Dead Connection Read online

  “What am I looking at?”

  “Those maps track every piece of action going down in the city right now, in real time. Every 911 call, every arrest, every call-out. If we know about it, it’s there.”

  It was the twenty-first-century version of the “hot spot” policing that had made Rudy Giuliani and his crime-reducing efforts nationally famous, even before September 11. Ellie followed Naomi Skura past the data screens to a long row of cubicles, one of which held a waiting Flann McIlroy.

  “Did you tell her?” Flann asked excitedly.

  Naomi gave a small laugh. “I haven’t exactly had time.”

  “Naomi’s one of the crime analysts here. She works her tail off making sure the databases hold what they’re supposed to.”

  The blond woman interrupted to clarify. “The commissioner unveiled the center before all of the databases were up-to-date. It was a good move — makes sure all of the new information going forward is entered and accessible. But we’re still working on configuring all of the old databases so we can get maximum accessibility. One of the databases that isn’t quite up-to-date is for tracking ballistic images.”

  Ellie was vaguely familiar with the technology. “That’s where they break down information about a bullet so it’s something like a fingerprint?”

  Naomi nodded. “During the manufacturing process, the metal of a gun’s barrel is shaped and molded. When a bullet is subsequently fired through that barrel, the gun leaves its individual mark — a fingerprint, as you said. We used to compare bullet fragments and casings by hand, under a microscope. The idea behind ballistics tracking is to computerize the ballistic fingerprint, so comparisons can be made in a matter of milliseconds.”

  “That’s amazing.”

  “But,” Flann interjected, “I’ve been told it’s not a priority.”

  Naomi rolled her eyes at what was obviously a familiar conversation. “Hey, in theory we could have a federal database containing the ballistic images of every gun sold in the United States. But the gun lovers say that’s too close to gun registration. We here in the socialist republic of New York don’t have a problem with that, however. We just don’t have the money.”

  “Like I said, not a priority. The point is, despite all that, Naomi went out of her way for us. After I put Caroline Hunter’s case together with Amy Davis’s, I asked Naomi to run the bullet from Hunter through the database. No hits, but she told me how the database was backed up. So I put her to work looking for vics of a similar profile. If a gun was used, maybe the bullet hadn’t been tracked for ballistics yet.”

  “I looked at unsolved murders of white women between the ages of twenty-five and forty, killed on the street in the last three years. Your two vics were in Manhattan, educated, upper middle class. I found a couple of similar cases, but they’re suspected domestics still under investigation. Most of the other victims were demographically dissimilar — drug users or working girls. But since Flann was ragging about our substandard ballistics tracking” — she smiled at him — “I went ahead and took the bullet information from those women and added them to the database.”

  “And it paid off,” Flann said.

  “I ran Hunter again and got a match. Her name was Tatiana Chekova. She was shot almost two years ago — with a. 380 semiautomatic, just like Caroline Hunter. I haven’t had it verified by human eye yet, but the computer says the two guns were one and the same.”

  “And the computer’s reliable?” Ellie asked.

  “More so than the human eye, in fact, but the technology’s new enough that we still do it the old-fashioned way for the lawyers. Want me to send it to ballistics?”

  “Does John Daly love chicken wings?”

  “Who?”

  “See what I mean? They go right over the head.” Flann cut his hand over his head to mark the point. “Just have ballistics call me when they’re finished.”

  THE FIRST OF the three men with whom Ellie had flirted on FirstDate called himself Mr. Right. Despite the oh-so-original name, Ellie had chosen him because his etiquette was oh-so-wrong, filled with inappropriate innuendo. When Amy said she liked independent films, Mr. Right took it upon himself to ask whether she meant “snooty highbrow movies with subtitles or tastefully artistic home videos for personal use.” And then there was that comment about the picture she’d sent him of herself at Mardi Gras: “Did you show off your ta-tas?”

  The traffic on the FDR was heavy this time of day, so Flann used his lights until he found them some clear road. He checked the rearview mirror before switching lanes, then asked Ellie about the other two men she’d honed in on during the previous night’s perusal of FirstDate profiles.

  “A guy named Taylor. Quasi stalker. From what I can tell, Amy met him once for coffee, then blew him off. He e-mailed her a few times the next week, asking her what was wrong, insisting they had a real connection, wondering if she was afraid of commitment — that sort of thing. Then it looks like she blocked him from her account.”

  “You can do that?”

  “Yeah. There’s a block function on the FirstDate Web site. It’s as simple as typing in the other person’s user name, and voilà, they can’t e-mail you anymore. Taylor’s the only user name on Amy’s block list. She cut him off about a week ago, so, yeah, we’re interested in him. I also sent a flirt to a guy who calls himself Enoch.”

  “Eunuch? He’s advertising a lack of balls?”

  “No,” she said, laughing. “Enoch. Could be the name of his first dog for all I know. At first, he didn’t stand out. His online profile’s about as bland as you can get — one cliché after another.”

  “Yeah? And what’s considered cliché in the online world?”

  “Oh, come on. We both read a hundred of those trite profiles yesterday. Looking for a partner in crime. Tired of the bar scene. I want a girl who can go from pearls to blue jeans. No drama queens. Gag me. I mean, you’ve got two paragraphs to say something interesting about yourself and what you’re looking for in life, and this is what they come up with?”

  “And what should they say?”

  “Something original. Something interesting. My god, even just something that doesn’t sound cribbed from a high school yearbook might be nice. But everyone writes the same stupid stuff. That’s what got me thinking about Enoch. In a sea of profiles filled with the same banal platitudes, his stood out almost like a prototype. At first, I just thought it was lame. But then I reread the e-mails between him and Amy, and there seemed to be a disjoint between his profile and the e-mails. As generic as his profile was, his messages were specific. He was one of the few men to ask for her name immediately, which I take is a bit taboo in the online world. He wanted to know where she was from, where she went to school, what was the worst thing she’d ever done — that kind of thing.”

  “A bit too curious?”

  “Yeah. And intense. When I went back and read his profile again in light of that intensity, it was almost like he was in on the joke, using all of the standard lines. I don’t know. A long shot but—”

  “That’s the nature of risk,” Flann said, pulling the car to a stop in front of the precinct. “The long shot’s the only way to the jackpot.”

  ELLIE WENT STRAIGHT to Flann’s computer, pulled up her account on FirstDate, and immediately laughed out loud. In response to Flann’s curious look, she explained. “I have eight new messages and ten flirts.”

  “You must have slapped together some profile.”

  Ellie began clicking on the messages in her in-box. “My alter ego, otherwise known as DB990, already got a response from Mr. Right. Nothing from the other two yet. What’s next? This isn’t the part where you tell me I’m supposed to go on dates until we catch the bad guy, is it?”

  “No. Despite the moniker, I never intended to use you as date bait.” He apparently caught the significance of her user name.

  “Phew,” she said, wiping her brow. “I thought I’d have to haul out my best Pacino. Hoo-ah!”

  “He
y, Sea of Love is still classic Pacino compared to Scent of a Woman. Nice impersonation there, by the way.”

  Ellie gave a mock stage bow. “Thank you, thank you. And thank god for the next generation of personal ads. No personal contact necessary. I’ll just do what Amy would’ve done. Get a couple of e-mail exchanges and be receptive to a phone call?”

  “Sounds good. In the meantime, I see archives sent down the file on Tatiana Chekova.” He held up a navy blue binder that was waiting for them on his desk. “This should keep us busy awhile.”

  INDIVIDUAL DETECTIVES CAN justify different ways of organizing a file. Chronologically to show how the investigation unfolded, piece by piece. By type of evidence — witness statements separate from forensics. But the investigating detectives on Tatiana Chekova’s case used no apparent filing system whatsoever. Initial interviews, follow-ups, crime lab reports, victim info — all of it was commingled. Some sheets of paper hadn’t quite made it through the hole-puncher and were jammed into the notebook’s worn plastic pockets. Random handwritten notes were left unexplained and indecipherable. Ellie had never seen an NYPD murder book, but she took better care of her files on Podunk cases.

  According to the initial report, Tatiana Chekova lived in Bensonhurst but was shot outside of Vibrations on the West Side Highway in Manhattan. The report filed by a Detective Ed Becker euphemistically referred to the establishment as a “gentlemen’s club.” Ellie did a double take at the name typed at the bottom of the police report. Something about it seemed familiar. She’d come across it recently in another context but couldn’t place it.

  It was two in the morning on April 22 when one of the members of a bachelor’s party ducked to the edge of the parking lot to take a leak during a smoking break and spied bare legs behind a parked car. Assuming the legs belonged to a hooker, passed out after turning a trick, he waved his friends over for a free peep show. Her raincoat had fallen open to reveal a jeweled bra and thong. A closer look revealed a less titillating picture. Most of the woman’s brain matter had spilled to the parking lot concrete.

  The bouncer at the door confirmed that the body, outfit, and butterfly-tattooed ass belonged to Tatiana Chekova. She worked part-time as a waitress and, when money fell short, as a reluctant lap dancer on the floor. She’d been employed at Vibrations for six weeks. Sadly, no one at the club claimed to know her well.

  Considering she devoted more words to a typical burglary, Ellie thought the report fell woefully short. The detectives supposedly questioned everyone who was still at Vibrations when they arrived, but the report tersely concluded that “there were no witnesses to the shooting.” Details of the interviews were omitted. Even names were missing, except for the manager on duty, the drunken groomsman who found the body, and the lucky husband-to-be.

  It was piss-poor police work.

  The background information the detectives gathered on Chekova wasn’t any more impressive. They quickly determined she was a Russian immigrant, in New York for almost five years. They ran her record: three prostitution pops her first two years in the country; more recently, a bust for credit card fraud and heroin possession three months before her murder. According to a computer printout, the officer arrested Chekova for the fraud, then found heroin in her bedroom. The case was declined for prosecution. Ellie guessed that the search was bad. Arresting a woman in her apartment usually didn’t require a search of her bedroom.

  As she turned to the ballistics reports, Ellie fished out her jar of Nutella and spoon from the cardboard box she’d stashed underneath Flann’s desk. The crime lab reports were considerably more thorough than the detectives’. Two bullets, fired into the back of the victim’s head, close range. A lot of damage.

  “What’s that smell?” Flann looked up from his reading. “That’s something you’re eating?”

  “Nutella. A little bit nutty, a little bit of chocolate. It’s culinary perfection.”

  “Smells like something you’d scoop from the bottom of a pigpen. Not to mention it’s barely ten in the morning.”

  Ellie helped herself to another scoop and smiled. “You’ve looked at the murder book on Caroline Hunter, right?”

  “Yeah. Not much there. Her purse was stolen, so it looked like a robbery gone bad. No neighborhood witnesses. The trail ran cold — fast.”

  He looked up at Ellie, apparently waiting for her to come up with the right question. He’d also seen the crime lab reports on Chekova.

  “What about the gunshots?” she asked.

  “Two of them. Back of the head.”

  “Close range?”

  “Ballistics’ best guess was two to three feet.”

  Just like Tatiana Chekova. Same gun. Same shots. Same number of bullets. Chekova was killed nine months and ten days before Caroline Hunter. Twenty-one months and ten days before Amy Davis. No reason to suspect a FirstDate connection. No reason to dismiss it either. The original investigators had no cause to look for it. Even if they had, they might not have bothered. A Russian heroin addict, living in Bensonhurst, stripping in Manhattan.

  “I was hoping to avoid this,” Flann said, “but I think we need to talk to one of the investigating detectives on the Chekova case.”

  “Afraid of a turf battle?”

  “There’s no turf to fight over. Barney Tendall is dead — shot, off-duty, when he tried to stop a robbery. Ed Becker took retirement two months later. I guess Becker talked to Tendall on the phone a couple of hours before it all happened and couldn’t get past it — like he was supposed to stop his partner from grabbing a beer.”

  Becker. Twice Flann had spoken the name now, and twice it had rung a distant and annoying bell in the back of her mind. She closed her eyes and tried to remember but couldn’t pull the connection forward. She wrote it off as a common name she must’ve run across in the newspaper.

  “Becker’s sour on the job?” she asked.

  Flann paused before answering. “God no. Ed Becker loved being a cop. He just wasn’t very good at it if you ask me. And we’re about to point that out to him by asking the questions we can’t answer from these notes.”

  Ellie sensed a discomfort in McIlroy that went beyond having to ask a retired cop about a cold case. The man was definitely elusive with his thoughts.

  “Is there any more to it than that?”

  “We worked out of the same precinct a long, long time ago. Let’s just say that when it comes to Ed Becker, I’d prefer that you do most of the talking.”

  13

  ED BECKER LIVED IN A MODEST BRICK TUDOR IN SCARSDALE, just north of the Bronx in Westchester. Despite the proximity, Westchester was nothing like the Bronx, and upscale Scarsdale was one of the least Bronxlike of its enclaves.

  Ellie had called ahead, and Becker met them at his front door before they knocked. He was a big man — tall, thick, substantial, with a barrel chest. His skin was ruddy, his hair a light gold only just beginning to thin. He greeted them with a friendly smile.

  It wasn’t just Ed Becker’s smile that was friendly. It was the hearty way he clasped Flann’s shoulder, the enthusiastic shake he gave to Ellie’s hand, and the boisterous manner in which he waved them into his living room. It was the small things that Ellie noticed, like Becker’s metal sign reading Retirement Parking Only, which hung over an overstuffed reclining chair.

  “Nice sign,” Ellie said.

  Becker’s smile grew wider. “Yeah. Some of the boys got a little carried away with what you might call the novelty gifts when I left the job. That was about the only one that was appropriate for public display. From the looks of you, you’ve got quite a lot of years left with a shield before you’ll be having a party.”

  “Oh, every day’s a party when you’re part of the NYPD.”

  Becker chuckled. “I like that. Every day’s a party. I like this one, McIlroy. Keep her around.”

  “We plan on it.”

  Based on Flann’s comments, Ellie had expected Ed Becker to be an ogre. Now that she’d met the man in person, she won
dered whether Flann the infamous loner perhaps had the same suspicious response toward all cops.

  “So what brings you up to Westchester?”

  Becker directed his question toward Flann, but Ellie answered. “We’re looking into a possible connection between the deaths of two women in Manhattan, Caroline Hunter and Amy Davis. They were killed exactly one year apart, both after dates they had arranged online.”

  “That Internet dating is big stuff. My son met someone a couple of years ago. They’re getting married this spring. Oh, speaking of which, Mac, how’s that daughter of yours?”

  The friendly question did nothing to change the scowl Flann had worn since stepping into Ed Becker’s home. “She’s good, Ed. Thanks for asking.”

  “Anyway, Internet dating. I’ll admit, I’ve been tempted to try it myself. Read all about it, in fact. An old geezer like me, though—”

  “You’d be surprised,” Ellie said.

  “I’m sure I would. Maybe not in a good way though, you know what I mean? Wake up one morning and your pee burns and your pet bunny’s been boiled. But I suspect you didn’t drive all the way up here to kick-start an old guy’s love life.”

  “No sir. It’s about an old case of yours. We just discovered that the gun that killed one of our victims was also used to shoot Tatiana Chekova. You worked that one, right?”

  “Chekova, huh?”

  “Russian woman, found in the parking lot of a strip club.”

  “Right. Vibrations. Some name, huh? We never cleared that one. We got names off the credit cards in the club, but no one jumped out at us. Definitely wasn’t anyone in the bachelor party that found her. Two of those guys were puking their guts out on the West Side Highway.”

  Ellie saw the frustration on McIlroy’s face.

  “Um, I pulled the file this morning,” she said gently. “It didn’t contain a list of names from the club. Or at least I didn’t see it.”

  Becker looked puzzled. “It should have been there. Records ain’t always the best about holding cold cases. Anyway, it didn’t get us anywhere. With her background, we assumed it was a trick gone bad.”