Page 61 of Stay Awake
“A bouquet of flowers was left next to my bed. I didn’t put it there and neither did my roommate.” I tell them about all the other strange things that happened today.
“And you think what? That a stranger brought your dry cleaning to your apartment and cooked dinner for you?” Detective Krause scoffs. “I wouldn’t mind a stalker like that. Do you think he irons shirts and starches collars, too? He’d be worth his weight in gold.”
His shoulders shake with stifled laugher at his own joke. The younger detective doesn’t laugh. If anything, he looks visibly discomforted by his partner’s rudeness as he dutifully writes down the details that I’ve provided in his notebook. He tells me to come to the police station to sign the statement the next morning.
Amy shows the detectives out and stays on the stoop to make a call. I distinctly hear her say: “This has gotten out of hand.”
A floorboard creaks when I step onto the landing to hear better. Amy must have heard it, too, because she leaves the building and continues her phone conversation down the street, where she stands with her back to me on the corner, talking intensely on the phone.
Repulsed by the thought that a stalker left me gifts while I slept, I grab the bouquets of flowers, the casserole dish, and the box of chocolate truffles and I throw the whole lot in a trash can by the street as the detectives drive away in their gray Ford. I go upstairs with a horrible feeling that my life is spinning out of my control.
Chapter
Thirty-Six
Wednesday 4:07P.M.
Darcy Halliday could see that Jack Lavelle was getting increasingly frustrated as he paced the sidewalk alongside his parked car, where she sat in the front passenger seat.
So far everyone he’d spoken with at the credit card company had demanded a warrant in order to divulge the name of the credit card holder who’d booked the apartment where the murder had taken place. Lavelle could arrange a warrant, but it would take a while. In the meantime, his entire investigation was being held up by pedants, obsessed with dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s for the sake of it.
While Lavelle waited on hold for the fourth time, he bent down and spoke to Halliday through the open passenger window. “Call in a BOLO on the Reese woman while I deal with these idiots,” he said. His jaw was tense. A BOLO was a “be on the lookout” alert that would be distributed across the NYPD.
“I think we should wait,” said Halliday. “If it leaks to the media or Liv Reese gets wind of it, then she might run.”
“It wasn’t a request, Detective,” he snapped.
“What happens if she didn’t do it?” Halliday pushed. “A BOLO puts her in the sights of every trigger-happy cop in New York. And if the media gets hold of it, she’ll be on the front page of every tabloid. Imagine waking with no memory and seeing your face on the front page of all the newspapers. It will freak her out,” she said. “Who knows what she’ll do?”
“It would make my job a hell of a lot easier if you would do as you’re asked.” Lavelle enunciated each word.
A senior manager came on the line and he stepped away from the car to explain the situation. Halliday dictated the BOLO over the phone to Detective Tran.
“Be on the lookout for a woman by the name of Liv Reese,” Halliday said. “She is wanted in connection with a murder. She is described as approximately five foot six, around one hundred twenty to one hundred thirty pounds. She has long dark hair reaching almost to her waist. The suspect has a severe memory impairment that makes her erratic and disoriented. It is not known if she is armed. Officers should approach with caution.”
To accompany the BOLO, Halliday messaged Tran a still photo of the security camera footage of Liv Reese in the alley behind the apartment building in the early hours of the morning, her long plait unraveling. She asked him to also include the photo from the Interpol missing person report.
“I shouldn’t have lashed out at you. I was out of line,” Lavelle apologized when he’d finished his call and climbed back into the driver’s seat. “I bet those idiots had the information on the computer screens in front of them. They just wanted written requests to cover their collective asses. Stupid pencil pushers. The body was found nine hours ago and we still don’t know the victim’s name.”
“The BOLO will be broadcast as soon as the captain signs off on it.The night shift will get hard copies at their briefing,” Halliday replied, making no effort to hide her annoyance. She was used to taking orders in the military. That didn’t mean she had to agree with them.
“Good,” he said, turning on the car engine.
“I hope we don’t regret it, Jack.”
“We won’t. If the Reese woman did it then we’ll have our suspect. If she didn’t, then she’ll be safer with us than she is wandering the streets in a state of confusion. Especially if whoever tried to kill her two years ago finds out that she’s returned.”
“I don’t know how safe she’ll be with every cop in New York thinking she’s a dangerous killer.”
“Much as I hate to say that Krause was right, the odds are that she is a dangerous killer.”
“Based on what?” asked Halliday, mostly to be contrary. It was true that Liv Reese was emerging as their prime suspect.
“Based on the laws of probability,” Lavelle said. “The fact is that until we have an ID on the victim, this whole case rests on supposition. In fact, screw it. I’m going to call in the big guns. I’m cutting through this bullshit red tape. We’re this close to knowing the victim’s identity. I am not going to allow some credit card company to give us the runaround.”
Halliday knew they couldn’t begin to make a case against Liv Reese if they didn’t have a pretty good idea of her motive to commit murder. Her potential motive and the victim’s identity were indelibly connected. Knowing one of those unknowns would help them figure out the other. At the moment, they knew neither.
Lavelle called an old friend who worked financial crimes for the FBI on speakerphone as he drove through heavy traffic. He asked his buddy to use his contacts to get an ID on the credit card holder.
