Loren Muse had landed a fresh homicide case — double homicide, actually, two men shot outside a nightclub in East Orange. Rumor was that the killings were a hit carried out by John “The Ghost” Asselta, a notorious hitman who’d actually been born and raised in the area. Asselta had been quiet for the past few years. If he was back, they were about to be very busy.
Loren was reviewing the ballistics report when her private line rang. She picked up and said, “Muse.”
“Guess who?”
She smiled. “Lance Banner, you old dog. Is that you?”
“It is.”
Banner was a police officer in Livingston, New Jersey, the suburb where they’d both grown up.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“You still investigating Katie Rochester’s disappearance?”
“Not really,” she said.
“Why not?”
“For one thing, there’s no evidence of violence. For another, Katie Rochester is over eighteen.”
“Just barely.”
“In the eyes of the law, eighteen might as well be eighty. So officially we don’t even have an investigation going on.”
“And unofficially?”
“I met with a doctor named Edna Skylar.” She recounted Edna’s story, using almost the same words she’d used when she’d told her boss, county prosecutor Ed Steinberg. Steinberg had sat there for a long while before predictably concluding: “We don’t have the resources to go after such a maybe.”
When she finished, Banner asked, “How did you get the case in the first place?”
“Like I said, there was no case, really. She’s of age, no signs of violence, you know the drill. So no one was assigned. Jurisdiction is questionable anyway. But the father, Dominick, he made a lot of noise with the press, you probably saw it, and he knew someone who knows someone, and that led to Steinberg….”
“And that led to you.”
“Right. The key word being led. As in past tense.”
Lance Banner asked, “Do you have ten minutes to spare?”
“Did you hear about that double homicide in East Orange?”
“I did.”
“I’m the lead.”
“As in the present tense of led?”
“You got it.”
“I figured that,” Banner said. “It’s why I’m only asking for ten minutes.”
“Important?” she asked.
“Let’s just say”—he stopped, thinking of the word—“very odd.”
“And it involves Katie Rochester’s disappearance?”
“Ten minutes max, Loren. That’s all I’m asking for. Heck, I’ll take five.”
She checked her watch. “When?”
“I’m in the lobby of your building right now,” he said. “Can you get us a room?”
“For five minutes? Sheesh, your wife wasn’t kidding about your bedroom stamina.”
“Dream on, Muse. Hear that ding? I’m stepping into the elevator. Get the room ready.”
Livingston police detective Lance Banner had a crew cut. He was big with features and a build that made you think of right angles. Loren had known him since elementary school and she still couldn’t get that image out of her head, of what he looked like back then. That’s how it is with kids you grew up with. You always see them as second-graders.
Loren watched him hesitate when he entered, unsure how to greet her — a kiss on the cheek or a more professional handshake. She took the lead and pulled him toward her and kissed his cheek. They were in an interrogation room, and they both headed for the interrogator seat. Banner pulled up, raised both hands, sat across from her.
“Maybe you should Mirandize me,” he said.
“I’ll wait until I have enough for an arrest. So what have you got on Katie Rochester?”
“No time for chitchat, eh?”
She just looked at him.
“Okay, okay, let’s get to it then. Do you know a woman named Claire Biel?”
“No.”
“She lives in Livingston,” Banner said. “She would have been Claire Garman when we were kids.”
“Still no.”
“She was older than us anyway. Four, five years probably.” He shrugged. “I was just checking.”
“Uh-huh,” Loren said. “Do me a favor, Lance. Pretend I’m your wife and skip the foreplay.”
“Fine, here it is. She called me this morning. Claire Biel. Her daughter went out last night and hasn’t come home.”
“How old is she?”
“She just turned eighteen.”
“Any sign of foul play?”
He made a face suggesting an inner debate. Then: “Not yet.”
“So?”
“So normally we wait a little. Like you said on the phone — over eighteen, no signs of violence.”
“Like with Katie Rochester.”
“Right.”
“But?”
“I know the parents a little. Claire was in school with my older brother. They live in the neighborhood. They’re concerned, of course. But on the face of it, well, you figure the kid is just messing around. She got accepted to college the other day. Made Duke. Her first choice. She goes out partying with her friends. You know what I’m saying.”
“I do.”
“But I figure, what’s the harm in doing a little checking, right? So I do the easiest thing. Just to satisfy the parents that their girl — her name is Aimee, by the way — that Aimee is okay.”
“So what did you do?”
“I ran her credit card number, see if Aimee made any charges or used an ATM.”
“And?”
“Sure enough. She took out a thousand dollars, the max, at an ATM machine at two in the morning.”
“You get the video from the bank?”
“I did.”
Loren knew that this was done in seconds now. You didn’t have an old-fashioned tape anymore. The videos are digital and could be e-mailed and downloaded almost instantaneously.
“It was Aimee,” he said. “No question about it. She didn’t try to hide her face or anything.”
“So?”
“So you figure it’s a runaway, right?”
“Right.”
“A slam dunk,” he went on. “She took the money and is doing a little partying, whatever. Blowing off steam at the end of her senior year.” Banner looked off.
“Come on, Lance. What’s the problem?”
“Katie Rochester.”
“Because Katie did the same thing? Used an ATM before disappearing?”
He tilted his head back and forth in a maybe-yes, maybe-no gesture. His eyes were still far away. “It’s not just that she did the same thing as Katie,” he said. “It’s that she did the exact same thing.”
“I’m not following.”
“The ATM machine Aimee Biel used was located in Manhattan — more specifically”—he slowed his words now—“at a Citibank on Fifty-second Street and Sixth Avenue.”
Loren felt the chill begin at the base of her skull and travel south.
Banner said, “That’s the same one Katie Rochester used, right?”
She nodded and then she said something truly stupid: “Could be a coincidence.”
“Could be,” he agreed.
“You got anything else?”
“We’re just starting, but we pulled the logs on her cell phone.”
“And?”
“She made a phone call right after she took out the money.”
“To whom?”
Lance Banner leaned back and crossed his legs. “Do you remember a guy a few years ahead of us — big basketball star named Myron Bolitar?”
CHAPTER 13
Down in Miami, Myron dined with Rex Storton, a new client, at some super-huge restaurant Rex had picked out because a lot of people walked by. The restaurant was one of those chains like Bennigans or TGI Fridays or something equally universal and awful.