Chapter 7
Green
stopped at his desk and removed his suit jacket, listening to Briscoe’s half of
a phone conversation.
“I
appreciate that. Thanks for your help,” he said, then replaced the receiver.
“Liz Rodgers called a little while ago. She said her tests revealed that the
body was in the water for at least eight hours, but no more than twelve. So
considering the information that the Bradens gave us on Friday concerning when
Corinna disappeared, and the time the body was pulled from the river, that
would put the time of death at between somewhere around 4:00 and no later than
5:00 Tuesday morning.”
Draping
the jacket over the back of his chair, Green nodded in agreement. “That makes
sense with what we know about the situation between Corinna and Lewis, too. She
must have left to meet him not long after her father went back to bed at
“It would
be nice to know exactly where that was. The search of Battery Park and an area
five miles upriver came up empty. But there are so many warehouses along the
piers, it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. C.S.U. was thinking of
extending the search, but with what we now know about the time of death, the
guy I just spoke to at the Maritime Lab said the body couldn’t have floated from
much farther upriver in the time period from when she was dumped to when she
was found. The current in that area isn’t very swift since the river widens out
before it dumps into the bay.”
“So now
that we know when and how she was killed, we can focus on the who and where.”
Indicating a large envelope lying on Briscoe’s desk, Green asked, “Is that the
transcript of the e-mail conversations from the lab?”
“Yeah.
They sent a copy for each of us.” He handed a good-sized packet of papers
across his desk to Green. “This should keep us busy for a while.”
Green
settled back in his chair and began skimming the posts, paying close attention
to Lewis’ end of the e-conversations, looking for clues as to his identity. But
after several minutes he became aware of Briscoe’s rather distracting
shuffling. Looking up, he found his partner examining a page with a puzzled
frown, then flipping to the next page with the same expression.
“Something wrong?”
Briscoe
gave him a sheepish look. “I know I’m going to regret asking this, but what the
hell does ‘LOL’ mean?”
He
restrained his amusement to a conservative chuckle and explained, “It’s
computer jargon. ‘LOL’ is short for ‘laughing out loud’.” He quickly scanned a
couple more pages and added, “You’ll also see ‘BTW’, which means ‘by the way’,
and ‘IMHO’, ‘in my humble opinion’.” He returned to the page he had been
reading. “If you find any others, let me know.”
“Yeah,
thanks,” Briscoe mumbled. “Thanks for making me feel like I was born in the
dark ages.”
Green snickered
and returned to his reading.
After a
short time, Briscoe said, “I assume that ‘RSN’ doesn’t refer to ‘registered
nurse’.”
“No, that
would be ‘RN’,” Green smiled. “‘RSN’ is ‘real soon now’.”
“And
‘BRB’?”
“‘Be
right back’,” he answered.
Almost an
hour later, Green tossed the papers onto his desk in frustration. Noting that
his partner was almost to the end of his packet as well, he got up and made his
way to the coffee machine.
He
returned as Briscoe finished the last page and looked up. “What does ‘F2F’
stand for?”
With a
discouraged sigh, Green sat down. “It means ‘face to face’. Kayla was right.
Corinna was the one who suggested they meet.”
Briscoe
swore softly. “You’ve gotta hand it to him – he’s smooth. First he wins the
girl’s trust, then he just sits back and lets nature take its course. There are
no overt propositions or suggestive remarks. Everything he said was very
non-threatening. But he knows exactly what to say and when to say it in order
to steer the relationship in the direction he wants it to go. An unsuspecting
kid like Corinna wouldn’t have a prayer. She happily walked right into his
trap, thinking she had found the love of her life.”
“He is
good at using whatever the girl tells him to his advantage. A little commiserating
and encouragement can go a long way with an impressionable teenage girl looking
for her first taste of romance.” Green regarded him thoughtfully. “You think
maybe he’s had some practice?”
Briscoe
nodded his agreement. “Could be he’s done this before. Let’s run a check and
see if there have been any other cases with a similar slant.”
***“We went back two years. There have been more
unsolved murders of young girls than I care to think about, but nothing that
matches this guy’s M.O.,” Green explained as he and Briscoe sat in Van Buren’s
office.
“We can
hope this was his first and do our best to make it his last,” Van Buren
suggested hopefully. “Was there anything else in the e-mail conversations he
had with the victim that gave clues to his whereabouts, like maybe his
knowledge about a local area or a job?”
“No,
nothing like that,” Green answered, frustration evident in his voice. “We also
checked with the manager of the band whose website brought him together with
the victim. They’ve played all over the city, sometimes at free concerts in the
park, so there’s no way to track him that way. Everything he said and did was
anonymous and untraceable. We don’t know anything about him other than that he
killed the girl and knows how to send e-mail. Crime Stoppers said they haven’t
received any calls in response to Corinna Braden’s picture and the request for
information they’ve been running in the local papers and on the television
stations, either. It’s beginning to look like he stumbled onto the perfect
crime.”
“There is
one other thing we know about him,” Briscoe corrected. At Green’s questioning
look, he added, “We know he likes the coffee at Smokin’ Java. We could talk to
some of the regulars and people who work there to see if they can help.”
Green
looked at him skeptically. “Without a description or real name, exactly what is
it that we’re going to ask people?”
“Got any
better ideas?” Briscoe asked with a touch of annoyance. “The only thing we know
about him is where he’s been. That’s a place to start.”
Van Buren
nodded. “It doesn’t look like you have a lot of options. Take a picture of
Corinna Braden with you in case this man wasn’t as smart as we think. Maybe he
had her meet him at one of his regular hang-outs.”
***A girl with purple streaks in her dyed-white
hair and a silver stud pierced into her left eyebrow put lids on two tall
thermal cups and set them on the counter. Accepting money from a man standing
beside Green, she replied, “No, we don’t have security cameras. And I’ve only
been here two weeks. I’ve barely learned how to run the espresso machine. I
don’t have any idea who’s a regular customer and who isn’t. The manager comes
in at
“Thanks,”
Green acknowledged. Turning to walk out with Briscoe, he added, “That was the
third coffee shop on our list. This is more than a long shot. What are the
chances that we’re going to find someone who remembers seeing a man at any one
location, at an exact time and day several weeks ago?”
Briscoe
shook his head. “You know, you’ve been griping most of the afternoon. If I
didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re not all that interested in finding this
psycho.”
“I want
to find him. I just don’t want to waste my time chasing a ghost. It would take
an incredible stroke of luck for us to stumble across anyone who could help us
in one of these places. The odds are better that you’ll win the lottery
tonight.”
“Well
then I’ll have to remember to pick up a ticket on my way home, ‘cause I’m
feeling kinda lucky,” Briscoe quipped.
Green
stopped on the sidewalk. “Why don’t we give Crime Stoppers a couple more days
to see if they get any leads? Someone had to have seen Lewis and Corinna
together when they met.”
Briscoe’s
eyes narrowed and he suggested icily, “If you want to sit on your ass waiting
for someone to drop this guy in our laps, then why don’t you head back to the
station house? I was doing this when you were still in grade school and I’m
perfectly capable of carrying on an investigation by myself.”
“We’re
getting nowhere,” Green maintained. “You have to be realistic. We don’t have
anything to go on. There isn’t any point in trying to find him this way.”
“Maybe,
maybe not. But until we have something else, this is what I’m going to do.
Every day that passes, this guy is a few steps closer to getting away with the
murder of a sweet young girl. There’s no way in hell I’m going to let that
happen. Whatever it takes, I’m going to find him.”
Green
studied him silently for a moment, then said, “We’re not just chasing another
perp who committed a crime here, are we? This is personal with you. Just who
was it that Corinna Braden reminded you of?”
Continuing to walk to the car, his partner shook his head. “You don’t
know what you’re talking about.”
Green
reached in front of him and placed his hand on the car door as Briscoe started
to open it. “Admit it, Lennie. Because the victim reminds you of someone you
knew, you’ve let this one get under your skin. Making this guy pay has become a
personal project with you.”
Looking
Green straight in the eye, he insisted, “First and foremost, I’m a cop. I don’t
let anything get in the way of that. And as a cop, anytime someone ruthlessly
lures a young, unsuspecting kid to a violent death, it’s personal with me. And
for your information, the bastard that killed the girl I knew already got
exactly what he deserved, so this isn’t about some misplaced sense of personal
justice.” His eyes remained locked with
Green’s for several seconds more before he asked, “Are you going to check out
coffee shop number four with me, or do you want to catch a cab back to the
precinct while I go alone?”
Green
sighed with resignation and continued around the car to the driver’s side.
“What’s the address?”
***“We don’t need cameras in the store. Once the
register takes in a certain amount of cash, it locks up and the manager empties
it into a safe in the back. Brinks comes by mid-afternoon for the pick-up, so
we don’t ever have enough money on hand to make it worth someone’s while to rip
us off,” a short girl with spiky blond hair explained.
“What
about regulars, Isabel?” Briscoe asked. “Are there people you would recognize
as coming in at certain times of the day?”
“Oh,
yeah,” she quickly responded. “We get the early morning commuters, the late
morning breakers, the afternoon pick-me-ups, and the night shift workers. We
see them all.”
“We’re
looking for a man who’s been coming in to use the computer for at least the
last four months. We know he came in here several times a couple of weeks ago,”
Green said. “It was around 3:30 or 4:00 in the afternoon and he spent an hour
or two chatting online.”
“That
could be any one of a dozen guys or more. What do you want with him, anyway?”
Green
pulled a photo of Corinna Braden from his pocket and handed it to her. “He used
a chat room to hook up with this fifteen year old girl and then he murdered
her. One of the last e-mails she received from him was sent from here.” At her
shocked look, he added, “So you can see how important it is for us to find
him.”
“Oh, wow.
That’s horrible,” she noted. “I can tell you the names of a few of the
afternoon regulars, but I only know first names for most of them.” She
shrugged, handing the picture back. “I like to talk to the guys, you know, to
try to get with someone. But the majority of people who come in here pay with
cash, so I only know last names when they volunteer the information.”
“Anything
you could give us would be helpful,” Briscoe assured her. Motioning toward the
customers seated behind him, he asked, “Any of these fit the bill?”
She
scanned the room and then pointed. “The guy in the corner with the red t-shirt
– his name is Brent and he comes in here pretty often.”
While
Green took down the other names the girl provided, Briscoe pocketed the photo
and strolled around the shop. When he reached the man in the corner, he stood
fairly close and bent down to peer over his shoulder at the computer screen.
“You
know, that’s really amazing. It seems like there’s nothing you can’t find on
that thing if you know where to look.” When the man turned to look at him with
an annoyed expression, Briscoe added, “Oh, I didn’t mean to interrupt you. It’s
just that an old guy like me is easily impressed by all of this new-fangled
technology. I’m Lennie Briscoe, by the way. And you are?”
“Brent
Horowitz,” the man acknowledged curtly. “Is there something I can do for
you?”
“As a
matter of fact,” Briscoe said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his
badge and the photo, “you can tell me if you’ve ever seen this girl.”
Looking
at the picture blankly, he asked, “Is there some reason I should have?”
Briscoe
watched his face closely. “She was killed by someone who sent her an e-mail from
the very spot where you’re sitting.”
He looked
up from the photo in surprise. “And you think I had something to do with it?
You’re crazy! A hundred people probably sit in this chair every day!”
“Then I’m
sure you wouldn’t mind telling me where you were Monday night and early Tuesday
morning, the fifth of this month.”
“I was
where I am most nights: sitting in a toll booth on the Long Island Expressway.
It’s my job,” he explained defensively. “I work the graveyard shift.”
Holding
up his hand, Briscoe countered, “And asking these questions is my job. If it
wasn’t you, is there anyone else you’ve seen in here who you think might be
capable of doing something like that?”
“I have
no idea. I come in, check my e-mail, do a little surfing, and leave. I don’t
come in for conversation and I don’t know any of the other people in
here.”
Briscoe
pulled out a piece of paper and began to write. “We’ll have to check your
alibi. That’s Horowitz, with one ‘r’, right?”
The man
nodded. “Yeah. Check all you want. I’ve got nothing to hide.”
After he
finished writing, Briscoe joined Green as he started for the door.
“This
shop closes at one a.m. like all the others, so we know Lewis didn’t meet
Corinna here,” Green told him. “Isabel promised to try to get some more last
names from the regulars, but I don’t think it’s going to do us a lot of good
since she can’t remember who was in on what day. With this being a mainly cash
business, there aren’t going to be any records we can check, either. What did
Brent have to say?”
“He says
he works nights in a toll booth. I don’t think he’s our guy. He didn’t react at
all when he saw Corinna’s picture and he didn’t get rattled when I told him I
was going to check out his alibi.”
“Well,
that’s four for four. We can check out the names on this list to see if any of
them have priors, but I doubt that’s going to help us much.”
“Every
little bit helps,” Briscoe noted, stopping on the sidewalk and scanning the
area around them.
“What are
you looking for?” Green asked.
“Lottery
numbers,” Briscoe shot back. Spotting something farther down the sidewalk, he
headed toward it. Coming to a stop, he smiled at Green triumphantly. “What’d I
tell you? I knew our luck was due for a change!”
Green
regarded the glass-enclosed booth in front of them and nodded. “An A.T.M.” He
glanced back at the entrance to the coffee shop. “And only a few yards away.”
Briscoe
slapped him on the back, barely able to contain his sudden enthusiasm. “Let’s
hope it has a wide-angle camera.”
***The detectives found Van Buren fuming over the
copy machine when they returned to the precinct. “How did it go?” she asked
when they approached.
“We may
have hit pay-dirt,” Briscoe told her. “There’s an A.T.M. near one of the coffee
shops Lewis frequented and we’re pretty sure that the angle of the camera in
the booth will allow us to see who comes and goes from the shop. We visited the
bank that owns the A.T.M. and spoke to their chief of security. He said he’ll
have the tapes from the booth to us tomorrow or the next day. They keep the
tapes for two months before they reuse them, so we should be able to get one
from three days before Corinna was killed, when we know Lewis visited that
particular shop. We also ran into a girl who works there and knows a lot of the
regulars. With her help we may be able to nail this guy down.”
“The girl
gave us the names of some of the regulars,” Green added. “We’ll run them
through the system and see if any have priors.”
“Good,”
Van Buren agreed. “It would be nice to get this guy off of the streets before
he goes looking for his next victim.” Looking plaintively from one to the
other, she pointed to the copier and asked, “Could one of you give me hand
un-jamming this thing?”