“Do any of these men look familiar?”
Ellie handed Kadhim four photographs. Kadhim flipped through them quickly and apathetically, past Nick Warden, Tony Russo, and Jaime Rodriguez-until he landed on the final picture. Jake Myers. “This man,” he said, handing the photograph to her. “This is the man she left with.”
“You’re sure?”
“I am positive. He was wearing a thin black tie, and his clothing was too tight. Pardon my French, but he looked like an asshole.”
That description alone left no doubt in her mind that the person Kadhim had seen with Chelsea Hart had been Jake Myers. But it was the two calls J. J. Rogan had placed while Ellie was wrapping up her conversation with Kadhim that persuaded her they had their man.
One call was to Mariah Florkoski at the crime scene unit. The fingerprint on the top button of Chelsea Hart’s blouse was an eight-point match to a latent print pulled from the glass of water Ellie had so generously offered to Jake Myers last night. And she’d found seminal fluid in the stain on the same shirt.
The other call was to the medical examiner. The rape kit was back. The oral swab was also positive for seminal fluid.
Now all they needed was a DNA sample.
CHAPTER 19
ONE HUNDRED CENTRE STREET not only famously houses many of the city’s criminal courts, but is also home to most of Manhattan’s five hundred assistant district attorneys. Rogan and Ellie checked in with a receptionist on the fifteenth floor and were directed to the office of ADA Max Donovan in the Homicide Investigation Unit.
Ellie already knew that the professional lives of ADAs were not glamorous. She had met with enough of them to know that the spacious, mahogany-highlighted offices, complete with brass lamps, antique scales, and matching volumes of leather-bound books, were the stuff of fictional lawyers on television. Most prosecutors worked long hours out of cubbyhole-sized cubes of clutter, all for a paycheck that wasn’t enough to cover both Manhattan rent and law school student loans.
Still, she would have thought that an attorney who’d been in the office long enough to earn a slot trying murder cases would warrant digs better than these. An ornately framed diploma from Columbia Law School stood out alongside Max Donovan’s metal desk, ratty chairs, and dented file cabinet. Apparently any luxuries to be found in the office were enjoyed even further up the food chain.
Donovan was tall, with broad shoulders and dark curly hair. If he felt any self-consciousness about his humble surroundings, he didn’t show it. He rose from his desk to welcome them with hearty handshakes, and then gestured for them to have a seat themselves. Ellie noticed the lawyer watching her as she crossed her legs in the charcoal-colored pencil skirt she’d chosen that morning. She also noticed a subtle smell that reminded her of white truffles.
“So I’ve already received a call this morning from Mr. Warden’s lawyer, looking for a deal.”
“So a night in jail did work wonders,” Rogan said, smiling.
“I assume you two don’t care about the drug charges on Warden. We’re just looking for cooperation in the event he’s covering for Jake Myers.”
“We’re more certain of that now,” Ellie said. “CSU matched Myers’s prints to a latent they pulled from the victim’s shirt. We also located a cabdriver who can place Jake Myers outside the club with the victim just before closing time. That contradicts his statement in two ways: he said Chelsea left earlier, and he said he was never outside the club with her.”
“Good,” Donovan said, straightening his blue-striped tie. “We’re getting somewhere. And we’re going to have some leverage against Warden. I just got the crime lab reports from last night.”
“That was fast,” she said. In the bureaucratic world of NYPD, evidence related to Warden’s drug bust had to be processed by a separate-and typically slower-unit than the physical evidence in the Chelsea Hart murder case.
“It’s amazing what they can do when you tell them Simon Knight needs something yesterday. The drugs you took off the girl-”
“Ashlee Swain,” Ellie reminded him.
“Right. The drugs came back positive as crystal meth, with Jaime Rodriguez’s fingerprints on the baggie. We’ve also got Warden’s prints, plus Rodriguez’s, on the money you seized from Warden’s pocket. And the weight came in at precisely an eighth of an ounce.”
“Hot damn,” Rogan said. The prints corroborated Ellie’s version of what went down between Rodriguez, Warden, and the model. And thanks to the Rockefeller drug laws, an eight ball of meth could get Warden up to nine years.
“Warden’s lawyer is ready to deal,” Donovan said. “Her client went through drug court once already as a college sophomore after he got popped for DUI on Christmas break and the police found a small amount of cocaine in his impounded car. That, combined with the drug weight and his current participation in distribution, will keep him out of drug court and on the felony docket.”
Ellie smiled. After news like this, the preppy rich kid with the surfer haircut would not be so protective of his friend.
“Shoot,” Donovan said, checking his watch. “I better run if I’m going to talk to this lawyer before arraignment.”
“Who’s the lawyer?” Rogan asked.
“Her name’s Susan Parker. I expected one of the big gun criminal defense lawyers, but she’s an associate at one of those fringy finance firms. They’ve got a reputation for pushing the envelope-moving business offshore, hiding conflicts of interest, just about anything to avoid SEC oversight. I assume they represent Warden’s hedge fund. Parker’s not much older than Warden himself. She was probably sent over here to work something out. If it gets complicated, they’ll bring in a shark. But not to worry. We’re not going to let it get complicated.”
“Real quick, before we go: we drafted an affidavit based on Jake Myers’s statements last night and the cabdriver’s ID,” Ellie said, holding up the four-page document she’d hammered out at the precinct. It was accompanied by an application for an arrest warrant and a search warrant for Jake Myers’s apartment, car, and a DNA sample. “We figured it was enough for PC. Do you want us to hold off until you get Warden’s story, or go ahead and get it signed while we’re here?”
“May I?” Donovan asked. She handed him the document and watched as Donovan scanned the pages, nodding occasionally. “Nice work. You write better than half the trial lawyers in the office.”