He ripped a page from his notebook and handed her an address.
It sounded rational enough, but she could tell from Rogan’s expression that there was more to the explanation. She had been hoping for even a modicum of progress with her lieutenant, but his opinion of her seemed to be falling by the hour. And he apparently thought she was the kind of cop who would coerce a confession out of someone just to prove she was right.
“Just let me finish going through the house. You can stay with me and watch my every move.”
Rogan looked down at the street. “Please don’t put me in this situation.”
Ellie realized she didn’t have any good choices. “Can I take the car?”
“Of course.”
“Promise me you won’t let Eckels brush this off. Look for anything and everything, okay? And don’t forget about the other girls. Symanski could be our guy. The timing is right.”
Rogan pressed his lips together.
“It’s like you said, J. J. We’re partners. Any decision you make, it’s for both of us.”
He placed one hand on her shoulder. “I’ll look for anything and everything. I promise.”
CHAPTER 34
TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY Madison-Street, not Avenue-was also known as the LaGuardia Houses, a nine-building brick cluster of high-rise housing projects erected in the 1950s when the Lower East Side was still dominated by squatters and hardworking immigrants. Now, if developers had their way, they’d evict the 2,600 residents, knock down the projects, and fill the space with more luxury condos.
Ellie ignored the suspicious eyes that followed her as she made her way from the Crown Vic, through the rundown courtyard, into House 6. She took the elevator to the eleventh floor. The moment the doors pinged open, she was welcomed by a giant X of crime tape across a door at the end of the hall.
She ducked beneath the tape and flashed her shield to the uniform officer at the door. He nodded toward the back of the living room.
One man in a suit stood out among the crowd of uniforms and technicians in the apartment. He was telling a woman with a camera to make sure she got plenty of photographs of dark burgundy splatter across the television screen and the wall behind it.
“Ellie Hatcher,” she said by way of introduction, struggling to hold up her badge with her left hand. “I was told you had news for me about a robbery?”
“Ken Garcia,” he said, offering his hand, then quickly rethinking the gesture upon seeing Ellie’s bandages. “Your lou said someone might be coming by. Didn’t seem necessary to me.”
“Why do I get the feeling you’re not just here about a mugging.”
“Nope. Our RP’s an eight-year-old girl upstairs. Called nine-one-one by herself over shots fired.” When schools taught children how to dial 911, they probably weren’t envisioning them becoming the reporting party to a homicide. “You just missed the body. Twenty-two-year-old black male named Darrell Washington. While the first responders were waiting for the homicide team, they found two brand-new handheld GPS devices purchased yesterday from the Union Square Circuit City.”
“That kind of loot out in the open and the shooter leaves it behind?”
“Hell, no. Stupid uniforms were snooping around where they didn’t belong. The bag was in the refrigerator. Guess Washington was hiding them. Who knows. Anyway, the sales receipt was still in the bag. The charges came back to Jordan McLaughlin’s credit card. Your lieutenant had a flag in the system for the Thirteenth to be notified on any developments, and I guess this counts as a development.”
“Any indication Washington’s murder was related to the mugging?”
Garcia shook his head. “Word so far-from the residents willing to speak to us-is that Washington was an outsider. A little too on his own. A little too quick to talk to cops. It could be a retaliation thing. Or we might be looking at a home invasion where the bad guy got his apartments mixed up. Narcotics has been monitoring some dealing going on next door. One thing’s for certain: whoever did it was a lousy shot-two bullets in Washington, but three in the living room wall. No dummy, though. Left the murder weapon on the floor. No serial number. No prints.”
“Did you find the credit card?”
“Nah. Washington probably used it once and ditched it. I told all this to your lou about an hour ago so he wouldn’t need to send a body over. No offense, but you must be in some kind of doghouse.”
Ellie took a quick walk through the apartment, just to make it look like there was a purpose to her being there. But she knew that Eckels had sent her here just to pull her away from Symanski’s house.
There was nothing left for her to do but go home.
JESS WAS WAITING at the apartment door for her with an open bottle of Rolling Rock. He helped her shrug her coat off around her bandaged hand.
“How bad is it?”
“I could show you,” Ellie said, “but you’ve already puked once this week.”
She plopped herself onto the sofa and took a long draw from the beer.
“So are you going to stand there looking all sorry for me, or are you going to tell me what was so important that you needed me to come home?”
He shrugged. “This whole feeling-sorry-for-you-thing, my brain’s having trouble processing it. It’s usually the other way around. And I called you before I knew some crazy dude stabbed you.”
She was really getting tired of that word. “Out with it.”
Jess took a seat next to her on the couch, and she knew it was serious. He had a determined, almost somber look on his face. She hadn’t known her brother’s facial muscles were physically capable of such an expression.
“You got a phone call about an hour ago. God knows how the wench got your number, but it was from an editor at Simon & Schuster. She was trying to verify facts in a book proposal she received from Peter Morse.”
Ellie didn’t know what to say. It had been only three days since Peter had called the book pie in the sky. He certainly hadn’t mentioned sending a proposal to any editor.
“What kinds of facts?” she asked.
“Well, it’s not like she dictated a list of questions, but she was saying all kinds of stuff about Dad and the College Hill Strangler case. The book’s not just about First Date, Ellie. It’s about you. I don’t get it, El. You’ve been a vault when it comes to that stuff and now it’s in the hands of some reporter?”
Ellie wanted to defend Peter, to say he wasn’t just some reporter. He was the first man she’d met in a long time whom she could actually picture herself with. He cared about her. He could be trusted. But instead she sat in silence on her sofa, wishing she had never spoken to Peter about William Summer.
“Ellie, are you listening to me? You need to call that editor and tell her Peter’s full of shit and that you never said any of this to him.”
“I can’t lie, Jess.”
“Oh, Jesus. Not this Girl Scout shit. He’s the one who’s the fucking liar.” He flipped open her laptop on the coffee table. “There’s something you need to see, Ellie. He’s still online. I’m really sorry.”
And, sure enough, there he was. “Unpublished,” the journalist and struggling author she’d first noticed online two months ago, was still listed on the very Internet dating service where they had first met.
Same profile. Same photograph. Same just-out-of-bed brown hair and piercing green eyes. All the same, as if he hadn’t met anyone yet. As if they hadn’t spent those nights together before she left for Kansas. As if they hadn’t spoken every day while she was gone.