City of Fear

by Alafair Burke

  Ellie didn’t see the harm in getting the quick version of the driver’s story now, to avoid what she could foresee was going to be a headache-inducing conversation about the lack of adequate parking, the ineptitude of municipal employees, and the financial burdens of cabdrivers. She hopped into the passenger seat, and Kadhim hit his emergency blinker. At least it wasn’t the meter.

  ‘You said you recognize this girl?’

  She pulled an eight-by-ten printout of Chelsea Hart from a manila folder.

  ‘Yes, that is right,’ he said, tapping the photograph for emphasis. ‘I stopped Sunday night for her. She hailed me down, I think it was at Fifteenth and Ninth Avenue.’

  ‘Where did you take her?’ If Chelsea had left Pulse and headed to another club by herself, she would have an even tougher time linking Jake Myers to the murder.

  ‘I did not take her. She stopped my cab, but I did not drive her.’

  Ellie waited for Kadhim to explain, but he did not. ‘Did she change her mind?’

  ‘No. See, there is a bit of a problem here. I want to help. That is why I called when I saw the picture. I did not have to call, you know.’

  ‘What are you trying to say, Mr. Kadhim?’

  ‘The Taxi and Limousine Commission. They are crazy. They have these rules, and they think nothing of shutting us down.’

  ‘Mr. Khadim, I assure you, I am not trying to jam you up about some taxicab regulation. I just need you to tell me everything you can remember about this girl. Her name was Chelsea Hart. She was from Indiana. Her parents flew here yesterday to identify her body. I’d like to have something to tell them, sir.’

  ‘You do not report to the commission?’

  Ellie shook her head and waited for him to speak.

  ‘She got inside the cab and told me to take her to the Hilton at Rockefeller Center. Before driving away, I checked to be sure she could pay me in cash. She could not. She asked me if I could take her Visa card instead.’

  ‘But aren’t you all upgraded? The GPS, automation, credit cards.’ The cabdrivers had gone on strike twice to try to prevent the change, but ultimately the commission had prevailed. Ellie peered over the partition into the backseat and saw the required equipment in Kadhim’s taxi.

  ‘The credit card processing is broken,’ Kadhim explained. ‘I told that to the young lady, but she said she had spent all of her cash. It happens a lot in that part of town at that time of night.’

  ‘What time was it?’ Ellie asked.

  ‘It was not quite closing time, I remember. It was probably three thirty.’

  An hour after Stefanie and Jordan left. Thirty minutes later than Jake Myers’s faltering estimate of when Chelsea had supposedly walked out alone.

  ‘So what happened when she said she couldn’t pay cash?’

  ‘I told her I would not drive her.’

  Ellie now understood why Khadim had been nervous. She remembered from the taxi strike that the drivers were especially upset about a rule that required them to pull their cabs out of service if their credit card machines malfunctioned.

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘That is when the man offered to give her the money she needed.’

  ‘Wait a second. There was a man with her?’

  ‘She was alone. At first. But then when we were talking about how she was to pay her fare, a man came and knocked on the window. He … he propositioned her, if you understand.’

  ‘Yes, okay, I think I know what you mean by that,’ Ellie said, nodding even though she was having trouble picturing the scenario. ‘A man came up out of nowhere and knocked on your taxi window and offered to pay her for sexual favors?’

  ‘No. It was not like that. She was talking to me, but then when the tapping began at the window, she lowered the glass and spoke to the man. I do not recall all of it, but it was along the lines of persuading her to stay with him, wherever she had been prior to coming outside. She told him she needed to go to her hotel – that she had an early flight in the morning – but that now she didn’t have any money, and I would not take her credit card. I remember that: she said, “And now this guy won’t take my fucking credit card.” Not angry, but as if she were trying to be humorous. They both seemed intoxicated.’

  ‘And what did the man say?’

  ‘That is when he propositioned her. He said something like, I can give you the money. But then when she reached out of the window, he said she would have to earn it. I did not want them in my cab any more after that. Not every driver allows Taxicab Confessions in the back of their car, you know. I was about to order her to get out, but then she left on her own with the man. They were laughing, like it was a game.’

  ‘Do any of these men look familiar?’

  Ellie handed Kadhim four photographs. Kadhim flipped through them quickly and apathetically, past Nick Warden, Tony Russo, and Jaime Rodriguez – until he landed on the final picture. Jake Myers. ‘This man,’ he said, handing the photograph to her. ‘This is the man she left with.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘I am positive. He was wearing a thin black tie, and his clothing was too tight. Pardon my French, but he looked like an asshole.’

  That description alone left no doubt in her mind that the person Kadhim had seen with Chelsea Hart had been Jake Myers. But it was the two calls J. J. Rogan had placed while Ellie was wrapping up her conversation with Kadhim that persuaded her they had their man.

  One call was to Mariah Florkoski at the crime scene unit. The fingerprint on the top button of Chelsea Hart’s blouse was an eight-point match to a latent print pulled from the glass of water Ellie had so generously offered to Jake Myers last night. And she’d found seminal fluid in the stain on the same shirt.

  The other call was to the medical examiner. The rape kit was back. The oral swab was also positive for seminal fluid.

  Now all they needed was a DNA sample.

  Chapter Nineteen

  One Hundred Centre Street not only famously houses many of the city’s criminal courts, but is also home to most of Manhattan’s five hundred assistant district attorneys. Rogan and Ellie checked in with a receptionist on the fifteenth floor and were directed to the office of ADA Max Donovan in the Homicide Investigation Unit.

  Ellie already knew that the professional lives of ADAs were not glamorous. She had met with enough of them to know that the spacious, mahogany-highlighted offices, complete with brass lamps, antique scales, and matching volumes of leather-bound books, were the stuff of fictional lawyers on television. Most prosecutors worked long hours out of cubbyhole-sized cubes of clutter, all for a paycheck that wasn’t enough to cover both Manhattan rent and law school student loans.

  Still, she would have thought that an attorney who’d been in the office long enough to earn a slot trying murder cases would warrant digs better than these. An ornately framed diploma from Columbia Law School stood out alongside Max Donovan’s metal desk, ratty chairs, and dented file cabinet. Apparently any luxuries to be found in the office were enjoyed even further up the food chain.

  Donovan was tall, with broad shoulders and dark curly hair. If he felt any self-consciousness about his humble surroundings, he didn’t show it. He rose from his desk to welcome them with hearty handshakes, and then gestured for them to have a seat themselves. Ellie noticed the lawyer watching her as she crossed her legs in the charcoal-colored pencil skirt she’d chosen that morning. She also noticed a subtle smell that reminded her of white truffles.

  ‘So I’ve already received a call this morning from Mr. Warden’s lawyer, looking for a deal.’

  ‘So a night in jail did work wonders,’ Rogan said, smiling.

  ‘I assume you two don’t care about the drug charges on Warden. We’re just looking for cooperation in the event he’s covering for Jake Myers.’

  ‘We’re more certain of that now,’ Ellie said. ‘CSU matched Myers’s prints to a latent they pulled from the victim’s shirt. We also located a cabdriver who can place Jake Myers outside the club wit
h the victim just before closing time. That contradicts his statement in two ways: he said Chelsea left earlier, and he said he was never outside the club with her.’

  ‘Good,’ Donovan said, straightening his blue-striped tie. ‘We’re getting somewhere. And we’re going to have some leverage against Warden. I just got the crime lab reports from last night.’

  ‘That was fast,’ she said. In the bureaucratic world of NYPD, evidence related to Warden’s drug bust had to be processed by a separate – and typically slower – unit than the physical evidence in the Chelsea Hart murder case.

  ‘It’s amazing what they can do when you tell them Simon Knight needs something yesterday. The drugs you took off the girl –’

  ‘Ashlee Swain,’ Ellie reminded him.

  ‘Right. The drugs came back positive as crystal meth, with Jaime Rodriguez’s fingerprints on the baggie. We’ve also got Warden’s prints, plus Rodriguez’s, on the money you seized from Warden’s pocket. And the weight came in at precisely an eighth of an ounce.’

  ‘Hot damn,’ Rogan said. The prints corroborated Ellie’s version of what went down between Rodriguez, Warden, and the model. And thanks to the Rockefeller drug laws, an eight ball of meth could get Warden up to nine years.

  ‘Warden’s lawyer is ready to deal,’ Donovan said. ‘Her client went through drug court once already as a college sophomore after he got popped for DUI on Christmas break and the police found a small amount of cocaine in his impounded car. That, combined with the drug weight and his current participation in distribution, will keep him out of drug court and on the felony docket.’

  Ellie smiled. After news like this, the preppy rich kid with the surfer haircut would not be so protective of his friend.

  ‘Shoot,’ Donovan said, checking his watch. ‘I better run if I’m going to talk to this lawyer before arraignment.’

  ‘Who’s the lawyer?’ Rogan asked.

  ‘Her name’s Susan Parker. I expected one of the big gun criminal defense lawyers, but she’s an associate at one of those fringy finance firms. They’ve got a reputation for pushing the envelope-moving business offshore, hiding conflicts of interest, just about anything to avoid oversight from the Securities and Exchange Commission. I assume they represent Warden’s hedge fund. Parker’s not much older than Warden himself. She was probably sent over here to work something out. If it gets complicated, they’ll bring in a shark. But not to worry. We’re not going to let it get complicated.’

  ‘Real quick, before we go: we drafted an affidavit based on Jake Myers’s statements last night and the cabdriver’s ID,’ Ellie said, holding up the four-page document she’d hammered out at the precinct. It was accompanied by an application for an arrest warrant and a search warrant for Jake Myers’s apartment, car, and a DNA sample. ‘We figured it was enough for PC. Do you want us to hold off until you get Warden’s story, or go ahead and get it signed while we’re here?’

  ‘May I?’ Donovan asked. She handed him the document and watched as Donovan scanned the pages, nodding occasionally. ‘Nice work. You write better than half the trial lawyers in the office.’

  ‘That’s not exactly high praise for your coworkers.’ As Donovan handed the affidavit back to her, Ellie noticed Rogan eyeing her with a smirk. ‘So what were your thoughts on the timing?’

  ‘Right. Go ahead and get the warrant signed. Better to pick Myers up now. You never know where a guy like that might run off to.’

  ‘That was quite the mutual admiration society up there,’ Rogan said as they jogged down the courthouse steps on Centre Street. It had required all of fifteen minutes to get the warrants reviewed and signed.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘What are you talking about? I felt like I was standing in between Angelina and Billy Bob back in the old dirty days.’

  ‘Please, because he said that stupid thing about my writing? He’s just a typical lawyer trying to get on our good side so he can screw us over down the road.’

  ‘Excuse me, but I’ve been shined on by half the ADAs in the county, and that’s not what all that was about. I saw the way he was looking at you.’

  ‘You are having far too much fun teasing me,’ Ellie said.

  ‘I’d say that from the looks of things, it was more like you were having fun teasing him. Crossing your legs. Getting his advice about the warrant. I think I even caught a hair twirl in there.’

  ‘All right, that’s enough.’ It was not a hair twirl. Maybe a flip, at most. Ellie did have to admit that she’d noticed Donovan looking at her.

  She’d noticed other things as well during their brief introduction: Donovan’s height – he must have been about six-one – and solid build. Cool gray eyes and square jaw. A thin-lipped smile that was cute without being cocky. Sort of a John Kennedy Jr. look. No wedding band. That nice truffle smell.

  That really was enough, she thought to herself. These loopy teenage daydreams were clearly the result of clinical levels of sleep deprivation. She felt a slight pang of guilt recalling one of the reasons for her sleeplessness – her late night with Peter Morse.

  ‘Ready to pick up our boy Myers?’ Rogan asked.

  ‘I’ve been ready since the second he called Chelsea’s friend a bitch.’

  The sign that welcomed them was black marble with silver letters. Capital Research Technology.

  It sounded serious. Large. Trustworthy. Established. In truth, it was a ten-month old, four-man shop occupying only half a floor of a midlevel office building on Fifth Avenue and Forty-third Street.

  The receptionist informed them they would need an appointment to see Mr. Myers, but Ellie and Rogan ignored her and found their way down a narrow hallway leading to four offices. The first was empty. A nameplate on the desk read Nicolas J. Warden.

  At door number two stood a man with a familiar face.

  ‘Detectives. I didn’t realize you’d be coming here.’

  Jake Myers apparently left his New Wave wardrobe at home during business hours. In a conservative navy suit and red power tie, and without mass quantities of gel to mold his hair into a gravity-defying shape, he almost didn’t look like an ass.

  Rogan grabbed Myers’s arm, pushed him against the hallway wall, and began patting down his suit. ‘We don’t usually give people a shout-out before arresting them for murder.’ He read Myers his Miranda rights while placing him in handcuffs.

  ‘You’re making a mistake,’ Myers said. ‘I didn’t kill anyone.’

  Ellie pulled Myers around to face her. ‘You’re the one who made a mistake. Last night, you were sure your boys would cover for you. Well, tomorrow Nick Warden will be selling short and trading swap futures in his office next door, looking for someone else to help him run the company while you spend the rest of your life in prison.’

  ‘I thought cops were supposed to investigate. You won’t listen to anything I tell you.’

  ‘Let’s take a look at what you’ve told us so far. You told us you didn’t leave the club with Chelsea Hart, do drugs with her, or have sexual contact with her.’ She ticked off his lies on her fingers. ‘So, as far as we’re concerned, everything you’ve ever said to us is a lie.’

  Ellie was new to homicide cases, but she had arrested enough suspects to be familiar with the typical responses to confrontation. Regret. Panic. Anger. Defiance. She also recognized the physical acts that tended to accompany these emotions. Regret and panic tended to trigger tears, while anger often brought violence. Defiance was usually accompanied by either an adamant and detailed story of innocence or an invocation of counsel. And sometimes spit. Spit paired well with anger, too. She hated it when the angry and the defiant spit.

  But Jake Myers caught her by surprise.

  He smiled. He grinned like a man with a well-kept secret. Whatever apprehension they had temporarily instilled in him was gone, and the arrogance she’d initially witnessed at Pulse was back in its full glory. ‘Fine. Do what you have to do, beautiful.’

  Ellie pictured herself deliver
ing a knee strike to Myers’s groin, followed by a left jab into his skinny head. That’s what she had to do. At least a good smack. Something.

  Instead, she said, ‘I take it you’re not answering any questions.’

  ‘Not without a lawyer. You’re welcome to my DNA, however.’

  It was Rogan who delivered the slap to the back of Myers’s head, and it wasn’t just in Ellie’s imagination. ‘Not another word.’

  And that was the last they heard out of Jake Myers for three days.

  That evening, at precisely 5:30 p.m., the man watched the entrance of Mesa Grill from a counter at an Au Bon Pain across the street.

  He had come across the bartender accidentally the previous night. He had been walking downtown, looking for his next project; given the changes in the city over the last several years, it was his impression that downtown was the best place to look for the kind of girls he liked – girls who had fun, too much fun.

  He started in Washington Square Park. A lot of NYU girls there. Hippie chicks. Down-and-outs. But compared to Chelsea, none of the girls he saw had that kind of spark.

  From the park, he’d made his way over to the West Village. Spent some time in three different sex shops. He figured any woman who worked in a place like that would eventually be easy to grab. But to his disappointment, the employees had all been men. Most of the customers, too. It was the neighborhood, he figured.

  He’d gotten his hopes up at a store called Fantasy when he’d spotted one of the employees from behind. She’d been reaching for a foot-long purple dildo from a top shelf. She must have been six feet tall. Thin. Long, white-blond hair. Then she had turned around, and it was clear that she was a he. Not his type.

  From the Village, he had headed to the Flatiron. The district had once been known as Ladies’ Mile, famous for the department stores that drew the country’s most elegant women, shopping for the finest luxuries. First ladies frequented Arnold Constable at Nineteenth Street and Broadway. Tiffany & Co. had sat at Fourteenth Street and University before the jeweler decided that Union Square had coarsened. A century ago, this neighborhood had catered to the choosiest of women. Now, a hundred years later, he hoped that he might find precisely what he was searching for, somewhere on Broadway before he reached Madison Park.