The Girl on the Bridge

by James Hayman

  “I think I already told you.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Seven years. We met at Columbia. He was getting his MBA at the Business School. I was getting my master’s at Teachers College. We moved in together a couple of months later. Got married the following year.”

  “And you’re teaching now?”

  “Yes. At a small private girls’ school in Manhattan.”

  “What school would that be?”

  “I already told you that as well. The Charlton School.”

  “You and Josh have any children?”

  “Not yet.”

  “You want them?”

  “I don’t see what that has to do . . .”

  “Please. Just try to answer the questions.”

  “Okay. Fine. Yes, we’ve agreed on at least one and maybe a couple. We’ve been trying, but so far it hasn’t happened.”

  “How does Josh feel about having kids?”

  “He wants them too. He played football in college. Quarterback. He sometimes talks about someday taking his son to Prospect Park and teaching him the finer points of throwing a forward pass. He looks happy when he talks about stuff like that. I think being a father might help straighten out some of the other issues going on with him.”

  “Like the cheating?”

  “Yes, that. Also the intense focus on making money.”

  “Do you and Josh have a prenup?”

  “No. We were both broke when we got married. It didn’t seem pertinent.”

  “I assume your husband carries life insurance.”

  “Of course. Two policies. One we bought. And one the company provides as part of Josh’s comp package.”

  “How much.”

  “A million dollars for the one we bought. Five million for the company policy.”

  “Six million bucks. That’s a lot of money. And you’re the beneficiary of both policies?”

  “Yes. But you couldn’t possibly be suggesting . . .”

  “And who’s the secondary in case you both die at the same time?”

  “You’re scaring me, Detective.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to. But it is background information we need to know. Six million dollars is a lot of money.”

  “Josh’s mother gets the money if we both die. His father’s already dead.”

  “Your parents don’t get anything?”

  “No. Josh bought the policy and paid for it. And my parents are well-off. Not rich, but certainly better off than his mom. Josh’s dad died a couple of years ago. He was broke and then some.”

  “Debts?”

  “Not anymore. Josh paid them off. He also sends his mother money every month to supplement her Social Security survivor benefits, which is all she has on her own.”

  “How much?”

  “Three thousand dollars. Enough to allow her to live a little more comfortably.”

  “And how do you feel about his giving her that much money?”

  “We have so much. I think it’s the right thing to do.”

  “Where does his mother live?”

  “South Carolina. Just outside of Greensville. Same house Josh grew up in. I’d just as soon you didn’t say anything about this to her. She’s not in good health and bad news like this could kill her.”

  “I’m sorry, Rachel. Unless Josh turns up in the next thirty-six hours, he officially becomes a missing person and we’ll have to go public.”

  “I see. Any more questions?”

  “Yes. You said a man named Charlie Loughlin called Josh about the suicide of the girl who was raped . . .”

  “Who claimed she was raped.”

  “What do you know about Charlie Loughlin?”

  “Charlie’s one of Josh’s old fraternity brothers and an ex-teammate. I wouldn’t call them best friends, but they talk occasionally.”

  “One last thing. Does your husband carry a company cell phone, a personal cell phone or both?”

  “He uses his own. The number’s 646-555-7824.”

  “What’s his pass code?”

  “I have no idea. I never use his phone. I never asked him.”

  “Fine. We’ll need to know right away if you hear from Josh or from anyone else claiming to know where he is. Especially if you get a ransom demand. Will it be possible for you to stay in Portland while this is going on?”

  “I’m not going anywhere. Not until I know where Josh is. What about my brother?”

  “He can head back to New York. We’ll call him there if we need him. In the meantime, you and I are going downstairs to get a cheek swab and a set of your fingerprints.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Yes. We’ll need to keep your phone and tablet for a while.”

  “Is that necessary? I can’t get by without a phone. I need to make calls.”

  “Get yourself a prepaid burner phone. You can find them in any drugstore. When you’ve got it call me and let me have the number. Also call me if anything else occurs to you. Here’s my card. My cell number’s on it.”

  “Shouldn’t I call McCabe?”

  “You can call me.”

  Once again Rachel didn’t look pleased. Maybe she just preferred dealing with the boss. Or, more likely, dealing with good-looking men. Well, Cutie Pie, Maggie thought to herself as she ushered Rachel out the door, tough shit.

  Chapter 11

  MCCABE WAS THE last to arrive for the meeting. When he got there all eight of the detectives in his Crimes Against People unit were seated around the conference room table along with Fortier and the department’s senior evidence tech, Bill Jacoby.

  Maggie had also invited Aden Yusuf Hassan, aka Starbucks, to attend. A young Somali IT whiz, Starbucks had been serving as the PPD’s resident computer geek for nearly eight years. The nickname Starbucks was based more on his addiction to endless cups of strong black coffee than for any resemblance to the Melville character.

  As he walked toward the TV monitor McCabe could feel a palpable sense of energy in the room. Everyone was itching for a little action after a winter that had been unusually quiet. The only thing that had broken the monotony of cold empty days was the number of bodies discovered dead from overdosing on heroin. And finding ODs was more depressing than chasing down bad guys. With spring on its way the denizens of the fourth floor of 109 were itching for a little action, which meant they’d dive into the search for Joshua Thorne with enthusiasm.

  McCabe slid the interview video into the box and pressed Play. Images of Rachel Thorne and her brother filled the screen.

  “Good-looking babe,” remarked Brian Cleary. “What’s she done?”

  McCabe hit Pause. The image froze. “As far as we know, nothing,” he said. “The woman’s name is Rachel Thorne. The guy next to her is her brother who, for better or for worse, is an attorney from New York. They came in this afternoon because Rachel’s husband, a rich Wall Street banker named Joshua Thorne, went missing last night. Our job is finding him.” McCabe pressed Play and took an empty chair in the corner to watch.

  When the interview had played through, McCabe went back and played it again. Everyone in the room including the squad’s two resident wise guys, Cleary and Sturgis, watched in silence both times. Just before the second run-through finished, McCabe hit Pause. The image of Rachel Thorne remained on the screen, mouth half open, frozen in midsentence, an expression of concern on her face.

  Maggie grabbed an armful of photos she’d printed and went around the table handing everyone two. The first showed Josh blindfolded and tied to the bed. The other was the Prospect Park ID picture. “These are the pictures of Joshua Thorne that his wife showed us,” she said. “The bondage shot was presumably taken by his captor and e-mailed to his wife.”

  “Pretty nasty,” said Bill Fortier as he studied the picture. “My guess is ‘what rapists deserve’ is death. I’ve got a strong feeling we could be dealing with a murder case.”

  “We agree,” said McCabe. “But we can’t be sure it isn’t just an
attempt to publically humiliate Thorne. Not till we find his body.”

  “I agree,” said Tom Tasco. “What Rapists Deserve may be nothing more than public exposure on TV and the Internet. Anybody post this picture online yet?”

  “I’ve been looking,” said Starbucks. “So far I haven’t found it.”

  “How about any others like it?” asked Tasco.

  “What do you mean?” asked McCabe.

  “Well, if the goal is humiliating Joshua Thorne, covering part of his face with a blindfold doesn’t make sense. Makes him just an anonymous naked guy.”

  “Okay. I agree with that.”

  “But who says this is the only picture that was taken?” Tasco continued. “Maybe the person, and I think it was probably a woman, who took this shot also took a bunch of others. Some without the blindfold on. Maybe a video as well. This one could just be a warning of more to come later. We have no way of knowing.”

  “They’re not online yet,” said Starbucks. “I’ve checked every search engine I know using Thorne’s name, plus the Rapists Get What Rapists Deserve line. I also searched using Brumfield Harris and Trident Development as search terms. So far, nothing.”

  “What if it’s a blackmail scheme?” asked Eddie Frazier. “Give us a million dollars or we’ll post these pictures with your unblindfolded face, your name and maybe damning details proving some rape you committed.”

  “There are no money demands yet,” said Maggie.

  “Probably wouldn’t be done as ransom,” said Frazier. “Somebody collecting a bag of ransom money is way too easy to catch. Better to have Rachel or maybe Brumfield Harris transfer money out of Thorne’s account into an anonymous foreign account. When the transfer’s complete delete the photos and let the guy go.”

  “Interesting idea,” said McCabe. “Eddie, why don’t you and Tom follow up on that? Check out where Thorne keeps his money. Maybe his wife knows. Maybe his assistant, Roseanne Mezzina, knows. Also talk with Floyd Brumfield. Ask him to alert us if any requests like that come in.”

  “Won’t that just make Brumfield call in his FBI contacts sooner?” asked Fortier.

  “We can’t worry about that, Bill,” said McCabe. “We gotta just keep doing our jobs as best we can. If the Feds come in, the Feds come in.”

  Fortier nodded. “Okay. You’re right. We know anything else?”

  “Yeah,” said Maggie. “The photograph was taken and the e-mail sent with Joshua Thorne’s smartphone. The metadata was left in place and Starbucks confirmed the source. We haven’t been able to locate the phone yet. The photographer may have taken the SIM card out. Or it could be at the bottom of the ocean.”

  “One of the things that’s interesting about all this,” said Cleary, “is that this Norah Wilcox signed the e-mail, identifying herself to Rachel Thorne and, by extension, to us.”

  “Any idea why she’d want to do that?” asked Fortier.

  “Only reason I can think of is misdirection,” said Maggie. “Like maybe this Norah Wilcox doesn’t actually exist and someone wants us to spend a lot of time chasing a ghost.”

  McCabe nodded and turned to Bill Bacon. “Bill, how’re you making out tracking down Norah Wilcoxes?”

  “Not great so far. Nothing at all on the ViCAP database for anybody with that name. I tried spelling Norah both with and without an H. Didn’t help. A Google search turned up a couple of hundred hits, Facebook and LinkedIn a hundred or so more. For what it’s worth, the name Nora without the H is more common than with. I ran through the whole bunch looking for youngish females attractive enough to interest a guy like Josh Thorne. That narrowed the field to just about zero.”

  “Just about?”

  “One good-looking Norah Wilcox in Oregon, but she’s only eighteen. Still in high school. Another one lives in the UK. Otherwise nada. The people search websites turned up a few women with the right name but only a handful are in the right age bracket and most don’t live anywhere near here. None at all on the east coast. All that notwithstanding, I figure it doesn’t really matter. Like Maggie said, the name’s probably phony anyway.”

  “We can’t assume that. I want you to keep tracking down every possible Norah Wilcox you can find, with or without an H. See if there’s even one who’s good-looking enough to attract a stud like Thorne. Get in touch with anyone remotely possible.”

  Bacon’s expression made it clear he wasn’t entirely happy with the assignment but he simply nodded and said, “Okay, boss, got it.”

  “Connie, I want you to handle the missing persons aspect. As soon as he’s officially missing put out the word that we’re looking for Thorne. Put his name and face on TV, radio, et cetera.

  “Tom, I want you and Brian to head over to the Trident offices and talk with the guys who had dinner with Thorne last night. Joe Bonner’s assistant should know who the other two were. Separate them out and talk to them one at a time. I don’t want anybody holding back anything they might not want to say with the boss sitting right there.”

  “Anything specific you’re looking for?” asked Tasco.

  “Yeah. I want to find out if any of the three—or, for that matter, anyone else at Trident—might have received threatening e-mails or phone calls regarding the waterfront condo complex. We need to know if anybody’s made any explicit or veiled threats against the company or its executives. Do the same with the people at Brumfield Harris.

  “Okay. Anybody finds anything remotely pertinent, I want to know about it.

  “Mag, like we discussed before, I’d like you to take on the college rape angle. Connie’s looking for any recent suicides of females who went to Holden College. She’ll let you know what she finds. Meanwhile, talk to this Charlie Loughlin guy. See what he knows about the suicide. What he’ll admit about the rape at that fraternity party and then see what you can get from the people at the college.”

  “Okay. But I probably ought to go to West Hartford to talk to Loughlin. Also to Holden College, which is way the hell up in New York State.”

  “Bill, we’ll need you to approve travel expenses.”

  McCabe knew budgets were tight and every time Fortier talked to Shockley they seemed to get tighter.

  “You can’t handle any of this via phone and e-mail?” asked Fortier.

  “I don’t think so,” said Maggie. “Not if I want to get a real fix on this Loughlin guy. Or put any pressure on the folks at Holden.”

  “Okay. We’ll cover mileage and expenses. But please, nothing extravagant. There’s not a whole lot of blood left in the stone.”

  Maggie gave Fortier a look of wide-eyed innocence. “No problem, Bill. The West Hartford Four Seasons is only four hundred a night.”

  Fortier responded by giving Maggie the same evil-eyed expression her father used when she was sixteen and got home after curfew.

  “No sweat,” she told him. “I’ll sleep and eat cheap. Like everyone’s always saying, I’m the original junk food junkie.”

  Chapter 12

  THE PORT GRILL was only a block and a half from 109 and, though freezing rain and snow showers were threatening, nothing had started yet, so McCabe decided to walk. The restaurant was housed in a squat nondescript redbrick building with only a pair of small, discreet bronze signs on either side of the door announcing the location. Given the place’s reputation the owners must have felt there was no need to scream out its presence. At five in the afternoon McCabe found the doors still locked. He peered in and rapped on the glass until a young woman wearing a white shirt and black pants covered with a white apron noticed him. She pointed at her watch and waved her hands back and forth signaling the place hadn’t opened yet. He held his gold badge up to the window and gestured to her to let him in.

  She turned the lock and cracked the door a couple of inches. “We don’t open till five-thirty. Is anything the matter?”

  “I’m Detective Sergeant Michael McCabe. Portland Police. I need to talk with one of your staff members.”

  The woman frowned. “I hope no o
ne’s in trouble.”

  “No. Nothing like that. I just need some information for a case we’re investigating. May I come in?”

  “Yes. Of course. I’m sorry.” She held the door open. McCabe went in and she relocked it. The empty bar where Josh Thorne had his nightcap was to his left.

  “My name is Sarah Jackson. I’m the assistant manager. Who do you need to talk to?”

  “Can you tell me who was tending bar just before closing last night?”

  “Sure. That would have been Andie. Andie Barrett.”

  “Is Andie here at the moment?”

  “Yes. She’s eating dinner in back with the rest of the crew.”

  “Could you let her know I’m here? She’s the one I need to talk to.”

  “Can it wait till she’s finished?”

  “I’m afraid it’s urgent.”

  “Okay. Wait here and I’ll get her.”

  A minute later a freckle-faced woman with reddish brown curls and an uncertain smile appeared. McCabe guessed she was in her mid-to-late twenties.

  “Are you the police officer?”

  “Yes. Detective Sergeant Michael McCabe.” He showed her his badge and ID.

  “I’m Andie.” She held out her hand. He shook it. “Sarah said you wanted to talk to me.”

  “I’m sorry to interrupt your dinner.”

  “That’s okay. I was pretty much finished anyway. What’s going on?”

  “I need to ask you about someone I think you served at the bar last night. Is there any place we can talk privately?”

  “Sure.” She led McCabe into the bar. “We can take that table in the corner there. That’s about as private as it gets.”

  They went in and sat. McCabe slid the Prospect Park picture of Josh Thorne toward her. “Do you recognize this man?”

  There was no hesitation. “Sure. He was in here drinking right up until closing last night. His name is Joshua Thorne. Called himself Josh. What’s he done?”

  “Nothing. We’re just trying to locate him so we can ask him some questions.”

  “He said he was staying at the Regency if that helps.”

  “Was anyone with him last night?”