“And we don’t know where,” Halladay said, “because their addresses are PO boxes, so we’d have to tail them to find out.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Jon said, as a light bulb went on in his head. “I know where they live.”
“Really?” his partner said. “How’s that?”
“Remember how I thought I’d seen Gunther before? I just remembered where. It was in the lobby of One Madison, where Render lives. He came out of the elevator in the lobby when we were going in.”
21
“Wow,” said Amira, “a free condo in that building is a pretty nice bribe, especially in a city where housing is such a big deal.”
“And you have a pretty good memory,” Halladay said to Jon, “for an incontinent.”
“That’s why we talk to people in person,” Jon fired back, “instead of being lazy and calling on the phone.”
“Even if we put all our biases aside,” Amira said, “it seems pretty clear that Gareth Render is the only person who could have arranged for the NYU professors to live at One Madison. And with the way that’s been done clandestinely, and what we heard from the Mayor’s daughter, it seems pretty clear that their theories were invented to create panic under the Mayor’s watch and give the impression that only Gotham Security can keep people safe.”
“So Darth was making extra sure he would get elected,” Halladay said, “just like the King suspected. If the experts spreading their lies didn’t work, the killers spilling some blood would.”
“It makes sense,” Jon said, thinking about it for a few moments. “Except that Render doesn’t actually seem like the type to me. It’s just a feeling, I don’t know.”
“Don’t let him fool ya.”
“Researching the underground reminded me,” Amira said, “how the homeless population down there basically disappeared when GS was securing it. It was reported that they were wiped out or driven to the surface by flooding, but the idea that it happened to all of them seems really far-fetched. There was a lot of whispering that Gotham Security actually killed most of them, but of course most people didn’t care that much because it didn’t hurt them personally. So there have probably already been examples of Gar Render sanctioning murder if he thinks it will benefit the city.”
“Or his own ambitions,” Halladay said.
“You said you discovered something about Mallory Cassady?” Jon asked, not really wanting to know.
“A couple things, actually,” Amira answered, and Jon’s heart sank more. “First, about her fiancé’s death. I have access to police records and data that Miss Cassady doesn’t, so my guess about what happened to him is much more educated than what she heard from GS. And as far as I can tell, it wasn’t that he died in a random crime and GS avenged his death by killing the perps. The random part was that he accidentally witnessed one of their unauthorized law enforcement actions, when they executed three alleged criminals without legal process.”
“How do you know this?”
“Because he reported it to the MPD.”
“Why wouldn’t he tell Mallory?”
“Maybe he was scared, maybe he didn’t want to put her in any danger. But he only kept it secret for less than a day, because it looks like someone from GS was sent to kill him. Then they blamed it on the three dead perps and told her that they killed them in reprisal for his death.”
“She said the MPD dragged their heels or something,” Jon said. “Seemed like a while before she heard from GS.”
“The bodies of the perps weren’t found until months later,” Amira answered. “They were put into the river, probably through a service hatch in the wall.”
“Why didn’t the MPD investigate GS and find this out?”
“Like you’ve already seen,” Halladay jumped in, “it’s a crapshoot whether the police who get a report are willing to investigate GS, or whether they’ll just look the other way. Some of ’em will even doctor reports to help the bastards in a lie like this.”
“I just sent the report on that case to your phone,” Amira said, looking up from hers. “You can look at it for yourself, but I think you’ll see the same thing I did.”
“What else about… Miss Cassady?” Jon said.
“We think that list she showed you is an assassination list, not a protection list.”
“Told you so,” Halladay said.
“‘Bear’ could be a code name for Shinsky,” Amira continued, “considering how he looks. And he may need to be knocked off, now that he’s been identified by us and almost arrested, because he might talk if we get him. And ‘Whoever you can at Dayfall’ could easily be instructions for a killer to do the same things they’ve been doing the other times the sun has come out.”
“Did she tell you anything about the guy who picked up the list?” Halladay asked Jon, who thought about it. He hadn’t asked Mallory about that when she’d shown him the list, because previously she’d been adamantly against giving up any of her contacts. Plus, he had trusted her that it was a protection list, since he’d believed her to be sincere. Or maybe he’d just wanted her to be. He also realized she could simply be wrong, and misled by the people she was trying to assist.
He thought back through the review of the security tapes from the bar, and remembered that the facial recognition software had only flagged four customers, and none of those had any criminal record beyond traffic violations. He remembered that one of them was obviously a woman, but mistakenly came up under a male name when the software identified her. This made him think of Natalie, the transgender GS agent who’d died in the tunnels and might have exemplified the trend of Special Forces operatives creating a new identity for themselves when they left the service. Then he put two and two together and called up the pictures of the bar customers he had saved on his phone. He swiped through them until he got to the woman who had been identified as a man.
It was the Dayfall Killer, who had been captured on the video and had tried to kill him in the park. Jon was almost sure. She had the same round face and short round figure, but clearly looked like a woman without the mask, with makeup and long dark hair.
“This is why we leave no stone unturned,” Jon said emphatically to Halladay and Amira, holding out the phone with the picture on it. His anger was swelling, probably because this was the last nail for any relationship with Mallory, but his excitement was also returning because this was a great development in the case. “I’ve been carrying this around in my pocket all day.” He handed the phone to Amira. “Run the male name that came up for her…. She was a man before.”
In less than a minute, there was little doubt left about the identity of the Dayfall Killer. The bar customer’s name (at least before her transition) was Rogers Sturm. He was a Navy SEAL originally from New York who had been hired by Gotham Security after being discharged from the military, but let go by GS after less than two years. Apparently she’d transitioned while working for GS, because there were a few news stories on transgender websites saying that she claimed discrimination as the cause of her termination, but there were also some quotes from unnamed sources within GS accusing her of being “a loose cannon,” “really unhinged,” and “sadistic.” One person interviewed even alleged that Gar Render himself had found out about some of the things she had done to criminals on the street, and said “he doesn’t tolerate that kind of brutality at GS.”
“To me,” Amira said, “this likely paints a picture of the kind of unstable, violent person who would commit the Dayfall crimes. But what doesn’t seem to fit is that she had been fired by GS.”
“Maybe she’s the kind of person they need now,” Jon said. “Desperate times, desperate measures, and all that.”