“You’re in law school?”
“No,” she replied, sarcasm dripping. “I’m taking the bar exam for veterinarians.”
“Man,” I said, rolling my eyes. “It must be exciting to be so funny. And that’s my first observation about you. ”
“Touche,” she said. Then her tone turned serious. “Actually, I want to be a child advocacy council. Custody cases, abandonment. Domestic issues, you know?”
“That’s very noble of you.”
Amanda shrugged. “I don’t care if it’s noble, it’s just what I want to do. Applying for sainthood didn’t really cross my mind.” She waited a moment, then said, “What about you? What do you do?”
“I want to be a journalist,” I said. She smiled at me, and I felt a swell of pride. “I want to be the next Bo…big investigative reporter.”
“Noble,” she said, and I laughed.
“I used to think so. Now every reporter ends up their own biggest story.”
16
Mauser sipped a cup of scalding coffee. His calves burned from the chase that morning and the caffeine would quicken his blood flow. He wanted to retain a sense of urgency until he found Parker. If he invited a heart attack in the process, so be it. He was in decent shape for a man of years-as Linda often called him-but working out didn’t prepare you for the exertion of real life. Full speed, no timeouts, no water breaks. What kept him going was catching John’s killer. That made the pain subside.
He’d alternated hot and cold packs upon returning to Federal Plaza. Denton had phoned ahead to Louis Carruthers, who deployed NYPD uniformed officers to guard all potential subway exits for the 6 train between Harlem and Union Square.
Guarding the subway was near pointless, Mauser thought, adding more cream and sugar to his steaming brew. Parker would be long gone by the time the first cop arrived, and with so many exit points the chances that they’d catch him there were slim. All they could do was sit and wait. Wait for someone to recognize him. Wait for Parker to make a move, slip up. Expose himself.
Parker had all but run out of contacts in New York. Joe had any and all possibilities covered. A plainclothes was staking out Mya Loverne’s apartment, instructed to tail her to and from work. Another two were stationed outside the Gazette. Chances were Parker had given up on both venues, but they had to be thorough. He’d already tapped the Parker residence in Bend, Oregon, but surprisingly Henry hadn’t attempted to contact his parents. There had to be a reason for his silence. Perhaps there was an estrangement they didn’t know about.
Twenty-goddamn-four years old, Joe thought. If he’d been caught up in a shit storm like Parker’s at twenty- four, he would have thrown himself off the Brooklyn Bridge by now. Parker, though, didn’t seem to be in that frame of mind. He wouldn’t have run otherwise. Regardless, Mauser had to find the kid before some patrolman got lucky. He didn’t want anybody else to administer punishment first.
Mauser closed the folder on his lap. A mound of paper saying nothing. They were playing this game as reactionaries, responding to Parker’s movements rather than instigating their own. Just as he added a fourth packet of sugar to the coffee, Denton burst into the room. Mauser’s eyes perked up.
“Well?” he said.
“We got a hit,” Denton said. Mauser set the folder aside, looked at Denton expectantly.
“Whadda you got?”
“Parker made a phone call,” Denton said, his eyes blazing. “We’ve been monitoring all credit cards linked to Parker and his family. Scary how few there are, actually. My nephew? Kid’s thirteen, has eight credit cards. But the Parker clan, there’s three of ’em and they have two credit cards between them.”
“So let’s go, what’s with this phone call?”
“Phone company’s records show that last year Parker bought a calling card, one of those cards where there’s no spending limit, it’s linked to your credit card. You call 1-800-COLLECT or an operator, plug in the number and they connect your call. Bill comes at the end of the month.” Denton handed a printed record to Mauser, who scanned it.
“Only two charges on the card,” Mauser noted.
“One of them this morning, 8:56 a.m.”
“St. Louis,” Mauser said. “The fuck’s he know in St. Louis?”
“The number’s a cell phone, registered to one Lawrence Stein. Married to Harriet Stein. They have a daughter named Amanda Davies.”
“Wait,” Mauser said. “Is it Davies or Stein?”
Denton handed Mauser another folder. Inside were scans of three driver’s licenses, one from each of the parties.
“Amanda Davies is Harriet and Lawrence Stein’s daughter. Adopted daughter, that is. Little Amanda spent eleven years being shuttled from home to home before kindly Mr. and Mrs. Stein took her in for good. It seems our Amanda declined to have her name legally changed to Stein, kept her birth name Davies instead.”
Mauser asked, “Is she an old girlfriend?”
“Maybe a friend, but not from college. She’s in law school at NYU, studying child advocacy, lives in the dorms down there.”
“You checking her apartment’s call log?”
“Already done,” Denton said. “No matches to our man. Cross-checked Parker’s residences at Cornell, so far we’re coming up empty.”
Mauser rubbed the stubble on his chin. He needed a shave badly, needed sleep and a hot shower. He’d hoped to have Parker by now. Every moment John Fredrickson’s killer lived ate away at Joe from the inside. The hunt steeled his resolve while gnawing away at everything else.
“Davies…is it possible Parker was seeing her on the side? Taking a little extracurricular pokey without Mya Loverne knowing?”
“Doubtful,” Denton said, pouring a cup from the pot. He took a sip and grimaced, leaving the cup for dead on the table-top.
Denton continued. “Let’s look at it from Parker’s perspective. You’re new to the city, looking for your career break. David Loverne’s someone you want on your side, or at least not want to piss off. Would you cheat on his daughter? You might get your rocks off for a few minutes, but if Daddy found out about it you’d have trouble hailing a cab without getting a summons, and you can bet any public defender assigned to him will give him a defense worthy of the worst bus-stop ambulance chaser.”
Mauser thought for a moment, then said, “Check Parker and Davies’s phone records going back the last five years. Parker’s desperate, grasping at straws. There’s a chance he reached out to Davies because she was the only option.”
“There’s something else,” Denton said.
“Yeah?”
“We ran a trace on all credit cards registered to Amanda Davies and Harriet and Lawrence Stein. New purchases, etc.-”
“And?” Mauser said, failing to keep the anxiousness out of his voice.
“We got a hit on an E-Z Pass going through the Holland Tunnel at nine twenty-seven this morning.”
Mauser furrowed his brow, surprised. “They’re going to Jersey?”
Denton seemed to change his mind about the coffee, picking it off the table and taking a deep swallow. He grimaced again.
“God, this is some terrible shit. It’s doubtful Jersey’s their final destination, but if you’re headed to St. Louis to visit the lovely Stein family, the Holland Tunnel’s how you leave the city. Right now all we can do is keep track of the E-Z Pass. If we get more hits or Amanda makes any credit card purchases we’ll be on top of it. If it looks like she’s heading to St. Louis, we’ll be on the first flight out there.”
“Sounds awfully sketchy,” Mauser said.
