Page 94 of Stay Awake
“Yes?”
“Amy needs your help.”
“Where is she?”
“She’s at a bar called Nocturnal. Write down the address.” There’s no paper, so I write it on the back of my hand.
Chapter
Fifty-Two
Wednesday 8:40P.M.
Halliday and Lavelle walked into a deafening hive of activity at the precinct. Half a dozen cops sat at a row of desks that had been pushed together to form a long line across the back wall of the Detective Bureau.
They’d been rounded up to take calls from the general public. The phones had been running hot ever since the security camera footage had been broadcast on the nightly news. That, along with the message written in the victim’s blood on the window, had turned the murder into the biggest story on a slow news day.
Halliday slipped off her jacket and checked the messages on her desk. A thick package of crime scene photos had been sent by special delivery along with an initial report on the forensics that had already been processed. She gave it a cursory inspection. There wasn’t anything there that she didn’t already know.
Someone turned up the volume of the television on the wall. Halliday looked up, curious to see what the media was reporting.
“Police are looking for a woman who they suspect may have killeda British magazine executive during a romantic tryst,” the anchor’s voice blasted across the office. “The murderer is believed to have used the victim’s own blood to write a chilling message on a window. Police have not yet released the name of the suspect. Our sources tell us that she may be the former fiancée of the murdered businessman, Ted Cole, who was stabbed to death last night.…”
Lavelle muted the television and turned to the staff manning the hotline. “Any leads?”
“We have one guy who thinks the suspect is his long-lost sister who was abducted by aliens forty-nine years ago and kept in a cryogenic freezer on a spaceship,” said one of the officers. “He says that’s why her hair is so long.”
“I just finished with a caller who’s convinced the woman is a vampire. He claims to be a vampire slayer. He’s offering his services at a discount.”
“What’s his rate?” asked Lavelle.
“Twenty bucks an hour. Plus tax,” said the officer, shaking his head with disbelief.
“That is the going rate,” said Lavelle dryly. “Did we get any tips that are actually worth chasing?”
“A hairdresser called earlier.” A uniformed officer leaned back in his chair and handed a note to Halliday. “She said a woman with long hair arrived this morning without an appointment. The woman insisted on having her hair cut very short.”
Halliday looked at the note. The hairdresser worked at a salon near theCulturaoffices. Halliday called the hairdresser from her desk.
“She had very long dark hair down to her waist just like in the picture on the news,” said the hairdresser, once Halliday had gone through the preliminaries. “Her behavior was weird, like she was zoned out. I thought she was drugged or on sedatives.”
“What did she talk about while you were cutting her hair?”
“Nothing,” said the hairdresser. “She daydreamed, mostly. Whenshe came to the cash register to settle her bill, she panicked like she didn’t know how she was going to pay. Then she patted down her clothes and found a big wad of cash in her jeans pocket. I mean ahugewad of cash. At least a thousand dollars. Probably more.”
“Did she say or do anything else that seemed odd?”
“She had writing all over the back of her hands. Weird stuff. I remember seeing the wordsSTAY AWAKEwritten on her knuckles. It reminded me of theWAKE UP!sign I saw on the news. That’s why I called the hotline.”
Based on the hairdresser’s description, Halliday was sure the woman in question was Liv Reese. By the time she was done talking to the hairdresser, Lavelle was on the phone taking another tip.
“Who was that?” Halliday asked Lavelle as she passed his desk after he hung up.
“It was Liv Reese’s doctor. His name is Brenner,” he answered. “He said she turned up hours late for her appointment this afternoon.”
“That’s not exactly a crime,” Halliday said.
“Ted Cole was supposed to have comewith herto the appointment,” said Lavelle. “Dr. Brenner was shocked when he saw on the news that Ted Cole had been murdered. He immediately called us.”
