Chapter Eight

      3:00 p.m.

      Ellie rapped her knuckles against the glass window that separated Lieutenant Robin Tucker’s office from the cramped detective squad, packed as it was with unmatched desks, dilapidated chairs, and the chaos of eighteen homicide detectives working out of a single room. She swept her bangs to the side as she watched through the glass. Tucker’s head tilted ever so slightly toward her office door.

      ‘It’s open,’ she called out, still reading whatever report she held between her fingertips.

      ‘Afternoon, Lou. Rogan says you wanted to touch base?’

      Tucker set the document down on her desk. ‘Did you really need your partner to tell you that, given what happened in court yesterday?’

      Ellie had finally won over her former lieutenant three short months before he was demoted due to an internal affairs investigation, the details of which were still wholly unknown and therefore rampant fodder for the NYPD rumor mill. When she found out that her new lieutenant was called Robin Tucker, she had assumed that the gender-ambiguous name belonged to a man. Statistical odds. But when Ellie learned that this particular Robin was of the female variety, she was optimistic. Maybe her luck would be better with a woman as a supervisor. Unfortunately, though, Ellie’s problems were with authority, not men.

      ‘No, Lou. Just making sure Rogan got credit for keeping me in check.’

      ‘If you were in check, you might not have spent the night in jail for contempt of court.’

      Ellie pressed her lips together. Explanations had done nothing to help her with Judge Bandon. She wasn’t going to waste her breath attempting to persuade Tucker that the judge had overreacted.

      Tucker looked Ellie in the eye during the silence. Ellie knew from asking around that her lieutenant was forty-eight years old, but her makeup-less skin was clear and bright. Her wavy hair had probably been shiny and blond years before turning to its current wiry mix of gray and light brown.

      She gave Ellie a nod. ‘Actually, a little bird already told me that the judge teed off on you for no good reason.’

      Ellie shut her eyes and thought about the ribbing she was going to get in the house if Max called her lieutenant in an attempt to protect her. Then as quickly as the idea had come to her, she rejected it. Max knew better.

      ‘You know Nick Dillon.’ The way Ellie said it, it wasn’t a question. As an ex-cop, the head of Sparks Industries’ Corporate Security Division would know more than a few former colleagues at the NYPD.

      ‘We were both in the Seventh when I was just a rookie. He called this morning looking for your Lou. I guess he wanted to save you from a month’s worth of desk duty. Anyway, we recognized each other’s names from back in the day.’

      Tucker’s affect changed as she spoke about Dillon – her eyes softened, the corners of her lips raised into a slight smile – and Ellie noticed for the first time that with a little effort her lieutenant could be attractive.

      ‘He’s been pretty decent to Rogan and me.’

      ‘He’s a good guy. When he called, he gave me a heads-up that Sparks may go back to court to get access to our evidence.’

      ‘On what basis?’

      ‘Given where you spent the last twenty-four hours, do you really think Sam Sparks considers himself bound by the usual rules?’

      ‘Valid point.’ A week earlier, Ellie had read online that Sparks was in negotiations for a reality show in which contestants would show off their eye for potential real estate jackpots. Sparks would supervise their work, like Donald Trump on The Apprentice, but meaner and with better hair.

      ‘Dillon knows it’s futile. No court will give Sparks what he wants, no matter how much he pays his lawyers to go through the motions.’

      ‘But Dillon does know you from back at the Seventh.’

      ‘Exactly. A guy like Dillon doesn’t chat up someone like me just for shits and giggles. Someone who looked like you? Now that would be different.’

      Ellie was used to her fellow cops making remarks about her looks. She would probably always look a little bit like the girl who was once the runner-up in the Junior Miss Wichita pageant. But what she usually chose to take as a compliment sounded like a dig coming from Tucker.

      ‘So Dillon was sniffing around to see what he might turn up?’ she asked.

      ‘Yeah, I actually felt sorry for the guy. You can tell he thinks Sparks is a schmuck. I guess Sparks wants everything we know about the missing girl. He figures that if he can find her, we’ll work that angle and forget about him.’

      ‘That’s a dead end. We’ve got the latents from the champagne flute and the DNA on the outside of the condom, but no hits on either one. She’s a mystery woman.’

      Ellie hadn’t been particularly surprised. In a criminal justice system dominated by male perpetrators, and with a DNA database consisting almost entirely of sex offenders, striking a hit on a female subject was rare.

      ‘I guess when you’ve got enough money, the sky’s the limit,’ Tucker said. ‘He wants Dillon to work the case from beginning to end with his own people. You know, Dillon spent ten years between homicide and special victims before he went private. I got the impression the work in the private sector was pretty high-speed – corporate kidnapping prevention. He’s a good cop.’

      ‘Except he’s not a cop. He’s been a ten with me and Rogan, but he’s still a guy making four times what you’re pulling in, doing half the amount of work, for some rich prick who thinks he’s entitled to more safety than regular people.’

      ‘Tell me how you really feel, Detective.’

      ‘I just did. Because for a second there it actually sounded like you wanted us to share our evidence with Sam Sparks.’

      ‘No, I don’t. I was, however, suggesting that a cop with those kinds of years under his belt might catch the sort of details that a less experienced detective – someone who got promoted too early, someone who was the brass’s darling – might miss.’

      ‘Seriously, I’ve got to defend Rogan here. He put in his dues.’

      Tucker was unamused. ‘So what’s the next move?’

      ‘Rogan and I were thinking we’d take another look at Sparks.’ She set out her theory that Sparks’s resistance to their investigation could have more to do with his role in Mancini’s death than any concern for privacy.

      ‘For what it’s worth, I told Dillon we wouldn’t be giving his boss special treatment.’

      ‘So we’re a go?’ Ellie asked.

      She nodded. ‘But I also told him you’d continue to work every angle. Don’t just focus on Sparks. And I don’t want to hear from anyone in the house that you’re shucking off new cases, either. We stopped pushing full-time on this two months ago.’

      ‘We know.’

      ‘And watch your back, Hatcher. You already spent one night in jail. I’d hate to see what Sam Sparks could do if he was really pissed off.’