First Born(38)

‘A shredded photo?’

‘Picture of Groot and your sister. Looked innocent enough, fully clothed, but he had his arm round her shoulder. Shredded, Molly.’

‘You taped it together, or . . .?’

‘I had my intern patch it together. About all he’s good for, truth be told.’

‘You think Groot could have hurt KT?’

‘Too early to tell, but let’s say I’m looking into him up close and personal. My gut tells me he’s the kind of guy who likes to take students out to dinner and impress them. Maybe he sleeps with them. Maybe it’s a sex thing or just a power play or maybe he didn’t get any when he was a college kid himself. Thing is with Groot, I can tell he’s his own worst enemy. He can’t stop crossing the line with his students, but at the same time he’s desperate to keep his fancy big house up near Greenwich and his two fancy cars and his wife’s big-shot salary and their social circle and their kids at private schools and the whole nine yards.’

‘But why would he hurt KT? I’m suspicious of him, just like you are, but it still seems out of character for a gentle academic sort.’

‘If you’ll pardon my saying, Molly, it was a gentle sort of murder, if there can even be such a thing. The pillow MO, sorry, modus operandi, well, that’s a very quiet way to kill a person. Usually reserved for people putting their great aunt out of her misery at the nursing home, that kind of thing. This didn’t look like a crime of passion. This was, in some sick way, a compassionate act, at least in the eyes of the killer. It’s the way a parent might kill their child.’

‘Jesus.’

‘Any detective will tell you the same thing. I never worked homicide, I was always narcotics before I went private. If I need any specialist back-up I know the right people. I can assure you of that.’

‘Good.’

‘Groot doesn’t have an alibi for the night of the murder far as I can tell, Molly. He’s shredded five hotel receipts – you know, the printed A4 receipts they give you in an envelope when you check out. Three from the Hilton on Times Square, and two from smaller hotels, the Algonquin and the Iroquois.’

‘I’ve seen those two hotels.’

‘Famous old Midtown hotels,’ says DeLuca. ‘You’ve probably seen them in some movie or soda commercial. Beautiful fa?ades.’

I turn to face Midtown and see three tourists all in transparent plastic ponchos, all photographing the Empire State Building.

‘Those hotels are all close to the Harvard Club.’

‘You got it, Molly. Guess he wouldn’t stay in the Club with her. Too risky.’

‘OK, but what about Shawn Bagby, the guy living in the basement?’

‘Turns out he’s a real nasty piece of work, that kid,’ says DeLuca.

‘Tell me more.’

‘You ever hear about incels?’

‘What?’

‘Incels. Some kind of movement – my intern explained it all to me. Stands for involuntarily celibate. Can’t get laid, basically. Course, in my day if you couldn’t get a girl you just adjusted your standards, know what I mean, went for someone with a nice personality plus a lazy eye, that kinda thing. Kids these days get told to go to hell by a few supermodel types and they set up some internet forum and obsess over the rejection and come up with all these codes and they egg each other on, you know.’

‘Shawn is an incel?’

‘Was.’

‘Was an incel?’

‘Nowadays he’s a wholesome YouTuber, over a hundred thousand subscribers, touching on one-fifty. Talks about intermittent fasting. How he transformed himself so fast. Lots of sponsored videos of him working out and preparing his avocado-egg white smoothies or whatever bullshit those kids drink. But a year ago it was a whole different story. He was a dumpy kid with bad skin and a worse attitude. He really hated women. You know, misog . . .’ He trails off.

‘Misogynistic?’ I say.

‘Yeah. I mean he hated women. Young women. There’s a Reddit that was deleted a while back because incels were committing suicide, killing innocent people, but I gained access to it through my PI contacts and channels. Shawn Bagby was a moderator on a sub-forum. He talked about how attractive women played games, were responsible for all the evil in the world, responsible for three of his friends committing suicide, yadda yadda.’

A kid kicks his football over to us and I kick it back.

‘Some of it mentioned your sister specifically.’

‘What? What did he say?’

‘Never mentioned her by name, but talked about his neighbour upstairs getting her apartment paid for by a charity because she’s so good-looking. Talked about her being a Stacy, which is incel code for a woman who sleeps around, basically – no value judgement on your sister from me; that’s what Bagby said. Boasted he used to follow her around. Also talked about what it would feel like to kill someone.’

My jaw drops.

‘I’m still digging, Molly. I’ll let you know my findings soon.’

‘He wrote about what it would feel like to kill?’ I feel dizzy.

‘Never with his real name, you have to consider that. These guys thought they had anonymity. I mean, your own father or your priest could be active on one of these extreme forums and nobody would ever know, you see.’