“I didn’t want to shake his hand because I was worried I could contaminate crime scenes with whatever perfume molecules landed on me.”
“On that note,” Tally said, “it wouldn’t kill you to wear a scent occasionally. Not saying you need to drench yourself in Hugo Boss, but smelling like something other than whatever clothes you picked up off your floor that morning wouldn’t be so bad every once in a while.”
“So you’ll come to Sephora with me then?”
Tally laughed. “Only if I can invite Claire to witness this.”
“Deal’s off. On to the last number.”
The area code was 917. And the calls were only incoming, no outgoing.
“A New York City number,” Serrano said.
“And most likely a burner phone,” Tally said. “Look. The calls are frequent for the year leading up to Wickersham’s testimony, then cease completely once the proceedings finished.”
Tally called the number. It didn’t surprise them when the number came back no longer in service.
“We can get a warrant on this line,” Serrano said. “Most burners these days have built-in GPS. If the caller made enough calls from a single location, it could provide a lead as to where they live or work.”
Based on Wickersham’s admission of fraud and perjury, the payments from Albatross, and his relationship with Caroline Drummond, Serrano had no doubt they had sufficient probable cause to get a warrant on the cell phone number.
“Judge Watson is probably up,” Tally said. “Send him the affidavit.”
Serrano called the judge, then sent over the warrant request. It was approved in less than two hours.
As soon as he had the warrant, Serrano submitted it to all the major burner cell phone manufacturers and suppliers. He got a call back half an hour later from a company called CodeTek. They confirmed the phone was one of theirs, a Samsung model using Verizon’s network, and their distribution center had packed it in a shipment that had gone out to electronics and convenience stores in Manhattan. Serrano confirmed that the model in question had GPS built in.
Serrano then contacted the Data Forensics Unit of the NYPD and asked them for GPS tracking on the number for the one-year period in question. He hoped they would find enough similar data points to narrow down the location of the person who’d used it. And he was willing to bet that whoever had been using that phone had been coordinating with Caroline Drummond about Albatross.
While they waited for the records to come in, Serrano went upstairs to the Bunk to check on the Marin children. They were curled up next to each other, lying facedown, elbows touching. Eric was playing some sort of shoot-’em-up game on his phone, while Megan was flipping through a copy of Vanity Fair. They looked content enough. But the frequency with which Rachel’s children spent time in the station upset Serrano. It had gotten to the point where they didn’t even seem inconvenienced by it. Just another bed in a string of beds.
Serrano wondered what circumstances had forced them to get used to such consistent turmoil in their lives.
Then he went to check on Rachel.
She was lying on her back on one of the metal benches in the holding cell, staring at the ceiling. Her eyes were open. Her mouth was moving.
“Rachel, how are you—”
“Shh . . . ,” she said. “I’m trying to figure out how many people have been in this cell.”
Serrano laughed. “I’m not even sure I know the answer to that.”
“Let’s see,” she said. “Currently, there are four occupants. In any given day, a day like today, I estimate between four and six guests. But that rises in the summer—people tend to have shorter fuses in hot weather—and around the holidays. People get depressed, drink more, take things out on loved ones or former loved ones. And in the winter, when days get shorter and it gets dark earlier, people start drinking earlier. Which leads to an increase in bar brawls and DWIs. So for the two weeks before and after Christmas and Thanksgiving, I’m estimating it goes up to between seven and nine. From Memorial Day to Labor Day, six to eight. With a spike on July Fourth. Morons who don’t know how to properly light fireworks or drive speedboats. So in a calendar year, I’m estimating the number of guests in the Ashby PD holding cells to be one thousand, eight hundred and eighty-three.”
Serrano stood there, dumbfounded.
“This police station itself was constructed in 1967. Certainly crime rates were higher back then—the civil rights era, Vietnam protests—and precincts weren’t monitored nearly as closely as they are now. Can you imagine how quickly water fountains would have been desegregated if social media existed in the sixties to mobilize protests? Or how many cops would have been arrested, charged, and, let’s be honest, executed? It’s a well-known fact that a number of cops were actively involved in the Ku Klux Klan—”
“You were telling me how many people have been in this cell,” Serrano said, losing his patience.
“Oh, right. One hundred and four thousand, three hundred sixty-eight people.”
“I’ll check with the lieutenant and get back to you,” Serrano said. “And if you’re right, you get a free sandwich.”
“Please thank Lieutenant George for me,” Rachel said. “He’s been good to Eric and Megan.”
“I will.”
“I wonder how many of those people you personally put in here,” Rachel said. “I bet I could estimate.”
“Don’t you have anything better to do with your time?” Serrano said.
“Not at the moment, no. Instead of a sandwich, how about the leniency of the court?”
Serrano shook his head. “The judge’s bench is above my pay grade. You know, I was wondering. Whatever happened to that guy you were out with? You didn’t seem all that upset when we showed up.”
“Adam,” Rachel said. “The next day he texted me an emoji of an eggplant and a doughnut, which I’m pretty sure means he wanted to have sex with me. Or have sex with a doughnut, maybe a threesome with an eggplant involved somehow. So I sent him an emoji of an eggplant and a knife to let him know that if he ever came near me, I’d chop his dick off. Then I blocked him.”
“Reminder: never text emojis to Rachel Marin.”
“Now if only you can educate the men of Ashby.”
“I’ll do my best,” Serrano said.
“I spoke to my lawyer,” Rachel said. “He thinks I’m going to get off without even a fine.”
“Is that so?”
“When I went to the Velos offices, I had no idea that Sam Wickersham was part of an ongoing criminal investigation. That’s the honest truth. So therefore I couldn’t have knowingly impeded one.”
Serrano mulled it over. Then he shrugged. “I’m not a judge.”
“No. That’s above your pay grade,” she said with a wicked grin. Then it dissipated. “How are Eric and Megan?”
“They’re fine. Eric is gaming. Megan is reading.”
“Just another day.”
“They seem a little too comfortable. Like they’re used to having their lives turned upside down.”
Rachel looked away.
“Tell me what happened to you,” he said.