Dead Connection

by Alafair Burke

  “What about the fact that they took his wallet?”

  Dixon had seen this before in local cops. Just because the FBI had stepped in on one of their robbery cases in the past, they mistakenly assumed every robbery was a federal concern. “Robbery falls under the Hobb’s Act but only if it affects interstate commerce.”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake. My job is so much simpler. See person do bad thing? Haul out the handcuffs. What does that mean, affecting commerce?”

  Dixon hardly understood the nuances of federal jurisdiction himself, so he tried to make it simple. “It could mean a lot of things, but we usually only go that route when it’s a commercial robbery. Then we show that the money that was taken from Home Depot or wherever would’ve been spent in commerce.”

  “Well, okay then. There you go. Jess spends money in commerce all the time. There’s your jurisdiction.”

  Dixon frowned.

  “I don’t care if he’s charged or not,” Ellie said. Once a suspect was in the box — even if it was for jaywalking — no limits existed on what a guy just might tell a cop. “I just want him in custody. Can you get an arrest warrant under the Hobb’s Act?”

  “Yeah, I could get a warrant. What’s the purpose, though? I’m sure you’re pissed about your brother, but I thought you were interested in finding out more about Becker.”

  She seemed to choose her words carefully, as if she knew how much her words would pain him. “I think Vitali Rostov was the person Tatiana was protecting when she was your informant. When I showed Zoya a photograph of Lev Grosha, I think she might have recognized him. Then a couple of hours later, Rostov is beating up my brother in a parking lot, telling me to stop asking questions. And when Tatiana told you that the people she knew had sources in the NYPD, I think she was talking about Ed Becker. Flann told me that he saw Becker take protection money once back in the day. If Becker was in bed with Russian OC, it explains how he managed to own a yacht.”

  Dixon fell into his office chair, digesting the information. “It would also explain why he did nothing on Tatiana’s murder case. Damnit, I never even looked into Tatiana’s family. She was always talking about how straight and perfect they were — how her sister was so proud of living the immigrant American dream with her devoted husband.”

  “When Tatiana said all those things, she was probably trying to steer you from the truth. Zoya is proud of her life, but she turns a blind eye to the way her husband makes a living. Tatiana held out on you to protect her sister.”

  “And you think Rostov and Becker found out that Tatiana was an informant and killed her for it?”

  “There’s something else, Charlie.” It was the first time she’d called him by his first name. “Zoya remembers seeing you with Tatiana. It was only once, but she said she saw Tatiana in the passenger seat of your car one day after she went to them for money. You were driving. And her husband saw you with her too.”

  Dixon swallowed hard. “I drove Tatiana there once. She wanted to see her nephew.”

  “When you visited Tatiana at Vibrations, did you ever check for tails? Someone could have followed you from there and found out who you were.”

  He turned his head toward the wall. “This is hard to hear, you know?”

  “I was ten feet away when my partner got shot four nights ago. We all do things we wish we could try again.”

  “If they killed her because of me—”

  “Not because of you, Charlie. Because she flipped and gave information on them.”

  “But if they killed her for that, then what about the other women? Where do they fit in?”

  “I don’t know. Tatiana told you she overheard someone — probably Vitali, maybe Lev Grosha — mention FirstDate. Let’s say Stern was laundering money for them, or was somehow involved in their criminal enterprise. Maybe he backed out, and they did this to get to him by ruining FirstDate?”

  “Murder three innocent women to scare away customers from a company? That’s a pretty sociopathic reason to kill.”

  “But maybe that’s precisely what we’re dealing with. All along, this whole Book of Enoch thing has felt wrong to me. Look at the reasons why people kill.”

  Dixon ticked off the classics on his fingers. “Greed, jealousy, lust, revenge.”

  “Exactly. A sociopath kills innocent people out of those same motivations, but with an underlying logic that makes sense only to them. One of my forensic psychology professors gave us the following problem. A woman goes to her mother’s funeral. While she’s there, a man stops and offers his condolences. Even though she’s never met the man, she falls in love with him on the spot. She’s convinced they’re soul mates. But she never finds out who he is, so there goes her chance at love. A month later, the woman kills her sister. Why?”

  Barry Mayfield would know the answer. The guys chosen by Quantico to work serial cases would know. Dixon was left guessing. “Because she found out her sister was dating the mystery man?”

  “No. Your mistake is assuming that the dead sister has some rational connection to the killer’s motive. You’re looking for some reason that the sister deserves to die. The answer is that the woman killed her sister hoping the mystery man would come to the funeral. Only a sociopath would think that way. He sees nothing wrong with using totally innocent people as a means to serve his ends. And if that’s what we’re dealing with, then this could be a case that’s all about greed or revenge. That’s why we have to figure out the relationship between Vitali Rostov, Ed Becker, and FirstDate.”

  When Hatcher showed up in his office just as he was leaving for lunch, Dixon was inclined to hear her out only in the hope she’d keep quiet about Tatiana. But if Ed Becker didn’t act alone — if Vitali Rostov had something to do with what happened to Tatiana — then Dixon was in this for his own reasons. For two years, since the first night Tatiana slept in his bed, he had managed to convince himself he was an honorable man. But he had been a coward, motivated solely by his desire to hide his relationship with the kindest woman he’d ever known. He was done worrying about himself.

  “How else can I help?”

  “And I thought I was going to have to blackmail you some more,” Hatcher said with a smile. “Would a proven connection between Rostov and Becker help shore up a federal case against Rostov?”

  Dixon nodded. “We could use the fact that the NYPD takes federal funds. Or even if Rostov and Becker used the mail or the phone to deprive the public of Becker’s honest services, we could go with conspiracy to commit mail or wire fraud.”

  “Excellent. That’s the second thing I need. Can you get Ed Becker’s laptop from the NYPD? You’ll have to make it sound like your interest is a modest one. You’re just making sure that Tatiana’s murder wasn’t related to her being an informant, and you want to check the laptop to verify there’s no connection between Becker and the criminal conspiracy Tatiana was giving information about. If you make it sound like you’re questioning Becker’s guilt for the FirstDate murders, they’ll fight you tooth and nail about releasing the evidence.”

  “No problem.”

  “Good. I’m going to try to talk to Zoya one last time before her husband’s in custody and her lucky world comes crashing down around her. Call me when you’ve got the laptop in hand. What I really want to see is whether Becker actually hacked into the victims’ FirstDate accounts. If not, our killer’s still out there.”

  “Wait a second. That’s going to be a problem. We’ll need a computer analyst for that, and I don’t trust any of my people to keep their mouths shut on something that big. And like you said, if the NYPD realizes we’re second-guessing their conclusions, I’ll get squelched.”

  “That’s why we’re not using your analysts. I know a computer guy who will help us. We’ll take a little sneak on our own, and then bring in your analyst if there’s something there to show federal jurisdiction. I just want the laptop.”

  “That’s not exactly kosher, bringing in a private citizen to look at evidence.”

&n
bsp; “Do you plan on telling anyone?” Ellie asked.

  “Nope. The question is whether I can trust you.”

  “Given where we stand right now, I’d say you don’t have much of a choice.”

  Tatiana, Caroline, Amy, Megan, and now Flann were dead, and they all had friends, lovers, and family to mourn them and yearn for answers. But only Charlie and Ellie were in a position to do anything about it.

  “JASON, IT’S ELLIE Hatcher, your friendly neighborhood detective. You haven’t blocked my number yet?” There was a pause on the other end of the line, and Ellie hoped she hadn’t overestimated Jason Upton’s willingness to help.

  “Sorry, it took me a second to realize who this was. How are you, Detective? I was sorry to hear about your partner.”

  “Thank you. It’s been a rough few days.”

  “I just saw the news a few minutes ago on the net. The whole office is talking about it. I couldn’t believe it when I read the name Ed Becker. I was like, Hey, I know that name.”

  Apparently the assistant chief had already held his press conference, but it didn’t change what Ellie wanted to do. “I was wondering if you might be willing to help out again?”

  “I’m not sure how I could possibly help.”

  Ellie had hoped Upton would be eager to help out of curiosity. Massaging this was harder than she expected.

  “If I get Becker’s laptop, will you be able to see if he hacked into any FirstDate accounts?”

  “Don’t you have people there who know how to do that?”

  “Yeah, we do. But since Becker was also a cop, I’d rather get a first look from someone who’s not part of the department. Would you mind? Obviously I’d have our people take another look officially, but I’d feel better getting an initial lay of the land.”

  “Uh, sure. I guess I can at least look. I might not be able to tell anything, though. It depends how good he was at cleaning up his tracks.”

  Ellie thanked Upton, then estimated the time it would take for Dixon to get an arrest warrant for Rostov and to negotiate the release of Becker’s laptop from the NYPD. “It probably won’t be until tomorrow. End of today at the earliest.”

  “That should be fine. I’ve got a pretty flexible schedule here.”

  “Thanks. And we can keep this between the two of us? You can understand how sensitive this is.”

  “Sure. Mum’s the word.”

  Ellie was taking a risk trusting Jason Upton, but she’d thought it through carefully. If Upton were the kind of person who wanted attention, he would have already sold to the highest bidder everything he knew about FirstDate and the help he’d given McIlroy on Becker’s background check. He hadn’t. This call helped confirm her impression: Upton would not go to the media. She thanked him once again before saying good-bye.

  Another call came in just as she flipped her phone shut. “Hatcher.”

  “Detective Hatcher, this is Barbara Hunter, Carrie Hunter’s mother? I hope it’s okay to call you. Your partner gave me both of your numbers last week, and, well, I know from experience you’re going through some very difficult times right now, but I didn’t know who else to call. I’m sorry, I’m rambling.”

  “That’s okay, Mrs. Hunter. Of course you’re welcome to call me whenever you’d like.” Ellie looked at her watch, feeling the minutes slipping away, along with the high of the momentum of ideas and energy she’d felt in Dixon’s office.

  “I saw the news about that police officer on CNN. He’s the man who killed Amy?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry. Someone should have called you before the press conference to tell you personally.” Apparently Lieutenant Jenkins’s penchant for rudeness extended beyond Ellie and departmental politics.

  “I’m calling because I’ve seen that man before. He came to see my daughter at her apartment. I was there for a visit, and I never forget a face. I’m sure it’s the same police officer.”

  Ellie pictured the note in Caroline Hunter’s binder — MC Becker. “You can confirm that Becker met your daughter on FirstDate?”

  Then, even before Mrs. Hunter corrected her, she realized what she’d been missing.

  “No. He went there as a detective. He took a report from her, a report about her credit card.”

  Ellie felt the high coming back on. She knew in her gut that this was related to the motive — not religion, not the Book of Enoch, but greed, jealousy, lust, or revenge.

  “He didn’t go see her about FirstDate,” Ellie said.

  “Well, I guess it was about FirstDate to some extent. She opened a new MasterCard, used it on FirstDate, and then within a month, she got a bill for a refrigerator purchased in Houston, Texas.”

  “And she reported the fraudulent charges?”

  “Oh, sure she did. The credit card company wiped it right off her bill once she swore she didn’t make the purchase, but Carrie wanted them to look into it. You see, she’d only made one charge with that card, and it was to FirstDate.”

  Credit cards. Tatiana’s heroin bust started as an investigation into unauthorized credit card use. Lev Grosha paid a motel clerk to run credit cards through a scanner that stole the numbers. FirstDate had access to thousands of customers’ credit cards. And Ellie was still trying to tie this strand together, but someone named Edmond Bertrand had been arrested for credit card fraud as well.

  “Credit card companies rarely launch their own investigations into fraud,” Ellie explained. “They just cover the loss, like you said.”

  “That’s what they told her. So she called the police, but they gave her some hooey about the report needing to go to the police down in Houston unless she had evidence of criminal activity in New York.”

  “So do you know how Detective Becker came to take her report?” Ellie asked.

  “Well, she started complaining to FirstDate. I remember because, in light of her studies, you know, she was so fascinated that she could not for the life of her get on the phone with a real person. All of the company’s business was conducted on the Internet. So she sent a message to them on their Web site, telling them that their — well, I don’t know what it would be called—”

  “Their server?”

  “Something like that. But she said something wasn’t secure because she’d only used her card one place and was sure she hadn’t lost track of it physically. Then the detective showed up. I don’t know if he came because of the report to FirstDate, or to MasterCard, or to the precinct, but I’m sure the man was Ed Becker.”

  “And what happened?”

  “Nothing. He took the report, but told her that chances were, nothing would come of it. He told her most of the fraud cases just fall into a black hole.”

  It was a true statement, but Ed Becker would have had no legitimate reason for being the one to deliver it. Caroline’s complaint wouldn’t have triggered a home visit, and Becker wasn’t in the fraud unit in any event. And Flann had run Caroline Hunter’s name through the NYPD system, and no credit card complaint appeared. If Becker had gone there to talk to her about her suspicions, it hadn’t been on the NYPD’s behalf.

  “Did she continue complaining after the report was taken?” Ellie asked.

  “I just don’t know. I left town and she never mentioned it again. This has something to do with her murder, doesn’t it?”

  “I honestly don’t know, Mrs. Hunter. But I’m trying to find out.”

  “Will you please tell me if you learn something new?”

  “I promise.”

  If Caroline Hunter was killed because she was jeopardizing a credit card fraud scheme, it explained why she and Tatiana were killed by the same gun. Both women had gotten in the way, so both women were silenced. It also explained why they were the only victims who were shot — two bullets to the back of the head, quick and easy — while Amy Davis and Megan Quinn were asphyxiated. It explained why Amy Davis’s murder had been so brutal, so intimate — it was, in fact, the first of its kind, not the third. And if Amy Davis’s murder had been personal, it might also
explain why Peter Morse detected a southern accent in the caller who told him to retrieve Enoch’s letter from the library.

  All along, they’d been looking at two patterns, not one. Tatiana Chekova and Caroline Hunter. Amy Davis and Megan Quinn. Four women, two patterns. She needed to go to Brooklyn again.

  37

  ELLIE PHONED THE ROSTOV APARTMENT FROM THE BUILDING stairwell. “Hello. This is Laura Liemann calling from the American Red Cross. Is Vitali Rostov in?”

  Once Zoya confirmed that her husband was unavailable, Ellie made her way upstairs and knocked on the Rostovs’ door. She heard a shuffle behind the peephole, but no one answered.

  “Zoya, it’s Detective Hatcher. I know you’re there. Open up.”

  She heard locks tumbling, then Zoya’s face appeared in a crack in the doorway.

  “Please, go away.”

  “We need to talk. I know you’re having some doubts about your husband right now. Denying your suspicions is not going to make them go away.”

  “Vitya is not a perfect man, but he would not do the thing that you are suggesting.”

  “I never suggested anything, Zoya. If you think he’s connected to your sister’s death, then you came to that on your own. Let me in. If you’re expecting your husband to come home, we can go somewhere else to talk. I can help you with the kids.”

  Zoya opened the door. “Vitya is working late tonight, and Anton is napping. If we must talk, then we should do it now.”

  The apartment was quiet, a first. The baby, Tanya, sat happily in a bouncy seat, popping bubbles of spit with her lips. Ellie took a seat on a black leather sofa across the room.

  “When you said your husband couldn’t have done whatever it was you thought I was suggesting, what were you referring to?”

  Zoya shrugged but held Ellie’s gaze. “I do not know. I figure, the police keep coming to our door. They must think Vitya did something wrong.”