212: A Novel Part 18

The girl shut the door before reopening it, this time wide enough for them to enter. The apartment was on the large side for a studio, or perhaps it just seemed large because of its spa.r.s.eness. The only seating to be had was on a twin mattress that rested in the corner beside a milk crate doubling as a nightstand. The rest of the apartment was empty except for a plastic folding table and two easels. The easels held stretched canvases exploding with abstract smears of primary colors. On the table were a sprawl of painting supplies and an iPod plugged into miniature speakers from which the offending music had blasted.

Stacy Schecter wore a Flashdance-style black sweatshirt and skinny jeans, both smudged with paint, as were her bare feet. Her straight black hair hung to her shoulders in a long s.h.a.g cut, and dark black eyeliner rimmed her big brown eyes. Ellie placed the woman in her mid-twenties.

"I'd offer you a seat, but I'm pretty much the only one allowed in my bed."

"Not a problem," Ellie said. "You're alone here?"

Stacy pretended to glance around the room. "To my knowledge."

"Mind if I take a look around to be sure?"

"Um, no, I guess not."

Ellie opened a sliding door to reveal a cramped closet, while Rogan opened and closed the only other door in the apartment. "Bathroom's clear," he said.

"So this is definitely not about the noise," Stacy said.

"You know a woman named Katie Battle?" Ellie asked. "She's a real estate broker?"

Stacy shook her head. "Not exactly in any position to buy real estate, in case you can't tell."

"How about Megan Gunther? She's a soph.o.m.ore at NYU. Lives near Union Square Park."

Stacy shook her head again. "I'm afraid I can't help you."

"We think you can."

Silence filled the room until Stacy broke out into a surprisingly disarming smile. "You two clearly know something I don't. And I was kind of in the zone here, so if we could just cut through the usual whatever-it-is-you-guys-do-to-break-people-down, I'd be happy to help you out."

"You got a cell phone call yesterday from a woman named Katie Battle, and we're trying to figure out why."

"No clue. I told you, I've never heard of her."

"You mind if we take a look at your phone, then? If this is some kind of mistake on the part of the phone company, we can take it up with them."

"Um, yeah, I guess I do kind of mind."

"So maybe you've heard of her after all."

"No, but...how about I check out my phone and see what you're talking about?"

Ellie looked to Rogan, and he nodded. They watched as Stacy removed a flip phone from a bright blue Pan Am vinyl travel bag on the bed.

"The call came in at 3:15 p.m.," Rogan said.

"Yeah, I see it now. It was a hang-up. I figured at the time it was a wrong number."

Stacy's failure to answer the call didn't explain why Katie Battle had called Stacy's number in the first place, nor why Megan Gunther had called her four months ago.

"What about Megan Gunther?" Ellie asked. "She called you in May from her apartment."

"Last summer? I have no clue how I'd remember that. And I told you, I don't know anyone by that name."

"Why don't you let me take a look at the screen with yesterday's incoming call on it? That would help us sort through this whole thing."

"My phone's private."

Ellie needed Stacy to be the one to spell it out. If Ellie's instincts were wrong and she voiced them aloud, she'd lose all leverage.

"See, that's what's bugging me, Stacy. You let us check out your apartment-your bathroom, your closet-no problem. But one little glance at your cell phone, and now you're all about your privacy. We can straighten this out just by looking at your screen there. We see the digits of Katie Battle's phone number, and we'll know she wasn't listed in your directory. But I have a feeling we're not going to see just her number. We're going to see her name, and then we'll know you're lying to us about not knowing her. And that'll be that."

Ellie saw Stacy's fingers twitch against her phone.

"And don't even think about trying to delete anything right now, Stacy, or we'll pry it out of your hands if we have to, and things will get extremely unpleasant for everyone."

The girl froze, and Ellie spotted a look of panic cross her face before the warm smile returned.

"I really don't understand what's going on."

"That's correct, and you don't have any right to. We came here thinking you could help us out, and you a.s.sured us you would. But I've got to tell you that, right now, Stacy? You're about ten seconds away from being taken into custody as part of a homicide investigation."

"A homicide?" Her eyes widened beneath the makeup.

"Turns out your phone number is the single link between two women who were murdered today."

"Murdered?"

"The call to your phone yesterday? The woman who dialed your number was killed tonight."

"Miranda? Miranda's dead?" And with that, Stacy Schecter's black eyeliner began to stream like the cascades of paint on her canvases.

CHAPTER THIRTY.

10:30 P.M.

Stacy Schecter was a different woman without the makeup. The rock-and-roll eyeliner and pale face powder were gone, rubbed away by tears and half a box of tissues. The dry, droll att.i.tude had dissolved as well. She looked at Ellie across the table with the puffy, red-rimmed eyes of a scared and lonely child.

"I don't know why I can't keep it together," she said, wiping her face with the back of her hand. "I hardly knew the girl."

"You knew her at some level. You had her number in your cell phone."

Because her apartment had scarcely enough room for one person to sit, Stacy had agreed to come in to the precinct to be interviewed. It had been half an hour already, and only now had she calmed down sufficiently to get her words out.

"I didn't even know her real name. To me, she was Miranda. No last name, but that would have been fake also."

"How did you know her?" Ellie asked.

"We met last year at a friend's party. We didn't stay in touch or anything. We just hit it off, and so I put her number in my phone."

J. J. stood with his arms crossed behind Stacy in the back corner of the interrogation room. He rolled his eyes when Ellie glanced at him.

"So why was she calling you yesterday?"

"I told you. It was a hang-up. I figured if she wanted to talk to me she'd call back. People pull up the wrong number on their cells all the time."

"We're getting the records from the cell phone company, Stacy. They're going to show any other calls between you and Katie, or Miranda. And I have a feeling we're going to find a lot more calls than we'd expect to find between two women who met at a party a year ago but didn't stay in touch."

Stacy pressed her eyes closed. She was thinking. Hard. She was smart enough to recognize the problem. She needed one more press.

"What are you hiding, Stacy? You obviously cared about this woman."

She shook her head in frustration. "I wish I didn't. Jesus, how did I get myself into this?"

"Into what? Were you and Katie involved in drugs?" It was a cla.s.sic interrogation technique. Offer the suspect one explanation-a wrong one-so the human need to correct an error takes over. "We can work something out. Finding the person who did this to her is a lot more important than whatever you're holding back."

"We don't do drugs."

"So what was it?"

She closed her eyes again. Still thinking.

"I'm not testifying."

"Whoa, where did that come from, Stacy? We're just trying to figure out why your telephone number was the common link between two women who were murdered today."

"I told you, I don't know anything about that other number. Only Miranda's."

"Fine. We'll talk about the other one later. But right now you need to tell us what you know about Katie Battle."

"You ask me to sign anything, or try to use my name, and I'll deny it all. I'll be out of here, and then I'll bail."

Ellie looked at Rogan, who gave her a look that said the decision was hers. She nodded her agreement.

"I met Miranda last year through a date. Set up by an escort service. We were on, you know, the same date. For the same client. We worked together another couple of times. Since then, we've swapped a few dates. We sort of have the same look." She looked down at her tattered, paint-smeared sweatshirt. "Or at least we have the same look when we're working."

Ellie could see a superficial resemblance. Dark hair. Pale skin. Intense eyes.

"And by working, you mean s.e.x for money."

"You got it," she said. The att.i.tude was on its way back. "You're a cop. I a.s.sume you know what working at an escort service means. I was with the service for about six months last year, but now I'm strictly independent. I can find dates on my own, and I get to keep the money for myself."

"It's dangerous working on your own." Before getting her detective shield, Ellie had worked more than her fair share of prost.i.tution decoy operations.

"I'm alive. Miranda isn't. I guess I keep myself safe."

For now, Ellie wanted to say. But arguing with Stacy about her idiotic decisions was not the priority.

"Even after I left the service, Miranda and I would occasionally swap dates with each other. It was a no-no for her because of her agreement with the service. I've got an arrangement going with another couple of girls there, too, so that's why I don't want my name getting back to them."

"Who's the them?"

"The service."

"And where do we get in touch with them?"

She paused, but didn't bother arguing. "They call themselves Prestige Parties."

"And how often did you and Miranda swap dates?"

She shook her head. "Not a lot. Maybe three or four times since I went out on my own a year ago. When I saw her number on my cell yesterday, I a.s.sumed that's why she was calling. But then she hung up, and I guess I wasn't excited enough about working to call her back." Her bottom lip began to quiver. "That could be why she was calling, you know. About her date tonight. She could have been calling to see if I could...I could have been the one tonight."

"But you weren't. So stop feeling guilty, and stop feeling sorry for yourself. You and Katie knew what you were doing-"

"So she deserved it? Is that what you're saying?"

"Of course not. No one deserves what she went through. But you were both in this. And to some extent, you were in it together. She wouldn't wish this upon you, just like you aren't happy it happened to her instead of you. Deal with it. You can help us here."

"I'm trying."

"Do you have any idea who her client might have been tonight?"

"No. She didn't have a lot of regulars. She relied on the service to set things up."

"And given how Prestige works, if they tell us they don't know the name of a client, should we be willing to believe that?"

"Actually, yeah, that's believable. They were pretty s.h.i.tty, you know? They talked a big game about all they were doing for us, but they were no better than any street pimp selling you to whoever happened to call in. Supposedly they took credit cards so you'd have some leverage over these guys, but it seemed like half the jobs I went on, they told me it was a cash deal."

"All right, we'll press them to try to find out who Katie was with tonight. Let's talk about the other telephone number. According to the phone records, an NYU student named Megan Gunther called you in May."

"I don't know anyone named Megan."

"You didn't think you knew anyone named Katie Battle either." J. J. stepped forward and placed a photograph of Megan Gunther on the table in front of Stacy. She winced at the sight of the dead woman on the metal gurney.

"Take a good look," Ellie urged. "People's appearance can change after they...pa.s.s."

They both watched carefully as Stacy took in the image for a full five seconds before finally shaking her head. "No, I'm sure. I've never seen that girl before."

Ellie eyed her skeptically, evoking a frustrated chuckle from her witness. "Look, I just got done confessing to whoring myself out. Why would I lie to you about knowing this girl? Maybe it really was a wrong number. Go ahead. Pull up all the phone records you want. You'll find a few calls between me and Miranda, or Katie, or whatever. But this girl? I swear, you're not going to find anything."

Ellie was startled by the buzz of her cell phone at her waist. She checked the screen. It was a text message from Jess. "Just saw U on TV outside Royalton. Thought Capt. America splurged till they said dead realtor. Sorry you're working. But can I have the bed 2nite?"