City of Fear

by Alafair Burke

  Ellie had always assumed that the New York City dating scene was kinder to men than women, but these girls were painting a different picture.

  ‘What about the club? Did you meet any guys there?’

  Two sets of shrugged shoulders and nervous eyes until Stefanie spoke up. ‘She started talking to some guys in one of the VIP rooms. We were all hanging out in there.’

  ‘Did you get any names?’ Ellie asked.

  ‘No.’

  She looked to Jordan, who shook her head.

  ‘Nothing? First names? A nickname?’

  ‘It’s really loud in those places. You just say things like, “Hey, cool place, have you been here before?” that kind of thing, unless you take it outside to actually talk.’

  ‘And you didn’t see Chelsea go outside?’

  Two shaking heads.

  ‘Okay, well, was Chelsea with anyone in particular in the VIP room? Or just a big group?’

  ‘Mostly just the whole group,’ Stefanie said. ‘But she was talking to this one guy when we first got there, and he was the one who brought us all into the VIP room.’

  ‘Can you describe him?’

  ‘He was tall, probably a little over six feet. Sort of shaggy, sandy blond hair. Cute.’

  ‘Oh, I remember him,’ Jordan said. ‘Chelsea was with him for, like, a couple of hours, I think. They were dancing. Looked pretty hot and heavy.’

  ‘It was flirting,’ Stefanie admonished.

  ‘I know. I’m just saying, I noticed.’

  ‘So you got a good look at him, too?’ Ellie asked.

  Jordan nodded. ‘He kind of looked like an older Zac Efron. You know, cute more than good looking.’

  ‘And I would know him from where?’

  ‘High School Musical? Hairspray? Like, every single tabloid magazine known to man?’

  Feeling slightly older than she had a minute earlier, Ellie tried not to think about how much easier this would be if the people who met at Manhattan clubs bothered to exchange names like normal people. She was going to have to sit these girls down with a sketch artist in the small hope of finding someone who apparently looked like an overage teen hunk and probably had absolutely nothing to do with Chelsea’s death.

  ‘Now, Jordan, you said Chelsea was with this guy for a couple of hours. Did you see her with anyone else?’

  Jordan shook her head, but Stefanie spoke up. ‘Yeah, she was dancing with some other guy when I told her we were leaving. I didn’t really pay any attention to him, though. He was giving me a hard time for trying to get Chelsea to leave. Jesus, I let it get to me, and I shouldn’t have. I should have made her come home with us.’

  Jordan told Stefanie it wasn’t her fault. Ellie got the impression she’d spoken those words many times that morning.

  ‘Can you remember anything about him?’

  Stefanie chuckled to herself. ‘Yeah, I called him Duran Duran. He had that poser fauxhawk hairdo.’

  ‘Kind of gelled into the middle?’ Ellie said.

  ‘Exactly,’ Stefanie said. ‘And he was dressed like some retro eighties MTV video star. Skinny pants. Skinny tie. Really stupid.’

  ‘What about the basics? Height, weight, age?’

  ‘Also kind of tall. Not as tall as the first guy. Probably right around six feet. A little older than us, maybe mid-twenties? Dark brown hair. Kind of thin, I guess. I really didn’t pay any attention, but I might recognize him if I saw him again.’

  ‘Well, I can understand how the outfit might have distracted you.’ Ellie was hoping a little humor might deter Stefanie from another guilt-induced digression.

  ‘Oh, and Chelsea was calling him Jake.’

  ‘His name was Jake?’ Ellie clarified.

  ‘No, like for Jake Gyllenhaal. It’s this thing Chelsea does. If someone looks like a celebrity, she’ll just call them that. So, I didn’t get a great look at the guy, but according to Chelsea, he looked like Jake Gyllenhaal.’

  Ellie could certainly see how a guy who looked like that – regardless of the outfit – might get the attention of a nineteen-year-old girl from Indiana.

  ‘Okay, so we’ve got the shaggy-haired guy who brought you into the VIP room and Jake the bad dresser,’ she said. ‘Anyone else from last night you can remember?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What about back home? Does Chelsea have a boyfriend?’

  ‘Her boyfriend’s not here,’ Stefanie said.

  ‘Where is he?’ Ellie asked.

  ‘Indiana. He went to Cancún for break, but he came back yesterday so he wouldn’t miss any classes. Oh, my God. He’s totally going to flip out when we’re not on the plane.’

  ‘Worry about that later. What’s his name?’

  ‘Mark. Mark Linton.’

  Two more words for the notebook. She didn’t care whether the boyfriend was supposedly hiking in the Amazon rain forest. Until she verified his whereabouts, the boyfriend was always a suspect.

  ‘Who else?’ Ellie asked.

  Stefanie cocked her head, clearly put off by the question. Jordan gave her an annoyed look.

  ‘Who else other than Mark Linton?’ Ellie asked again. ‘I mean, it’s not like they’re married, right?’

  ‘Not married,’ Stefanie said defensively, ‘but dating. And for like nine months. He’s her boyfriend, okay? She was dancing with some guys last night, but so were the rest of us.’

  ‘No problem. Sorry if I offended you. I figured in college most people would still be dating around. You girls all right? Need to take a bathroom break or anything?’

  Jordan raised her hand chin-high.

  ‘Detective Rogan will show you the way.’

  Jordan scooted past her friend and followed Rogan out, while Ellie continued to walk Stefanie through the basics. Chelsea had no enemies. No one was watching them. No one was following them. No tawdry affairs or illicit drug deals over spring break. The guys at Pulse seemed harmless enough, and Chelsea wouldn’t have left with any of them anyway.

  It was just a fun night in the city. In fact, Chelsea had told Stefanie, just before they left her alone at the club, that it was the best night ever.

  When Rogan returned to the room with Jordan, he gave Ellie the look she was expecting.

  ‘This has been good, you guys. Very helpful. We’re going to make a few calls, and we’ll be right back.’ Ellie waited for the door to close behind them to talk to her partner in the hallway. ‘So?’

  ‘Miss All-American Innocent, my black ass.’

  Ellie feigned a judgmental tsk. ‘My goodness, Jeffrey James. You are so cynical.’

  Facts. Reality. The truth. A timeline. It all sounds objective. Absolute. Black and white.

  It never was. Sometimes a story changed because a witness lied. But more often, it was simply because there was another side to the story.

  According to Rogan, it hadn’t taken much to get Jordan to come clean.

  ‘I caught her on the way out of the ladies’ room,’ Rogan said. ‘I told her I noticed her expression when Stefanie insisted Chelsea had only the one boyfriend. She gave me the usual “I don’t want to say anything about my friend”. ’

  ‘And then you said we need the truth if we’re going to help.’

  Rogan nodded. ‘Chelsea was getting her party on last night. Hard. All these girls were polluted by the time they left, and Chelsea was probably the worst. And she’s got a wild streak. She’s got the one boyfriend, Mark Linton, but that doesn’t stop her from flirting with other dudes behind his back, or even in front of his face.’

  ‘Just flirting, or following up on the flirting?’

  ‘That’s where the girl was less certain. She’s personally witnessed Chelsea make out with guys at bars – not last night, but in the past. I think she suspects things have gone further from time to time, but doesn’t know for sure and didn’t want to be too catty under the circumstances.’

  ‘We don’t have long before this one breaks.’ The local crime reporters always had a way of learning
about cases involving photogenic young women whose pictures made good front-page coverage. Add in a tourist at a trendy nightclub in Manhattan’s premier party district, and Chelsea Hart’s story became irresistible.

  ‘And we need to get to the parents before that poor chump of a boyfriend goes to the airport and sees that his girl’s not on the plane,’ Rogan added. ‘And we definitely need to get the Lou on board.’

  The idea of Lieutenant Dan Eckels being on board with anything having to do with Ellie was a long shot. To say that Ellie wasn’t her lieutenant’s favorite detective was like saying the Hatfields and McCoys weren’t the friendliest of neighbors.

  ‘At least you can fuel up before you face your maker.’

  Jack Chen turned the hallway corner, juggling a pastry bag and a cardboard tray filled with three Styrofoam cups of coffee. Ellie recognized both as coming from a deli on Third Avenue. She took one of the cups and removed a cherry Danish from the bag, along with a napkin, while Chen handed five dollars and some coins back to Rogan. Rogan waved him off, and Chen thanked him before heading off to deliver the rest to the girls down the hall.

  Ellie took a much-needed first sip of the black coffee.

  ‘I’ll meet you back out here in ten?’ Rogan said.

  ‘Are you going somewhere?’

  ‘I’m going in there to prepare these girls to sit down with a sketch artist,’ he said, hitching a thumb over his shoulder. ‘You, however, are going to tell Eckels about your morning jog.’

  Chapter Seven

  Ellie studied her lieutenant for ten full seconds through the open slats of the blinds covering the window between his office and the squad room. Dan Eckels’s short, chunky frame rested in his black leather armchair, and as far as she could tell, he was staring into space, doing absolutely nothing. She tapped her knuckles three times against his closed door.

  ‘Enter.’

  Eckels’s square face darkened when he looked up to find Ellie in the threshold of his office.

  ‘Morning, Lou. I come bearing pastry.’ She extended the napkin-wrapped Danish in his direction.

  ‘Is that powdered sugar on there, Hatcher, or did you get carried away this morning with a little arsenic?’

  ‘They always say you’ve got a wicked sense of humor.’ They didn’t. No one. Ever. Ellie suppressed a stomach growl and tried not to think about how much she would have enjoyed that cherry pastry.

  Eckels met her fake smile with his. It wasn’t a look that worked for him. With his salt-and-pepper hair, block-shaped head, and low forehead, the grin created an unfortunate Frankenstein effect.

  ‘Let me guess. You and this heart-attack-inducing breakfast ball are here to explain why you and Rogan were already well into a call-out when I arrived here at seven o’clock.’

  ‘Something like that.’ She explained how she came upon the crime scene that morning before the first blue-and-white had even arrived. ‘I was already there, Lou. What was I supposed to do? Miss the opportunity for us to get a head start on the investigation just so I could finish my run?’ She said it as if she’d really been looking forward to that last mile.

  ‘You know what your problem is, Hatcher? You’re a smart-ass, just like Flann McIlroy.’

  Ellie dropped the sunny smile. The last time she saw Detective Flann McIlroy, he was dying in her arms on a cabin cruiser at City Island, gunshots in his stomach and throat. ‘McIlroy was a great cop.’

  ‘He was a good investigator. He knew how to follow his gut. Problem was, his instincts could be back-assward, and he wouldn’t listen. He didn’t listen to anyone. He thought he was smarter than everyone else.’ Eckels pointed to imaginary people standing around his office. ‘Thought he could go his own way as long as he shined on all the stupid people around him.’

  ‘I’m not like that, sir, and I’m not shining you on.’

  ‘But you do think I’m stupid,’ Eckels said, rocking back in his chair.

  ‘Of course not, sir.’ Ellie hadn’t realized until that moment the kind of insecurity Dan Eckels must live with.

  Eckels locked eyes with her, sucking his teeth. Ellie held up both palms. ‘No bullshit, Lieutenant. I’m here to pull my weight. And I won’t bring you breakfast anymore. For the sake of your heart. And, well, I really can’t stand being a kiss-ass.’

  ‘Jesus H.,’ Eckels grunted, letting his weight drop forward. ‘Just go ahead and tell me what you’ve got.’

  She drew him the bare-bones picture they’d gathered so far.

  ‘A college student killed on spring break in Manhattan? Please tell me the girl’s a bow-wow.’

  Ellie shook her head. ‘She was very pretty. And blond. I hear the public likes crime stories about midwestern blondes.’

  The self-deprecating crack about her own personal brushes with the media was enough to get another creepy smile out of him.

  ‘I was tempted to reassign this case to another team, Hatcher, the way you grabbed it. But you know something? You want to be in the middle of the shit storm? Then go for it. You weaseled your way into this squad after only five years on the job? We’ll see how much the brass loves you when your clusterfuck’s on the front page of every paper in the country.’ He unfurled the imaginary headline with outstretched hands: ‘Murder in the Big Apple.’

  ‘I won’t say I wasn’t warned.’

  ‘Keep me in the loop, Hollywood. McIlroy never did.’

  ‘Not a problem, sir.’

  She turned to leave his office, but Eckels wasn’t finished. ‘How are things with Rogan?’

  ‘Good. Real good so far. Thanks.’

  ‘Just so you know, you’d be paired with that lazy fuck Winslow if Rogan hadn’t saved you. Don’t be a pain in his ass.’

  Ellie let the door fall closed behind her.

  She found Rogan on his cell phone at his gray metal desk.

  There were at least eight different varieties of desks among the twenty that were scattered throughout the squad room. From the looks of things, someone with a borderline case of obsessive-compulsive disorder had at some point attempted to pair them into matching sets for partners. Eight variations. Twenty desks. The math did not work. She took a seat at her own wood-veneer setup.

  Rogan lowered his voice to a whisper and swung his chair away from her. She heard him mutter something about ‘three thousand.’ She wondered if the call had something to do with his wardrobe. Maybe the price of a new suit. Or maybe a bet to help pay for the next one.

  To avoid any appearance of eavesdropping, she picked up her phone to make a call of her own.

  ‘Peter Morse.’

  ‘Hey there.’

  ‘Hey, yourself. I’m glad you called. I was worried maybe you met some other guy last night when I wasn’t on watch.’

  ‘Nah, maybe back in my old skanky days. I kicked it at home alone last night.’ Ellie had only known Peter Morse for two months, and she’d been in Kansas for half of that time. But since she’d been home, they’d spent more nights together than apart. ‘Did you get a lot of work done?’

  Peter was a crime beat reporter at the Daily Post by day, aspiring author by night. After spending all weekend together, Ellie had insisted that they have two nights on their own so he could have some time to write.

  ‘Oh, tons. Forty pages, at least. A book contract is just around the corner, complete with an all-expenses-paid tour and a straight shot to the top of the best-seller list.’ Peter tended to understate just how important his writing was to him, and sarcasm often proved handy on that front.

  ‘If you’re really on a roll, maybe we should take tomorrow night off, too.’

  ‘Don’t even joke. I was sort of hoping I could come over tonight.’

  ‘Nope. Two nights. Those are the rules.’

  ‘Damn you and your stinking rules.’

  ‘You were the one who told me it always takes you a day to get up to speed after a long break.’

  ‘Damn me and my big mouth.’

  ‘Tonight you’ll be in the zone,�
�� Ellie said.

  The grumble on the other end of the line suggested he had doubts. ‘And tomorrow?’

  ‘And tomorrow, we’ll make up for lost time.’

  ‘Now I like the sound of that.’

  Rogan flipped his phone shut at the desk across from her.

  ‘Hey, I’ve got to run. I’ll call you tomorrow.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘I always mean what I say,’ she said before hanging up.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ Rogan said, holding up his cell. ‘With you dragging my ass out of bed so early this morning, I didn’t get a chance to take care of some personal business.’

  ‘No need to explain.’

  ‘So, turns out our girls from Indiana are a little tougher than you’d think. I told them we found a body this morning. Said you and I both saw her. That she resembles the picture they showed us of their friend.’

  ‘You didn’t tell them the rest, did you?’

  Rogan shook his head. ‘I made it clear there still needs to be an official ID, but they know we’re pretty confident this is Chelsea. For a couple of kids, they’re handling it all right. A whole lot of crying, of course, but I persuaded them to give me their phones until we’ve had a chance to call the family.’ He opened his desk drawer to reveal two cell phones.

  ‘And we’ve got a sketch artist on the way?’

  ‘Done,’ he said. ‘It sounds like they got a decent enough look at the shaggy-haired guy that we might have a shot with him. On the one they called Jake, their descriptions are so vague, it might be a lost cause. Anyway, that’s for the doodler to figure out. We can have a victim’s advocate get them back into the Hilton once they’re done here.’

  ‘So what’s next?’

  ‘I call the parents. You call CSU and the ME. See if they’re ready for us.’ Breaking the news of a daughter’s death compared to checking on the status of the crime scene unit and medical examiner’s office? Definitely not equal billing. The call to Indiana was something she had signed on for when she took responsibility for the girl she’d found during her run.