212: A Novel Part 12

"I don't think anyone hates a single person on the planet as much as you seem to hate Sparks and Bandon today. I mean, hate groups are calling for lessons on how to hate more deeply."

"Yeah? Well, some lame-a.s.s-joke group has been calling for you."

"Seriously, did it go all right or not?"

Another shrug. "Yeah, it was fine. Your boy Donovan made it cut-and-dried."

"Hey, you managed to walk out of chambers without handcuffs and jail scrubs, so you clearly did better than me."

"Sorry I'm PMSing. I'll get over it. You run the show with this girl upstairs? You always do better with the young white girls."

"That's not what you said yesterday about Kristen Woods."

Ellie immediately regretted making any further reference to the Sparks case. When the elevator doors opened, Rogan had one more comment. "You think Tucker gave us this callout to keep us from bothering Sparks?"

"Yep."

"Any thoughts about what we can do about that?"

"Find out who the h.e.l.l killed Megan Gunther and then get right back up Sparks's a.s.s again."

Even in a hospital bed, with an IV in her arm and bruises on her face and neck, Heather Bradley was objectively attractive. Her sable-colored hair fell in loose curls past her shoulders. As a resident pointed a pen-size flashlight into her pupils, she blinked her almond-shaped green eyes, dark lashes contrasting against flawless pale skin.

"Excellent," the resident announced. "Hard to believe that an hour ago we were worried whether you'd make it."

Ellie tapped the open hospital room door.

"Yes?" the young doctor asked.

"We were told Ms. Bradley might be ready for a few questions?"

He looked to his patient for guidance, and Heather nodded. "Unless you think it's better that I not."

"It's totally up to you," he said.

"I want to help," she said.

"Be quick?" the doctor said quietly as he pa.s.sed them. "She's a lot better off than we feared at first, but she's still in shock and needs some rest."

"Hi, Heather. I'm Ellie Hatcher with the NYPD. This is my partner, J. J. Rogan."

"It's almost funny," Heather said. "I was about to say 'Nice to meet you' out of habit, but-"

"I know. Not exactly nice circ.u.mstances," Ellie said. "How much do you know about what happened in your apartment this morning?"

"I know that Megan didn't make it. I know that some crazy person forced the door open with a knife and began attacking me."

Some crazy person. Ellie had hoped that Heather would be able to give them the name of someone she recognized, someone the girls knew.

"How did he force the door open?" Rogan asked. They had seen no damage to the girls' apartment door.

"There was a knock. I just a.s.sumed it was for Megan. As soon as I opened the door, he pushed his way in."

"Just one person?" Ellie asked.

"Yes."

"Do you have any idea who it was?" Ellie already knew the answer to the question, but it seemed natural to ask. Heather shook her head. "What did he look like?"

Heather paused. "I don't even know. He was wearing, like, this black ski mask thing. I'm pretty sure he was white. At least that's how I'm picturing the skin beneath the mask."

This was not good.

"What about his clothes?" Ellie asked.

Another pause. "Jeans, I think. And a long-sleeved s.h.i.+rt," Heather said with more confidence. "That, I remember, because I tried to scratch at his arms, but all I got was fabric. I'm sorry. It just happened really fast, and I was thras.h.i.+ng around trying to fight him off. I didn't see very much."

"Did he say anything to you?"

Heather shook her head again. "He just came at me. It was...totally crazy. He was cutting at me and slicing me, and all I could do was try to get away or push him off of me. Then I decided to play dead, but then Megan opened her bedroom door."

"And you-"

"Just laid there." Tears welled in Heather's eyes, and she dropped her gaze. "I knew I couldn't help. I could barely get to the phone after he left. But I should have-"

"No, you shouldn't have," Ellie said firmly. "You did exactly the right thing. You survived, Heather. Don't ever regret that."

"But it feels so...wrong. Maybe if-"

"Did Megan talk to you about this problem she was having with a Web site called Campus Juice?"

Heather reestablished eye contact with Ellie and nodded. "Just yesterday. You think this had something to do with those postings?"

"We don't think anything yet," Ellie said. "We're just running through all the possibilities. Did Megan have any idea who might have posted those things about her?

"No. She seemed really thrown off by the whole situation. And really scared. It seemed totally out of the blue, you know?" She seemed even more disturbed by the thought that she and her roommate might have known someone who would do this.

"How so?" Ellie asked.

Heather paused. "Like, you know, Megan was just the kind of person who minded her own business. School. Exercise. A couple girlfriends. She didn't really seem the type to have, you know, trouble."

There was something soulful about Heather Bradley's face. If it hadn't been for the high voice that depended on the word "really" like oxygen and ended most sentences with a question mark, she might have seemed older than her young age.

"What about boyfriends?"

"Megan? No, not really. I mean, there was a guy right when I moved in-Keith something-but that was a few months ago. They were already on the outs, you know? Like Megan told me a couple of times at the beginning that he wasn't quite getting the hint, but that was it. At least as far as I know."

"Did you ever meet him?"

"He came around a couple of times, but I never got to know him."

"Any idea where we might find him? Was he also at NYU?"

She shook her head. "Definitely not. I think that was part of the issue. He was like some really funky musician type. He'd wander around the city recording weird noises on his laptop and then mix it into dance music and stuff. It was a little whackadoo. Oh my G.o.d, you don't think it was him, do you?"

"Like I said, we're just considering the possibilities. What about you?"

"Me?"

"Yeah. Anyone on your end we should talk to?"

"Gosh, no. Wow, I didn't even think about that. I just a.s.sumed this was some crazy person. It happens, you know?"

"So you don't have a boyfriend? Even an ex?"

Heather shook her head. "No, I just transferred here from Arizona, and NYU's been kicking my a.s.s, you know? I haven't even had a date. I can write down my schedule or something if that would help."

"Yeah, sure, if you're up to it. Anything you can think of."

"Is everything all right in here, Heather?"

Ellie turned around to see the young doctor lingering in the doorway.

"Detectives, I can make sure that any notes Heather writes get to you, but if you're about done-"

Ellie felt her cell phone vibrate against her waist, flipped it open, and saw a text message from Max Donovan: "Call me about Campus Juice."

"How much do you love me?"

Max used a four-letter word that had not quite been uttered yet between them, but Ellie knew he hadn't meant love, love. She plugged her free ear with her finger to block out the sounds of approaching sirens outside St. Vincent's on Seventh Avenue.

"I take it you've got good news?"

"How soon can you get to the courthouse?"

"We're in the heat of this thing right now."

"Trust me. It'll be worth your time."

Max's office was on the fifteenth floor of 100 Centre Street, home to many of Manhattan's criminal courts and most of its five hundred a.s.sistant district attorneys. Ellie and Rogan breezed past the receptionist for the homicide investigation unit and headed directly to Max's open door, adorned by a bulletin board plastered, as usual, with the various news clippings and cartoons that Max had found sufficiently amusing to earn a spot on his office mural of humor.

As Ellie rapped her knuckles against the fake wood grain of the door, she noticed the board's latest addition-a story in this morning's Post about a fleeing felon who'd lost a race against Seventy-ninth Precinct officers when his baggy pants fell to his knees, causing him to trip over a dozing homeless person's open jar of urine.

Max rose from his desk and shook Rogan's hand. "Good to see you back here, man. After this morning, I thought we'd soured you on this building for at least a month."

"I was tempted to wait in the car, but Hatcher swore you said this would be worth our time."

"It will be. You want a c.o.ke or something?"

"Max," Ellie said. "We're in the hunt."

"Just a few minutes. I promise. In the meantime, take a look here." Jiggling the mouse on his desktop, he awakened the computer screen. "This is the Campus Juice Web site you were telling me about."

He clicked on a menu bar that read "Choose Your Campus," and then scrolled down a long list of university names until he reached "New York University."

"Typical format for a message board. A big list of topics, which are the t.i.tles of original posts, and then anyone can click on a subject and reply."

"We got the gist." Rogan pointed to Ellie. "She's got a verbatim printout of the posts about our vic from the girl's parents."

"Right," Max said. "But you probably didn't see this."

He clicked on a link labeled "Privacy and Tracking Policy." "This site knows precisely the kind of hara.s.sment it's inviting with these kinds of terms. Look here, in bold letters: 'Campus Juice does not require identifiable information from users who read or post messages to our Gossip Board.' And down here, again in bold to make sure no one misses it among the legalese: 'We share aggregate traffic information with advertisers and potential advertisers, but this does not identify individual users.' And you'll love this."

He scrolled down the screen farther, to a heading ent.i.tled "IP Addresses."

"That's what we need," Ellie said. An IP address identifies an individual computer's connection through its Internet service provider. It was their best shot at determining the author of the posts about Megan.

It was only then that she read the fine text beneath the subject header: "If you are particularly concerned about your online privacy, there are several services that offer free IP cloaking. Just do a quick search on Google and find one you like."

"This is beyond belief."

"Like I said, whoever set up this site did it in a way that invites cowards to stay in the shadows."

"So now what?" Rogan asked.

A young, slender woman in high heels, a fitted navy dress, and a sleek black ponytail slipped into the office and handed Max a stack of papers. Ellie caught herself watching Max to see if his eyes followed the woman out of his office. She was unsurprised, but still pleased, when they did not.

"Perfect timing," Max said, flipping through the pages of the printout. "So here's the deal: I ran the domain name registration for Campus Juice, and the owner lives out in Long Island. That means I've got subpoena power."

"And is that what I think it is?" Ellie asked.

"Signed, sealed, delivered," he said, handing the doc.u.ment to her. "I tracked down the ADA who researched this issue for the Sixth Precinct. Your vic wasn't the first NYU student to complain about the Web site. Apparently there were enough reports last year that we finally took a closer look. The Web site's not a company as much as just some dude working out of his bas.e.m.e.nt. The ADA who called him said he's a total p.r.i.c.k who prides himself on all the pain he's causing. Payback for all the spitb.a.l.l.s hurled his way on the playground."

"And you were able to get a subpoena?" Rogan asked.

"We didn't stand a chance when it was just a vast graffiti board of anonymous insults. But your homicide nails it down to one specific person and the people who posted messages about her. Judge Jacob agreed that was a narrow and compelling enough request to sign on the dotted line."

Watching Max beam, she remembered what had initially drawn her to him when she'd first met him here six months earlier. The broad shoulders, curly dark hair, and cute smile probably helped, but there was more to it than looks. Max had an ease about him that showed in his every movement.

The Columbia law degree could have opened any career door he had chosen, but the diploma hung in a simple wooden frame on a wall that hadn't seen a new coat of paint for a decade. Before she moved to New York, Ellie had once dreamed of a life different from her parents'. Taking prelaw cla.s.ses in Wichita, she imagined herself in a firm like Ramon Guerrero's, with all the attendant perks. When she'd briefly lived with an investment banker, she had enjoyed the six-course meals and occasional tickets to Lincoln Center. But for reasons she might never understand, she always found herself uncomfortable with people who occupied that world she would never be a part of.

But Max never let any of it faze him. The son of a shoe salesman and a dental hygienist, he never seemed tempted to cash in on his education, but was never a martyr about it either. Supremely confident and unflinchingly modest, he would never let a man like Sam Sparks get to him. And Ellie saw the way women looked at Max, even the one who had handed him the subpoena. But Max being Max, he never seemed to notice.

"Thanks, man," Rogan said, extending his fist for a friendly tap.

Max called out to them as they left his office. "Enjoy the drive to Long Island."