Fatal Deception

by Russell Blake

  Tess studied it with narrowed eyes. The location wasn’t that far from the hotel, perhaps ten minutes from Wall Street. The perfect spot for a predator to lure his young lovers for nights of passion. Dakota had obviously fallen for it, never questioning why a wealthy young man would have an apartment in a so-so neighborhood instead of in an upscale building somewhere near the park.

  She wasn’t sure what she could do with the information, but with no place to go and nothing to do, maybe she’d go look at the place and nose around. It beat sitting around in a room, agonizing over her predicament, or Ron’s refusal to pull out all the stops to focus on Dakota. She could ride her bicycle over to the café, get some exercise, and think long and hard about how to proceed with him. Their budding relationship, such as it was, had taken a decidedly difficult turn after Dakota’s murder, and she wasn’t sure it would ever get back on track. The chemistry was there, but it took more than mutual attraction to make sparks fly.

  And right now, the only sparks flying were the wrong kind.

  Chapter 37

  The mood in the late morning task force meeting was more optimistic than Friday’s, with two solid possible suspects to research. Ron gave the group a summary of the weekend’s events and then fielded questions from the feds.

  “You like this Gunter for it?” Fredericks asked.

  “I can go either way. Stibling’s also got big holes in his story,” Ron said. “Although Gunter’s shaping up to look better. I’ve got my people checking the footage from the bridge tollbooth to see whether he lied about the timing of his trip. If he did, the dominoes fall from there. If he didn’t, he’s still not in the clear – we’re checking his cell phone records to see whether he told the truth about his walk. Most people don’t know that their movements are recorded based on when their phones acquire a signal from a new tower.”

  “Any word on either?”

  “Later today. We’re getting the warrant for the phone. As for the bridge, I have a man going through all the footage, but with multiple lanes, it’s time consuming.”

  “Doesn’t that assume he killed her in the city? What if he did it off the island?” Sheila MacLeay asked.

  “Then the phone records will show him not crossing into Manhattan when he claims, which should be enough to grill him.”

  “It doesn’t bother you that he has no criminal record?” she shot back.

  “You tell me. If he’s that smart, he would be able to evade detection, wouldn’t he? We both know most are caught because they do something stupid.” Ron looked around the room. “But I don’t want to get too hung up on Gunter. While he’s promising, so is Stibling. He’s the one who held the party. And it’s his house. So it would be a piece of cake to slip out once he established his alibi – that he was asleep, seen by his staff trundling off to bed – and do the girl in.”

  “Only there’s no evidence to corroborate that hypothesis.”

  “True, but we’re pulling his cell record as well. Unofficially, in his case. We’ve been warned off from being too aggressive with him because of his standing in the community,” Ron said, the irony in his tone obvious to everyone.

  “You think he might have a mole in the department?” Fredericks asked.

  “No, but I also know that a prosecutor is far less likely to sign off on us getting his records on a fishing expedition. That’s just the way it works. But there are other ways of skinning that cat.”

  “Why are you so convinced he’s dirty?” Fredericks asked.

  “There’s something off about him. He got my antennae quivering.”

  “Hardly definitive.”

  “True. Which is why I haven’t hauled him in. We’ll see what our probe reveals.” Ron eyed MacLeay. “Any further thoughts on the perp?”

  “No. I reviewed the new killing. No new information to glean.”

  Fredericks sat forward. “We’ve got more detail on how he’s getting the footage to the news stations, but it’s a dead end. He’s streaming from servers in Russia and Croatia, but they appear to be proxy servers. The addresses bounce around, which is typical with child porn rings as well. There’s software that does it automatically, to prevent tracing the feed to the source.”

  “So no love there.”

  “Afraid not. Although one interesting anomaly – the latest video went to fewer stations, so it’s possible he’s refining his media strategy.”

  “Great. Or maybe he’s just mixing it up to avoid any obvious patterns.”

  Ben’s phone buzzed and he answered it and, after excusing himself, left the room. The discussion continued, focusing on Dakota’s autopsy and the body dump site. When Ben returned, his expression was serious.

  “We identified Gunter’s car on the bridge. It crossed at eleven fifty-two.”

  “So far, he’s telling the truth,” Fredericks said.

  “Right, but the reason I left was because the screener said that there appeared to be two people in the car, not just Gunter.”

  “Two!” Ron said. “Bingo.”

  “Yes, but unfortunately the passenger had on a baseball cap, and you can’t make out his or her face.”

  “What about the hair?” Fredericks asked.

  “Too blurry. The cameras are mainly focused on license plates.”

  “He lied about being alone. That should be enough to bring him in again,” Fredericks said.

  “And if he says he picked up a hitchhiker? Or gave a casual sexual encounter a ride into town from that side of the river? How do we disprove that? There are plenty of pickup spots on that road,” Ron pointed out. “At which point we’ve tipped our hand. No, we wait for the phone results to see where he went and for how long. That could hang him.”

  “Or not,” Fredericks observed.

  “We know the approximate time of death for the second victim, and so far he’s still well within the envelope. He’s got, what, three more hours from there to kill her?” MacLeay asked.

  Ron nodded. “Sure. But the questions are, where did he do it, and how do we prove it?”

  “We find the where, we’ll find evidence,” Fredericks said. “Nobody’s that good.”

  “How much longer till we get the phone data?” MacLeay asked.

  Ron consulted his watch. “Should be any time.”

  “Well, there’s no point sitting in here all day. Call me when you have something,” Fredericks said, standing.

  The door opened and a uniformed officer waved a manila folder at Ron. “You wanted these as soon as we got them?” he said.

  “Yes. Thanks,” Ron replied, taking the file from him and setting it on the table. He opened it and read the document inside, and then sat back with the beginnings of a grin.

  “At six minutes past midnight Gunter’s phone pinged a tower in Chinatown.”

  “How far is that from his apartment?” Fredericks asked.

  “Too far for him to have walked. He must have driven straight there. See, here he is at the bridge, then uptown, then midtown…and then, to Chinatown.” Ron glanced around the room. “He didn’t drive home. There was no time. He drove somewhere here,” Ron said, tapping a paper printout of the cell towers overlaid on a map of Manhattan. “Where he stayed for an hour and a half before going home, when his cell turned off.”

  “Damn. Would have been nice if he’d left it on so we could have tracked him to the church,” Ben said.

  “Those are the breaks. But this is a good start. We can prove he lied.” Ron looked to Ben. “Let’s get a dozen men on the street, door-to-door with Gunter’s photo, canvassing the area to see if anyone recognizes him. He’s got to have a stash pad there. Find that, and we cracked the case. We’ll also pull the traffic cams in the area.” Ron rose. “I’ll keep everyone posted, but for now, we have work to do.”

  Ben followed Ron out of the meeting and leaned into him as they waited for the elevator. “What do you think?” he asked quietly.

  Ron waited until they were inside the elevator and the doors had closed. “I thi
nk we’re going to hang his ass out to dry. But I don’t want to jump the gun – we do this by the book, even if it takes a day or two.”

  “Want me to put his apartment and gallery under surveillance?”

  “You bet. Don’t want him vanishing, although he probably thinks he outsmarted us.”

  “He came close.”

  Ron frowned. “No cigar for close.”

  Chapter 38

  Tess chained her bike to a streetlamp down the block from the café and removed her sunglasses as she walked to the entrance. It was a typical hipster hangout, with overstuffed distressed sofas and beat poet photos adorning the walls, all to create the illusion of a time that had long passed and, with it, the innocence that had made it possible. Now, cynical postgrads with neck beards and attitudes of petulant ennui scoured the want ads for minimum-wage jobs while nursing cups of overpriced dark roast harvested by exploited workers in third world hellholes.

  Tess stood outside and looked up at the three stories of flats above the café, wondering which window was Jeremy’s love nest. She didn’t know what she’d expected, but she felt no tug, no sense of accomplishment. The café was just another watering hole, the building another brick monolith exactly like the blocks of others that stretched to the river. The afternoon’s ride had been satisfying, and the anxiety had seeped from her body with each mile, leaving her spent and tired as she pushed through the door and into the café, the air redolent of spices and freshly ground coffee beans, the music soft jazz that fit the nostalgic mood of the place.

  She ordered a cup of the house brew, loaded it up with chocolate and cinnamon powder, and carried it to a small table with an easy chair in front of it. One of the baristas ambled over with a yellow hand towel and wiped the top of the table, her face tired, clearly signaling that this was the last place on the planet she wanted to be. Tess beamed a smile of gratitude and sat down, wondering if Dakota had sat in the same spot and stared at Jeremy across from her, unaware that every word out of his mouth was a lie.

  Tess had decided that there was no way Dakota had known he was married. She was too smart to fall into that trap, too confident in her abilities and the bright path of her future. He’d left that niggling little detail out of his charming overture, she was sure, and Dakota had probably thought she’d won the lottery – a handsome, successful older man had found her fascinating, no doubt paying rapt attention to her every utterance, and had convinced her that he was the piece that was missing from her life.

  Resentment swelled in her chest as she imagined the easy lies he’d have told and Dakota’s desire to believe. She’d lacked the cynicism that Tess had from growing up in New York, and had gazed through wide eyes at a world of infinite possibility and wonder. Although perhaps that was overstating her naiveté – she’d been streetwise enough to be doing meth, which didn’t exactly jive with Tess’s image of a delicate hothouse flower loose in the big bad city.

  The thought stopped her. Dakota had to have scored the drug somewhere. Maybe it was easily obtainable from other dancers? Or maybe worldly Jeremy had introduced her to the magic crystal after a particularly tiring all-night session of off-the-hook sex?

  Tess sipped from her cup and set it on the table. The barista brought her a menu and laid it beside her coffee. “You want to order something?” the woman asked, in an indifferent manner.

  “Oh, I didn’t realize you served food,” Tess said, and picked up the menu. “Wow. The breakfasts look great.”

  “Yeah, we sell a lot of them.”

  “Do you make stuff to go?”

  “Sure. We also deliver if it’s nearby, for an additional charge.”

  Tess nodded and pretended interest, and then fished her iPhone from her pocket and pulled up one of Dakota’s selfies – one with her hair down, smiling at the camera. “You ever see this girl in here?” Tess asked, holding the screen up so she could see it.

  The woman’s expression became guarded as she squinted at it. “Maybe. Why?”

  “I’m trying to track her down. This is one of her favorite hangouts.” Tess put a fifty-dollar bill by her cup.

  “What’s she done?” the woman asked, eyeing the money.

  “Nothing. I’m her cousin. She hasn’t been answering her phone, and I’m getting worried about her.”

  “Been a while since she was here, if it’s the same girl. Thin?”

  “Oh, definitely. She’s a dancer.”

  “That’s what I thought. Has to be the same chick. I seen her with her boyfriend a couple of times, in the mornings. But not for at least a week.”

  “Yeah, she said he has a place upstairs.”

  “You try there?”

  Tess shrugged. “No answer,” she lied.

  “Bummer. But you got the right place.” The woman scooped up the cash and pocketed it. “Ready to order?”

  “I think I’ll wait for lunch, thanks.”

  Tess watched the woman return to her station behind the counter. What had she expected her to say? That she knew Jeremy? That he’d brought an axe into the café and asked her to sharpen it for him? The foolishness of her foray hit her. She was no detective. All she’d managed to do was confirm what she already knew from the web – that the café was downstairs from his place. So what? Or more specifically, now what? Break in? Knock, and when he answered, accuse him of being a serial killer?

  All of which assumed that her gut instinct about him was correct, which in turn was based on a grand total of five noisy minutes in a bar and the knowledge that he’d misled her cousin – assuming even that was correct and that Dakota hadn’t known about his marriage.

  In other words, an assumption based on a hypothetical based on a hunch.

  And now here she was, slurping high-priced drip coffee while playing Nancy Drew.

  The absurdity of her presumptions were obvious. No wonder Ron had been hard-pressed to keep a straight face while humoring her. She had no evidence of wrongdoing, no smoking gun, and, in fact, had probably jumped to a completely erroneous conclusion. Ron had said that Jeremy had an alibi for the second victim and what Ron thought was a good one for the night Dakota had been killed. Why did she believe she knew better than the city’s top homicide detective?

  The answer was simple: she had a feeling that she couldn’t shake. And regardless of Ron’s qualifications, Dakota was just another case for him, whereas for Tess, it was personal. Perhaps that was misguided, but Tess felt that she had to do something and couldn’t just sit around hoping Ron found Dakota’s killer.

  She pulled her cell from her lightweight windbreaker pocket, pulled up the company directory for Regis and Prefect, and scrolled through it until she found Jeremy’s picture. She’d spent an hour that morning researching him, and knew he had a brownstone on the Upper East Side, which would be her next stop. What she could accomplish by riding up there was a fair question; but if nothing else, she wanted a complete picture of his life, which perhaps a glimpse of his home might afford her. She’d promised Ron that she wouldn’t interfere, but there was no law against going for a bike ride, and if she happened to go past Jeremy’s, what harm could come of it?

  Tess finished her cup and got to her feet. She felt silly as the barista eyed her from behind the cash register, no doubt chortling over the easiest fifty dollars she’d ever made. Tess walked to the door and pushed her sunglasses onto her forehead, the sun still high in the sky as she swung the door open and stepped out onto the sidewalk. She looked up at the building façade and then crossed to the apartment entryway, where a row of ancient brass buttons formed a tarnished column beneath a battered speaker grid. She searched the entries, but didn’t see Jeremy’s name on them, which made sense – if he was trying to be discreet, he wouldn’t publish his occupancy of the flat.

  Tess stepped back from the doorway and moved to the curb, shielding her eyes with her hand as she gazed up at the windows. She frowned and looked at her watch, and then gave up, heading back toward her bicycle with an air of defeat.

&nb
sp; Three stories above her, a figure watched from the shadows of a grimy window as Tess unchained the bike from the lamppost and pushed it toward the street. The figure stood motionless, eyes on Tess as she shot into traffic and pedaled like the devil was on her tail.

  The trip to the Upper East Side took forty minutes, and Tess was breathing hard when she braked fifty yards down from the brownstone. It was one in a string of stately old homes on the block, occupying slivers of some of the most expensive real estate in the world. She drained the water bottle she’d bought in midtown and wiped the sweat from her brow with her arm as she studied the place without seeming to. Three stories, perhaps twenty-five feet wide, in good repair, bars on the lower windows, and a postage-stamp front stoop.

  She was surprised when the door opened and a woman in her fifties came out with a rolling shopping cart. Tess followed her down the street, walking her bicycle, to a neighborhood grocery store two blocks away. She chained her bike outside in a rack and went inside, a vague plan forming in her head as she did so. Maybe she could learn something by an innocent meeting with the housekeeper in the market?

  Engineering the encounter wasn’t hard – the woman nearly ran her down as she came around one of the aisles, reading a label on a jar. The housekeeper gave a startled yelp and dropped the container, and Tess leaned forward and caught it before it could shatter on the floor.

  “Sorry. I didn’t see you,” the older woman said.

  “Oh, no problem,” Tess said as she handed it back. “Say, you look familiar. Are you up on Eighty-Third?”

  The woman nodded. “That’s right,” she said guardedly.

  “I thought so. I’m on the same street.” Tess smiled. “My name’s Teresa.”

  “Oh, well, pleased to meet you. Wendy.”

  “You work there, Wendy?” Tess continued.

  “That’s right.”

  “It looks lovely from outside.”