That turn you on, just a little bit?”

Again she hesitated, long enough to put the idea of an internal conflict in his head. “Lou, come on, don’t—” she said with a light laugh.

“It’s okay,” he said with eerie tenderness, reaching out and touching her hair. She fought down the urge to break his fingers, instead closing
her eyes just for an instant to let it happen. His hand slid down towards her shoulders and upper back.

“Lou, not here,” she protested in a whisper. “People might walk in—then what’ll we do?”

It was the opening he’d been waiting for.

“So why don’t you let me take you out tonight?” he asked, in a voice barely louder than her own. “Nobody here has to know anything—it’s strictly between you and me, babe.”

“I don’t know, Lou. I—”

“Look, it’s not like we’re going to be on this bullshit task force forever anyway,” he said petulantly. “The case is done, those idiots are in jail, I’m moving on to better things. What’s the problem? I’m not telling anyone, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

It took everything in her not to lash out at him, but she was in it now. “You just—you have to promise not to, Lou,” she insisted. “You know no one here likes you, and I don’t want to get any shit from anyone for going out with you.”

“Of course,” he said, flashing that oily smile again. “Only you and I need to know this night ever happened.”

The words fell slowly from his lips, and she caught at them carefully.
This night?
The son of a bitch was already convinced she was in the bag.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll go. Just get off my back about it, okay?”

“I don’t think you’ll be saying that later,” he joked sleazily. “Why don’t I pick you up at your place, and we can have a drink before we go out?”

Uh-oh,
she thought.
That’s the last place I want to start the evening with this guy.
She thought quickly. “I won’t be going straight home after today,” she said. “I have an appointment at the beauty parlor after work.”

“Come on,” he protested. “You’re beautiful just the way you are.”

“If it’s a date, I’d rather look my best,” she said lamely. “Look, it won’t take long. We can meet up in Manhattan, have a bite to eat, and see where the night takes us. Okay?”

For an instant, he didn’t seem pleased by this at all. For the second time she worried she’d scared him off; but then, as if by magic, the
smile suddenly returned.

“All right honey, anything you want,” he said. “Give me the address of the place where you’ll be, and I’ll meet you nearby.”

She quickly scribbled an address on her pad, tore it off, and handed it to him. He glanced at it briefly, almost angrily, then abruptly turned and walked off without another word.

When he’d gone, she closed her eyes and breathed a sigh of relief. Her heart raced, her palms were sweating. It flashed through her mind that she’d likely humiliated Galipoli by turning down his suggestion of meeting place; she prayed again that her backup team would be there for her later whenever he decided to make her pay for it.

She headed to the ladies’ room. Once inside, she shut off the kel for a moment’s privacy, and stood looking into the mirror.

Beauty parlor?
she thought to herself derisively. Who the hell used that term anymore? Even her own mother would say “salon.”
God, I’m such an idiot,
she thought.

She hoped she wasn’t doing something more drastically idiotic still. The door was still open; she could back out. The Cap had told her time and again that no one would think less of her. How could she have volunteered for this, anyway, after what happened to her before? Had she forgotten? The years of therapy, the nightmares, the memories she’d spent years working to put in their place—all of it piled up in front of her now: the horror of helplessness, the silent panic of getting in over her head. She couldn’t deal with that happening again. And it
could
happen again—

“No,” she said out loud. She threw cold water on her face, tried again to breathe deeply. “Come on, girl, you can do this,” she went on in a whisper. “This won’t be like last time. Kasak and Marchioni are watching your back, along with a handful of other guys who’d kill for you.” She fixed her hair and dried her face, forcing her nerves to settle. “It’s going to be okay.”

Besides,
a voice at the back of her mind insisted,
you’re in too deep to back out now.

36

The rest of the day flew by in an anxious rush.

The backup teams all found reasons to leave early, in order to be set up on Koreski well before her scheduled rendezvous with Prince Charming. Morrison, left alone with them, tried not to watch Galipoli, but found it impossible; the way the man looked at her was enough to make anyone uneasy. When Koreski finally left he building, Morrison imagined it was almost as much a relief for him as it was for her.

Twenty minutes later, Galipoli took off—a conspicuous difference from his usual routine. He was never the last person in the squad room, by habit. He was obviously being careful to maintain a clear separation between Koreski and himself in Morrison’s eyes. Morrison played along, keeping his head down over the case he was pretending to review. With a glance in his direction, Galipoli grabbed his jacket, shut his desk drawer, and without a word, was gone.

Morrison reached immediately for the radio sitting next to him in its charger.

“It’s show time,” he said to the waiting teams. “Let’s talk status. Team one, how’re we doing?”

“All good, Cap,” came Kasak’s voice over the radio. “We’ve been on Koreski since she left the office. We’re parked down the block from
the salon now.”

“Okay. Team two?”

“Standing by to follow Galipoli now,” O’Dell said. He and Rivera were out front in a car they’d borrowed from the impound lot, so as not to draw attention to themselves. “Sergeant Rivera points out that the car he’s driving matches one of our descriptions from the last homicide: dark sedan, looks like a patrol car.”

“Good to know. Team three, how about you guys?”

“We’re down the street from the salon now, mixed in with the commercial vehicles,” Garriga said. He and McNamara were in a tinted-out surveillance van, with McNamara in back listening in on Koreski’s kel.

“Okay,” Morrison said. “Simmons, I’m sitting tight for a minute—I’ll be down to join you when Galipoli heads out.”

“Copy that,” said Simmons, from his position in the precinct parking lot.

“All right, keep alert, everyone,” Morrison said, grabbing his jacket.

Down in the lot, in a far corner from the access ramp, Simmons watched a shadow coming down.
Morrison,
he thought. He put his key in the ignition.

A sudden feeling stopped him.
Was
it Morrison? He waited a moment to be sure.

To his surprise, it was Galipoli who came around the corner instead. Simmons shrank down in his seat quickly, keeping one eye on Galipoli and thanking his lucky stars that he’d parked at an angle and distance where he couldn’t have been seen. What the hell was the guy doing in the precinct lot? Was he on to them?

Galipoli looked left and right as he approached one of the squad’s unmarked cars. As Simmons watched in amazement, he produced a Slim Jim from his jacket sleeve, and expertly popped the lock with it.
If he’d left something in one of the cars, why didn’t he just bring down the key for it?
Simmons wondered idly; then, in a cold flash, he remembered the bag with the rape kit. He stiffened as Galipoli reached into the backseat.

Jesus, he thought. If he opens it and finds those things missing—oh, Jesus.
Galipoli
was
opening it.

Shit, he’s going to see! You gotta get out there and do something, so he doesn’t—

Just then there was a flash of headlights and a marked patrol car drove down the ramp. It was likely just a car that needed a fill from the precinct pump; but it may have saved their whole operation nonetheless. Simmons breathed a quiet sigh of relief as Galipoli shouldered the bag, smoothly as a cat burglar, and headed back up the ramp, whistling as he went.

“Team two, Lou’s on his way up to you,” Simmons said into the radio. “He had to grab his party favors.”

“Yeah, I see—we’ve got him coming out now,” said O’Dell. “We were wondering what he was up to down there. He have a near miss? He looks like he’s in a real hurry to get out of here.”

“Yeah,” Simmons said. “Motherfucker’d just about opened that bag, when a patrol car came down. Let’s hope it’s thrown him off his game for the moment.”

“Well, he just tossed the bag in the trunk without looking in it, so it looks like we’re good for now,” said O’Dell.

“Let’s hope that luck holds up long enough for us to nail this lunatic,” said Morrison, who’d been listening in.

“All right, he’s moving,” O’Dell said. “We’re tailing him over toward Ninth Avenue.”

“Great, I’m heading down,” Morrison said.

Simmons had brought the car to the top of the ramp to wait for him. “Well, Andre,” Morrison said as he jumped in, “I guess our investigative instincts have just been validated! He just had to have that bag back, didn’t he?”

“Guess he did,” Simmons said, shaking his head. “Son of a bitch even broke into a cop car to get it.”

Morrison looked at him in disbelief. “Broke in?” he asked.

“Yep—Slim Jimmed the door like a pro.”

“Christ,” Morrison said. “The guy’s got balls, I’ll give him that. Well, I wish we had the DNA back from those panties and shorts to shut him down hard, but this’ll definitely do for now—the bag’s enough to do away with any of
my
doubts.” Morrison took a deep breath. “Now we just have to make sure the rest of this goes off without a hitch.”

Detective Tina Koreski was the only customer in the salon.

The stylist’s conversation hadn’t taken much of the edge off; if anything, it had only made it more difficult to keep her focus. She’d promised Captain Morrison that she’d be all right, but since she’d left the precinct, it had been a constant struggle to keep the panic at bay. It did no good to remind herself that this time was different, that this time she would have the best help she could have; her mind continued to race with ugly scenarios, in spite of her.

She’d already gotten the text from Morrison that Galipoli had returned to the car on his way out for the rape kit. In a detached sense, that was a good thing, since it meant they didn’t need to have any more compunction about accusing him unjustly, and could focus on getting the evidence they needed to draw the noose tight around his neck.

On the other hand, it really did mean she was walking right into the lion’s den.

She was brought back to the present by the stylist removing the towel from around her neck.

“This ought to get your attention,” she said. “Voila! You’re done.”

“Wow, just like that, huh?” Koreski said. “Let me see.”

Koreski looked in the mirror, smiling. She couldn’t help but admire the work the stylist had done. She wasn’t normally a woman who spent much time at the salon; hell, she hadn’t even known what to call it when she’d spoken about it earlier! She’d had to have one of her friends tell her where this place was, and call to make the appointment for her.

“It looks great,” she said, and meant it.
It damn well better!
said a voice at the back of her mind. A simple wash, cut, and dry had cost her
two hundred dollars. Now she knew why she didn’t go to these places normally. She’d have to make sure Galipoli wouldn’t be the only one to enjoy the results.