JULY 7, 1977
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK
Detective Delgado put the phone down, and checked her watch. So far today she’d had precisely zero luck in tracking down Hopper, and she knew that trying to find him was starting to become a distraction from her actual work. Because as much as she wanted to bounce ideas off her partner, she was a detective in her own right, and was more than capable of carrying out her side of the investigation on her own.
On her own—and without raising Captain LaVorgna’s suspicions. Luckily for her, he had been out most of the day at some meeting of the higher-ups, so Delgado was largely free to follow up on new leads, while keeping her other, assigned cases floating around her desk.
New leads like Lisa Sargeson, who just happened to be running her charity rehabilitation workshops from one of the addresses on the late Special Agent Jacob Hoeler’s list.
On the face of it, there wasn’t anything suspicious about that. Delgado had gone into the building, an old Methodist church hall, with Lisa, and had scanned the crowded noticeboard in the building’s lobby. Lisa’s group was one of many. Indeed, it seemed that the hall was never not in use by one organization or another, let alone the church itself.
After that, Delgado had watched Lisa for a minute or so through the windows of the door that led into the hall itself. Lisa had stood at the front, while about a dozen men sat on hard chairs in front of her. It looked like a class, and Delgado supposed that was what it really was.
On the drive back to the precinct, Delgado allowed herself to zone out, letting her brain get on with it on its own. It was all part of her process, various theories and ideas—the mundane and the outlandish alike—whirling around inside her head, her subconscious hard at work on the problem. Delgado had found that if she focused too hard on something, that particular thought, that avenue of investigation, would grow and dominate, forming a preconception that her brain would try to fit theories and evidence into, no matter what.
A dangerous habit for a detective.
So instead, the key—for her, anyway—was to let it all go, at least for a while. With any luck, something a little more rational would shake itself loose while Delgado got on with her other investigations.
Back at the precinct, she found that Lisa Sargeson was still at the forefront of her mind. There was something there, she was sure of it. Something.
A lot of good that was. “Something”? Gee, great. How about a big fat coincidence? And then she had spent the rest of the afternoon staring at the list from Hoeler’s apartment, and wondering where the hell Hopper was.
That was when Captain LaVorgna arrived back at the precinct, the doors at the end of the bull pen banging against the frame as he stormed through them and into his office, slamming his own door behind him. Through the windows, Delgado saw the captain take off his jacket and yank his tie off. Then he stood in the middle of his office and shook his head, before glancing out into the bull pen while rummaging through his pockets, likely looking for a cigarette.
Delgado froze, feeling—ridiculously, given there was no way LaVorgna could see what was on her desk—like she’d been caught red-handed, working on a case she wasn’t supposed to. But then the captain just frowned and snapped the blinds closed.
Oh boy.
Delgado slipped Hoeler’s list under a folder, and turned her attention to another case. But all the while, just one name kept rolling around in her mind.
Lisa Sargeson.