212 LP: A Novel (12 page)

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 classes 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.”

2:45 P.M.

L
ike every other Web site on the Internet, campusjuice.com was required to register its domain name and address with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. According to ICANN, a thirty-seven-year-old man named Richard Boyd had registered the Web site name two years earlier using a residential address in Huntington, one of a chain of towns that comprised Long Island’s North shore.

As Rogan pulled to the curb in front of Boyd’s house, Ellie took in the surrounding area. The split-level ranch had probably once been part of a neighborhood not unlike Ellie’s own working-class street back in Wichita. But Long Island, unlike Wichita, had changed. Most of the homes like Boyd’s had been replaced, torn down to make room for McMansions that sprawled to the edges of their small lots. Ellie noticed the three extra inches of grass and the unkempt edge along the walkway as they made their way to the front porch. She could picture the neighbors complaining about the worst house on the block.

Rogan clanked the front door’s brass knocker three times. An elderly woman wearing a crimson velour housedress opened the door.

“We’re police officers with some questions for a Richard Boyd,” Rogan explained. “Is he here?”

“Oh, sure. Richard’s down in the basement where he works. Come on in.”

Ellie was immediately struck by the smell of mothballs and mildew as they followed the woman into the dimly lit house. It reminded her of her Gram Hatcher’s house, where she had always been afraid to fall asleep.

“You say you’re from the police?” the woman asked, leading the way past a small kitchen with bright orange laminate counters and wallpaper with yellow sunflowers.

“Yes, ma’am,” Rogan said. His tone was considerably more polite than Ellie had heard from her partner that entire day, and she realized that she was not the only one who might have been reminded of a grandmother. “Are you Richard’s mother?”

“Practically, but, no, I’m his aunt. Nearly fifteen years ago, Dick needed a place to stay. They say middle-aged women can’t land a man, but my sister ran off to California with the love of her life when she was fifty years old. Dick’s been here ever since.”

“You’re a pretty generous aunt,” Ellie noted.

“I’d always been on my own, so it’s nice to have the company. I don’t see a ring on that finger of yours, honey.”

“Nope.”

“Well, don’t wait forever like I did. Not everyone’s got the same luck as my sister.”

“Okay, I’ll keep that in mind, ma’am.”

She opened a door leading to a narrow basement staircase, leaned against the oak handrail, and then thought better of it. “These are a bit steep for me.”

“Don’t even risk it,” Rogan said. “We’ll find our way down just fine.”

“Well, all right then. There’s no problem now, is there?”

“Not at all,” he explained. “Just something we think your nephew can give us a hand with.”

“Okay. Because Dickie’s a good boy. A little unusual, and not exactly a looker, but he’s good.”

When the basement door swung closed behind them, Rogan turned his head toward Ellie and winked. “This Dickie guy sounds like a winner,” he whispered. “Maybe we’ll kill two birds with one stone and have a ring on that little finger of yours before you know it.”

“I liked you better when you were pissy.”

“Joanna, is that you?” A voice echoed up from somewhere in the concrete-walled basement. “I told you not to take the stairs. If you need something, I’ll bring it up.”

They took the final step and turned to find a large, unfinished room lined with crammed metal bookcases. Old newspapers, boxes, and magazines were stacked from floor to ceiling in every available space, leaving only a narrow pathway winding through the basement toward the man’s voice.

“Dick Boyd?”

“It’s
Richard.
And who’s here?”

“NYPD,” Rogan said. “We’re here for information about Campus Juice.”

They took another turn and came face to face with Richard Boyd, who was now standing behind a disheveled sectional desk that contained three separate computer screens.

“I told some lawyer before, I don’t turn over private customer data without a subpoena.”

“Which is why we’ve brought you one.” Rogan wound his way through the clutter, then muttered under his breath to Ellie, “As if we could find anything in this Collyer mansion.”

The reference was to two infamous brothers, hermits and hoarders who were eventually found dead among their eclectic possessions. By the time police removed more than a hundred tons of detritus from the Collyers’ townhouse, New York City law enforcement had added a new term to its lexicon.

“I heard that, you know. And I’m not a Collyer brother. Everything in here, I need. And I can describe for you every single piece of paper, the purpose it serves, and its filing location.”

He peered at them with small, dark eyes from behind a curtain of greasy dark bangs. Folds of fat surrounded his acne-pocked face. His aunt had been generous in her description.

“Well, where do you think you might file this, Dick?” Rogan handed Boyd a copy of the subpoena.

“I told you. It’s
Richard
.” Boyd sucked his front teeth while he reviewed the document.

“Copies of the posts we’re interested in are attached to the subpoena. ‘Incorporated by reference,’ I believe is the legal term.”

Boyd plopped himself down in a battered chintz-upholstered office chair, wheeled it over to the far side of his desk, and jiggled a computer mouse. He tapped away at his keyboard, shook his head, tapped away some more, and shook his head again.

“Nope. I can’t help ya.” He tried to return the subpoena to Rogan, but J. J. held up a hand.

“You could at least try to hide your glee. What do you mean, you can’t help? Give up the guy’s IP address, and we’ll take it from there.”

“Whoever posted these messages used an IP cloaker, which is precisely what it sounds like. If you’re spooked about privacy, you can download free software right off the net to mask your IP address.”

“And, gee, I guess it’s just a coincidence that your Web site tells people that if they want to hide their trail from the police, they can get themselves one of these IP-cloaking devices.”

“I’m just helping people protect their privacy.”

“Privacy?” Rogan said incredulously. “Doesn’t seem like the kind of privacy you need unless you’re doing some sick shit that’s going to land you in trouble.”

“Just like a cop to say that. It’s about
rights
, man. I admire this dude for being smart. Besides, these posts are pretty tame compared to some of our content. This bird must be high-fucking-society to bring you guys all the way out from the city with a subpoena.”

“No, Richard,” Ellie said, “that
bird
’s not part of any society, at least not now. She’s dead.”

“Oh, shit.” Boyd dropped his eyes to the subpoena.

“Very eloquent,” Rogan said. “You still admire this guy and his cloaking software?”

“Hell, man. I didn’t know, okay?” He tapped away at the keyboard again before pushing it away. “Really, I tried. The dude knew what he was doing.”

“Yeah, thanks to your advice,” Ellie said. She looked at the string of dates and numbers on Boyd’s computer screen but couldn’t make any sense of it. “You mean to tell me that anyone can just post whatever they want to your Web site? They don’t need to register, or have an account, or tell you who they are in any way?”

“It’s sort of the point, you know? The Web site’s slogan is ‘All the Juice, Always Anonymous.’”

“I don’t get it,” Ellie said. “Why in the world would you create something like this? You knew weeks ago when the district attorney’s office called you how much damage you were causing.”

“It’s words. There’s no damage in words. And why do I do it? Two words: Muh-knee. I get a grand a month for a single ad on that site. I’ve launched probably a dozen Web sites since the nineties, and I finally have one that’s bringing in cash.”

“And what about now, Richard?” Ellie said. “A girl is dead, and it started with words. There’s damage. And you had a role in it.”

Boyd shook his head and tried to hand Rogan the subpoena again.

“That’s your copy,” Rogan said. “Ponder it a little while longer before you file it away in your perfect system here.”

Ellie followed her partner up the basement stairs to find Aunt Joanna waiting eagerly at the kitchen table.

“Did you get everything you needed?”

“We’re good for now,” Rogan said.

“Because Dick can be a little ornery at times. He’ll listen to me, though, if you need me to intervene.”

They thanked the woman for her generosity and then showed themselves to the front door.

“A grand a month times, what, ten ads on there? Not bad cash
when you’re living in your aunt’s basement. You sure there’s not the possibility of a little love connection there, Hatcher?”

“With Jabba the Hutt? Don’t think so.”

As Rogan took the corner at the end of the block, Ellie found herself laughing. “Dick Boyd? You know they called him Dick Boy on the playground.”

“Damn. Glad I didn’t grow up with the likes of you.”

“So Long Island was a bust. Now what?”

“Run Megan’s calls through the reverse directory and see what comes up?”

“Or go to her friends. I got a list from the mom. According to her, there’s one girl we go to first. She’s in the city.”

“Okay, you see her, but drop me at the precinct and I’ll start working on the phone history. See if our girl was calling anyone her parents didn’t know about.”

Ellie dialed Courtney Chang’s number.

4:05 P.M.

M
orningside Heights got its name from Morningside Park, which lines the east side of the neighborhood from 110th Street to 123rd. But most New Yorkers thought of Morningside Heights as an academic bastion in the middle of uptown, housing egghead students from nearby Columbia University and Barnard College. The late comedian George Carlin had called his old neighborhood White Harlem, and local business owners had now taken to calling the place SoHa, short for south of Harlem. With gentrification across the entire borough of Manhattan, many saw Morningside Heights as simply an extension of the Upper West Side.

But Ellie and many others had a different cultural referent for this neighborhood. She parked in front of a fire hydrant at 112th and Broadway, looked up at the blue-backed neon sign that read “Tom’s Restaurant,” and could almost picture Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer at a booth inside the window. Courtney Chang lived above the diner that was first immortalized in song by Suzanne Vega and later on the television show
Seinfeld
as the ensemble’s daily diner.

Courtney was waiting at her apartment, just as she’d promised when Ellie phoned. She opened the front door and turned away
with nothing but a “Come on in,” and then plopped herself down on an overstuffed mocha-colored sofa littered with crumpled tissues.

“Sorry.” She plucked up some of the mess from the couch and threw it to the floor, making room for Ellie to take a seat. “Whatever, I just can’t care about this right now.”

“Of course not,” Ellie said. “Megan’s parents told us how close you two are.”

“She’s my best friend. Was, I guess.
Was
my best friend. Since junior high school. We used to be inseparable.”

“Used to be?”

“Before college.” She used her fist, balled inside the overly long sleeve of her Columbia University sweatshirt, to push a shoulder-length strand of shiny black hair from her eyes. “We carpooled to school, took all our classes together, spent the night at each other’s houses every weekend. Like I said, inseparable. But now I’m up here, and she’s downtown, and, well, it wasn’t always easy to find time for each other. I can’t believe it’s too late.” She wiped a tear from her cheek with her sleeve.

Ellie was beginning to wonder whether she’d made a mistake relying on Patricia Gunther’s information about her daughter’s friends. She was relieved when she asked Courtney if she’d happened to speak to Megan within the last couple of days.

Courtney nodded. “Of course. Probably like…ten times. Patty told you about that fucking message board? Sorry—”

Ellie smiled. “No problem. And, yes, we know about the messages. We’re trying to determine who might have posted them.”

“You’re the police. Can’t you just—”

“We tried. The information isn’t there. Whoever posted this stuff about Megan covered his tracks technologically. I was hoping you’d help me figure it out the old-fashioned way. Did Megan have any enemies?”

Courtney shook her head. “No, that’s why the whole thing was so weird. I figured it was just someone from campus trying to screw with her mind. I told her it was no big deal. I can’t believe this. I actually told her to
blow it off
. To
forget about it
. What was I thinking?”

“You were thinking what anyone would have assumed at the time. The truth is that ninety-nine-point-nine-nine percent of the time, words really are just words. You couldn’t have known, Courtney.”

“So poor Megan’s the unlucky one out of ten thousand. Because we all just assumed she’d be on the right side of the odds.”

“Let me guess,” Ellie said, catching how quickly Courtney had translated a percentage into the odds. “Math major?”

“Physics,” she said wearily.

“I know this is probably the worst day of your life, but anything you can think of—anything that might stand out—could make a big difference.”

Courtney shook her head. “Megan wasn’t the kind of person to make enemies. There was no drama with her. She studied. She worked out. She tried to make time for friends.”

“Boyfriends?”

“Not lately.”

“But before?”

“That was about as close as Megan ever came to having anything close to a scandal in her life. Freshman year she went totally gaga over this guy—”

“Keith.”

“Right, Keith.” Courtney’s expression changed as she realized the significance of Ellie’s preexisting knowledge of Megan’s ex-boyfriend. “You don’t think that…Oh, my God, why didn’t I figure that out?”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself.”

“I should have thought of Keith when she told me about those postings. I work a frickin’ domestic violence hotline, for Christ’s sake. It’s all about power and control, and, yeah, Keith wanted both of those. Writing those awful things about her—trying to scare her, and of course through a site read by NYU students, no less.”

“You’re going a little too fast for me here, Courtney. Take a deep breath, slow down, and tell me what you know about Keith.”

“Megan met him at a club first semester of freshman year. He’s like a DJ or something. They were crazy about each other right
away, but then Keith took it way too seriously. It’s like he could never get enough attention from her. He was jealous—not of other guys, because Megan wasn’t like that—but of her
life.
Her classes. Her reading.
Me
, when we had the time for each other.”

“When did they break up?”

“About three months ago. But they were on and off for a good four months before that. I’d say the tipping point was when Heather moved in—the roommate?”

Ellie nodded to confirm she knew to whom Courtney was referring.

“Last spring Megan’s parents told her she needed to find a roommate to share the costs of the apartment. Keith offered to move in and share the rent. It was a ridiculous suggestion for all kinds of reasons. She’d never get her work done if he was around. Not to mention that there’s no way he could afford the rent her parents were looking for. Not to mention the fact that she was only twenty years old, for Christ’s sake.”

“Plenty of reasons not to shack up.”

“Right. But instead of fighting over it all, Megan took the easy route and told him that her parents would never allow it. And then he asked whether she had even talked to her parents about it. She made the mistake of telling him the truth.”

“She never approached them?”

“Of course not,” Courtney said. “It was an absurd idea, but not to Keith. I guess after she found Heather and rented the extra room to her, Keith treated every interaction with Heather—or even remotely related to her—as an excuse to remind Megan that she had rejected him.
You don’t even know that girl. Now we never have any privacy. We could have kept that as an extra room. You never took me seriously.
And on that last one, Megan finally had to admit he was right. For her, for her life, the thought of living together was crazy. But for Keith, it had meant everything.”

“And that’s what ended it.”

“Yep. It was hard on her, but he came with too much drama, you know? He was always trying to pull her away from school. It would
be just like him to use a message board aimed at college students to get to her.”

“But when Megan told you about the postings, you didn’t think Keith might be responsible?”

“It never even dawned on me. It should have, though, right? He wanted to isolate her. He knew her routine. Maybe if she was too afraid to live her life, she’d go back to him. It’s so obvious.”

Ellie was careful not to overvalue Courtney’s instincts. She had seen witnesses respond this way before. Once they believed police had homed in on a suspect, witnesses changed their perceptions so that suddenly the suspect’s name at the top of the list seemed inevitable.

“All I’ve got on Keith right now is a first name and pierced lower lip,” Ellie said. “You got a last name for us?”

Courtney pressed her eyes closed. “Shit. This is impossible, right? Megan
had
to have told me his last name at some point. I just don’t remember. It was always ‘Keith this, Keith that.’ I don’t know. Something Spanish, I think. He said he was half Dominican. Maybe…Guzaro, or Guittierez. For some reason, I think it began with a G.”

“What about a phone number? Address?” They had already checked Megan’s cell phone for a Keith, but she must have erased his number after the breakup.

Courtney shook her head. “He always went to her place. He still lives with his mother. Wait.” She hopped up from the sofa, made her way to a dining room table covered with books and notebooks, and flipped open a laptop. “I have a picture.”

Ellie rose from the couch and looked over Courtney’s shoulder while she clicked through a library of photos. Girls at a bowling alley. Another set on a beach somewhere with tall fruity drinks. On the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Courtney sniffled. “Okay, here he is.”

Ellie leaned forward to get a better look. Megan was on the left side of the screen, her long blond hair curled softly around her shoulders, a broad smile across her face. The young man with his arm
around her shoulder mugged for the camera, replicating a model’s exaggerated pout. He had creamy light brown skin and dark brown wavy hair. She could see how his racial identity might appear ambiguous. Nice smile. Round cheeks. He would have been a good-looking kid without the two platinum hoops dangling from either side of his lower lip like metal fangs.

“Any others?” Ellie asked.

Courtney shook her head. “No, I snapped this during one of the few times he tagged along. I doubt you’ll find any pictures of him at Megan’s either. She deleted them all to prove that the breakup was for good. She still wore the necklace he gave her, though. I noticed that.”

“Can you e-mail the picture to me?” Ellie asked. She rattled off her personal Gmail address while Courtney typed, then watched as Courtney hit the send key on a message she had labeled “Predator.”

“We should have gone to the same school,” Courtney said, thinking aloud. “The original plan was for both of us to go to Columbia, but she didn’t get in. I should have gone to NYU with her. Maybe then—”

“Courtney, you don’t know me from a hole in the ground, but trust me, I speak from experience: Don’t start down that road of maybes. You’ll create the kind of demons that can destroy you for years.”

When Courtney closed the door behind her, Ellie pictured the girl back at the dining room table, clicking again through the files of old photographs, and knew her advice was useless.