“Unless you’ve got a hearing problem, you probably noticed some comments as you walked in.”

McIlroy hadn’t bothered to lower his voice. Nearby detectives shifted their eyes back to their work.

“No hearing problem, sir,” Ellie said.

“And none of this ‘sir’ stuff. Call me Flann.”

“And call me Ellie. Or my friends just call me Date Bait.” She threw a look to the younger detective at the next desk, and he laughed aloud and smiled. One down, the rest of the room to go, Ellie thought.

“Let’s talk while we drive,” Flann said. “I want you to see something.”

“FRIDAY NIGHT, AROUND three in the morning, two men found a woman’s body in an alley off of Avenue C.” McIlroy flipped down the sun visor on the department-issued Crown Vic as he hung a left onto Third Avenue, followed by another quick left onto Twentieth Street to take them to the far East Side. “The girl’s name was Amy Davis. She lived in the adjacent building. We’ve already determined she was walking home from a date when the bad guy grabbed her. Strangled.”

He pushed a manila folder across the seat toward Ellie. She opened it and removed an eight-by-ten photograph. Amy Davis lay on a metal slab. A white sheet was pulled up to her shoulders, but the rest of the picture told the story. Her face was scarlet. Dark contusions discolored her neck and throat, her eyes protruded from their sockets, and her swollen tongue peeked out from encrusted lips. Ellie could tell from the many marks between Amy’s jaw and clavicle that the killer had used his hands. She had definitely struggled.

“How do you know the date didn’t walk her home and do all of this himself?”

“We called his cell right after we found this in the vic’s coat pocket.” McIlroy handed Ellie two sheets of folded white paper from his own jacket. “That’s a photocopy, obviously.”

Ellie read the string of e-mail messages from the bottom up, starting with the earliest. The first message was sent a week ago, from CameraMan to MoMAgirl: I saw your profile. We seem to have a lot in common. Maybe between my photography and your love of Warhol, we can take the art-world by storm. Check out my profile and let me know. My name’s Brad.