212: A Novel Part 9

PART II.

"GO AHEAD. LIE TO ME."

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

10:15 A.M.

Despite two large coffees and a cherry Danish, Ellie still felt like she'd been hit over the head with a sledgehammer and then strapped to an all-night merry-go-round.

She had gotten the tears under control by the time she and Jess made their way back to her apartment last night, but the emotions that had led to the outburst were still raw enough that she'd made the mistake of adding two Rolling Rocks at home to the two rounds of whisky she'd already consumed at Plug Uglies.

And then of course there had been the telephone call to her mother.

Her nightly calls to Wichita were never what she'd call the highlight of her days. At best the calls were short, just long enough for a telephonic kiss good night. At worst, they were hour-long reminiscences, with Ellie's mother lamenting her status as a widowed bookkeeper whose happiest days were long behind her. Last night's call fell on the crummy end of the spectrum.

And whether it was because of the whisky, the bad jail memories, the conversation with her mother, or a combination of the three, Ellie had slept in fits and spurts for a second consecutive night.

The case certainly wasn't doing anything to help her stay awake. She was poring over Robert Mancini's financial records and telephone logs while Rogan was at the courthouse briefing Judge Bandon.

Ellie looked up to see Lieutenant Robin Tucker standing next to her desk, hands on hips in a tailored white s.h.i.+rt and black pantsuit.

"Rogan's not back yet?"

Ellie glanced at the readout on her desk phone. Ten-fifteen. Rogan was supposed to meet Max in the judge's chambers at nine.

"Should be done soon," she said.

"Good. Call him. You two are up." She handed Ellie a piece of paper with an address on it. East Fourteenth Street. Somewhere near Union Square Park.

Ellie scanned the squad room and saw several other teams of detectives working away in paired sets of desks.

"Rogan and I were hoping to take a new look at where we are on the Mancini case."

"I told you two you're not protected. New callouts just like everyone else."

Ellie scouted out the squad room again, this time less subtly. "I'm not sure when Rogan will be done, Lou."

"You're a big girl, Hatcher. Your partner will find you soon enough. Now scoot. Your body's a dead college girl. Right up your alley. Who knows? If she's from Indiana, you might just earn yourself another medal."

Her lieutenant's quip referred to the murder last spring of a mid-western college student. The case had earned Ellie a Police Combat Cross for what the commissioner had called her "extraordinary heroism while engaged in personal combat with an armed adversary under circ.u.mstances of imminent personal hazard to life." At the ceremony, Ellie had known the commissioner was simply reading the standard language that defined the award itself, but she had committed the words to memory anyway. They provided a palatable description of that case's unflinching violence, both in the killer and ultimately in Ellie when she had taken his life. Robin Tucker could mock the recognition if she wanted, but Ellie knew that the finest thing she'd ever done in her life was to bring some measure of justice to that Indiana family.

The address that Tucker had handed her turned out to be on the southwest corner of Union Square Park. Ellie approached the address from the east, hit her dashboard emergency lights to flip a mid-block U-turn, and then pulled the Crown Vic in front of a fire hydrant on Fourteenth Street. Around the corner on University Place, she saw three patrol cars, an ambulance, another unmarked fleet vehicle, and the medical examiner's van. The gang was all there.

The apartment building itself was a new condo, erected like so much new construction on top of a bank branch. On the other side of double gla.s.s doors off of University, she spotted a young Asian patrol officer with a crew cut inside the tiny lobby, his gaze apparently fixated on the abstract painting that filled the wall opposite the building's elevator. She pulled on one of the doors. It was locked, but the sound of her attempt caught the patrol officer's attention, and he pushed the door open for her.

Ellie flipped opened the badge holder clipped to her waist. "Apartment 4C?"

With a silent nod, he pressed the call b.u.t.ton. She stepped inside and watched the digital readout track her trip to the fourth floor. The quiet of the elevator was immediately disrupted when the doors parted.

"G.o.d d.a.m.n it, how the f.u.c.k did the EMTs wheel the other girl out of here?"

Ellie turned to see a short, heavyset man with a dark mustache and thick neck struggling with a gurney in the narrow hallway. She quickly counted four apartment doors-three closed, one held ajar by a uniformed patrol officer who was still staring at the black heavy-grade plastic body bag flopped on top of the aluminum gurney.

"Coming through," the man said. Short of breath, he pushed the gurney farther toward Ellie and the elevator. "No one's supposed to be up here anyway. d.a.m.n it," he cried out to no one in particular, "someone call that stupid f.u.c.k in the lobby and remind him his one and only f.u.c.king job this morning is to serve as a human s.h.i.+eld between these apartments and any more people to get in the way."

"Looked like he was doing his job to me." Ellie flashed her detective's s.h.i.+eld to the harried technician. "Besides, what's the rush? Doesn't look like you've got much hope of saving her."

"Hey, sorry about that." He offered a gloved hand on instinct. "Gabe Berry. ME's office."

She wrinkled her nose at the sight of his extended hand, and shook her head.

"Oh, yeah, right." He wiped the perspiration from his brow with his palm. "You're from Homicide?"

"Yep. You said the EMTs took a girl out of here already?"

"Yeah, now that was a rush. They were hauling a.s.s out of the lobby when I pulled up. Taking her to St. Vincent's, I think."

"She supposed to make it?"

"No clue. From what I could see, there was big-time bleeding. She managed to crawl to the phone and dial 911, but it didn't look so good. They found a pulse, but it was slow and weak. Could still be a DOA."

"Anyone else we need to keep track of?"

"Nope. Just this unlucky one and the other less unlucky one."

"And you were going to take my body before I got a look. How could you do that to me, Gabe?"

He shrugged. "A lot of detectives don't give a sh-don't care. We bag and tag. They get the details later from the ME."

"Not me. I want to see her."

Plenty of detectives were content to leave the technical aspects of a case-the inspection of the body, the crime scene a.n.a.lysis, the collection of physical evidence-to the teams of specialists a.s.signed those tasks in any large police department. But seeing the victim's body wasn't just a matter of science. It was the first-and often, only-introduction to a human being whose life had been taken. This was Ellie's chance to see the person before all color was gone. Before a forensic pathologist cut a Y incision into her torso, removed her internal organs, and sawed open her skull. While there was perhaps still some lingering sign of the spirit that had been lost.

"I want to see her," she repeated.

"Here?" He looked at both sides of the narrow hallway. The idea of him navigating his broad body on either side of the gurney was clearly unimaginable.

She turned sideways and wiggled herself around the edge of the aluminum cart, careful not to place any pressure on the side of the body, and then pulled the bag's zipper halfway down. She peeled apart the covering of the plastic to reveal the girl's face.

She was young. Early twenties, max. Perhaps even still a teenager. Tucker had told Ellie to expect a college girl, so it made sense that she was young.

She was plain, at least in this condition. She had long, straight, blond hair, and Ellie could tell that this seemingly rushed technician had taken the time to arrange it around her shoulders, away from her eyes and face. Her skin was the color of Silly Putty, marred by streaks of dried red blood, but Ellie could tell that the girl's complexion had been clear and clean. This was a girl who had taken care of herself. A few freckles darkened the bridge of her nose.

"Who is she?"

"Ask them." Berry looked over his shoulder toward the apartment. Ellie noticed that the patrol officer who had been holding the door ajar was no longer there. "Like I said, I bag and tag. Some college chick, from what I heard."

On another day, Ellie might have told the guy to show some respect-this woman didn't deserve to be called "some chick." But then Ellie looked at the girl's s.h.i.+ny hair, so neatly straightened inside the body bag. Berry's demeanor came with the territory, but he had treated this girl as a person, even in death.

She unzipped the bag farther to reveal more of the body. Ellie looked past the damage that had been inflicted by the knife, forcing herself to focus first on the person, not on the violence.

The girl wore a ribbed cotton V-neck T-s.h.i.+rt and a pair of dark blue jeans. She was in good shape, with slim arms and a flat stomach. The jeans. .h.i.t her just beneath the belly b.u.t.ton, not the kind of pelvis-revealing denim for which so many young, fit women opted these days.

No jewelry except for a dainty chain holding a tiny heart that rested just beneath her collarbone. It was the kind of necklace a girl this age would have been given by either a mother or a boyfriend. She made a mental note to find out which.

She scanned the body one more time and swallowed a lump forming in her throat. Someday she'd get past this. One day she might complete this ritual-this need to be introduced to the victim at the beginning of a new case-without letting it get to her. But she honestly didn't know whether she'd still be the same person when that day came.

For now, she did her best to hide her emotions from Berry and gave a silent nod to the girl in the bag. Now it was time to take a more a.n.a.lytical look at the body.

What had been the girl's bright white T-s.h.i.+rt was soaked through with near-black blood. Beneath slashes in the cotton fabric, Ellie saw several deep gashes in the abdomen, sides, and chest. She counted at least six. Some of them appeared to be long but shallow slices, perhaps inflicted in a struggle. But one wound in her chest and another near her liver evidenced deep, forceful, and, most likely, the fatal stabs.

Ellie's inspection was interrupted by the cheerful ding of the elevator beside her. The doors opened, and J. J. Rogan stepped into the hallway.

"You were gonna let them cart away our body before Double J got here?"

"Christ," the technician said. "Let me guess. This is your partner?"

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

11:00 A.M.

Inside Apartment 4C, Ellie counted three officers from the crime scene unit. One was photographing copious blood patterns-a combination of spatter, drips, and pools-on the bleached bamboo floors in a small dining area just inside the apartment's entrance. Another stood in the galley kitchen, carefully placing a drinking gla.s.s inside a plastic evidence bag. A final CSU officer was on her knees, dusting a door leading from the right side of the living room for fingerprints.

The apartment itself was luxurious-floor-to-ceiling gla.s.s windows, high ceilings, stainless steel kitchen appliances-but its furnis.h.i.+ngs were not much different than what one would expect for a college student, or at least one who could afford new purchases instead of the Goodwill merchandise that Ellie still depended on. Past the dining table, the main living area was just large enough to house a brown upholstered sectional sofa, a gla.s.s coffee table, and a television stand. Ellie was fairly certain that she recognized at least some of the furniture from an IKEA catalog she had browsed the previous week before throwing it into the recycling bin.

The patrol officer who had held the door for Berry and his gurney stood awkwardly near the dining table, on the opposite side of the blood. He had dark, wavy hair and a prominent nose. The sleeves of his uniform pulled against biceps that had clearly seen some time at the gym. According to a nameplate on the left side of his chest, his name was A. Colombo.

"Did he finally manage to get the meat cart into the elevator? I thought that dude was going to stroke out from the physical exertion. Geez, jog a mile or something, dude."

Ellie gave him her best deadpan look. Rogan wasn't going to let it go with just a look.

"Did someone ask you for your stand-up routine, Bob Saget?"

"Just offering some levity, Detectives. You know, comic relief. They say it helps with, you know, the morbidity."

"Laughter cures diseases, does it?" Rogan asked.

"Huh?"

"You said it helps with the morbidity, which refers to the rate of a disease or illness. It does not mean a mood that is morbid, which is the concept I believe you intended to convey, Officer."

"I'm sorry. Huh?"

"Forget it. You know the backstory here or not, Colombo?"

"The victim's parents called the precinct this morning wanting us to check in on her."

"They're sisters?" Rogan asked.

"Who?"

"The victims. You said the victims' parents. Are you saying they were sisters?"

"No, sorry. At least, I don't think so. The one victim's parents-the one who died-"

"She have a name?"

"Um, yeah." He stole a glance at his notebook and then tucked it back into his chest pocket. "Megan Gunther, according to the super. Anyway, that vic's parents were trying to call her, and she wasn't answering the phone. They got the brush-off from the dispatcher, so then they called the condo's super. He used the building's keys to enter and found...well, you can get the picture. Turns out the other vic had crawled her way to the phone to call 911 after the bad guy left, and paramedics showed up right behind him. Me and my partner responded, too."

Ellie jumped in before Rogan could correct Colombo's grammar. "Your partner's posted downstairs?"

Rogan wasn't usually so critical. Either this officer had done something to earn a place on Rogan's s.h.i.+t list, or something else was bothering her partner. She had a bad feeling his mood might be related to his trip to the courthouse that morning to brief Judge Bandon on the Mancini case.

"Yeah. Making sure no one's coming up except authorized personnel."

"And you're keeping a log of who's going in and out of here?" she verified.

He patted the pocket that held his notebook. "Just need to add the two of you."

"Good man," she said. "Got to keep track of the crime scene."

"Hey, you look pretty young. How long'd it take you to make it to Homicide? Cuz, you know, that's basically my dream. I mean, with a name like Colombo, you just got to go for it. I'd get the tan trench coat and everything."

"Just keep the log. Detectives Hatcher and Rogan. Manhattan South Homicide. In at eleven-oh-two a.m. Write it down."

Maintaining the crime scene log was not the only thing that Officer Colombo had done right that morning. He had also instructed the building's superintendent to return to his office on the building's second floor.

Ellie knocked on the office door. She detected a European accent in the voice that instructed her to come in.