Ellie opened her mouth to interrupt, but Eckels only raised his voice.
“And you continued to consume more alcohol once you got to City Island.”
“I told the detectives I took two sips because-”
“You were a rookie detective, in over your head, without backup. You’d been drinking. Your judgment was impaired, and your partner was murdered right in front of you. Not to mention you’ve got some demons in your past that might keep you from accepting the department’s conclusion that your friend Ed Becker committed suicide.”
“That’s a low blow,” Ellie said quietly.
“And it’s precisely what the media will say if you try to derail the closure of this case. There is no one-armed man that we have yet to chase down, Detective. Ed Becker killed those women, and he killed Flann McIlroy.”
“Are we done here?” Ellie asked.
“The assistant chief expects you to stay for the press conference,” Eckels said.
“No thank you.” Ellie stood to leave.
“What exactly are your future plans with respect to this department, Detective?”
“Am I required to answer that in the course of my duties?” Ellie looked to Randy Jenkins.
“No,” her lieutenant said quietly. “You’re entitled to paid leave regardless of what you do. And you cannot be forced to attend a press conference.”
“Well, then. Lieutenant Jenkins, I guess you’ll be hearing from me when my leave is up. Thank you for taking the time to be here for me this morning. I really do appreciate it.”
Jenkins urged Ellie to stay, but Eckels cut him off. “You’re wasting your time, Randy.”
“That, Lieutenant Eckels, was the strongest show of leadership you demonstrated all morning.” Ellie walked out of Eckels’s office and out of the Thirteenth Precinct without looking back. The media vans were already lined up on Twenty-first Street for the assistant chief’s forthcoming announcement. She had a decision to make.
But she had already made the decision six years ago, that night under the Washington Square Arch. She had decided that sitting with blissful ignorance on life’s sidelines was not in her nature. She decided to become a cop. For the last three days, she had been fighting her nature, filling her schedule with back-to-back activities in an attempt to ignore the questions eating away at her like cancer. She had waited for the department’s conclusions. Now that she’d heard them, it was time to follow her instincts. She owed this to Flann and to herself. She was going to find out what really happened.
She pulled up the hood of her coat, swaddled herself in her scarf, and headed away from the cameras while she dialed the number for the FBI field office.
36
“YOU KNOW THIS IS BLACKMAIL, DON’T YOU?” CHARLIE DIXON stood behind his desk with his arms folded, looking out the window at lower Manhattan.
Sitting in a guest chair across from his desk, Ellie Hatcher uncrossed her legs and shook her head in mock disappointment. “Is that how far the FBI has gone astray from its traditional law enforcement concerns? You consider it blackmail now for a local police officer to share information about criminal activity and expect some modicum of cooperation?”
Dixon turned to face her. “When it’s accompanied by threats if I refuse, then yeah, I consider that blackmail.”
“All I said was that if you couldn’t help me, I’d have to find someone who could. And the fact that you were previously seen, multiple times, at Vibrations with Tatiana Chekova – a very attractive federal informant, by the way – might be relevant.”
“You’re blackmailing me.”
“Tomato, tomahto.”
“And how exactly am I supposed to help you find out the truth about Ed Becker if the NYPD’s not interested?”
“I need two things from you. The first is a federal arrest warrant for Vitali Rostov, Tatiana Chekova’s brother-in-law. My brother was assaulted Friday night by two men in the Vibrations parking lot. He can ID Rostov as one of the assailants. Rostov did it so I’d back off the questions I was asking about Lev Grosha.”
Dixon shook his head. “There’s no federal jurisdiction for a garden variety assault. And even if he intended to send a message to you, it’s not a federal offense to interfere with a local investigation.”
“What about the fact that they took his wallet?”
Dixon had seen this before in local cops. Just because the FBI had stepped in on one of their robbery cases in the past, they mistakenly assumed every robbery was a federal concern. “Robbery falls under the Hobb’s Act but only if it affects interstate commerce.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake. My job is so much simpler. See person do bad thing? Haul out the handcuffs. What does that mean, affecting commerce?”
Dixon hardly understood the nuances of federal jurisdiction himself, so he tried to make it simple. “It could mean a lot of things, but we usually only go that route when it’s a commercial robbery. Then we show that the money that was taken from Home Depot or wherever would’ve been spent in commerce.”
“Well, okay then. There you go. Jess spends money in commerce all the time. There’s your jurisdiction.”
Dixon frowned.
“I don’t care if he’s charged or not,” Ellie said. Once a suspect was in the box – even if it was for jaywalking – no limits existed on what a guy just might tell a cop. “I just want him in custody. Can you get an arrest warrant under the Hobb’s Act?”
“Yeah, I could get a warrant. What’s the purpose, though? I’m sure you’re pissed about your brother, but I thought you were interested in finding out more about Becker.”
She seemed to choose her words carefully, as if she knew how much her words would pain him. “I think Vitali Rostov was the person Tatiana was protecting when she was your informant. When I showed Zoya a photograph of Lev Grosha, I think she might have recognized him. Then a couple of hours later, Rostov is beating up my brother in a parking lot, telling me to stop asking questions. And when Tatiana told you that the people she knew had sources in the NYPD, I think she was talking about Ed Becker. Flann told me that he saw Becker take protection money once back in the day. If Becker was in bed with Russian OC, it explains how he managed to own a yacht.”
Dixon fell into his office chair, digesting the information. “It would also explain why he did nothing on Tatiana’s murder case. Damnit, I never even looked into Tatiana’s family. She was always talking about how straight and perfect they were – how her sister was so proud of living the immigrant American dream with her devoted husband.”
“When Tatiana said all those things, she was probably trying to steer you from the truth. Zoya is proud of her life, but she turns a blind eye to the way her husband makes a living. Tatiana held out on you to protect her sister.”
“And you think Rostov and Becker found out that Tatiana was an informant and killed her for it?”
“There’s something else, Charlie.” It was the first time she’d called him by his first name. “Zoya remembers seeing you with Tatiana. It was only once, but she said she saw Tatiana in the passenger seat of your car one day after she went to them for money. You were driving. And her husband saw you with her too.”
Dixon swallowed hard. “I drove Tatiana there once. She wanted to see her nephew.”
“When you visited Tatiana at Vibrations, did you ever check for tails? Someone could have followed you from there and found out who you were.”
He turned his head toward the wall. “This is hard to hear, you know?”