A Cup Full of Midnight Read Online Free

look.”
    I took the seat across from him, a black vinyl office chair with stuffing peeking from a split seam, and said, “I need to see the Parker file.”
    “The Parker file.”
    “You know. Sebastian Parker. Vampire wannabe. Ritual killing. Called himself Razor.”
    “I know who he is. What I don’t know is why you think I’m gonna get myself fired for giving you case files when you don’t work for us anymore.”
    “I’m not asking you to give it to me. I can look at it right here. We could go in the copy room and lock the door, if that will make you feel better.”
    “Not even if I wanted to.” He slumped in his chair, raked his fingers through his silvering hair. “I don’t have it. It’s not my case anymore. Malone gave it to Gilley and Robbins.”
    “Who the hell are Gilley and Robbins?”
    He barked a bitter laugh. “Fucking parking meter detectives. Part of some master plan to make us do the things we suck at.” He plucked a fat file folder from a sloppy stack of papers and shoved it across the desk at me.
    I picked it up and rifled through it. Peeping Tom. “You gotta be kidding me.”
    “Do I look like I’m kidding?”
    I slid the file back toward him. “So they get the homicides, you get the scut work?”
    “Malone sent them on a new case today. Dead guy on the porch, pissed-off wife with a shotgun. The Parker case, Gilley lost his lunch, and Robbins broke down and cried like a baby. So she sends them out to see some poor schmuck with his brains all over the porch.”
    “Amateurs.”
    “Don’t get me wrong. They’re good investigators. But what do they know about homicide? You know what our solve rate is these days? Forty percent.”
    Before the big upheaval, it had been eighty. You couldn’t blame Malone or the precinct commanders for that. Not entirely. There were other factors. Politics. A new police chief who didn’t understand that homicide was a different kind of crime and homicide detectives a different breed. I’d seen good beat cops broken by the sight of a butchered body, unable to leave their own houses without getting the shakes. Not the guys in homicide. In homicide, we know how to detach.
    “When it gets down to thirty,” I said, “maybe you’ll get your office back.”
    “If it gets down to thirty, I’ll die of shame and they can have the fucking office.”
    “But then I’d miss the pleasure of your scintillating conversation.” I leaned forward, put my hands flat on his desk, and said, “Frank, I need to see that file.”
    His eyebrows bunched together, wild silver bristles that made him look like a disgruntled badger. “I just told you, I don’t have it.”
    “But you could get it.”
    “Sure, if I wanted to spend my golden years saying, ‘Welcome to Walmart.’”
    I looked down at my lap. I knew Malone would pounce on an excuse to cut him loose, and I was asking him to risk both his pension and his reputation and give her one. It was a lot to ask. “I know I’m putting you on the spot,” I said. “But you know the case. I need to know what angle your guys are working.”
    “My guys?”
    “Your guys, Malone’s guys. Whoever they belong to, two of them went to Josh’s school yesterday and questioned him about Razor’s murder.”
    Frank raised an eyebrow. Rocked back in his chair. “S.O.P. You know that. He was intimate with the victim.”
    “He was molested by the victim.”
    “Okay.” His voice softened. “I misspoke. But he hung out with the guy for a long time. You don’t think he could shed some light?”
    “They called him out of the cafeteria in front of the whole school and then they made him think he was a suspect.”
    “You think they crossed the line?”
    “He went home and cut his wrists. What do you think?”
    His face went perfectly still. “What?”
    “He’s going to be okay, probably. If he doesn’t try it again.”
    “My God.”
    “So I need to know, Frank. Is he a suspect?”
    He rubbed his hands over his face, as