Murder in Hell's Kitchen Page 19

  “What this guy look like?” Derek looked angry.

  “Sorry,” Defino said. “First we need a name. You know the name. We’re gonna get it, you know. It’ll be better for you if you’re the one who tells us.”

  “I got work to do.” He pulled the mop out of the bucket, squeezing it through the wringers, and started to mop aggressively.

  Jane started down the stairs, Defino following her. She looked back and saw Derek focused on his work, his eyes down on the damp floor. “If you tell us,” she called back, “we won’t tell Mr. Stabile that you knew.”

  Derek just rubbed the mop hard against the floor and said nothing.

  “We’ll have to sweat him,” Defino said when they were on the street.

  “I wish to hell Bracken and Wright had looked inside that apartment. They would’ve known right away.”

  “Four years too late for that. Want some lunch?”

  “Might as well.”

  They got back to Centre Street with most of the afternoon left. MacHovec was on the phone, but he waved them in with a certain glee.

  “We’re gettin’ there,” he said as he hung up. “Heard back from the Arlington funeral home. Soderberg’s body was released to the Navy League in Arlington.”

  “He was in the navy,” Jane said.

  “He was an officer in the navy. You don’t get to the Navy League if you’re a lowly seaman.”

  “You get a name for him yet?” Defino asked.

  “Not yet. I faxed the prints to the archives in St. Louis and talked to a guy there. It’ll take a bit, but he’ll get back to me.”

  “Did you talk to the Navy League?” Jane asked.

  “They’re not very forthcoming, but I talked to them. They talked about privacy and crap like that. Didn’t seem to give a shit that it was a police matter.”

  “How’d you leave it?”

  “They’ll get back to me. Do I sound like a broken record? My shield number could be retired if I had a buck from everyone who was gonna get back to me with information. Ask me, I’ll be the one getting back to them. So what’s with Bracken?”

  “What you’d expect,” Jane said. “He didn’t say anything to anyone, didn’t make a note, doesn’t know why we’re asking.”

  “You believe him?”

  “Yeah,” Jane and Defino said in unison.

  “Then maybe he’s your guy,” MacHovec said.

  “Shit,” Defino said. He sat down at his desk and said he’d write up the Fives on Derek and Bracken.

  Jane pulled out her checklist. “McElroy give you the personnel files yet?”

  “Yeah, I got ’em. You know, it coulda been someone in one of those offices that you never talked to. They pass papers around a lot.”

  “I know.”

  “Anyway, here’s the way it looks: In the commissioner’s office I couldn’t get much. In the Chief of Department’s office there’s a Lieutenant MacGregor who reports to Captain Schwartz who reports to Inspector Rodriguez. The other place, the Chief of D, there’s a Lieutenant Ferguson who reports to Captain Mulholland who reports to Inspector Hackett.” He stopped when he said “Hackett” and looked up at Jane.

  22

  SHE FELT THE color drain from her face at the sound of Hack’s name.

  “You got a problem?” MacHovec said.

  “No. Just listening to the names.” She hoped her shock had not been read by Sean. Hack’s empire extended to an office she had been to twice in the last week. He had to be aware that she had flown to Omaha.

  “The way I see it,” MacHovec said, as though nothing had happened, “the most likely guys for the leak are the ones right in the offices where you filed the papers.”

  “Sounds right.”

  “Any one of them could have a girlfriend connected to our killer except”—he flipped pages in his notes— “except Lieutenant Ferguson, who’s a woman. She could have a boyfriend connected.” His smirk was obvious.

  “You know,” Defino said, looking up from the typewriter, “if word of this case got out when we started, even someone higher up could have his ear to the ground. Any of those guys ever serve in the navy?”

  Hack had, but years ago, before he came on the job. Still, this additional connection was worrisome. It was worse than that.

  “I’ll have to ask McElroy to look at their personnel files.” MacHovec didn’t look happy about it. If this inquiry got too deep too high up, no one was going to be happy. “You know any of these guys?” He addressed the question to the room.

  “Heard of Captain Mulholland, I think,” Defino said. “But I never worked for him.”

  “What’d you hear?” MacHovec asked.

  Defino turned his hands palms up. “Stand-up guy. Treats his people good.”

  “Jane?”

  “Nothing rings a bell.”

  “Well, we got a lotta people to talk to. Hear anything from Omaha?”

  “I haven’t called today. If they’d found Hutchins, we’d’ve heard.”

  “So what’s with the super?” MacHovec said.

  Jane told him. “We’re going to have to lean on him. Even if he didn’t know someone was in that apartment when Quill was killed, he would’ve seen stuff lying around when he went to show the apartment. Squatters don’t clean up after themselves.”

  “Professionals do,” Defino said.

  “True.” And if the killer was a pro, there wasn’t a chance in hell they’d find him after four years. She picked up the phone and called Mike Fromm. John was doing fine; no one had seen Hutchins; nothing was new. They talked about nothing for a few minutes and then she got off the phone.

  “How ’bout we call Stabile?” Defino said. “Let him know we think Derek’s holding back.”

  “What if Derek runs again?”

  Defino considered it. “No one ever looked in that apartment. Derek knows that. He’s gotta be feeling pretty smug at this point. Here are these two cops who want to know something and they can’t do a damn thing to him. It’s almost five years later.”

  “OK,” Jane said. “Call Stabile.” She got up from her desk and went to the coffee room. One of the men from the first office was sitting at a table stirring a cup of coffee. She sat down with him.

  “You find out where your body got that tattoo?” he asked.

  “He was in the navy.”

  “That’ll do it. Is it relevant?”

  “We don’t know yet. Probably not. How’re you guys doing?”

  “We’re creeping. They say it’s a cold case. This one is frozen.”

  “I know what you mean.” She stood and sipped her coffee standing up. “I need to run around the block. Too much sitting.”

  He stood and tossed his empty cup in the basket. “There’s no justice,” he said.

  Jane smiled and returned to the cramped office. Both men were on the phone. She dialed her former partner, Marty Hoagland, relieved when he answered on the first ring. “Marty, it’s Jane.”

  “Jane!” He sounded exuberant. “How’s it going?”

  “It’s different, I’ll say that. You got an hour after your shift?”

  “Sure. What’s up?”

  “Just feel like a beer and a friend.”

  “Great.” He told her where he’d meet her and she hung up.

  “Stabile thinks we’re crazy,” Defino said. “He’s sure he walked in and out of that empty apartment while they were working on it.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything,” Jane said, feeling exasperation set in. “He didn’t walk in at two A.M.”

  “Soderberg was killed in the afternoon.”

  “None of this means anything, Gordon. Hutchins said someone was living there. I believe him. If Derek knew about it, all he has to do is warn the guy that Stabile is coming. The guy goes up on the roof or down to the first floor. He walks out and he’s invisible. Stabile never sees him. Hutchins didn’t do this, and he’s probably dead because I went to Omaha to find him. I think we have to take Derek to a station house and s
care him.”

  “OK with me.” He looked at his watch.

  “Not today. Stabile going to talk to him?”

  “Maybe.”

  MacHovec put the phone down. “That was the Navy League in Arlington. Their records are confidential, thank you very much. Very smug lieutenant talked to me. Or didn’t talk to me. He knows what went down.” MacHovec was sore. He didn’t like it when his questions weren’t answered.

  “Can we get a warrant?” Defino said.

  “Shit, this is the military and another state.”

  “Let’s put it on hold,” Jane said.

  “You got an idea?” MacHovec asked.

  “Yes, but I don’t want to talk about it. What’ve we got on this guy Carl Johnson who claimed Soderberg’s body in New York?”

  MacHovec struggled through paper. His desk was one of those places that started each day looking as though no one worked at it and finished each day looking like a recycling bin. But he had a perfect system of retrieval; ask for something and he laid his hands on it in seconds. “Carl Johnson. Got his address off his driver’s license. They had a Xerox of it in the mortuary file. The Manhattan phone book had a bunch of Carl and C. Johnsons, and one of them was at that address.” He handed a card to Jane. “I called a bunch of times but no one answered.”

  “I’ll try tonight.”

  “You ever take a breather?”

  “When no one’s looking. You check to see if he still has a license in New York State?”

  “I did and he does.”

  “You’re good, MacHovec. Got the name, address, and phone number of the Navy League?”

  “I will in two seconds.”

  “Good. I need to see a man about an idea.”

  She went to McElroy’s office but it was empty. She hesitated to talk to Graves, but as she approached his door, he called her in.

  “Give me an update,” he said.

  She did, going over everything she could remember. “We haven’t heard back from the archives in St. Louis yet, but MacHovec sent Soderberg’s prints to them. It’s just a matter of time. I wanted to ask you about something else.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “The lieutenant at the Navy League wouldn’t give MacHovec the time of day. It’s pretty clear he checked up on Soderberg’s body and decided whatever he knew was none of our business.”

  “That’s bad news. Getting into military files can be a bitch.”

  “I’d like to go down to D.C. and talk to them myself.”

  “Well—”

  “Not officially. I don’t want any paper trail on my trip. I want to go down there by train on Monday morning. I’ll pay for the ticket, and I’ll see to it I’m not followed out of my building.”

  “Jane, if you want to take an official trip, I can OK it, but we still need to have paper to cover your leaving the city. But if you just want to go to Washington on a vacation day, see the sights, say hi to the president, that’s your business. But I have to warn you, if you flash your badge around, someone may make a phone call and there could be trouble.”

  “I understand. OK with you if I take that vacation? I’ve never been to the capital. I’d like to go before it gets too cold to enjoy walking around.”

  “I’ll tell Annie on Monday morning that you won’t be in.”

  “Thanks, Captain.”

  “And you might want to make a call or two to let us know you’re safe and sound.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  “Come see me before you leave.”

  When she got back to her office, MacHovec had heard from St. Louis. Defino was sitting at Jane’s desk, which was next to MacHovec’s, and looking over the notes MacHovec had taken during the phone call. He jumped up when she walked in.

  “OK, we got a name and a bunch of stuff. This guy’s faxing it over but he gave me most of the high points. Our boy’s name when he entered the navy was Wallace Caffrey. He was born in 1947, entered the navy at age eighteen, got his commission through college and in-house courses, put in twenty years, and worked as an electronic warfare officer. There’s your tie-in to QX Electronics. They call guys like him mustangs—up from enlisted ranks to officer grades. The fax’ll give us all his assignments and the medals he earned. It should be coming through right now.”

  “Was he married?” Jane asked. “Is there family anywhere?”

  “Yes, and it’ll be on the fax.”

  “Any idea who Henry Soderberg was?”

  “Yeah, he looked that up, too. Guy died in the Vietnam War. He’ll fax his record over, too. Should be a lot of paper coming across.”

  “Let’s get it Xeroxed,” Jane said. “I’m looking for a good book to read this weekend.”

  There was plenty to read, pages and pages on each man, the real Soderberg and the fake. She noticed that MacHovec put his copy in a jacket and left it in a desk drawer. MacHovec didn’t do overtime. But Defino put his where he would pick it up on his way out.

  Eventually McElroy dropped in for his preweekend gab fest. Jane said nothing about her plans for Monday and neither did he. Graves would keep it to himself till Monday morning. Only two people would know where she was going until she got there.

  After McElroy left, the three of them went over their checklists and tried to figure out what they knew and what they didn’t. Quill’s name never came up in the discussion, showing how far they had progressed in less than two weeks. On Monday she and Defino planned to bring Derek to Midtown North on West Fifty-fourth Street, Bracken’s station house, and talk to him. She felt guilty not saying anything to them about her trip, but decided it was best not to.

  MacHovec left; then Defino looked at his watch. “See you next week,” Jane said, looking up from her desk.

  “Good weekend.”

  “Right. Get plenty of reading in.”

  He gave her a grin, picked up his files, and left. When enough time had passed for him to be on the elevator, Jane looked out, made sure he was gone, and went to Graves’s office.

  “Sit down,” the first whip said. “I’ve got a little present for you.” He handed her a box.

  Inside was a cell phone. She looked at it, then looked at him.

  “I worry about my people. It’s not a gift; it’s a loan. When this case is in the bag, you can give it back to me.”

  “Thanks, Captain.”

  “It works from as far away as Arlington, Virginia,” he said.

  She smiled, put it back in its box, and left.

  Marty was already at their favorite table in the bar down in the Six when she got there. They had spent more hours after work in this place than any other she could think of, sometimes just the two of them, sometimes with friends on the job. One of them, she thought sadly, was now dead. At least one other had pulled the pin. Marty had a glass of beer in front of him, about two inches already gone. He signaled the waiter as he saw her and the waiter headed for the bar.

  “So how’s things? How’s your dad?”

  “He’s fine. I should’ve called and told you after that trip to the hospital, but it’s been hectic. They had his medication wrong. Once they corrected it, he felt fine.”

  “He still got that loving gal who takes care of him?”

  “Saint Madeleine? You bet. I don’t know how he’d survive without her.”

  “Why doesn’t he marry her?”

  “My opinion? He thinks it would be a slap in the face to my mother’s memory. It wouldn’t, but that’s how he feels.”

  “OK, I’ve asked all the polite questions. How’re you?”

  “Marty, this case is unbelievable.”

  “I got time. Tell me.”

  “I can’t. I wish I could. Things are happening that are very scary. Basically, the homicide we’re investigating was probably a mistake, maybe a contract killing that went bad. We think maybe a look-alike got hit and they waited till the investigation was over and the cops were done in the building to get the right guy.”

  “Nice. So you’re movin
g along.”

  “A couple of leaps, a couple of inches. Any movement on the City Hall Park killing?”

  “The word is they’re nowhere. But I heard something cute that they’re not making public. The woman was in a wheelchair.”

  “Right.”

  “The ME couldn’t find anything in the body to show that she couldn’t walk.”

  “Interesting. She just liked getting around on wheels?”

  “They’re still doing tox screens, looking for something. Could be hysteria. That won’t show up anywhere.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “Wish you were still on it?”

  “Not if they’re up against a wall. At least on this case we’ve learned a few things.”

  “So how’s the new apartment?” They were both out of beer, and Marty signaled for another round.

  “It’s everything I’ve ever wanted except for all the cartons I haven’t unpacked. The fireplace works.”

  “Nothing like a good fire. So you’re really not gonna tell me about the case?”

  “I can’t. But the whip just gave me a cell phone so I can make my rings without finding a pay phone. I want you to have the number.”

  “You know you’re worrying me?”

  “I’m OK, Marty. I just want someone in the world to know my number, and I can’t give it to Dad or he’ll call me all day to check up on me.” She wrote down the number and handed him the slip of paper.

  “OK, Janey. You know you can count on me.”

  “That’s why I’m giving you the number.” She sighed unintentionally and he picked up on it.

  “So what else?”

  “Flora called last week.”

  “Chief Hamburg?”

  “One and the same. She heard I was retiring and she’s not happy.”

  “More to the point, are you?”

  “I guess that’s the question. Being down here with you . . . the job is half my life, Marty. The Six is half of that. I keep thinking of all the guys I partnered with, the busts, the collars.”

  “The good times and the bad.”

  “Yeah.” She looked at her watch. “Not like me, is it?”

  “It’s OK. I know there’s a heart of stone under the soft exterior.”

  She smiled and gave him a light punch.

  They finished their beers and Marty paid for all, not accepting Jane’s money. “You get it next time,” he said affably.