Alafair Burke

by Ellie Hatcher 03 - 212 (v5)

  For now, she did her best to hide her emotions from Berry and gave a silent nod to the girl in the bag. Now it was time to take a more analytical look at the body.

  What had been the girl’s bright white T-shirt was soaked through with near-black blood. Beneath slashes in the cotton fabric, Ellie saw several deep gashes in the abdomen, sides, and chest. She counted at least six. Some of them appeared to be long but shallow slices, perhaps inflicted in a struggle. But one wound in her chest and another near her liver evidenced deep, forceful, and, most likely, the fatal stabs.

  Ellie’s inspection was interrupted by the cheerful ding of the elevator beside her. The doors opened, and J. J. Rogan stepped into the hallway.

  “You were gonna let them cart away our body before Double J got here?”

  “Christ,” the technician said. “Let me guess. This is your partner?”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  11:00 A.M.

  Inside Apartment 4C, Ellie counted three officers from the crime scene unit. One was photographing copious blood patterns—a combination of spatter, drips, and pools—on the bleached bamboo floors in a small dining area just inside the apartment’s entrance. Another stood in the galley kitchen, carefully placing a drinking glass inside a plastic evidence bag. A final CSU officer was on her knees, dusting a door leading from the right side of the living room for fingerprints.

  The apartment itself was luxurious—floor-to-ceiling glass windows, high ceilings, stainless steel kitchen appliances—but its furnishings were not much different than what one would expect for a college student, or at least one who could afford new purchases instead of the Goodwill merchandise that Ellie still depended on. Past the dining table, the main living area was just large enough to house a brown upholstered sectional sofa, a glass coffee table, and a television stand. Ellie was fairly certain that she recognized at least some of the furniture from an IKEA catalog she had browsed the previous week before throwing it into the recycling bin.

  The patrol officer who had held the door for Berry and his gurney stood awkwardly near the dining table, on the opposite side of the blood. He had dark, wavy hair and a prominent nose. The sleeves of his uniform pulled against biceps that had clearly seen some time at the gym. According to a nameplate on the left side of his chest, his name was A. Colombo.

  “Did he finally manage to get the meat cart into the elevator? I thought that dude was going to stroke out from the physical exertion. Geez, jog a mile or something, dude.”

  Ellie gave him her best deadpan look. Rogan wasn’t going to let it go with just a look.

  “Did someone ask you for your stand-up routine, Bob Saget?”

  “Just offering some levity, Detectives. You know, comic relief. They say it helps with, you know, the morbidity.”

  “Laughter cures diseases, does it?” Rogan asked.

  “Huh?”

  “You said it helps with the morbidity, which refers to the rate of a disease or illness. It does not mean a mood that is morbid, which is the concept I believe you intended to convey, Officer.”

  “I’m sorry. Huh?”

  “Forget it. You know the backstory here or not, Colombo?”

  “The victim’s parents called the precinct this morning wanting us to check in on her.”

  “They’re sisters?” Rogan asked.

  “Who?”

  “The victims. You said the victims’ parents. Are you saying they were sisters?”

  “No, sorry. At least, I don’t think so. The one victim’s parents—the one who died—”

  “She have a name?”

  “Um, yeah.” He stole a glance at his notebook and then tucked it back into his chest pocket. “Megan Gunther, according to the super. Anyway, that vic’s parents were trying to call her, and she wasn’t answering the phone. They got the brush-off from the dispatcher, so then they called the condo’s super. He used the building’s keys to enter and found…well, you can get the picture. Turns out the other vic had crawled her way to the phone to call 911 after the bad guy left, and paramedics showed up right behind him. Me and my partner responded, too.”

  Ellie jumped in before Rogan could correct Colombo’s grammar. “Your partner’s posted downstairs?”

  Rogan wasn’t usually so critical. Either this officer had done something to earn a place on Rogan’s shit list, or something else was bothering her partner. She had a bad feeling his mood might be related to his trip to the courthouse that morning to brief Judge Bandon on the Mancini case.

  “Yeah. Making sure no one’s coming up except authorized personnel.”

  “And you’re keeping a log of who’s going in and out of here?” she verified.

  He patted the pocket that held his notebook. “Just need to add the two of you.”

  “Good man,” she said. “Got to keep track of the crime scene.”

  “Hey, you look pretty young. How long’d it take you to make it to Homicide? Cuz, you know, that’s basically my dream. I mean, with a name like Colombo, you just got to go for it. I’d get the tan trench coat and everything.”

  “Just keep the log. Detectives Hatcher and Rogan. Manhattan South Homicide. In at eleven-oh-two a.m. Write it down.”

  Maintaining the crime scene log was not the only thing that Officer Colombo had done right that morning. He had also instructed the building’s superintendent to return to his office on the building’s second floor.

  Ellie knocked on the office door. She detected a European accent in the voice that instructed her to come in.

  “You’re Gorsky?”

  “Yes. People around here call me Andrei.” The man’s eyes were red-rimmed.

  “Ellie Hatcher. I’m a detective with the NYPD’s homicide unit. It’s not easy walking into a scene like that upstairs.”

  “No. It was not easy.”

  “My understanding is that one of the girls’ parents asked you to check up on her? Megan Gunther?”

  “Yes, that is right. The tenant’s name was Megan. My phone was already ringing when I walked into the office this morning. It was Megan’s mother saying her daughter was not answering her telephone. She wanted me to check on her.”

  Ellie glanced at her watch. “So this was what time?”

  Gorsky stared at the black cordless phone on his desk. “The first time, it was probably just before nine o’clock in the a.m.”

  Ellie let silence fill the room, knowing that the superintendent would eventually explain what he meant by the first time.

  “I try to tell her that it is not up to me to check on the residents. This is not a college dormitory, you know. If they want someone to be the guardian to their children, they shouldn’t buy them their own apartments.”

  “All right, Mr. Gorsky. I think I understand. But you went upstairs to check on Megan?”

  “Eventually, yes, I said I would do it. But I have workers here this morning to install a new cooling system. I have another resident locked out of her storage unit crying in the lobby that she will lose her job if she doesn’t get it open and find a very important file of some kind that she is missing. I have to find another resident’s keys for a realtor who is coming but I cannot find them. And at first, you know, Mrs. Gunther wanting me to check on her daughter did not seem so important.”

  “So she called more than once.”

  “Four times she called me in twenty minutes before I went upstairs. We are not even supposed to go in. The parents, they pay for the apartment. But the legal resident is the daughter. I am not even supposed to go—”

  She knew where the man’s thoughts were taking him. Police and paramedics had shown up right after he entered the apartment. The phone call from the parents had given him a twenty-minute head start. Twenty minutes might have made the difference.

  “You couldn’t have saved them, Mr. Gorsky.” She wasn’t convinced, but said it anyway, for his sake. “And it’s possible you could have gotten yourself hurt instead.”

  His eyes remained fixed on his telephone, but she assum
ed all he was seeing was a replay of the scene he had encountered when he opened the apartment door. He’d see it tonight in bed before he slept, and again in his dreams. He’d continue to see it forever. It was just a question of how frequently and how vividly.

  “She was a good girl, Megan was. We have more young people in this building than you would think. The parents, they buy, like an investment. Then the kids live on their own. Megan was a good girl, not spoiled like a lot of them. She always said hello. She used my name to talk to me like a human being, not a servant. She would even bring fresh coffee sometimes if she saw me working in the lobby.”

  “There was a second girl in the apartment.”

  “She was the roommate. Just moved in a few months ago.”

  “Was she the same kind of ‘good girl’ as Megan?”

  The cordless phone on Gorsky’s desk broke out into a loud chirp. Even though he’d been staring at the phone, the noise clearly startled the man, but after a quick flinch, he jumped back into the conversation.

  “She seemed like a nice girl. Quieter than Megan. Not as outgoing.”

  “Do you need to get that?” she asked, looking at the ringing phone.

  He shook his head just as the phone finally silenced.

  “And what was the roommate’s name?”

  “Heather. I’m not sure if I ever knew her last name.”

  “Don’t you need a name for her to live in the building?”

  Again, the phone began to ring. And again, Gorsky ignored it and continued to speak.

  “As a matter of technicalities. But the Gunthers were responsible financially for the apartment, and I trusted Megan. She told me she was getting a roommate, and that was the end of the conversation. Some of these other people, I would’ve wanted credit checks, a deposit…don’t get me started.” He waved a hand at the thought.

  “Do you know if either of the girls had any problems recently? Boyfriends? Drugs? Money?”

  “Megan would come in and out of the building with the same boy for a very long time, but he has not been here since, well, since around the time the roommate came.”

  “A breakup?”

  Gorsky smiled and nodded his head. “I don’t keep this job with the same management company for so long by talking to residents about their romances. Could be breakup. Could be he doesn’t get along with the new girl. I have no idea.”

  “You know anything about him? Name? Address?”

  He shrugged. “I wish now I had asked. Tall, skinny. Had these things, you know, through his—” Gorsky pulled at his lower lip.

  “A pierced lip.”

  “Yeah, but in two places. On both sides. Now that—that I noticed.”

  “Anything else? Hair color? Eyes?”

  “Dark brown hair. Probably brown eyes, I guess. I don’t know, kind of like mixed looking. Maybe he was part ethnic of some kind. He hasn’t been around.”

  The phone was ringing once again.

  “I’m sorry, sir, but if you’re not going to answer that, I’d appreciate it if you could turn off the ringer. It’s a little distracting.”

  He fumbled with a button on the phone, and the chirping quieted to a subtle jingle. “I do not know how to turn it off.”

  “No, that’s much better,” she said. “Thank you. Now, the lobby entrance was locked when I came in. Is that twenty-four/seven?”

  “Yes. You have to call up to a resident and be buzzed in by them to enter.”

  “Do you have any way of knowing who buzzed people in this morning?”

  He shook his head.

  “What about cameras? Any film from the lobby or the elevators?”

  Ellie had not spotted any cameras in the building, but with security advancements, the equipment might not be visible.

  Gorsky shook his head again. “In the bigger buildings, our company uses cameras. Not one of this size. I am sorry I cannot be more helpful. You know, right before nine o’clock, there’s a lot of foot traffic on the street. People coming and going. It’s not hard to walk in after someone leaves.”

  “What would really help is if you could give me whatever you have in the way of a file for Megan’s apartment. I assume her parents’ contact information will be there?”

  He handed her a manila envelope from the top of his disheveled desk. “Already done.” He stared at his phone, which had finally gone silent. “I have been sitting here for over an hour staring at this telephone. I have lost count how many times it has rung.”

  “Given the tenacity of whoever’s on the other end of that line, I’d suggest you either answer it or leave town.”

  “I do not want to answer it, because I know it must be her. Mrs. Gunther. I am afraid to speak to her and tell her what I saw.” He sighed quietly. “I am a coward. It is the girl’s mother. She should know.”

  “You’re not a coward, Andrei. You don’t need to be the one to tell her. I will tell them. I will tell Megan’s parents what happened and what you saw. It is my job, not yours.”

  He finally took his eyes off of his phone and looked up at Ellie. “After today, I will never complain again about my work.”

  As it turned out, Ellie was going to deliver the news sooner than she realized.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  11:35 A.M.

  She found Rogan leaning over the desk in Megan Gunther’s bedroom. He was scrolling through a cell phone that was not his usual Motorola, his notebook open in front of him.

  “Is that the vic’s?”

  “I’m assuming. It was on a charger beneath the desk.”

  “How’s it look?”

  “She’s got a mess of friends in her directory, almost all of them listed only by first names. I’m writing down the outgoing calls—we’ve got her parents, a few different girls, mostly one named Courtney—”

  “Got a boyfriend yet?”

  “Two calls to someone named Kendall?”

  “With their generation, that’s probably a female.”

  “I thought the same. Then we’ve got a bunch of other outgoing numbers that weren’t in her contacts list.” He tapped his pen against his notebook, indicating that he was jotting them down. “Unfortunately, it looks like her parents have been hitting redial over and over this morning trying to reach her, so it wiped out her entire incoming call list.”

  “The super says the roommate’s name was Heather, last name unknown.”

  “She’s Heather Bradley. I found it on a political science paper that was on the desk in her room—‘Two Views of American Federalism.’”

  “Your detecting skills are profound, J. J. Rogan.”

  “As is your affectionate sarcasm, Hatcher.”

  “Well, between your discovery of the cell phone and my trip to see the super, we’re pretty much tied for who found the parents’ phone number first. You want to call, or should I do it?”

  “You mind?”

  “Yeah, no problem. You all right?” Ellie could tell that whatever had caused Rogan to snap earlier at Officer Colombo still had him in a mood.

  Before Rogan could answer, they heard the loud crackle of a police radio in the living room outside of the bedroom.

  “Colombo, it’s Eng. You still Code 11?”

  “Copy. Did you see me walk out of the building? Yeah, I’m still here.”

  “We got a problem downstairs.”

  Ellie poked her head out of the bedroom to better hear the exchange between Officer Colombo and the man she presumed was his partner posted in the building’s lobby.

  “I’ve got a Mr. and Mrs. Gunther here—first names Jonas and Patricia. I’ve explained that we are controlling access to the fourth floor because of a police inquiry right now, but they say their daughter lives in 4C? They’re getting pretty animated.”

  Ellie made out another male voice on the radio, this one in the background. And considerably angry. Something about owning the apartment. About how they couldn’t ban him from entering his own property. About how this better not have anything to do with t
heir daughter. In that final sentence, despite his vocal force, Ellie heard more desperation than anger.

  “Megan’s parents are in the lobby,” she said to Rogan.

  He looked at the bloodstains smeared across the white cotton bedspread, the pale wood floors, and the back of the bedroom door. “No way they can walk into this.”

  “I’ll go down,” she offered. “Colombo, tell your partner to grow a pair. He’ll be pulling tunnel watch duty for the next year if he lets those people up here.”

  The mother’s eyes.

  As soon as Ellie locked eyes with Patricia Gunther, she was certain that the woman already knew what was coming. She knew her entire life was about to change. She knew she was going to learn that her daughter was dead.

  Ellie quickly looked away toward the dignified but surprisingly brawny man standing beside the woman. His long face was somber, his brow furrowed. He was worried. Worried and sad. And royally pissed off. But he didn’t know. Not yet. Not like his wife.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Gunther?”

  “That’s right,” the man said. Next to him, his wife’s head fell forward as she cried out.

  “I’m Ellie Hatcher. I’m a detective with the New York City Police Department. We’ve responded to an act of violence in your daughter’s apartment.”

  As she delivered the news—two girls, one critical, one who didn’t make it (their daughter, according to the super)—Ellie tried to recite the facts in just the right way. No false melodrama. Enough compassion not to appear cold.

  When she was finished, she turned away to allow them a moment of privacy. She went so far as to close her eyes when she spotted their embrace in the reflection of the lobby’s glass door—the strong, tall father crying into his wife’s hair, the mom sobbing against her husband’s chest. She blocked out the sound of their cries by evaluating her own performance.

  She had done her best, but she nevertheless knew that Jonas and Patricia Gunther would always remember this scene—Ellie in her black turtleneck and slim gray skirt, this antiseptic lobby with its reproduced abstract art and fake marble floors, Officer Eng posed awkwardly outside the elevators with his hands clasped behind him—as the very worst kind of collision between the impersonal and the intimate.