City of Fear (21 page)

Chapter Thirty-Three

‘Does it hurt?’

From Ellie’s vantage point on the ambulance floor, Rogan looked as sheepish as she’d ever seen him. She caught the eye of the EMT who was placing another stitch in the back of her hand.

‘Will you be insulted if I don’t say that you’ve managed to magically convert all of my pain into an unprecedented feeling of euphoria?’

The man shook his head.

‘This very nice man is sewing, with a needle, into the back of my hand. As Samuel Jackson might say, yes, it mother-fucking hurts.’

‘I’d feel less guilty if you said you had a thing for pain.’

‘I don’t, but you shouldn’t feel guilty. You told me not to run. And you were right. We would have tracked him down anyway.’

After all that running – up into the subway station, back down on the west side – Ellie had made the arrest only two blocks from Symanski’s house.

‘When I saw you going after him, I went for the car. I thought I’d have a better chance of catching up to you, but I lost you at the train station.’

‘It’s okay, J. J. It’s not your fault. Besides, you saved me.’

‘Yeah, right. Turns out I saved the bad guy. You would’ve blasted him pretty good if I hadn’t come along.’

‘Like I said, you saved me.’

Rogan took a closer look at her wounded hand. ‘How many does she need?’

‘Twelve.’

That meant four more to go. They both winced at the thought. ‘She’s gonna have one bitch of a scar.’

‘Hello? The
she
is sitting right here and can handle a little mark on the back of her hand. It’ll be a conversation piece. I can make up various tales of adventure to explain my mysterious defect.’

Rogan continued to mutter apologies until the twelfth stitch was completed, then asked the EMT to give them some privacy.

‘What happened in that alley?’

She gave him a play-by-play, including Symanski’s confession. ‘I didn’t get a chance to ask him about the other girls. We need to talk to him about Lucy Feeney. Robbie Harrington. Alice Butler. There could be others.’

‘We can’t talk to him about anything just now. He was still out cold when the wagon carried him away, and when he eventually comes to, the first thing he’ll do is ask for a lawyer, and then we’ll have a better shot at questioning Elvis. You really got him to cop to killing Chelsea Hart?’

‘What do you mean, I
got
him to?’

‘Hey, it’s just us. I saw what I saw.’

A man on his knees in an empty alley at gunpoint
.

‘It wasn’t like that.
He
attacked
me
. He cut me,’ she said, holding up her patched-up hand for emphasis.

‘And then you took control of the situation, pointed a gun at the man, and asked him for a confession?’

‘No. He still had the knife. He was begging me to shoot. I wasn’t even questioning him. He blurted it out. He couldn’t have been more eager to confess. “I strangled her, and I cut her up, and I took her earring.” That’s what he said.’

Before she had allowed the EMT to stitch her hand, she had made him write down the exact words in her notebook, not because she thought she’d ever forget them, but so she could back up her testimony with a contemporaneous written record.

Rogan had her run through everything two more times to make sure he understood it all.

‘The DA’s still going to have a problem with that. Whether you were threatening to kill him, or he was begging you to do it, he was still under distress. They’re going to argue that he just said that because he knew he was about to go down for life in prison, and he’d rather die. Maybe you pressured him because you had all those doubts about Myers.’

‘The DA’s going to say that, or you’re saying that?’

‘All Symanski said was that he cut her up. That doesn’t bother you? What about the hair?’

The news about the killer chopping off Chelsea’s hair had still not gone public.

‘That’s what he meant by “cut her up”. He cut her body. He cut her hair. And what about the earring, J. J.? You’ve seen the picture. It’s the exact same earring.’

‘I talked to Eckels about that –’

‘You called Eckels already?’

‘He called me for an update. I couldn’t exactly hide the fact that one of his detectives had been stabbed.’

‘I prefer the word
cut
.’ It didn’t sound nearly so dire that way.

‘Eckels pointed out that Symanski could have found the earring at the club.’

‘And you believe that?’

‘It’s possible. Let’s say Myers takes Chelsea into the alley for a little action after he finds her outside by the cab. He gets rough – we know he has it in him because of his past incident at Cornell. When he realizes she’s dead, he tries to make it look like some crazy killer got to her. He throws her into his car, chops off her hair, slices her all over, and dumps the body under the Williamsburg Bridge.’

‘And, again, the earring?’

‘He notices when he chops off all that long hair that one of her earrings is missing. If someone finds that earring at Pulse, it’s a link between the vic and the club, which would lead us to him. So he dumps the second earring.’

‘And when Symanski finds the original at the club, he somehow realizes it belonged to Chelsea Hart and starts telling people the killer took something from her body? I don’t buy it.’

‘Look, I’m just talking out loud. No conclusions. That’s what investigations are for. We’re going to tear up that house looking for more evidence, that’s for sure. And once Symanski’s got his lawyer, maybe we can get a sit-down with him.’

‘Yeah, right.’

Ellie’s cell phone rang at her hip. It was Jess. She let it go to voice mail, but it rang a second time and then a third. She struggled to get the phone open with her left hand.

‘What’s up, Jess? I’ve kind of got my hands full here.’

She waved her bandaged hand at Rogan and smiled.

‘I need to talk to you, El. Can you come home?’

‘No. I’m working. I can’t just leave. Bad guys? Evildoers? You know, the whole I’m-a-police-officer thing?’

‘Seriously, I really need to talk to you.’

‘Where are you?’

‘At home. The apartment.’

‘I’ll call you later.’

‘Ellie –’

She hung up, knowing her brother would forgive her within seconds. They’d done far ruder things to each other but had never found a sin that couldn’t be cured with a joke or a drink.

‘If your brother needs you, you should go.’

‘It can wait.’

Rogan placed his hands on his hips and sighed. ‘I hate this as much as you do, but you need to take a break. Eckels –’

‘You’re fucking kidding me? He’s sending me home?’

‘He doesn’t want you questioning Symanski or being part of the search, at least for now.’

‘Because of what happened in the alley? He thinks I did something wrong?’

Rogan shook his head. ‘You may prefer the word “cut,” but you’ve still got twelve stitches because of this asshole. It makes sense for you not to be in the middle of the investigation minutes after something like that. Plus he got a call about that mugging of Chelsea Hart’s friends yesterday. He wants you to follow up.’

He ripped a page from his notebook and handed her an address.

It sounded rational enough, but she could tell from Rogan’s expression that there was more to the explanation. She had been hoping for even a modicum of progress with her lieutenant, but his opinion of her seemed to be falling by the hour. And he apparently thought she was the kind of cop who would coerce a confession out of someone just to prove she was right.

‘Just let me finish going through the house. You can stay with me and watch my every move.’

Rogan looked down at the street. ‘Please don’t put me in this situation.’

Ellie realized she didn’t have any good choices. ‘Can I take the car?’

‘Of course.’

‘Promise me you won’t let Eckels brush this off. Look for anything and everything, okay? And don’t forget about the other girls. Symanski could be our guy. The timing is right.’

Rogan pressed his lips together.

‘It’s like you said, J. J. We’re partners. Any decision you make, it’s for both of us.’

He placed one hand on her shoulder. ‘I’ll look for anything and everything. I promise.’

Chapter Thirty-Four

Two hundred and fifty Madison – Street, not Avenue – was also known as the LaGuardia Houses, a nine-building brick cluster of high-rise housing projects erected in the 1950s when the Lower East Side was still dominated by squatters and hardworking immigrants. Now, if developers had their way, they’d evict the 2,600 residents, knock down the projects, and fill the space with more luxury condos.

Ellie ignored the suspicious eyes that followed her as she made her way from the Crown Vic, through the rundown courtyard, into House 6. She took the elevator to the eleventh floor. The moment the doors pinged open, she was welcomed by a giant X of crime tape across a door at the end of the hall.

She ducked beneath the tape and flashed her shield to the uniform officer at the door. He nodded toward the back of the living room.

One man in a suit stood out among the crowd of uniforms and technicians in the apartment. He was telling a woman with a camera to make sure she got plenty of photographs of dark burgundy splatter across the television screen and the wall behind it.

‘Ellie Hatcher,’ she said by way of introduction, struggling to hold up her badge with her left hand. ‘I was told you had news for me about a robbery?’

‘Ken Garcia,’ he said, offering his hand, then quickly rethinking the gesture upon seeing Ellie’s bandages. ‘Your lou said someone might be coming by. Didn’t seem necessary to me.’

‘Why do I get the feeling you’re not just here about a mugging.’

‘Nope. Our RP’s an eight-year-old girl upstairs. Called nine-one-one by herself over shots fired.’ When schools taught children how to dial 911, they probably weren’t envisioning them becoming the reporting party to a homicide. ‘You just missed the body. Twenty-two-year-old black male named Darrell Washington. While the first responders were waiting for the homicide team, they found two brand-new handheld GPS devices purchased yesterday from the Union Square Circuit City.’

‘That kind of loot out in the open and the shooter leaves it behind?’

‘Hell, no. Stupid uniforms were snooping around where they didn’t belong. The bag was in the refrigerator. Guess Washington was hiding them. Who knows. Anyway, the sales receipt was still in the bag. The charges came back to Jordan McLaughlin’s credit card. Your lieutenant had a flag in the system for the Thirteenth to be notified on any developments, and I guess this counts as a development.’

‘Any indication Washington’s murder was related to the mugging?’

Garcia shook his head. ‘Word so far – from the residents willing to speak to us – is that Washington was an outsider. A little too on his own. A little too quick to talk to cops. It could be a retaliation thing. Or we might be looking at a home invasion where the bad guy got his apartments mixed up. Narcotics has been monitoring some dealing going on next door. One thing’s for certain: whoever did it was a lousy shot – two bullets in Washington, but three in the living room wall. No dummy, though. Left the murder weapon on the floor. No serial number. No prints.’

‘Did you find the credit card?’

‘Nah. Washington probably used it once and ditched it. I told all this to your lou about an hour ago so he wouldn’t need to send a body over. No offense, but you must be in some kind of doghouse.’

Ellie took a quick walk through the apartment, just to make it look like there was a purpose to her being there. But she knew that Eckels had sent her here just to pull her away from Symanski’s house.

There was nothing left for her to do but go home.

Jess was waiting at the apartment door for her with an open bottle of Rolling Rock. He helped her shrug her coat off around her bandaged hand.

‘How bad is it?’

‘I could show you,’ Ellie said, ‘but you’ve already puked once this week.’

She plopped herself onto the sofa and took a long draw from the beer.

‘So are you going to stand there looking all sorry for me, or are you going to tell me what was so important that you needed me to come home?’

He shrugged. ‘This whole feeling-sorry-for-you-thing, my brain’s having trouble processing it. It’s usually the other way around. And I called you before I knew some crazy dude stabbed you.’

She was really getting tired of that word. ‘Out with it.’

Jess took a seat next to her on the couch, and she knew it was serious. He had a determined, almost somber look on his face. She hadn’t known her brother’s facial muscles were physically capable of such an expression.

‘You got a phone call about an hour ago. God knows how the wench got your number, but it was from an editor at Simon & Schuster. She was trying to verify facts in a book proposal she received from Peter Morse.’

Ellie didn’t know what to say. It had been only three days since Peter had called the book pie in the sky. He certainly hadn’t mentioned sending a proposal to any editor.

‘What kinds of facts?’ she asked.

‘Well, it’s not like she dictated a list of questions, but she was saying all kinds of stuff about Dad and the College Hill Strangler case. The book’s not just about First Date, Ellie. It’s about you. I don’t get it, El. You’ve been a vault when it comes to that stuff and now it’s in the hands of some reporter?’

Ellie wanted to defend Peter, to say he wasn’t just some reporter. He was the first man she’d met in a long time whom she could actually picture herself with. He cared about her. He could be trusted. But instead she sat in silence on her sofa, wishing she had never spoken to Peter about William Summer.

‘Ellie, are you listening to me? You need to call that editor and tell her Peter’s full of shit and that you never said any of this to him.’

‘I can’t lie, Jess.’

‘Oh, Jesus. Not this Girl Scout shit. He’s the one who’s the fucking liar.’ He flipped open her laptop on the coffee table. ‘There’s something you need to see, Ellie. He’s still online. I’m really sorry.’

And, sure enough, there he was. ‘Unpublished,’ the journalist and struggling author she’d first noticed online two months ago, was still listed on the very Internet dating service where they had first met.

Same profile. Same photograph. Same just-out-of-bed brown hair and piercing green eyes. All the same, as if he hadn’t met anyone yet. As if they hadn’t spent those nights together before she left for Kansas. As if they hadn’t spoken every day while she was gone.

‘I’m sorry, El. He’s not the guy he pretended to be.’ He placed a hand on her outstretched leg.

Ellie wiped her face, suppressing a sniffle. ‘I’ll call him first.’

‘No. Don’t call him. Don’t talk to him. Ever.’

‘I at least owe it to him to let him explain.’

‘No, you don’t. You met him, what? Two months ago? And you were out of town for almost all of it? Jesus, I’m sorry if this is harsh, but you’re such a 1950s monogamist. Just because you go on a few dates with a guy doesn’t make him your husband. You know how many women I’ve dated who just stopped taking my calls one day? I’ve been dumped by text message. My e-mail address is blocked from, like, half the women in Manhattan.’

She gave him a sad smile.

‘Trust me, he’ll get over it. I mean, it’ll take a while. This is, after all, the one and only Ellie Hatcher we’re talking about.’ His tone became serious again. ‘I mean it, El. You’re one of the last single girls to make it to thirty without some asshole doing a number on your head. You know how many good guys are out there who’d kill for a chick like you? Don’t let this guy turn you into a basket case for the next good one who comes around the corner. Save the drama for your mama. You need to cut him loose.’

Her cell phone rang. She recognized the prefix as a courthouse number.

‘Hatcher.’

‘It’s Max Donovan. I heard what happened at Symanski’s. Knight wants to talk to you.’

‘I’m not sure that’s going to work. My lieutenant seems to have sidelined me.’

‘That’s why Knight wants you to come in. It would just be the three of us.’

‘I don’t hide anything from my partner.’

‘Fair enough. We’re not trying to get in the middle of things. Knight just wants to make sure everything’s getting a proper look. He can help you out with Eckels; he just wants to meet with you first.’

‘What time?’

‘He’s tied up until six.’

That gave Ellie an hour before she would need to leave her apartment.

‘Yeah, okay.’

‘And, not to press my luck, but I’m pretty much sitting here waiting around with nothing to do until then.’

‘Why do I sort of doubt that?’

‘Okay, fine. But I do have time for coffee. If, you know, if coffee sounded good to you.’

Ellie looked at her brother’s worried face. She pictured Peter boasting to some editor about his relationship with her to sell a book. She remembered his attempt that morning to blame his boss for the story about Chelsea Hart’s shorn hair. She looked at his smiling photograph on her open laptop screen.

‘Coffee would be good.’

An hour later, the man sat at his desk and watched another minute tick by on his computer’s digital clock. He had a little time to spare.

He opened Mozilla Firefox and typed ‘youtube’ in the address box. Once he was on the site, he entered the search he had memorized as the quickest method for pulling up the clip he wanted: ‘Dateline College Hill Strangler.’

A list of videos filled the screen. He clicked on the top one and waited while the data loaded. There she was, face to face with the anchor, Ann Curry, against a severe black set, in her white turtleneck sweater and black skirt. He’d seen the entire segment many times – her walking in front of the site of William Summer’s first kill, kneeling at her father’s grave, the childhood photograph with those little blond pigtails – but this was the part he liked best.

It wasn’t about her childhood. It was about the present. It showed the woman she had become – smart, cocky, joyously uppity with that I’ve-got-your-number half-smile.

‘How do you explain the fact that it took the Wichita police thirty years to capture this man? Was he that much of a master criminal?’

There was the half-smile. ‘Oh, no. My father had a profile that was spot-on: he’d be a man who craved authority, maybe a badge bunny. Like a wannabe cop,’ she said, quickly clarifying her use of the police slang. ‘The people who worked with him would describe him as petty and autocratic. He might be in a relationship but would frequent prostitutes. All of it turned out to be right. The problem is, the WPD shut down the investigation. My father was one man working out of his basement around his other cases, and without any support. This person was no master criminal.’

‘So if the department dropped the ball, how did they finally catch the killer?’

‘He did himself in. It was his own desire for recognition and notoriety that led police to him. His desire to taunt and to show off – the letters, the drawings, the poems – were the equivalent of a billboard pointing directly to him. Killers like William Summer get caught because of their insatiable egos.’

The man hit the pause button at that moment. Such confidence.

Killers like William Summer get caught because of their
insatiable egos
.

On that point, he had to take issue. Summer got caught because he was stupid. He, however, was not.

Still, he hoped he had not made a mistake getting rid of the gun he’d fired only three hours earlier. In a straight contest of strength, he would always have the upper hand against a girl, so he had avoided guns until this afternoon. Too noisy. Too unpredictable.

But as he looked at the face of Ellie Hatcher, he wondered if he couldn’t use the extra help.

He went to the Tools menu and clicked on the Clear Private Data command, erasing his search information on YouTube before closing the browser window. Rachel Peck would be leaving work soon and enjoying her night out on the town.