“Detective Shakespeare, I’m Lawrence Cannon.” Shakespeare nodded to the man who had just led him up, then shook Cannon’s hand. “Come inside, Mr. Tate is waiting. He is still under medical care, therefore only has a few minutes.
“That’s all I will need.”
Shakespeare followed Cannon inside, then into what looked like a reception area. Tate was sitting in a large, plush chair, his feet up, a bathrobe on, a blanket covering him, and a nurse hovering nearby.
“Mr. Tate”—Shakespeare nodded—“I won’t take much of your time.” Shakespeare fished out his cellphone, cued up the first video Trace had sent him, then held out the phone with one hand, as he read the time codes from his notes.
“Here we have you arriving at five fifty-five. Is that correct?”
“Sounds right.”
“And here we have Ms. Alders arriving at six thirteen. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“And here we have a masseuse, not from the hotel, arriving at six fifty-eight. Is that—”
“No!” Tate had a lot more color in his cheeks than just a minute ago. “That’s not right, I don’t remember a masseuse.”
“Detective, we both know that our client was drugged, the tests proved that. We also both know that this particular drug can affect short term memory retroactively, therefore is it really any surprise that my client would not remember a masseuse who arrived shortly before he was drugged.”
Shakespeare nodded, but in no way convinced. “Oh, I’m sure that it’s possible he doesn’t remember. But she did stay an hour and left quite calmly.” Shakespeare turned to Tate and fired his final salvo. “Do you often hire rub and tug prostitutes when you are entertaining your girlfriends from sugar daddy websites?”
“This interview is over.”
But Shakespeare had what he wanted. The look of shock on Tate’s face told him everything he needed to know. Tate didn’t remember the masseuse, and wasn’t in the habit of hiring one. Now the question was, who did hire her? Could it have been him, on a whim, and he just didn’t remember? Could it have been Alders, or could he have hired the masseuse for Alders, and it was all innocent? There were many possibilities, but finding that masseuse could answer quite a few questions.
Aynslee watched Frank bolt past her, toward the elevators. She rushed to the computer room and found Reggie sitting alone, Shakespeare nowhere to be found. “Where’re our guests?”
Reggie whipped around and gave her a toothy grin. “Hi, Aynslee.”
Aynslee waited a moment. “Our guests?”
“Oh, sorry!” Reggie looked up at the ceiling, then, as if pointing at a rewind of his life’s video, he nodded. “The detective said he was going to NYU, and Frank didn’t say where he was going, but I can guess.”
“What do you mean?” Aynslee was getting tired of having to pry. You’re a reporter. This is what you do.
Reggie pointed at one of the screens. “This video just popped up on the site. We watched it, then he ran out.”
“Show it to me.”
Reggie clicked to start the video and she gasped at the text that appeared, line by line:
TICK TOCK
LITTLE TIME ON THE CLOCK
IF FRANKIE WANTS TO SAVE HIS FRIEND
HE WILL COME ALONE IN THE END
After a few moments an address appeared that she jotted down. She pushed the paper toward Reggie. “Google this for me.”
He nodded and popped over to the website, entering the address. Seconds later a full satellite view with the streets appeared. “That’s a warehouse district, isn’t it?”
Reggie shrugged his shoulders. “Could be, I don’t really know the city that well.”
“Weren’t you born here?”
“Yeah, but I don’t get out much.”
I never would have guessed. Aynslee decided not to respond, instead dialing Shakespeare.
“Ah, one thing, Aynslee.”
She looked at him as her phone rang. “What?”
“Well, that’s a different address than before.”
“Hello?”
Aynslee, Reggie’s statement catching her off guard, didn’t reply to Shakespeare.
“Hello, anyone there?”
Aynslee came back to reality. “Detective, it’s me, Aynslee. We’ve got a problem.”
“What is it?” She could hear in his voice the evening hadn’t been going well. She was just about to add to his problems.
“Frank and Reggie found another video on the site. It just shows text. Let me read it to you: Tick tock, little time on the clock, if Frankie wants to save his friend, he will come alone in the end.”
“Let me speak to him.”
“That’s just it, as soon as he read this, he took off.”
“What!”
“The worst part is that there was an address after the message, but Reggie is positive”—she looked at him to make sure, and he nodded emphatically—“that it is a different address now, than it was when Frank looked at it.”
“What? How is that possible?”
Aynslee looked at Reggie. “The detective wants to know how that’s possible.”
“It’s really quite simple. It’s probably an Apache server and you can have files redirected by view count or time of day or user id or—”
She raised her hand, cutting him off. “Take my word for it, it’s possible.”
“Damn! So the kid took off to save his girlfriend, and we have no way of knowing where he went!”
Aynslee felt her chest tighten as she thought of what had happened to her just two weeks before. “We have to find him before he gets to wherever he’s going. Reggie, is there any way to get that video back?”
“I’ll try, but hacking isn’t really my bag. I can do the basics, but this is beyond what I do. I’m just a tech. Frank was the expert, he’s been trained in this.”
Aynslee returned the phone to her ear. “Did you hear that?”
“Tell Reggie that I’m going to try and get another tech sent out ASAP and to keep going through the video in the meantime, sending me any clips he thinks I should see.”
“Where will you be?”
“I’m heading to NYU. Too many things pointing there.”
“Can I come along?” She already knew what the answer would be.
Shakespeare chuckled. “No, you most definitely cannot.”
Shakespeare ended the call with Aynslee and immediately dialed Vinny. What the hell was the kid thinking? But he already knew the answer. He was thinking with the wrong head. Or he feels responsible. That was definitely a possibility. The kid had taken things hard. And personally. He knew how he’d feel if he was in the same position, if he had just found out that a girl he liked was confirmed kidnapped. He pictured Louise. If I were him, there’s no telling what I’d do.
The phone picked up. “What can I do for you, Detective?”
Vinny’s voice snapped Shakespeare back to reality. “We’ve got a problem. The kid saw another message, and this one had an address.”
“Don’t tell me—”
“He took off.”
“Do we know where?”
“No, the message was actually a video on the website he hacked. The address on the message changed the second time it was viewed, so right now we have no idea where he went.”
“Are you kidding me? Is that even possible?”
“Trust me, the WACX geek tried to explain it. It’s possible.”
“What do you need from me?”
“I need a tech you can trust to get over to the studio and hack that damned computer so we can find out where he went.”
“Consider it done.”
“Can you trace his cellphone?”
“Yeah, but we’ll need a warrant for that one for sure. I’ll take care of it.”
“Okay, thanks. I’ll get Trace to check the cab companies.”
“Damn, I hope we find that kid before he gets himself killed.”
“You and me both.”
/> Shakespeare ended the call and slammed his fists into the steering wheel. He was not about to lose another colleague. What were you thinking, Frank? He turned his car toward the NYU campus security office and hit the accelerator, the car surging forward, his back pressed into the seat as he weaved through the relatively light nighttime traffic. His father’s voice echoed through his head. Take it easy on the gas, she’s reliable, but still an old horse. He lifted his foot. Slightly.
“Okay, what have we got?” he asked aloud, triggering the beginning of a mental technique he had used for years. By vocalizing the case to himself, usually in a car since he loved driving, he could organize his thoughts. “We’ve got the first victim, Angela Henwood, found in her apartment, dead, most likely abducted, perhaps even killed, before Frank and Sarah were even taken. She’s an NYU student. But why? What’s the motive? Means and opportunity are easy. But what motive? Maybe she’s random?
“Frank and Sarah are then drugged and abducted, we assume by Sandy, at the coffee shop. Frank is placed in Henwood’s apartment. Why? To begin the game? Were they random targets? Couldn’t be. Henwood is in Frank’s building, and Frank goes to that coffee shop every day, so he was the target. Sarah was just an unfortunate bystander? She normally would never be there, so Sandy had to change his plans. But why?
“Because the game had already started, and couldn’t be stopped! Henwood was supposed to be in the box, not Sarah, but because Sarah was with Frank, and they needed Frank for some reason, they took her too, killed Henwood, set Frank up for the murder to put him in a panic, probably just to up the ante in the game from him being concerned about a missing night and a missing date, to him being worried about having committed murder?”
He stopped at a light. It’s thin. And it all hinged on when the first victim died. He grabbed his phone from the passenger seat and dialed MJ. After a few rings a groggy voice answered.
“This better be good.”
Shakespeare looked at his watch. Yoikes! “Sorry, MJ, it’s Shakespeare.”
“What is it?” He heard a little more life in MJ’s voice. “Another vic?”
“No, I just need to know if you narrowed down the TOD on Henwood.”
“Yeah, the file’s on your desk.”
“Humor me. I haven’t been at the office most of the day, and probably won’t get there until tomorrow.”
“Pulling an all-nighter?”
“Looks that way.”
There was a pause. “Shakes, what’s going on? You know you can trust me.”
This time it was Shakespeare’s turn to pause. “Umm, what do you mean?”
“I mean two murders in Frank’s building, one in his apartment, Vinny giving me a bullshit story about why an out of place chair with duct tape was being ignored, Frank jumping at the sound of a fly farting, and you and Vinny actually working together. Something’s up.”
Shakespeare sighed. “Listen, MJ, you have to trust me that I’m doing the right thing.”
“I never doubt that with you.”
Shakespeare felt a slight surge at the words from his friend. “Thanks, MJ. As to what’s going on, the less you know the better. If I need you, I’ll tell you, but for now, I need everything on the QT.”
“Okay, Shakes. I just hope you know what you’re doing.”
“So do I, my friend, so do I.” A horn blared behind him and he looked up at the green light glaring at him. He waved at the driver behind him and pressed the gas. “So, TOD on Henwood?”
“Between noon and six p.m. Friday.”
“Thanks, MJ. Sweet dreams.”
“Love you too.”
Shakespeare laughed and tossed the phone on the passenger seat. “Okay, that firms things up. She was dead before Sarah was even in the picture, so Sarah was a crime of opportunity, or a crime of necessity. They needed Frank. He was normally alone, but Friday night, the night they actually needed him, he wasn’t alone. So they took her too. But they didn’t kill her. Why not?”
Shakespeare thought for a moment. This was obviously planned out, planned well. There were planted cameras, Rohypnol to purchase, that strange room that Sarah was in, websites, throwaway cellphones. This wasn’t random, but she was. “They were going to take someone else.” He nodded to himself. That must be it. “They were going to take someone else, but they had to take her.” Shakespeare raised his finger, an idea forming. “And rather than kill her, they decided to use her, to involve Frank even more!”
He heard laughing to his left and turned to look. A group of teenagers in the car beside him at the intersection were giggling. He slowly lowered his finger.
“Yo, Dude! When you start talking to yourself, that’s a sign you need to check into Bellevue!”
Shakespeare fished his badge off his belt and held it up, silencing the car. “Riddle me this, smart ass, what weighs two-hundred-fifty pounds and doesn’t need to chase you because he’s got a gun?”
The passenger who had made the comment suddenly looked terrified, his face sagging, his eyes wide. “Y-you?”
Shakespeare nodded. “Now move along before I call in your plates and have a black and white look for an infraction.” He waved his hand for them to move on, the light now green. The car slowly pulled away and took the first turn available to get out of sight. Shakespeare continued on, the incident already forgotten as his thoughts retuned to the case.
“Okay, so they target Frank, probably because he’s NYPD. This is a high-tech operation, so they target a tech. He’s young, so it’s more fun for them?” Maybe. “Or maybe Frank isn’t random at all. Maybe they chose him specifically.” The shooting! When Frank was shot in the vest two weeks ago, his name and file picture had been splashed all over the newspapers due to the huge national interest in the case, and its aftermath. His name, photo, where he worked, what he did—it was all there. All there for the public, and any nut bar, to read. And with his photo, all they needed to do was sit on the lab, wait for him, then follow him. They could find out his habits, where he lived, what apartment—it was all too easy. Frank fell into their lap. “That has to be it.”
“But what about Henwood? Her living in the same building? That’s too big of a coincidence.” But if it wasn’t a coincidence, then what was it? “The resident of the apartment was supposed to be some old woman. Instead we find a young girl living there, apparently alone.” But where did we get that info? “Jackie St. Jean. She’s the one who said it was Henwood. She’s the one who said Henwood lived there.” Shakespeare’s jaw dropped as his mind whirled. “If none of it’s true, then Jackie St. Jean is in on this.”
Shakespeare slammed his brakes on as he noticed the red light he was about to barrel through. He checked his rear view mirror, then stared blankly at the light ahead of him. “Holy shit! If St. Jean isn’t a witness, but a participant, we can’t even rely on the ID!” He grabbed his phone and dialed Trace.
“Hey, Shakes, what’s up?”
“Where are you?”
“Just finishing up at the hotel.”
“Did you ever confirm Jackie St. Jean’s identity?”
“Huh?”
“Her ID. Did you ever check it?”
“Yeah, but all she had was a student ID, but she was a witness, so, you know.” There was a pause. “Why?”
“Listen to this and tell me what you think: if we assume Frank was targeted, then Henwood living in the same building is one hell of a coincidence.”
“Riiight…?”
“Soooo, who’s the only person who told us it was Henwood that lived there?”
Shakespeare waited for the bulb to go off. “Holy shit! You mean she wasn’t a witness, she was the killer?”
“Not necessarily the killer, but definitely a participant.”
“If it’s true, she’s got balls of steel.”
“Agreed. We need to find out if NYU even has a student named Jackie St. Jean. And Angela Henwood for that matter.”
“Okay, I’ll start waking people up and try to find out.”
/>
“I’m on my way there now to talk to their Public Safety office and see what I can shake loose. Call me when you have something.”
Shakespeare tried calling Frank, but only reached his voice mail. He left a message, but knew it would do no good. Tossing the phone aside, he continued his analysis. “So where were we? Jackie St. Jean. Let’s assume she’s involved somehow. They pick Frank from the paper, they kill or kidnap a little old lady from his building that no one will miss, kill Henwood, set up Frank, send St. Jean over there to plant the story that Henwood actually lived there, making her look like an innocent victim.” He paused. “But why do they need to make her look like an innocent victim? Why not just kill the old lady, set Frank up with Henwood in the apartment? They’ve already framed him, they’ve already got him on video. Why make Jackie, or whoever the hell she is, go to the apartment?”
Shakespeare growled in frustration. This is making no sense.
Trace had one clear shot of the masseuse’s face as she entered the hotel. At one point she had looked up and the security camera had a clear image. We need to find this girl. She emailed the photo to Walker and Curtis, who she knew were still working, and sent a text asking them to check the rub and tug parlors that accepted out calls in the area, none of which would be closed at this time of night, this their prime time. She received a text message a few minutes later from Walker.
You’re lucky I’m just single and not single and sexy, otherwise I’d be busy at this hour.
Trace chuckled and replied:
Don’t worry, you’re sexy to someone. I think I saw Curtis checking out your ass last week.
The reply was almost immediate:
I thought I felt my ass burning. We’re starting our canvass now. Will call as soon as we have something.
Tick Tock (A Detective Shakespeare Mystery, Book #2) Page 19