This Dark Place: A Detective Kelly Moore Novel

by Claire Kittridge

“Yes. Black sites. Encrypted pages held on hard-to-trace servers, usually in Eastern Europe. Once the pages have done their work, they disappear. Sometimes they’re used for smuggling, pornography, drugs. Anything illegal. There could be other things that present the same way, like sites that were created for specific events and then taken down when the event was over—raves and private parties. Possibly she was a party girl. There are so many though, and over the course of at least two full months, it seems unlikely that it would be something like that. Still, it’s extremely difficult to trace.”

  “Interesting,” Kelly said. “We know she was using drugs. Was she buying pills online?”

  “It is easy enough to buy them online these days. But here’s another angle. The logs on her laptop show that the built-in camera was in use for nine-and-a-half minutes around the estimated time of death. And when I go back further, the camera was engaged in fifteen-minute intervals, several times a week. On a more frequent basis, recently. I cross-referenced the times with her web history, and each time the camera was on, she was also logged onto a black site. There are no video files on her hard drive, though. So, she must have been streaming live.”

  “Or someone had remote access and was spying on her.”

  “Possible, but… The lacy nightie, heavy makeup, being logged on to a cloaked website. Sounds more like webcam porn. I did find one screen-grab on her laptop labeled ‘MissPris.’ It’s a close-up of her face with a glamour-mag pout and mussed-up hair.”

  “Okay. If she was performing for someone, what we don’t know is whether she was alone, getting her kink on, or if others were involved; Jenny, Roane, even Avery.”

  Kelly’s mind raced through dozens of possible explanations.

  Joshi went on. “There’s also the usual activity on here, typical of any home computer user. Google searches for restaurants, online banking, email logins. Nothing in the emails that raised a red flag for me. She did a lot of shopping: browsing online for clothes, knickers, jewelry. The thing that stands out here is that she rarely bought anything.”

  “Could you access any of the banking sites?” Kelly asked.

  Joshi nodded again. “There were a few thousand dollars in her US checking account, but very little activity since she moved here. She rarely accessed cash, and she didn’t have any bills to pay. They were probably sent straight to her father. There’ve been very few transactions since the last time money was deposited there by Peter Ames back in December.”

  “That’s practically six months ago. It doesn’t add up,” Kelly said. “What about PayPal, Venmo, or payment apps? I’m wondering if any transactions are tied to her webcam activity…”

  Joshi took a sip of her tea. “Afraid not, detective.”

  “I’ll follow up with Mr. Ames. She must have had access to other money. All those clothes in her closet. She wasn’t living hand-to-mouth. If she had access to cash, I don’t get why it doesn’t show up anywhere.”

  “It looks a bit suspect,” Joshi agreed. “Here’s what I think: When my sister’s baby was born, they set up a wish list on a couple of shopping sites. Like a registry. If she was involved in internet sex work, which I think is where you’re going with this, she could have set up a list of things for her clients to buy her in exchange for screen time. That would explain why we don’t see any purchases. The goods are then sent directly to her, and her personal information stays private.

  “I’ll dig deeper, in her computer and her phone. There’s not much in her phone’s memory, but she could have deleted messages. I’ve got a request in with the telecom company for the records. It can take a while, but there could be a cache of the SMS messages she deleted from her phone.”

  “I’ve gotten a couple of suspicious text messages myself,” Kelly said. The words coming from her own mouth surprised her. Joshi had obviously gained her trust.

  “When?” Joshi asked.

  “Last night, and again this morning.” Kelly opened her phone and showed Joshi.

  “Crap!” Joshi said. “Have you shown these to Dunne, or the superintendent?”

  “Nope,” Kelly said. “I will. I just haven’t gotten around to it. If I’ve learned anything in my years on the force, it’s that I have to trust my instincts, and right now I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

  Joshi looked at her. Her brown eyes warm, but searching. “Okay,” she said. “Listen, I’ve got a friend over at BT. I could have him take a look into who sent the messages, if you want? Where they came from?”

  “Would you do that?” Kelly asked.

  “Yes,” Joshi said. “I can set it up for you now. It’ll just take a few minutes.”

  “That would be great,” Kelly said. “But let’s keep it between us. At least, for now.”

  Joshi nodded. She paused. “But if another one comes in, and we track it down, we can’t keep it to ourselves. You’re here as a favor, but this is my career. I don’t want to be writing parking tickets in Penge when I’m sixty.”

  “Got it,” Kelly said gratefully. “Thanks, Sam.”

  “Of course,” Joshi said. “I’ll be right back.”

  She took Kelly’s phone off the desk and left the room. Kelly picked up the stack of papers again, looking through the list of sites. She ran her hand through her hair and closed her eyes, trying to imagine what the hell Priscilla Ames might have been up to.

  20

  Kelly took a seat next to Joshi at the center of the table. In New York, chairs in the incident room were lined up in rows facing a screen and podium. Kelly felt like she was going to class when she filed into the room back in Queens. In contrast, the briefing room at Fulham Broadway was smaller; not quite cozy, but more human with chairs placed around the perimeter of a large table and a few desks pushed up against the wall at the back. A long whiteboard took up pretty much the whole front wall, and to either side, the plaster was pockmarked with thumbtack holes and bits of tape.

  Kelly picked up a doughnut from the box on the table and ate it without noticing the flavor. She washed it down with a healthy gulp of lukewarm coffee and felt the sugar rush relieve her hunger. She reminded herself to eat a real meal soon so that she didn’t make herself sick again.

  That had been the summer after Cass disappeared, and Kelly had taken on the caseload of another officer who had been injured chasing down a suspect. After a month, she’d ended up in the hospital because she fainted on her way to a drug raid. Kelly had spent two days under observation, receiving fluids; she was shocked to find she had lost ten pounds. She had returned to the station hoping the officers who had been with her had kept it quiet. To her, fainting seemed such a foolish and characteristically female condition. But the way that they offered her pretzels and water and chairs during the next few weeks confirmed they all knew. Her pride, if nothing else, would not let that happen again.

  “Hey,” Kelly greeted DI Joshi.

  Joshi smiled at her and Kelly was grateful. Maybe, she would end up with a new friend. It had been a long time since Kelly had let down her guard for anyone, male or female. Not since she left Tom a year ago. Tom Hunter had ambition and charm, that had attracted Kelly. Tommy was a firefighter in her old Brooklyn neighborhood, and, like her, lived for his work. In the course of a few short years, he had worked his way up to Captain, with an eye on becoming Battalion Chief. She remembered the smell of his skin. Remembered the way his wide strong hands held her hips, his bright hazel eyes, the way he slept so soundly on his days off—the two of them curled beneath the blankets hoping to god that the police scanner didn’t go off, didn’t tear them from the haze of sex and sleep and send them out into the world of fire and noise, accidents and atrocities. And yet they couldn’t go too many days without it—Adrenaline, helping people, they loved it almost as much as the downtime, her especially.

  When Tom had started talking about rings and vacations and settling down, about what a tough, cute, smart baby they would have, she had to pull away.

  “Tommy, you? Me? You’re delirious.”
>
  He pulled her close. He was strong like a force of nature, this man, like a tree. She loved the way the veins showed along his biceps, the beautiful hollow between his pecs. He was still love drunk and his hair was tussled.

  He smiled, flashing that dimple on his left cheek, that tiny chip in his left incisor. “Why not?” he said.

  But when she went to answer him she found she could barely speak. Just the thought of one of them not making it home from a call. One of them being left alone to raise a child. The child having to live with the loss. She shook her head.

  He leaned down and kissed her and his mouth was warm, tasted of coffee and milk.

  “What if something happens?” she asked.

  “What could happen, KM? What could happen that we can’t protect her from?”

  She sat up and straddled him and pinned his hands down to the bed. Kissing him full on the mouth.

  “No,” she whispered. “I love you. But, no.”

  They had been together for almost three years, apart for one, and Kelly still felt the sting of their breakup.

  Joshi reached for her tea and Kelly noticed a wedding band on her ring finger. Kelly hadn’t seen it before. There was a time, when she was just out of the police academy, when Kelly and Cass would go out regularly to the bars in Midtown. Neither of them was dating anyone at the time, and they would size up the prospects together. Kelly would give Cass a hard time because she never thought to look at men’s ring fingers. “Home wrecker,” Kelly would tease.

  Kelly wanted to ask Joshi about her husband, if she had any kids, but just as she was about to, Dunne walked in and sat down at the end of the table. The rest of the team quieted down as he spread papers out in front of him.

  “Good afternoon,” Dunne said. Kelly watched him closely. She’d noticed that he didn’t wear a ring. She had passed by his desk earlier and seen a photo of a little boy there—a towheaded imp, maybe five or six years old. Divorced, Kelly guessed.

  Lately, Kelly had found herself assessing any man who she theoretically could date. Her biological clock, she’d explained to a friend with frustration. A man like Dunne could certainly be a prospect. But kids? No thanks. Kelly shook her head to try to rid herself of such crazy thoughts.

  Kelly flipped open her notebook to a blank page. Rodgers, across the table, did the same. There were two men in plain clothes at the table who she didn’t recognize. They looked very young to her. Likely they were new detectives who could help with the grunt work. It’s good to have the extra feet on the ground. There were also two uniformed officers, with ruddy complexions and eager looks on their faces.

  “Let’s get started,” Dunne said. “Rodgers, fill us in on the first victim.”

  Rodgers stood and walked over to the whiteboard. “Priscilla Ames, female, age nineteen. US citizen living in London on a student visa. Died from a bullet to the brain late Saturday night or early Sunday morning, April 4th or 5th. Shot at very close range. The postmortem’s inconclusive as to whether it was homicide or suicide, due to the angle of the wound. The weapon was a Thirty-Eight Special, a 1950s American model. One bullet in the cylinder was fired, suggesting a game of Russian roulette. Two partial prints belonging to Priscilla Ames were found on the grip of the weapon, plus one partial print belonging to Priscilla’s roommate and friend, Avery Moss. She found the body and called it in. There are no known witnesses.”

  “We’ve got a problem,” Kelly interrupted. “Brickmat knew about the prints this morning. There’s a leak.”

  “Detective Moore makes a good point,” Dunne said, addressing the group. “But please wait until we’ve run through all the facts. Sam, what have you got from Priscilla Ames’ digital analysis?”

  Kelly held her tongue and tried to put aside her distaste at being pushed aside, while Joshi told the group about her findings and summed up any possible conclusions that could be drawn. The incident room was more formal than Kelly had first guessed. Dunne’s voice brought her back to the task at hand.

  “Detective Moore, you spoke with Avery Moss. What were your impressions?”

  “I got the sense that she was genuinely shocked,” Kelly said. “But she seemed to be holding back a little. My impression at the time was that she knew more than she was telling, but not that she had murdered Priscilla Ames. That was before we got the forensics report back, though. When I talked to her, she never referred to having touched the gun.”

  “Okay,” Dunne said. “Rodgers and Joshi reviewed CCTV footage from the school campus and the area around Priscilla’s apartment but found nothing of note. We also interviewed Michael Donaghue, Dean of the London School of Art and Drama, where the two girls were studying acting; Jenny Hooks, apparently Priscilla’s girlfriend; and Roane Davies, Avery’s boyfriend, both fellow students. From them, we’ve built up a picture of a wealthy young American girl, somewhat adrift, who got into drugs and seemed to be sliding into depression. Add that to Joshi’s findings that she may have been engaged in providing online sex services via the dark web. Which brings us to the second victim. Rodgers, please continue.”

  “Roane Davies, male, age twenty. Born and raised in Kingswood, Surrey. Also a student at the London School of Art and Drama, Avery Moss’s boyfriend. His body was found earlier today, Tuesday, April 7th, floating in Regent’s Canal, near the Rosemary Branch Bridge. His face had been smashed in on the cobblestones. Preliminary analysis by the medical examiner on the scene was that the wound wasn’t what killed him. More likely asphyxiation by drowning. We’ll know more by the end of the day. Time of death is estimated between 4 and 6 a.m.”

  “What would he have been doing down there at that hour?” asked Joshi. “Insomnia? Out for some exercise? Buying drugs?”

  “I was out running along the canal this morning,” Kelly said. All heads turned to her. “I thought someone was following me, but I shook it off, thinking it was lack of sleep and unfamiliar surroundings giving me the spooks.”

  The silence that followed Kelly’s pronouncement was shattered by the electronic trill of the precinct phone on the table. Rodgers looked at Dunne, then picked it up, nodding several times, while making short affirmative sounds into the receiver before he hung up.

  “It’s the Super,” he said. “She wants to talk to DCI Dunne and Detective Moore upstairs. Now.”

  21

  Superintendent Frame was typing away when Kelly and Dunne walked into her office. She was dressed in a dark red cardigan over a pristine white button-down shirt that was open at the collar. She didn’t acknowledge them. Dunne gestured Kelly to a seat; they sat waiting for her to finish. Finally, she removed her glasses, letting them hang on the silver chain around her neck, before turning to look at them.

  “DCI Dunne, please give me a summary of where we’re at on the Priscilla Ames case.”

  Dunne went over what they had just been discussing in the incident room. He left out any reference to Kelly’s early morning jog.

  Frame sat still, assessing them with her steely gaze. “That’s it?”

  “At the moment, yes,” Dunne said, returning Frame’s look. “The team is meeting downstairs right now. We’re assessing the facts, possible scenarios and our next steps. I sent a couple of uniforms over to Davies’ flat, along with a forensics expert to see if there’s anything relevant there, they’ll interview the neighbors.”

  “I’ll add this,” Frame announced. “Two constables are also on their way to get Avery Moss. We’re bringing her in on suspicion of murdering Priscilla Ames. That’s based on her fingerprints and the angle of the gunshot wound. I need you to focus on that. What makes sense is Avery Moss. We have her prints. Once she’s charged in the Ames case, you can start gathering evidence against her in connection with Davies.”

  Kelly could hardly believe her ears. This wasn’t the kind of police work she was used to.

  “With all due respect, ma’am,” Dunne began, “I’m the senior investigating officer on this case.”

  “Yes, Jack. And now you can go and
do your job,” Frame said calmly.

  She turned back to her computer and began to type. Kelly looked at Dunne. He was staring hard at his boss with his jaw clenched tight. They had been dismissed.

  22

  “What the fuck was that?” Kelly whispered harshly at Dunne as they walked down the stairs. “Is that normal?”

  “Not at all,” Dunne replied cautiously, glancing at the security camera mounted to the wall. “I’m used to her being hands-on and opinionated, but going over my head like that...”

  Screw this place. She was frustrated with Dunne, with Frame, with everyone in London. What she wouldn’t give to be back in New York, out on a run along the East River or hitting the heavy bag at Gleason’s.

  Kelly walked to the lobby, Dunne deep in thought at her side. He was frowning and looking down at the white floor tiles as they walked.

  Sergeant Blevins sat at the front desk, eating something messy with his hands that smelled meaty.

  “JB,” she said. “Could you call us when Avery Moss is brought in?”

  Blevins chewed, then swallowed a lump of sandwich. “’Course, detective.”

  But before Kelly could go back to the incident room, the front door opened and two young constables walked in with Avery Moss between them. Her hands were cuffed in front of her, her expression neutral. She looked very young, her hair disheveled and tangled; she wore no makeup, as if she had been pulled out of bed. Her face was tired and worn.

  Behind them, the station door opened again. Nigel Brickmat and a man with a camera burst in, stepping between Kelly and Avery. The camera flashed in Avery’s face.

  “Why did you do it, Avery?” Brickmat said in a smooth, quick baritone. “Were you jealous? Was it her money?”

  Avery stared absently at Brickmat while the photographer clicked more shots.

  “Alright, Nigel, that’s quite enough!” Blevins stood and came around the desk, putting himself squarely in front of the girl.