Never Alone (19 page)

thirty-one

I hadn't expected the
detective's apartment to feel so comfort
able. It was quite unremarkable, really. Homey, a comforting retreat. I wonder if she'll feel that way now when she heads off to sleep. It finally dawned on me when I sat on her bed who she reminded me of. Funny, how sometimes it's right in front of your face and you never see it. Just like when I was in front of her face, just a few feet away. She didn't sense a thing. That's power.

_____

Professor Martin Bauer sat next to his lawyer at one end of the table, Megan and Nappa down at the other. All four looked exhausted, especially Bauer. Based on his bruising, Palumbo hadn't lost touch with his college days on the wrestling team.

“Professor Bauer would like to offer his sincerest apologies for his earlier outburst.” The lawyer nudged him. “Go ahead, Martin.”

Bauer had every color of the rainbow marked on his face: remnants of a bloody nose, a black eye, a fat lip, and a bump on his forehead that had a fascinating greenish-yellow hue to it.

“Due to unwarranted stress of late, I am profoundly sorry for my earlier outburst.”

Henry VIII discussing lasting marriage would have sounded more sincere.

Bite me
, Megan thought, but she was smart enough not to say it while the voice recorders were running.

“First of all, I want it noted that Professor Bauer is fully cooperating with your investigation.” The lawyer got his two cents in.

“Noted. Go on,” Nappa answered.

“It's true. I didn't handle Shannon breaking up with me well. I … I didn't hurt her. I loved her.” Bauer was no longer the cocky collegiate faculty member they'd met days earlier. Before, he sat behind an antique desk, with an impressive title at one of the country's top universities. Now he sat slouched at a scarred Formica table, beaten physically and mentally by the loss of something all the impressive diplomas and titles couldn't give him: a young woman's love.

“I saw her outside that day having lunch with that …
boy
.” He trailed his thumbnail up and down the scores embedded into the table as he spoke. “I got so angry when I saw them together. And then I waited for her to come by my office as I'd asked her to. When she didn't show up, I was infuriated.”

“What boy?” Megan asked through a swollen lip.

“I don't know,” he answered, “but she looked happy, happier than I ever made her.”

“You don't have a name?” Nappa asked.

“I never saw him before.” His voice cracked. “Nothing had
been the same since we stopped seeing one another.” Bauer maintained a fixed stare down at a coffee-cup stain on the table. “Shannon was right—in the beginning it was a meaningless fling to me, but the more time I spent with her, the more I knew that it had become something more substantial.”

“But it was too late,” Megan said.

He nodded.

“You wanted your young, vibrant mistress. You wanted your wife and kids, and your perfect life in Westchester. You wanted to have your cake and eat it too,” Nappa said, sounding a bit more like Megan in his cynicism.

“I had a plan. I was going to leave her—my wife. I just never had the chance to tell Shannon. She ended things, and, well, I should have acted sooner. She wouldn't listen to a word I had to say. I felt like my voice had been taken away.”

Christ, I wish I had a dollar for every time a woman felt like that
, Megan thought.

“She had a way of making you feel like everything you wanted to do was possible, and every part of who you are was right and good. I didn't want to give that up. I just couldn't see myself not having
some
type of relationship with her. There was a huge emotional deficit in my life without her in it.”

Megan wasn't about to let the conversation turn into a Lifetime Channel movie. “She made you feel less like the asshole that you are.”

“Out of line, Detective!” the lawyer interrupted, slamming his palm down on the desk.

“No, Lawrence, it's okay.” This was the first time Bauer looked over at Megan during the interview. “Detective McGinn's right.” He knew whom at the table he needed to convince of his innocence, and it was the woman he'd drop-kicked earlier. “I didn't kill her, Detective McGinn. I … did … not … kill … Shannon … Mc­Allister.”

Megan gingerly rose from her chair, ambling toward the door. “I know. You're just a dick.
”

thirty-two

“Was it worth it?”
Nappa asked.

Megan knew what he was getting at. She pulled rank on him and got her ass and face kicked in over an innocent man—an asshole, but nonetheless an innocent man.

“Does it matter?” She folded more ice in a towel to hold up to her face.

Walker's bellow reminded her of the nuns at Catholic school on the playground: “McGinn! Now!”

“I know what this is about. Go with it,” Megan said.

“Shut the door,” Walker demanded. “We're issuing a formal
apology to the professor and clearing his name in the press. We're also dropping the charges for assaulting you.”

“As long as he doesn't sue the department,” Megan added.

“It's not personal. It's called politics, and it's called business.”

“I'll remember that when my dentist is resetting my jaw.”

“On to the next topic.” Walker didn't bother taking a seat; she was in power mode. “Detective, it's been made known to me that the break-in at your apartment was not the first contact the killer made in reaching out to you. Don't bother figuring out your reply. The sewing kit? I know about that, and I know about the call
and text sent to your phone.”

Neither Megan nor Nappa were surprised.

“I'm putting you on paid leave. You have a lot of time coming to you, and I'm strongly suggesting you take it.”

“That's bullshit!” She slammed the ice pack on Walker's desk. “The killer is making contact with me, and you're saying I should take a vacation? We can use this to our advantage! Put me in the line of fire, and we'll catch him. We can draw him out!”

Walker ignored Megan's attempts to negotiate. “Nappa, I'm
putting Rasmussen on with you. I'll make sure Palumbo is cov
ered.”

“Wait! Wait one Goddamn minute! This is not happening. You can't do this!”

Rasmussen knocked on the door. “McGinn, we got a hit on Craigslist on the Elmira vic, Erin Quinlan's ring. You're not going to believe who answered it.”

Fuck.

Megan swung around to Walker, “Lieutenant, please give me this one, this could be our guy. At least let me finish this day out and then I
'll take a vacation. Just give me today.”

Walker stared Megan down. She didn't look like she was going to cave.

“Pearl.” Megan never addressed her boss by her first name. “
Please
.”

Walker glanced at Nappa, and he nodded in testament to Megan's plea. He was in his partner's corner.

Walker threw Megan's folder on her desk. “The paperwork will take the rest of the afternoon. That's all you get. Your vacation starts tomorrow.”

Before leaving Walker's office, Megan turned back. “Thank you. I mean that.”

“Get out of my office.”

“Talk to me,” Megan said as she, Nappa, and Palumbo circled Rasmussen's desk.

“One hit. He didn't even bargain on the price.”

“Who is he? I thought this stuff is anonymous, I mean you're supposed to ship it to him, right?”

“I had
Computer Crimes Squad trace my email and his reply. The offer came from Saint Mary's Byzantine church on Fifteenth and Second Avenue. He's a priest.”

Megan broke the silence between the four detectives. “Fuck all. Go get him.” She checked her watch. Five hours before
vacation
started. “Be back here in a hour.”

“You want us to arrest him?” Palumbo asked.

“No, just tell him we have some questions. Don't give any hint that it has to do with the Quinlan or McAllister cases. Tell him we could use his religious knowledge regarding an ongoing investigation. Go.
”

thirty-three

Megan and Nappa waited
in the interrogation room. Palumbo had sent a text that he and Rasmussen had picked up the priest and were on their way. When they arrived, the man was nothing what Megan expected. He was young, carried himself in a sheepish fashion. He slouched into the chair, beads of sweat already forming on his face.

“I'm Detective McGinn, this is Detective Nappa. You are?”

He pushed his wire-framed glasses farther up his nose. “I'm … I'm Father John Leary.”

“Do you know why you're here?” Megan asked.

“You had questions for me regarding religious information for something?” He rubbed his palms
together. “But I don't under
stand why this conversation couldn't have taken place at my
church.”

“Father.” Megan felt odd calling him
father
given he was more than ten years younger than she. “You tried to buy a nurse's ring on the Internet?”

He was visibly confused as he jetted his attention around the room. “Um, yes, I don't see what that has to do with anything.”

“Why did you want the ring?” Nappa asked.

“You didn't even try to negotiate the price, why?” Megan questioned.

“That's what
this
is about? I tried to buy a ring on the Internet?”

“Answer my partner's question:
Why
did you want that particular ring?” Megan demanded.

“Well, I … I—”

“Answer the question, Father!” The
tick-tock
of the clock was moving closer to Megan's
forced vacation and she wanted answers,
fast.

“My grandmother was a nurse. She went to a nursing school in upstate New York, Saint Joseph's, in Syracuse, and it reminded me of her. That's all. It reminded me of the ring she wore when she was alive. I just wanted a … a …”

“A what?!” Megan yelled.

“Just something to remind me of her! That's all!”

Megan sat back. She knew this man wasn't the unsub. Just to be sure, she tested him, disclosing how the ring came into their possession and the girl who was murdered. He vomited on the table.

“Drive him back to his parish,” Megan requested of Palumbo and Rasmussen.

Through a trembling voice, Father Leary wiped his mouth,
“Detective McGinn?”

Megan turned before leaving the interrogation room.

“I'll pray for you.”

A low humph emerged.
“Too late.”

Megan cleared what she needed from her desk. Walker contin
ued to eye her from her office. She didn't make a big exit, only stopping by the conference room where Nappa, Palumbo, and
Rasmussen were assembled. “Gentlemen, till we meet again,” fol
lowed by a whispered, “keep your private cells on.”

Rasmussen glanced over at Nappa with a knowing look.

Nappa replied, “Did you expect anything less?”

thirty-four

Megan walked up the
avenue not feeling today's rain. She was numb with the exception of her throbbing jaw and her lower back. Those hurt like hell. Cigarettes and more ibuprofen were her immediate demands. She stopped at the deli around the corner from her building to buy Parliaments. The meds were in her apartment: booze and painkillers, the evening's appetizers. She stood under the deli's canopy, ripping through the plastic, when a cabbie pulled up illegally parking in front of the kiosk. She lit the cigarette and took a nice, long drag. It gave her a buzz. With the bad weather, there were more than a handful of people vying for a ride. Megan ignored the verbal scuffle between potential passengers, focusing instead on the neon sign above the cab. The green letters in the advertisement were ones she recognized from Shannon's datebook.

Son of a bitch.

She tossed the cigarette into the storm sewer grate. “Fuck all.”

When she entered her building, Bernie the doorman ap
proached her, removing his hat. “Miss McGinn, I can't tell you how sorry I am about your apartment. I was the one on duty and I never should have let that happen. I'm real sorry for all of it. I feel totally responsible.”

“Bernie, it's not your fault.”

“No … no.” He shook his head. “It is my fault. I forgot to lock the door when I went on break.” He knocked his temple with his fist. “I have no idea how I could be so careless. I'm
really
sorry, Miss McGinn.”

“I know you are. I know. Don't beat yourself up over it, Bernie, okay? Things happen.”

“Thanks for being so understanding, Miss McGinn. Thank
you.”

“No worries,
Bernie. Have a good night.”

Megan was more interested in getting back into her apartment and online. She didn't carry a grudge toward Bernie. She knew if a perp wants to get into a place, it was going to happen. She wasn't excited about re-entering the latest crime scene, formerly known as her safe home, but it had to be done. She double locked the door, and, in a neurotic moment, turned around to repeat the action.

She jumped on her bed, powered up her laptop, and lit another cigarette while doing a search for SIN. The irony of searching for
sin
made her grin. “That's usually not a problem for me.”

The website was first on the results. It opened to a framed outline of the map of Ireland. A leprechaun danced to Irish music and tossed four-leaf clovers into the air. Then in a sweet lilt of an Irish brogue said, “Irish? Single? Lookin' fur luv in the big city?”

“Sweet Jesus.” Megan rolled her eyes at the site's introduction. She clicked into a sample offer of men that the site promoted. “This is unbelievable. Christ, my father would have loved some of these guys. I
cannot
mention this site to Aunt Maureen. She'll have my photo posted in a heartbeat.”

Shamrocks blinked around a green cupid holding a bow and arrow. The advertisement read
SIN, Single Irish New Yorkers looking for love.
Men of every shape, size, and age range were listed. And they had two things in common: they were Irish and looking.

“I'm willing to bet one of you boys may have dated one recently murdered Shannon McAllister. I'm going to find out who.”

You were allowed only limited access to the site unless you joined for a small fee. Megan pulled out her credit card and filled in the information.

“I can't believe I'm doing this.” She completed the required questionnaire. “Looking for: a man. Age range. Let's see, Shannon was in her twenties, so I'll say twenties to early thirties. My age: I've heard people say I don't look a day over thirty, so I'll say … twenty-six. Religion: skip that. Height: average. Body type: curvaceous. Occupation: I'll put down social worker. Smoke?” She took a deep drag.“Nope. Never. Drink: occasionally.”

In other words, there really doesn't need to be an occasion.

Once she'd paid and selected a user name and password, she scrolled through women in their twenties searching for men. “God.” She read multiple listings. Women looking for their soul mates, women looking for long-term relationships, one woman offering Irish men American citizenship in exchange for marriage. “Desperate, much?” The next one cracked her up. “‘I'm your Irish wet dream waiting to cum.' You're a classy gal, sweetie.” She found Shannon's listing on the fourth page.

Lovely Irish lass looking for her Irish lad.
Her photo was in the corner of the page. It was a simple headshot displaying her big smile. Megan read Shannon's biography. It was generic. Nothing overstated, as she expected it would be.

Megan called Clarice at the office. It went directly into voicemail, and then she checked her watch. She hadn't realized how late it was, so she planned to call Clarice in the morning to see if she could find anything on Shannon's laptop from the SIN website. There was little doubt in her mind there was a connection.