Murder in Hell's Kitchen (16 page)

“Did they get a mover for the furniture?” Jane asked.

“Landlord said there wasn't much, a couple of old desks, an old filing cabinet, some wooden chairs, nothing executive quality. He says they left everything behind, clean as a whistle, not a paper clip anywhere. Landlord rented out the office furnished next time around for a higher price.”

“So they carried off their files,” Jane said.

“Must have. There've been two tenants since they left. Gordon went down and had a look at it yesterday.”

Defino picked up the story. The office was small and the landlord had pointed out the furniture that QX had left. “Could've come from the Salvation Army. There was nothing to show when or where it was bought, where it came from, who made it. The desks are a grainy oak, stained dark, dirty. The chairs look like what my teacher sat on at St. Christopher's.”

“Smart guys,” Graves said. He shook his head, clearly disturbed. “OK, you know the drill. See if we can find a bank they used, check out all their phone calls for however long they were in that office, get a list for every phone number they paid for, and call the telephone security guys for help if you can't backtrack the numbers yourselves. Then talk to everyone in the building, see if anyone remembers them. I'm sure no one does. They probably never talked to a soul except the janitor they gave the Christmas present to. I don't like this at all. Jane, what are you carrying these days and where is it?”

She took two breaths, knowing what was coming. “In my purse, five-shot S and W Chief when I've got a desk job.”

“Starting right now, you carry your Glock, in a holster, where you can reach for it in a second. You will also carry the five-shot as a backup piece. That goes for the rest of the team as well. Got it? We don't know who the enemy is, and he may be our friend on the job. Annie, you talk about this to no one.”

“Yes, sir.” She looked a little scared, as though this might be the first time she was involved in something bigger than answering phones and ordering airline tickets.

“That's the QX side of this. Another side is the crime scene building. Hutchins said someone was living in the empty apartment on the top floor.”

“It's the last thing he told us. I knew he was holding back, and finally he gave it up. He never saw the person but he heard noises. He said there were rats, but it wasn't rats; it was someone in the apartment.”

“Who could walk outside his door and give Soderberg a push when he was up on a stool. Probably took out the lightbulb himself.”

“Probably.”

“You gotta wear down that super. He had to know. It was his building.”

“You know,” Jane said, “if someone really was in and out of that apartment, he couldn't have been there when Quill was alive. Quill lived in the apartment underneath the empty apartment. He would've heard footsteps and told Derek. You wake up in the middle of the night and hear someone overhead in an empty apartment— Wait a minute.”

“Right,” Defino said. “The interview in the Quill file, he said something to a coworker, didn't he? About rats or mice?”

“Same as Hutchins said,” MacHovec chimed in. “Lookin' more like we got one guy killed 'em both.”

“And holed up on the fourth floor,” Jane said.

Nobody said anything.

“And then there's Soderberg,” Graves said in the silence. “That funeral home has to have records on who picked him up, where he was buried, or where they shipped him.” He made a note on the paper in front of him. “When he took the fall on Fifty-sixth Street, he was an aided case. They must have searched him and taken an inventory of his pockets and wallet. Go to the precinct and look it up. If he was carrying a Social Security card, they would have the number on record. Let's find out when it was issued and where, what kind of earnings it shows. We need a lot of answers. And we need to look over our shoulders. Any questions?”

Nobody asked any. The ones they had couldn't be answered by Graves.

19

THEY WENT BACK to their office and Jane sat down at her desk, pushing aside a few telephone messages that had accumulated since she left on Monday. Nothing was from her father, so the rest of them would have to wait for an answer.

Defino stood at the window looking out. You could almost feel his fingers itching to put a cigarette in his mouth, sense his lungs aching to draw in some deadly smoke. MacHovec dropped into his seat with a thud, his face elated.

“Got more work to do today than when we started,” he said. “Anybody want to talk about how we break it up?”

“We have to find out who Soderberg was,” Jane said before Defino could say anything. “I have a couple of hours at One PP with my trip papers. Sean, you should get started on Soderberg's Social Security. See if he existed.”

“Shit, what if he didn't?”

“We'll worry about that later. What do we do about Bracken and Otis Wright?”

That was the worst, investigating two of their own, one with a terminal illness, a guy who had gone out of his way to help, the other a seasoned detective whom they had no reason to suspect. The next step was obvious, but no one wanted to say the words: Internal Affairs Division. At some point IAD would have to be notified and their detectives assigned to work the information-leak angle, cops investigating cops, but not just yet.

“Can't be Otie,” MacHovec said.

“Well, it can't be Bracken either,” Defino snapped, turning away from the window.

“Let's look at my travel papers,” Jane said. “Graves signed off on the trip and Annie typed it all up. Then I took it to the Chief of Detectives' office.”

“And sat around while the Chief of
D
gave it a lot of thought,” MacHovec said sarcastically.

“It took a while, right, but he signed off on it. Then I went to the Chief of Department. He took less time, and then I went up to the Police Commissioner.”

“You remember who looked it over?”

“Some office type, a lieutenant. He made some phone calls, had it brought to an inspector, the commissioner's aide. He took it inside an office and it was signed when it came out.” She left a few things unsaid, but that was her business.

“And there's PAAs and God knows who-all, and a lotta people know you're taking a trip. You know what goes on over in the Puzzle Palace. The place is a sieve.”

“Your math is great,” Defino said.

“He's right, Gordon. But that's the place to look for a leak. Besides Bracken and Wright. And when I finish my paper pushing, you and I should go down to the mortuary that took Soderberg's body. They should have records of who claimed it and where it went.”

“I can give 'em a call,” MacHovec volunteered.

There were a few seconds of silence. Then Jane said, “I don't want to give them a chance to think about what they're going to tell us or call someone in the family who'll say they should keep quiet.”

“She's right,” Defino said.

“OK. Your call.”

They settled down to work, MacHovec on the phone, Jane with her trip papers, Defino sitting at his desk writing on a pad of paper. When Jane was finished, she left to make the rounds at One PP, agreeing to call Defino as soon as she was finished.

It had gotten cold and the wind was strong. This was where Manhattan began narrowing down, eventually ending at the southern tip, South Ferry and Battery Park, where the Hudson and East rivers merged into one, ready to empty into the Atlantic. The winds from the two rivers blew across the island with great ferocity at the southern end, and even though it wasn't yet winter, it was starting to feel that way.

Jane got her papers logged back in, stamped, resigned, and closed out. At each location she took down the name of the person she was dealing with, the names of the people at the nearby desks. There was no way of knowing which of them, if any, had leaked information about her trip. Nor was there any way of knowing, at this point, why or to whom it had been leaked. Was it the old battle-ax with the short gray hair and the voice that could almost knock you off your feet? Or the sweet little girl who might have a boyfriend somewhere who needed to know what she knew?

“Try to get it right next time,” the battle-ax said.

“I hope you had a good trip,” the sweet little girl said.

Finished at last, she borrowed a phone and called Defino. He had been waiting to hear from her and had eaten at his desk. He would meet her in the time it took her to get there.

She hadn't managed to eat yet, but she picked up a sandwich, took a couple of bites, and shoved the rest in her bag. The mortuary was up on the East Side. She caught the Lex and took it uptown. When she got out at Eighty-sixth Street, she saw a familiar lean figure bounding up the stairs to the street. Defino had been on the same train.

“Sean get anything?” she asked when she had caught up with him.

“The aided case card had a Social Security number. He put in a call about it, but I don't think he heard anything before I left. You get lunch?”

“It's in here.” She patted her bag.

“We can sit down somewhere—”

“It's OK. I'll eat later. I want to see where this leads.”

The funeral home was east of Lexington Avenue, and Defino straightened his tie before they entered. A middle-aged woman sat in the outer office and greeted them with appropriate solemnity. Her eyebrows rose as they showed their shields and IDs. She excused herself and went to an adjoining room.

“Mr. Farrington will see you now.” She gestured to the open door.

Edward Farrington was about Jane's age and could have been any businessman sitting in his office. The last time she had been in a similar office, it had been for her mother in the Bronx, where the funeral home had been in the same family for three generations and the youngest generation was getting on in years. Farrington was a relief, a nice-looking executive type dressed as though his business were life instead of death.

“I'm Ed Farrington,” he said, offering his hand. “You are police officers?”

“Detectives,” Defino said. “We need some information going back about four years.”

“I'll do what I can. Please sit. Make yourselves comfortable.”

“The deceased was Henry Soderberg,” Jane said. She passed a sheet of notepaper across the desk. “The date is approximate.”

“Let me check my files.”

He left the room, and Jane considered taking another bite or two from her sandwich, but changed her mind. Not in here. As welcoming as this room was with its light walls, pale rug, modern furniture, and light streaming through the window, it was not a place to eat.

Farrington came back with a file folder. “I remember this one,” he said. “We received the body from the New York City Morgue.”

“That's the one,” Defino said.

“He died in a fall. No next of kin, at least not in New York.”

“Who claimed the body then?” Jane asked.

“A man named Carl Johnson. No relation. He said he worked with Mr. Soderberg.”

The name rang a bell. It was one of the names Defino had mentioned as having worked for QX Electronics. “What ID did he give you?”

“I have his driver's license number written down here. He showed me proof that Mr. Soderberg had been his employee. He had his Social Security number, his home address, and some payroll documents.” Farrington looked troubled, as though he suspected he had done something without the proper authorization.

“We'd like a copy of everything you have on file,” Jane said.

“I'll be glad to give it to you.”

“Where did you send the body?” Defino asked.

“To a funeral home in Arlington, Virginia. It's all in here.” He tapped the page in front of him. “Let me have this Xeroxed for you.” He went into the secretary's office and returned immediately. “May I ask what the problem is?”

“We're investigating Mr. Soderberg's death,” Jane said. “There are some unanswered questions. Did you handle this case yourself?”

“Yes, I did. I remember it mostly because we don't get many bodies from the morgue.”

“Do you remember talking to anyone besides this Carl Johnson?”

He leaned back in his swivel chair and looked toward the ceiling. “There were some phone calls before we received the body. I don't know whether they came from him or from someone else. And of course I contacted the funeral home in Arlington.”

“Did Mr. Johnson select a casket?”

“No. He said that would be taken care of at home. I remember that he used those words, ‘at home.' ”

“How was the body shipped?”

“It was flown on a cargo plane.”

“Do you know who met it?”

“Yes. That'll be in the file. A representative of the funeral home in Arlington. He had all the paperwork from us.”

“Did anyone here look at the body?” Defino asked.

“It wasn't here long. Mr. Johnson was actually waiting in the room next door for it to arrive. Then he signed all the papers and left. We had it on a plane later that afternoon.”

“Did Carl Johnson identify the body?” Jane asked.

“He did, yes.”

She looked at Defino. He stood and thanked Farrington, gave him his card. “Anyone ever make inquiries about Mr. Soderberg?” he asked.

“Not to me. If anyone called, they would have been told where the body had been sent.”

Jane got up and shook Farrington's hand, too. “What was your impression of Carl Johnson?”

“Well dressed. Not as tall as me. Grim. But most of the people I talk to here are grim. I had no particular impression of him.”

They walked to the secretary's office and picked up the copied files. She had placed them in an envelope too large to fit in Jane's bag. She held on to it as they walked outside.

“Air's better out here,” Defino said.

“Not for long. We should get back, see if Sean's come up with anything and start calling Arlington. So let's go back to the subway.”

Defino had already lit a cigarette. “You must be hungry.”

“I'll eat at my desk.”

“Famous last words.”

“Looks like our boy was born about six years ago,” MacHovec greeted them.

“Interesting,” Defino said. “That when the Social Security number was issued?”

“Yup. Not much in earnings, unless you're less than six years old; then it's a lot. Only one employer, QX Electronics.”

“So he was born to work for them,” Jane said.

“Hey, maybe it was the best job in the world.”

“Not if it got him killed.” She sat at her desk and extricated the sandwich from her bag. She had stopped for a cup of coffee on the way in, and she worked the cover off and took a sip before unwrapping the sandwich. There were some messages, one of them from Mike Fromm. “Let me answer these; then we'll talk.”

She was starving now and ate the sandwich quickly, washed it down with the local coffee, which wasn't bad, then dialed Mike.

“How're you doin'?” he asked when he picked up.

“Getting used to breathing fumes again. How's John?”

“He's doing real fine. I dropped in on him this morning. They'll have a hard time keeping him there. I think he's out of the woods, Jane.”

“I'm glad to hear about it. I guess there's nothing on Hutchins.”

“Absolute blank. But where we found John's car is a straight line through the woods to the gas station.”

“So the shooter made off in John's car, maybe caught up to Hutchins, maybe not, and drove around to where he'd left his own car.”

“Sounds like the right sequence of events. We've done a pretty thorough canvass of that area, and no one saw anything. And we've done a walk-through search of the woods again—lots of the guys volunteered—but we came up empty. They're examining John's car very carefully, see if we come up with Hutchins's hair anywhere. He could've been in the trunk and transferred to the trunk of the shooter's car.”

“They could be anywhere now,” Jane said.

“And maybe Hutchins got away. Maybe he just ran. He hasn't called the girlfriend, and since he doesn't have a bank account, we don't know if he needed money.”

“She might send him some if she has any idea of where he is.”

“She knows we're watching.”

“I hope he's alive,” Jane said.

“So how're you doing now that you're back home?”

She had known it was a personal call. None of the preliminary conversation had changed that. “I'm fine. I'm in my office now. I finished my paperwork and we're back at work. The air was better in Omaha.”

“Invitation's still open.”

“Thank you. Mine too.” She was aware of the other two people in the room, of their silence.

“I'll talk to you soon.”

She hung up and busied herself moving papers around. He was too nice to care about her. She could not imagine having a relationship with a man fifteen hundred miles from New York, even accepting what an attractive man he was. She was one of those provincial people who thought New York was the center of the universe and it didn't bother her. It was always a surprise to meet someone from far away and see that he had the requisite number of limbs, a brain that functioned more than adequately, clothes that looked like this year's styles.

“Anything up?” Defino asked.

“No. Well, a little.” She told him about where John Grant's car had been found.

“But no Hutchins.”

“No Hutchins.” She cleared up her desk. “I guess we need to contact the funeral parlor in Arlington.”

“That where the body was shipped?” MacHovec said.

“By a fellow QX Electronics guy,” Defino said.

“Nearest thing to next of kin?”