Murder in Alphabet City (7 page)

8

I
N THE MORNING
she called Wally Shreiber, the PI Mrs. C. had hired. “Good morning,” she said. “Jane Bauer here. I have two questions.”

“Just two?”

“At the moment. Do you know anything about the little Chinese girl from the laundry who delivered Stratton's clean clothes?”

The silence was her answer. “A Chinese laundry?” he said finally.

“A couple of blocks from Stratton's apartment. He dropped off his dirty clothes and they sent them back clean. Their daughter, who was only nine or ten at the time, carried it up to him.”

“Where'd you hear about this?” he asked, as though it were more important for him to learn where he had failed than to follow up a lead.

“Vale, the super, mentioned it. We interviewed the girl's parents with a translator yesterday and then talked to the girl separately. Stratton invited her into his apartment.”

“He didn't let the pizza guy in.”

“That's what makes it interesting. He liked her, sat and talked with her, gave her a quarter tip.”

“I never heard anything about it. What's it telling you?”

“Nothing at the moment. I just wondered if you knew about it.”

“Sorry.”

“And a woman named Bee-Bee who was sometimes with Stratton when the laundry came.”

“Doesn't ring a bell. Hold on.” There was a rustling of paper. “She's not on my list. Who told you about her?”

“The Chinese girl. She's about eighteen now, goes to college. She works in the store when she's not in class.”

“Well, you found something I missed. I hope it leads somewhere. What did you think of the super?”

“Arrogant.”

“That's the guy.”

“Well, thanks anyway.”

“Keep me informed.”

She promised she would.

MacHovec wasn't at his desk and she remembered he was going to try to find out if Stratton had been under the wing of Social Services. Sean would probably stretch out his research to encompass the whole morning, so she didn't expect to see him till much later. At noon they had an appointment with the psychiatrist.

“Gordon, I had a thought last night.”

The typing stopped. Defino was dressing up the Fives so they used a lot of paper. “More'n I had.”

“How did Larry Vale know that the Chinese girl was delivering laundry to Stratton? He couldn't see where she was going.”

“Hm.”

She picked up the phone and dialed Vale's number. It rang three times and his machine came on. “This creep doesn't want to work too hard,” she said, hanging up. “In the afternoon you can't disturb him and in the morning he doesn't take calls.”

“Let's go down and shake him up.”

Vale was there and not happy to see them again. “Was this trip necessary?” he asked as he opened the door.

Standing in the small foyer, Jane said, “How did you know the little Chinese girl was delivering laundry to Stratton?”

“What do you mean? I saw her come with a brown paper package.”

“How did you know she was taking it to Stratton, not someone else?” Defino said. “You follow her up the stairs?”

Vale didn't look happy. “No, I—” He thought a moment. “I asked her,” he said. “I saw her coming to the building once—I was outside, coming home myself—and I asked her where she was going. She said she was going to Mr. Stratton's apartment to give him his clean clothes.”

“She told you that,” Jane said.

“Yes. So when I saw her again, I just assumed.” He shrugged.

Jane walked into his living room, uninvited. The windows were about street level, the floor below that. She could see a dog, a leash, and finally a woman passing from left to right. You had to bend a little to see the woman's face, but the girl would have been much smaller, maybe only waist high. Jane sat in the chair she had taken two days ago. From the lower perspective she could see heads as well as feet.

Back in the foyer, she thanked Vale.

“You came all the way up here to ask me that?”

“Looks like it,” Defino said.

Out on the street, he said, “That guy brings out more hostility in me than my daughter does.”

Jane laughed. His daughter was a teenager and gave her parents periodic agony. “That's why he does it. We've still got some time left before the psychiatrist. Want to walk through the park?”

“You like living on the edge.”

“It's not as bad as it used to be.”

“That's not saying much.”

The most recent trouble in the park had been in the late eighties. The park had been taken over by street people and anyone who survived the muggers could buy almost any drug in existence. In the surrounding area, squatters had occupied empty buildings, and when asked to leave, refused vehemently. They claimed the buildings as their own since they considered themselves residents who improved the property by living there. As far as they were concerned, the legal owners had abandoned them. They managed to steal utilities from nearby buildings so they had gas and electricity that they didn't pay for. After several violent confrontations between the police and the activists, the buildings were cleared of squatters and the park emptied in a hats-and-bats operation—helmets and nightsticks.

The park still wasn't the kind of place where you sat on a bench in the sunshine and read the paper, but at least one didn't sense the nearness of an incipient riot. Jane had slipped her Glock into her coat pocket before they set foot on the grass and she noticed that Defino touched his chest, where his holster rested.

They didn't stay long. If she had thought she might find a local who would remember Stratton, she was wrong. They walked out near the Avenue B corner and continued north to Fourteenth Street to catch the subway to the psychiatrist's office.

“I'm Dr. Handelman.” Graying and bespectacled, his image projected warmth. “Sit where you're comfortable.”

They both avoided the couch, choosing instead heavy wooden chairs that faced the desk. The doctor was in his fifties, a tall man in a brown suit and a blue shirt.

“I'm afraid I must eat my lunch while we talk. I have a patient at one.”

“That's fine,” Jane said. “We're here about Anderson Stratton.”

“I've reviewed his file and there's very little I can tell you. He moved to New York about ten years ago from a private clinic and took up residence in what they call Alphabet City these days, Avenues A and B down on the east side. His sister, Mrs. Constantine, looked out for him. I can't call her a caregiver as she didn't live with him, and he refused to have anyone come in and see him, check up on him, give him his medications. He was very firm about living independently.

“I had an extensive talk with Mrs. Constantine before her brother was released. She promised she would see to it that he kept his appointments. I believe she sent a car for him. He came twice, then didn't come for a few weeks, then came again. That was the last time I saw him.”

“Did you think he was a danger to himself?” Jane asked.

“There was no record of his ever harming himself or attempting suicide. The clinic sent me his records and I reviewed them before his first visit. However,” he paused and bit into his sandwich, “he didn't keep his appointments and that might be construed as self-destructive.”

“Do you think he could have simply stopped eating because it became too difficult to order food?”

“It's possible although not likely. His death occurred almost two years after the last time I saw him. I don't know whether his condition was the same or had deteriorated. I don't know if he kept up with his medication. I'm aware that his sister didn't believe he died a natural death or a self-inflicted death, but I understand there was no evidence of anything else. May I ask why you're investigating his death so many years later?”

Jane and Defino exchanged a glance. “Why we're investigating is because Mrs. Constantine has put pressure on the police department to find a killer. Why it's so long after his death is that she's been trying for years to reopen the case, and apparently she succeeded recently.”

“It sounds as though you consider this a wild-goose chase.”

“We've been assigned the case, Doctor. We're pursuing it.”

“I see. Well,”—he paused to take a sip of coffee—“not having seen Mr. Stratton for nearly two years at the time of his death, I can't say anything definitive. Yes, he could have become despondent, especially if he stopped taking his medication, and he may have gradually stopped eating. This is pure speculation, you understand.”

“His sister told us he was a poet.”

“That's in my notes. He considered himself a writer, a thinker, a philosopher if you will. He hoped to teach one day.” He looked down at the paper in the thin file. “There isn't much I can tell you.”

“What's your opinion of Mrs. Constantine?” Defino asked.

“Devoted, concerned, willful, opinionated. The Stratton family has a lot of money and paid handsomely for the clinic Anderson had been in. She was willing to do whatever it took to give her brother a normal life.”

“Thanks, Doctor.”

He rose and shook their hands. As they turned to leave, he reached for the
New York Times
and pulled it over near his coffee.

They had lunch and took the subway back to Centre Street. MacHovec was at his desk, back from his morning of digging in the files at Social Services.

“Got something?” Jane asked, taking off her coat.

“Social Services had Stratton under their wing. He wasn't always nice to them, from what I saw in the file. He pissed them off so they kept transferring his case from one social worker to another. Most of the time he wouldn't let them in, but I gather he was a loner.”

“What are you leading up to?” Jane asked, sensing a kicker in all this.

“Well, looks like they sent a supervisor over and she worked her way into the apartment and maybe into his heart.”

“She have a name?”

“Erica Rinzler.”

“Not a
B
anywhere.”

“And she's gone. Want to guess when she left?”

“When Stratton died.”

“You got it.”

“Ellis tells me you've got something.” The whip stood in the doorway. An hour earlier, Jane had spoken to Lieutenant McElroy about the missing Social Services supervisor, whose name appeared on no local phone lists including suburbs of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.

“Something very thin, Captain Sean?”

MacHovec cleared his throat. “They went through a bunch of caseworkers that Stratton either ignored or tossed out on their ear. So they tried a supervisor, Erica Rinzler, and that seemed to work. She documented visits on a regular basis and said he was doing OK. She left the department sometime after Stratton's body was discovered.”

“When was her last visit?”

“About two weeks before the body was found.”

“And he was dead for a while when the call came in.” Graves took the sheet of notes from MacHovec. “Looks like she visited every two weeks. That would mean he was alive two weeks before his body was found. We have any way of determining whether the laundry was delivered at the same time Rinzler made her visit?”

“I doubt it,” Jane said. “We'll talk to Rose tomorrow when she meets with the artist at the Nine, but I expect her mother handed her a package and told her to deliver it, and whether it was a Tuesday or a Wednesday wouldn't stick in a kid's mind. And it was eight years ago.”

“Ask her anyway. And you better start bothering Social Services for information on Rinzler. Get a warrant if you need one.”

“It's possible she visited more often than she reported,” Defino said.

“Right. And stayed longer. And maybe found him dead and kept quiet about it.” He put the sheet on MacHovec's desk. “Find her,” he said.

It gave them all a lift. To be wasting time on a noncase was depressing. To be working on a possible homicide was what they lived for.

“OK,” Defino said jauntily, “what's her last address?”

MacHovec read it off, an apartment in the Murray Hill section of Manhattan, the East Thirties. “I already tried the phone number and it was reassigned. I got a call in to the phone company to see what the forwarding number was. Probably hear tomorrow.”

“Want to look into this in the morning?” Defino swiveled toward Jane.

“Sure. Then we can be at the Nine to talk to Rose in the afternoon. She'll be there at one.”

“Let's meet at the apartment house first and come here after.”

“Suits me.” She turned to MacHovec. “How 'bout some names of coworkers?”

“Right here. Her boss, another supervisor, and someone under her. Some of them are still there.”

“Lots of Fives, Gordon.”

“Yeah, but do we have a case?”

Maybe tomorrow they would have a better idea.

9

T
HE APARTMENT HOUSE
was on East Thirty-sixth between Madison Avenue and Park, about in the center of Murray Hill, which ran from the high Twenties to Forty-second Street. Owned in the days of the Revolutionary War by Robert Murray, who built a country home around Thirty-seventh Street and Park Avenue, the land was eventually divided into building lots. In the early nineteenth century wealthy Americans built mansions on their estates there, most of which are long gone.

Today the area was a mixture of structures built in the first half of the twentieth century and their replacements in the second half. New York buildings often lasted no more than a generation, something that pained Jane's father. He felt that a building he had seen rise from a hole in the ground should remain through his lifetime. He moaned often about the demise of the Coliseum at Columbus Circle.

Defino was smoking on the street in front of the apartment house, one of those built later rather than earlier. “Morning.”

“Hi. Little milder today.”

“Better for tramping around. What's this guy's name?”

“Mike Willis.” They showed their shields and photo IDs to the doorman and went to the super's door on the lobby floor.

The man who opened the door was startled by the shields and took a step back. “What's up?”

“We just want to ask you about an old tenant,” Jane said.

“Oh. Sure. Come on in.” He was in his forties, a little overweight, and losing his hair. His wife peeked around a doorway, smiled, and retreated. “Sit down. What can I do for you?”

“Erica Rinzler,” Jane said. “Lived here about eight or ten years ago.”

“That's a long time. I think I know the name but let me get the book.” He came back a minute later, turning pages. “Yeah. She lived here for six years, moved in before I came, moved out, like you said, about eight years ago. Had a one bedroom on the third floor.”

“Forwarding address?”

“Nothing here.”

“Where'd you send the security?” In New York, a month's security or even two were automatic.

“No idea. Maybe she came back and got it. No, wait a minute. I know who that was, kinda dark-haired gal, wore a lot of beads. Nice smile. She didn't get her mail here. She had a box at the post office.”

“Got the number?”

“This must be it.” He read it off.

“What do you remember about her?”

“Not much. She didn't bother me like some of them do, so I didn't get to know her. And it's a long time ago.”

“Any complaints about her?”

He shrugged.

“You know where she worked?”

He checked another part of the book. “Worked for the city.”

“OK.”

Defino handed him his card. “If you remember anything about her, anything at all, give us a call. You've been very helpful.”

“What did she do?” Willis asked.

“Nothing,” Defino said. “We just need to talk to her.” A familiar tag line.

Willis looked at the card. “OK. I'll think about it.”

It was all they could ask.

They decided to leave the post office for MacHovec. He had a connection in the post office system and he knew how to exploit it. They took the subway down to Centre Street where MacHovec had already heard from his contact at the phone company.

“No forwarding number,” he said. “Guess she wanted to cut her ties. She didn't have a deposit—she'd had that phone for several years—so there's no address after Thirty-sixth Street. Looks like the lady made herself a dead end.”

“Maybe there's a case,” Defino said.

“You check to see if she had a record?” Jane asked.

“I'm doing that as we speak. Nothing yet. She doesn't own a car in New York, doesn't have a license. Maybe she liked the weather better in California.”

“Keep at it.”

He kept his eyes on the screen, keying from time to time. Then he looked up. “I checked out your super guy, Vale, at the Nine. He was picked up during one of the riots in the eighties, but charges were dropped.”

“Most of them were dropped,” Defino said bitterly.

“There wasn't anything else.” He looked back at the screen, muttering “Rinzler” as he scanned it.

Jane turned to Defino and spoke quietly, giving MacHovec the atmosphere he needed to do his research. “What did Rinzler get from Stratton? Money is the only thing I can think of.”

“Sex. Maybe she fell in love with him.”

“I'm assuming she killed him, Gordon.”

“Then she couldn't have been after his money.”

“Unless she'd gotten all he had or all she thought she could reasonably get away with.” She picked up the phone and dialed Mrs. Constantine. It rang several times, then the answering machine came on. She left her name and number and hung up. “I'll ask her what the financial arrangement was,” she said to Defino. “He kept bills in his pocket and he got them from somewhere. I don't know if this guy was together enough to go to a bank and cash a check. If not, his sister must have gotten the money to him in some way. Maybe Rinzler learned how to intercept the delivery.”

“So why does she kill him?”

“He figured out what she was doing and said he'd tell his sister. Or Larry Vale. He sat and talked to Vale, remember?”

“I wouldn't trust that son of a bitch with a nickel.”

“But Stratton liked him. They talked about music.”

“This isn't about music.”

“OK, partners,” MacHovec said, turning away from his screen. “I don't find where this woman is, but she isn't wanted anywhere I looked. And she doesn't seem to be in the prison system. So she's managed to cover her tracks, which means she's hiding something.”

“Let's get lunch,” Defino said, “and go up to the Nine.”

It was a little early, but Jane agreed. As soon as they had the drawing of Rinzler, they could show it to Vale and the tenants who had moved into nearby buildings.