Murder in Alphabet City (12 page)

“Did she give you any indication in that phone call that she was depressed, despondent, out of sorts, down in the dumps?”

“You're asking if she was signaling that she was thinking of taking her life.”

“Yes.”

“She wasn't. She wasn't any of those things you just ticked off. I won't say she was jumping for joy, but she hadn't lost hope, she wasn't out of money, she didn't feel it was the end of the world.”

“What did you think when you heard what had happened?”

“I thought— I was so shook up, I couldn't speak. I had to hand the phone to my husband. I thought I would pass out. This was my friend. We had spent our beautiful young years together, we had fallen in and out of love together, we had taken trips and gone to concerts and called each other in the middle of the night and cried on each other's shoulders and gotten jobs and griped. And now her sister was telling me she had committed suicide in some sleazy hotel in New York, and I couldn't figure out why.” From the passion in her voice, she could have been reliving the experience.

“Did her sister indicate there might be a reason?”

“I don't think so. She just accepted it. She was kind of dumbstruck. It had happened; she had identified the body. God, I don't know how she did that.”

“It's very difficult. I understand.”

“And by the time she called me, it was over. The funeral was over. She was buried near her parents. She would never marry, she would never have children. I can't tell you what that did to me.”

“Mrs. Raymond, did Erica ever talk about her clients? Did she mention that one had died?”

“Oh, the guy near Tompkins Park. She told me about it. She left her job after he died, but she never told me what the connection was, if there was one. Was there?”

“We don't know. We learned of Ms. Rinzler's death in our investigation of that case, and we're now trying to determine whether her death was actually a suicide.”

“I've spent a lot more time thinking about this than you have. What I came up with was this: It's hard to believe she committed suicide. She wasn't at that low a point in her life and nothing was driving her toward it even though she was having problems. On the other hand, what's the alternative? That she was murdered? That's even harder to believe. Especially as she was in a strange place, that she hadn't told anyone she was going there, that the door wasn't broken down or anything. Who would murder my friend Bee-Bee?”

“That's what we'd like to find out.”

“Do you think she was murdered?” the voice from California asked.

“We think it's a possibility. We hoped you might come up with someone who had a grudge, either from work or from her group of acquaintances.”

“I can't imagine who.” Ellie Raymond's voice was faint.

“Did she ever mention any other work she was involved in? Any project that she spent time on?” It was an awkward way of asking whether Rinzler had bought and sold drugs or was involved in some other illicit operation, but being direct might dissolve the bond Jane was forging with the woman.

“No, not that I can remember.” There was a tentative quality to the response. “You think something like that had an influence on her death?”

“I have no idea yet,” Jane said. “Mrs. Raymond, what is your first name, please?”

“Ellen.”

“And do you have a daytime phone number where I could call you?”

“Sure.” She gave it and assured Jane it was OK to call. “If I'm not there, leave a message on my voice mail and I'll get back to you. You really think Erica was murdered?”

“No, I don't. I think it's possible. I think there may be things that come up that you can help us with.”

“I will. Anything. I'd like to put this to rest, whatever the answers are.”

“We feel the same way.”

It had been a productive conversation, more than Jane had hoped for. Her notes were copious. A few minutes after she hung up, Defino called.

“I'm OK to pick up the warrant. The courthouse is on Queens Boulevard. I should be OK for nine-thirty.”

“No problem. And I'll tell you about my conversation with Ellie Raymond.”

“It must have been a long one. I've been trying you for half an hour.”

“See you tomorrow.”

15

P
OLICE OFFICERS RODE
the subway free. Flash a shield, commonly called tin, to the token seller and they allowed the officer to open the exit gate and walk onto the platform. Jane tinned her way to the Queens Plaza station in Long Island City, finally reaching the storage building a little after nine-thirty. Defino was walking off his breakfast, smoking a cigarette, which he dropped to the ground and stepped on as he saw her.

They went into the small, cluttered office where a fortyish overweight man was smoking a cigar, the fumes of which filled the entire room. Defino handed him the warrant.

“We want the box in Erica Rinzler's name.”

“You got a court order?”

“It's in your hand.”

“Oh.” He tapped ash into a crowded ashtray and left the cigar there as he read it. “What's the problem?”

“That's not your concern.”

The man shrugged. “You got the key?”

“No. I've got cutters for the padlock.”

The box was a large cube, about two feet by two feet on its face. Defino cut the padlock with difficulty and pulled the box out of its recess.

“You gonna look at it here?”

“You got a place we can sit down?”

“I'll show you.”

He put them in an empty office. When the door was closed, they opened the box.

The contents appeared to be largely paper. A cursory riffle through it yielded no jewelry or cash, but an address book and an agenda, both bound in black, were there along with a spiral notebook from Columbia University. Some checkbook registers were squeezed in along the side. Among the papers were IRS returns and New York State and city tax returns from several years before Rinzler's death, along with handwritten worksheets.

“Looks like she didn't have an accountant,” Defino said.

“The one Weissman gave me was also handwritten.”

“Standard deduction. She couldn't have been cheating.”

“People doing tricks don't want to call attention to themselves.”

“Good thought.”

Jane opened the spiral notebook. “Whatever she was into, this could be it.”

Nothing more telling than initials appeared on the pages. She saw the words
pickup
and
delivery
on each page, along with dates.

Defino asked for it and flipped pages, shaking his head. “What the fuck was she dealing in?”

“Stratton's name anywhere?”

“A.S. I don't see it.”

“Let's get the whole thing back to Centre Street.”

“Right.”

They gave the cigar man a receipt, emptied the box into a shopping bag Jane had brought with her, and took a taxi back to Centre Street. Losing the bag on the subway would be a disaster.

“So there was something,” Lieutenant McElroy said as he flipped through the books and papers. “Any idea what?”

“We just looked at a couple of pages, pickups and deliveries,” Jane said. “Could be anything. Could also be nothing, but then why would Weissman hide the stuff in a locked box under Rinzler's name?”

“Think Weissman was part of it?”

“Not likely. If she was in on it, she would have used this stuff. Rinzler must have decided to cut this off when she left Social Services. There was no forwarding number on her home telephone. No one could reach her. If she didn't turn on her computer, she didn't get any e-mail. It was cold turkey.”

“You don't know that she didn't turn on her computer,” McElroy said.

“True. But I'm not sure at this point that I can get anything out of Weissman, unless she doesn't know we took the box.”

“I bet she won't know,” Defino said. “The storage place may not even have a phone number for her. She pays her rent on the box, they're happy. This guy we saw this morning wouldn't break his neck to let her know we were there.”

“Maybe I'll call her. Sean, lots of numbers here.”

“I'll start after lunch.”

The first thing they did was catalog the material. Then Jane started through the spiral notebook while Defino went through the address book. “You know what's missing?” she said.

Defino looked up. “From the locker?”

“From this stuff. Where's the file on Rinzler?” It was on her desk and she flipped through several pages till she found the description of the suicide gun. “Clean and well-oiled,” she read. “The gun Rinzler allegedly used. There's nothing in here to clean a gun with, no oil, no bullets.”

“The sister threw it away along with a thousand other things.”

“I don't think so. She might not have known what the oil and soft cloth were for, but if there was a box of bullets, she would have known Erica had a gun or at least the use of a gun. She would have showed it to her husband and he would have agreed it was suicide. She would have told Lew Beech.”

“Give her a call.”

She dialed the Chappaqua number, hoping Weissman had not heard from the cigar man.

“Hello?”

“Mrs. Weissman, this is Detective Bauer.”

“Oh. Yes. Did something happen?”

“I have a question. Did you find any bullets among your sister's belongings?”

“Like for a gun?”

“Yes.”

“No. There was nothing. My husband mentioned that. He said if she'd owned a gun, she would have bought bullets for it and we would have found them. And other things. He was in the army and he told me how you took your weapon apart and cleaned it and wrapped it up when you weren't using it. It's one of the reasons he thought Erica didn't commit suicide.”

“Did your sister have a computer?”

“I didn't find one. She had one at work. I don't know what she would have needed one at home for. It's not like now when everyone has e-mail. At the time she died, we didn't even own a computer ourselves.”

“Thanks for your help.” She turned to Defino. “Her husband commented that there would have been bullets if she'd owned a gun.”

“You're right, she didn't level with him. This box was her secret. But she's probably telling the truth about the gun. She would want to know if her sister committed suicide. I've got a million names and addresses in this book, including that Provenzano guy you talked to over the weekend. Most of these look like friends and neighbors. The Raymond woman's name and address are in here. I don't know why Weissman would hide them.”

“Because she read the spiral notebook and the agenda and she suspected something was going on. She didn't know if the address book was just friends or if it was part of whatever Rinzler was involved in.”

“I gotta tell you, MacHovec's gonna spend a week calling all these numbers.”

“Well, let me get started,” MacHovec said. “Just cross out the plumber and the electrician.”

Defino dropped the book on his desk, then went back and opened the agenda. “Lunch, dinner, theater. Here's a name I saw in the address book: Mimi. In the address book she's got a last name. Erica and Mimi went to the theater together.”

“Sounds like what people do in New York,” Jane said.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

MacHovec was already on the phone, the address book in front of him.

If something was going on in Erica Rinzler's life, the spiral notebook was the key. It was written in the kind of casual code that one might use as a shorthand. The code was largely abbreviation. Rinzler did not anticipate that anyone besides her would ever read the notes. If
T
was Tuesday, then
Th
was Thursday. What wasn't clear was what was going on on
T
or
Th.
Those abbreviations were more elusive.

As she read, she was aware of MacHovec making call after call, most of them with no response. That wasn't surprising. Rinzler's friends would be at work or out pushing baby carriages in the afternoon.

The dates in the notebook consisted of months and days, but no years. Jane looked for abbreviations that could be either of Andy Stratton's names, but found none. What was most prevalent was the letter
L
near the dates. Who was
L
? Larry Vale? Had Rinzler delivered something to him or had she picked up something from him on the days she visited Stratton? That would account for her frequent visits. Visiting Stratton was the excuse to see Vale, but they would need concrete facts before they would get him to talk.

“Numbers changed, numbers don't answer, nobody home,” MacHovec announced. “Eight years is a long time in this city unless you're in a rent-controlled apartment. Lotta crossed-out stuff too, like her mother. Who would cross out her mother even if she died?” It was an unexpected and atypical display of sentiment from the plainspoken detective. He turned a page and picked up the phone again.

“Gordon, remember how Larry Vale reacted when we showed him the sketch of Rinzler?”

“Yeah. He knew her and he was scared.”

“I think she used her visits to Stratton to see Vale. She may have been picking up or delivering drugs when she went to the building.” She pushed the notebook over so he could see it and pointed to the
L
's.

“And when Stratton died, she had no excuse to go to the building anymore and she didn't want to be seen there without her client.”

“Maybe he killed her. Maybe she knew too much.” She opened the Rinzler file again and found the report on the gun. It had no known owner, serial number removed but possibly recoverable, manufactured about two years before the suicide, well taken care of, only Rinzler's fingerprints, none on the bullets. “Sean?”

He hung up again.

“Did Larry Vale ever own a gun?”

“We'll find out right now.”

Jane got up and left the office. She needed a cup of coffee and a few minutes alone. The coffeemaker was just finishing its procedure, a few last drops falling into the carafe. She waited, then poured, and sat at a table, sipping and thinking. It had to be drugs. Rinzler had begun visiting Stratton and met Vale by accident. They talked. Maybe they had a thing together. He was smoking something or doing something and there was money in it. It was the Nine, for Christ's sake. Everybody was smoking something or doing something in the Nine except the old ladies who'd lived in their apartments since before the war.

Vale knew the neighborhood. He knew the park, probably had friends squatting in the abandoned buildings. He knew where to deal. Did Rinzler want the stuff for personal use or to sell to her friends? She could pick up enough on one visit to pad her income nicely and it was tax-free. Hence the weekly visits. She didn't give a damn about Stratton and his problems, but he gave her a convenient excuse to visit the building. Her reports would emphasize the necessity of seeing him frequently. And he wasn't complaining anymore about the visits of social workers. They should get Rinzler's files from Human Resources.

She went back to the office and called Mrs. Constantine. “Did your brother complain to you about the social workers after he moved into the building on Tenth Street?”

“He complained to me, he complained to them. He threw them out, I'm afraid. They tried one after the other.”

“What did you do when he complained?”

“I called Social Services and told them they had to send someone else. Finally, he stopped complaining.”

“Did you ask him about it?”

“Yes, and he said someone much better was coming to see him.”

“Did you ever meet that person?”

“No. But he seemed content, so I let it be.”

“Thank you.”

“Call any time.”

“Gordon.” She turned toward him. “Vale was supplying Rinzler with stuff.”

“OK.” He rubbed his eyes.

“No gun registered to Lawrence Vale,” MacHovec said.

“So he got it from one of his pals in the park. Thanks, Sean.” She turned back to Defino. “He lived in a dangerous area on the ground floor. He needed a gun. There were break-ins and burglaries. He never used it or we'd know about it. Something happened in that four-week period when Mrs. C. was out of the country. Rinzler stopped coming to see Stratton and Stratton died. It's even possible Stratton's death was an accident, but when the dust cleared, they had a body in that building, Rinzler had a dead client, and Vale felt he couldn't do business with her anymore.”

“And she didn't want it to end,” Defino said. “She made threats.”

“So he made up a reason why they had to meet, allegedly to set things right, but actually to get rid of her.”

“Sounds OK. Doesn't give us a killer for Stratton but it gives us something. What we gotta do is figure out that notebook of hers.”

“I know. It's giving me a headache.”

“Give it here.”

“See you folks tomorrow.” MacHovec was putting on his coat.

“Jeez, is it that time already?” Defino looked at his watch.

“Almost,” Jane said with a grin. MacHovec always rounded off time to the nearest ten minutes that would benefit him. She gave him a wave as he flew out the door.

“Let me Xerox that notebook. I'll take the pages home and think about it.”

“Make two copies. I may as well keep the headache going.”

After dinner Flora called. She picked a restaurant for tomorrow's dinner in the Village not far from the subway. She could get home and Jane wouldn't have a long way to go either. “How's six-thirty?”

“Fine. Give me time to get home and change.”

“What? For me?”

Jane laughed. “For my sanity. See you tomorrow.”

Hack called a little while later. “We on for tomorrow?”

“You bet.”

“I don't know when I'll be done. It's a dinner meeting. That's all I do these days, eat and meet.”

“Got your key?” She had given it to him during the time she was on medical leave recovering and had given up on trying not to see him.

“Got it. If you're not there, I'll let myself in. Flora's not going to keep you long. She needs her beauty sleep. She needs something.” There was no love lost between them.