PART II / Dream Witness
CHAPTER 11
THE DISTANCE BETWEEN the Thirteenth Precinct and the Meatpacking District was almost exactly two miles, but culturally, the neighborhoods were a globe apart. The short drive from the east twenty-something blocks of Manhattan to the far west teens unveiled a dramatic transformation from the sterile and generic high rises of Stuyvesant Town to what was currently the city’s hottest neighborhood.
The key to the Meatpacking District’s current popularity rested in its unique blend of glamor and grit. All of the upscale requirements were here-high-end boutiques, trendy clubs with signature cocktails, expensive restaurants with tiny portions piled into aesthetically pleasing towers. But they existed in loftlike, pared-down spaces that still had the feel-if not the actual structure-of rehabbed warehouses. The streets outside were narrow, many still cobblestone, adding to the sense of an old neighborhood uncovered, dusted off, and polished by its latest visitor.
And, of course, there was the name. Not SoHo. Not Tribeca. Not NoLIta. Nothing cutesy, crisp, or clean. This was the Meatpacking District, and, lest you forget it, the distinctly bloody odor emanating from the remaining butchers and beef wholesalers was there to remind you: this was a neighborhood with substance, history, and dirt beneath its blue-collar fingernails. Just ask the Appletini-sipping supermodel taking a load off her Manolo Blahniks on the stool next to yours.
Ellie had called Pulse from the car on their way to the west side. There had been no answer at the club where Chelsea was last seen-just a recording over techno music with the club’s location and hours-but Rogan figured it was worth a pop-in before trying to track down a manager through business licenses and other paperwork.
The entrance to the club was underwhelming, at least before sundown. No velvet rope. No bass thumping onto the street outside. No well-dressed revelers lined up in front, eager to be selected for admission. No stone-faced body builders clothed in black to pass judgment on who was worthy and who must remain waiting. Just a set of double wooden doors-tall, heavy, and closed, like the sealed entrance to a fortress.
A frosted glass banner ran along the top of the threshold, the word Pulse etched discreetly across it. The trendiest establishments always had the least conspicuous signage. Some bars had no signs at all. One hot spot around the corner from here didn’t even have a name. If you were cool enough to be welcome, you’d know it was there, and you’d know where it was.
As Ellie pulled open the heavy wooden door on the right, the first thing that struck her about the darkened club was its temperature. In the second week of March, it shouldn’t have been colder inside the building than out. “Geez. They’re taking the whole meatpacking concept a bit literally,” she said.
“Don’t you get out, Hatcher?”
“Not to places like this.” Ellie wondered again about her partner’s off-duty lifestyle. She scanned the lofty space. The club was dark and windowless, but had enough accent lights here and there to provide a general sense of the place. Clean. White. Really white. Swaths of crisp cotton hung from the twenty-foot ceilings to the floor. Ellie’s usual haunts were decorated by dartboards, jukeboxes, and dusty black-and-white photographs of pregentrified New York.
“A few hours from now, bodies will be crammed into this place like a full pack of cigarettes. And trust me, no one will be complaining that it’s cold.”
“Hey, numbnuts.” A tall, muscular man wearing a fitted black T-shirt and dark blue jeans appeared behind the glass bar. “We’re closed.” His announcement delivered, he continued on with his business of unpacking bottles of Grey Goose vodka from a cardboard box.
Ellie looked at her partner with amusement. “Which of the numbnuts gets to break the news?”
Rogan flashed a bright white smile, pulled his shield from his waist, and held it beside his face. “You say you’re closed, but your door out front’s unlocked. Who’s the numbnut?”
The man behind the bar emptied his hands of the two bottles he was holding and brushed his palms off on his jeans pockets. “Sorry ’bout that. You guys look more like customers than cops.”
He stepped around the counter and met them halfway, next to an elevated runway extending across the dance floor. A trim of hot pink neon light ran along the runway edge.
“I’m expecting a couple deliveries,” he said, nodding toward the entrance. “But I’m the only one here right now.”
“Not a problem if you’re the person who can help us out,” Rogan said. “And who exactly are you?”
“Oh, sorry.” Two apologies already. That was good. Rogan was establishing his authority over a guy who was used to lording over the minions who felt blessed to enter this sanctuary. “Scott Bell. I’m the assistant club manager. Is there some kind of problem? We’ve been keeping our occupancy down since the last time you guys were out.”
“We’re not here about fire codes. We’re here because of her.” Rogan removed a sheet of paper from his suit pocket and unfolded it. It was the photograph of Chelsea and her friends that had been taken with Jordan’s iPhone the previous night at the restaurant before dinner. Ellie had cropped it down to a close-up of Chelsea. They were more likely to find people who recognized her using that picture than one taken today.
Bell the bartender took a two-second glance at the printout. “I don’t know what to tell you. We’ve got hundreds of girls just like her coming through here every night.”
“Well, this particular girl was here last night,” Rogan said. “Late.”
“So were a lot of people.”
“Yeah, but my guess is, most of them got home safe and sound and are sleeping it off as we speak.”
“What’s the problem? She OD’d, and you want to blame it on my club? I don’t know how many times I’ve told you guys that we do everything we can to keep that shit out of here.”
“You really think two detectives are going to show up in the middle of the day about some drugs going in and out of a Manhattan nightclub? Why don’t we go down to Christopher Street and bust some of the flip-flop boys for having wide stances while we’re at it?”
“Hey, whatever floats your boat.”
“Take another look, Scott,” Rogan said. As he tapped the paper in front of the bar manager another time, Ellie found herself looking at it as well. Now that the picture was cropped to focus only on Chelsea, something about it was bothering her. She scanned the photograph from top to bottom, left to right, but couldn’t place her finger on the problem.
“She was here last night. She was hanging in one of the VIP rooms.” Bell locked resentful eyes with Rogan until the detective dropped the bombshell. “And she was found strangled a couple hours later.”
Bell’s eyes dropped immediately to the printout. “Oh, fuck.”
“There we go. That’s the most authentic response you’ve given us since we got here. By tomorrow morning, the name of this club is going to be in every newspaper, next to a picture just like this one, while everyone who scans the headline is going to wonder whether this is a safe place to be. So if I were you, I’d drop the attitude and start asking how you can help us.”
Bell swallowed. “I-I-” He ran the fingertips of both hands through his dark brown hair. “Fuck. I don’t know what I can do to help. I don’t remember her.”
“You’re sure?” she asked.
He shook his head. “If you’re saying she was here, then she was here. But when you spend enough time in clubs, everyone looks the same.”
Ellie had of course never met Chelsea Hart, but she found herself replaying flashes of the conversations she’d had that morning with Chelsea’s friends. Chelsea would never leave us in limbo like this. She was always the one who’d meet other people for us to hang out with. Chelsea’s going to freak if she misses the deadline for her Othello paper; she wants to be an English major. Someone has to remember seeing her-she’s a really good dancer. It seemed profoundly sad that Chelsea had spent her last couple of hours in a place where no one was special, where everyone looked the same.