expected.
“If I get Becker’s laptop, will you be able to see if he hacked into any FirstDate accounts?”
“Don’t you have people there who know how to do that?”
“Yeah, we do. But since Becker was also a cop, I’d rather get a first look from someone who’s not part of the department. Would you mind? Obviously I’d have our people take another look officially, but I’d feel better getting an initial lay of the land.”
“Uh, sure. I guess I can at least look. I might not be able to tell anything, though. It depends how good he was at cleaning up his tracks.”
Ellie thanked Upton, then estimated the time it would take for Dixon to get an arrest warrant for Rostov and to negotiate the release of Becker’s laptop from the NYPD. “It probably won’t be until tomorrow. End of today at the earliest.”
“That should be fine. I’ve got a pretty flexible schedule here.”
“Thanks. And we can keep this between the two of us? You can understand how sensitive this is.”
“Sure. Mum’s the word.”
Ellie was taking a risk trusting Jason Upton, but she’d thought it through carefully. If Upton were the kind of person who wanted attention, he would have already sold to the highest bidder everything he knew about FirstDate and the help he’d given McIlroy on Becker’s background check. He hadn’t. This call helped confirm her impression: Upton would not go to the media. She thanked him once again before saying good-bye.
Another call came in just as she flipped her phone shut. “Hatcher.”
“Detective Hatcher, this is Barbara Hunter, Carrie Hunter’s mother? I hope it’s okay to call you. Your partner gave me both of your numbers last week, and, well, I know from experience you’re going through some very difficult times right now, but I didn’t know who else to call. I’m sorry, I’m rambling.”
“That’s okay, Mrs. Hunter. Of course you’re welcome to call me whenever you’d like.” Ellie looked at her watch, feeling the minutes slipping away, along with the high of the momentum of ideas and energy she’d felt in Dixon’s office.
“I saw the news about that police officer on CNN. He’s the man who killed Amy?”
“Yes. I’m sorry. Someone should have called you before the press conference to tell you personally.” Apparently Lieutenant Jenkins’s penchant for rudeness extended beyond Ellie and departmental politics.
“I’m calling because I’ve seen that man before. He came to see my daughter at her apartment. I was there for a visit, and I never forget a face. I’m sure it’s the same police officer.”
Ellie pictured the note in Caroline Hunter’s binder –
Then, even before Mrs. Hunter corrected her, she realized what she’d been missing.
“No. He went there as a detective. He took a report from her, a report about her credit card.”
Ellie felt the high coming back on. She knew in her gut that this was related to the motive – not religion, not the Book of Enoch, but greed, jealousy, lust, or revenge.
“He didn’t go see her about FirstDate,” Ellie said.
“Well, I guess it was about FirstDate to some extent. She opened a new MasterCard, used it on FirstDate, and then within a month, she got a bill for a refrigerator purchased in Houston, Texas.”
“And she reported the fraudulent charges?”
“Oh, sure she did. The credit card company wiped it right off her bill once she swore she didn’t make the purchase, but Carrie wanted them to look into it. You see, she’d only made one charge with that card, and it was to FirstDate.”
Credit cards. Tatiana’s heroin bust started as an investigation into unauthorized credit card use. Lev Grosha paid a motel clerk to run credit cards through a scanner that stole the numbers. FirstDate had access to thousands of customers’ credit cards. And Ellie was still trying to tie this strand together, but someone named Edmond Bertrand had been arrested for credit card fraud as well.
“Credit card companies rarely launch their own investigations into fraud,” Ellie explained. “They just cover the loss, like you said.”
“That’s what they told her. So she called the police, but they gave her some hooey about the report needing to go to the police down in Houston unless she had evidence of criminal activity in New York.”
“So do you know how Detective Becker came to take her report?” Ellie asked.
“Well, she started complaining to FirstDate. I remember because, in light of her studies, you know, she was so fascinated that she could not for the life of her get on the phone with a real person. All of the company’s business was conducted on the Internet. So she sent a message to them on their Web site, telling them that their – well, I don’t know what it would be called-”
“Their server?”
“Something like that. But she said something wasn’t secure because she’d only used her card one place and was sure she hadn’t lost track of it physically. Then the detective showed up. I don’t know if he came because of the report to FirstDate, or to MasterCard, or to the precinct, but I’m sure the man was Ed Becker.”
“And what happened?”
“Nothing. He took the report, but told her that chances were, nothing would come of it. He told her most of the fraud cases just fall into a black hole.”
It was a true statement, but Ed Becker would have had no legitimate reason for being the one to deliver it. Caroline’s complaint wouldn’t have triggered a home visit, and Becker wasn’t in the fraud unit in any event. And Flann had run Caroline Hunter’s name through the NYPD system, and no credit card complaint appeared. If Becker had gone there to talk to her about her suspicions, it hadn’t been on the NYPD’s behalf.
“Did she continue complaining after the report was taken?” Ellie asked.
“I just don’t know. I left town and she never mentioned it again. This has something to do with her murder, doesn’t it?”
“I honestly don’t know, Mrs. Hunter. But I’m trying to find out.”
“Will you please tell me if you learn something new?”
“I promise.”
If Caroline Hunter was killed because she was jeopardizing a credit card fraud scheme, it explained why she and Tatiana were killed by the same gun. Both women had gotten in the way, so both women were silenced. It also explained why they were the only victims who were shot – two bullets to the back of the head, quick and easy – while Amy Davis and Megan Quinn were asphyxiated. It explained why Amy Davis’s murder had been so brutal, so intimate – it was, in fact, the
All along, they’d been looking at two patterns, not one. Tatiana Chekova and Caroline Hunter. Amy Davis and Megan Quinn. Four women, two patterns. She needed to go to Brooklyn again.
37
ELLIE PHONED THE ROSTOV APARTMENT FROM THE BUILDING stairwell. “Hello. This is Laura Liemann calling from the American Red Cross. Is Vitali Rostov in?”
Once Zoya confirmed that her husband was unavailable, Ellie made her way upstairs and knocked on the Rostovs’ door. She heard a shuffle behind the peephole, but no one answered.
“Zoya, it’s Detective Hatcher. I know you’re there. Open up.”
She heard locks tumbling, then Zoya’s face appeared in a crack in the doorway.
“Please, go away.”
“We need to talk. I know you’re having some doubts about your husband right now. Denying your suspicions is not going to make them go away.”
“Vitya is not a perfect man, but he would not do the thing that you are suggesting.”
“I never suggested anything, Zoya. If you think he’s connected to your sister’s death, then you came to that on your own. Let me in. If you’re expecting your husband to come home, we can go somewhere else to talk. I can help
