Dead Connection

by Alafair Burke

  “Or it could have something to do with the fact that the two of you saw her with an FBI agent right around the time that two of Vitya’s friends went to federal prison.”

  “I told you that I do not know the man in your picture.”

  “I know what you told me, Zoya, but I saw your expression when you asked if Lev Grosha went to prison because of Tatiana. You recognized him. My guess is you also know a man named Alex Federov. Did Vitya tell you he was killed in prison?” Zoya said nothing. “When you found out that the man in the car with Tatiana was an FBI agent, it was the first time you realized that your sister was responsible for Vitya’s friends being arrested. And now you’re wondering if she was killed for it.”

  “But she was my sister—”

  “I know you don’t want to believe it. I wouldn’t want to either. But your husband is in this a lot deeper than you’ve ever admitted to yourself. The man who was here with me when I first met you, Ed Becker? Do you know that he’s dead?”

  Zoya’s eyes finally left Ellie’s and dropped to the floor. “Yes. I saw it on the news.”

  “Let me guess. Vitya was watching very attentively.” Ellie took Zoya’s silence as confirmation. “You knew him before I ever walked into this apartment with him, didn’t you? I remember, when I came here that first day, you asked, Who are you? But you weren’t looking at Ed Becker. You only looked at me. And when your husband asked who was at the door, you said it was the police: the man from before, plus a woman — me. Becker was here talking to your husband, wasn’t he? He was here alone, and then came back up with me.”

  “He was a friend of Vitya.”

  Ellie shook her head, wondering how the last week might have unfolded if she’d realized earlier that Becker was not arriving at the Rostovs’ apartment the day she saw him on the street, but leaving.

  “Friends? If they were friends, why did the three of you hide the fact that you’d just seen each other five minutes before I knocked on your door? You need to tell me what you know, Zoya, or I’ll go to the FBI, and they’ll ask the U.S. Attorney’s Office to open a grand jury investigation.” Zoya could not be forced to testify about her communications with her husband, but she didn’t know that. “Let me see if this gets you started. Vitya doesn’t work as a security guard. He might work at a warehouse somewhere, but it’s a cover for widespread criminal activity that includes dealing in heroin and stolen credit card numbers. When Becker was on the job, he was on the payroll.”

  Zoya pushed a loose strand of hair out of her face and turned toward Ellie. “Vitya is a good provider. He works at the storage warehouse like I told you. They do imports and exports out of there, but I do not know the details.”

  “You make a point of not knowing the details. But Tatiana didn’t have any reason to keep her eyes shut, did she?”

  “As much as Vitya enjoyed insulting Tatiana’s lifestyle, yes, I always suspected that acquaintances of his might have shared some of her — bad habits.” She was still distancing her husband from the criminal activity, but at least she was talking.

  “And it didn’t strike you as odd when your husband’s pal Ed Becker turned out to be the lead detective on your sister’s murder case?”

  “Vitya told me that Becker took the case because he is our friend — that he would find out who killed her. I had no idea she was working for police.”

  “And now what do you think, Zoya?”

  A tear fell slowly from the corner of her eye, down the bridge of her nose, and stopped at her lips. She brushed it away. “I do not know what to think. Vitya, he is the father of my children.”

  “And Tatiana was your sister. I talked to Charlie Dixon. He’s the FBI agent in the picture I showed you. He knew Tatiana was holding something back. She was protecting Vitya. She was protecting you and your son. She didn’t want you to have to earn a living the way she did, and it got her killed. If she hadn’t cared so much about you, if she had simply told Dixon everything she knew, Vitya would have gone down, and Tatiana would still be alive right now. Are you really going to be able to forgive him for that?”

  Zoya took short quick breaths, trying to fight back tears, but then broke into a full sob. Across the room, her baby’s brow furrowed, and the bouncy seat came to a halt. Ellie told herself she should feel no sympathy for this woman. If anyone, anyone, ever hurt Jess, she knew exactly where her loyalties would lie.

  “Tatiana told Agent Dixon that FirstDate had something to do with your husband’s friends. What’s the connection? You know now why your sister was murdered, but the families of three other women still don’t have the truth. If you can tell me how FirstDate fits into this, I might be able to give them some answers, and I could leave you out of this.”

  Zoya shook her head frantically in her hands. “I told you, I don’t know anything. He doesn’t tell me anything. I am his wife. I am mother to his children. It is not like American marriage, these people on TV who talk to each other and share their secrets. He goes to work, he sees his friends. I do not ask what goes on, and he does not tell me.”

  Ellie could no longer stomach being part of a conversation that Zoya was using to cement her misguided feelings of victimization. “I hope you can live with the choices you’ve made, Zoya.”

  “I GOT ZOYA to admit her husband knew Becker.” Ellie called Charlie Dixon on her way to the subway station and gave him a quick update. “Barbara Hunter says her daughter used her new MasterCard only one time before an unauthorized charge turned up in Texas. Want to guess where she used it?”

  “FirstDate.”

  “You got it.”

  “Damnit. That’s how FirstDate was involved,” Dixon said. “I assumed all along it was money laundering. Whenever you see white collar guys like Stern wrapped up with the kinds of scumbags Tatiana was involved with, it’s either because they’re using or pushing dope, or they’re washing money. Stern never struck me as a junkie—”

  “But he could very well be a thief. You said he lives above his means, right? Well, he’s got access to a steady stream of credit card numbers. He hands those to Rostov and his buddies in exchange for a piece of the pie. Tatiana must have heard Rostov talking about FirstDate, but didn’t want to give him up directly because of her sister.”

  “But then Rostov saw her with a guy like me and realized something was wrong.”

  “Rostov followed my brother to Vibrations before the assault. He probably found a way to follow you to the federal building.”

  In the momentary silence that followed, Ellie sensed that Dixon was forcing himself to hold it together, delaying the complete meltdown that would come if he allowed himself to contemplate his role in Tatiana’s death. “So Rostov killed Tatiana for cooperating, and then killed Caroline Hunter as a precaution? Or do you think Becker pulled the trigger?”

  “Becker was on duty when Tatiana was killed,” she said. “I think Rostov’s the shooter; Becker made sure to take the call-out. That would mean Rostov’s probably the shooter on Caroline Hunter as well. Becker saw her death in the paper and figured out it wasn’t just a robbery. He took title to that boat just a month after Caroline’s murder. Want to bet it was the payoff for his silence?”

  “I’ll see what I can learn about its previous owner. Maybe it’ll give us another link back to Rostov.”

  “Thanks.”

  “So if Tatiana and Hunter were killed to cover up a fraud ring, how do the other two FirstDate murders fit in?”

  Four women. Two patterns. “I don’t know yet, but I’m about to ask Mark Stern that exact question.”

  FOR THE LAST three days, while the media had futilely dug around the NYPD for leaks, Peter Morse was the only reporter in the entire world who knew for certain that the City Island murder-suicide involving two members of the NYPD family was related to McIlroy’s serial killer investigation. To Peter’s surprise, the decision not to report the connection earlier had been an easy one. Even the reporter in him knew that it was simply off-limits to use information he had d
eciphered from Ellie’s circumstances, at least before the two of them had a chance to agree on some ground rules.

  In some ways, the last few days had been a vacation from the real world as he and Ellie got to know each other while agreeing not to talk about the case until the police department made an official statement. Now, that statement had been made.

  When the assistant chief announced at this morning’s press conference that Ed Becker was the FirstDate killer, the rest of the reporters in the room were as shocked as if they had just learned the Dalai Lama had a nasty porn habit. Mentally, Peter had a head start wrapping his brain around the facts, but he hadn’t allowed himself to begin writing until now.

  He needed help understanding the technological aspects of the case. A critical turn in the police investigation was the tracking of the locations that the killer used to access the Internet. Peter had tried fifteen different ways of glossing over the details but was still not conveying the gist of it well enough.

  He tried his usual go-to contact on computer issues, but the lucky jerk was in Cabo. Then he remembered the source Ellie had mentioned during their dinner at Half King. He found the man’s business card in his wallet. Hopefully, Jason Upton had some time to give him an Internet 101 primer. It would be ironic if Ellie wound up helping him report this story after all, despite their agreement not to talk about it since Friday night.

  He hadn’t heard from Ellie since her meeting this morning with the brass, and calling her to say he was going to contact her source would be an excuse to touch base. He tried her cell, but the call went directly in to voice mail.

  Hey, it’s me. Sorry. Is that too familiar? It is I, Peter Morse of the Daily Post. I just got back from the assistant chief’s press conference. I half expected to see you there, so I hope everything went okay this morning at the precinct. Oh, and thanks for pointing me to Jason Upton. I’m hoping he can walk me through the computer locating stuff. Anyway, I’m going to be workin’ hard, as the president would say, trying to get this story done for deadline, but I’d love to see you later on. Give me a call, okay? ’Bye.

  ELLIE ENTERED THE lobby of the FirstDate offices, holding the door for two women leaving with boxes in hand. One of them looked like she’d been crying. The other seemed ready to punch whatever cheerful person might cross her path.

  Christine Conboy sat behind the receptionist desk, also appearing glum. She mumbled a “hey” when she spotted Ellie.

  “What’s going on around here?” Ellie asked.

  “Layoffs. Our server’s been crashing all day from the crush of people logging on to cancel their memberships.” She lowered her voice. “I don’t feel bad for Stern. It’s karma paying him back for the way he stonewalled you guys. I was really sad to hear about your partner.”

  Ellie nodded, acknowledging her sympathies. Christine looked toward Stern’s office. “It’s not right. Instead of taking the losses himself, he’s passing them down to the people with no safety net. People here work paycheck to paycheck. They won’t get by without work.”

  “It seems a little extreme to fire people,” Ellie said. “I’m sure it’s just a temporary panic.”

  “Well, as was explained to us by the boss at an emergency meeting a couple of hours ago, the company is not able to absorb the losses. Men outnumber women on dating sites by more than two to one. Apparently a quarter of our female members pulled their profiles down since the news came out about the letter left in the library. Stern was hoping the damage would blow over when the police announced the case was closed, but instead it’s only gotten worse. Seems women figure that if one nut job could do it, someone else might do the same. Once the men realize there aren’t any women, they’ll quit too. Stern says we don’t have enough in reserves to make payroll, so out walk my former colleagues with nothing but a promise to keep them in mind if the situation turns around. No notice, no severance pay. And they won’t qualify for those valuable stock options we’ve been waiting for because they’re leaving before the public offering.”

  “What about you?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “I didn’t get the axe in the first round, but let’s just say I know enough to get my résumé in shape.”

  “I need to see Stern. Is that going to be a problem?”

  “Is he going to enjoy talking to you?” Christine asked with a smile.

  “Oh, I seriously doubt that.”

  Christine extended her arm toward Stern’s office. “Then make yourself at home.”

  MARK STERN was in the middle of a hands-free telephone call when Ellie walked into his office without knocking. He looked behind her for the imaginary person who might protect him from unwanted interruption.

  “Jan, I’m sorry. I need to call you back…. Yeah, I know it’s urgent. I’ll call you right back.” He pulled off his headset and tossed it on his desk. “Well, come on in, Detective Hatcher. What can I do for you?”

  “What? No ‘Sorry about your partner’? No ‘I guess he was right. I should have helped the two of you earlier’?”

  “Sorry. Obviously I’m very sorry about what happened to Detective McIlroy, but I told that to the other detectives who informed me of his death, and I’ve been cooperating as much as I can with the police department since then. But you’ve got your case all wrapped up, and I’m in the middle of a serious shit storm here.”

  “Mass membership cancellations probably screw up a company’s plans to go public, huh?”

  “That, Detective, is the understatement of the fucking century. That was my lawyer,” he said, pointing to the headset. “He says the deal can’t happen. To avoid fraud, I’d have to disclose the membership cancellations, and that’s going to destroy the stock price. Fuck.” He sent a stack of documents flying from his desk.

  “The company can’t just ride this out?”

  Stern took a deep breath and collapsed into his chair, trying to regain his composure. “No. I definitely do not see a good riding-it-out scenario in front of me. My next phone call is to my wife to talk to her about taking another mortgage out on our apartment. That should go well.”

  “I have to ask you a question, Mr. Stern, and I want you to control your temper when I do. I’m willing to keep an open mind about whatever you tell me, but after what has happened the last few days, I just don’t have the energy to get into a fight with you.”

  “I don’t have a lot of fight left in me either. Go ahead and ask your questions, Detective Hatcher.”

  “Do you know that your customers’ credit card numbers are being stolen off your server?”

  Stern’s obvious surprise confirmed Ellie’s suspicions.

  “That’s what I thought. I’ll be honest. I walked into the building just now assuming you were involved. But seeing you try to save your company in the middle of all this chaos reminded me that every person I’ve spoken to who’s had any encounter with you has mentioned your ferocious dedication to FirstDate. You frustrated the hell out of me, in fact, with your single-mindedness.”

  Stern nodded gently. “I tell people that this company is my baby. I created it.”

  “Exactly. Your baby. And stealing credit card numbers from your customers could jeopardize that baby, and you wouldn’t do something like that unless the payoffs were substantial.”

  “I wouldn’t do it at all, Detective.”

  “I’m not judging you. I’m pointing out that you don’t appear to be enjoying those kinds of financial windfalls. And if you were reaping side profits from fraud, you never would have called attention to it by taking your company public. That would only open you up to the scrutiny of shareholders and financial analysts.”

  Charlie Dixon had assumed that Stern was sitting on a pile of untraceable money, but the truth was, the man was broke. He was living above his means, and now the public offering that was going to save him was nothing but a fantasy.

  “So you’re telling me that on top of all my other problems, I’ve got a hole in my server that someone’s hacking into? What does th
is have to do with Ed Becker?”

  “I don’t think he killed those women. I think he had something to do with two of them — it’s a long story. My point is that I think someone else murdered Amy Davis and Megan Quinn, and they did it to ruin you. When Caroline Hunter was killed, all the news coverage mentioned her research into online dating. Someone with a grudge against you saw the opportunity to destroy your baby — and you along with it. And whoever it was also had a grudge against Amy Davis. They sent her that bogus solicitation for a free membership, then used Richard Hamline’s credit card to pay for it. They killed Amy exactly one year after Hunter was killed, placing a FirstDate e-mail in her coat pocket to make sure the police connected the two cases. Then, when the media still didn’t name your company or you, he added another victim — Megan Quinn.”

  “This is nuts. This is absolutely sick. I don’t know anyone who would do something like that. I can’t even imagine knowing someone who could concoct such a demented plan, let alone someone who’d carry it out.”

  “You can’t think that way,” Ellie argued. “A man like this can be a father, a husband, a church leader, a man of the community. No matter how absurd you think this is, I need to know who might have a grudge against you, particularly with respect to FirstDate.”

  Stern was shaking his head.

  “It’s possible it’s someone who knows about computers or even has access to your server. Maybe an employee? Someone you fired?”

  As Ellie listened to her own thoughts leave her mouth, she heard discordant lines of recent conversations clashing in her head. Mark Stern: This company is my baby. I created it. Another voice saying, I wouldn’t have worked to start the company if I didn’t think it could serve a good purpose…. Mark and I really believed…. We did our best….

  She saw a pause in Mark Stern, a momentary hesitation.

  “Tell me about Jason Upton,” she said.

  “But how did you—”