He stuck with the feeling in his gut and decided to use just one story for now and save the other for the following day. The Caroline Hunter angle was risky. His speculation could be totally off-base, and there was no guarantee he could come up with sufficient corroboration by deadline. On the other hand, with risks came rewards. He might be the only reporter to make the connection, while the TV news had already tapped into Ellie Hatcher’s backstory.
Maybe he’d let photogenics break the tie. His editor always said that pictures sold papers. He studied the head shot of Caroline Hunter that had run the morning after her murder. Even prettier than Davis and Quinn, she’d be awfully hard to compete with, especially by some cop. He pulled up Google on his computer and ran a search for images under the name Ellie Hatcher.
The screen changed to a display of twelve thumbnail photographs, most of them of the same award-winning quilt apparently designed by a woman named Ellie Hatcher. Toward the bottom of the screen was a small photograph of a blond woman in a white blouse and dark jacket. The text beneath it read Family of College Hill Strangler Detective Cries Cover-Up, followed by a link to People magazine’s Web site. He double clicked on the link.
He’d followed the College Hill Strangler story at the time, but not closely enough to remember the accompanying photograph two years later. Gazing at him from the screen with big blue eyes, full pink lips, and a heart-shaped face was the woman he’d been thinking about every twelve minutes for the last twenty-seven hours: Ally, last name unknown, whom he promised never to contact again.
“Who’s the hottie?” Peter looked up to find the smiling face and dark eyes of Justine Navarro, the intern from NYU with a pierced tongue and an uncomfortably revealing wardrobe. Today’s ensemble was the usual hip-hugger pants and a clingy off-white sweater with a plunging neckline.
“Believe it or not, she’s apparently an NYPD detective.”
“I wouldn’t kick her out of bed.”
Peter had no idea whether Justine was a lesbian, bisexual, or simply the free-spoken product of a generation that had no qualms about checking out members of the same sex. He knew better than to spend too much time thinking about it. She had good taste though. He hadn’t kicked Ellie Hatcher out of bed either, even if her presence there came with the horrible condition that it was a one-night deal. Man, he could not stop thinking about this woman.
“Hey, I’m sending a call back in about sixty seconds,” Justine said. “You better pick it up.”
One of the interns’ jobs was to answer the general public’s crime beat calls. The reporters had lobbied for the change, fed up with constant and absolutely unnewsworthy bitching about abandoned cars, noisy dance clubs, street-level drug dealing, and the occasional illegal exotic pet. Granted, sometimes an apartment-reared lion made good copy, but the interns were perfectly capable of passing along a worthy tip.
“I always take my calls,” Peter said.
“No you don’t. You say you do, but I catch you cheating all the time.”
Peter was only in his midthirties, but increasingly he found himself thinking that youth was a pain in the ass. “Well, it never seems to matter, does it?”
“On this one, it might. The guy says he’s got something on that serial killer case. An exclusive tip only for you.”
Peter didn’t bother to get his hopes up. This call would be just one of many he and other reporters around the city would receive from various whack jobs. He kept his eyes on Ellie Hatcher, wondering if she was getting the same kind of phone calls. “So transfer him already.”
“I tried. I pretended to look for your number while I tried getting your attention. He said he’d call back in exactly ninety seconds and expected to be transferred immediately.” She rushed back to her desk, yelling, “We’ve got about five seconds left.”
This could be interesting. Peter watched the digital clock tick away on the LED readout of his phone. He kept an eye on Justine, who was at her desk now, with one hand on the phone. Five, four, three, two, one. A millisecond of a phone ringing, then Justine’s voice. “Daily Post… Right away.”
She gave Peter an urgent look and pushed a few buttons on her phone, then Peter’s phone rang.
“Peter Morse.”
“Did that young thing with the pretty voice tell you why I was calling?” The voice had a southern accent. Not a twang, but something southern. Raised in the northeast, Peter couldn’t place it any more particularly.
“She said it was about this week’s murders.”
“That’s right. Amy and Megan.” The names oozed like warm caramel. “There’s more you need to know about what got them killed. Something the police are hiding. You got a pen? Write this down. 455 Fifth Avenue. Third floor.” He read off a series of numbers followed by letters.
“Is that some kind of code?”
“You mean to tell me that an accomplished journalist like yourself is unfamiliar with the Dewey Decimal system? I promise, it’ll make good reading.”
“Wait. Who are you? How can I get a hold of you?”
Peter heard a click in his ear, then hung up as well. He rolled out his keyboard drawer and Googled the address the man had recited. The mid-Manhattan public library. He reached for the pile of notes on Ellie Hatcher and flipped to a summary of the College Hill Strangler case that he’d printed from a Web site called Crime Library. He found what he was looking for on the third page:
The first of several communications by the College Hill Strangler to Wichita authorities was in October of 1974. A reporter at the Wichita Eagle-Beacon newspaper received an anonymous telephone call from a man who claimed to have killed Rhonda Cook and her two children. The caller said the reporter would find a letter detailing the crime inside a copy of Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish. The reporter discovered the letter, as promised, tucked inside the pages of Foucault’s graphic description of a public execution.
Peter was already pulling on his coat as he finished reading. If his caller was a whack job, he certainly was a creative one.
29
LOCATING COPIES OF THE BOOK OF ENOCH WAS NO EASY TASK. With a recently published title, they could have tracked shipments from the wholesale distributors, then looked for sales with the city’s major book retailers. But the ancient text of the Book of Enoch, unprotected by copyright, could be found reprinted in a dozen different books. Used copies could be purchased in myriads of untraceable ways.
Ellie was on hold with a clerk from the Strand bookstore when her cell phone rang. The screen read, Caller Unknown.
“Ellie Hatcher.”
“Detective Hatcher, this is Agent Charlie Dixon of the FBI. I understand that you’re working on this murder case involving Megan Quinn and Amy Davis.”
She cradled the handset of the desk phone against her shoulder and tossed a pencil toward Flann to break him away from Caroline Hunter’s notes. “That’s right, I’m working on both of those cases. How can I help you, Agent Dixon?”
She had Flann’s attention.
“It’s more a question of whether I can help you. Can we meet somewhere?”
“You’re more than welcome to come on in. We’re doing some desk work now.”
“Sorry, I’m not a big fan of local police stations. It’s turning into a nice, bright day outside. You feel like taking a little walk? Somewhere near your station – I don’t want to put you out.”
It was a typical federal ploy for power, but Ellie figured she’d find plenty to argue about with Dixon later. “Sure. There’s an Italian place just around the corner. Lamarca on Twenty-second and Third. How long do you need?”
“I can see it from my car. I’ll be waiting for you.”