Dead Connection

he couldn’t wait this time. He rushed it, realized he had a noise problem, then had to use the pillow.”

“I just don’t see it. He’s a planner. He was careful enough to remember to leave an e-mail behind for us to find. You and I both know we won’t find anything on the building’s security tape. He wouldn’t be so cautious and then deprive himself of the pleasure he wants.”

“So what’s your theory?” Flann asked.

“Well, he could be evolving. Experimenting. Trying to find a comfort level between quick and dirty assassination, and something as personal as Davis.”

“That also might explain the timing. He feels guilty, somehow tainted, by the violence of the Davis killing. So now he’s trying again?”

“There could be another explanation, Flann. Maybe he got more personal with Davis because something about her made it personal.”

“We already checked out the people who knew her. She was squeaky clean.”

“I didn’t say he knew her. Maybe she just reminded him of someone. But some kind of connection could have set off the rage we saw in her murder, something he doesn’t generally need in order to feel satisfied. It could even be someone who knew her in the past – someone you haven’t checked out yet.”

“And he appears all these years later in New York, and takes out a few extra people while he’s at it?”

“We should at least look into it. The D.C. Sniper mastermind was out to kill his ex-wife, remember? All those poor victims were just camouflage.”

“Jesus Christ. This guy stepped up the pace with no notice, and we’ve got nothing. We’ve got mystery men from strip bars, ghosts from the past. No. This stops now. We’re going back to where we should have been all along.”

“Mark Stern.”

“Does the pope work Sundays? Damn straight, Mark Stern.”

ACCORDING TO HIS assistant, Stern was out of the office. When Flann pressed, she said he was out for a meeting with the company’s lawyers. When Flann pressed still harder, mentioning the possibility of the company name being plastered across the front page of tomorrow’s Daily Post, she gave him Stern’s cell phone number and the name of the law firm handling FirstDate’s public offering. At the mention of the Daily Post, Ellie tried not to think about Peter Morse.

Despite more calls, Stern was nowhere to be found. After some legal babble about attorney-client privilege, the law firm revealed that Stern departed twenty minutes earlier. Urgent messages left on his cell phone went unreturned.

Flann finally gave up and clamped his phone shut. “Asshole. Megan Quinn might be alive right now if that guy had a heart half the size of his wallet. And the rest of the city’s about to find that out.”

BY THE TIME they left the building, three other news vans had joined NY1’s, and patrol officers had restricted the entire block from vehicle access. Several reporters lined the wooden barricades, notebooks or microphones in hand depending on the medium. Ellie scanned the line briefly and was relieved not to see Peter.

As soon as the reporters caught sight of McIlroy and Ellie, the questions began, each louder and more inflammatory than the previous. Can you confirm there was a homicide? Is this related to last weekend’s Lower East Side murder? Is it another single woman? Did the victim know Amy Davis? McIlroy waited for the most daunting question: Detectives, is New York City looking at another serial killer?

Flann looked directly into a camera bearing a NY1 logo. “As you know, there’s little I can provide in the way of details at this early stage. There are leads to follow, witnesses to interview, and family members to notify. I will tell you this: We will find the person responsible, and we will not tolerate anyone who gives criminals safe harbor. Members of the media, you are our partners in this. Help spread the word that we need the good people of New York to help us with our investigation. Anyone with information should call the New York City Police Department. They can ask either for me, Flann McIlroy, or this is my partner, Ellie Hatcher. H-A-T-C-H- E-R. That’s all I can say right now. A formal statement will be made later.”

ELLIE STARTED a mental count to ten once they were inside the Crown Vic. She unleashed at five. “Are you going to tell me what that was all about, or are you just waiting to see if I’m smart enough to figure it out?”

He threw her a perplexed sideways glance. “Don’t sweat it. Cops make generic statements like that all the time. I wanted to send a quiet message to Stern with that safe harbor line. We’ve established a relationship with the media early, and we’ll throw him to the wolves if we have to. He will give us our information, or I’ll turn him into this city’s next great corporate villain. Leona Helmsley will look like Mother Teresa. But don’t worry – it was subtle enough that we won’t get any heat.”

“Flann, I’m not talking about departmental policy.” All media inquiries were supposed to go through the NYPD’s Public Information Office. “The reporters? The news vans? The cameras and the microphones and the spotlights? I asked you when we pulled up how they could have heard about the murder already. But then they had all those questions – such knowing questions. I don’t think someone from the building could have tipped them off about a connection to Amy Davis.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“A serial killer, Flann? You expect me to think they came up with that on their own?”

“So I might have made a call or two before we came up here.”

“And once again, you didn’t think to tell me about it,” she said.

“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you in the crapper with me. Stern’ll be pissed. The department might-”

“Knock it off. I’m not as naive as you’ve been playing me. And I’m pretty sure I care a lot less about department rules than you do.”

“I know what I’m doing. You need to trust me,” Flann said.

“Hey pot, have you met my buddy, kettle? When are you going to get around to the rest of it?”

“Really, Ellie. We have other priorities right now.”

“I know. That’s why I’m in the car with you, letting you drive, and trying to get this over with as quickly as possible. So just go ahead and admit that this is what you had in mind all along. This is why you put me on the case. Ask for me or Ellie Hatcher? You just had to get my name in there.”

She had been stupid enough to believe that she had earned an early career as a big-time homicide detective. Now it turned out that she was just bait after all. She was here not because of any talent she had as a detective, but because the media would salivate at the idea of the little girl obsessed with the College Hill Strangler growing up to hunt a serial murderer of her own. She was here to get Flann McIlroy just a little more press.

Flann merged onto FDR Drive, the siren howling above, and then finally spoke.

“When I came up with this idea about FirstDate, it got me thinking about the mind of a serial killer. For some reason, I started making connections to the College Hill Strangler case, and then I started thinking more about your story. I told you the truth when I said I was touched by it.”

“So touched you decided to use me as bait – just not in the way I thought.”

“I figured that if this guy was into the Internet, it wouldn’t take long for him to pull up the stories about you and your dad’s history. Maybe he’d get inspired by all those letters Summer wrote, the way he kept police after him for all those years. It was the contact from the killer that finally worked in Wichita. It’s also how they caught the D.C. Sniper – a line of communication between us and him.”

“I’m not asking you to defend the plan, because here’s what’s really ironic. I would’ve done it if you’d asked, Flann. If you had a valid reason for wanting to titillate the press, I would’ve said, Go for it. Do what you need to do. But I had a right to know I was being used this way.”

“I couldn’t have known that then.”

“You should’ve known it by now. That’s your problem. Maybe it’s why the other guys have nicknames for you, why you’re an outsider. You don’t trust other cops. You think you’re better than the rest of us.”

“I’m not better,” he said.

“I know. You’re not.”