Murder in Hell's Kitchen (4 page)

“We've gotta be at Midtown North at ten.” He glanced at his watch. There was plenty of time. “MacHovec, how 'bout you dig up a super or landlord while we're gone?”

“Sure thing.”

“And maybe start looking for the other tenants,” Jane said. “If they're not in the building, we'll have to find them to reinterview them.”

MacHovec started writing down names. “As good as done,” he said airily.

Jane wasn't so sure.

“So you've got the Quill case.” Charlie Bracken was a big man with dark, graying hair, a gut, and sharp eyes. He was wearing a worn sports jacket, the pockets stretched out of shape, and dark gray pants. He pulled another chair over to the desk. “Sit down. Can I get you some coffee?”

They said yes, and Bracken brought three Styrofoam cups back and a handful of sugars and whiteners. Defino put everything in his and stuck a wooden stirrer in it and kept it moving.

“Broke my ass on that case. Looked like a push-in but it didn't feel right. Nothing was taken. Wallet, keys, watch, money. Everything was still there.” He shrugged. “Guy had an uncontested divorce, ex-wife was out of the country when he was killed, coworkers said he was a nice guy, did his job, never said much. Most of 'em didn't care much whether he was dead or alive, but no one
wanted
him dead. Other people in the building didn't know he existed.”

“Pay his rent on time?” Defino asked.

“No complaints. His apartment . . . what can I tell you? Not scrubbed clean but everything in place, checkbook up-to-date, food in the fridge, stuff in the freezer, extra rolls of toilet paper in the closet, clean sheets on the bed. Looked like he was planning to stay awhile.”

“Any girlfriends?” Defino asked, and after a moment, “Boyfriends?”

“Nah. I got the feeling he hadn't gotten over his wife yet. She's a looker. Met her second husband at work. He also got divorced to marry her.”

“The other woman remarry?” Jane asked.

“Not at the time of the homicide.”

“The other tenants,” she said. “They all clean?”

“As clean as anyone in New York. There was one guy. . . .” He opened a drawer and took out a dog-eared file folder and opened it. “On the top floor . . . there was only one tenant on four; the other apartment was empty—there was a guy named Hutchins. Something about him. He didn't fit. Came from out west somewhere. Talk to him, he never laid eyes on Arlen Quill.”

Defino said to Jane, “Tell him.”

Jane watched Bracken's face warm with expectation. A detective never lost interest in his old cases. “I went by the house yesterday,” she said. “The names on the mailboxes were all different. None of the tenants from the time of the homicide are living there.”

Bracken's eyes narrowed. “Crazy.”

“Yeah.”

“The woman on the first floor, Best is her name, she died maybe six months after Quill. Stroke, I think. She was a funny old gal, wore a black wig with bangs, looked like Mamie Eisenhower. But the others, last time I checked they were all there.”

“When was that?”

“Six, eight months after the homicide. I never called any of them again after that.”

“We've got someone on our team checking them out,” Defino said. “We need to reinterview them if we can find them.”

“Four people moved out in four years,” Bracken said. “Rent-controlled building. Doesn't make sense.”

“That's what we thought.”

“Makes you wonder. I didn't hear anything bad about the landlord. He owns a bunch of buildings on the West Side. No complaints about heat, no fights that I heard about. He sure as hell didn't move his family into Quill's apartment. I even went up to a couple of his other buildings and asked around. Nothing.”

“Sounds like you did a thorough job,” Jane said.

“So why did they move? Don't tell me coincidence. I don't buy coincidence. I know people get shook up when they trip over a body, but what red-blooded New Yorker gives up a rent-controlled apartment because a guy got stabbed downstairs?”

“We'll be lookin' into it.” Defino tapped his pen on the desk. “Anything you want to tell us? Anything make you feel antsy, besides the guy on the top floor that came from the west?”

“Everything made me feel antsy. If it wasn't the ex-wife and it wasn't the landlord, and it wasn't another tenant, and it wasn't someone at work, then who? And why didn't the perp rob him?”

“Maybe Mrs. Best heard the scuffle and called out. Maybe her cat started making noise and the perp thought it would wake up the tenants.” Jane threw out the most obvious reasons.

“She swore she didn't hear anything. OK, maybe she heard and said something through the door and didn't want to get involved any more than that. So she can't admit she heard something and didn't make a call.”

“You got names and addresses pulled together or do we go through the file?”

“Do I have names and addresses.” Bracken leafed through his papers. “I'll get them copied. Sit back and enjoy your coffee.”

“Doesn't take much to grab a wallet,” Jane said when he was gone.

“Who knows? Could've been a first-timer, got cold feet.”

“A perp in training. That was good that Bracken talked to tenants in other buildings. Sounds like he did a first-rate investigation.”

Bracken was coming back, carrying more papers. “There you go. All the names and addresses in one place, landlord, super, tenants—but like you said, they're not there anymore—people at work, ex-wife. You don't for any reason want to interview her yourselves, give me a call. Sexy perfume that woman wears.” He looked down at the sheets in his hand. “And some others. It's all here. Save you some time.”

Jane took it and ran her eyes over the names on the list. Nothing stood out. “Thanks. This'll help a lot.”

“Think Otis Wright could add anything?” Defino asked.

“Ah shit, poor Otis. He didn't retire. He's on medical extend leave. I can tell you he's not coming back. Emphysema. Just a matter of time. I'll give you his number but I wouldn't bother him at this point.” He took back the top sheet and scribbled something. Then he gave each of them his card. “Call me anytime. If you turn anything up, I'd like to know. Any reason they picked this case?”

“Not a clue,” Defino said. He stood and offered his hand to Bracken, who shook it, then shook Jane's.

“You got your work cut out.”

That was no exaggeration, Jane thought as they walked down the stairs to the main floor.

4

THEY WERE BACK at Centre Street before noon. “We could have lunch,” Defino said, “or we could go upstairs and ask MacHovec if he wants to have lunch with us.”

Defino wasn't a very subtle man. “Let's have lunch.”

There were plenty of places in the area where you could eat quickly and comparatively cheaply. All the courts were on or near Centre Street, and jurors never went very far to eat. For what they were paid, they could hardly afford a sandwich. Lawyers and cops were also regulars, everyone in a hurry, everyone trying to beat the clock.

They grabbed a table for two before the crowd got there. Defino ordered a hamburger and fries and started drinking coffee right away. Jane ordered a salad and a diet Coke.

“That fill you up?”

“Almost.”

“I guess that's the point.”

“Right.”

“Always looks like more work than it's worth.”

“That's the point, too.”

Defino smiled. “If my wife ever divorces me, it'll be because I can eat anything and she can't. Without gaining weight. It's a struggle for her every day. I don't even think about it.” He took the ketchup and poured it generously over the fries and burger. “That guy over there? Sitting alone near the wall? Defense lawyer. Tried every trick in the book to get me to back down on my story about a year ago. I didn't give him an inch. Jury came back in twenty minutes with a conviction. Makes you wonder. Guy must have no self-respect.”

“It's a job. I do things all the time I don't want to do.”

“We all do.”

“What got you on the team?”

“You mean how did I fuck up?”

“Whatever.”

“The truth is, I heard about it and I volunteered. I wanted to get away from my old squad for a while. You?”

“I got pulled off the City Hall Park homicide. I'll hit twenty years soon.”

“You pulling the pin?”

“It's still a few months away. I got the feeling this was my punishment.”

“So what do you think?”

“Always like a good homicide,” she said.

“So where do we go from here?”

“Depends on whether MacHovec got anywhere while we were gone. I think we have to talk to those tenants.”

“I agree. So if he didn't get anywhere, that's what we do this afternoon. What did you think of Bracken?”

“I liked him. He looks like a good man. Still . . .”

“Yeah?”

“I'd give Otis Wright a call. You never know.”

MacHovec was out to lunch when they returned but, surprisingly, he had had not just a busy morning but a productive one. A sheet of paper left on Jane's desk contained an annotated list of names, addresses, and phone numbers, starting with the landlord and super, which they had just picked up from Bracken. There was a date of death for Elaine Best, approximately six months after the Quill homicide, the cause listed as a stroke. Her age had been seventy-nine.

The space next to Hollis Worthman's name was blank. Worthman had lived above Mrs. Best. Across the hall from him, Henry Soderberg, who discovered Quill's body, had, with quotes around the words, “met with an unfortunate accident,” probably the words of the landlord or super. Soderberg had died a couple of months after Mrs. Best. The other tenants, Miss Rawls on three and Hutchins on four, apparently moved but left addresses for their security checks to be sent to.

Jane handed the sheet to Defino. “I think I can tell you why the tenants are all gone. After Best died of a stroke, Soderberg died of some kind of accident. That would make three deaths in the building in less than a year. The others probably got scared. Anyway, it looks like MacHovec is good for something.”

“A telephone detective. Good at making phone calls.”

“That's OK with me.”

“So we have Hutchins on four, Rawls on three, and Worthman on two who are presumably alive and living somewhere else. We'll have to track them down.”

“I think we should talk to the landlord in person, find out what this unfortunate accident was, and see if he knows where the other three went.”

“I got the time.”

Jane called the landlord. A secretary answered and said Mr. Stabile would be back from lunch by one-thirty, which was a few minutes away, and he was free and was always happy to work with the police. This last she said as though reading from a script. Jane said they would be there in half an hour.

MacHovec returned before they left and filled them in on a few details. He had informed the landlord that some detectives would be interviewing him, which most likely accounted for the secretary's agreeable disposition. A landlord who cooperated with the police generally felt somewhat secure in the event that tenants banded together to protest the kinds of things that tenants were forever protesting.

MacHovec said he was trying to find someone at the post office who would look up Worthman's forwarding address, and he would keep at it. If he had no luck, he would call in a favor from a postal inspector he knew. He also said the super got cold feet after Soderberg died and quit his job but returned, humbled, about six weeks later, having used up his savings. He was still on the job.

The landlord's office was on the ground floor of a large, prewar apartment house on West Eighty-sixth Street, half a block from Riverside Drive. Jane and Defino tinned their way onto the subway—showed their shields— getting there about two-fifteen. The building was a couple of blocks from Jane's apartment and of the same vintage. The West Side was increasingly divided between sixty- and seventy-year-old buildings and brand-new ones, but this block of Eighty-sixth was solidly old, tough as a fortress.

“I guess I expected Detective Bracken,” Stabile said after they had introduced themselves. “I thought he was working on this case.”

“He was,” Jane said, “and he's still the detective in charge, but we're reinvestigating the case.”

“Really. I see.” His welcoming smile faded to nervousness. “Why this case? Aren't they satisfied that it was some mugger off the street?”

“We're just trying to put a name to him, Mr. Stabile. And we have a few questions.”

“Anything at all.” He opened his hands in a gesture of complicity. “Can I give you some coffee?”

Jane turned it down as Defino accepted. The secretary brought a cup for him.

“We understand that Mr. Soderberg had a fatal accident. Can you tell us about that?”

“Mr. Soderberg,” Stabile said, looking confused. “I thought you were here on the Quill case.”

“We are. But we're interested in the death of Mr. Soderberg as well.”

“I see.” He looked very unhappy. “It was horrible,” Stabile said, his forehead forming furrows. “He fell down the stairs.”

“Where?”

“In my building.” His eyes darted from one detective to the other.

“Where was he found?” Jane asked.

“On the second floor at the bottom of the stairs.”

“And who found him?”

“I believe Miss Rawls did, when she came home. It was a terrible shock.”

Defino was shaking his head. “Soderberg lived on two, isn't that right?”

“That's correct, apartment two B.”

“Then what was he doing falling down the stairs from the third floor?”

“I couldn't tell you, Detective. He must have gone upstairs for something.”

Defino's skepticism was all over his face. “Did you tell Detective Bracken about this?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I didn't think it was necessary. It had nothing to do with . . . anything.”

“Wasn't Mr. Soderberg the one who found Arlen Quill's body?”

“I believe so, yes. I think that's what I heard.”

“And it didn't strike you as strange that the person who found the body had this kind of accident?”

“I never connected the two.” Stabile looked very troubled. “It happened almost a year later, and I had a building full of frightened people. The others moved out, you know. They're gone. It took me a while to rent out those apartments. Miss Rawls moved out before the end of that month. She'd been there for years. Years,” he said again. “There was a lot of income involved in that building.”

“Was there a police investigation of that accident?” Jane asked.

“I don't know. I couldn't tell you. Miss Rawls called for an ambulance. They came and took him away.”

“Was he still alive then?”

“I don't know. She must have thought so, if she called an ambulance.”

“Any other accidents after that one?”

“None, none at all.” The phone on his desk rang and he looked at it with distaste till it was answered elsewhere. “That's a safe building, everything up to code.”

“Was there a lawsuit over the Soderberg incident?”

“No, there wasn't. It was simply an accident.”

“I see,” Jane said. She flipped a page in her notebook. “Was Mr. Quill's apartment occupied at the time Mr. Soderberg had his accident?”

“It wasn't. His estate held on to it for a while.”

“His estate?”

“I think there's a mother somewhere. It took her some time to clean it out. She kept it for several months.”

“Was anybody home when the accident happened?”

“I don't know. Mrs. Best had died. She was the very lovely lady who lived on the first floor. Mr. Worthman lived on two, across from Mr. Soderberg, but he went to work every day. He may not have come home yet. Miss Rawls was living on three when she found him. Mr. Hutchins was on four. I think he had irregular hours, but I couldn't tell you any more than that. I wasn't in the building very often.”

“Where can we find the super?” Defino asked.

Stabile wrote something on a piece of notepaper and pushed it across the desk. “Derek lives down the block from that building in another one that I own. You can find him there.”

Jane closed her notebook and Defino picked up on it. “Thanks for your time, Mr. Stabile. We may be contacting you again.”

“Anytime,” the landlord said, smiling again. “Always at your service.”

They walked back across Eighty-sixth Street to Broadway. The subway stop was at the corner, the number one Broadway line that ran in a straight line all the way from South Ferry at the foot of Manhattan to Two Hundred Forty-second Street near Van Cortlandt Park at the lower end of the Bronx. Jane had lived and occasionally nearly died on that line for more years than she could count.

“You live up here, don't you?”

“Two blocks from here. I'll have to get used to a whole new bunch of takeouts when I move.”

“Where're you going?”

“The Village.”

“That'll be a change.”

“I'm looking forward to it.”

“How'd he strike you?”

“Nervous.”

“Holding back?”

“Maybe.”

Defino looked at his watch. “Want to talk to the super?”

“Absolutely.”

They took the train to Fifty-ninth and walked the same route Jane had walked last evening.

“Still Hell's Kitchen up here,” Defino said.

“Just what I was thinking.”

The building the super lived in was closer to Ninth than Quill's building and looked identical to it. They found Derek, a pudgy black man with a scraggly beard and work clothes, in his ground-floor apartment.

“You the cops?” he said when he saw them.

“Mr. Stabile call you?” Defino asked.

“Yeah. Said you might come by. This about that murder a coupla years ago?”

“Mr. Quill. You remember that?”

“Man, I can't never forget it.”

“I can believe it,” Jane said. “Must have been awful.”

“Yeah, it was. You wanna come in?”

“Sure.”

The inside was a mess, a big room that had never seen a vacuum cleaner, never had anything thrown away or replaced.

“You can sit here, miss,” Derek said, removing a pile of nondescript items from a wooden chair and putting them on the floor. He offered Defino a chair from the kitchen and then he sat on a sofa with just enough uncluttered space for one man's bottom.

Jane introduced herself and started the questioning. “We heard there was a tragic accident in that building a few months after Mr. Quill was murdered.”

“That other man, Mr. Soderberg, yeah. He fell down the stairs. That poor lady on three, she found him when she came home from work.”

“Did the police talk to you after that?”

Derek looked scared. “The police? What they want to talk to me for?”

“Just to find out what happened.”

“What happened? That was a accident. He fell down the stairs.”

“Seems a little funny to me,” Defino said, screwing his face into a look of skepticism or even disbelief. “He lived on two, didn't he?”

“Yeah.”

“So how come he fell down the stairs and landed on two? What would he have been doing one flight up from where he lived?”

“He was changin' a lightbulb is what he was doin'.”

“Changing a lightbulb?”

“Yeah. He was always complainin' 'bout those missin' lightbulbs. Someone was comin' in offa the street and stealin' them. He kep' sayin' it was dangerous, you didn't have enough light.”

“How'd he reach the ceiling?”

“He had a little chair or somethin'. I don't remember exactly what.”

“Isn't that your job, Derek? Changing lightbulbs?”

“It's my job, sure, but I gotta see that lightbulb's missin'. I can't be everyplace at once.” He sounded very imposed upon, as though he were being asked to do more than his contract required.

“Where were you when it happened, Derek?” Jane asked.

“Me? I was here. I was watchin' TV.”