Murder in Alphabet City (4 page)

4

A
NDERSON
S
TRATTON HAD
died in an old building that looked out on Tompkins Square Park in the bulge of Manhattan on the east side below Fourteenth Street. Here, First Avenue, which stretched to upper Manhattan, no longer ran at the eastern edge of the island as it did farther north. Four avenues, A through D, ran north to south in the area east of First between Fourteenth Street on the north and East Houston Street on the south.

The bulge included part of the Lower East Side south of Houston, home to waves of immigrants that changed every generation or two. West of Alphabet City the area was called the East Village as it lay due east of the Village or the West Village. As every New Yorker knew, Fifth Avenue was Manhattan's east-west dividing line.

Tompkins Square Park, lying between Avenues A and B and from Seventh Street to Tenth Street, had a long and often colorful history. In the sixties and seventies it was a haven for flower children, drug dealers, and, of course, users. It was a real problem for the NYPD; no matter what the cops did, a sizable number of vocal people condemned them for it. The park and the streets surrounding it were part of the Ninth Precinct. The Nine had one of the highest Line of Duty death rates and one of the highest Medal of Honor rates, too many of them awarded posthumously. Not all the people who hung out in the park were strangers to the Nine.

They changed to the Fourteenth Street–Canarsie local and got off at First Avenue, the last stop in Manhattan. From there the subway went to Brooklyn, crossing the East River through a tunnel.

“Haven't been here in a while,” Defino said, pulling his coat collar up as they reached the sidewalk. “Freezing cold.”

“Gets worse near the river.”

“You work the Nine?”

“No, but I worked Chinatown. It's almost as bad.”

“And lived to talk about it.”

“In the end it'll be the weather that kills me. Let's walk down to Tenth.”

It was too cold to talk. They walked briskly, Jane wishing she had brought a scarf for her head. Defino had pulled a small, wool visored cap out of his pocket and put it on, the first time she had seen it. By the time they reached Stratton's building, her ears were burning with cold.

The building had several outside stairs up to the first floor. They went inside the small lobby and stood there for a moment to warm up. Jane was almost shivering. Defino folded the hat and stuck it in his pocket. The super, it turned out, was in the apartment under the stairs, so they went back out again and rang the bell next to his door.

No one answered. “There's a note here,” Defino said. “ ‘One to four, emergencies only.' ”

“Ring again.”

The door opened. The man staring at them was tall and lanky, wearing jeans and a flannel shirt. His hair might once have been light brown but now it was a faded noncolor, brushed straight back from his face. His cheekbones were prominent, his nose a little too large, and his mouth firmly set. There would be no sweet-talking this one.

“There are no vacancies,” he said. “No one's lease is expiring. I am very busy. Good day.”

Defino's foot was ready and the door remained open. Two shields were thrust in front of the super's face.

“What is this?” he asked. “There's no one here to bust. I live a clean life.”

“We'd like to talk to you,” Jane said. “May we come inside?”

He wanted desperately to turn them away. She could sense his outrage. They had disturbed him during his work or meditation or whatever it was that kept him going. But he wasn't stupid. He opened the door and let them in.

It was the neatest super's apartment Jane had ever seen. Not only was it clean and orderly, but the furniture was attractive, some of it made to order for the space. They sat on a firm modern sofa, the super sitting opposite on an upholstered high-back chair.

“Your name?” Defino said. The case and the weather seemed to have hardened him.

“Larry Vale.” He looked a little rattled.

“You were the super here when Anderson Stratton lived in this building?”

“Yes.”

“Did you know him?”

“Yes.”

“Did he go out every day on a regular basis?”

Larry Vale sighed as though he had been through these questions so many times he could not imagine why anyone would ask them again. “Sometimes.”

“You want to be more specific?”

“When he felt like it, when he was up to it, when the weather permitted, when he wasn't wrapped up in his work, he usually went out in the afternoon. If I had to guess, I would say he worked into the night and slept late in the mornings. He wasn't a morning person.”

“Did you have a friendly relationship with him?” Jane asked.

“Yes.”

“You go up to his place sometimes for a chat?”

“More often he came here. He'd be coming back from wherever he went and he'd ring my bell and come inside and we'd talk.”

“About what?”

Vale looked disdainful. “About poetry and music and philosophy.” He sounded as though there weren't a chance in the world that either detective would know what the words meant.

“And it didn't strike you as strange that Mr. Stratton didn't show up at your door for a month?”

“I didn't think about it. It wasn't a regular thing. I took care of the building, not the tenants. What is this about anyway? Andy died six or seven years ago.”

“Eight,” Defino said.

“We're reinvestigating the circumstances of Mr. Stratton's death,” Jane said.

“The guy starved to death. What circumstances are you talking about?”

“How many people do you know with a pocket full of cash who starve to death?”

“I don't know people with pockets full of cash.”

“But you knew he paid his rent on time and you knew he had money to live on.”

“I knew that, but even if it crossed my mind that I hadn't seen him for a week or two, it didn't make me think he was sick or dying.”

“Who visited him?” Defino asked.

“He had friends in the neighborhood. Maybe some of them went up to see him.”

“You see people go up there?”

“Not often. I'm below street level here. I can't see the tops of people without bending over and looking up. I tend to mind my business, strange as that may seem to you. I would see the pizza guy sometimes at night. Oh, and there was the little girl.”

“What little girl?”

“Some little Chinese girl, maybe from the laundry, but maybe not.” He screwed up his face as he finished speaking.

“Where's the laundry?” Defino asked.

“They were on Avenue A. I think they're still there.”

“She have a name?”

“I'm sure she must, Detective, but she never told me.”

“How old was she?”

“I'm not a good judge of children's ages. She could have been eight or ten.”

“Did he ever mention her to you?” Jane asked.

“As I said, we talked about—”

“Yeah, I know,” Defino interrupted. “Music and philosophy. Just answer our questions.”

“No, he never mentioned the Chinese girl.”

“Did you ever meet Mr. Stratton's sister?” Jane asked.

“Once or twice.”

“Did she give you any gifts of money to keep your eye on her brother?”

“No, she did not.” His pale face had reddened.

“Did she ask you to look out for him?”

“In a way.”

“In what way, Mr. Vale?” Jane asked, her own irritation nearing Defino's.

“If he seemed ill, I was to call her.”

“Then you had her phone number.”

“Yes.”

“What else?”

“That's it. I didn't see him ill. I never called her.”

“Was she generous at Christmas?”

He took two long breaths before he answered. “Yes.”

“But you never knocked on his door when you hadn't seen him for a month.”

“What do you people want? A man died in his apartment. Nobody hurt him; nobody killed him. I was not his keeper just because his sister handed me a Christmas envelope.”

Defino stood. “OK, Mr. Vale. If you think of anyone else who visited Stratton, you can call us at that number.” He handed Vale his card.

Vale stood. His face had lost some of its ruddy color. “Can you tell me why you're asking these questions? Andy died alone in his apartment. What are you looking for?”

“We're investigating his death,” Jane said. “There are unanswered questions. Can you show us where his apartment was?”

“All the apartments have been changed,” Vale said. “I don't have a key to the one that replaced Andy's, but I can show you approximately where it was.”

“Let's do that.”

Vale left the room and came back wearing a heavy jacket. They followed him outside and up to the street where he pointed to the third floor. “The windows are all new but those on the left are more or less where his were.”

“So he could see the park from them.”

“Yes. And he had his chair set so he faced outside. It made him feel good, he said, to see the trees and the grass and the people walking around.”

“Thank you, Mr. Vale,” Jane said. “If we have any other questions, we'll be back.”

5

T
HEY SAT IN
a coffee shop a block away, warming their hands on mugs of coffee.

“You were in rare form,” Jane said.

“He ticked me off.”

“No kidding.”

“So we find the laundry?”

“It's another Five.”

“I love this case,” Defino said bitterly. “It's another Five and another Five.”

“Drink up.”

“At least it'll be hot in the laundry.”

An old grandmother sat in a corner of the small store, doing nothing except watching what went on. A moment after they entered, a woman one generation younger came from the steamy back to stand behind the counter.

“You do shirts here?” Jane asked.

“Shirts, yes. You got shirts?”

“Not right now but maybe tomorrow. What time do you open?”

“Open seven. See?” The woman pointed to a schedule hanging on the wall.

“And how much are shirts?”

“One dollar fifteen.”

“That sounds great. How long does it take to get them back?”

“Four day.”

“Is your daughter here?”

“Wha?”

“Your daughter. You have a daughter, don't you?”

“No unnerstand.”

“Your daughter doesn't work here?”

The old woman in the corner growled a few syllables.

“No unnerstand. You got shirts?”

“We'll be back.”

They walked outside. “What do you think?” Jane said.

“The usual. She understands what she wants to. Let's come back with a translator.”

That had been the plan, to size up the woman's command of English or her willingness to admit she understood it. Jane had worked in the Five, the Chinatown Precinct, and could call on a bilingual detective she knew, but they would follow procedure and report to Graves. He might want to go through channels to show Mrs. C. they had done it the official way.

They walked over to Avenue C, a block east of the park, and then south to the station house, which was between Tenth and Ninth Streets. The wind was fierce, the East River only two blocks east at that point. The river was the eastern limit of the Nine.

Inside the house, the desk sergeant was yakking with a uniform but turned around when he heard voices. Jane introduced herself.

“Sergeant Wayne Cooley,” he responded. “Jane Bauer, Jane Bauer. Do I know that face? Yeah, it was splashed all over the papers a while ago. Nice to meet you.”

“Glad to be alive. This is Detective Gordon Defino. We're looking into a cold case from the Nine.”

The men shook hands.

“Cold? We got lots of them. What's yours?”

“Something that began as an aided case eight years ago and will probably end as one in a couple of weeks, but we have to dig up whatever there is on it.” Jane shook his hand as they were talking.

“Well, you came at a good time. This is the first lull we've had in twenty-two years. I don't expect it to last.” As he spoke, the door opened and two uniforms hauled in a handcuffed black man with long filthy hair, clothes out of someone's trash, and an attitude. “What'd I tell you?” He turned to the cops. “Hang on a minute. So, Detectives, who you lookin' for?”

“P.O. Barry Ford was first on the scene. This was eight years ago.”

“Ford, yeah. I'll radio a ten-two; he'll be here in five.” He radioed Patrol Officer Ford. Ten-two meant “come to the station house.”

Five minutes later, when Ford arrived, the unruly suspect had disappeared and temporary peace was restored. Tall, black, and well-built, Ford was still driving a sector car. Like other sector cops, he would have learned every nook and cranny of his sector, every back door, every fire escape. Jane thought he probably knew every inch of the park as well. He would be a good person to ride a car or walk the streets with.

Introductions made, they sat in an interview room to talk. Jane explained the situation and Ford excused himself to find the aided case forms on Stratton to refresh his memory.

Returning with the paperwork, he resumed his seat. “That was the rich guy,” he said after scowling over the paper. “Starved to death in his living room.”

“That's the one.”

“What're you looking for?”

“Don't laugh. Maybe it was a homicide.”

“Yeah, there was a relative that bothered us. I remember. A sister, right?”

“Right.”

“Drove the captain nuts till he agreed to reopen the investigation. There was nothing there. The guy starved to death.”

“You remember anything we can put on paper?”

“I've seen a lot of DOAs in my time on the job. I used to work up in the Two-six.” Harlem. “But this one was a little odd. I thought the guy was kinda young for a heart attack and he didn't look like a junkie to me, so I figured something medical. I saw a lot of ODs uptown. This apartment was OK, not a crash pad for druggies, nothing outta place, no burglary. Bed was made, or at least the cover was up. Dirty clothes on the floor or maybe in the closet, clean clothes in the dresser. But there were roaches. They were crawling over everything. Empty pizza box. Maybe not so empty. He looked like he was asleep. Sat in a chair facing the window like he was lookin' out at the park. Bottle of water on the floor near his foot.

“Guy had all his clothes on so there was no weirdness going on. The apartment was empty. Door was locked. We had to get the super to open up. Just your ordinary dead guy.”

Defino had been writing furiously, taking down every word. “Any sign someone had been there?”

“Nah. Just the pizza box. Coulda been there a month. I called the desk, made the notification, gave the info back to Central, told them we would be outta service at the location and about what we found, and called for a supervisor to respond. You know the drill.”

“Right,” Defino said.

“The squad finally arrived; the ME showed up and the guy was gone to the ME's place by Bellevue by the end of the tour. I had the super lock up before we sealed the door. I don't remember his name.”

“Vale,” Jane and Defino said together.

“Yeah, Vale. Guy with something up his ass. I remember him. You know they rehabed that whole building since then? Looks pretty good now.”

“We were just there,” Defino said.

“So what else do you need? I got my meal comin' up soon.”

A cop would walk through fire to ensure that he didn't miss a meal.

“That's it,” Jane said. “Thanks. You've been a lot of help. Just one more thing. The Chinese laundry on Avenue A? We heard a little Chinese girl delivered Stratton's laundry. You know her?”

He thought a minute. “Yeah. I know the place. They got a daughter maybe eighteen or nineteen, pretty girl. Works in the back sometimes. She goes to school, I don't know where. They won't talk to you. No speaka da English.”

“We're coming back with a translator,” Jane said.

“You guys really think something went down in that apartment?”

“We have to make like we do.” Defino tapped his pencil on the table.

Ford shrugged. “Good luck.”