The Red Queen Dies (25 page)

Within seconds, the driver's license photos of the registered drivers who fit the criteria appeared on the screen.

“Six possibles,” Baxter said.

Two of the possibles were black, the other four white.

“No one's mentioned the teaching assistant's race,” McCabe said. “I should have thought to ask Jean Lockhart. Mrs. Giovanni and Bethany Clark's sister didn't meet her, but if the teaching assistant wasn't white, someone would probably have mentioned that to them.”

“How do you figure that?” Baxter said.

“Because nine years ago, white was the default setting for race. If a person wasn't white, a white person would be inclined to mention his or her race, especially in a situation like this one. If this doesn't work, we should check with the people we've interviewed just to make sure they weren't all being politically correct by not mentioning that the bungling teaching assistant was black.”

“Politically correct because you're black?” Whitman said.

“That sometimes happens,” McCabe said, not getting into the biracial discussion. “Anyway, let's look at the four white possibles first.”

It took less than half an hour to locate all six of the young female drivers in the database. Within the next hour, they had reached four of the six. All denied having worked as a teaching assistant in a science camp back in 2010. The husband of the fifth, reached at Albany Med, said that his wife was in labor. Between contractions, she informed them she didn't know what they were talking about and didn't care. The sixth possible was in London, where she had been living and working for the past three years. McCabe left a tag asking the woman to contact her or Baxter. But when they reached her mother, she said her daughter had never been a teaching assistant.

“One of them could be lying,” Baxter said.

Whitman said, “None of them sounded like it. But we can dig some more.”

“Maybe we've struck out,” McCabe said.

“Or maybe not,” Cahill, the lab tech, said. “I know you guys are interested in cars, but I've been playing around with the video, and I might have something. The camera angle's bad, but I've managed to enhance the image. This is an image in the side mirror of the TV mobile van.”

They gathered around her, peering at the blurred image of a woman walking away from the main entrance of the library. Her hair was caught up in a ponytail under a baseball cap, which threw her face into shadow. She was slender, wearing a short denim skirt, T-shirt, and sandals. She had something in her hand that she was putting into the tote bag she was carrying.

Cahill zoomed in.

Baxter said, “Damn, woman, you're good.”

Cahill pushed back her lank brown hair and smiled. “See what's in her hand. That looks like a VCR container to me.”

“Me, too,” McCabe said.”And that's what we're looking for. The library had retained some of the old movies in that format. For which we should be grateful. A DVD would have been harder to spot.”

“Hey, what's that writing on the bag she's carrying?” Whitman asked.

“Let's have a look,” Cahill said.

She manipulated the image until the Gothic white lettering on the black cloth tote bag was visible.

“
The Next Man,
” McCabe said. “Wasn't there a play with that title?”

“Don't ask me,” Whitman said. “I don't do theater.”

“Easy enough to find out,” Cahill said. She pulled up her search engine. “Here we go.
The Next Man
opened on Broadway in November 2009.”

“Okay,” Whitman said. “We've got a dead Broadway actress. And now we have a teaching assistant walking around with a tote bag from a play.”

“If she is our TA,” McCabe said.

“I'd bet good money on it,” Baxter said. “Next question: Was Vivian Jessup in that play?”

“Yes, she was,” said Cahill. “Here she is in the cast list.”

“I think we just hit pay dirt,” Whitman said.

Baxter grinned at McCabe. “Do I get to choose the restaurant?”

“Yes,” McCabe said. “Now, would you like to have a go at telling us what this is all about?”

“You got me there, partner.”

“Whatever it's about,” Whitman said, “it looks like you might be right that our serial killer hasn't been choosing his victims at random.”

McCabe glanced at the screen. “Or, maybe, her victims.” McCabe smiled at Cahill. “That really was incredible work. Would you give us a copy of the image and the info that you found on the play?”

“Coming right up.”

“What next?” Whitman asked as they were walking down the hall. “We still need to identify the teaching assistant.”

“If you were the director of a summer science camp, how would you go about finding a TA?” McCabe said.

“Check with the local colleges,” Whitman said.

Baxter said, “College science programs.”

“We have at least eight or nine colleges in the immediate area. All of them have science programs.” Whitman said. “The director of the science camp might have come from one of those programs, too.”

“Definitely,” McCabe said. “And I think that it would also be a good idea to follow up with Meredith Noel, the theater professor at UAlbany. She might have some thoughts about Vivian Jessup and
The Next Man.
”

“Okay,” Whitman said. “While you two are doing that, I'll work on the college science programs angle.”

*   *   *

This time, they met with Meredith Noel in her office in the Department of Theatre Productions. She looked a little uncertain about finding herself talking to police detectives again.

McCabe said, “We're sorry to bother you again, Professor Noel. But we're hoping you can help us. We looking for information about a play that Ms. Jessup appeared in.”

“Oh, I see,” Noel said. “Which play?”

“
The Next Man.
”

Noel shrugged. “A mediocre play, But Vivian was wonderful in it.”

“According to what we've been able to find, the backer of the play was a business mogul named Richard Osmond.”

Noel hesitated, then said, “When we talked before, I didn't want to gossip, but now that this has come up…”

“Now that what has come up, Professor Noel?” McCabe said.

“When I mentioned the Dalí edition of
Alice in Wonderland
that Vivian had when she first moved to New York … the one that was stolen in the burglary…”

“What about it?” Baxter said.

“I think that Richard Osmond may have been the friend who gave it to her. We had dinner together last week … that would have been on Tuesday. My husband was out of town, so we kicked off our shoes and let our hair down.” She smiled slightly. “Although I was more than a little astonished when I stopped to think about it, that I was sharing a girlfriends' night with Vivian Jessup.”

“And while you were having this girlfriends' night, she said something about the Dalí edition?” Baxter said.

“She was telling me about her career, and she mentioned a ‘wonderful but very married man named Richard' who had helped her when she first arrived in the City and who had been there for her over the years.”

“And you think Richard Osmond might have been the friend she was referring to?” McCabe said.

“Vivian said this man had died a few years ago and she still missed him.” Noel looked from McCabe to Baxter. “Osmond died a few years ago of a heart attack.”

“Do you know what happened to his wife?” Baxter asked.

Noel said, “I looked it up. She remarried less than a year later. Her new husband is an old family friend.”

“According to the bio we saw,” McCabe said, “Osmond and his wife had no children.”

“I think that's right,” Noel said. She ran her fingers through her spiky hair. “You do know that he was Ted Thornton's mentor? The reason Ted Thornton came up here to Albany.”

Baxter said. “We did see Thornton listed as one of Osmond's business associates. But Detective McCabe and I don't keep up enough with the wheeling and dealing of the financial world to be up on the details.”

“Neither do I,” Noel said. “I was just curious enough to look Osmond up. And that was when I saw his connection to Ted Thornton.”

“And you were already aware of Thornton's friendship with Vivian Jessup,” McCabe said.

“Yes,” Noel said. “But I don't think … I think any romantic relationship she had with Osmond was over long before she met Ted Thornton. And I'm not even sure that she and Ted Thornton were ever involved in that way. So I didn't want to gossip.”

“We understand,” McCabe said. “There is something else we'd like to ask about. Would you be able to tell us if one of your theater students had worked as a TA in a summer science camp back in 2010?”

“Good grief, that's almost ten years ago. I've only been here seven years. And it's not the kind of information that would be recorded anywhere unless a student put it on his or her vita or in a funding application. You might be able to get Ian's secretary to try to look it up. But why would you think one of our students would be working at a science camp?”

“We have a theater connection that we're trying to follow up,” McCabe said. “We have a young woman on a video from 2010 who we think was the TA at the summer camp that our first two victims attended as kids. In the video, she's carrying a tote bag with the title of the play we asked about.”

“You mean
The Next Man
?”

“That's the play,” Baxter said.

“But anyone who attended the play … or didn't … might have picked up a tote bag. It was probably available as a promotion. And with a title like that, it's the kind of accessory a young woman might enjoy carrying around.”

“To get her flirt on?” Baxter said.

“You could put it that way,” Noel said.

“All good points,” McCabe said. “But we were hoping we'd get lucky and someone here would know the young woman we're looking for.”

“Sorry I can't help. But if you really think she might have been one of our students, you might ask Ian to have his secretary look through the files.”

McCabe slid out of her comfortable armchair. “Thanks. We'll do that on our way out.”

When they stopped in his office to ask, Ian Carmichael shook his head. “Before my time, too. But Maude might know.”

He went to the door and called his secretary in from her desk in the outer office.

When he had repeated their question to Maude, she said, “I can go through the files. But it might take a while.”

“Thank you,” McCabe said. “We hate to put you to the trouble, but this is rather important.”

Maude frowned. “Did you say I'm looking for one of our students who worked as a TA at a science camp? You did say science?”

“Yes,” McCabe said. “Did you think of something—”

“There was this student … it must have been at least that long ago … she had this boyfriend who was a TA for a biology course. I remember because he came into the office once with a lab specimen in a glass jar. It was really disgusting-looking.”

“Was the student … your theater student, was she dark-haired?”

“She was always changing her hair. Streaks of color, wigs, feathers … whatever she felt like when she got up that morning … and clothes to match. That child was born for the stage, but I can't imagine why anyone would have hired her to be a teaching assistant at a science camp.”

“But would you check her file to see if someone did?” McCabe said.

“It would help if I could remember her name,” Maude said. “I ought to recognize it when I see it on the list of students from that year.”

“If she's the person we're looking for,” McCabe said. “Her first name would have been Deirdre.”

“Unless she was in the habit of changing her name, too,” Baxter said.

“They've been know to do that,” Maude said. “Theater students like trying on stage names.”

Ian Carmichael said, “I've got a meeting, but I'm leaving you in good hands with Maude.”

He picked up his briefcase and went out the door.

At her desk, Maude flicked through files, making an occasional mumbled comment.

“Here we go,” Maude said. “Deirdre Chase. That was the child's name.”

“Bingo,” Baxter said to McCabe.

The young woman in the photo was smiling, wearing a white blouse with ruffles under a plaid vest. A tam set at a jaunty angle atop her dark shoulder-length hair.

“Nothing about a science camp in her file,” Maude said. “But that doesn't mean anything.”

“Do you happen to have her present address?” McCabe asked.

“The last time she updated her contact information was in 2017. She was moving around quite a bit before that, so this address may not be current. She hasn't responded recently to our alumni contacts.”

“When did she graduate?” McCabe said.

“Spring semester, 2011.”

“Could we have the address from 2017?” Baxter said. “That'll give us somewhere to start.”

*   *   *

They went back to the station and tried the contact information that they had for Deirdre Chase.

“No go,” McCabe said. “Let's get Research to see what they can do.”

While they were waiting, Whitman from the State Police called. He had struck out so far on finding a science program at UAlbany or at a local college where someone remembered a student who had worked as a TA at a science camp.

McCabe told him about Deirdre Chase. He sounded almost as pleased as they were. “We're getting there,” he said. “I'm still waiting for several people to get back to me. Maybe we'll be able to locate the summer camp director, too.”

“Or, if we have the wrong Deirdre on this end,” McCabe said, “maybe one of your leads will pan out.”