Read Online 212 LP: A Novel by Alafair Burke - Free Book Online Page A

interjected. “I’m surprised you even mentioned the possibility, given the rumors.”
    “Which ones?” Kristen asked. “You listen to the local tabloids, and he’s either an irrepressible playboy or the most popular ride at Big Gay Al’s homosexual theme park.”
    Ellie coughed. “We hadn’t heard it put in quite those terms.”
    “Well, I have. And the rumors aren’t true. He dates a lot, but mostly to avoid the rumors that come about when a wealthy bachelor is by himself too often. Hasn’t done him much good, though.”
    “So the party planning,” Ellie said, pulling Kristen back to the timeline. “That was enough to keep you busy the entire afternoon?”
    “Pretty much. I’m sure I worked on other stuff as well, but I’d have to go back and try to reconstruct it all from my e-mails, and—”
    “But you were in the office working? You didn’t have to leave, perhaps with Mr. Sparks?”
    “No,” Kristen said, apparently not noticing the pointed direction of Ellie’s comment. “He was in the field with his architects that whole afternoon, touring the properties under construction. And after that he had to run straight to a fund-raiser for the Conservation Voters. I remember because I knew from his calendar that I had a big chunk of time to get some work done and then get out early for the day.”
    “Did you speak to Mr. Sparks at any point that afternoon?”
    Again, Kristen shook her head. “I even teased him the next day that he’d made remarkable progress in his independence. Not a single call, e-mail, or text message.”
    Kristen’s recollection was consistent with the information she’d given them nearly four months earlier. And Ellie and Rogan had confirmed it against her phone records: there had been no contact between her and Sparks from the time Mancini booked the apartment to the time of his murder.
    Ellie thanked Kristen for her time. “You want a ride somewhere?” she offered.
    “No, thanks. Sam’s done with me for the day, so I’m meeting a friend up here.”
    As Ellie led the way back to the Crown Vic, she ran through the timeline in her head again. If Sparks had known where Mancini was going to be that night, he had not learned it from Kristen Woods.
    It would be three more days before Ellie realized her mistake.

CHAPTER TWELVE
    5:15 P.M.
    T he Fifth Precinct of the NYPD is located on Elizabeth Street and Canal. Forty years ago, the spot would have been at the dividing line between Little Italy and Chinatown. But when the federal government changed its immigration laws in 1965, allowing more Asian immigrants into the country, the population of Chinatown exploded. Now Mulberry Street, with its tourist-trap restaurants and sidewalk vendors hawking Bada Bing and Fuggedaboutit T-shirts, was the last remaining enclave of what had once been a real Italian neighborhood. And the Fifth Precinct now stood at the epicenter of an ever-expanding Chinatown.
    Rogan parked the car on Elizabeth, just south of Canal, and began making his way north to the precinct.
    “Hold up,” Ellie called out as she pulled open a glass door stenciled with gold Chinese lettering. She emerged sixty seconds later with a roasted pork bun wrapped inside a napkin, the first real food she’d seen since shunning the slop masquerading as lunch at the jail.
    “A buck twenty-five,” Ellie said, popping a piece of the doughy ball of marinated meat into her mouth. “You can’t beat Chinatown.”
    By the time they turned the corner to reach the sky-blue door ofthe white-brick building that housed the Fifth Precinct, Ellie had finished her makeshift lunch. A civilian aide with a round Charlie Brown head sat at the front service desk.
    Rogan pulled back his jacket to reveal his detective’s badge. “Narcotics?”
    The aide gestured toward a staircase just beyond the entrance. “Next floor up.”
    A few years earlier, police assumed that all home invasions were drug-related. Teacher? Priest? Hero landing an airplane