“You do that.”
OUR SHIFT OVER, we stopped at McKinley’s bar on 17th Street. Lee ordered whiskey and soda. I usually did too, but that night I took it straight. Lee noticed.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
He played with his stirrer. “It’s always lousy when it involves a kid.”
“I’m handling it.”
“You don’t look like it. You look like shit . . . beautiful shit, but shit.”
“Thanks.”
He’s the only one I’d let talk to me like that, and he knew it. We’d grown up around Cathedral Parkway on the Upper West Side. Now it’s up-and-coming. Back then it was Cocaine Central. After my stepfather died, I moved away, and Lee and I lost contact. Years later, I looked up and there he was, at the academy. We’d been partners ever since.
“Look,” he said, “I remember what happened with your stepfather — ”
“Don’t go there.”
“All I’m saying — ”
“I said — ”
“ — is that if you want to talk about it, I’m here. That’s all. I’m here.”
But it hurts. It hurts so bad. And the blood . . .
Hush, child.
But —
You let him do what he’s got to do, ’cause he’s our bread and butter.
The mirror behind the bar reflected my image. Lee was right. I did look like shit. I turned away and pressed my glass against my cheek. It felt cool and refreshing.
“Sometimes, I feel like I’m a ghost, you know? Sometimes, I wonder who really died that night. Him or me?”
“That’s crazy.”
“I’ve been hearing things, Lee. Don’t tell the captain, but I’ve been hearing my mother’s voice. Haven’t thought of her in years. Don’t know if she’s alive or dead. But ever since we caught this case, she’s been whispering to me.”
“What’s she saying?”
“Same things she used to say, to get me to cooperate.” I set the glass down. “You think I’m crazy?”
“No.”
“Got any advice?”
“Tell her to leave you alone. Next time she says something, tell her to get the hell outta your head and leave you the fuck alone.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
I thought about it. He was right.
Get the fuck outta my head, Mama. It sounded fine to me.
MONDAY AFTERNOON, ABIGAIL and Susan sat behind a table on the sidewalk around the corner from their school, near Central Park. They had two large sliced cakes — one chocolate, one strawberry — plus an array of brownies and cupcakes. A big sign next to them read: bake sale to benefit chrissie’s family.
Crumpled dollar bills and assorted change half-filled an upended water-fountain jar on the table.
“Looks like you’re doing a brisk business,” Lee said.
“Yeah,” Susan said. “We’re doing pretty well.”
“Where’s Claire?” I asked.
Something ugly flitted across Abigail’s face. Susan started to speak, but Abigail put a staying hand on her wrist, and the girl snapped her mouth shut.
“Claire’s not part of this,” Abigail said, flashing an extrabright smile. “Says she’s got too much work to do.”
Lee raised an eyebrow. “Even for a good cause like this?”
Abigail shrugged. “You know how it is: different people, different priorities.” Another false smile. “So, how’s your investigation going?”
“We have more questions,” Lee said.
“Sure. We’re always ready to help.”
“I see that.” I glanced at the grip on Susan’s wrist.
Abigail colored and withdrew the hand; Susan rubbed the spot as though she’d been freed from shackles.
“Maybe we could speak to each of you separately.” I raised a hand before Abigail could object. “That way, the table will stay manned. You won’t miss any donations, and no one can walk away with the jar.”
She didn’t like it, but she couldn’t argue. She gave Susan a warning look, stepped away from the table, and turned to me.
“What is it?”
“Did Chrissie ever mention an older guy?”
Abigail set her jaw.
“Look,” I said, “if you don’t give me a straight answer, we’ll be having a conversation at the station with your mother.”
She tried to look brave. Folding her arms across her chest, she said, “You have no right to threaten me.”
“Sweetie, we have the right to threaten anyone with cause — and you’re giving us cause. Now, did Chrissie ever mention an older man?”
“Yeah,” she said resentfully. “Her stepfather.”
“They were having problems?”
“You could say that. He started raping her when she was ten.”
Mama, can I talk to you? Talk to you right now?
Pressure started building at the back of my skull. “Did she tell anyone?”
“She tried. But her mother didn’t care.”
“You mean, her mother didn’t know.”
“What’re you, deaf? Her mother knew but didn’t care. All she cares about is being Mrs. Big Shot. She even tried to stop Chrissie from moving in with her dad. She was scared Mr. Big Shot would leave her.”
“Why should Chrissie’s moving—”
Again that irritated superior look.
“Don’t you get it? Having sex with Chrissie was part of the deal. That’s how her mother got that guy to marry her.”
It always hurts the first time, child. Just let him do what he’s got to do, ’cause he’s our bread and butter.
JIMMY WATTS IN forensics had left us a message to stop by. He was at his desk, working on a ham-and-tomato sandwich. Watts weighed more than two hundred pounds, but in the eight years I’d known him, I’d never seen him eat a large meal.
He waved to us, dabbed his mouth with a tissue, and got up. We followed him as he lumbered past shelves of confiscated equipment in stages of disassembly. Chrissie’s computer and webcam were on a table by themselves.
“She had a sweet hookup,” he said. “Surprisingly good security for a teenage girl. Simple but effective.”
“But you could bypass it, right?” I asked.
“Oh, sure. I’m logged in now. I just let it sleep until you came.”
He sat down, touched a key, and the dark computer screen lit up. He double-clicked one of the icons littering the screen. A browser window opened.
“Look at this.”
Lee and I leaned forward. We were viewing a blog. It was called “Selling the Pink.”
“Does that mean what I think it means?” I asked.
“’Fraid so.”
Lee and I scanned the entries. The teenage author was running her own porn site. She’d started an earlier one with three friends—“Amber,” “Chloe,” and “Elektra” — but then decided to go off on her own. The decision sparked a feud, and she was still reeling from it.
But the fight with her friends/business partners wasn’t the focus of her most recent entry — or even her deepest concern. She was worried about a man, someone she called “Mr. Big Shot.”
“We got him,” Lee whispered. “The stepfather. It’s him.”
A link from the blog led us to stills from archived footage.
“That poor kid,” Lee said.
“Poor, she was not,” said Watts. “She was raking it in. So far, I’ve found two online accounts — one’s got one hundred fifty thou and the other’s got thirty-five.”
You’re such a pretty girl. Such a lucky, pretty girl. Men’ll always give you what you want when you’re such a pretty girl.
I gave myself an inner shake. Go away, I said inwardly, but the words had no strength.
“She was going to surprise her father,” Watts was saying, “help him open a new business and send herself to college.”
“Any sense of how long she was at it?” I asked.
“I’d say abou
t two and a half years.”
So she’d started when she was thirteen.
“What about the e-mails?” Lee asked.
Watts’s fingers danced across the keyboard, and another window opened up. “You’ll find this interesting.” A few more clicks with the mouse, and rows of messages flowed down the screen.
The e-mails were furious and taut. They spoke of broken promises and angry betrayals. Most were from Amber, who spoke for Chloe and Elektra.
“Can you print them out?” I asked.
“Already did. Printouts are on my desk. But wait,” Watts said. “You guys are gonna love this.”
He double-clicked another icon. Chrissie’s mail program opened up.
“She left all her messages on the server — all except these. These, she downloaded.”
A ream of messages opened up, all from Mr. Big Shot. He was obsessed with her. She didn’t want to see him again, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. The clincher came when he threatened her father:
“I can make sure he’s sent back,” he wrote. “I can and I will.”
A date was set. It was the day she died.
THAT EVENING, AFTER pouring myself a generous shot of Johnnie Walker, I turned on my computer and found the first entry on Chrissie’s blog. It described how, days earlier, she’d set up a webcam and posted information on a Web directory, hoping to find friends. She’d gotten her first contact within minutes. It was another girl, she thought, but as they chatted, she sensed that something was wrong. Eventually, the “girl” admitted to being a guy. Chrissie started to sign off, but the man was friendly, apologetic. He was witty and flattering — and ready with gifts. Within hours, she’d “met” others just like him.
One evening, one of her digital admirers said he was feeling blue. How could she cheer him up? she asked. Looking at her made him feel good, he said. He loved looking at her. If she wanted to be kind, all she had to do was raise her blouse and let him see her. He’d pay her “fifty bucks for three glorious minutes.” He’d pay it into her online account. It was like cash in the hand. She didn’t have an account? He’d help her open one.
It wasn’t as though she didn’t know what he was after. It wasn’t as if she didn’t sense where his request might lead. It was the money and sense of power his asking gave her — that and a feeling of despair. Was this kind of attention the only kind she could hope for? If so, then why not make the best of it? According to her blog, she was suffering at her stepfather’s hands nightly. She couldn’t fight him. But here, she had the power to say no and the right to exact payment when she said yes. Here, the men couldn’t even touch her. They could only watch her, long for her — and only for as long as she let them.
Chrissie said she had more than a thousand “fans” who made monthly “donations” for her performances. They advised her on the best camera and software to use. They even paid for it, having suggested that she set up a “wish list” on online stores. She could ask for anything she wanted, they said. She could list DVDs, CDs, clothes, jewelry, computer hardware — anything. They would pay for it, and the stores would deliver while keeping her address secret.
It was a hell of a ride, and Chrissie was holding on tight. But it wasn’t all fun and games. She battled fear and self-loathing. Certain men were terrifying. One wrote that he wanted to possess her. Many pressed her to meet them, but she refused — all except one.
Enough. I drained the last drop of whiskey, turned off the computer, and went to bed, but I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about her, trapped with her stepfather, and about another girl I’d known, likewise trapped.
Mama, can I talk to you? I can’t take the pain.
Shush, it always hurts the first time, child.
Stop him, Mama. Stop him, ’cause I won’t let him near me again.
I thought about the day my stepfather died. For years, all I could remember was what they told me: that my mother heard me screaming, rushed into my room, and found him on me. He was dead, bleeding like a stuck pig, and I was under him, holding the knife. That’s all. Simple.
I didn’t serve a day in jail. I didn’t live another day with my mother either. The court forgave me. She didn’t. I’d killed her man, taken her livelihood. She left town and never looked back. I decided to do the same. That was that. Simple.
Until Chrissie.
Around midnight, Shin called. “The wine was definitely a merlot. It matches a bottle from the hotel. Also, you remember I said she ate brownies?”
“Now that you mention it . . . what about them?”
“Ever heard of bud brownies?”
Brownies made with pot. “You telling me she was high?”
“As the wind blows.”
O’DONNELL MET US at the door with a brandy in hand. His tie was loosened and his jacket tossed across a chair. He looked stressed. Good. Chrissie’s mother was nowhere in sight. Even better.
“Look, I’m stunned,” he said, “but guys, c’mon. I had nothing to do with it.”
“Let’s sit down,” I said.
He glanced at his watch. “I have to get back tonight. You shouldn’t have sent for me. We could’ve talked on the phone.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Fine. Let’s get this over with.”
Lee and I made a show of consulting our notes.
“We know,” I said, “that you met Chrissie at a hotel on Saturday, that you had sex with her and bought her lunch.”
“Preposterous.”
I eyeballed him. “Think about it.”
“There’s nothing to think about. I was in Albany. I’ve been there since Friday.”
I was tired and short-tempered after a bad night. “Mr. O’Donnell, the hot-and-heavy e-mails on Chrissie’s hard drive will tell us they came from you. Your credit cards will tell us where you stayed and when. DNA taken from Chrissie’s body will tell us that it came from you. Now, do you really want us to go to all that trouble? Trust me, sir. If you make it hard for us, we’ll make it hard for you.”
He broke out in a sweat. “You’re bluffing.”
“Try me.”
He ran a hand through his thick silver hair, sorting options, finding none. “All right. But I left her at the hotel — alive. And I loved her. I never would’ve hurt her.”
I felt cold inside, cold enough to kill without batting an eyelash.
“You’re sick,” Lee told him. “You know that, right?”
“I had nothing to do with her death.”
“She threatened to reveal you,” Lee said. “You had to shut her up.”
O’Donnell licked his lips. “Listen, I was nowhere near her when she died. I can prove it. I usually take a train to Albany, but I was late, so I flew instead. The flight was at four. I have the boarding pass.”
“Let me see it,” I said.
He dug it out of his wallet and handed it over.
The pass was legit. I showed it to Lee.
“You’re not off the hook,” I said.
“But I’ve proved — ”
“You’re going to jail,” Lee said. “For child abuse and rape.”
“You’re crazy.”
“When we’re finished with you, you’ll wish we were.”
Back in the car, Lee scratched his temple. “That SOB. He wasn’t just our main suspect. He was our only one.”
“It’s time we had a meeting,” I said.
“With who?”
“Elektra.”
I MADE THE calls from the car. She was at the station when we got there. I expected to see her mother too, but the girl was alone.
“I sort of expected to hear from you,” she said.
“Why?”
“Abigail and Susan said they’d seen you. I figured you’d want to see me too.”
I ushered her into a small soundproof room with a desk, three chairs, and walls that were bare, except for a one-way mirror. I pointed to the metal fold-up chair set in the narrow space between the desk and the mirror. The room was claus
trophobic, the chair uncomfortable. They were meant to be. She sat on the edge of the chair and eyed the mirror.
“Is anyone watching?” she asked.
“Where’s your mom? I thought you’d bring her.”
She gave me an indecipherable look, then said, “She’s busy.”
“I’ll call her.”
“No, please. She doesn’t need to come here.” Panic edged her voice. She pushed her glasses back up on her nose. “Was it the e-mails or the blog?”
“Both.”
She grew paler. “Can this be kept from my mother?”
“Clear this up now, and she’ll never be the wiser.”
She worried her lip.
“At least you were never on camera,” I added.
“Abigail wouldn’t let me. I’m just a geek, so I could only do the technical stuff.”
“Whose idea was it?”
“Abby’s. She found out that Chrissie had this porn site and told her that if she didn’t let her in on it, she’d tell.”
“Only it didn’t work out the way Abigail planned, did it?”
Again, she shook her head. “Abby’s pretty, but not like Chrissie. Chrissie’s the one the guys wanted to see. Chrissie said she was bringing in all the money. She didn’t see why she had to split so much of it with us. So she went back to having her own site and took the best-paying guys with her. Abigail and Susan were left with the crazies, the guys who wanted weird stuff. They got angry.”
“How angry?”
A pause. “Very.”
There was a knock on the door. It was Lee: time for a talk with Amber and Chloe.
“I’ll be right back,” I said, and stepped outside.
“They’re in one and two,” Lee said.
“Parents come?”
“The girls refused to have ’em.”
They were old enough. They had that right.
“Dumb choice,” I said. “But thank God they made it.”
SUSAN HAD BACKED her chair into a corner, so her back was against the wall. She was hugging herself and chewing on a lock of hair.
“Hi, Susan,” I said.
“Hi.” Her voice was barely a whisper.
I had a folder thick with papers and labeled with her name. I slapped it on the desk, and she cringed. Lee leaned against the wall. I perched on the edge of the desk and regarded her with concern. She averted her eyes.