Laura Lippman - The Last Place

“Are you suggesting he has yet another identity, one that he uses exclusively for vehicle registration? Or an out-of-state car?”

“None of the above. Did you notice that Drey Windsor lives in a pretty swanky retirement home for a waterman’s widow? Someone’s paying her bills. Someone’s taking good care of her. I bet she returns the favor, however she can.”

“So his mom buys him a car,” Tess said, saying it out loud, testing it. Then she shook her head. “No way. The first time he gets stopped- and everyone gets stopped eventually-he’s hosed. How’s he going to explain he’s driving a car titled to some strange woman?”

“Well, here’s where having been a Toll Facilities cop comes in handy.” Carl smiled, and Tess realized it was his way of showing he had forgiven her that insult. “All he needs is a letter, signed by Audrey Windsor. Something like, To Whom It May Concern, so-and-so has my permission to drive this automobile. As long as the insurance is current and the vehicle doesn’t come up as stolen, no one’s going to raise an eyebrow. If someone had ever gone so far as to call her, she would have vouched for him.”

“Let’s go,” Tess said, getting to her feet and pulling him out of the deep-seated chair. His knee was still giving him trouble; he winced when she brought him to his feet too fast.

“Motor Vehicles Administration?”

“No, I want to visit my friend who does computer work for me. Because even if we confirm your hunch that Drey Windsor has more than one car titled in her name, where are we going to go from there? I want someone who can hack her way through all the state’s databases if necessary.”

Technically, Dorie Starnes worked at the Beacon-Light as a systems manager. But finding reporters’ lost stories and tinkering with the company’s balky e-mail software took up only 50 percent of her time- and brought in only 30 percent of her income.

The rest of the time Dorie used the powerful machines at her disposal to do computer-assisted reporting for a few select customers-clients such as Tess-who could be trusted not to betray her hobby to her employer of record. Dorie had a few cards up her sleeve if the Beacon-Light ever turned on her. On a regular basis, she hacked her way into the company’s e-mail system. Her stash of private correspondence conducted by several high-level managers provided her all the job security she needed.

Still, she wasn’t happy when Tess breached their usual protocol and showed up at Beacon-Light downtown headquarters.

“You know you’re supposed to call me on the cell if you want something.”

“But I’m not sure what I want. I don’t know everything you can do, and I didn’t want to wait.”

“Who’s the guy?” Dorie was not shy about pointing, and she all but poked Carl in the nose with her stubby index finger. Round, with an upper body that appeared to be all chest, and short hair that was full of cowlicks, Dorie looked like a pigeon who had been caught in the rain.

“My new partner.”

She offered this explanation because it was less complicated than the truth. But Carl smiled as broadly as if she had just given him an equity stake in Keyes Investigations. Well, he was welcome to it. There was no money in this enterprise. The only thing at stake was Tess’s life.

Dorie took them into her office, an almost eerily neat space hidden in an alcove far from the newsroom. The Beacon-Light had undergone an expensive renovation since the last time Tess had crossed its threshold, but the building had an innate shabbiness that no decor could defeat. Newspaper people were notorious slobs, and the reporters had quickly trashed their shiny new spaces, piling papers and files around their desks, leaving food and drinks out to rot.

“Do you still have mice?”

“Yeah,” Dorie said. “They’re getting better at poisoning them, but the mice have a bad habit of crawling off into these little crannies to die, and they can’t find them until they start to stink.”

It took her less than ninety seconds to establish the fact that Audrey Windsor currently had two cars in her name: the black Buick that Tess remembered from the driveway and a van, a blue one, that had been purchased two years ago.

“So he got a new van after he left Mary Ann,” Tess said. “Maybe he gets a new van after every relationship. Because the vehicle created his alibi with Tiffani and Lucy, he wouldn’t risk using the same one twice.”

“He needs a van,” Carl said. “It’s perfect for transporting your girlfriend’s body after you’ve chopped off her head.”

“Who is this guy?” Dorie asked in an uncharacteristic fit of curiosity. Information was just something she sold, and the facts she dug up might as well have been in Hebrew. “He chopped a woman’s head off and he’s still at large? Get out.”

“He’s just some guy who’s killed at least five people,” Tess murmured absentmindedly.

“Six,” Carl corrected. “The five on your original list, plus Becca Harrison. Seven if you count Eric Shivers, and what do you want to bet he had a hand in that, too? Serial killers start young.”

“Jesus Christ,” Dorie said. “Why aren’t the police looking into this?”

“They are,” Tess said quickly, shooting Carl a look over Dorie’s ruffled head. “We’re just helping. So where else does a vehicle show up? What traps should we check next?”

“Well, there are no holds on the registration, but that doesn’t mean he’s never gotten a parking ticket.” Dorie began typing rapidly, and within a matter of seconds a list of the city’s parking scofflaws was on her screen. “Lookee there, the editor of the editorial page seems to have trouble feeding parking meters on her hundred-thou-a-year salary. That sporty little Saab of hers is one ticket away from a boot. I could get it booted today with just a few keystrokes.”

Her fingers hovered over the keyboard, greedy for mischief.

“The guy we’re looking for isn’t stupid enough to get a parking ticket,” Tess said. “He doesn’t make mistakes like that.”

“Everyone gets parking tickets,” Carl said, his eyes bright. “The Son of Sam got parking tickets.”

“What?” Tess and Dorie chorused.

“That’s how they caught David Berkowitz. A woman saw a Ford Galaxie get a ticket for parking by a hydrant near the scene of one of the murders. It was Berkowitz’s car. Cops went to his house and saw it parked outside, with a weapon and a Son of Sam note visible on the seat. Our guy wouldn’t be dumb enough to do that, but chances are he’s gotten a few parking tickets over the past seven years.”

“That’s true,” Tess said, thinking of how many $24, $48, and $76 fines she had kicked back to the city for the privilege of parking beneath its broken streetlamps. “What time is it?”

Carl checked his watch. “Almost four.”

“Good, we have at least thirty minutes.”

“To do what?”

“We’re going to the Wolman Building to insist on paying a ticket that our sweet little aunt, Audrey Windsor, remembers getting in Baltimore one day last month, but it got all wet in the rain and the ink ran and she couldn’t figure out how to pay it. They don’t get a lot of people at Wolman who want to pay tickets they haven’t gotten. They should be very helpful.”

Tess’s hunch was right: Going to the city’s municipal offices and insisting on paying a parking ticket for which there was no record was a sure way to get prompt, courteous attention. It didn’t hurt, having the registration information and Audrey Windsor’s name and address. It also didn’t hurt that she kept pulling out fistfuls of bills and waving them around, desperate to put them in some employee’s hand. Just the sight of those ATM-crisp twenties made the clerks perk up.