He said to Shrew, “Tell you what. We’re getting a new shipment tomorrow, all kinds to choose from. You come back and pick out whatever you want. On the house. You like a springer spaniel, a shih tzu, or what about a dachshund?”
Shrew couldn’t stop crying, and she said, “I’m sorry. I’m a little drunk.”
The woman retrieved the can of air freshener from the top of the cash register and headed back to the basement door. She closed it behind her, and Shrew could hear her on the stairs. Shrew and the man in the cowboy hat were alone. He took her arm and walked her out of the shop, where the black Cadillac sedan was parked. The driver in his suit and cap got out and opened the back door for them.
The man in the cowboy hat said to Shrew, “Get in and I’ll drop you off. It’s too cold to be walking. Where do you live?”
Lucy wondered if Oscar Bane was aware that his girlfriend had eighteen e-mail usernames. He was far less complicated and probably more honest. He had only one.
“Each of hers was for a specific purpose,” Lucy was telling Berger. “Voting in polls, blogging, visiting certain chat rooms, posting consumer reviews, subscribing to various online publications, a couple of them for getting online news.”
“That’s a lot,” Berger said, glancing at her watch.
Lucy could think of few people she knew who had a harder time being still. Berger was like a hummingbird that never quite landed, and the more restive she got, the more Lucy slowed things down. She found that quite the irony. Almost always it was the other way around.
“It’s really not a lot these days,” Lucy said. “Her e-mail service, like most of them, was free as long as she didn’t want additional options. But basic accounts? She could open as many as she wanted, all virtually untraceable because she didn’t need a credit card, since there’s no fee, and she wasn’t required to divulge any personal information unless she chose to. All anonymous, in other words. I’ve come across people who have hundreds, are a one-person crowd, their aliases talking to each other, agreeing, disagreeing, in chat rooms, comments sections. Or maybe they’re ordering things or buying subscriptions they don’t want easily linked to them, or who knows what. But with rare exception, no matter how many aliases a person has, usually there’s just one that’s really them, so to speak. The one they use for their normal correspondence. Oscar’s is Carbane, rather straightforward—as it’s the last part of Oscar appended to his surname, unless his hobby is organic chemistry and he’s referencing the systematic analogue of the mononuclear hydride CH-four, or he builds airfield models and is alluding to the carbane struts mounted to biplane wings. Which I sort of doubt. Terri’s is Lunasee, and we should look at those e-mails first.”
“Why would a forensic psychology graduate student pick a username like that?” Berger said. “Seems extremely insensitive to make an allusion to lunatics or lunacy or any other disparagement from the Dark Ages. In fact, it’s worse than insensitive, it’s cold-blooded.”
“Maybe she was an insensitive, cold-blooded person. I’m not one to deify the dead. A lot of murder victims weren’t necessarily nice people when they were alive.”
“Let’s start with mid-December and work our way up to the most recent ones,” Berger directed.
There were one hundred and three e-mails since December 15. Seven were to Terri’s parents in Scottsdale, and all the rest were between Terri and Oscar Bane. Lucy sorted them by time and date, without opening them, to see if there was a pattern of who wrote most often and when.
“Far more from him,” she said. “More than three times as many. And it looks like he wrote her at all hours. But I’m not seeing any e-mails from her that were sent later than eight p.m. And in fact, most days of the week, nothing from her after four in the afternoon. That’s really strange. You’d think she had a night job.”
“It could be they talked on the phone. Hopefully, Morales has already started on phone records,” Berger said. “Or he should have. Or maybe he went on vacation and didn’t tell me. Or maybe he’d better start looking for a new career. I like the last option best.”
“What’s his problem, anyway? And why do you put up with it? He treats you with complete disrespect.”
“He treats everyone with complete disrespect and calls it prioritizing.”
“What do you call it?” Lucy continued opening e-mails.
“I call it cocky and irritating as hell,” Berger said. “He thinks he’s smarter than everyone, including me, but what makes it complicated is he is smarter than most people. And he’s good at what he does if he chooses to be. And in most cases, his priorities end up making sense and he gets things done in a fraction of the time it takes someone else. Either that or somehow he manages to get people to do the work for him, then finagles accolades for it while managing to get that person into trouble. Which is probably what he’s doing now.”
“To Marino,” Lucy said.
It was as if she had decided it was easiest to think of Marino as just another detective she really didn’t know. Or maybe she didn’t hate him as much as Berger had assumed.
“Yes, he’s putting Marino out on a limb,” Berger said. “Marino seems to be the only one doing anything that matters.”
“He married?” As Lucy opened e-mails. “Obviously, I’m not talking about Marino.”
“He’s not exactly the commitment type. Screws anything that stands still. Maybe even if it doesn’t stand still.”
“I’ve heard rumors about the two of you.”
“Oh, yes. Our famous Tavern on the Green tryst,” Berger said.
They skimmed through the typical mundane electronic exchanges that people fire back and forth.
“That murder in Central Park last fall,” Lucy said. “The marathon runner raped and strangled. Near the Ramble.”
“Morales drove me to the scene. Afterwards, we stopped by Tavern on the Green for coffee and to talk about the case. Next thing, it’s all over the city that we’re an item.”
“That’s because it was in Gotham Gotcha. One of the infamous sightings. Including a photograph of the two of you looking cozy,” Lucy said.
“Don’t tell me you have search engines chugging after me morning, noon, and night.”
“My search engines don’t chug,” Lucy said. “They’re a little faster than that. The source of information for that gossip column is mainly what the readers send in. Almost always anonymously. How do you know he didn’t?”
“That would have been pretty clever of him. Taking a photograph of both of us while we were sitting across the table from each other.”
“Or getting somebody else to,” Lucy said. “Quite a feather in his cap. The superstud detective having a cozy tryst at Tavern on the Green with the superstar DA. Be careful of him.”
“In case you missed the important point, we weren’t having a tryst,” Berger said. “We were having coffee.”
“I have a funny feeling about him. Maybe recognize certain traits even though I haven’t met him. Someone who should have complete power over him, outranks him, outclasses him, and he, quote, prioritizes. He makes you wait your turn in line? Makes himself the center of your attention in a negative way, because he aggressively trips you up at every chance? Who’s got the power? A tried-and-true trick. Assert dominance, be disrespectful, and next thing, the big boss is in your bed.”
“I didn’t realize you’re such an expert,” Berger said.
“Not that kind of expert. When I’ve had sex with a guy, it’s never been because he dominated me. It’s always been because I made a mistake.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I did,” Berger said.
She skimmed through e-mails. Lucy fell silent.
“I apologize,” Berger again said. “Morales makes me angry because, you’re right, I can’t control him and I can’t get rid of him. People like him shouldn’t go into policing. They don’t blend with the rank and file. They don’t take orders. They’re not team players, and everybody hates them.”
“That’s why I had such a stunning career with the Feds,” Lucy said quietly, seriously. “Difference is, I don’t play games. I don’t try to overpower and belittle people so I can get what I want from them. I don’t like Morales. I don’t have to know him. You should be careful of him. He’s the sort of person who could cause you real trouble. It worries me that you never really know where he is or what he’s doing.”
