by James Hayman
“Right size, yes. But Ralston said the guy he saw was Caucasian. Carter’s black. Fairly light-skinned but definitely black.”
“Yeah, I know. But it was dark out and Ralston said the guy was wearing a hat that mostly hid his face.”
“Well, it’s easy enough to check,” said McCabe. “Contact Pro-Call Cars. That’s who Carter says drove him home from the theater. I’m sure they’ll have a record of the call. Including pickup and drop-off locations.”
“Okay. Anything else?”
“Carter also said Zoe told him she was meeting a friend at the Laughing Toad a few blocks down Rivington from the theater. After we talk to this Rosen woman, if you’ve sent me a sketch, Maggie and I will check in there. See if they remember him.”
“Laughing Toad, huh? Interesting.”
“Yeah, why?”
“Evidence guys found a wineglass on the counter in Zoe’s kitchen.”
“Okay. What about it?”
“It still had a residue of wine in it. And guess what? A picture of a toad with a big grin on his face on the outside. I’m wondering if the bad guy pilfered the glass from the bar.”
“And left it behind at Zoe’s place? Presumably with his DNA on the rim?”
“Seems pretty stupid.”
“Unless it’s somebody else’s DNA. A clumsy attempt to frame some other guy for Zoe’s disappearance.”
“Could be. But you know as well as I do a lot of bad guys do totally stupid things like leaving a glass with their DNA on the victim’s kitchen counter. Anyway, it’s being analyzed to see if we can come up with a match. Should have results fairly soon.”
Chapter 28
McCabe punched in Mollie Rosen’s number and she answered on the first ring.
“Ms. Rosen, this is Detective Sergeant Michael McCabe.”
“From Portland, Maine? At least that’s what caller ID says.”
“I’m with the Portland Police Department but at the moment I’m in New York working . . .”
“You’re looking for Zoe?”
“Yes.”
You said your name’s McCabe. Are you related?”
“Yes. I’m her uncle. But I’m also a detective and I’m currently assigned to an NYPD task force working to find my niece.”
“This is all so horrible. I saw her photo on TV just twenty minutes ago. God, I hope she’s okay.”
“You may be able to help. Randall Carter told us that you manage productions at the McArthur/Weinstein Theater.”
“That’s correct.”
“Is there any way you could help us find someone who purchased single tickets for all twelve performances of the Othello production?”
“Mr. A12.”
“Mr. A12?”
“Yup. I know exactly who you’re talking about. Same guy sat in seat A12 for all twelve performances.”
“Front row aisle? Right-hand side?”
“You got it. Eight years I’ve been managing this theater and I’ve never seen anything like it. This guy actually got into a tussle last night with someone else who had the nerve to take the seat first. We darn near had a fight on our hands till the other guy backed down. You think it might have been the A12 guy who grabbed Zoe?”
“We don’t know yet. Do you know how Mr. A12 paid for his tickets?”
“Not offhand. We do have records for online purchases. Credit card and PayPal. Those we can check on the computer. Also box office credit card purchases. But usually around ten percent of the box office tickets are purchased with cash. No way to know who bought those unless they signed up to receive our newsletter about new productions.”
If A12 was their man, he had to be either stupid or crazy to leave his name and his e-mail to receive a newsletter. Or to leave a credit card record for that matter. But serial killers are crazy by definition and some of them want to be caught. It had to be checked out.
“Can you do that for us? Check on the names you might have?”
“You mean like right now?”
“Yeah, like right now.”
There was an audible sigh. “Well, the information’s locked in my office at the theater and we’re dark tonight. When there’s no show on, nobody’s there.” Rosen paused as if thinking about how she could solve the problem. “I was thinking about going to bed but the heck with it. If it’ll really help Zoe I’ll get over there soon as I can.”
“We think it will definitely help. How long do you think it’ll take you to get there?”
“Well, I live out in Rego Park and the trains don’t run so often at this hour. Probably gonna take me a good hour to get down there. Maybe more. What if I meet you in front of the theater in say an hour and a half?”
McCabe checked the time on his phone. 9:09 p.m. Sending a car out to Rego Park and then turning around and driving Rosen back to town probably wouldn’t get her there any sooner.
“Okay we’ll meet you right in front of the theater at ten-thirty.”
“Okay. I’ll get there quick as I can.”
McCabe double checked to make sure he had the right address for the theater, then hung up and signaled for a taxi. He told the driver to take Maggie and him down to the Seventh Precinct. He called Astarita and let him know they were on their way.
There was relatively little traffic and the cab let them out at 17½ Pitt Street fifteen minutes later. Maggie and McCabe walked in and introduced themselves to the desk sergeant, a balding guy in his fifties who had one of the most totally Irish faces McCabe had seen in years.
He held out his hand. “John O’Hara. Lieutenant told me you guys would be coming in,” the sergeant said. “Welcome to the glorious Seventh. Detective squad’s on the second floor. You can take the elevator or the stairs right there.”
They thanked O’Hara and climbed to the second floor, where they found Detective Diane Capriati waiting for them.
“Lieutenant managed to find desk space for you guys,” Diane said. “Bit of a squeeze but it ought to work okay.” She led them to a pair of utilitarian desks that had been pushed together in a way that would allow Maggie and McCabe to work facing each other, as with old-fashioned partner desks.
Both seemed to be fully equipped, including landline phones and computer monitors.
“Thanks, Diane,” said Maggie. “This’ll be great. Randall Carter still here?”
“Yeah. He’s with Tony Renzi, our sketch guy, now. They ought to have something for us to look at fairly soon.”
“Surveillance footage in yet?” asked McCabe.
“Yeah. A batch of it is. Ramon and I have been going over it in the small conference room. Mostly garbage. But some of it could turn out to be useful. Drop your coats and come with me.”
McCabe and Maggie entered a conference room even smaller than the one they had in Portland. Ramon Morales got up to greet them. They shook hands.
“Whatcha got?” asked McCabe.
They pulled up chairs near a flat-screen monitor. Morales pressed some buttons on a clicker. “I’m gonna show you our two best views. This first comes from the camera mounted in Joe Ralston’s car.” A moving image of a dark and rainy Lower East Side street came on. “Here’s Ralston driving on Rivington Street approaching the corner of Clinton. We can see him make the right turn onto Clinton, and as he does, his headlights sweep across the backs of two people.” A big guy wearing an Aussie-style hat and carrying a backpack was walking on the curb side. A shorter, thinner woman who could have been Zoe was walking to his left. As the squad car approached they both turned and looked back. Both faces were blurry but visible.
“Can you freeze the frame on the best shot of the faces?” asked McCabe. Morales did so.
Despite the blur, there was no question in McCabe’s mind that the woman was Zoe. The guy’s face was visible for only a fraction of a second before he lowered his head and turned away, blocking the view of his face. A deliberate act of hiding? Almost certainly. The images of Zoe and the guy disappeared from camera view as the car pulled up alongside them,
with Ralston presumably asking if everything was all right. When Zoe told him it was, he continued on, making a right on Stanton Street and disappearing.
Okay, McCabe told himself, they had a couple of frames with a possibly identifiable image of the guy’s face. Sadly, that alone didn’t prove a damned thing. It was just an image of a guy walking with Zoe in the direction of her building. No way to convict anyone on that. Even a semicompetent defense lawyer would raise the possibility that the real killer was already in the building, waiting for Zoe to come home.
McCabe drummed his fingers against the tabletop. “You have anything more damning than this? We’re gonna need it.”
“Yes, we do,” said Diane. “But sadly it’s worse in terms of seeing the guy’s face.”
Morales fast-forwarded to a second street view from the reverse perspective angle. “Here’s a sequence from a street surveillance camera located further down Clinton. It shows what’s got to be the same couple walking toward camera and then Ralston driving alongside and stopping.”
Morales let the sequence run. Ralston’s headlights shining on the camera lens initially silhouetted Zoe and Mr. Bush Hat. But after Ralston turned off onto Stanton, the video showed Zoe saying something to the guy, then climbing the stairs up to the front door of her building. The guy waited a couple of seconds. When she reached the top he probably said something to her because she turned to look at him. Then he headed up the stairs as well. They talked for a minute. Then the guy turned to go down the stairs. Zoe opened the door. The guy reached out one long arm and pushed his way in behind her.
“Bingo!” said McCabe.
“Wait, there’s more,” said Morales. Once again he fast-forwarded the video, slowing it to normal speed when the guy emerged from the building still wearing his same hat but this time carrying a duffel bag and an oversized black garbage bag. He carried them down the stairs and then walked away from the camera. He stopped at a black SUV parked on the same side about a dozen parking spaces down. He went around to the back and disappeared from view. Then the rear hatch of the SUV apparently rose and seconds later closed again. The guy reappeared on the sidewalk, opened the driver’s side door, got in the car and pulled out. For a second McCabe thought he might be leaving. Instead he double-parked in front of 121. He got out of the car, climbed the stairs and, apparently using a key that was in his pocket, opened the door and went back into the building.
“Looks like he could have blood on that jacket,” said Maggie. “If we confirm it, it could move us toward a conviction.”
“Have to catch him first,” said McCabe.
“Yes, we do,” said Maggie. “Do you have anything more?” she asked.
“Oh yeah.” said Morales. “Watch this.” He again hit fast forward and then, after a couple of seconds, he slowed the sequence to normal speed just as the front door of the building opened again. The guy in the hat exited the tenement carrying what certainly could have been a rolled-up rug over one shoulder. “Once again he looks around,” said Morales, “then walks over to the double-parked SUV, puts the rug in back, gets in. Closes the hatch and then he does something weird.”
“Weird like what?”
“Watch.” After closing the hatch the guy walked into the shadows alongside the steps going up to Zoe’s front door. He leaned down as if there was something of interest tucked in the corner. Stood there looking at it for as much as minute. Then he turned around and went back to the SUV.
“What do you think that was about?” asked Morales. “Was he taking a leak or something?”
“Maybe,” said McCabe. “But more likely he was looking at something.”
“Or someone,” said Capriati.
“Or someone,” agreed McCabe. “Most likely the homeless guy Ralston mentioned.”
The four detectives watched as their suspect got into the SUV, started the engine, pulled out and drove north on Clinton toward East Houston.
Morales forwarded the tape slowly, frame by frame, but not once were the plates on the SUV visible.
“My guess is he turned right on Houston,” said Capriati. “If he did it would have taken him right onto an entrance to the FDR northbound.”
“Are we checking footage from cameras on the drive? Can’t be that many black SUVs heading north at three in the morning.”
“We’re checking, but so far nothing,” said Morales.
“Still, putting it all together,” said Diane Capriati, “it makes a pretty compelling case that this is our guy.”
Beyond a reasonable doubt? McCabe wondered. Maybe. Maybe not.
The conference door opened. Astarita stuck his head in. “Come down to my office. Tony Renzi’s uploaded a sketch based on Carter’s description.”
Morales flicked off the monitor and the four of them squeezed in front of Art’s computer.
The screen showed a front face drawing of a man who looked to be around thirty. The guy had a long, clean-shaven face. Fairly prominent chin and cheekbones. High forehead. His dark, straight hair was cut fairly short and curved down over the left side of his forehead. He had dark eyebrows. A biggish nose. Overall the sort of the all-American good looks you might see as the male lead in a romantic comedy. Sadly, this was no comedy.
“Man’s got a good eye,” said Diane Capriati. “Looks a whole lot like what we got from the street camera.”
“Could you guys e-mail me images from both the camera and Renzi’s sketch?” asked McCabe. “I want to show them both to the manager of McArthur/Weinstein.”
Chapter 29
A short five-minute walk got them to the darkened doors of the McArthur/Weinstein Community Theater. Turned out Mollie Rosen was waiting for them just outside. A short, slightly plump woman who McCabe guessed was somewhere in her early forties with bright eyes, dark heavy eyebrows and a mop of curly black hair with a few patches of gray that served as evidence that the color hadn’t come out of a bottle.
“Detective McCabe?”
“Ms. Rosen.” He extended his right hand. “Sorry if we’re late.”
“No. No. I just got here myself. Just call me Mollie. Everybody does.”
“Okay, Mollie. This is my partner, Detective Margaret Savage.”
“I’m so sorry about your niece. Actually horrified is more accurate than sorry.”
“We feel the same way,” said McCabe.
“I only heard the news a little before you called.”
“On television?” asked Maggie.
“Yes. On one of the news shows. But also on Facebook. Zoe was well-liked and we had a few friends in common. The news is going viral. Hundreds of shares. Everybody upset.”
Mollie unlocked one of the main doors and beckoned Maggie and McCabe to follow her inside. She turned on some lights, relocked the main door and then unlocked another door behind the ticket window. The two detectives followed her into a small, homey office with a beat-up old wooden desk that looked like it had been purchased from the Salvation Army. A single straight-back chair stood behind it. There were a half-dozen photos on the wall of Mollie posing with the same guy in various vacation locales. Another dozen or so on the opposite wall showing scenes from a variety of the productions that had been put on at the McArthur/Weinstein. Randall Carter wasn’t the first big-name star to have played this stage.
“Sorry I don’t have chairs for you all to sit in,” she said, “but this is pretty much a solo office. I rarely have visitors.”
“No problem.,” said McCabe. “We’ll stand.”
She looked up. “So tell me what I can do to I can help?”
“Like I told you on the phone, I need to know if you have access to the names of people who bought tickets.”
“Mr. A12?”
“Yes. Any chance you know the guy’s name?”
“Like I said, I might if he bought his tickets with a credit card. But if this creep was stalking Zoe, I’ll bet he paid cash. I mean why give us his name, address and credit card number if he’s on the prowl?”
“I’
m sure you’re right but we need to check anyway. If you could put the receipts on this thumb drive we can take it from there.”
“I’m not sure I can do that. Credit card numbers are privileged information. Even if you are cops.”
“You won’t be breaking any laws. It’s perfectly legit for you to share this information with the police,” said McCabe.
Rosen looked like she was wondering if he was telling her the truth. After a few seconds she said, “Oh, fuck it. You’re right. We need to find Zoe.” She took the proffered thumb drive and inserted it into a slot in her desktop computer. She hit a few keys, waited a few seconds, then ejected the drive and handed it to Maggie.
“Thank you.”
“There’s one other way you can help us right now,” said Maggie. “Like you said, the guy we’re looking for always sat in the same seat. Mr. A12 you called him.”
“Yup,” said Rosen. “He always sat in A12. He was hard not to notice. Big guy. Always got here early. Every performance.”
“Which seat’s A12?” asked McCabe.
“On the aisle. Front row. Right-hand side of the auditorium. A few of our ushers noticed him sitting there night after night. It became kind of a joke.”
“You said on the phone that last night Mr. A12 got into a confrontation with someone who was sitting in the seat when he arrived?” asked McCabe.
“That’s right.”
“Do you know the name of the man he bullied out of the seat?”
“I do. I got a complaint from him right after the performance. Guy’s name was Richard Mooney.”
“Keep going,” said McCabe.
“Well, right after the curtain, Mooney and his girlfriend . . . I don’t know her name . . . they both came up to me at the back of the theater where I was standing watching the audience file out.”
“How did he know you were the right person to talk to?” asked Maggie.
“I wear a jacket with a McArthur/Weinstein emblem on it during performances. Anyway, this Mooney guy asks me if he can talk to the manager. I tell him that’s me. He’s obviously pissed about something so I ask him what the problem is and he tells me that he wants to file a complaint. What kind of complaint, I ask. He tells me that he and his girlfriend got to the theater early because they like sitting upfront and they wanted to make sure they could get seats in the first or second row. A12 and the one next to it, A13, were empty so that’s where they sat. A couple of minutes later our friend shows up. He gets right in Mooney’s face and tells him A12 is his seat and that Mooney and his girlfriend are going to have to move. Mooney says no. Says seating is first come, first served, which is true. Big dude gets very threatening. Mooney says he’s gonna call the cops. Dude says get out of the seat or he’s gonna beat him up.”