“They’re not the only ones who need a warning,” Knight said. “I’m sure you’re smart enough to have figured out where this game might be taking this man.”
The thought had more than crossed her mind. A killer who came out of the shadows to announce his existence was taking a risk of getting caught. And if he was willing to get caught, there had to be a payoff. Maybe besting her at a cat-and-mouse game would be enough for him, but she suspected that this was all just a warm-up.
“I can take care of myself.” The words didn’t come out as confidently as she’d intended.
“I’m sure that’s true,” Knight said. “But if I were you, I’d stay away from dance clubs for the time being.”
AN HOUR LATER, she and Rogan had drafted a press release that passed muster with both Knight and the department’s Public Information Office, and had forwarded it to every precinct in Manhattan to hand-distribute to the city’s hot spots. Ellie was impressed that Donovan had stuck it out with them, even going so far as to take a stack of the announcements with him to post around his NoLIta neighborhood.
By the time they finally called it a night, it was eight o’clock. She hadn’t eaten anything since the Danish she’d bought from Manny that morning. She felt guilty thinking about food, but she couldn’t help it. As if pushing her over the edge, her stomach let out a little rumble in the courthouse elevator.
Donovan placed his hand flat on his stomach. “Was that me or you?”
“Nice of you to try to take the blame, but that was all me.”
“I could use something to eat myself. Are you guys up for a bite?”
Ellie looked to Rogan.
“The man said take a break. I’m taking a break and going home for a serious sleep session. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He walked away, leaving Ellie the privacy to accept or reject Donovan’s invitation on her own.
“Food sounds good.”
“FIVE DEATHS, TEN YEARS,” read the headline on the Daily Post’s home page. The photograph accompanying the teaser was a shot of Rachel Peck. She looked more glamorous in the picture than the man had ever seen her-even more than the night he’d taken her off the streets of the Meatpacking District. His guess was that it was a publicity shot taken for a literary agent. From what he could tell, publishers cared about those kinds of things these days.
He clicked on the headline and read the full text of the article at the jump. All of the basics were covered: Lucy Feeney, Robbie Harrington, Alice Butler, Chelsea Hart, and Rachel Peck. All wild. All drunk. All dead, snippets of their hair stolen as souvenirs.
The reporting was remarkably thorough, given that Rachel’s body had just been discovered that morning. It was quite a scoop for the paper. Posting the story on the Web site gave them credit for breaking the news first, but they’d sell a lot of papers in the morning with a more detailed version.
He moved from the sofa onto the floor, slid the ottoman away, and pulled up the wooden tiles, followed by the piece of particleboard. He removed five plastic bags-two new, three discolored with age. Lucy’s and Chelsea’s bags contained the most hair. Robbie’s and Rachel’s were less full. Alice’s held just a few snips. How tempted he had been to retrieve all of those beautiful locks she’d chopped off. He’d caught sight of her walking into the salon and had watched while the hairdresser clipped away. But he hadn’t dared to walk in, let alone attempt to pilfer the piles of hair on the salon floor.
Lucy, Robbie, Alice, Chelsea, and Rachel. Thanks to the Daily Post, he was no longer the only one to know that their stories belonged together.
Now just one last victim remained.
CHAPTER 43
MAX DIRECTED THE CAB to the Flatiron district, and then led the way to Sala One Nine, a Spanish restaurant on Nineteenth Street.
“I hope you like tapas,” he said, opening the heavy wooden door to a red restaurant with exposed brick and stone, lit by small tea candles scattered throughout the room.
“I love anything that involves getting to eat seven different kinds of food in a single sitting.”
The restaurant was already filled with hungry customers. Rather than cope with a forty-five minute wait, they accepted the host’s invitation to eat at the bar, where Max ordered a pitcher of sangria and some queso and croquetas to get them started.
This was their first chance to be alone since their coffee that wasn’t quite a coffee had ended the previous night. The transition from their official roles to what was presumably a date was not an easy one for either of them. Ellie found herself wanting to talk about the case, and apparently Max had questions of his own.
“So, tell me if this is none of my business, but I picked up on a kind of secret language between you and Rogan today.”
“Nothing secret. We’re still getting into the groove of being partners.”
“From an outsider’s perspective, you seem to have found the rhythm pretty quickly. I could tell he was the one who was resistant to let Knight and me in, but the two of you seemed to work it out without even exchanging words.”
“We exchanged words,” Ellie said, flashing back to the scene in the car while they’d been waiting for Donovan. “You just weren’t there to hear them.”
“I’ve got to tell you, I’ve been doing this a few years now, and you’re not like most of the cops I’ve met.”
“Being a girl type person is still enough to stand out in the NYPD.”
“It’s more than that. I don’t know. You were pre-law at some point, right? Do you ever regret not seeing it through?”
Ellie had come across this reaction before. Cops were supposed to be simple-minded, blue-collar traditionalists. She’d gone to college. She lived in Manhattan. Her last boyfriend was an investment banker. She even used big words on occasion.
When people said she didn’t seem like a cop, it often said more about their stereotypes of police than anything having to do with Ellie. The investment banker, for example, had continually asked her when she was going to “get over” being a cop. Bill’s refusal to accept that she wasn’t too good for her job was one of the reasons she lived on her own now. She hoped she wasn’t going to have the same problem with Max.
“When you grow up around here, people are doctors and lawyers and corporate executives. But my father was a cop, and my mother’s a bookkeeper. The neighbor to our left was a plumber. The one on the right worked graveyards at Boeing. Being from Wichita, it never dawned on me that I would need to apologize to anyone for being a cop.”
Donovan set his sangria down and braced his palms against the bar. “Okay, let’s clear up a couple of things. One, I grew up around here, but it was in Kew Gardens, where my father’s still a shoe salesman, and my mother was a dental hygienist. When I told my dad I was turning down a six-digit salary so I could be a prosecutor, he acted more like I was on the other side of an indictment, begging for bail money. So as far as I’m concerned, no one who loves their job ever has to apologize to anyone.”
“I’m so sorry. I just get so used to-”
“No explanation necessary. I should have been more clear about what I meant.”
“You mean you weren’t challenging me to an I-grew-up-poorer-than-you-did contest?” Ellie could still feel the red in her cheeks.
“You’re not like most of the cops I know because you don’t seem to have the same kind of us-versus-them mentality.”
“Ah, well, that’s an easy one,” she said, relieved by the shift in the conversation. “I don’t see the point in any of that. All I care about is getting the work done.”
“And when you were pre-law, did you ever think about being a prosecutor?”
“I like being a cop. I like the directness of it. You’re there from the very beginning. You get to talk firsthand to witnesses and victims and suspects. Your instincts shape the investigation from day one. If I’m going to do law enforcement, I want to do it as a cop. When I thought about being a lawyer, I was in it so I wouldn’t have to deal with the dark, dreary, and depressing shit my father thought about day in and day out. I was in it for the money.”