Free Red Hook by Gabriel Cohen Page A

History, art history, books with French titles. Sheila taught at Columbia University. They’d met a couple of days after the murder of a local dry cleaner, when Jack was canvassing some of the victim’s regular clients. Sheila had sat on this couch drinking a glass of wine, looking through the sliding glass door, which gave out onto a wooden deck with a spectacular view of the Manhattan skyline. She offered him a glass and—since it was near the end of an evening shift—he accepted.
    He sauntered, into the cramped kitchen. As usual, an open bottle of expensive wine stood on the counter. He peered down into a case in the corner; nearly empty. He didn’t think Sheila was an alcoholic, but she definitely drank a lot. Maybe the quality of the wine made her feel better about drinking so much of it, about drinking it alone. He poured himself a glass, then peeked into her refrigerator. Other than a container of lactose-free milk and a couple of take-out cartons, it held only row after row of condiments. Curry paste. Hoisin sauce. Olive paste…In the five or six times he’d been here, he’d never seen her cook—she was too busy with her work. Maybe she put the condiments on the take-out food.
    He wandered back into the living room, his mind never idle. If this was a homicide scene, who would have killed her? Disgruntled student, maybe, academic career ruined by a failing grade? Too Columbo . Most likely it would just be an interrupted B and E. Up over the deck, through the sliding door. Maybe the perp would leave some prints on a take-out food container, a mid-job snack. Jack would guess his nationality by the type of condiment left out on the counter.
    “What are you thinking about?” Sheila asked, putting a hand on his shoulder.
    He spun around, guilty over his morbid preoccupations. “Hm? Just enjoying the scenery.”
    “That moron next door put a floodlight out on his deck. It really interferes with the view.”
    Sheila sipped her wine. Petite Caucasian female, mid-thirties, short brown hair, fairly sexy figure, lipstick-model lips.
    “This wine’s pretty good,” Jack said.
    “Not really. It’s not very complex. I should have taken it back after I opened the first bottle.” She came around the sofa and perched on the far end. “To what do I owe this unexpected visit?”
    “I don’t know, You need a reason?”
    She lit a cigarette and took a deep drag. “I guess not. The inscrutable Detective Leightner.”
    “Actually, I’m feeling pretty scrutable tonight.”
    She considered him without so much as a grin.
    “That was a joke,” he said. “Did you teach today?”
    She pulled a shred of nicotine off her tongue and grimaced. “Don’t ask. I don’t know why they keep admitting these brain-dead kids.”
    Jack didn’t come around often: her relentless negativity was hard to take. If he said the weather was nice, she’d point to a bad forecast; if he complimented her apartment, she’d complain about the lack of space. A couple of times he’d tried to tactfully point out this pattern, but Sheila had been surprised and defensive. She was always talking about spirituality, about being centered and grounded , but her cool exterior seemed brittle to him, the cap on an angry inner life. In short, she was a pain in the ass, but the next time he was feeling too single, he’d probably overlook that again and come back for more.
    “What are you working on back there?”
    She brightened, as he knew she would. The one thing that always improved her disposition was talk about her research. Sheila had her problems, but he liked listening to someone with such a vivid life of the mind. He wondered if he wouldn’t have enjoyed college himself, given the chance.
    She allowed herself to relax back into the sofa. “I’m writing about a book from the seventies called The Denial of Death .”
    “Oh, yeah? What’s it about?”
    “Well”—she took a sip of her wine—“it’s a psychoanalytic—actually