Dead Connection (25 page)

“Three months after the United States government put me here.”

“Looks like pretty decent work for a prison tat. Your jacket didn’t say anything about having white ethnic pride.” She used the white supremacists’ preferred euphemism for racism.

Grosha double-checked the empty area around them before speaking. “I don’t give a fuck what color people are. Even the men you Americans call white look brown compared to me. But inside this place, you cannot be alone. I learned that quickly. The brothers, they do not want to take care of a man who looks like me. This?” He pulled his sleeve to cover the ink. “This was the easy way. I have it removed later. Big deal.”

“You do what you have to in order to survive.”

“Exactly.”

“Not unlike the way you refused to tell the U.S. Attorney’s Office who you were feeding the credit card numbers to after you got them from the motel clerk. That was about survival too?”

“Like I said, the tattoo was easy. You know that I cannot say any more than I have. But I promise you this. I am telling the truth when I say I do not know any man like the one you are looking for. If I did, you would not need to give me — what did you call it —
substantial consideration
. I would help you, or I would kill the man myself. Men like that in Russia, they do not get away with hurting women, not like in this country.”

On the way out of the prison, Ellie stopped to see the young, shorthaired guard at the entrance.

“Did you get what you needed from your Russian?” he asked.

“Unfortunately, I didn’t, but I was wondering if maybe you could help me with something. In order to see anyone in here, you’ve got to have your name on the inmate’s visiting list, right?”

“Yep. It’s got to all be done in advance. No such thing as a pop-in at a corrections facility.”

“Can I get a list of Lev Grosha’s visitors?”

“No problem.” He hit a few keys. “It’s a short one.” The printer churned out only five names, including hers. The other four were Russian, two females and two males. One of the women, probably his mother, shared the Grosha surname. The two men were named Ivan Ovinko and Mark Jakov. Neither name was familiar to Ellie, and neither Zoya nor Vitali Rostov was on the list.

STUCK IN STOP-and-start traffic for over forty minutes on the Gowanus Expressway, Ellie felt too antsy to return to Murray Hill for a quiet night alone in her apartment. She was close to a breakthrough, she could tell, but she couldn’t piece the tangents of her wandering mind into a coherent thought. Tatiana’s sister knew something. Ellie had seen the unspoken concern on Zoya’s face, and knew that it had something to do with her husband. The woman also seemed a little too interested in Ed Becker, betraying more than just idle curiosity when she asked if he’d known about Tatiana’s cooperation with the FBI. And all those connections that Flann had pointed out between Becker and their case — how did they fit in? And how did they relate to FirstDate and all of the women who’d been killed?

She dialed Flann’s number on her cell. “Hey there, it’s me.”

“You’re all done seeing the sister?”

“I talked to her, and I also went to see Lev Grosha at MDC. I think there’s something more to what Zoya knows. She might not know how it fits into her sister’s death, but I said something to her that — I don’t know, confused her or something.”

“No idea what it was?”

“She’s hard to read. She said she didn’t recognize Grosha, but it’s possible she’s lying. She remembered seeing Tatiana with Dixon, but I don’t see why that would be so upsetting. The one thing I did find curious was that she asked if Becker knew Tatiana was an informant. At first I thought she was upset because Becker should have told her, or should have connected it to her murder. But I don’t know, she still seemed troubled even when I told her we didn’t know until today. Then Vitya came home, and she basically made me leave on the spot. I’m wondering if maybe Vitya’s involved in whatever criminal activity Tatiana was pointing the FBI to. She gave up a couple of people, but not her own brother-in-law.”

“And what did Lev Grosha say?”

“That he’d never heard of Vitali or Vitya Rostov. But, again, I think he was probably lying. He did this weird head tilt.”

“Ellie Hatcher, human lie detector.”

“Did you find anything more about Becker’s old cases?”

“Charlie Dixon was right. Becker and Tendall carried a pretty high clearance rate, and Becker’s remained above average even after Tendall died.”

“So if he was slacking on Tatiana’s case, it’s not because he’d lost it altogether, like he told us.”

“Exactly. But, again, as with everything, we still don’t know how it ties into our case. My spidey senses are going off though. That note in Hunter’s binder is about Ed Becker.”

“Well, I hope you’re wrong. A
cop
involved in something like this?”

McIlroy said nothing in response.

“I’m on my way back from Brooklyn. Do you have time for a drink or something? We can throw all of this around, see if something comes out.”

“Sorry, I can’t tonight. I want to wrap some things up here at the desk, then I need to go.”

“Hot date?”

“No,” he said, then after a pause, “I’m seeing my daughter again.”

“Oh, Flann, that’s great.” Ellie kept her tone upbeat but the silence on the other end of the line had her wondering. “Well, I guess tomorrow morning it is, then.”

“Yeah, I’ll see you tomorrow.” He sounded distant.

“Is everything okay, Flann?”

“Yeah. Just end-of-the-day fatigue is all. Enjoy your youth while you’ve got it, Hatcher.”

Ellie flipped her phone shut and spent the next twenty minutes of the drive pulling at the threads of information they had. Tatiana was plugged into a ring of Russian criminals who had some connection to FirstDate. Ed Becker — who dropped the ball on Tatiana’s murder, who’d been so eager to give Ellie a hand, whose surname was in Caroline Hunter’s notes. Stolen credit cards — used by Lev Grosha, by Enoch, by Edmond Bertrand six years ago in Boston. Zoya and Vitya Rostov, who saw Tatiana with Charlie Dixon.

She called Jess’s cell number.

“Yo, sis. What up?”

Ellie heard the thumping of Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar on Me” in the background. “Please tell me you’re at Vibrations.”

“You don’t think Dog Park should try playing a little Def? I could wear my hair all big, slip into some leather, and ride the eighties revival.”

“Did you get the picture I e-mailed you?” She wanted to know if the club manager, Seth Verona, recognized Charlie.

“Hello? Why do you think I’m here? I don’t start my shift for three hours, but I’m trying to catch Seth before he leaves. Who’s the stud muffin?”

“An FBI agent named Charlie Dixon. Remember when we talked to Seth, he said he remembered a straightlaced guy who would come in and talk to Tatiana? I want to know if that’s him.”

“All right. I just got here, so give me a while.”

By the time Ellie reached the precinct and returned the fleet car, she still wasn’t ready to go home. She needed to think about something other than the case. She needed to clear her head and come back to it later. She could think of only one person to call. She found his business card in her jacket pocket, took a deep breath, and dialed his number.

THIRTY MINUTES LATER, the man who called himself Enoch hung up his phone, disappointed. The game was going to have to end earlier than intended. He had planned to wait, at least for a few days of headlines about the FirstDate murders. But now there was a problem.

He had only now learned that police were asking questions about Tatiana Chekova, not just Caroline Hunter, Amy Davis, and Megan Quinn. They were asking questions about information Tatiana had given to the FBI. They were trying to figure out how Tatiana fit into the pattern.

He should have realized they would make the connection. It was the one mistake he’d made during an entire year of planning. He needed to put an end to those inquiries.

Fortunately, there was no harm done if the game had to end early. The letter left in the library would ensure a front-page story the following morning about the FirstDate murders. And he knew precisely how to halt the investigation. He closed the laptop on his kitchen table and thought about what else he needed to bring with him. He was expected on City Island in two hours.

32

ELLIE MET PETER MORSE AT HALF KING, A PUB HE CHOSE IN
Chelsea. He wore faded jeans, a long-sleeve black T-shirt, and a crumpled charcoal gray blazer that would have looked formal on another man, but worked just fine on Peter. He greeted her with a friendly kiss on the cheek, and Ellie caught a group of women two tables over taking notice. Peter had those kind of looks.

“Great place,” she offered.

“A writer friend of mine owns it. They’ve got a regular reading series, and, as you can probably tell, it’s a favorite place for writers to gather and look for inspiration.” Ellie noticed a few customers scribbling in open notebooks. “Me, I can only write in total silence. I come here to eat and to drink.”

“That makes it my kind of place.”

“I’m really glad you called, Ellie.” He emphasized the first syllable of her name.

“Me too,” she said, meaning it. It felt good to hear him use her real name.

“And with perfect timing. I just finished filing the article with my editor right before you called. I put the focus on the letter from the library. It’s the first time I’ve become a part of my own story, so it was tricky, but I think I got the tone right.”

“That’s good.”

“Of course, I couldn’t write the story without including a little bit of your own background. The parallels to the College Hill Strangler case were so obvious that the connection had to be explained. I hope it’s something you can live with.”

“I guess we’ll find out in the morning.”

“I thought about running it by you, but—”

“I wouldn’t even think of it,” Ellie said. “You’ve got your job, and getting prior permission from me isn’t part of it.”

“Thanks for understanding. I guess the same has to be true for you too — keeping your work life separate from the personal.”

“That’s right, so you better hope I don’t find that meth lab you’ve got stashed away in your bedroom closet.” His comment had been a clear invitation to discuss her reasons for trying to preempt a relationship between them, but she wasn’t ready for that conversation. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to talk about, in fact, and was second-guessing her decision to call him. She wanted to see him in part because she needed to be with someone with whom she would not —
could
not — discuss the case.

“If it helps any, I turned it in with a blurred photograph of Enoch’s letter, instead of a picture of you. Hopefully the editor won’t make any changes.”

“I hope you didn’t make that decision just because of me.”

“Nah, a threatening letter from a sex-phobic religious zealot is much more ominous than a beautiful police officer. Macabre sells. I was thinking about following up with a story fleshing out the computer angle. Maybe interview some experts about how the killer might have been able to access the e-mail accounts of his victims.”

Ellie liked that angle. It wouldn’t involve any details of the actual case, and it had absolutely nothing to do with her. “I know just the guy for you. He used to work at FirstDate and knows a lot of stuff. Very helpful.” She fished around in her purse and found Jason Upton’s business card.

Peter fingered the edges of the card. “A guy who knows a lot of stuff, huh? Should I be worried about the competition?”

“Nope. He’s a little too Waspy for my taste.” The truth was that until she met Peter, she thought she went for preppy men.

“An upper-crust computer nerd?” Peter feigned skepticism.

“A rich kid with a hobby as a day job. And he likes
Pulp Fiction
. You’ll like him.”

Peter thanked her and placed the card in his wallet, and Ellie took the opportunity to change the subject. “So what’s good here?” she asked, opening a menu.

“Ah, nice transition. So either you’re starving, or that’s a sign that we should declare your current case and my current story a conversational no-no.”

“Both actually, if that’s okay with you.”

“More than okay. And you can’t go wrong with the menu, but your first time here, I’d go with either the shepherd’s pie or the fish-and-chips.”

When the waiter came, Ellie ordered a Johnny Walker Black and shepherd’s pie. Peter opted for a pint of Guinness and fish-and-chips.

“So can I ask you how you wound up in New York from Wichita, Kansas, or will that inevitably lead to verboten subject matter?” he asked.

“That’s well within limits. I came here because I have a very funny and crazy and irresponsible big brother who dropped out of college so he could hit it big as a rock star. He’d call Mom and tell her he was opening up for big names at CBGB’s — as if she even knew what that was. But I knew my brother, you know? When it came time for me to decide what I wanted to do, my high school teachers laid it out for me: What’s it gonna be — KU, K. State, or WSU? I stuck it out at Wichita State for a couple of years but eventually it hit me: I’d only lived one place my entire life, and there was absolutely no reason for me to stay. My mom needed me, but most of what she worried about was my brother. So I finished the semester, then came up here.”

“And your mom’s still in Kansas?”

“Yep. I call her every night. Just spoke to her before coming here in fact.” Ellie had tried not to let her mother’s continued attempts to pull Ellie into a visit to Wichita get to her.

“She’s got a good daughter. You went to John Jay right away?”

The rhythm of the conversation should have been awkward. Here they were, having what was essentially a first date — at least for him to get to know the real her — but he already knew so much about her past, and they’d already been together physically. In a strange way that she didn’t understand, she felt completely at ease with him.

“No. I figured I’d get here, settle in, and apply to CUNY or something. I wanted to be a lawyer.”

“But then you realized you were carbon-based. Buh-dump-bum. Sorry, obligatory lawyer joke.”

“Thank you for that. So, yeah, I realized I was carbon-based, and I also realized I couldn’t afford to live here and pay for school. So I was waiting tables and hanging around with Jess’s crowd, and keeping his kind of hours, and I guess I realized I was a little more of a cop at heart than I realized. Like a hand-to-hand drug exchange would be going down in a club bathroom, and I’d notice in a way that most people wouldn’t. And I’d see all of these disturbing things every day on the street that would really eat at me. Then one night I saw a girl, way too young even to be out at that hour, wander off from Washington Square Park with some Wall Street cokehead after the bars closed, and I just wanted to stop him from even being near her.”

“Sure.”

“I even confronted the guy — like an idiot, you know? Like, ‘Hey, isn’t she a little young for you, buddy?’ He told me to mind my own business, and she swore she was eighteen. I couldn’t do anything about it. I just watched them walk away, knowing full well what was going on, knowing the kind of life that girl was going to have. That was the moment it all clicked for me. I knew what I wanted to do, and I knew I’d be good at it. I enrolled at John Jay the next morning.”

“It sounds more like you needed to do it.”

“I guess. In training, one of the sergeants told us that being a cop should be a calling. That if you see it as just a job, you may as well go sell RV’s or tennis rackets. Anyway, I’ve never regretted it.”

“Not even after days like today?”

“Never. How about reporting? Is that your
calling
?” she asked dramatically.

He thought about it for a second. “No. Writing might be, but the reporting is just a part of it. I’d like to do more. I’ve been working on that novel for a few years now, but I’m never quite willing to call it done. It’s probably some deep-seated fear of failure, undoubtedly traceable to my parents. Someday, when I’m over it, I’d like to be able to say I’m an
author
, not just a reporter, but I certainly don’t regret the journalism. I just wouldn’t want it to get in the way of my friendships with anyone I might come to care about.”

Ellie knew he was trying to ease her fears, but she wound up laughing. Some whiskey trickled down her chin. “Sorry,” she said, wiping the dribble with a napkin. “Very attractive, I’m sure.”

“Delightful, actually, but I should be the one to apologize. A little over the top?”

“No, I’m sorry. It was incredibly sweet.”

“And sweet makes you spit whiskey?”

“No, it was just really funny to me.”

“Oh good. Funny’s what I was going for.”

“It’s just that, here we are, saying that maybe we’ll wind up being friends, and we’ve already slept together. I’m sure it’s perfectly normal, but if you had any idea what a nun I’ve been. My stupid idea about having one anonymous night of passion — I just realized how funny it is.”

Ellie found herself laughing uncontrollably. The stress of the case, her nervousness about seeing Peter again, and the surreal quality of this second first date all culminated at once. To her inestimable relief, Peter joined her.

Two hours later, lying next to each other in Ellie’s bed, they were both still smiling when Ellie’s cell phone rang.

“Ignore it.” Peter pushed a strand of sweat-dampened hair from her forehead and kissed the newly revealed spot on her face. For a second, Ellie was tempted. She could let it ring. She could pretend she was Ally the paralegal, who wasn’t in the middle of a murder investigation. But the thought lasted only a second. She flipped her phone open on the third ring.

“Hatcher.”

“Detective Hatcher, this is Officer Griffin Connelly, Tenth Precinct. I’m sorry to bother you after hours.”

“Not a problem.” Ellie sat up and pulled a sheet over her naked body. Peter smiled and pulled it off of her with one finger.

“They can’t see you over the phone,” he whispered.

Ellie was so distracted by the thing Peter was doing to her stomach that she almost missed what the officer said next.

“I’m at St. Vincent’s Hospital with a Jess Hatcher. He says he’s your brother?”

OFFICER CONNELLY WAS a thin man with fair skin and light brown hair. He waited for Ellie outside of a treatment room in St. Vincent’s emergency care center. Peter had initially insisted on coming with her, and to her surprise, she actually wanted him to. But she ultimately persuaded him to go back to his apartment. If whatever happened to Jess had anything to do with the case, she didn’t want to find it on the front page of the
Daily Post
, and she didn’t want Peter to be in the position of keeping it quiet before they’d reached an agreement about how to balance his job with hers.

“Thanks for waiting for me, Officer. I just wanted to make sure someone was with him until I got here.”

“I had a hard time explaining it to my sergeant. Is there something more to this than meets the eye?”

“Nothing but a protective little sister. Please thank your sergeant for me.”

According to the statement Jess had given to Officer Connelly, two men had jumped him outside of Vibrations before his shift. He didn’t recognize either of the men and was too busy getting his ass kicked to give a helpful description — two white men, average height and weight and, in Jess’s words, “apparently royally pissed off at me for reasons unknown.” She felt a knot in her stomach as Connelly related the story.

“Lucky for your brother you’re on the job. Bouncer at a strip club, random assault in the parking lot? We were searching him for drugs when he told us to call you.”

“You can finish up if you think it’s appropriate, Officer.”

“Not necessary. Just get your brother whatever help he needs.”

Ellie found Jess reclining on a narrow hospital bed. He tried to sit up when she walked in, but winced from the movement. The smile he forced onto his face seemed to pain him as well.

“Note to self: Cracked ribs hurt.” He eased himself back down into the bed.

“What happened, Jess?”

“It looks like I finally found a beating I couldn’t talk my way out of.”

Ellie always saw Jess as younger than his true years — always happy, never worried, almost invincible. But she hated the way he looked right now — tired, too old to be in this position, and extremely vulnerable.

“They just attacked you in the parking lot for no reason?”

“I went outside to call you, and there they were. Could this have something to do with the picture I showed the Vibrations manager? Seth thinks it was the same guy he saw with Tatiana, by the way.”

Ellie wondered how she’d managed to endanger Jess by verifying the relationship she suspected between Charlie Dixon and Tatiana Chekova. Had she read Dixon entirely wrong? Then Jess asked her if the man in the picture was Russian.

“Why? The men who did this to you were Russian?”

“Russian, Czech, Romanian, Ukrainian. Slavic, whatever. One of those. When I left the apartment, I noticed a couple of guys standing across the street. I didn’t think much of it, but I’m pretty sure they were the same ones who did this to me.”

“Why didn’t you say something to the officer?”

“Because my beat down came with a warning, Ellie. And if it was only for me, I would have told them to fuck themselves. But it was about you. I don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into, but they said to back off. Next time we’re both dead. And they know where you live. Ellie, please, you’ve got to get off this case.”