Alafair Burke: City of Fear

There she was, propped up on her knees on the vinyl padding of the kitchen chair, elbows on the table, her blond hair held back by a pink paper birthday-girl tiara, eagerly staring at the six burning candles while Bill, Penny, and Jenna drew out the final line of the birthday song to prolong Robbie’s excitement. Bill had smiled in his sleep when Robbie clenched her eyes shut, took that enormous breath, and whispered it cautiously across the tips of each candle. I did it, Daddy. I got everyone of them, just like you told me. Will I really get mywish?

You’ll have to wait to find out, Robbie. But, remember,don’t tell anyone .

In Bill’s dream, Robbie had crawled down from her chair and walked out of the kitchen into what had moments earlier been, in his mind, the Alcoa plant. Bill followed her, longing for more time, but it was too late. He found her as he’d last seen her nearly eight years ago – naked on a stainless steel gurney, draped with a white sheet.

All these years later, Bill still found himself thinking about his younger daughter. How often, he’d never bothered counting; at least once a day, certainly; usually more. And, just as he had in the very beginning, when Penny was still with him and Jenna still lived nearby, Bill occasionally woke from dreams that gave way to nightmares.

But it had been a long time since Bill Harrington had been visited by such vivid memories of Robbie.

Chapter Five

Ellie was still in her T-shirt and sweatpants when J. J. Rogan pulled up in a white Crown Vic, hopped the curb off the FDR, and claimed a patch of dirt as his parking spot.

As she walked toward her partner, she cursed the young Officer Capra for not yet having returned from what should have been a quick errand. Her mind flashed to an image of her brother showing off a guitar riff to his newest fan while she worked a crime scene in her dirty running gear.

Her self-consciousness only heightened as Rogan stepped out of the car. As usual, he was dressed to the nines. Today’s ensemble consisted of a three-button black suit, well-starched steel gray shirt, and a purple tie with small white dots. Two days earlier, she’d seen the label on a jacket he’d thrown on the back of his chair. Canali. About two grand. She assumed this one ran about the same.

Ellie hadn’t figured out how her new partner could afford the wardrobe – or whatever other, less obvious indulgences he might have – but she wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that he worked off-duty as a model. He was average height, but with a solid frame, probably just shy of six feet and at least two hundred pounds. Dark mocha skin. Smooth bald head. Really good smile.

In short, J. J. Rogan was at the top of the bell curve for looks.

And apparently that fact wasn’t lost on the almost entirely male squad of homicide detectives at the Thirteenth Precinct. Nor had it escaped their attention that Ellie wasn’t half bad herself. Ellie had already overheard another detective referring to them by a team nickname: Hotchick and Tubbs. She assumed that with time they’d conjure up something more clever, but the general theme had been established.

‘Barely six a.m., Hatcher. You know this shit should have been someone else’s call-out.’

‘You’re telling me that if you were first at a scene, you’d wait for someone else to catch the case?’

She couldn’t tell whether Rogan was satisfied with her response or was simply moving on to the business at hand, but he made a beeline to the construction site. A crime scene analyst was still cordoning off the area with yellow police tape.

Rogan winced at the sight of the body. ‘I guess someone meant business. Where are we?’

‘No official word from the ME, but based on the swelling in her face and eyes, my guess is she died from the strangling.’

Rogan nodded his agreement and shone a flashlight across the body. ‘And the cuts were just for fun. Most of them look postmortem.’ Without a beating heart to move the body’s blood, stab wounds inflicted after death were dry and bloodless. The hatch marks in the victim’s skin had the telltale look of sliced Styrofoam. ‘Have you found ID yet?’

‘We found a purse, probably tossed over the fence, but no wallet, and no ID.’

‘What about her hair?’

‘Nothing yet. He either chopped it off before he brought her here, or carried it off with him – maybe kept it as a souvenir.’

Rogan was still taking in the full visual of the body. ‘Too healthy for a working girl. No track marks. Fresh pedicure. Matching lingerie.’

Ellie had made the same observations.

‘How old, do you think? You know that’s not my strong suit,’ Rogan said with a small smile. When he’d first met Ellie last week, he had volunteered that she looked a mere twenty years old, but then added that he could never tell with white people.

‘Early twenties, tops. She could even be a teenager.’

Rogan clicked his tongue against his teeth.

‘We pulled a cell phone from behind the body,’ Ellie said. ‘It must have fallen out when the guy dumped her, before he tossed her purse.’

‘So start dialing all her contacts. Let’s find out who this girl is.’

‘Easier said than done. There’s something wrong with the screen. The display kept cutting in and out when I was turning off the alarm. Now I can’t get any image at all. Nothing but black lines.’

Rogan took a look at the broken phone. ‘The same thing happened to me when I dropped my Motorola at the gym. That thing’s shot.’

‘I did, however, find this in her purse.’ Ellie held up a ziplock bag containing a white plastic card not much larger than a business card.

He smiled, registering the significance of the bag’s contents. ‘Now that narrows it down. You plan on staying in your sweaty clothes all day?’

As if on command, a marked car pulled up next to Rogan’s Crown Vic. Officer Capra stepped out, carrying a familiar blue backpack. She hoped Jess had remembered to pack her shield, Glock, and the necessary undergarments.

‘I’m ready when you are.’

The white plastic card was a hotel key emblazoned with a blue capital H surrounded by a curly Q .

‘We got three Hiltons in Manhattan,’ Rogan said. ‘Times Square, Rockefeller Center, and the Financial District. Try your luck.’

Ellie was wriggling out of her running clothes in the footwell of the backseat, trying not to think about the various forms of mucus that had been hurled and smeared against the upholstery since the car’s last disinfection.

‘Girls that age don’t stay near Wall Street.’

‘Unless they’re hookers,’ Rogan interjected.

‘And we don’t think she was. So between the other two, I’ll go with Times Square. Who doesn’t love Times Square these days?’

By the time Rogan pulled up to the giant copper clock outside the hotel’s Forty-second Street entrance, Ellie had just finished snapping on her holster. As she stepped from the backseat, she waved off a uniformed valet. Rogan flashed his shield as he followed behind her. ‘We’ll be quick, man. Thanks.’

To their surprise, the hotel lobby was on the twenty-first floor. They bypassed whatever businesses occupied the tower’s bottom half with an express ride in the Art Deco elevator. At the front desk, they cut to the head of a long line of guests who were presumably waiting to check out.

The woman who greeted them had pale skin, red hair knotted into a bun, and glasses dangling from a chain around her neck. ‘How may I help you?’

Rogan produced the hotel key and explained in a hushed voice what they needed and why.

‘Oh, my.’ The clerk lowered her voice as well. ‘Unfortunately, that key isn’t ours.’