Killer Ambition

29

Abe Furtoni, the NYPD officer who’d given Bailey the news, had promised to call in with updates the moment anything broke. Waiting for a call like that is nerve-racking, so just to give us a little diversion, I turned on the television and found a mindless reality show about rich housewives.

“You think they really live like that? Just doing lunch and backstabbing each other?” Bailey asked incredulously.

“No. Sometimes they go to parties and backstab each other.”

Bailey’s phone rang and we exchanged a look as she picked it up. “Keller.”

After a few “okays” she ended the call.

“They’ve traced the signal to a deserted building near the Staten Island ferry station. NYPD’s on their way to Rosebank right now. Furtoni’ll call back when he’s got more.”

My pulse kicked up several notches, all traces of fatigue gone. Unable to sit still, I began to pace. Bailey, a sphinx in these situations, loves my pacing.

Bailey eyed me as I made my first two laps. “Why don’t you go to the gym? Work off some of that nervous energy.”

“I don’t want to miss the call.” Just saying it out loud made me pace faster. After three more laps, Bailey’d had it.

“You’ll miss the call if I lock you in the closet too.”

I went to the window and looked down at Pershing Square. At eight o’clock the sun had finally begun to surrender and the last few rays of light were sinking under the weight of darkness. I walked out onto the balcony to enjoy the first cooler breezes of night air. Desiree, a flamboyant cross-dresser who seemed to spend his time parading between Temple Street and Grand Avenue, strolled by in five-inch leopard-print platform shoes, black spandex short shorts, and a bright yellow tube top. I thought the yellow and brown feathers woven into his near-waist-length black ponytail were a nice touch. I would never have had the patience. This was one of his most restrained outfits. I waved and he favored me with a nod and a little smile.

Bailey’s phone rang again. While she took the call, room service brought our dinners: steak and salad for Bailey, a Caesar salad and grilled shrimp for me. Too nervous to eat, I watched Bailey’s face, trying to read her expression. This was a lost cause if ever there was one, because Bailey has the classic poker face. The call went on long enough that I was ready to jump off the balcony by the time Bailey finished.

“Okay, here’s the deal,” she began. “Three kids, late teens, had the iPad. The youngest one coughed up the story first. They were hanging with friends in Manhattan and decided to keep partying all night, so they got a room at the DoubleTree Inn in Times Square. They saw the maid’s cart parked in front of a room with the door open, but no one was around. The iPad was lying out on the desk, so they stole it along with a watch and some other junk.”

“And that room was registered to?”

“We’ll find out pretty soon. They’re on their way there right now.”

“We need to know when that person checked in too.”

Bailey looked at me. “Gee, really?”

“Sorry, just thinking out loud.”

“No, it’s cool,” Bailey said. “I’m a little uptight myself.”

I looked at her. “A little?”

“Shut up.”

An hour-and many frayed nerves-later, she got the next call. This time it was brief. When she ended the call, she scrolled on her cell phone for a few moments, hit a key, and then looked up.

“The room was registered under the name Stuart Connor,” Bailey said. “Check-in date was the day after the ransom note was sent-”

“What time exactly?”

“Early in the morning. Around seven thirty.”

“So he picked up the ransom money, killed Brian and Hayley, and hopped a red-eye?” I asked.

“Yeah. I’m not a hundred percent clear on how one guy, even a big one, could overpower both Brian and Hayley on that mountain. But more than that, this Stuart guy-whoever he is-couldn’t have been at Russell’s house when the kidnapping note came in. Everyone who was there at the time hung around too late to have gotten out to Boney Mountain.”

Russell’s house in Bel Air was over forty miles away from Boney Mountain. “And everyone who’d been in the house that evening was also around the next day. No one was missing in action.” Stuart Connor had been out of town for days by now. That meant only one thing. “He had to have someone on the inside tell him Hayley’d been kidnapped…” That reminded me. “Did Harrellson run down our buddy Legs Roscoe?”

“Oh, yeah. He was heading up a study group that night. Has about a dozen alibi witnesses.”

So much for that. And regardless of whether this Stuart guy did the murders alone or not, he definitely was our number one “person of interest.” At least for now. “How long after he checked into that hotel was that ticket to Paris purchased on Hayley’s iPad?”

“A day, maybe? I’ll get more specifics when I hear from Abe,” Bailey said.

“Is Stuart Connor still there?”

“No. He checked out the same day those kids snatched his stuff. They’re checking surveillance cameras at the hotel, see if they can catch an image of him.”

I thought about that a moment. “If this Stuart character was using Brian’s credit card, he might be using his ID. There was no wallet on Brian’s body, was there?”

Bailey squinted. “There was…some stuff. Papers or something, but no. No wallet.”

“Then we should send Brian’s photo out to NYPD. See if anyone on the surveillance footage bears a resemblance. It’s easier to get away with using Brian’s ID if he looks at least somewhat similar.”

“I’ll get hold of Brian’s photo-”

“And when you talk to your contact…”

“Detective Abe Furtoni.”

“Right,” I said. “If they find this Stuart Connor on the surveillance footage at the hotel, tell him to make a still photo out of the best frame-”

“Yeah, so we can show it around.”

“And they’ve got an alert out for this guy at all the-”

“-airports, bus terminals, blah, blah, blah. Yes. And I was thinking we should have them check out the iPad. See if there’s any info that’ll help us track this guy. Maybe some e-mails…”

I looked at Bailey. “It’s our case. If they mess up anything on that iPad, it’ll be our asses. I say we get that thing back here ASAP and do the work ourselves.”

Bailey nodded. “We should get it in a couple of days if they send it FedEx.”

“To hell with FedEx,” I said. “If that iPad turns out to be evidence, I’ll be eating dirt through the whole trial about all the ways it could’ve been messed with en route. We need them to have an officer hand-deliver it to us.”

“I don’t think-”

“I’ll take care of it.” Even if I had to knock heads with Vanderhorn.

“I’ll give Furtoni the heads-up so he can figure out who he’s sending.”

While Bailey made the call, I pictured the iPad-its lovely touch screen.

“It’s probably a long shot since those kids stole the iPad and played around with it, but if we get lucky, we might be able to get prints off that iPad,” I said.

“Prints will be great if he’s in the system. Of course, if he’s not…”

We’d be screwed-for now. But if we got him, we’d be able to prove he had the iPad. Which would prove he was involved in the murders. It wasn’t a home run, but it was better than nothing. And a damn sight better than anything we’d had so far.