“Probably, but I don’t recall a specific conversation. I was curious about her after she introduced me to her father. One day when we were both at Gramercy House.”
“Did you have any impression of her?”
“Yes, I did. She worked with me and John on my latest book, although only in a junior capacity. John’s my real editor and always has been.”
“Did you talk to Mr. Sommers yesterday, after we first talked?”
“Yes. I was curious to know what was going on and why you wanted to see me.”
“What did he say?”
“That you were searching under every rock, and that I was probably one of them. One of the rocks.”
“Did Mr. Sommers ever mention an email that he had received from Miss Courtland? An email alleging that a passage from your recent novel was lifted from an old magazine story?”
“Oh, is she the one?! I didn’t make the connection. John told me somebody in the office had made such a ridiculous charge but didn’t mention any name. He said he would take care of the person, I assume by firing him or her. I took it for granted that he’d done so and didn’t think any more about it. The whole thing was absurd.”
“So Miss Courtland’s charge was baseless?”
“Absolutely.”
“If I told you we have a copy of the Collier’s story she referred to, would that change your answer?”
“No, it wouldn’t. If there’s some sort of chance literary coincidence here, so be it. That happens all the time.”
“Even when there’s a word-for-word similarity?”
“Mr. Bautista, I think we can end this rude interrogation right here. I’m not going to listen to you repeat libels by a young junior editor, especially one that, in my case, may have been jealous for entirely personal reasons.” She started to stand up.
“As you please, Ms. Watson. But one more question, if I may. Where were you the night of April twenty-seventh?”
“At my home in Ardmore, Pennsylvania. Except for my weekly trips to New York to teach, and occasionally to see John or Dan, I’m always in Ardmore. Unless I’m out on a book tour, which I haven’t been since my previous novel came out.”
“Can anyone verify that you were in Ardmore that evening?”
“I doubt it very much. I’m a very private person and see almost no one when I’m at home. I write, not socialize. So I guess you’ll just have to take my word for it.”
“As you say, Ms. Watson.”
Darcy Watson left the room and the Club without speaking any further.
Fifteen
Ben Gilbert
Against his own counsel of non-interference, Reuben did finally call Bautista on Monday of the next week.
“You fellows on vacation?” he asked.
“Negative. Just being methodical, thanks very much.”
“I’m sorry, Luis. I’m sure you are. It’s just that curiosity got the better of me.”
“We’ve been working like hell. The commissioner’s on our back and the halitosis I smell might even mean someone higher up is breathing down my neck. Unfortunately, the work we’ve been doing has led us to exclude some possibilities rather than to include any new ones.”
Bautista went on to explain that he and his colleagues had found the young fortune hunter that Marina Courtland had rejected a couple of years before. He was now attending the Harvard Business School and appeared to have an airtight alibi for the night of her murder: participating in a reading group of fellow students discussing a new book on the Boston Strangler.
“Slight irony there, I should say,” Reuben interrupted.
“Yeah. Can you believe it? But all eight guys participating swear he was there. The other thing we’re doing, Reuben, we’re going through her address book and her cell phone and calling every number. And we’re examining every piece of paper we took away from her office and her apartment. So far we’ve come up dry, but we’ve got a long ways to go. But stand by, Reuben, we’ll get there.”
“I hope so. I’ve got to get Dan Courtland off my back. He can’t fire you but he can fire my law firm.”
“Keep it cool, Reuben, I’ll write if I get work.”
“I’ve found work, I think,” Luis told Reuben in an early afternoon phone conversation less than forty-eight hours later. “I think we’ve solved at least one mystery.”
“What’s that?” Reuben asked eagerly.
“Can I come over?”
“Since you’re not going to tell me now, what choice do I have? Hurry up.”
Bautista related the new developments when he arrived. It seems that first thing that morning, a young man named Ben Gilbert had shown up at the Nineteenth Precinct on East Sixty-Seventh Street. When he told the desk officer in charge that he had been a friend of Marina Courtland, he was hustled off to the headquarters of Detective Borough Manhattan on Twenty-First Street. Luis summarized his story:
Gilbert was a medical resident in pediatrics at Cornell-New York Hospital. With his uncertain schedule and demanding hours at the hospital, he had found little time for dating, so a friend suggested he try an Internet service called Meet.com. The friend said he could warn potential dates about his haphazard schedule, and only those who were willing to put up with it would respond.
He had gone out with several girls contacted through Meet.com, with varying results. He had become especially attracted to a young woman named Hallie Miller, whom he described as being a junior editor in a publishing house, though he didn’t know which one. She was terrific, and sympathetic to the professional demands on his time and uncomplaining about frequent changes in their dating schedule. This had often meant rendezvous at sometimes less than satisfactory late-night restaurants.
At some point, he decided that he was really interested in Miller and told her as much. Her response was to suggest that the two have dinner—during normal hours. They did, and it was over this meal that she confided that she was not Hallie Miller but Marina Courtland.
“And why did this fellow say she had done such a thing—using an assumed name?” Reuben interrupted.
“She explained to Gilbert that she’d had a bitter experience with a party who was after her money. You remember we were told about that. She thought she could find someone on Meet.com without money being a factor, and then come clean if the situation developed.”
“Extraordinary, but that fits with what we’ve been thinking.”
“I agree.”
“So what happened to this Gilbert fellow?”
“As he tells it, the money angle drove him away. He wasn’t ready to take on a billionaire’s daughter, at least not one whose father had views like those of old man Courtland. Gilbert’s been a poor scholarship student all along and didn’t think he’d fit in with the Courtlands.”
“He wasn’t interested in being set up for life?”
“No. He didn’t seem like that type of guy at all.”
“So there are young people who aren’t totally greedy, out for the buck? Thank God, if that’s true.”
“In his case, it seems to be.”
“Didn’t he have any suspicion that she was using a different name?”
“No, apparently not. He found it odd that she never asked him to her apartment, but thought that she probably had a roommate she didn’t want to tell him about. So their more intimate moments were in his tiny studio apartment on York Avenue, near the hospital. Only after the truth came out did he attach any significance to the fact that she never paid with a credit card when it was her turn to pay. She always had plenty of cash with her.”
“What persuaded this fellow to come to the police?” Reuben asked.
“He said he’d been reading about the murder in the papers and thought her murderer might be someone she’d met on the Internet.”
“A sort of virtual Mr. Goodbar.”
“Exactly.”
“Not Mr. Gilbert?” Reuben asked.
“Don’t think so.”
“What do we know about him?”
“He gave me his personal ID and password for the Meet.com website.”
“Is that M-E-E-T or M-E-A-T?”
“Meet.com. M-E-E-T, Reuben, for heaven’s sake. Anyway he gave me the info to get into his profile on the site.”
“So what did you learn?”
“He’s twenty-seven. Red hair, one hundred eighty-five pounds, six feet even. Cornell College and Medical School. Likes intelligent, amusing girls, preferably pretty ones.”
“How original.”
“Wants to get married but not until he finishes his residency. Wants three children.”
“Anything else?” Reuben asked.
“Oh yes. Doesn’t smoke, drinks moderately. Didn’t answer the question about his income—probably because it’s less than zero.”
“Luis, do you realize, assuming Mr. Gilbert is telling the truth, that with a few clicks on the Internet, you got more information than a squad of detectives could have discovered in a week, maybe a month, maybe never?”
“Yeah, I thought about that. There’s more, too. Once Gilbert put his profile on the site, girls could respond. Hallie Miller did, so her profile is available, too. And there is a record of the emails between Gilbert and her.”
“Any surprises?”
“No, there are about half a dozen messages, but all about arranging to get together.”
“What about her profile?”
“I brought a copy with me. If HallieNYC, as she calls herself, is telling the truth, it’s pretty revealing.” Bautista pulled several pages from a manila envelope he was carrying and handed them to Reuben. “Here, read it for yourself.”
Reuben did so.
HallieNYC
26-year-old woman [No picture]
New York, New York
seeking men 26–45
within New York City
About me and what I’m looking for:
I’ve been in New York City for two years, but I feel like a native. I’m more comfortable here than I ever was in the Midwest, where I grew up. I guess I’m a Blue-Stater at heart.
I work as a junior editor at a small publishing house and enjoy it very much. I love everything about the literary life, though my reading preferences are by no means confined to high-brow stuff; murder mysteries are definitely on my agenda. For example, I’m crazy for anything written by Julian Barnes, including the detective novels he wrote under the name Dan Kavanagh. My tastes are not exclusively literary, however. A good play, an exciting jazz concert, or a dance performance can get me out of my easy chair. And so will a good meal (and some good wine to go with it).
I’m looking for someone who is bright, down-to-earth, funny—even sarcastic—and honest, who can share the fun of the absurdities of Manhattan. He also should be kind and compassionate. Not a Wall Street or financial type interested only in money, conspicuous consumption, and getting ahead. I’m sorry to say he shouldn’t be bald, either. He should be open-minded and good at communicating. With or without words.
I want someone to spend good times with and, if something more serious develops, well, great!
I consider myself above-average looking but I haven’t included a picture here because I can’t see basing a relationship on looks alone (particularly looks hyped-up in a doctored photograph).
More About Me:
Relationship: Never married
Have kids: None
Want kids: Someday
Ethnicity: White/Caucasian
Body type: Slender
Height: 5'6"
Hair: Black
Eyes: Hazel
Best Feature: Legs
Body art: Small figure, lower abdomen (college mistake)
Religion: [No answer]
Smoke: Occasionally
Drink: Social drinker
Sports: Tennis, swimming, walking, hiking
Exercise: 2 times a week
Education: BA
Income: [No answer]
Languages: English, French
Politics: Liberal to radical
Likes: Reading, discussing books, jazz (all kinds), travel (including weekends), wine tastings, dining
Dislikes: Crude pornography, flirting, money talk, words and phrases like “freebie,” “hang-ups,” “hooking up,” “issues,” “cyberspace,” and “pushing back”
About the date I want:
Hair: Any color (but not bald, as I said)
Eyes: Any color
Height: 5'7" on up
Body type: Doesn’t matter; but good shape a must
Ethnicity: Prefer white/Caucasian, but will consider others
Religion: Any or none, as long as not rigid or fanatical
Education: At least a BA
Occupation: Anything not boring
Income: Irrelevant, but not a sponge
Smoke: OK
Drink: Moderate drinking OK
Have kids: No
Want kids: Wait and see
Luis waited while Reuben read the entire document.
“Interesting,” Reuben remarked when he’d finished, returning the printout to the detective. “Doesn’t quite accord with Dan Courtland’s view of his daughter—the little tattoo, wine tasting, drinking, smoking. Communicating ‘with and without words.’ That’s a good one. And ‘liberal to radical’ politics. Dan would especially like that. I’m not terribly surprised, though.”
Reuben asked whether it was usual to have a picture with these “so-called profiles.”
“Yes, I’m told there’s nearly always at least a selfie.”
“Hmm. I suspect she didn’t submit hers because she was afraid someone might identify her as Marina Courtland.”
“That’s my guess, too.”
“Now the sixty-four-dollar question, Luis—who else contacted HallieNYC besides Mr. Gilbert?”
“We don’t have any idea. The only reason we know as much as we do, and have that profile you just read, is because we had access to Gilbert’s account. She was just one of the people he contacted. But to know who else Hallie/Marina was in touch with, we’d have to know her password to get into her file.”
“It sure as hell isn’t like mixer dances,” Reuben muttered. “Can’t this Meet.com outfit give you the information?”
“Thought of that. Unfortunately, it’s based in Bermuda.”
“Damn. Isn’t there any other way?”
“Maybe. Let me explain. My IT guy can get to Meet.com on the computer and insert Marina Courtland’s ID—HallieNYC. Then it asks for a password, which is what we don’t have. But it also has a line to click ‘Forgot your password?’ When you do that the program asks for your birth date—we have that—and another fail-safe question selected earlier by the user, in this case ‘What was the name of your first pet?’ If we had that, we could get into Marina’s data and find out who she was contacting—or was contacted by.”
“Name of her first pet? That’s ridiculous.”
“Most of the test questions are ridiculous—name of your pet, name of your first boyfriend, mother’s maiden name, et cetera. The idea is to pick some obscure fact that only the user, in this case Marina, would know. You pick the question and give the answer when you sign up. Then, if you forget your password, they ask you the question and if you give the right answer, they email you your password or instruct you how to get a new one.”
“Dan Courtland’s the only one who’s likely to know the answer to that silly question. And I have a hunch that’s a long shot. Should I call him?”
“No harm done.”
“Come on, let’s go upstairs.” They went to Reuben’s study and he dialed Daniel’s number.
His secretary, Grace Wrightson, said that her boss was at the Indianapolis Speedway, but could be reached on his cell. This worked, though the background noise at the Speedway garage was very loud. Reuben put him on speakerphone so that Luis could hear. He also quickly told Daniel that the detective was in on the conversation before he could make a slighting remark about the police.
“I assume, Officer Bautista, the news is still the same—that is, that there’s no news,” Courtland said. “Almost three weeks—three weeks!—after my daughter’s murder.”
“We may have a break, sir,” Luis said.
“What is it?” Daniel shouted into the phone.
“It depends on a small bit of information that I hope you can provide us with. What was the name of Marina’s first pet?”
“What? Are you out of your mind? Reuben, what’s going on there?”
Reuben managed to calm Daniel down, and paraphrased the explanation Luis had just given him. He told Daniel that “it was too complicated to go into detail,” but the police needed to get into one of Marina’s computer files and knowing the name of her first pet was necessary to accomplish that.
“I don’t have any idea. I don’t even remember what her first pet was, or how old she was when she got it. She must have had two dozen pets over the years—dogs, cats, a pony, a turtle, even a snake at one point.”
“Did Marina perhaps have a nanny who might remember?” Reuben asked.
“Yes. Maureen. But she went back to Ireland, and I understand she died there a couple years ago.”
Reuben and Luis looked at each other and shrugged.
“I guess that’s that,” Reuben said. “But, Dan, if you can think of anyone—anyone at all—who might know, please get in touch with them and ask them.”
“Are you going to tell me what this is all about?”
“Putting it simply,” Reuben said, “she may have been communicating online with the person who killed her.”
“Oh.”
“We’ll be in touch,” Reuben said.
“I sure hope so.”
Cynthia came in from shopping at this point and Reuben asked her to join Luis and him in the study.
“I think it’s time for a drink,” Reuben said.
Murder.com Page 8
