NYPD Red

Chapter 31



WE FINALLY HAD something solid to go on. Photos of our killer. We sent Ellen Dobrin and Jason Garza, two bilingual detectives, out to the Bronx to wake up Rafe, the waiter from the Regency Hotel.

They showed him the picture of the fake E! channel cameraman and asked if it reminded him at all of the busboy from that morning.

“This is an old white guy,” Rafe said. “I told them other cops that the busboy was a young Latino.”

“Yes, sir,” Dobrin said. “But imagine that this is a disguise. Let’s say the white hair is a wig. Now imagine that the busboy was also wearing a disguise. Do you see any similarities between the two of them—you know, like height, build, bone structure?”

Rafe took another look at the photo. “They’s both dudes,” he said, hoping to be helpful.

Dobrin sent me a text. We got nada. Nuance no es Rafe’s strong suit.

Then Matt Smith, our techie, put the bomber’s picture through facial recognition software. Even with a disguise, it’s not easy for a person to change the distance between his eyes, the depth of his sockets, the shape of his cheekbones, or eighty other distinct facial landmarks.

We collected headshots of every extra and every crew member on the set of Ian Stewart’s movie. We also had a second batch of pictures of random people lifted off the Internet that we used as a control group. The software then uses some magic algorithm and compares each face to our perp.

“If this were the third act of CSI: Miami, the computer would spit out the one guy who’s a match,” Kylie said.

But real police work is nothing like TV. The computer picked out twenty-three possibles. Eleven extras, including two women, three crew members, and nine from the control group, including Leonardo DiCaprio.

“This whole facial recognition thing isn’t nearly as foolproof as people might think,” Smith said.

“Even so,” Kylie said, “let’s go pay Leo a visit and see if he has an alibi.”

I finally got to sleep at 2:00.

At 4:15, my cell phone rang. I hit the light and looked at the caller ID. It was Kylie.

“This better be good, K-Mac,” I said.

“This isn’t K-Mac,” the voice on the other end said. “It’s Spence. I guess with a name like Spence Harrington, I can’t have a cool street name like K-Mac. Maybe Spennington.”

“Is Kylie okay?” I said.

“Yeah, she’s exhausted and I hated to wake her. Me, I’m a night owl. This is when I do my best thinking. I found your number in her cell, so I figured I’d give you a ring while it’s still fresh in my mind. Maybe kick it around. Just you and me, guy to guy.”

I was half-awake now, but I still had no idea what he was talking about. “Okay, what is it?” I said.

“You know I’m not a cop, right?”

I grunted in the affirmative.

“But I make a damn good living producing cop shows on TV,” he said, “and I have an idea I want to bounce off you.”

“An idea for a TV show?”

“God, no, Zach. About these murders. You should have invited me into that powwow with the mayor. I might have come up with it earlier, but I was outside with the rest of the civilians.”

“Spence, I’m sorry you had to stay outside, but—”

“Don’t worry about it. Kylie explained. Anyway, you want to hear my theory?”

Did I have a choice?

“Sure,” I said.

“Now, I’m just pitching,” he said, “but listen to this. New York is trying to attract LA production money. They invite all these Hollywood wheeler-dealers to fly in, and suddenly they’re being bumped off. Who benefits from these murders?”

I was working on two hours sleep. Even if there were an intelligent answer, I wouldn’t have come up with it.

“I give up, Spence. Who benefits?”

“The City of Angels. Los freakin’ Angeles, California.”

“I’m not sure I follow,” I said.

“Making movies and TV shows is LA’s bread and butter,” he said. “They don’t want to lose a crumb of it to New York, so they’re trying to prove that New York is not a safe town for moviemakers. And listen to this—it’s working already. Shelley Trager is having a blowout party on his yacht Wednesday. It’s the premiere screening of my new TV show, and let me tell you it’s the must-have invite of the whole week. As of tonight, six people canceled. They said they had to fly back to LA. They’re full of shit. They’re afraid of New York, and they’re running back home to Mama. I know it sounds far-fetched, but all great plots have these kinds of quirky hooks to them. Look at Lost—it was off-the-wall crazy, but it ran six seasons. Like I said, I’m just tossing out an idea here. What do you think?”

“Spence, I don’t think a city—even one with a good motive—could be behind these killings,” I said. “Some person has to be behind it all. Have you narrowed it down to a human suspect?”

“No. That’s your job. You and K-Mac,” he said. “The obvious places to start are the California Film Commission, the LA Chamber of Commerce—hell, it might go all the way up to city hall.”

“That’s an intriguing thought, Spence,” I said. For a TV show, maybe. But hard to believe in real life that the mayor of Los Angeles would put a contract out on three people in New York.

I thanked him, promised I’d talk to Kylie about it in the morning, and hung up. Thirty minutes later, I was still wide awake. Maybe because I was running all the events of the past twenty-four hours through my shit sorter. Maybe because I was trying to make sense of Spennington’s phone call.

Or maybe because I knew Cheryl Robinson was probably already at the diner on her second cup of coffee.