Murder in Alphabet City (24 page)

35

“S
O WE GOT
two recipients for sure and three babies born around the same time,” Defino said after Jane had briefed them on the phone calls. “And your pal Ellie Raymond was holding back on you.”

“Yeah. I liked her, that was the problem. It made me believe her. I should go back to second grade for that one.”

Defino chuckled. He had lightened up in the last day or so. “So we going to Horatio Street or what?”

When they climbed up out of the subway in the Village, Defino looked around and lit up, his mood easy. “I used to have a girlfriend around here,” he said, sounding nostalgic. “A long time ago. She was something.”

“That sounds interesting.”

“Yeah.” He blew smoke. “What a body on that girl. She was gorgeous. We used to go dancing.”

“And then back to her apartment.”

“Yeah, that too.”

“What happened?”

“What usually happens. She went this way I went that way. Ran into her once when I was engaged to Toni. She didn't look as good anymore.”

“I'm glad to hear it.”

“I was too.” He grinned and dropped the cigarette on the pavement, rubbing it out. “This looks like the place.”

The name next to the bell for 3C was B. White. Defino pressed it but no one answered. Then he pressed a bunch of buttons and the door was buzzed open. New Yorkers never learned. Upstairs they rang the doorbell and a young black woman with a towel around her head opened up. She looked scared when she saw the shields but she backed up and let them in, tightening the belt on her terry-cloth robe.

She had lived there two years and with relief she directed them to the super, who was in the building next door.

The super for both buildings was a fortyish Hispanic man named Sanchez. He was stocky and wore denim overalls with tools poking out of several pockets. He wiped his hands on his clothes as he let them in.

“How long have you been super here?” Defino asked.

“Ten years, almost eleven.”

“Can you tell us who lived in apartment three-C in the next building eight years ago?”

“I can look.” He took a thick book off a shelf and flipped pages. “Three-C?”

“Right.”

“Guy named Lefferts. I kinda remember him. He moved out and we had a coupla others there.”

Defino took out the sketch of Fletcher and showed it to Sanchez.

“Yeah, that could be him. He was younger, had longer hair. He had hair all over the place.”

“You know where he went?”

“Nope.”

“He didn't leave a forwarding address for the security?”

“It ain't in the book. Sometimes they come back, pick up the check themselves.”

Because they didn't want to leave a trail, Jane thought. MacHovec might be able to trace him.

Out on the street Defino said, “Hang on.”

“What's up?”

Defino's hand was moving toward the gun against his chest. Jane felt her heartbeat rise. She put her hand in her pocket where the Glock was and grasped it.

“Across the street. Guy ducked into a storefront when he saw us come down the stairs. I'm going over to look.” He glanced both ways and sprinted across the street with the agility of a man half his age, Jane behind him. Defino had removed his gun from his shoulder holster and now he held it along the side of his coat, barely visible to anyone approaching him. He stopped on the far sidewalk, looked back at her, and moved slowly to his right.

Jane felt adrenaline pumping, right on schedule. She didn't know which storefront he was aiming for so she kept behind him, her eyes seeking any movement. He stopped suddenly at the second store and edged forward, then into the recessed entrance. She ran a few paces to catch up, grabbing her shield.

Defino had opened the door to the dry cleaner and was inside. She followed.

“Anyone come in here a minute ago?” he asked the gum-chewing plump girl behind the counter.

“Uh-uh.”

“A man, taller than me, dark hair?”

“Didn'tcha hear me? I said no.” Her right hand was curled tightly around a bill. Maybe he had tossed it at her as he told her to shut up about him and then vaulted the counter.

Defino went over it, his shield in his left hand so the girl could see it. Jane followed, her shield also visible, some of Saturday's muscles rebelling. Ahead of her she could hear Defino asking questions rapidly about the man who had come through. When she looked at the faces, she saw a lot of blank stares. The people working there were Hispanic; they could use language as an excuse for silence.

Defino pushed open a back door and Jane joined him outside. No one was visible. Nothing stirred except weeds in cracks between concrete blocks and litter. Buildings surrounded them and an occasional alley that led to Gansevoort Street, the next street north of Horatio.

“Shit,” he said. “I saw him go in.”

“Fletcher?”

“Could have been. Son of a bitch. He followed us over here.”

“Well he knows we're onto him now. And he can't know from whom. They must have used the Horatio Street address for more than one baby pickup.”

“Let's go back and give that pudgy broad a hard time.”

The girl was still there, this time looking nervous, both her hands empty.

“Who was the guy who came in here just before us?” Defino asked in an icy voice.

“There wasn't anybody. You got it wrong.”

“Listen you, I find that guy and he tells me he was in here, you're in big trouble.”

“I don't know what you're talkin' about.”

“We're talking about you lying to us,” Jane said. “Lying. Got it?”

“Lea' me alone.” The girl was on the verge of tears.

Defino muttered something unintelligible, then said, “Let's go.”

They left.

“You think it was Fletcher.” Lieutenant McElroy's face was clouded.

“I saw him for maybe three seconds,” Defino said, “but it looked like the sketch. We were coming down the stairs and I spotted him. He was looking right at us. Then he disappeared in the storefront.” He told McElroy about the girl with the bill in her hand. “She was scared shitless but I didn't want to push it.”

“Good thinking. Write it up.” And to both of them. “Clean your guns.”

Jane and Hack had spent a couple of hours after breakfast on Sunday doing just that. It was a tradition after a day at Rodman's Neck. All her ammo was new. She would do some running on the way home tonight, just to loosen up her joints.

McElroy left and Jane turned to Defino. “We need to talk. You too, Sean. Two things happened that October. One: two babies died. Rinzler didn't just decide to turn a better deal. She wouldn't have done that to Ellie Raymond's friend. And the second thing is: Rinzler stopped seeing Stratton right around the time of these events. And she stopped seeing other clients, some of whom were pissed at her. None of this gives us a reason why Fletcher is watching us, or why he did what he did to Gordon's daughter. If a baby dies, so what? You get rid of the body and no one knows any different.”

MacHovec moved some papers on his desk, but said nothing.

“So what's the reason Fletcher—or Lefferts, if that's his real name—is threatening us?”

“Because he killed Rinzler,” Defino said.

“That's what I think. If she committed suicide, he's off the hook.”

“And if he did it, he'll never be off the hook for it. So how did he know we were reopening the case?” He shrugged. “Vale.”

“Vale. But I don't know how to crack him, Gordon.”

“We have to get together with Bobby Chen and the laundry folks. With Rose there to soften the impact. But we have to work it out pretty good beforehand. We only get one shot and then we're done. Any more and we'll all be up on charges.”

“I'll write a list of questions, we'll talk about them, and then we'll see what a good time would be.” No time would be good, she knew that, but they'd have to try. If a baby was left periodically at the laundry, maybe Rose's family would admit it. What could be wrong with taking care of an infant for an afternoon?

“I got something,” MacHovec said. “This morning while you were jumping counters at the dry cleaner's. I been calling around to see if any dead babies were found around that date in October. So far there's nothing for October or November, but some body parts turned up in the Bronx at the end of December.”

“Parts?” Jane said.

“It was a very young infant and it had dried out and there wasn't much left. A guy found a split plastic bag at a landfill in the Bronx. They kept it out of the papers but the guy brought the bag to the station house. There wasn't enough for a whole autopsy and the ME couldn't give a definitive cause of death. Some babies are born dead. This was a girl.” He passed a two-page fax to Jane. “That's the long and short of it.”

It said approximately what MacHovec had just told them. “It could be Brusca's baby. Means someone made a trip to the Bronx carrying a dead baby. I don't know if I want to ask the mother for a DNA sample.” The thought of it made her feel a little sick.

“Let's hold off,” Defino said. “Did the ME say how long it had been dead?”

“A guess. A couple of months. That puts it in the ballpark, but he says it's a tentative estimate.”

“Everything's tentative in this one.”

“You still looking for bodies?” Jane asked MacHovec.

“I got calls out. And I'm trying to find where this guy Lefferts went after he left Horatio Street. I'm not sure we'll get anything on that.”

While he did his thing, Jane put together a list of questions for the family at the Chinese laundry. Confronting these people was going to be the toughest thing they had done. Rose would consider it a betrayal. Bobby Chen would be put to the test. And if the three older people simply sat impassively after saying they knew nothing, they had nowhere to go.

By late afternoon MacHovec had heard from no other precincts and Defino had his paperwork done. She sat with him in the coffee room and he looked over the questions, simple ones about babysitting, whose babies they were, how old they were, how long they stayed in the laundry, who took care of them. Did they change diapers and feed them? Who paid for that? The last question she had crossed out.

“We gotta hope they answer question one,” Defino said.

“Let's run it by McElroy and then give Rose a call.”

McElroy was edgy. He didn't often pass the buck to Graves, but he did this time.

Graves listened, frowned, and looked carefully at the sheets of paper. He had a reputation for making quick decisions and he didn't disappoint. “I don't know what else we can do. You've made about every contact you can. Can you arrange a meet through the daughter?” He looked at Jane.

“I'll give her a call.”

“I heard what happened this morning. I lose my best two detectives, I'm not going to be a happy man. Watch yourselves.”

Rose answered the phone, listened to Jane's request, and promised to get back to her after talking to her parents.

“Your grandmother should be there too,” Jane said.

“Is that necessary?”

“It would be helpful.”

“I'll try.”

MacHovec had answered his phone while Jane was talking to Rose. “Got another dead baby,” he said when she hung up.

“Where?”

“Staten Island landfill. Same story, remains in a plastic bag. This was a girl too.”

“So there were three babies,” Defino said. “One of the adoptive mothers was supposed to get a boy.”

“Looks like it. This one's another partial too. ME thinks dogs got to it, maybe rats, didn't leave much. Time of death indeterminate. Ditto the cause.”

“When was it found?” Jane asked.

“Oh yeah.” He checked his notes. “March, after the thaw. I won't give you the details. You're not lookin' good.”

“I'm not feeling good. What the hell happened to those babies?”

“Maybe Mama Tsao'll tell us,” Defino said wryly.

Fat chance.

Rose called after dinner. She sounded less assured than earlier. “My parents want to know what this is all about,” she said. “They're nervous and so am I, Detective Bauer.”

“Rose, we're not investigating them. We think they got involved in something that they didn't understand and what they tell us should lead us to a person we've been looking for.”

“I'm afraid for them, Detective Bauer. They have very little and they don't need trouble. Should I get a lawyer?”

“If the time comes that they need a lawyer, we will stop the questioning. That's not going to happen.”

“Let me call you back.”

The wait was over an hour. If this didn't work, it meant reinterviewing all of Rinzler's clients.

Jane paced, then did a bunch of push-ups, noticing that they were harder to do every year. Watching Defino fairly fly over the counter that morning had given her pause. She needed to lose a few pounds and walk to work more often.

Finally the phone rang and Rose said hello.

“How's it going?” Jane asked.

“They'll see you. Not tomorrow night because something is happening at the church. Can you make it on Thursday?”

“Just tell me where.”

Rose gave an address in Chinatown and a chill passed over Jane's shoulders. She hadn't been there since the end of her last case and the memories still disturbed her sleep.

“Are you coming alone?” Rose asked.

“Detective Defino will join me. He's part of the investigation. And I believe Officer Chen will join us.” As she spoke, she hoped it didn't sound like a crowd.

“All right. Is seven o'clock good for you?”

“Whatever is good for your family, Rose.”

“We'll see you at seven then.”

Jane called McElroy to tell him.