Dead Connection

17

SMO MEDIA OCCUPIED FOUR FLOORS OF A MIDSIZE OFFICE tower at Forty-ninth and Lexington. The marketing firm’s receptionist was a young lithe brunette with full lips and flawless skin – undoubtedly an aspiring model when she wasn’t wearing that headset. She was squinting at Ellie and Flann, polite but clearly confused.

“I’m sorry, who is it you’re looking for?” A well-polished fingernail ran again down the pages of names on the desk in front of her.

“Taylor Gottman,” Flann said.

“Do you know what department he’s in?”

The man’s FirstDate profile described his job as “marketing/advertising/other” and his annual income as more than one hundred thousand dollars. “We’re pretty sure he’s one of the marketing or advertising executives,” Ellie said.

The receptionist’s big green eyes roamed the phone list again as she shook her head bewilderedly. “No. I’m sorry. I don’t see him here. You’re sure he works here? SMO? You know, there are a bunch of other marketing groups in this building.”

Damnit. Had Taylor been tipped off by Ellie’s phone call? No way, Ellie thought. No way did he pull a phone number of another marketing company out of his ass like that.

Ellie pulled a small notebook from her jacket pocket and looked at the notes she had taken from Taylor’s profile. “He’s five eleven. Brown hair, brown eyes.” She tried to recall the online photograph. “Sort of short hair. Thin face.”

The receptionist shrugged her shoulders, and Ellie realized her description was no better than the junk she usually got from eyewitnesses.

“Do you have Internet access on that?” Ellie asked, gesturing to the flat-screen computer panel in front of the receptionist.

“Of course,” the receptionist jiggled the mouse on her desk and the Web site for Entertainment Weekly appeared on her screen.

“May I?” Ellie asked, already stepping behind the desk. She logged on to the FirstDate Web site, clicked on her connections, and pointed to a photograph of Taylor. “Does this man look familiar?”

“Um, I’m not sure.” The model moved her face closer to the screen and looked again. “Oh my god. Is that… the mail room guy?”

“What mail room guy?”

“Some creepy guy who works in the mail room. I don’t know his name. He stares at me when he’s up here. A couple of times he noticed me catch him at it. He apologized, but then told me how pretty I was.”

“That sounds like our guy. Do you know where we can find him?”

She gave them directions to the mail room two floors down and pointed the way to the stairs.

“The mail room, huh?” Flann said on the way down. “Last I heard, that wasn’t a six-figure job.”

Ellie feigned shock and fanned herself like a southern belle. “Oh my lawd. Call the papers. A man lied about his income.”

They found their way to a large room in the back corner, where a bulky man sat at the front counter, placing labels on a series of envelopes.

“Can I help you?”

Ellie scanned the office and saw a man resembling Taylor sorting manila interoffice envelopes into folders hanging from a file cart. She shifted her jacket, revealing the NYPD badge clipped at her waist.

“We’re looking for Taylor Gottman. Is that him?” She nodded her head toward the back of the room, and the big man’s gaze followed hers.

“Yeah. What’d he do?”

Ellie noticed the response. Is everything all right? Did something happen? That’s what she was used to from employers, coworkers, neighbors – people who knew the suspect. But not with Taylor Gottman. What’d he do?

“Absolutely nothing,” she said confidently. “We’re just here about some unauthorized activity reported on his cellular account. We’ll need him to file a report.”

“Yo, Taylor. Cops for you.” Taylor and his four coworkers all turned in response to the man’s big voice. “Something about your cell phone.”

Taylor Gottman was tall and thin with short brown hair, full lips, and pale, smooth skin. As he made his way over, Ellie noticed he had an effeminate walk.

“Someone from the company just called me twenty minutes ago. I didn’t even call the police.”

“Is there somewhere we can talk privately?” Flann asked.

Taylor looked uncertainly at the beefy guy with the big voice, who in turn looked at the watch on his thick wrist.

“Go ahead and take your fifteen,” the man said.

Taylor led the way to a break room down the hallway. A frumpy woman sat at the only table in the small room, eating a Butterfinger and reading a paperback romance novel. “Excuse me,” Ellie said. The woman’s eyes didn’t leave her book. “Ma’am? Hello? Excuse me.”

Finally, at least a visual acknowledgment of their presence. “We’re police. We need to take a crime report from this gentleman. I hate to interrupt you, but could you give us some privacy?”

The woman pushed some yellow Butterfinger crust into her mouth as she considered the request. “My break’s over anyway,” she acquiesced, glancing at the clock. She read a moment more, then tucked a bookmark neatly into the novel.

When she was gone, Taylor had an observation to make. “You look familiar,” he said to Ellie. “And your voice too. This isn’t about that cell phone insurance, is it?”

“Do you know a woman named Amy Davis?”

Taylor repeated the name to himself a couple of times, as if trying to jog his memory. “It sounds familiar. Can you tell me who she is?”

Was. Who Amy was. “I think you might know her from FirstDate?”

“That’s right,” Taylor said, snapping his fingers. “What’s her online name again?”

“MoMAgirl. She works at the Museum of Modern Art.”

“Right, right.” He nodded his head like it was all coming back to him now. “We went out on a date. Must have been – I don’t know – a few weeks ago?”

“A date?” Ellie asked skeptically. “From what we can tell from your e-mails, it was one cup of coffee. And it didn’t go very well.”

“Well, I considered it a date.”

“And you also considered it to be a pretty successful one. But Amy didn’t agree, did she? Amy wasn’t interested in having another – well, what you call a date.”

“I don’t remember why it didn’t go further.” Taylor brushed imaginary crumbs from his dark green pants. “I would’ve said it was mutual. Whatever. We didn’t see each other again. What does it matter anyway?”

“It matters,” Flann said, “because MoMAgirl is dead.” He laid a picture of Amy’s face, resting against the cold metal slab at the coroner’s office, on the table in front of Taylor. “She was killed Friday night.”

Apparently Taylor wasn’t one for reading newspapers. He didn’t take his eyes from the gruesome photograph, but the color left his skin and for a second, Ellie thought he was going to be sick. He finally looked away, shaking his head adamantly. “No. No. You can’t possibly – That’s ridiculous. I didn’t even know her.”

“You wanted to though. We’ve seen the e-mails, Taylor.” Ellie leaned forward, moving herself closer. “We need to understand what happened.”

“Nothing.” Taylor used his hands to push his chair back from the table subtly, giving himself space from Ellie. “We went out one time.”

“You have a problem letting go.”

“That’s not true.”

“Of course it’s true. But-”