212

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

9:40 P.M.

“Hey, Rain Man. Get around this idiot, will you?”

Rogan swerved his BMW around a minivan with Vermont plates meandering in the right lane.

“How long are you going to keep up this Rain Man shit?”

Ellie looked at her watch. “It’s been about thirty minutes. I’m thinking about sixteen more years and I’ll be done.”

“Really, it’s no big deal.”

“Yeah, okay. Whatever. ‘I’m an excellent driver. Fifteen minutes to Judge Wapner. 82-82-82. 246 total.’”

“Look who’s the Rain Man.”

“I can’t believe, out of all the numbers on Megan Gunther’s call list, you recognized a match to Battle’s BlackBerry.”

“This is coming from the woman who still remembers the date of birth of the first perp she arrested?”

“And I’m pretty sure you called me a freak when I made the mistake of telling you about it.”

“You know how long I stared at those call logs trying to figure out who we needed to talk to first? I remembered a call that went from Megan’s landline to some number in Connecticut. But it was a onetime call, and four months ago at that, so we didn’t get to it yet. But I looked at the lists long enough to recognize those same digits when I saw them again.”

The number belonged to a cell phone owned by a woman named Stacy Schecter. Schecter had a Connecticut area code, but according to AT&T, the bills went to an apartment on the Lower East Side.

“A twenty-year-old-college student and a thirty-one-year-old real estate agent, both making phone calls to the same woman.” Rogan pulled the car to a stop in front of a fire hydrant on Avenue B and 4th Street. “So who’s Stacy Schecter going to turn out to be?”

Ellie pictured the scene back at the Royalton, thought about the room’s four-hundred-dollar price tag, and imagined a possible scenario.

“I’ve got a guess, but there’s only one way to find out.”

The brick building stood out from its other brick neighbors, thanks to layers of bright white paint interrupted by red, yellow, and blue accents on what were probably architecturally significant details on the building’s exterior. The overall effect was Miami Beach meets Sesame Street.

As they crossed the street, they spotted a man balancing an insulated red pack the size of a pizza box against his hip as he pressed the buzzer next to the building’s gated entrance. Rogan stepped up his pace to catch the gate before it closed. The deliveryman was unfazed by the sight of the two of them entering behind him. They followed him up the stairs, breaking off at the second floor.

Ellie recognized the Kate Bush song blasting inside Apartment 2B as a tune she and Jess had enjoyed in high school. She rapped her fist against the door. The music continued, and she tried again, this time harder. “Police. Open up.”

The volume decreased drastically, and Ellie pounded on the door again.

A matter-of-fact voice finally spoke to them from the other side of the door. “You don’t look like cops.”

Ellie held her badge up in front of the peephole, and then listened as three separate locks untumbled. A pair of black-lined eyes peered out to them over a safety chain. “Sorry. He usually waits till ten o’clock before bitching about the noise.”

“Who?”

“The misanthrope in 2C. I assume he’s the one who called you. It’s sort of his thing.”

“Are you Stacy Schecter?”

“Yeah, that’s me.”

“We’re not here about the music. Can you open up?”

The girl shut the door before reopening it, this time wide enough for them to enter. The apartment was on the large side for a studio, or perhaps it just seemed large because of its sparseness. The only seating to be had was on a twin mattress that rested in the corner beside a milk crate doubling as a nightstand. The rest of the apartment was empty except for a plastic folding table and two easels. The easels held stretched canvases exploding with abstract smears of primary colors. On the table were a sprawl of painting supplies and an iPod plugged into miniature speakers from which the offending music had blasted.

Stacy Schecter wore a Flashdance-style black sweatshirt and skinny jeans, both smudged with paint, as were her bare feet. Her straight black hair hung to her shoulders in a long shag cut, and dark black eyeliner rimmed her big brown eyes. Ellie placed the woman in her mid-twenties.

“I’d offer you a seat, but I’m pretty much the only one allowed in my bed.”

“Not a problem,” Ellie said. “You’re alone here?”

Stacy pretended to glance around the room. “To my knowledge.”

“Mind if I take a look around to be sure?”

“Um, no, I guess not.”

Ellie opened a sliding door to reveal a cramped closet, while Rogan opened and closed the only other door in the apartment. “Bathroom’s clear,” he said.

“So this is definitely not about the noise,” Stacy said.

“You know a woman named Katie Battle?” Ellie asked. “She’s a real estate broker?”

Stacy shook her head. “Not exactly in any position to buy real estate, in case you can’t tell.”

“How about Megan Gunther? She’s a sophomore at NYU. Lives near Union Square Park.”

Stacy shook her head again. “I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

“We think you can.”

Silence filled the room until Stacy broke out into a surprisingly disarming smile. “You two clearly know something I don’t. And I was kind of in the zone here, so if we could just cut through the usual whatever-it-is-you-guys-do-to-break-people-down, I’d be happy to help you out.”

“You got a cell phone call yesterday from a woman named Katie Battle, and we’re trying to figure out why.”

“No clue. I told you, I’ve never heard of her.”

“You mind if we take a look at your phone, then? If this is some kind of mistake on the part of the phone company, we can take it up with them.”

“Um, yeah, I guess I do kind of mind.”

“So maybe you’ve heard of her after all.”

“No, but…how about I check out my phone and see what you’re talking about?”

Ellie looked to Rogan, and he nodded. They watched as Stacy removed a flip phone from a bright blue Pan Am vinyl travel bag on the bed.

“The call came in at 3:15 p.m.,” Rogan said.

“Yeah, I see it now. It was a hang-up. I figured at the time it was a wrong number.”

Stacy’s failure to answer the call didn’t explain why Katie Battle had called Stacy’s number in the first place, nor why Megan Gunther had called her four months ago.

“What about Megan Gunther?” Ellie asked. “She called you in May from her apartment.”

“Last summer? I have no clue how I’d remember that. And I told you, I don’t know anyone by that name.”

“Why don’t you let me take a look at the screen with yesterday’s incoming call on it? That would help us sort through this whole thing.”

“My phone’s private.”

Ellie needed Stacy to be the one to spell it out. If Ellie’s instincts were wrong and she voiced them aloud, she’d lose all leverage.

“See, that’s what’s bugging me, Stacy. You let us check out your apartment—your bathroom, your closet—no problem. But one little glance at your cell phone, and now you’re all about your privacy. We can straighten this out just by looking at your screen there. We see the digits of Katie Battle’s phone number, and we’ll know she wasn’t listed in your directory. But I have a feeling we’re not going to see just her number. We’re going to see her name, and then we’ll know you’re lying to us about not knowing her. And that’ll be that.”

Ellie saw Stacy’s fingers twitch against her phone.

“And don’t even think about trying to delete anything right now, Stacy, or we’ll pry it out of your hands if we have to, and things will get extremely unpleasant for everyone.”

The girl froze, and Ellie spotted a look of panic cross her face before the warm smile returned.

“I really don’t understand what’s going on.”

“That’s correct, and you don’t have any right to. We came here thinking you could help us out, and you assured us you would. But I’ve got to tell you that, right now, Stacy? You’re about ten seconds away from being taken into custody as part of a homicide investigation.”

“A homicide?” Her eyes widened beneath the makeup.

“Turns out your phone number is the single link between two women who were murdered today.”

“Murdered?”

“The call to your phone yesterday? The woman who dialed your number was killed tonight.”

“Miranda? Miranda’s dead?” And with that, Stacy Schecter’s black eyeliner began to stream like the cascades of paint on her canvases.