Murder in Hell's Kitchen (12 page)

“I'd come home sometimes and he'd already be there.”

“Did you see him?”

“I'd see his mail was gone from his mailbox.”

“You checked his mailbox?”

“I just kinda looked to see whose mail was there and whose wasn't. Mrs. Best on the first floor always took her mail in right away after it was delivered.”

“I see. You're an observant person, Jerry.”

“Just a habit I have.”

“You lived on the top floor. Did you ever see the door to the roof open?”

He looked a little uncomfortable. “Maybe sometimes in the summer. You could go up there but it was pretty dirty.”

“You ever see anyone up there?”

“No.”

“You ever sit on the roof, look at the city?”

“Once or twice. Like I said, it was dirty.” He looked at his watch, a black digital on his left wrist. “How long're you gonna keep me here? I have to get to work.”

“Where do you work, Jerry?” John asked.

“At a gas station. I'm the night man. I work ten to six.”

“There's plenty of time,” John said. “Anything else I can get you?”

“I'm fine.”

“After Hollis Worthman and Margaret Rawls left,” Jane said, “you were in that house all alone.”

“Yeah, I was.”

“I don't blame you for being scared. It must have been like a haunted house.”

“It was.”

“I guess Derek was in and out.”

“Yeah, he cleaned up, worked around the place.”

“What else, Jerry? What else happened in that building that you're not telling us?”

“Nothing. Honest. It was just a big, empty place.”

Jane sat and looked at him. He knew who was home from the mailboxes. He had dinner with Hollis Worthman. He sent Christmas cards to Margaret Rawls. He changed lightbulbs for old Mrs. Best. He invited Henry Soderberg in for a beer and got interviewed. He was a regular gadfly, and if anyone in that building knew something funny was going on, this was the guy.

“I don't know anything,” he said, uncomfortable that she was looking at him.

“If you saw Arlen Quill walking down the block, would you recognize him?”

“If I saw his face, yeah. If he was walking away from me, I don't know.”

“Did he look anything like Henry Soderberg?”

He wrinkled his nose. “Henry's taller, you know? And older.”

“But from a distance. Think about it.”

“They were . . . You know what? I made that mistake once, now that I think about it.”

“What mistake?”

“I was coming down the stairs and I saw—or I thought I saw—Henry Soderberg going down ahead of me, and I said, ‘Hey, Henry. How's things?' and he didn't turn around, and when I got to the first floor, I saw it was Arlen Quill.”

“So there was something about them. . . .”

“I guess there was. Funny you should mention it. I'd forgotten about that. It happened a long time ago. Is Cory still waiting for me?”

“I'll go out and check,” John said. “I think she is.”

When the door closed, Hutchins said, “Is that about it? Cory hasn't had dinner yet. It's getting late.”

She couldn't hold him; legally he wasn't a suspect. And unless he was very clever, and he might be, he was afraid of being a victim himself. The interview hadn't given Jane anything to link him to the killings. “We may need to ask you more questions,” she said.

“Can you tell me what you're after? I don't think I know anything that can help you. I just lived there, that's all.”

“Tell me about Derek.”

“Derek. He was OK. He kept the place pretty clean.”

“Did he ever fight with Arlen Quill? Or Henry Soderberg?”

“Derek didn't fight with anyone. He was this very mild kind of guy.”

John came back in. “Cory's still waiting for you,” he said. “I got her something to eat from the machine.”

“Thanks. I appreciate that.”

“Derek,” Jane said. “What else can you tell me about Derek? Did he ever go out on the roof that you know about?”

“Sure, he went out on the roof. It was part of his job.”

“And sometimes he left the door to the roof unlocked?”

“I couldn't really tell you that. You think someone came in from the roof and killed Arlen Quill and Henry?”

“I don't know, Jerry. It's what I'm trying to find out.”

He picked up the empty Coke can and scrunched it a little more. Then he picked up the second one and drained it. He was nervous. “You know, I really want to go. I've answered all your questions. I have to get to work.”

Jane looked at her watch. He still had a couple of hours till he had to be at his gas station, wherever that was. She could keep after him and maybe something would come up. He was antsy now. Maybe keeping him here would yield something; maybe it would just get him mad and turn him against her. It was always a gamble, and you never wanted to lose. “I'd like to let you go,” she said. “You've been cooperative. I just wonder if there isn't something else you know about Derek.”

“I don't know anything about Derek.”

“What about Mr. Stabile?”

“The guy who owns the building?” He sounded shocked that anyone would even mention his name. “I almost never saw him.”

“Maybe Derek knew more than he let on.”

“About what?”

“About the people who lived there, about what they did, who they were, how they felt about each other.”

“Derek didn't know anything.” He put his head back in his hands. “Well, maybe he did.”

Jane held her breath for a second. “What did he know, Jerry?”

“Look, I'll tell you this one thing and then I'm going, OK?”

“I'm listening,” she said, without making any promises.

“I told you about the rats.”

“Yes.”

“Well, I'm not sure it was rats.”

“What do you think it was?”

He looked up, his eyes going from John's face to hers. “I think . . . I'm not sure of this, but I think it's possible. You know there was an empty apartment across the hall from mine?”

“I know.”

“I think someone may have been living there, or at least staying there sometimes at night.”

She felt her heartbeat quicken. “Did you ever see him?”

“No. It's just the noises. And sometimes . . .”

“Sometimes what?”

“Sometimes at night I thought I heard the door close

14

GODDAMN. THAT WAS all she could think of. A hole you could run a tanker through and no one had seen it. Had Charlie Bracken and Otis Wright looked in the apparently empty apartment? And even if they had, if someone was sleeping on the floor, maybe taking his bed with him during the day, it could have looked like an empty, like a place under construction. Maybe it was Derek himself who was sleeping there, mild Derek who seemed to like everyone equally and who had disappeared for a convenient length of time after the death of Soderberg.

After they let Hutchins go, Jane fixed up her notes and faxed them to Centre Street. In the morning Defino and MacHovec would call Bracken and see if he had looked inside the empty apartment, the source of possible evidence that was now gone and irretrievable. Then John drove her to the hotel and they had a bite and a couple of drinks.

“So what's on the schedule for tomorrow?” he asked.

“Just to try to get on a flight home.”

“It wasn't a very long visit. We didn't have a chance to show you around.”

“But I got what I came for.”

“You convinced Hutchins didn't do any of the homicides?”

“I'm not convinced of anything, but he's a lot less of a suspect tonight than he was on Monday. What do you think?”

“I agree. To me, it looks like he's scared. I wouldn't be surprised if he moves.”

“I hope we don't lose him. He knew everyone in that building.”

“You'll still be able to find Cory. She can't disappear. She has a real job that pays her on the books.”

“And we have a killer wandering around, probably still looking for Jerry Hutchins.”

“I feel sorry for the poor bastard. I hope they don't find him.”

“Me too,” she said. Unless, of course, it was all an act and he was the killer. He knew everyone in the building by name. He had eaten with them, had a beer with them, changed their lightbulbs, sent them Christmas cards. He was in a perfect position to know where all of them had gone when they left Fifty-sixth Street. But she could think of no motive. If he had done this, she had to believe he was psychotic, and he seemed pretty normal while they were talking. And how could Cory Blanding live with a psychotic?

“You're having second thoughts about Hutchins.”

“You're reading my mind.”

“It comes with the job. Leave it awhile, Jane. Relax. It's been a long day, a very long day. Tell me how a good-looking woman like you ended up chasing a guy like Jerry Hutchins out to Omaha.”

“I guess I screwed up enough times the right way. I certainly never aimed for Omaha or a cold case.”

“I bet you never screwed up in your life.”

Strangers were all the same. Keep your face clean and do your job the way you were taught and they draw the usual conclusions. “You ever get involved with anyone on the job?” she said, watching his face for reaction, feeling the need to confide.

The reaction was there, the eyebrows jumping suddenly. “Can't say I have. I'm a pretty dull family man.”

“I did. He's a family man, too.”

“And he's staying with his family.”

“Right.” She finished her drink and put the glass down. “I never expected him to leave. I don't know if I could handle a man full-time. The bottom line is, his daughter started asking questions. That meant he had to do one thing or another and I wasn't ready to . . .” She let her breath out.

“Make a commitment?”

“I guess that's it, that and my guilt about his wife. His children. If anyone found out, that would be the end of his career.”

“And he's pretty high up in NYPD.”

“He is, yes. How did you guess?”

“You don't strike me as the kind of woman who would risk all for a fellow detective.”

“I am, actually. Or I was. But I settled down with . . . this man and that was it. It was a wonderful relationship for both of us.”

“But it's over.”

“It's over, yes.” She hated saying it. “He called me the other day just before I got home from work and left a message on my machine. I missed him by a few minutes. I hadn't heard his voice for weeks, and it stirred up a lot of things I thought weren't there anymore.”

“What did he say in the message?” John asked.

She smiled. “Just that he wanted to hear my voice.”

“That's nice. He must think of you a lot.”

She knew that was true, that in those small segments of time, flickers, microseconds, when nothing had a prior claim on his mind, he would think of her as she did of him. She thought of those moments as elevator time, when she stood among people she didn't know, people who wanted nothing from her, and let her mind go where it wanted, to Hack. She could almost feel his presence, his arm against hers, his fingers touching hers, his breath in her hair.

“We were good for each other,” she said, not responding to his comment. “A lot of things in my life changed after it was over. I moved to a new apartment.”

“A couple of days ago, I think you told me.”

“Yes. Over the weekend. And when I leave the job, I'll work somewhere that I'll never run into him.”

“Maybe you'll run into someone else.”

“Maybe I will.”

“Why did you tell me?”

“It's on my mind a lot. Waiting all day for Hutchins, I needed something to think about.”

“I spent most of the day trying to figure out how I'll get my kids through college if they pick expensive ones.”

“I guess that's on a lot of people's minds these days.”

“Not a very sexy topic to spend a day thinking about, but that's the way it is.”

She was tired now, the effect of the long day, the long interview, the drinks. She wanted to sleep, then find her way back to New York. “I wonder if Hutchins is at work,” she said, “or if he's flown the coop already.”

“I'll drive by the gas station on my way home. It's not far out of the way. If he's gone, you'll hear from me.”

“There goes my night's sleep,” she said with a laugh.

“You think he's gone?”

“I'm too exhausted to think at this point.”

“Then it's time to pay up.” He looked around for the waitress. “Give me a call when you know what time your flight leaves. I'll come pick you up.”

“You're very nice.”

“And very tired.”

Ten minutes later she was in her room.

It seemed strange to have talked about Hack. Hack was one of the two things in her life she didn't talk about. Her father suspected, she knew, that she had a boyfriend whom she couldn't introduce, but he would never ask, and if he knew, he surely understood why. If it caused him pain, and she felt sure it did, he kept it to himself. On the job, it was a subject she could never even hint at. She had a friend who knew, a girl—a woman— she had gone to school with, but even her friend had never laid eyes on him. Not that she cared. Their being together was theirs; they had never needed anyone outside.

What she hadn't shared with John was the letter on crinkly paper that she had not yet opened. As she turned off the light, she wondered if she ever would.

She thought it was the alarm, far too soon for the deepness of her sleep. But it was the phone and she pulled herself up, fearing the worst about her father.

“Is this Detective Bauer?” a woman's voice asked.

“Yes, it is.”

“This is Helen Grant.”

A chill went through Jane's body. “John's wife?” “Yes. Do you know where my husband is?”

Her heart was racing. She pulled the alarm clock toward her and looked at the time. It was two A.M. “Mrs. Grant, John left the hotel between eleven and twelve. He said he was going home.”

“He's not here.” The voice was just short of shaking.

“He said he would drive by a gas station to look in on someone we interviewed this evening. If you hold on, I'll get the address.” She got out of bed and went to her file. She had every piece of paper that John had. She took the address back to the phone and read it off to Helen Grant.

“I know where that is. It wouldn't take more than twenty or thirty minutes for him to get home from there.”

“Mrs. Grant, I want you to call your husband's unit and tell them he left here about eleven-thirty, that he was going to stop at that gas station and talk to Jerry Hutchins, the night man. And that he isn't home yet. I'll call the gas station and see if he's there or find out when he left.”

There was a short silence. Then the woman said, “Thank you. I'll call the unit.”

Jane found the gas station in the hotel phone book. She dialed the number and let it ring. She counted twenty rings, then tried a second time. She was sure Jerry would answer if he was there. It might be Cory, and he wouldn't want to miss her call. She sat on the edge of the bed, feeling fear seep through her veins. Jerry Hutchins wasn't there, and neither was John Grant.

She scrambled into her clothes. Helen Grant would be on the phone for a few minutes. As soon as she got off, a car would be dispatched to the gas station. Jane wanted to be there, too, and she didn't want John's wife going. At best, no one would be there. At worst . . . she didn't want to think about it.

She was throwing pens into her bag when the phone rang.

“Detective Bauer?”

“Yes.”

“This is Officer Keller. I'm on my way to your hotel. Thought you'd like to come along to look for John Grant.”

“I would, thanks. I'll be downstairs in about three minutes.”

“Don't hurry. There's another car on the way to the gas station.”

She hung up, dialed Helen Grant's number, and told her quickly what was happening.

“I can drive over there myself,” Mrs. Grant said.

“Please stay where you are. We'll call you the minute we know anything.”

“Is that a promise, or are you trying to keep me out of your hair?”

She was a cop's wife, all right. “It's a promise. You'll hear from us.”

She grabbed the electronic hotel key, stuffed it in her wallet, and ran out to the elevator. There was one sitting on her floor, and she rode it down and went outside to wait. It was cold out but very clear, the kind of sky you rarely saw in New York, where the haze frequently clouded the stars. The air smelled fresh and invigorating. If she had been visiting a friend here or setting off for work, she might have wondered why she had ever wanted to spend her life in New York. Sentences that started with
if
, she thought. There were too many
if
s in her head concerning John Grant and Jerry Hutchins, too many possibilities she didn't want to consider.

A police car pulled into the hotel drive and swung around to stop under the canopy in front of her.

“Detective Bauer?” the young man at the wheel called.

“Yes. Thanks for coming.”

He leaned over and opened the door. “Come right in. We'll be there in no time.”