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“For the purposes of payment from the NYPD, Ialwaysmean to be helpful.”
Chapter56
THE NYPD HEADQUARTERSmakes me uncomfortable. I have never liked being around One Police Plaza for very long. As far as I’m concerned, the place is a necessary evil only visited if I want to talk to someone in Special Investigations or Human Resources, or our forensic tech people. That’s why I didn’t appreciate the fact that I had visited the place so many times in the past few days.
I walked through the main door of the Tech Unit. It wasn’t dark and dingy like TV shows often portray tech hubs. But I knew that some of the tech people preferred to work in a darkened room since it reduced glare.
A young man looked out from behind his desk and said, “May I help you?”
“Is William Patel here?”
The young man pointed to a partially closed door, then went back to working on his computer without another word. William Patel had been a tremendous help when I was stuck in Washington, DC, trying to find out who had killed my friend FBI agent Emily Parker. Not only did William help me; he’d also done so without approval from the NYPD. He trusted that I needed help to find a killer instead of listening to people who were trying to chase me out of Washington.
The ten-by-twenty-foot room had four computers and the lights turned low. William was in the corner, studying a screen filled with computer code. When he looked up to see who’d come in, his eyes looked bleary and bloodshot.
It took a moment for him to recognize me. Then he perked up instantly.
“Detective! What brings you to our little high-tech kingdom? Have another big case you need help with?”
“You should be a psychic, William. That’s exactly what I need.”
He got a big, goofy grin on his face. He looked at me and said, “Put me in, Coach.”
It was hard not to feel encouraged by an attitude like that. Especially since I knew a lot of the tech guys took shit from other detectives. Some detectives viewed them as nothing more than nerdy administrative assistants. They were constantly trying to get the tech guys to bypass safeguards on their NYPD laptops. Mainly software to keep them from downloading dangerous programs and viruses or to track their internet usage.
I took the seat next to William and started to tell him what I’d learned about The Girlfriend Experience. I handed him an information sheet on each of my three victims, Emma Schrade, Estella Abreu, and Suzanne Morton. Each sheet had just their personal information, like their date of birth and their cell phone number.
While I laid out the information as I knew it, William started to work on his computer. I told him what I knew about the case and my two suspects, Kyle and Jaden Banning. I pointed out to him that I had no evidence on either brother. Or anyone else, for that matter.
He kept typing while occasionally glancing up at me. When I finally finished talking, I leaned back in the chair.
“What do you think, William? Can you get me some kind of a line on this Girlfriend Experience? I know you’re busy and it’s tough to take time out of your day, but you told me you wanted to be involved in more interesting cases. When do you think you’d be able to help me?”
William looked at me with no expression. I noticed his dark hair was longer than the last time I had spoken to him and he wore a new pair of more fashionable glasses. “The stuff on the printer behind you has the best match I could find looking through some of the seedier parts of the internet,” he said.
“What?”
“Reach behind you and take the sheets from the big laser printer.”
I turned in my chair and plucked nine sheets of paper from a blocky printer.
The top sheet was a printout of a New York State driver’s license photo for an extremely pretty girl with long blond hair. I didn’t recognize her, but there was a list of several phone numbers below the photo, as well as a few addresses. I turned my eyes back to William but kept silent. I knew any question I asked would sound stupid.
William said, “I cross-referenced the phone numbers from the sheet you just gave me through a few sites the NYPD would not approve of. Anyway, it looks like your victims all used at least one phone number in common. It was probably some kind of a hub or a computer. The printouts I just gave you have all the information on the girl connected to that phone number. Her name is Allie Pritz. Looks like she used to go to NYU. She’s got a lot of addresses attached to her name. All over the city. Maybe she can tell you what you need to know.”
I was speechless. It actually scared me that someone could find out all that information in just a few minutes, while still engaging with meandprobably playing a video game at the same time.
It also made me evaluate my past experiences at headquarters. Maybe I had expected too little. Between Gary Avram, Persephone Garland, and William Patel, I had been able to jump ahead with their quick assistance.
Finally, I said, “William, I could kiss you.”
He held up both hands and said, “I’m really not interested in something like that, Detective. I’m not judging you or your choices. I’m just saying it’s not for me.”
I was so anxious to work with the new information that all I said was “Understood.”
Chapter57
I WENT OVERthe information William Patel had just given me. There wasn’t much more here about Allie Pritz. She was twenty-two. Born in Philadelphia. Never been arrested. Attended NYU for two and a half years. Now it seemed she was coordinating some kind of dating service. Normally, something I couldn’t have cared less about. But if the members of this service were being murdered, I needed to learn more.
