212: A Novel Part 30

"I am so absolutely mortified, I don't even know what to say to either of you right now."

"Really, it's no big deal. You were on a date. I didn't mean to follow you. It's just that Sparks led me-"

"I'm not talking about my date, Hatcher. I'm talking about the fact that the two of you have known for two days that a sitting judge was engaged in criminal activity and didn't bother to tell me."

"We wanted his cooperation," Rogan said. "We thought we were most likely to get it if he trusted us to keep his confidences."

"So you put his confidences above mine."

"We thought you would feel obligated to report it," Ellie said.

"And why would that be? I care less about solving homicides than you? I'm a ladder-climbing bureaucrat who would sell out your best lead on a case to advance her own career?"

"We didn't want to put you in an awkward position."

"As if this isn't awkward. Finding out two of my best detectives don't trust me. Having one of them catch me making out on someone's porch, for Christ's sake."

"It wasn't really making out-"

Rogan stifled a snicker.

"That's quite enough, Hatcher. So let me see if I get this straight. Sparks is connected to both his dead bodyguard Mancini and the escort agency. Bandon's connected to our missing prost.i.tute, who was Mancini's last date. So now you think Bandon's special interest in the Mancini case is part of some deal with Sparks."

"Right," Rogan said.

She shook her head. "The whole reason Hatcher here got her panties in a bunch over Sparks was his refusal to let you inspect his books to look for enemies. If anything, this connection to Prestige Parties seems to help him. It explains what he was hiding. And Bandon? He wouldn't be the first judge to cozy up to a rich corporate guy in the hopes of currying favor. It is, after all, what we ladder-climbing bureaucrats do."

"We know it's a stretch," Rogan said. "But we don't have anything else."

Ellie defended the theory. "This whole thing started with Sparks's bodyguard, who happened to be in Sparks's apartment, on a date set up through Sparks's escort service. Sparks has been resisting us from day one, and I refuse to believe it was all because of this escort-service business. An experienced lawyer like Guerrero would have told him that he could have quietly cut a deal in exchange for his cooperation."

"But he might not have trusted the two of you to be quiet about it after you hooked him up that first night, Hatcher."

"I still can't imagine obstructing a murder investigation over that. He certainly isn't the first wealthy, successful man to pay for it. Ask our former governor."

"Exactly, and look what happened to him. Maybe Sparks didn't want to be Spitzered."

"He's not a politician," Ellie said. "Or a judge like Bandon. It wouldn't have been seen as a big deal."

"You should have come to me," Tucker said.

"We only decided last night about the tail," Rogan said.

"I don't just mean the tail. I mean everything. Bandon and the girl. All these various theories you hatched yesterday. You should have come to me."

They mumbled their mutual apologies.

"Well, if your plan is to catch Sparks meeting Bandon, why are both of you here right now?"

"I bought us some time this morning by sitting on Bandon until he went to the courthouse. He'll be doing arraignments until at least ten thirty. I'll be on Sparks by then."

"From the looks of this one"-she nodded toward Ellie-"you can't be getting any sleep. More importantly, I can't have you on twenty-four-hour overtime. Hatcher, you go home."

She opened her mouth to protest, but Tucker slapped her desk. "I'm throwing you a bone letting you tail Sparks at all. Rogan will cover him during the day. You can resume your spying tonight."

Rogan led the way out of the office. "I'll be right out," Ellie said.

Waiting for the office door to close behind Rogan, Ellie started with the easy stuff.

"I'm wondering what you make of the fact that Sparks went to Nick Dillon's house so late last night."

Tucker shrugged. "It's not like he was keeping it a secret. Sparks called Nick and said he was on his way. That's why I left when I did, quite frankly."

"Then why did you drive by his house after you initially left?"

Tucker's cheeks flushed, and she threw her head back against her chair and sighed. "Maybe this is proof that I shouldn't date. It's been years since I tried this, and now I know why I gave it up. I go from being a giddy schoolgirl to a nervous wreck to a jealous stalker. I'm embarra.s.sed to say, I drove by his house to make sure that it really was Sparks on his way over."

"Instead of another woman?"

She nodded. "I didn't see his car, but I did catch a glimpse of him through the living room window. Nick wasn't lying."

"Sparks pulled into the garage," Ellie explained. "His ride's worth nearly half a mil. Too good for a driveway in Riverdale, I guess."

"My ex-husband ran around on me like an alley cat on v.i.a.g.r.a. Old habits die hard, I guess."

"Didn't it strike you as odd that his boss would come over at midnight?"

"Nick said Sparks is like that. He works until all hours of the night and insists that the people around him cater to his schedule. Why? Wait, you think Nick-"

"I don't think anything. I'm asking the questions that anyone in my shoes should be asking, and as the person who was standing right there when Sparks called, you're my best witness to whether we should be looking at Dillon harder. If Sparks hired someone to kill Mancini-"

"Then Nick would be a likely candidate."

"I don't like thinking this about an ex-cop. And a friend of yours."

Tucker brushed her hair out of her face. "You're right. You should be looking at Sparks, which means looking at Nick. But I've got to be honest. I can't see it. You should have heard him go off about Sparks's refusal to cooperate. He was not happy with the man."

"But he didn't quit."

"Come on, Hatcher. That's not fair. You know how many times I would've left the force if I walked out every time I had to go along to get along? And, trust me, Nick knows Sparks should have been more helpful in the Mancini investigation, but I'm sure it has never dawned on him to suspect his boss of the actual murder."

"Would I be out of line to ask for your a.s.surances that you won't be planting that seed in his head any time soon?"

"Yes, it would. You're suggesting I have a conflict of interest?"

"I'm suggesting that Nick Dillon works for Sam Sparks and might therefore be curious."

"Look: this is more information than you have any right to know, but the truth is, I'm a forty-eight-year-old divorced woman with a twelve-year-old boy at home. Guys like Nick Dillon don't just show up in my office asking me out to dinner every day. He's good-looking, single, and a truly decent guy. Ask anyone on the job who knew him. But maybe you're right. Maybe I'm stupid to think he wants to spend his time with me. Maybe he's only doing this to get an inside track on the case for Sparks."

Ellie started to interrupt, but Tucker held up a hand. "The point is, even if all that were true, it wouldn't mean I'd fall for it. I know you're used to being the smartest woman in the room, Hatcher, but you're going to have to learn to start giving me credit. Nick hasn't gotten one speck of information from me about your case. When he apologizes for Sparks or asks how it's going or even when he defended you after your antics in the courtroom, I've never once given him a thing."

"Why have you been keeping us away from Sparks?"

"I haven't-"

"You've got to give me some credit, too. We came to you on Thursday saying we wanted to look at Sparks again, and by Friday, we're chasing the Megan Gunther callout."

"At first, the Sparks angle looked like a waste of time. And the Gunther case really was up your alley."

"And what about your comments? About me? Wunderkind, darling of the bra.s.s, promoted too early. Pretty strong hints as to what you think about me."

"I'm what my sister calls a strong personality. You shouldn't take it personally."

Ellie looked at the floor and decided there was no need to respond. She had just risen from her chair when Tucker stopped her. "I can't show you favoritism."

"Excuse me?"

Tucker looked to the sealed blinds that covered the gla.s.s between her office and the squad room. "I can't appear to favor you. With them. I'm new around here, but I've done this before, first as a sergeant and now as a lou. I know how it works. You think I don't know what goes through their heads when they find out their new boss Robin Tucker isn't a guy with a gender-ambiguous name? b.i.t.c.h. d.y.k.e. Affirmative action. I've heard it all, but I know how to get past it. It's all about competence. And I'm good at my job, Hatcher. And despite some of the s.h.i.+t I've given you, I know you are, too. You f.u.c.king earned that Police Combat Cross. But if they think I favor you over them, we're both toast. Is that any better of an explanation?"

Ellie nodded, looking up from the linoleum long enough to catch Tucker's eye. "Thanks."

"Now, if we're all through with the girl talk, I'd suggest you get yourself some rest."

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN.

6:00 P.M.

Stacy Schecter was wearing new shoes, or at least new to her.

She had spotted the black Christian Louboutin slingbacks last week at Housing Works. She'd found some funky vintage bargains before at her favorite used clothing haunt, but she rarely had the kind of luck to come across anything by an in-demand contemporary designer in like-new condition. Even though they might have been a half size too large for her feet, she nevertheless swept up the three-inch pumps as too good a find to pa.s.s up. The shoes might not appeal to Stacy the artist, but they suited Stacy the Honest and Attractive Brunette just fine.

As she made her way west on Twelfth Street, she was cautious with her steps, mindful of the height of her heels and the looseness of the straps behind her ankles. At the same time, she was aware of the minutes pa.s.sing on the clock and knew she couldn't squander them.

Ideally she should have left her apartment earlier. She liked to arrive at the meeting locations well before the clients. The extra time allowed her to still her mind and get into character. It also permitted her to watch the man arrive. Make sure he was on his own, no backup officers monitoring the conversation. No one waiting to bust her once they'd struck the agreement of s.e.x for money.

But tonight she'd continued painting long past the moment she should have begun preparing for her date, and now she was running late. She suppressed the urge to linger at the bargain shelves outside the Strand Bookstore and scurried across Broadway against the light, provoking a honk from a pa.s.sing cab.

She was only one block from her destination and her mind was still back in the apartment. She'd been working on the piece she had tentatively ent.i.tled Katie Was Miranda. She couldn't remember the last time she had felt so confident. Somewhere along the way, she had transitioned from a college student who truly believed she would be the next Lee Krasner or Agnes Martin to an artist who chose palette colors based on the latest trends in yuppie home decor. Her painting no longer had anything to do with her. She had stopped painting for herself entirely.

But her portrayal of Miranda/Katie was different. Some artists painted what they saw in life. It had been a long time since she had attempted even to do that. But with this piece, she was going further, painting not what she saw in those photographs of Miranda, but what she felt when she saw them. She had no idea whether anyone would enjoy the piece, or admire it, or even lay eyes on it for that matter.

All she knew was that she had to finish. Every stroke of the brush against the canvas was like its own kind of bloodletting. For the first time in years, her art was personal. It was art. And she wasn't going to stop with Miranda/Katie. She was carrying other images in her head-of absence and longing, of love and violence, of masked male faces and exposed female bodies. She finally felt inspiration for a series. If she was going to make her money with her body, she might as well make her art count for something. She'd roll the dice and see what happened. Maybe she'd be the only person ever to see it. Or maybe these would be the paintings that would change her life.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT.

6:00 P.M.

Ellie woke up knowing that something had happened. She knew it not in the way you know the multiplication tables, or the ident.i.ty of the first president, or the capitals of the fifty states, or anything else learned through study or cognition. She knew it in the way you immediately recognize the smile of a long-lost friend, even before you've placed the face within your past. She knew it in the way you sense the onset of a cold, even before you have any tangible symptoms. She knew it not just with her mind, but with her stomach and her heart and her blood and her soul.

She woke up knowing at a base, cellular level that something had happened. Rogan had lost Spark's trail, or had seen something but failed to recognize the significance. Something.

She reached for her cell phone on the nightstand. No new calls registered on the screen. She pulled up the digest of recent calls to make sure. Nothing. But the fact that she hadn't missed a call did not put to rest the anxiety coursing through her body. Something had happened, and she had slept through it.

The intensity of her agitation was momentarily disrupted by the tickle of a fingertip meandering near her right hip, across the faded appendectomy scar, then up toward her navel.

"You're awake." Max brushed her hair back and kissed her just below her earlobe.

"This time it might actually be for good."

She had called him from the precinct to say she'd been sent home for the day and would be working at night instead. She'd been home only forty minutes when he showed up at her apartment. Now the sun was less bright through the bedroom window blinds, and the cacophony of running engines and car horns below told her that evening commuters were lined up outside the Midtown Tunnel.

Except for a brief traipse to the front door for their delivery tacos, they had spent the last seven hours in her bed, alternating between sleep, naughty stuff, and snippets of 30 Rock online. Based on the tickle of Max's index finger around her belly b.u.t.ton and the warmth of his breath against her neck, he wasn't asleep and had no intentions of watching another sitcom.

"Is everything all right?"

"I want it to be. I hope it is."

"El, I know you have this borderline obsessive-compulsive disorder that makes you grind away at a case until all the layers are gone and you can clear the thing from your whiteboard, but even crazy Howard Hughes occasionally let himself sleep. Since the second you left Bandon's courtroom in handcuffs, all you've done is live and breathe this case-nonstop, jumping from one body to the next, searching for one theory that might connect them. That's got to feel like a nonstop roller coaster, and now that you've stepped away from it, you probably feel like it's still moving without you and you'll never be able to get back on. But you've got to trust someone else to steer the ride for a few hours."

She nodded quietly. When she turned on her side to face him, he wrapped his arms around her.

Ellie's last long-term boyfriend, the banker, always expected her to turn off the job once she took off her uniform, but the fact that Max was asking her to take a breather actually meant something to her. One of the traits that had initially drawn her to him was his shared experience in a job that breaks the heart. They spent their days surrounded by the worst kind of human damage. They couldn't see the cases they'd seen-the pain, the violence, the wholly avoidable infliction of harm by one person upon another-without allowing that world to become some small part of themselves. Immersion in the lives of people who become a part of the criminal justice system infects the psyche. Max shared the virus with her. But now even he was worried that she wasn't coping.

She allowed herself to be kissed initially and then felt herself responding to the feel of his tongue against hers, his hand on her hip, the tilt of his pelvis beneath the sheets.

Then just as quickly as her mind registered the warmth building deep in her abdomen, she realized her thoughts about the case had escaped from their cage. This time it was Max who pulled back. He could tell she wasn't there with him. He reached for her cell on the nightstand.

"You want to call Rogan to be sure?"

She panted like a happy puppy, and flipped the phone open. Rogan picked up after one ring.

"So...d.a.m.n...bored."