“I think you’re right,” Gideon said. “She’s on the edge.”
“Let’s give her another twenty-four hours in there,” Dave said, “and come back mañana. At that point she should be ready to spill her murdering guts out.”
“Good idea,” Gideon said.
No sense telling Dave about the Salvis tonight. He’d freak. First we break Rachael, then I can deal with the Mafia.
Chapter 59
Despite the fact that we have the most sophisticated crime-solving technology at our fingertips, Kylie and I spent the rest of our day hoofing it through the bureaucratic roadblocks created by the New York County District Attorney’s Office and the City of New York Department of Correction.
At 5:00 p.m., we reported in to Cates.
“Four people at the DOC knew where Rachael O’Keefe was headed when she left lockup,” I said. “And at least eight from the DA’s office.”
“At least eight?” Cates said. “You can’t get a hard number?”
“We tried,” Kylie said, “but we’re dealing with the justice prevention department.”
“We interviewed and cleared everyone at the DOC and managed to track down six of the DA’s people,” I said.
“Then you have two left.”
“Not quite. The ADAs went out on a group bender that night, and three of them admitted ‘saying something to someone they knew they could trust,’ so that brings us back up to five people we have to clear.”
“How hard can it be to track them down?” Cates said.
“Tracking them down is easy. We’ve emailed, texted, and left phone messages—they all know what we want. Pinning them down for a face-to-face is the problem. They’d be happy to phone it in, but these guys lie for a living. We figured we had a better shot at getting the truth out of them if we confront them up close and personal.
“Two of them are coming up here tonight. A third just had an emergency appendectomy, and we can’t talk to her till tomorrow. The final two on our hit list are Mick Wilson and one of his flunkies. And you know Mick—he has a bad habit of either not returning messages, or just not giving a shit.”
“Make him give a shit. O’Keefe was taken fifteen hours ago. Hazmat’s not going to keep her alive for long. Call me when you—”
“Captain.”
It was Katina Hronas, a civilian employee assigned to our unit. Katina fielded hundreds of phone calls, emails, and faxes for Cates every day. She was tuned in to Cates’s priorities, both personal and professional, and interrupted the boss only when it was urgent. Cates braced herself for the inevitable.
“This just came through from the chief of D’s office,” Katina said, handing Cates a single sheet of paper.
“Damn,” she said, reading the small block of text in seconds. “It’s out.”
Kylie and I looked at each other. We both knew what “it” was.
“We kept the lid on it for nine hours,” Cates said, “but the Times just issued an email alert—Rachael O’Keefe Kidnapped Within Hours of Leaving New York City Jail.”
“The Times doesn’t print rumors,” Kylie said. “Who corroborated it?”
“‘O’Keefe’s abduction was confirmed by her defense attorney, Dennis Woloch,’” Cates read. “Of course they don’t say who leaked it, but I’d put my money on Hazmat himself. He loves ink, and the media will give him plenty of it.”
“Which means our tip line will be flooded with hundreds of crackpot sightings,” Kylie said.
“Not your problem,” Cates said. “Commissioner Harries will give me all the manpower I need to deal with the wacko phone calls. All you have to do is find Rachael O’Keefe, take down the Hazmat Killer, and turn Mayor Spellman into a national hero before Election Day. Get on it.”
“Best locker room pep talk I ever heard from a coach,” Kylie said as we left Cates’s office. “It’s just what I needed to finally start giving a shit about this case.”
By nine o’clock, two of the errant assistant DAs showed up and swore up and down that they never talked to anyone about Rachael’s hideaway in Jersey. Neither one of them hedged, hesitated, or in any way held back. They were telling the truth.
“Three to go,” Kylie said. “I move we adjourn for the night. All in favor…”
I was about to vote aye when the elevator stopped on our floor. Red has its own space on the third floor of the One Nine, and we don’t get too much traffic—especially at this hour.
The doors opened, and out stepped the last two people I’d have expected to show up at our office. The ones John Dho called Defectives Donovan and Boyle.