“Like I told you, Detective. I know the caseload out of this office.”
“Maybe it’s not an official case? Perhaps you’ve got an agent who’s friends with Stern? Asking a few questions for him about our investigation? We’d sure appreciate knowing something like that.”
“I don’t keep tabs on my agents’ friendships unless there’s a reason to worry about them. Now if you’ve got some specifics, something one of my agents did that’s inappropriate-”
“I didn’t say any such thing.”
“I didn’t think so. Thank you for calling, Detective. Good luck with that investigation. It sounds like a real barn burner.”
A young civilian aide lingered beside Flann’s desk with a manila envelope. “A messenger dropped this off for Detective McIlroy.”
“I’ll take it.” The mailing label on the envelope indicated it came from the law firm of Larkin, Baker & Howry. Ellie slid a letter opener across the top and removed a half-inch-thick stack of papers. On the first sheet was a Post-it note: Detective, The works, as you requested. Should all be self-explanatory. Jason Upton
Ellie flipped through the documents. Financial information. Public records. Property archives. All relating to Ed Becker.
She scanned the first printout. It showed a real estate transaction almost a year and a half earlier. The title of a house in Scarsdale had transferred from James Gunther to Edward Becker. The next page documented the simultaneous closing on a house in Staten Island, sold by Ed Becker for slightly less than what he paid for his new home in Scarsdale.
Ellie bit her lower lip as she realized what McIlroy had done. Forgotten gloves? Right. He had snuck upstairs to ask Jason the wunderkind to do a background check on Becker.
Ellie was still seething when McIlroy emerged from the lieutenant’s office. He failed to notice.
“Something better break for us soon,” he reported. “I played the fibbie card, but Eckels is talking about pulling the plug if we don’t start tying some pieces together. At this rate, we may not get a decent lead until our guy kills another victim.”
“You almost sound like you’re looking forward to it.” Ellie regretted the comment at once, knowing it was a passive-aggressive way of dealing with what actually angered her.
“Jesus, Hatcher. I was only kidding. I forget you haven’t thickened your skin yet. Any luck with the G-men?”
“No. They denied all knowledge of the subject. Are you going to do the same about this?” She dropped the stack of paper on McIlroy’s desk. He flipped through the pages, nodding as he read.
“You did a background check on another cop?” A couple of nearby heads turned, and Ellie lowered her voice. “I may be junior to you, but what the hell are you thinking? Show some loyalty.”
“You’re right, you are junior to me, so don’t talk to me like I’m I.A. I don’t have any loyalty to cops like Becker. You saw that house up there, in that highbrow neighborhood. When Upton said he could dig up information that the law keeps us from getting-”
“Well, I hope you’re happy. There’s nothing there. That house cost the same as he was paying back at his old place on the job. Oh, excuse me, the house itself cost slightly more, but if you check out his mortgage payments, he’s actually paying a little less per month now thanks to interest rates.”
“His mortgage payments are in here?”
“You did ask for the works, after all. What did you expect? An offshore account? A secret warehouse filled with piles of cash?”
Flann’s face fell. “I don’t know. A higher purchase price on that house, for one – something too spendy for a cop’s pension.”
“Well, you’re not going to find it there. Or anything else for that matter.”
“I guess some guys are just lucky.”
“Yeah, I’m sure Becker will feel real lucky knowing we checked up on him.”
“He’s not going to know, Ellie.”
“That wasn’t my point.”
“Look, I’m sorry that I’ve offended you. Becker’s not the most wholesome cop in my book, and the luxury digs set off my spidey senses. I didn’t see the harm in having someone check it out. I should have told you before I went back to Upton’s office.”
“You mean before you snuck back to his office?”
“Yes, before I snuck, like the snake in the grass that I am, back to his office. I should have told you the truth. Now does that tiny hint of a smile on your face mean we’re gonna be okay? You’re going to forgive the snake?”
“Yeah, we’re fine, Flann. As long as you promise not to do a background check on me.” Ellie wasn’t about to let on that she was harboring doubts about her new partner.
“I think I can live with that.”
“So, moving on to other subjects, I was thinking about trying to track down Tatiana’s sister tonight. Maybe check out the club she worked at too. You in?”
Flann checked his watch. “Sorry. I should have realized. I mean I shouldn’t have made other plans.”
“That’s okay. We hadn’t talked about it.” Ellie had just assumed that, like herself, Flann worked past the clock, regardless of the O.T.
“It’s just that – well, after our talk yesterday, I called Miranda, Stephanie’s mom. My daughter’s mother. Anyway, I’m going over there tonight. Stephanie and I are having dinner. I’m eating dinner with my daughter.”
“Flann. That’s wonderful.” Ellie couldn’t figure this guy out. One minute he seemed like a self-promoting turncoat, and the next he was a teddy bear.
“All right. Enough of that. You’re going to be cooing cute noises at me soon if you don’t stop looking at me like that.”
“Just gives me faith in the world. That’s all.”
“Get some rest tonight,” Flann said, pulling on his coat. “We’ll take another crack at it tomorrow.”
Ellie assured him she was going straight home too, but in the back of her mind, she couldn’t shake Flann’s passing remark: We may not get a decent lead until our guy kills another victim. She was not going to wait around for that to happen.
ELLIE’S FATHER ALWAYS believed that the key to finding a killer was to identify his motive. Find the motive, he used to say, and the motive will lead you to the man. Jerry Hatcher had been convinced that the College Hill Strangler was motivated by masochistic sexual voyeurism. That conviction had guided his thirteen-year search for men who got off watching women in pain.
Ellie reread all of her notes on the case, wondering about motive. None of the women were raped, but the absence of sexual contact didn’t preclude the possibility of a sexual motive. On the other hand, maybe she was overlooking an entirely different possibility. She found herself fixed on the words she’d transcribed politely while Amy Davis’s parents retrieved Chowhound. High school boy. Changed grade. Restraining order. Call Suzanne Mouton to verify. A New Iberia telephone number.
Changed grade. Ellie remembered that at some point in her own education, handwritten report cards were replaced by computer printouts. She assumed the same modernization had occurred in New Iberia by the time Amy Davis and Suzanne Mouton were in high school. What if Amy’s parents had given her their best clue at the very beginning? Ellie dialed Suzanne Mouton’s number.
“Hello?”
“I’m calling for Suzanne Mouton.” She tried pronouncing it the way Evelyn Davis had.
“This is Suzanne.”
Ellie explained who she was and why she was calling. “We’re working a lot of the leads we have locally, but we want to be thorough. Can’t risk missing a thing, you know? Anyway, Mrs. Davis mentioned a problem Amy had with a guy when you all were younger, before she left for college. I was hoping you could fill me in on the details.”