Dead Connection

by Alafair Burke

  McIlroy handled the introductions, then got to the matter at hand. “We’re investigating the murder of two women — similar ages, killed precisely one year apart. Both women were killed outside of their homes, apparently by strangers. Both women were using FirstDate.”

  Stern nodded a few times, taking in the information. “That sounds quite tragic, detectives, but I’m not sure how I can possibly help you.”

  “We have a list of the men who contacted our victims through your service. We need your help to track them down.”

  “If you have a list of suspects, I’m not certain what more I can add. Checking them out sounds like police work to me.”

  “A list of user names,” Ellie corrected. “We have a list of FirstDate profile names and need to know the identities behind them. Coming up with that list, and figuring out that you’re the one with our answers — that was our police work.”

  Stern smiled, more at Ellie than at McIlroy. “I’ll presume that you accessed the accounts lawfully.”

  “We did.”

  “And you have an entire list of users who contacted both of these poor women before they died?”

  Ellie interrupted. “The two poor women had names, Mr. Stern: Caroline Hunter and Amy Davis. And, no, we don’t have a list of men who contacted both of them, but we do have a list of men who contacted either of them. And as you know, a single person can use multiple user names. In fact, Caroline Hunter was using your service to do precisely that. We need the names so we can look for overlap between the lists, among other things.”

  “Among other things? You mean things like prying into the backgrounds of our users to see who might seem murderous?”

  Ellie gave him her best sardonic smile. “We’ll cross-reference it with registered sex offenders, mental patients, gun records. Sounds like you know police work after all.”

  “Let me see if I can save the two of you some time. From what I gather, you have two murder victims who were both FirstDate customers, and so you assume there must be a connection. That’s a logical conclusion only if you assume that the use of my service is unusual. Isn’t that how these things work? You discover two victims use the same tiny dry cleaner, and you track down that lead?”

  Neither detective spoke, but Stern caught the glance between them.

  “Okay, so here’s where the logic falls apart. FirstDate’s no longer the corner dry cleaner. We have tens of thousands of customers in the New York metropolitan area alone.” Stern was in full-blown sales-speak now. “People are busy. Dating at work’s a no-no. A service like ours has become as common as joining a gym. What you see as a coincidence between two women is yet another indication of just how common FirstDate has become in the lives of city singles. It’s no more coincidental than if both of these women read the New Yorker or bought groceries at D’Agostino’s.”

  Ellie gave McIlroy a look that said, Get a load of this guy.

  “We have more than coincidence,” McIlroy argued. “The killer left us a message.”

  The bluntness of the assertion caught Stern off guard. “I certainly wish we could have started the conversation there. The person who killed these women contacted you?”

  McIlroy clarified the nature of the so-called message: the e-mail found in Amy Davis’s coat pocket, printed from somewhere other than her apartment. As Ellie heard the explanation through a stranger’s ears, she realized how tenuous their theory was.

  So did Stern, crossing his arms. “I’m sorry, officers—”

  “Detectives,” Ellie clarified.

  “Of course. Detectives. I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I really can’t help you.”

  “Can’t? Or won’t?”

  “Both. With all frankness, it sounds like you’re grasping at straws. And, under those circumstances, I can’t just let you comb through our records at will. Now, if you come up with individual names, and can offer me some good reason why you need the information, maybe we’d be in a different boat—”

  “Maybe?” Ellie asked. “I don’t think you understand how this works. We’ve got a city of eight million people, and we’ve winnowed our attention down to these few. And we’ve given you a reason—”

  “But not a reason for looking into the lives of every single person on that list. Even if I treat your theory generously, there is at most one person on that list who deserves your attention. The rest deserve privacy, which is one of the most important assets FirstDate provides. If our customers can’t trust us, we won’t have many clients. And our service only works if we have a vast and diverse clientele.”

  “Trust? You want to talk about trust?” Ellie pulled two crime scene photos from a manila envelope. “Caroline Hunter and Amy Davis chose to trust. They took a leap of faith. They put themselves out in front of a world of strangers because your company lures people in with the potential of companionship. Now they’re dead, and you’re saying you won’t help us. You won’t help them.”

  “I’d like to help, but I was hoping you’d understand my dilemma. I’m sorry that you don’t.”

  “You’re sorry, all right.” Ellie muttered the comment under her breath as she turned to leave. McIlroy followed, but Stern stopped them.

  “Oh, and detectives. I hope you realize the prudence of keeping this theory you’re working on quiet. Without more, you might want to be reluctant to send a good percentage of the city’s dating population into chaos.”

  “You mean you don’t want any media coverage sending your company’s profits down the tubes.”

  Stern, still in diplomat mode, smiled again. “If you’re able to confirm this theory, or find out that one man knew both of these women, please call my lawyers and I’ll be happy to help. Until that happens, if I hear anything further on the subject, I think the phone call to the lawyers will be my own.”

  On the way to the reception area, Flann suddenly turned on his heel, leaving Ellie in the hallway outside the closed door. He returned a few minutes later.

  “You went back in to apologize for my behavior?”

  “Sorry. Just trying to smooth the waves, in case we need him later.”

  “Don’t apologize, Flann. It’s exactly what you should have done. Did you lay it on thick and juicy? Call me the B-word? Tell him you can’t believe you’re stuck working with some quota queen dyke?”

  “You’re having way too much fun with this,” Flann said, smiling.

  On their way to the elevators, the redheaded receptionist asked the detectives if they had gotten the information they needed. Unlike her boss, she sounded concerned.

  “Yeah. We found out that Mr. Stern doesn’t care that two of the women using his site were murdered,” Ellie said, wondering if she was relishing the bad cop casting a little too much.

  The woman looked disappointed, even saddened. Before Ellie walked out the door, she took another look at the receptionist’s nameplate. Christine Conboy. The name of one person at FirstDate who might give a rat’s ass.

  8

  THE SUPREME COURT BUILDING AT 60 CENTRE STREET HAD SEEN its fair share of notorious trials — Lenny Bruce, Son of Sam, a motley crew of rap stars, mafiosos, and Wall Street crooks to mark the passing of eras in New York City. In a small courtroom at the back of the second floor that afternoon, the show was considerably more modest — the trial of a bouncer accused of selling Ecstacy out of a Chelsea nightclub.

  Ellie and McIlroy sat two rows behind the prosecution’s counsel table and listened patiently while the testifying police officer walked through the chain of custody of the drugs that were seized from the club’s back office. When the court recessed for a break, the prosecutor leaned across the railing behind him to confer with the detectives.

  “Who’s the new partner?” he asked. His Asian face was round, almost cherubic, and he smiled at Ellie. It was a warm, friendly smile, and she returned it with a firm handshake.

  “Ellie Hatcher, and I’m not a full partner. Just on temporary assignment.”

  “Jeffrey P. Yong. And I’m not a f
ull prosecutor. I just play one on TV.”

  “A word to the wise. Never listen to a word Jeffrey P. Yong says. The man’s a born liar. A thief, too — has about three grand of my hard-earned salary.”

  “That’s Flann’s way of saying I’m a better poker player than he is, which isn’t saying much.”

  “You’ve got a regular poker game?”

  “Does Howard Stern enjoy a lap dance?”

  Yong, apparently accustomed to Flann’s rhetorical questions, didn’t acknowledge the remark. “More like a poker game for the irregular, but, yeah, something like that.”

  “What’s up with all the chitchat?” Flann asked. “Jeff usually gets business out of the way before starting in with his bad jokes.”

  “If I have such a tell, why do you keep losing your money to me?”

  “Why are you avoiding the subject of our court order?”

  The frustration in Yong’s exhale was obvious. “I found a note on my chair at lunch.”

  Ellie knew to leave the talking to Flann.

  “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “Nope. Not good. Did you see the people at FirstDate this morning?”

  “As you asked us.”

  “You get anywhere?”

  “To the magical land of the pissing match. He told us to pound sand and keep our mouths shut. We made clear there was more to come. So what do you need from us for the subpoena?”

  “Tell me again how you think FirstDate can help you?” The look on Yong’s face read problem.

  Flann walked Yong through the victims’ shared connection to FirstDate and the e-mails he found in Davis’s purse. “We looked in their FirstDate accounts already. Lots of men, lots of messages. We need to know who those men are.”

  “Any common link between the two of them? One man who was e-mailing them both?”

  “Not that we know of. But if our guy’s smart, he’s signing up under different user names to hide his trail. That’s why we need to see what’s lying behind the user names.”

  “Except that the printout of the message would suggest that he wants you on his trail.”

  “Why do I feel like I’m getting cross-examined?”

  “Because I know what FirstDate’s attorneys are going to argue when their business is ruined and they sue everyone involved with this subpoena. Please tell me that you have something else. What did the department’s computer wizards say?”

  “That I should get in the back of the line. Besides, what do you expect them to tell us? That the Internet’s a wonderful thing but with potential dangers? That bad people can use it to commit all sorts of nefarious deeds that we’re not sophisticated enough to track?” Flann’s tone was growing increasingly exasperated. “You didn’t sound concerned about any of this yesterday. You said to dot the i’s and cross the t’s, then come down here for our subpoena.”

  Yong sighed and placed one hand on top of his shiny black hair. “That was before the note on my chair.”

  “I was wondering when you’d get back to that.”

  “The note was from my unit supervisor, and the message apparently came down from above — I can’t authorize a subpoena until you have a suspect.”

  Flann threw him a skeptical look. “You’re kidding me, right? Did you miss the part where I explained that the reason we need a subpoena is to help us identify a suspect?”

  Yong shook his head. The smile was gone now. “I know. It’s bullshit. It sucks. It ain’t right. But having me as your poker partner’s not doing you any good on this one. I’m just a cog in the machine — a tiny, powerless cog who knows what a note left on my chair during trial means. I’m sorry, man. If I’d had time, I would have called to save you the trip.”

  “How would that kind of message hit your supervisor so fast?”

  “I don’t know, but you’ve pissed off someone with some serious suck.”

  “Your office has taken off bigger fish than the president of some fledgling Internet company.”

  Yong looked just as stymied as McIlroy. “I thought the same thing. I did a quick Google search to see if Stern was a real player, but I turned up five other guys named Mark Stern before I hit anything on him. I only had so much time to snoop — given this.” He gestured to the courtroom. “If it’s any consolation, when my trial’s out, I can sniff around and see where the strings were pulled in my office.”

  “And then what?”

  “And then you’ll know.”

  “We need those names. We need to know who contacted our vics before they died. That’s what we need.”

  “Then you need to find someone above you to go to someone above me, or you need to find another way to get a suspect.”

  “And what if I’m convinced that the only way to get a suspect is to know what FirstDate knows?”

  “I guess you’d have to find another way to get that information. Maybe an insider to do it for you, without the government’s hands on it. But I’m not the one who said that.”

  The judge reclaimed his seat at the bench, and Flann lowered his voice to a whisper.

  “What happens if I call a contact in the press? Let the story leak — the possible connection between the two women, and a company that won’t help the city’s finest catch a killer.”

  “I doubt any reporter would run it with what you’ve got — even for you. And if they did, Mark Stern would probably sue the paper, along with the police department and the two of you. I’d strongly recommend against it,” Yong deadpanned. The judge cleared his throat and threw them an impatient look. “Sorry, guys. Gotta go.”

  Following Flann out of the courtoom, Ellie was so dejected at leaving without a subpoena that she barely noticed the man sitting in the back row. She assumed he was there for Yong’s case — a friend or relative of the defendant.

  She was wrong.

  Charlie Dixon was there to make sure of two things. First, that Jeffrey Yong had gotten the message. And second, that the message made its way to the city detectives asking questions about FirstDate. Dixon couldn’t make out the entire conversation, but he noticed that the detectives left the courtroom empty-handed. He was pleased, at least for the moment.

  9

  THEY WERE GREETED AT THE PRECINCT BY A CIVILIAN AIDE, probably just out of high school, holding a plastic cup of soda the size of a bucket.

  “There’s a couple people waiting here to see Detective McIlroy. I think they’re your victim’s parents. Something about a cat?” He gestured to an attractive couple sitting quietly on a bench down the hall.

  Hampton Davis was tall and tan, with every black hair combed neatly in place. His wife, Evelyn, was petite with a light brown, chin-length bob. They both wore suits — his navy, hers powder blue.

  McIlroy handled the introductions. “Mr. and Mrs. Davis, I’m Flann McIlroy. We spoke on the phone this weekend. This is Detective Hatcher. She’s also working on your daughter’s case.”

  McIlroy led Ellie and the couple to an interview room adjacent to the homicide bureau. The four of them waited in awkward silence to see who would speak first. When Flann finally offered his condolences, Ellie could tell that although he’d no doubt spoken some variant of the same words many times before, he was still uncomfortable with them. He appeared more at ease once he began laying out his theory that Amy’s murder may have been related to her use of an Internet dating site.

  “There must be some mistake,” Hampton said. “Our daughter would never use a service like that. She was extremely cautious with men she didn’t know.”

  “Amy was being cautious,” Ellie vouched. “The service she used is anonymous, and she was very careful not to give out her last name or address.”

  Hampton shook his head. “If you found her listed with one of those companies, then someone else put her there. I’ve read stories about that. Some crazy person gets obsessed and wreaks havoc on a person’s life by posting all kinds of nonsense on the Internet.”

  “Amy’s had problems like that before,” Evelyn interrupted
. A northeasterner would have described the woman’s accent as southern, but having been raised in Kansas, Ellie knew that not all southern accents were identical. This woman’s cadence was new to Ellie — southern, but not in a way she’d heard before, almost with a touch of Brooklyn thrown in like a hint of cayenne pepper.

  “Back in high school, a boy in town wouldn’t leave her alone. It went on for months. Don’t get me wrong. Amy brought a little of it on herself. I guess this boy changed some grades for her. She was under a lot of pressure. She really wanted to go out of state for college, somewhere nice. Somewhere away from home.”

  Hampton placed a hand gently on her forearm. “Evelyn, the detectives don’t need to hear this right now.”

  Evelyn gave her husband a firm look. “What I’m telling the detectives is that Amy learned an early lesson. This boy I’m talking about kept calling her and writing her letters, even after she left for Colby. Then when she came home for Christmas break, he showed up at the mall where she was shopping. You can call her friend Suzanne Mouton to verify. She’ll tell you. The whole experience was just awful.”

  Ellie realized that Evelyn’s story was going nowhere, but took down the number anyway because she understood why this was important to Amy’s mother. Evelyn wanted to talk about her daughter in a personal way. She wanted to tell the detectives about a time when she knew what her daughter’s fears were, when she was familiar even with the bad things her daughter did as a consequence. To feel close again, Evelyn had to go back to Amy’s high school years, when Amy had apparently permitted a troubled boy to alter her transcript so she could escape the bayou.