“Tanya, I think what happened in the subway is connected to several murders. Can you tell me anything else at all?” she asked, amazed that her voice wasn’t trembling.
“Oh, God, I’m so sorry, but I can’t. I’m a coward. But I’ve got kids, you know? I should have moved closer and tried to hear more, but instead I waited until I knew they’d gone.”
Great. There was no way to question every woman at Rikers. Besides, whoever it was would only stare at them blankly and lie anyway.
Not to mention that it would put Tanya in danger.
There was one thing she could do, she thought.
“Tanya, I’m going to get a Good Samaritan to post your bail. I’ll do it as quickly as possible,” she promised. She hesitated, then asked, “Did you hear anything else? Anything at all?”
Tanya was reflective, her brow knit into a frown. “Yeah, there was one more thing,” she said finally. “But I didn’t really get it.”
“What?”
“You work at a pub, too, right?” Tanya asked.
“My family owns a pub, yes.”
“That makes sense, then,” Tanya said. “Whoever she was, she said her boyfriend knew what you looked like. The people who were supposed to pay him pointed you out one night. At a pub.”
*
“I can’t even begin to understand what you don’t understand,” Ms. Mannerly said indignantly. “Why would I worry about a phone when a woman was dead?”
“We need all the information you have on that phone,” Mike told her calmly.
“Why? I’ve already had it turned off.”
“Because that phone has disappeared, but if it turns up again, we’ll have something to go on,” Craig said, smiling pleasantly.
The smile was almost real.
He was grateful as hell that he didn’t work for the woman.
“All right, all right, I suppose that makes sense,” she said. She pulled up a spreadsheet on her computer and rattled off the phone number, the service provider and where all her employee phones were purchased.
They thanked her, and as soon as they left her office, Craig put through a call to Wally, their top civilian tech, and gave him all the information. “Can you get anything from that?” he asked.
“Probably not much. I can tell you when it was last used and maybe get some call records. I’ll do my best,” Wally promised, then was quiet for a moment. “You know this is Sunday, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I know,” Craig said. “I owe you one, Wally.” When he hung up, he looked at Mike. “We really need to find Joe.”
Mike nodded. “We need to find out everywhere she went with Joe and anything her friends know about where he’s been, then check out every damned Joe in the place.”
Craig nodded. “Maybe those phone records will help. I’ll tell you one thing, though.”
Mike looked at him questioningly.
“We go back to Finnegan’s ourselves,” Craig said.
“We need to ask Declan for all his receipts.”
“No, we’ll get Mayo to do that,” Craig said.
“Why?”
“Because we’re going back as Ian Stone and his drummer buddy, Nate Ellsworth,” Craig said.
Mike looked at him suspiciously. “You think something at Finnegan’s isn’t what it appears, don’t you?”
“Yes, you know that.”
“Do you suspect one of the family?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Of course you don’t. Not when you’re sleeping with Kieran Finnegan,” Mike said. “You’ve got to get past that, buddy. You don’t know what’s going on there, and you need an open mind.”
“I am past it. I never let my personal feelings interfere with the job, and you know that, Mike.” Craig was surprised that Mike hadn’t yet mentioned what they’d heard from Julie Benton.
Mike shook his head. “You need to be careful, buddy, really careful. Now, me? I believe in her. I think you found a frickin’ pot o’ gold. She’s smart and beautiful, but you still need to watch out.”
“Mike...”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re a pro. I know. Listen, do we really have to wear beards again? And those flipping contacts?”
“Yes, Mike, we do.”
“She’s going to see through you,” Mike said.
“Bull. I worked undercover for years. Eagan didn’t even recognize us, remember?”
Mike laughed. “Yeah, but you’re not sleeping with Eagan.”
*
Kieran assuaged Tanya’s attorney by making up something about Tanya telling her additional and very personal details of her marriage, things the woman wasn’t comfortable talking about to anyone but her. She promised that she would put everything in a revised report.
She managed to get out of Rikers quickly, despite the fact that Miss Terry insisted on seeing her to the gates, apologizing all the way for having brought her in on a Sunday.
As soon as Kieran was back in the car, she asked William Buell to drive her to Finnegan’s.
Yes, that was where someone had pointed her out to the man who had tried to kill her. But, she reasoned, no one was likely to try to kill her there—at least not during business hours.
She went back to wondering why someone wanted her dead.