Her instinct was not to chase the noises. All she could do was fall to her knees beside Flann. She pulled off her coat and pressed it against his belly, then held him tight while she punched 911 into her cell phone. She screamed at the dispatcher, “10-13, Officer shot, City Island marina, fourth row of slips on the east. 10-13. He’s shot. Hurry. Please.” And she screamed at Flann. She held him and rocked him and pleaded with him not to die.
PART FOUR
35
FOUR MORNINGS LATER, ELLIE CONFRONTED HER REFLECTION IN the bathroom mirror. She dabbed more concealer under her swollen eyes, but nothing could cover the circles that had grown darker every day since Flann had died in her arms on Ed Becker’s boat. She ran a brush through her hair, knowing that her appearance would do nothing to change what was going to happen at this meeting.
Jess had gotten up early to fetch coffee and breakfast sandwiches from the deli down the street. Ellie tried to wave off the food, but he insisted that she’d feel better if she had a little energy when she went in to work. This would be her first trip back to the Thirteenth Precinct. According to standard protocol for police homicides, she’d been driven that night from City Island to the precinct to meet with an appointed police union representative. With this stranger by her side, she had sat in an interrogation room for three hours with Lieutenant Dan Eckels and two homicide detectives whose names she no longer remembered.
She gave them a detailed timeline of the entire FirstDate investigation, from the moment she met Flann McIlroy to the moment an ambulance carried his body away. She made sure to tell them about Stephanie Hart, and her mother, Miranda. Flann had a daughter. Someone needed to tell her that her father was dead. She would miss him. She should get his benefits. She should get his Siamese cat. Then Lieutenant Eckels sent her home, and the union representative delivered the news that she was officially on administrative leave. Again, it was standard protocol, she was assured.
In the three and a half days since she walked out of the precinct, the New York Police Department had erected a wall between her and the investigation into Flann McIlroy’s murder, Ed Becker’s apparent suicide, and the tying together of the connections between Becker and four dead women. Despite the occasional urge to smash down the wall and continue investigating on her own time, she forced herself to steer clear. She did not want the department to blame any shortcomings in its conclusions on her interference. She’d spent four nights and three full days completely shut off from the case that had been all consuming until those three shots. Pop, pop, pop.
She found other ways to keep busy. She was back to her kickboxing schedule, cheered for Dog Park at an open mic night in the West Village, and finally visited the top of the Empire State Building. She even went to Miranda Hart’s house and told her how much it meant to Flann to see his daughter for dinner. But still, she couldn’t rid herself of the image of Flann, dead on the floor of Becker’s boat. The finality of his death seemed to feed like parasites at her heart.
After three days of silence, Lieutenant Eckels called to say he wanted to see her first thing in the morning. When she asked if she would be going back to work, he informed her they would discuss it in the morning. He reminded her of her right to bring not only union representation but an attorney of her choice. For three days, she had heard nothing – no request to question her again, no appointment with the D.A.’s office, and no estimation for when she would return to work. Now, the department wanted to see her, and the request was accompanied by none of the expected assurances – just a formality, one last interview, you’ll be back on duty tomorrow.
The way Ellie’s union representative explained it, the department’s questions would be about her competence. She could lose her detective designation. She could lose her shield. She was a new enough cop that they could even strip her of her pension. But as the union rep pored over the potential consequences, all Ellie could hear was her own internal voice. I deserve to lose it all. Flann was alone on City Island to protect me, then I forgot to turn off my phone and got him killed.
ELLIE WALKED alone into the Thirteenth Precinct. She felt the eyes of the homicide bureau – the detectives who worked with Flann McIlroy, the ones whom she never had a chance to know – follow her to the office of their lieutenant, Dan Eckels. Eckels was waiting for her. His salt-and-pepper hair was cut close to a large head that perched on a short, squat body – a fire hydrant topped with a Brillo pad. Ellie smiled sadly, remembering Flann’s depiction of him as the gruff boss in a Hollywood cop movie.
To Ellie’s surprise and relief, she recognized another face in Eckels’s office. It belonged to the man who had warned her not so many days earlier about getting too far ahead of herself in a homicide assignment. “Lieutenant Jenkins,” Ellie said with a nod.
“Detective.” Randy Jenkins’s tone was formal, but he returned the nod. Ellie found the gesture from her own Midtown North supervisor comforting under the circumstances.
Eckels directed Ellie to a chair across from his desk, and then moved straight to the business at hand.
“When I spoke to you yesterday, you were adamant about waiving your right to have either a union representative or an attorney here on your behalf. I take it from your arrival here alone this morning that you continue to proceed without representation?”
“Yes, sir. I’m fine on my own.”
“Very well then,” Eckels said. “Two of my detectives have worked around the clock putting together a report of the City Island incident.”
Ellie stifled a wince at his use of the word incident.
“As with all police homicides, a grand jury will hear the facts of the case, probably not for another couple of weeks, but we do not anticipate any problems here. I thought it fair, Detective Hatcher, to share with you what we’ve learned since we spoke last.”
“I appreciate that, sir. Thank you.”
“The evidence very firmly establishes that Ed Becker, a former detective of this department, is the man that you and McIlroy were looking for.”
Ellie had come to that realization herself four nights earlier, but hearing it said aloud as an official determination still sounded surreal. A former homicide detective had killed four women. The man who called himself Enoch had given her a ride home.
“As you learned before going to City Island,” Eckels continued, “Ed Becker kept a boat not far from the cybercafé used two nights earlier by Enoch. He appears to have ignored the Tatiana Chekova investigation that he conveniently headed, and his name was found in Caroline Hunter’s notes. We have learned more in the last three days. We have confirmed that the laptop found on Becker’s boat is the same computer used by Enoch to sign on to the FirstDate account. The Internet usage matches up with Enoch’s, and a copy of the letter left for Peter Morse in the Midtown library was saved to the hard drive. We also found a marked-up copy of The Book of Enoch in Becker’s possession. It looks pretty straightforward. Becker saw McIlroy on his boat and realized it was all over. He fatally shot McIlroy, then shot himself.”
“But why?” Ellie asked. “Why did he do all of this?”
Eckels was clearly put off by the question. “You of all people should know you can’t make sense of the motivations of a serial killer.”
Jenkins offered a suggestion. “Obviously I’m not one of the leads on this, but maybe he had some kind of relationship with Tatiana. She was a prostitute. Some cops have been known to sample the trade. If she was trying to get out of the life, as you said the club manager indicated, maybe she was shaking down Becker, trying to find another way to support herself. He shoots her, then realizes he likes it. He used FirstDate as his outlet.”