Ellie held her palms against her ears until Rogan handed her her coat. They could still hear the squad’s off-tune singing when they hit the staircase.
ROGAN PARKED half a block away from their destination on Bleecker Street.
“This was really generous of you, J. J.”
“Stop thanking me.”
They made their way inside and were directed to a room off the main entrance hall. Powder blue velvet curtains hung from ceiling to floor. Mauve upholstered chairs were lined up neatly in four rows. About a third of the seats were already occupied.
Ellie recognized a bulky man in the front row. Detective Hank Dodge gave her a nod of acknowledgment, and she returned the gesture.
At the front of the room, a blowup of Rachel Peck’s author photo, the one that never had the chance to grace the back of a book jacket, rested on an easel next to a simple wreath of pastel roses and a closed casket.
Ellie had phoned Rachel’s father three days earlier, pleading with him to claim his daughter’s body so she would not be buried in a cardboard box on Hart Island, where prison inmates stacked the coffins five high. By the time Ellie hung up on the man, she’d called him several names she was pretty sure weren’t supposed to be directed at a man of God.
She would never have asked Rogan to pay for a funeral, but he had caught her side of the conversation. An hour after she hung up on the Reverend Elijah Peck, Rogan had already set a time and a place. All she had to do was notify Rachel’s friend Gina.
Ellie felt a lump in her throat when she saw a familiar face in the back of the room. Her brother had even worn a sports coat for the occasion.
“Where’d you get this?” she whispered, tugging at his sleeve.
“Don’t ask, at least not without Miranda warnings.”
As they took three seats in the back row, Jess and Rogan muttered their hellos in the whispery tones that came automatically in these settings.
“You are such a softie,” she said, giving her brother’s shoulder a little squeeze.
“It’s no big deal.”
She had told him that morning that she was worried no one would show up at the funeral home. As she looked around the room, she realized her concerns had been misplaced. Rachel may not have had a family, but she had been a woman with friends.
One of those friends took her place now at a lectern beside Rachel’s photograph. She introduced herself as Gina DaCosta. She told the guests that she didn’t know what she was supposed to say at her best friend’s funeral. The nice man who ran the home had suggested a few prayers that would be appropriate, but they all knew that Rachel would come back and haunt her ass for allowing any such thing. So instead she talked about Rachel’s generosity. Her talent. The night she’d given herself a concussion trying to leapfrog a parking meter on Jones Street. She invited others to share their memories as well. No sad talk allowed, she warned.
Ellie recognized the latecomer slipping quietly into the room. Finding a seat, he spotted her in the back and gave her a sad smile. She raised a hand for a quick wave. She had known he was the kind of man who would be here today.
As people took their turns at the front of the room, she clasped her hands in her lap, closed her eyes, and silently delivered her own testimonial: I had three days to save Rachel after I found Chelsea on Monday morning. It wasn’t enough. I wasted thirty-six hours going through the motions while I had three cold cases in my backpack telling me something was wrong. Thirty-six hours would have made the difference. I had three days, and I failed. I second-guessed my own instincts. I wasn’t confident enough. Next time, I won’t hesitate. Next time, I will picture Rachel and Chelsea, and I’ll be better.
When Ellie opened her eyes, she felt her guilt begin to wash away. She felt at peace. She felt like she belonged here, in this room, at that moment. She felt normal.
Tonight, after Jess left for work, and from the solitude of her living room, she would do one last thing before turning the page on the case. She would call Bill Harrington and thank him for phoning the tip line. She would thank him for listening to Robbie.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I’ve often heard it said that writers conjure up plots by starting with an initial observation and then asking themselves over and over again: What if?
On February 25, 2006, New York City graduate student Imette St. Guillen was barhopping in SoHo with a girlfriend. The friend called it quits, but St. Guillen stayed behind for one last drink. Her nearly unrecognizable body was found the next day. Five months later, eighteen-year-old Jennifer Moore was drinking in a Chelsea nightclub with a girlfriend when city authorities towed her car. Denied access to her vehicle at the impound lot, she wandered off alone along the West Side Highway. Her body was discovered in a New Jersey trashbin. In the fall of 2007, reports were filed by two separate women who claimed that they had been kidnapped and then raped after leaving the Box, one of Manhattan’s hottest nightclubs, on their own.
I began to ask myself, What if Ellie Hatcher caught cases like these and saw a connection where no one else did?
The inspiration for Angel’s Tip lies in none of the above-mentioned cases, and yet in all of them. For many of us-especially women-that alcohol-fueled argument at two in the morning is familiar. Someone wants to go home. Someone wants to stay behind for one last drink. I have been both of those women, and I have been lucky. But I know from the cases I saw as a prosecutor, and from the string of tragic cases reported in New York City, that sometimes the luck runs out. Angel’s Tip is fiction, but the danger that made me ask What if? is real and universal.
My hope is that the policing depicted in Angel’s Tip is also portrayed authentically. Having learned most of what I know about cops as a prosecutor in Oregon and as a law professor in New York, I have been assisted in my depiction of Ellie Hatcher’s professional life by the generosity and knowledge of others. For helping me transition from the prosecutorial viewpoint to the police perspective, and from the localized norms of Portland to the culture of the NYPD, I am grateful to Assistant District Attorney Matthew Connolly, Nassau County; Retired Desk Sergeant Edward Devlin, NYPD; George Q. Fong, Unit Chief, National Gang Targeting Enforcement and Coordination Center, Deputy Program Director, National Gang Intelligence Center, FBI Headquarters (phew); Chief Carla Piluso, Gresham Police Department (who confirms that female detectives do in fact carry purses); and the anonymous desk sergeant at the Thirteenth Precinct who served as my impromptu tour guide. I especially appreciate the input of Retired Lieutenant Al Kaplan, NYPD, who didn’t know me from a hole in the ground but helped me out anyway.
I was also helped by my agent, Philip Spitzer, Lukas Ortiz, Fauzia Burke at FSB Associates, my family, and the incredible team at Harper. Special thanks to my friend and editor Jennifer Barth.