CHAPTER
FIFTY
They found Will Sullivan on a walnut-stained swing on the front porch of a two-story bungalow. He had a price-club-sized bucket of red licorice next to him.
“Nice car,” he said, eyeing Rogan’s BMW.
“Nice house,” Rogan replied. He and Ellie leaned on the porch railing across from Sullivan’s swing.
“Heck of a lot better than where I called home until a couple of years ago. My son finally convinced me that I’d be okay borrowing some money for a nicer place while interest rates were low. Licorice?” He offered them the bucket, and they declined. “Straight sugar, but the doctor says anything’s better than cigarettes. Guess it’s an oral fixation.”
“One of your guys at the station told us we’d find you here,” Rogan said. “Hope you don’t mind.”
“Nope. Funny, I think this might be the first time since I bought the house that I’ve actually sat here on this swing with my newspaper, the way I pictured when I decided to take it. Seemed like a real dream, the proverbial picket fence. I can’t even describe the guilt I felt when I was loading up the U-Haul from my old place in Red View.”
Ellie recognized the name of the neighborhood from their conversation with Rosemary Blank.
“That’s where the Blank family lived?” she asked.
“Yep. Look it up in the census. One of the highest-poverty, highest-crime neighborhoods in the state of New York.”
“Not a typical choice for a cop.”
“I wasn’t always a cop. Had a minimum-wage security job at a discount clothing store, the kind with last year’s fashions, a layaway plan with worse terms than the neighborhood bookie, and cigarette butts on the dressing room floors. They called it full-time but always kept my hours under thirty so they didn’t have to pay benefits. My wife waitressed, and we somehow managed to scrape by, even after Bill came along. Then Maddie died. I don’t think Bill and I would’ve made it if I hadn’t gone on the job. The feds had promised to put a hundred thousand new officers on the street. Utica got enough money to hire three new cops, and I was one of them.”
“Best and worst decision of your life.” It was a favorite line among cops.
“It was probably three years into the job when I could have swung a move out of Red View. Steady salary. A modest down payment. But by then, the people there liked the idea of a neighborhood cop and his son. The older residents—the ones who were afraid to walk the streets because of the gangs and the guns and the drugs—they felt a little safer if they saw my lights on. Even the ones who were up to no good had to admit a kernel of respect for a cop who at least knew the lay of the land.”
Rogan and Ellie offered polite acknowledgments that they were listening. After Ellie had killed someone in the line of duty, Rogan had done the same thing for her, allowing her to go off on long tangents to avoid talking about the could-haves and should-haves that would inhabit her brain the minute she stopped talking.
“But now I’m older, getting close to retirement, and the sketchy types are getting younger and rougher. Figured I wouldn’t always have the power of the badge, so now I have this place and my porch. I realized after a year or so, I’d actually stopped locking the doors. But, man, I really felt like I was abandoning those people when I left. A few neighbors said goodbye, but I saw a lot of them close their blinds as I was packing up. I wonder how they feel about me shooting a mentally ill boy while his mother could hear from the next room.”
He stopped rocking on his swing. He was ready to talk about it.
“Joseph didn’t give you a choice,” Ellie said. “I’ve been in a similar situation. You can’t beat yourself up over it. He was the one who made the decision. He turned you into his own weapon.” The man she killed had held her lieutenant, and then her, at gunpoint. He announced his intention to kill her. If not for a lucky moment when she’d taken her chance, she knew for a certainty she’d be dead. From what ADA Siebecker had reported to Max, Joseph didn’t have a gun in his hands, not technically. He had been reaching for a gun inside a shoebox he was holding. As with any officer-involved shooting, Sullivan was suspended with pay until an official determination was made regarding justification, but Ellie had no doubt that Sullivan would be cleared. Career cop plus armed insane murderer was easy math.
“I wanted to question him,” Sullivan said. “I was so sure I had a chance at somehow connecting to him. Now we may never know what really happened.”
“Siebecker said they found a treasure trove of news articles about the entire case,” Rogan said. “The original murders, Helen Brunswick’s killing, Amaro’s release. I think that makes it pretty clear what happened.”
Ellie could see Sullivan’s gaze move to his lap. “Our current theory,” she said, “is that he became obsessed as a teenager with Amaro’s crimes. He decided to kill Helen Brunswick, whom he may have resented for first calling the police on him all those years ago. He replicated Amaro’s MO, giving him a basis to challenge his conviction. It would’ve been nice to have had confirmation—sorry, that’s not what I meant. Our ADA’s working on an arrest warrant for Amaro now. We’ll see whether a judge goes for it, but at this point we need a warrant in place to make sure Amaro doesn’t get too far.”
“Someone should be watching out for the cellmate,” Will said. “After what happened to Carrie—”
“Your department has a car in front of Harris’s house. He knows the stakes.”
“Any updates from the doctors?”
“Not yet, but they say there’s no reason to believe Carrie won’t regain full neurologic function. I met both her mother and your very impressive son at the hospital. You must be extremely proud.”
He smiled sadly. “Hard to feel proud of anything right now. We lost our shot at questioning Joseph. And I’ve got to wonder if Carrie would be okay if I had found Anthony Amaro by now.”
“Well, we’ve got a plan for that,” Rogan said.
“It was a plan you first mentioned, actually,” Ellie added. “According to her chatty assistant, Thomas, Linda Moreland’s arriving on the twelve-thirty train from the city. We’ll tail her from there.”
CHAPTER
FIFTY-ONE
In New York City, all types of people could be found coming and going on the trains in Penn Station: business commuters, tourists, runaways, group trips, con men. But as Ellie watched the Amtrak train stop in Utica, she lumped the arriving passengers in two: locals coming home, and visitors already looking forward to leaving.
Linda Moreland clearly fell into the latter camp. She wore jeans, but in an obvious I-never-wear-jeans kind of way. Her Louis Vuitton handbag and high-gloss, polycarbonate suitcase with ball-bearing wheels quickly set her apart from the authentic locals. So did the driver standing beside a black limousine with a handheld sign bearing her name.
Ellie pulled behind the limo in her Crown Vic, borrowed from UPD. She remained an average of two blocks back, staying within eyesight but varying her speed and changing lanes periodically. She followed from Main to First Street, then onto Oriskany. So far, so good. It was the route any car would take to the outskirts of the city.
She merged onto the I-90 Thruway. As expected from UPD’s unsuccessful canvass of Utica motels, Linda was leaving town.
At the fork near Whitesboro, Linda’s driver veered right, abandoning the interstate in favor of local Route 49. This was good. No way was Linda staying out here on her own. She was heading toward Amaro.
Ellie composed a text to Rogan. Route 49. Send.
Ten miles outside Utica, the limo took the exit for NY-365. The area was rural. She sent another text: 365. According to the signs, they were in Rome.
Linda’s car took a left at the fork in the road, merging onto NY-825, heading north. Fork. 825-N.
They were approaching a building. Ellie felt her hopes elevate. From this distance, the building up ahead looked like it could be a motel. No. The sign read “Rome Free Academy.”
Linda’s car turned right, away
from the school. Atlas Drive, according to the street sign. The limo took a quick left. Falcon Avenue. A right onto Thor Avenue, which looped around and intersected again with Atlas. There was no development in sight. These were cul-de-sacs waiting for homes to be built on them.
Dammit. Linda’s driver was verifying the tail.
Ellie sent another text: School on left. Rome Free Academy. Stay.
Ellie heard a buzz on her cell phone and looked at the screen, expecting a reply. Instead, the message was from Max: Judge signed arrest warrant for Amaro. No knock.
Excellent timing.
The limo came to a sudden stop on Atlas, and Linda hopped out of the back seat and stomped over toward Ellie’s fleet car. Another message from Max popped up on Ellie’s screen: All vics except Donna Blank.
Max could explain the details later, but Ellie had the information she needed for the moment.
Although Ellie could hear the attorney’s voice fifty feet away, she eased down the Crown Vic’s window. “You lost?”
“This is absolutely unacceptable, Detective.”
“Too cloudy for a road trip?”
“You are interfering with the ability of an attorney to communicate with her client. Should I add a count of harassment to our growing list of lawsuits to file against the NYPD?”
“Your client is wanted, Ms. Moreland. You’re welcome to communicate with him, right after I place him in handcuffs.”
“An officer-issued be-on-the-lookout is the legal equivalent of the tooth fairy, Detective.”
“It’s not just a BOLO anymore. Your client’s got an active warrant for the murders of Nicole Henning, Jennifer Bronson, Leticia Thomas, and Stacy Myer.” They deserved to have their names remembered. She didn’t see any need to tell Moreland that the warrant had been approved as a no-knock warrant, allowing them to force entry into Amaro’s residence without first knocking and announcing their presence.
“I didn’t hear you say ‘Donna Blank.’”
“Your client has a warrant out for the murder of four women and you think he deserves a pat on the back for it not being five?”
“I think it’s obvious that the court knows you have a problem. Those cases were closed in the first place because whoever killed one, killed them all. Now my client has been exonerated on the Deborah Garner case, and—”
“Undermining a conviction is not the same thing as exoneration.” She stopped herself before getting sucked any further into the vortex. She understood now why the cable talk shows loved having this woman as a guest.
“So, guilty until proven innocent? Thank you for the quote, Detective. I’ll add that to our civil complaint. Good luck proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt of any one of those murders. You may want to conveniently ignore Donna Blank, but juries love DNA. Plus, I hear your Utica colleagues assassinated a man this morning who looks a lot better for these crimes than my guy.”
The morning news had reported the Utica Police Department’s fatal shooting of a suspect in the murder of Helen Brunswick. It was impossible to know how much additional information Linda Moreland might have. Do not engage, Ellie reminded herself.
“Sounds like you’ve got your jury argument all ready to go. Think of me as helping you get your shot in the courtroom. Where’s Amaro?”
“Goodbye, Detective. If you continue to follow, I’ll head straight back to the train station.”
“You have been notified that your client is being sought by police for multiple counts of murder, Ms. Moreland. If you harbor him, warn him, or give him any assistance, you’re hindering prosecution.”
“You’re a lawyer now, Ms. Hatcher? Or perhaps you think sleeping with a prosecutor makes you one by sexual osmosis.”
Ellie tucked her head back inside and put the car in gear. “You win for now, Counselor. Enjoy your drive. We’ll have to catch up to your client another way.”
As Ellie rolled up her window, Linda gave her a look of smug satisfaction and pivoted toward her own car. Ellie followed the black limousine to the end of Atlas and watched it hang a right, continuing on toward NY-365. Ellie took a left, heading back to Utica, giving Linda a quick beep-beep as a send-off.
She pulled up Rogan’s number on her phone and hit dial. “You were right. She wouldn’t give him up. And I officially hate Linda Moreland.”
“The club will send your membership card shortly.”
She saw his BMW pull out from the Rome Free Academy and take a left on 365, in the opposite direction.
She pulled a U and headed back to the school, prepared to resume Rogan’s former position in the academy’s parking lot. “Text me when you’ve got a location,” she said.
“Will do.”
She placed another call, this one to the Utica PD, instructing backup to start heading in her direction. It shouldn’t be long.
Ellie had done her job, allowing Linda Moreland to have the last, snarky word. Riding away in the comfort of her limousine, free of that pain-in-the-butt cop from New York, the lawyer would never give a thought to the BMW behind her.
CHAPTER
FIFTY-TWO
Carrie found herself in a dark, empty theater. The air was cold. She heard the hum of an air conditioner. The screen flickered with crackling images of white. The movie was about to start.
The film opened with a narrow shot through a doorway. It was dark inside, but even darker outside. It was the music that helped Carrie recognize the scene. AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long.” To this day, Carrie had to leave a room if that song came on.
Carrie felt fear infiltrating her blood as she craned her neck to see the girls on the stage. She forced herself to look away from their bare breasts. Her cheeks felt warm each time they spread their legs, flaunting the tiny triangle of fabric.
She scanned their faces, relieved not to recognize them. There was one last girl, on the right edge of the stage. Her face was obscured as she bent over, allowing the pole to rub slightly between her buttocks. Long brown hair. Thin.
At the time, Carrie had prayed for it not to be her. Maybe she had misheard her father, yelling at his ex-wife on the phone, saying one of the other drivers was gloating about Donna working a pole at Club Rouge. Was it true? he had demanded to know.
Even though Carrie expected what was coming, she sucked in her breath when the woman on the screen flipped her hair and turned toward the camera. It was Donna. She gripped the pole and arched her back, accepting a man’s dollar bill between her teeth.
And then, just as she knew he would, another man appeared, his bulky body filling the doorway, blocking the view of the club inside. “Hey, you got ID? The boss is always looking for Chinese girls, but you’re gonna need ID if you wanna work, sweet thing.”
The film cut suddenly to Donna’s living room, where Carrie found her sister sleeping the next day when she got out of school. Carrie, asking what was it like to have those men staring at you, exposed that way. Please don’t let her like it, she had hoped. That’s how I’ll know she’s really broken. But Donna wasn’t broken. On the screen, she covered herself with a sofa cushion, as if she were embarrassed to have any part of herself in view as she spoke about the act of trading visual access to her body for money. “I hate them,” she said. “The way they paw at me, dangling those singles like I should have to beg for them.”
“Is that all it is?” Carrie asked. “Letting them look?”
Behind the pillow, Donna shrugged. “So far. But, honestly, what’s the difference?”
“Why can’t you just stop using heroin?” On the screen, she saw the surprise on her own face as Donna started to cry. Back then, Carrie had no idea how much power might reside in that simple question.
The screen cut to two still images, flashing in rapid succession. Carrie at the bank counter, withdrawing money from her college fund to pay for Donna’s rehab. The receptionist at Cedar Ridge Behavioral and Psychiatric Care, telling her that Donna wasn’t a patient there.
Then the film jumped to a full shot of a h
ouse. Somehow Carrie knew it was her family home, even though the house on the screen was larger, as if someone had built additions on both the left and right sides of what Carrie had always thought of as a tall, narrow house. It was freshly painted, too, and tastefully landscaped.
Again, the soundtrack brought back memories. Don’t go chasing waterfalls. It was that last day Donna came to the house. Carrie had watched from upstairs, but now she viewed the scene from Donna’s perspective as she begged her stepmother to let her see Carrie. “You can’t do this. I have a plan. I promise.”
The film sped up on fast-forward, the audio sounding like quarreling chipmunks, then slowed down again. “We have a friend on the police force,” Carrie’s mother was saying.
“Right,” Donna was yelling, “because you and your friends—the people you approve of—are so much better than the rest of the world.”
The film cut to Carrie’s conversation with Will Sullivan outside the Utica Police Department. It was just a few days ago but felt like it was from another lifetime. “But do you know?” Carrie was asking. Had Donna really crossed the line into prostitution? “On Sandy, a couple of times,” he had told her.
And then Carrie was in Tim McDonough’s face outside the probation department, doing everything in her power to prompt a smack. She watched a replay of his rambling on about the past, the way Melanie had trusted Donna with news of her pregnancy when she saw her at the clinic, only to be told she couldn’t possibly finish college with a baby.
In her dream, she yelled to the anonymous film operator at the back of the theater to rewind. Go back! she yelled. Go back! Something was wrong. She was missing something. But the film was over. The theater went black. She heard a voice next to her. Something about “neurologic function” and “purposeful eye movements.” “Unresponsive.”
The words made her remember falling forward into her apartment. The feeling of warm blood beneath her head.
She pushed the thoughts away. She wasn’t ready to wake up. She wanted to crawl back into the movie theater, back into her dream. Somewhere in that dream were the answers to Donna’s death.
All Day and a Night: A Novel of Suspense (Ellie Hatcher) Page 25
