was alert. He dressed, gulped cold coffee, then picked the most decent-looking food: a wrapped ham-and-cheese sandwich, an apple and a bottle of water.
That was breakfast.
He switched on the TV, keeping the volume low. It didn’t take long before he found a local New York news channel.
Sarah and Cole stared back at him from the screen. Then Jeff saw himself at the podium, making his plea at the press conference. The faces of Donald Dalfini and Omarr Aimes surfaced before the news story cut to the UN building, motorcades, footage of world leaders coming and going in New York.
There was a soft knock on the door to the adjoining room.
“Let us know when you’re ready, Mr. Griffin.”
The FBI had placed two agents in the adjoining room “to assist you and for your protection, sir.”
Truth was, the investigators-Brewer, Cordelli, the FBI, all of them-did not want him left alone. They expected him to sit here in this room and do nothing.
“As hard as it is for you,” Cordelli had warned him last night, “you have to sit tight and let everyone do their job.”
“I need a few minutes, please,” Jeff called back.
He glanced at his nightstand, which held his personal laptop and his hard copy of all the images Chu and Cassidy had worked on.
But there was more.
He started his laptop. Last night, Cassidy had finally come up with a list of restaurants licensed by the city that began with
The stylized image had stemmed from the logos Jeff had recalled from the discarded wrappers and cups in the van. Precincts would use the list for the canvass. But this was not the only lead investigators were chasing. Late last night, Cordelli and Ortiz had reiterated how upward of twenty agencies were going all out on every aspect of the case he could imagine.
That was good, but Jeff was not going to sit in this room and watch soap operas and game shows while time ran out on his family, not after he’d been so close-
More knocking at the door.
“Not dressed yet!”
During last night’s session, Jeff had glanced over Cassidy’s shoulder at his laptop screen and made mental notes on the list of restaurants, cafes and coffee shops Cassidy was preparing.
Later that night when he was alone, Jeff used that information and his own laptop to go online and develop his own list. He was confident that his list was similar to Cassidy’s. It was tricky and challenging but Jeff had succeeded in downloading the list to his cell phone.
He was set.
He checked the battery strength of his phone. It was good. He collected his paper map, wallet, ball cap, glasses, then left his room for the elevator.
47
Getting a feature film, TV show, commercial or anything like that shot in New York City required permits.
And depending on what was involved, those permits required forms to be completed, fees to be paid and supporting documents to be provided to the mayor’s office of Film, Theater and Broadcasting.
“This could be like searching for a needle in a haystack,” Klaver said.
“Humor me, right now it’s our best long shot,” Brewer said as they took the elevator to the sixth floor, then walked down the hall to the office of Betty Bonner, permit coordinator.
“Larry, you old flatfoot! Give me a hug,” Bonner, a woman in her late fifties wearing a loud print dress, orange-framed cat eyeglasses and hoop earrings, greeted them. Her bangle bracelets jingled when she hugged Brewer. “Is this your partner, the one who never talks?”
“Detective Klaver.” Klaver extended his hand. “Larry tells me that you two go way back.”
“We worked traffic together in another life, before I retired to the movie business and the job turned Larry into the crackerjack crime fighter and the bastard he is today.”
“Are we good to talk here, Betty?” Brewer asked.
“Follow me. I’ve got things set up.”
Bonner led them into a small meeting room and a table with file folders arranged in neat stacks.
“So you’re looking for someone involved as crew named ‘Rama’ or ‘Zeta’ who may be Russian, or Albanian?”
“Let’s say Eastern European.”
“But you’re not sure if it’s a feature, TV movie, TV episode, commercial, music video?”
“No.”
“Domestic, or international production?”
“Not sure.”
“That’s a tall order, so let’s get going. Okay, these-” Bonner set her hand on all white files “-are all permits of everything still in production. And these-” she touched yellow folders “-are option permits, while these-” she touched blue folders “-are all ongoing international productions.”
Bonner picked one up.
“Now, each of the permit folders and each of the international production folders contain any required visas, for temporary worker visas for non-U.S. citizens.”
“That’s a lot of folders,” Klaver said.
“Domestic and international productions commonly employ non-U.S. citizens, depending on their profession or skill.”
“Isn’t this computerized?” Klaver asked. “Can’t we just run a few keyword searches?”
“No, because most of our records are original,” Bonner said, “this is the best way to do this without a warrant. These are essentially public records. Now, you will find contact numbers of crew chiefs. And I have contacts in immigration and the State Department that can help us further once you nail something down.”
The detectives spent the next hours reading quickly through every folder, sorting through every permit, scouring crew lists. They sifted through forms, applications, copying down names and phone numbers.
By the time they’d completed the last file they were frustrated.
Nothing resembling Zeta or Rama with a connection to Albania, Russia or any Eastern European country had surfaced.
“Looks like we lost here,” Klaver said.
Brewer massaged his tired eyes.
