“I’ll keep you posted.”
“Although I suppose you won’t want to be wasting your time if it’s not Lawrence.”
“I’ll be happy to look it over regardless.” Decker smiled. “Anything you’d like to ask me?”
She sighed again. “Not at the moment. Maybe I’ll think of something later on.”
“You have my number. Feel free to use it.”
“Thank you.”
There was a moment of awkward silence. Then Decker stood up and said, “Thank you for your time and for the dental X-rays. If we have something, I’ll let you know right away.”
He extended his hand and Joanne took it with the slightest of touches. No energy in the gesture. She had used up her reserves for the evening.
McAdams looked over Lawrence Pettigrew’s PI report as Decker drove back toward Brooklyn. Just as they wended their way over the bridge and into Flatbush, the Bluetooth kicked in. It was a number Decker didn’t recognize. He accepted the call.
“Decker.”
“This is James Breck.”
“Mr. Breck. Thank you so much for calling me back. I’m here with my partner, Detective McAdams.”
“What is this in regards to?”
“Lawrence Pettigrew.”
“Ah, so you found him … or her, I guess.”
“We don’t know. We’re in Brooklyn right now. You have a listed address in Queens. We can come to you.”
“I’m at home. I don’t have his folder on me. It’s in the office.”
McAdams said, “Is it possible to meet you at the office?”
“Let me think … maybe around nine.”
“Nine is fine. Thank you.”
Breck said, “Being that you don’t know if you found Lawrence or not, I’m assuming you found a body.”
“We did.”
“In an advanced state of decomposition.”
“Yes.”
“I have a copy of his dental records.”
“We got a set from Mrs. Pettigrew.”
“She has the originals so they’re probably better. I’ll see you later.”
“Thank you,” Decker said.
McAdams looked at his watch. “That’s an hour from now.”
“We’re ten minutes away from my son and daughter-in-law’s house. I’d like to stop in and say hello.”
“Sure.” McAdams paused. “Do you ever discuss your cases with your kids?”
“Not really, no, especially now that Sammy has a child. Parenthood is like the first stage of mortality. Once you have children, you realize you’re no longer invincible.”
After an interlude of coffee and cake with Rina, Sammy, and Rachel, the two detectives were off to Queens.
McAdams was unusually quiet.
“Tired?” Decker asked.
“No, I’m fine.” He paused. “It’s weird. This is probably the most I’ve ever seen of the other four boroughs. Well, three actually. We haven’t made it to the Bronx yet. To us Knickerbockers, the only city is Manhattan.”
“You’re an original Knickerbocker?”
“Not at all, but I have enough money to buy the title.”
The car’s navigation told Decker to turn right in one hundred feet.
“I really am sheltered,” McAdams said. “I only know Queens as an exit on the highway going to Kennedy. I really have to get out more.”
It took another ten minutes until the navigation informed them that they had reached their destination. It was a three-story ’60s-style office building—read it as no style—located in a strip mall. Breck’s office was above a fast-food sandwich shop, now closed, and next door to a Pilates studio, also shuttered. There was some illumination coming from behind the closed blinds. The door was locked: Decker rang the bell. Several footsteps could be heard before the door opened.
Breck was his fifties: short and slight, white hair that held hints of blond. Pale blue eyes were focused behind spectacles and a flared nose sat on a round face. His smile was white and broad. He immediately asked for ID. Decker showed him his badge, and he and McAdams went inside a one-room office. Furnishings included three desks, each with a computer, a printer, and a landline phone, two walls of file cabinets, a copy machine and a fax machine, a small kitchen bar with a coffeepot, a water cooler and a fridge, and a very big cardboard box that held a junk pile of laptops, phones, and electronic tablets.
Breck saw McAdams staring at the electronics. “It’s confiscated stuff. After a certain period of time, we can erase the drives and reuse them or just donate them to the local schools. Sit wherever you’d like. I’ve already pulled the file and made each of you a copy. So you found the body in Greenbury?”
“In a hiking area called Bogat,” Decker answered.
“I always wondered if Pettigrew had gone back to Greenbury. From what I gathered, he seemed attached to the school.”
McAdams pulled up a folding chair. “In what way?”
“Everyone I interviewed said he seemed happy there. It was at Morse McKinley where he really figured out who he was. Or who she was. It’s all in the file.”
“How many people did you interview?” Decker asked.
“The list is pretty long because he had acquaintances from a lot of different groups—his friends in high school, his college buddies, and people from the gay and transgender community. He had a lot of alternative friends. You’ve got to be comfortable talking to those guys. If not, you’ll never get anything out of them.”
“It’s not a problem,” Decker said.
Breck faced McAdams. “You’d probably have better luck. No offense, but you’re less threatening than your partner.”
“No problem for me,” McAdams said. “I had two gay roommates in my suite. I was always running interference between them. They tolerated me, but they hated each other.”
Breck managed a small smile. “Exactly. They are as different as you and me. I do a lot of PI work for the LGBT community. When Lawrence Pettigrew became a missing person, Fred from Staten Island PD recommended me to the family. From the start, I had a feeling it wasn’t going to end well.”
“Why’s that?” Decker said.
“Lawrence … Lorraine … from what I gathered seemed well adjusted to her new persona. For one thing, she had a husband.”
“She was married?” Decker took out a notebook.
McAdams said, “Was it even legal for gay people to be married when he disappeared?”
“Definitely, but it wouldn’t have affected them anyway. Pettigrew was married as a man to a woman who was in the process of sexual reassignment; he was named Karl—née Karen. The last name was Osterfeld. But I think Lorraine and Karl kept their own surnames.”
“Okay,” Decker said. “So they were married as a man and a woman, but they were both in the process of