Page 66 of NYPD Red 7: The Murder Sorority

“You get a photo ID on him?” I asked.

Koprowski shook his head. “We tried, but his hand is up in the air, and he was blocking too much of his nose and mouth for facial recognition to get a read. But this stocky fellow on the left was just staring at the camera, begging to be scanned. His real name is Leonard Cerruti. He owned an auto body shop in Passaic, New Jersey.

“Based on his passport data, Mr. Cerruti hardly ever traveled out of the country, and when he did it was always with his wife. So we reached out to US Customs and ran his photo through their database, and guess what?”

He tapped his keyboard again, and a second passport appeared on the wall. The photo was of Cerruti with a mustache, a goatee, and a different name. Koprowski popped on four more bogus passports. Cerruti’s hair wassilver-grayin the last one. His name was Peter Corville.

“Five fictitious identities,” Koprowski said. “But they’re all Lenny. He traveled far and wide over the years—Prague, Manchester, Johannesburg, Antwerp—and each date coincides with ahigh-profilemurder during his visit. The victim is always shot and killed up close, and always in a crowded, noisy venue—a subway, a concert, a football match—and the shooter disappears before anyone is even aware there was a shooting.”

“According to Theo,” Kylie said, “the man they called Alice could craft a gun out of plastic, make it look like a cell phone or an eyeglass case, easily smuggle it past airport security, and trash it after each job. Rich and I are convinced that Leonard Cerruti was Alice.”

“WasAlice?” I said. “Past tense?”

“Very past tense,” Kylie said. “Two years ago, Cerruti flew to Quito as Peter Corville and spent four days there. He was on his way back to the airport when his car was run off the road and he was shot through the head multiple times. The US embassy found no next of kin, so his body was buried in a potter’s field in Ecuador.”

“Do you think he was killed by his own people?” Catesasked.

“No,” Koprowski said. “Earlier that day, a colonel in the Ecuadorian National Police was shot and killed at a crowded church service. After Cerruti was murdered, the ENP found video evidence that put him in that same church at the time of the assassination. Our best guess is that the colonel’s compadres made him as the killer and took him out before he could leave the country.”

“This isfirst-ratepolice work,” Cates said. “So where does that leave us?”

“Three down and three to go,” Kylie said. “Barbara and Carol, who did the wet work, and one more person with a totally different set of skills, who could run the show, vet potential clients, coordinate logistics, and handle the finances.”

“Any ideas who that might be?” Catesasked.

“No,” Kylie said. “But about twenty minutes ago, we just got some good news from the lab. We think it’s what we need to track down Barbara.”

I stared at the tableau on the wall. Then I let my eyes drift over to Cates, to Rich, and finally to Kylie. She stared back at me with a fierce intensity. This was far and away the biggest, most difficult, most scrutinized investigation we had ever been a part of. I could see that she was consumed by the taskahead.

I should have felt the same way. The desire to find these killers should have filled every cell of my being. But a little piece of me was somewhereelse.

I couldn’t shake it from my mind. Cheryl. On her way to a laboratory. With Theo’s toothbrush.

CHAPTER 44

Sometimes when I’m driving, my mind will drift off, and when I finally snap out of it, I have no idea how I managed to travel so far without running off the road.

It’s called highway hypnosis. I guess there must be a conference room version of it, because by the time I shook Theo’s DNA test out of my head, Kylie was in the middle of explaining something about shock absorbers, and I had no idea what she was talking about.

“Kylie, sorry,” I called out. “Could you start again? Take it from the top.”

“No problem,” she said. “Anything wrong?”

“Nothing,” I said. “I think my brain just got all twisted up with this news about Alice, and I guess I tuned out for a sec.”

“Uh-huh,” she said, tossing me a look that said she knew me too long and too well to buy my bullshit about Alice. “The lab called. They got a partial plate on Barbara’s RAV4. It’s just one number—seven—but it’s a big help.”

She paused and looked at me. “I was just explaining how they came up with it. You all caught up now?”

“Totally,” I said. “Keep going.”

“When Theo’s motorcycle hit the rear bumper of the SUV, the front shock absorbers on the bike compressed, and the ass end went straight up in the air.” She punched her right fist into the palm of her left hand, then tipped her right elbow toward the ceiling. “It’s like doing a handstand on his front tire. The impact literally embossed the number from Barbara’s license plate onto Theo’s metal fender.

“Now, the world is full of black RAV4s,” she said. “And hundreds of them have a seven in the plate. But how many do you think were parked in the vicinity of WestHundred-and-SecondStreet and Riverside Drive on the morning Curtis Hellman was stabbed?”

“And you think Barbara drove there?” Cates asked.

“We don’t know. He could have taken a cab or a subway. But it makes more sense to drive. It’s a lot less exposure than using public transportation.”

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