Murder in Hell's Kitchen (21 page)

Tina Wilson looked at the card, then held it in her hand. “You know what I think?” she said. “I think my father was working for the CIA. I think he was doing that kind of work. That would explain a lot of things, like the other names, the moving around.”

“I will certainly look into that,” Jane said. “Tell me, when he sent your mother checks, did he sign them with his name?”

She shook her head. “Not after he left the navy. He sent bank checks, money orders, things like that. It was as if he was trying to hide.”

But someone had found him, Jane thought, as she stood and shook Tina Wilson's hand. He hadn't hidden well enough.

26

JANE WATCHED THE young woman go. She was a happier person than she had been when she entered the building. Her greatest fear about her father had been extinguished. For more than four years she had carried the worry that her father had engaged in behavior that she found troubling. The way her muscles had relaxed, the way she had smiled, the way she had thanked Jane with a handshake showed her relief. Her life had just changed for the better. Tonight she would tell her husband that all her fears had been for nothing. If her father had acted a little crazy, well, maybe he had had a midlife crisis. Didn't everyone nowadays?

Jane checked the train schedule. She had learned more than what she had come for, and there was no reason to hang around. She could catch a train back to New York as soon as she reached the station.

First she called Captain Graves.

“How's it going?” he said.

“Soderberg or Caffrey was cremated and his ashes were buried in the Atlantic, courtesy of the U.S. Navy.”

“So we don't have a body.”

“Right. I've just talked to his daughter, who lives in Virginia. She came in and we talked face-to-face. Whatever he was doing, he kept it to himself. She thinks he may have been working for the CIA.”

“Better hope not or we'll never get to the bottom of this. What are your plans now?”

“I'm getting a taxi to the station and I'm coming home.”

“Not much of a vacation. You should stay overnight and see the Washington Monument or something.”

“I'll have the taxi do a drive-by.”

“Sounds good,” Graves said lightly. “How's the cell phone working?”

“I forgot I had it. I'm using the pay phone here.”

“Use it if you need it. We'll see you tomorrow?”

“Bright and early.”

“Check in with me when you get home.”

She did what she promised, had the taxi driver take her past the monument and as close to the White House as he could get, now that it was encased in antiterrorist protection. Surprisingly, she felt a surge of patriotism as she saw through the cab window structures she had previously seen only in books and on film. She was impressed by their size and by the quiet dignity of the monument.

“Can we go by the Vietnam monument?” she asked, leaning forward.

“You bet.” When they got there, a grassy area with no sign of the monument, he directed her to the stairs and said he would wait.

She got out and walked across the grass to the head of the stairs. Below was the dark, stark beauty of the monument. There were names there she would know, the father of a girl she had gone to school with. Jane remembered the funeral, one of the first she had attended.

People were milling about, searching the wall for the name of someone lost. Soderberg/Caffrey had served in that war. So had Hack, but only at the tail end. None of those people on the black wall had made it back, pieces of families gone forever.

She thought of the girl in the little town in Kansas whom she had given birth to, a piece of her family, of her life, that had not been lost, only missing in action. She had to make a decision, sooner rather than later. She walked back o the cab.

“Let's go,” she said, and the driver took off with a squeal.

She ate an unsatisfying plastic-wrapped sandwich on the train. Going home she didn't sleep, and she couldn't concentrate on her book. This case, this crazy cold case that had started with the death of Arlen Quill, was becoming a very hot case, the life of Jane Bauer. If only because of timing, Lisa Angelino was mixed up in it. And she had begun thinking about Hack again. She had to find out if Hack was involved in this . . . and what would she do if he was?

As soon as she asked herself the question, she realized she had moved her position from believing he could not be involved to considering the possibility that he was. It was a change she didn't like.

Walking home from the subway, she stopped at a deli for a real sandwich to eat in her kitchen. She kept the tote bag slung over her shoulder like a large handbag to disguise the fact that she had considered staying somewhere overnight, in case anyone was watching and gave a damn. Upstairs, she ate at the kitchen table, reading her mail and drinking a beer straight from the bottle. There was a message on the machine from Defino, left before he knew that she would not be in. Nothing else.

As she finished eating, she remembered her order to call the whip and she dialed his beeper. He called back about five minutes later and she assured him she was safe and had not been followed to D.C.

“They get anything out of the super?” she asked when he had finished his questions.

“The super? Oh, the Fifty-sixth Street building. He flew the coop.”

She stifled an obscenity. “We should've taken him in on Friday.”

“Don't beat yourself up. Even if he could've told us someone was in that apartment, he wouldn't know the real name. He probably had a deal with the guy, some money off the books to keep quiet.”

“Somebody must've wanted Soderberg dead real bad.”

“Looks like it. Take it easy, Jane. You've had a big day. We'll talk tomorrow.”

She called Defino and apologized for disappearing without notice. He didn't seem bothered, but he told her again about Derek.

“We really missed the boat on that,” he said.

“We'll talk about it tomorrow. I'm briefing the whip first thing.”

“See you in the morning.”

Fatigue hit her the moment she put the phone down. The day had started too early, and as far as she was concerned it was ending now. She tossed the wrappers from the sandwich into the garbage, rinsed out the beer bottle, and got ready for bed.

The first thing Captain Graves did was explain to MacHovec and Defino that it had been his idea not to say where Jane was going, that it had been a vacation day and that anything she had learned was incidental if not accidental. That said, he turned the floor over to Jane, who recounted the previous day's interviews with Lieutenant MacPhail and Tina Caffrey.

They then talked about the missing Derek, an apparent dead end. Then Graves said, “What've you been up to, Sean?”

MacHovec had a file with him. “Looking into employees in the offices at One PP where Jane had her travel plans OK'd. So far nothing stands out, but I'll keep looking.”

“Where else do we go?”

“I think we have to bring in Carl Johnson,” Jane said. “He's the only person we know who was involved in whatever work Caffrey was doing. I talked to him Friday night and got almost nothing. I think we have to be tougher on him.”

“Let's go,” Defino said.

Graves asked Jane for the details of the Friday-night interview, then sent them on their way.

Jane and Defino prepared for their visit to Carl Johnson by calling Midtown North and asking for an RMP car, radio motor patrol. The desk officer had the sector car team call her directly. They assured her there were no back doors to the apartments and no freight or service elevators. If Johnson was home when they got there, he would not be able to escape through a back exit. A sector car would meet them at the apartment house to transport Johnson to the station house. They did not call Johnson's number first.

They estimated their time of arrival, and the sector cop said he would be there.

“Looks like you scored in Washington where MacHovec failed,” Defino said when they were out on the street, taking an opportunity to jab at MacHovec.

“I think I talked to a different guy. It was just good luck. The daughter really knew nothing. She wanted a father, but what she got was someone who wrote checks because if he didn't, the navy would take it out of his pay.”

“You think this guy Johnson was in the navy, too?”

“No idea. Whatever they were doing, they started after Caffrey left the navy. Maybe long after. QX wasn't in business that long when Caffrey took his fall. But nothing Johnson said really held together. Why would you disband a company that was trying to sell some kind of technological device if the marketing man dies? If the brains of the company dies, that's another thing.”

They were down in the subway, waiting for the first train that would take them uptown and then over to the West Side. They had thought about a taxi but decided the subway would be faster. They rode the Lex up to Broadway-Lafayette and changed for a B, which took them over to Central Park West. At Seventy-second Street, they got off and walked back to the Sixties, as Jane had on Friday night. The sector car was already there, parked off CPW so it wouldn't be visible from the lobby.

They identified themselves to the sector car uniforms and went inside. The doorman was a new face and seemed concerned.

They pulled their shields and ID and Jane said, “We're going up to Carl Johnson's apartment. Don't let them know we're on our way.”

“I'll keep an eye out,” one of the uniforms said, entering behind them.

“He's not up there,” the doorman said.

“Is his wife?” Jane asked.

“I think so.”

“Good enough.”

Upstairs, Mrs. Johnson's feet pounded toward the door. She looked through the peephole and opened up. “What do you want?” she said belligerently, looking at Jane.

“We want to talk to your husband, Mrs. Johnson.”

“He's not here.”

“Where is he?”

“He's gone. He's left New York.”

“Give us an address.”

“I don't know where he is,” the woman said angrily, raising her voice. “Now get out.”

“I'm afraid we can't leave until we find out where your husband is.”

“Well, you won't find out from me.” She tried to close the door in their faces, but she was no match for Defino.

“You're not cooperating,” he said, pushing back on the door to keep it open.

She relented and backed away. “What do you want from him?” she asked. “Why can't you leave him alone?”

“He has evidence in a homicide,” Jane said calmly.

“He doesn't know anything about that.” The woman sounded as though she was under a good deal of stress. A little pushing and she might snap.

Jane didn't want her snapping. She wanted access to Carl Johnson. “May we sit and talk?”

“I have nothing to say.” Mrs. Johnson pulled the door all the way open and let them in. Then she shut the door behind them, turning the bolt.

They stood in the foyer, waiting for her to invite them in.

“Go ahead,” she said to Jane. “You know the way. You were here a couple of days ago asking your questions. You ruined my life, you—” She stopped talking and led the way to the sunken living room. “Sit wherever you want.”

Jane noticed that many of the beautiful crystal and ceramic objects were gone. The Johnsons were packing. They were leaving New York. “Where are you moving to?” she asked.

Mrs. Johnson dropped into a chair. She was wearing a loose housedress, a floral print on cotton. She looked haggard and miserable. “I'm not going anywhere.”

“Where is your husband, Mrs. Johnson?”

“I don't know.” The voice was too loud. “I told you that the first time you asked. He isn't here. That's all I can tell you.”

“We need to talk to him, Mrs. Johnson.”

“Then find him.”

Defino stood and went to a window. He looked out for a moment, then turned back to Jane. “She isn't cooperating and we don't have much time. Let's take her down to the station house.”

“What?” Mrs. Johnson said. “I haven't done anything.”

“You're withholding vital information, ma'am. Get your coat and let's go. We have a car downstairs.”

“No!” the woman said.

“Now,” Defino retorted. “Let's go now.”

“You can't do this to me.”

“Yes, we can.”

“I have to be here.”

“In case he calls?” Jane said.

The woman nodded.

“When will he call?”

“I don't know.”

“Tell us where he is.”

She shook her head.

“Give us his cell phone number.” It had occurred to Jane that she had one in her bag, and figured most of the population of the country did, too.

“I don't know it.”

Then he did have one. “Just tell us how you can reach him and you're off the hook,” Jane said.

At that moment the phone rang. Mrs. Johnson ran to the kitchen, Defino right behind her. Jane followed and stood in the doorway as the woman picked up the phone, and Defino held it so they could both hear.

It was a short conversation, and when Mrs. Johnson put the phone down, she was in tears. “You have no right to invade my life this way,” she wailed.

“It was a friend,” Defino said, walking out of the kitchen. He looked at his watch. “We're running out of time. Let's take her in.” He was doing a great job of acting.

“Fine with me,” Jane said.

“You can't do this,” Mrs. Johnson said. “My husband is an honorable man. He doesn't do anything wrong and he never has.”

“What's his address and phone number at work?” Defino asked.

“I don't know.”

“What's he been doing since QX went out of business?”

She shrugged. “He works downtown. That's all I know.”

“How do you call him?” Jane asked.

The woman didn't answer. It had to be the cell phone. He had it with him all the time, and his location didn't matter as long as he answered the ring.

“What kind of work does your husband do?” Defino asked.

“He has a job; that's all I know. We live an ordinary life. We have friends and we go to the theater and the ballet. I don't know what you said to him when you were here, but he left the next day and my life has been in turmoil ever since.”