FORTY-TWO
“You think old Jasper ever figured that out?” Mike asked.
We had secured the map room, arranged for rides home for Bea and her colleagues, and were walking from the side door of the library to Mike’s car, shortly after midnight.
“Not back in Minerva’s college days, when he tried to fix her up with Herrick,” I said, recalling his story. “And I’ve got no sense that any of them realize it now.”
“This might be the most unwelcome familial search since Dick Cheney found out he’s related to Barack Obama.”
“The only resemblance I see is greed,” Mercer said.
“The genetic Hunt predisposition you mentioned yesterday,” Mike said. “Meanwhile, they’re ready to rip each other’s throats out over old books and maps. I say Coop charms some drool out of Jasper, we firm this up, and sit them all down for a reality check.”
“Chapman!” a woman’s voice called from half a block away.
We all stopped and turned, and saw Teresa Retlin, a detective from the burglary squad, jogging after us.
“Don’t you answer your phone? Your voice mail box is full,” she said. “I’m too old to be chasing you down in the middle of the night.”
“Didn’t stop you ten years ago, Terry. I think the phone’s out of juice,” Mike said. “And so am I. What’s up?”
He pivoted and moved forward while Retlin tried to keep pace.
“Got a baby snitch for you.”
“For me? What’s he snitching about?”
“Name is Shalik Samson. Says you want what he’s got.”
The three of us stopped short to listen to Terry Retlin.
“That twelve-year-old?”
“Fourteen,” she said. “Just small for his age. Neighbor saw him breaking in to the back window of an apartment an hour ago and called 911. The kid starting throwing your name around before I could cuff him.”
“Where is he now?” Mike asked.
“In my care, Chapman. I have to take him to a juvenile facility till Monday morning,” she said, handing Mike a business card. “Says he found this in the garbage. That you gave your card to a guy named Travis Forbes-the vic in my burglary-and Forbes threw it out.”
Mike laughed and shook his head from side to side. “Piece of work. Where’s your car?”
“My partner’s over there,” she said pointing across Fortieth Street.
Mercer and I followed Mike to the parked RMP. “Shalik, my man,” Mike said, bracing himself against the roof of the car and leaning down to talk to the boy. “What brings you to the library tonight?”
“I got locked up for helping you, Detective. You give me twenty bucks and I’ll tell you.”
“You got that wrong, Shalik. I don’t pay guys to break the law.”
“I got you into that building, didn’t I? You paid me yesterday.”
“Tell it to the judge, Shalik. We’re outta here,” Mike said, tapping the car. “Take him away, Terry.”
“No! Mr. Mike!” Shalik shouted.
“What’s on your mind? It’s getting too late for nonsense.”
“I was going in there tonight for you, Mr. Mike. Tell you what he up to,” Shalik said. “Find out why he all dressed up like a cop.”
“What? Let him out of the car, Terry,” Mike said, as Mercer stepped up to open the door and stand beside the skinny kid to make sure he didn’t try to run. “Tell me about that, Shalik.”
The boy knew he had the attention of all the grown-ups. His jeans drooped so low, they barely covered his rear end; the pant legs crumpled on top of his sneakers. He pushed them even lower when he shoved his hands in his pockets as he considered what to say to us.
“You talk to the judge for me? It’s my third time.”
“I’ll sing to the judge, Shalik. You tell me about Travis.”
“I seen him before in all these different clothes,” he said. “Dressin’ stupid and stuff sometimes when he go out. But he always go out alone. And I never seen him in no police officer’s uniform. He ain’t no cop.”
I thought of Tina Barr’s attacker and the fireman’s gear. I remembered the man in a brown uniform who had broken in to Jane Eliot’s apartment.
“Travis Forbes’s coatrack, Mike,” I said. “All those jackets that were hanging in the hallway, remember? I’ll get a warrant to see what kind of stuff he’s got there.”
“You know real cops, Shalik,” Mercer said. “Did his uniform look real?”
“It do. It really do. Had a hat, too, and a shiny silver badge.”
“Did he see you?” Mike asked. “Or did he just keep on walking down the street?”
Shalik’s chest puffed up. “He didn’t walk nowhere.”
“What did he do?”
“He had a chauffeur, Mr. Mike. Big fat guy gets out of a limousine and opens the door for him. Travis, he like got in the back with his date.”
“His date?” Mike said. “You’re doing real good for me, Shalik. Tell me, did you see the woman?”
“Dark-haired lady. Skinny. Skinnier than her,” he said, tipping his elbow toward me. “Older than her, too. Long red fingernails. Smoking a cigarette.”
Travis Forbes dressed himself like an NYPD cop for a night on the town with Minerva Hunt. Now all we had to do was figure out where Carmine Rizzali had driven them.
FORTY-THREE
Mercer had his arm around Shalik’s shoulder, trying to cut him a deal.
“We’re taking him from here, Terry,” Mike said.
“I could lose my shield for this, anything happens to the kid. Rules are different for juvies.”
“I’ll stay with him,” I said. “I’ll go to the judge myself.”
She walked back to her car, got inside, and slammed the door, while Mike and I followed Mercer and Shalik down the dark side street until we hit Fifth Avenue and went around the block.
“How are we going to raise the fat bastard?” Mike asked. “Yesterday he wouldn’t even take my call.”
“Let Alex do the talking. He won’t blow her off so fast,” Mercer said.
“You’d better script it for me.”
“Tell him you’ve got something urgent to discuss with Minerva,” Mike said. “He must have driven her to Jane Eliot’s apartment. Let him know the old lady’s talking about what she gave to Minerva. He’ll want to collect on that tidbit. Makes him look useful. Eliot’s safe, isn’t she, Mercer?”
“Cops are with her in the hospital room. Not a problem.”
“If TARU can find his cell phone pings, we’re in business,” Mike said, as he and I got into the front seat of the car. The Technical Assistance Response Unit had the latest gadgetry and technology to solve almost every communication and surveillance problem investigators needed.
“Who’s this? Hey, Sonny-Mike Chapman here. I got two known numbers; one’s going to place a call to the other. The caller’s in the car with me, midtown. If I give you both, can you pinpoint the other guy’s location for me?”
The answer was short and obviously positive.
“Ready for me? First one is Assistant District Attorney Alexandra Cooper,” Mike said, dictating my number. “The receiver is Carmine Rizzali. Yeah, used to be on the job. I need to find him pronto. The nearest cell phone tower would be great. Coop’ll dial him to see if he picks up. I’ll stay on with you.”
I punched Carmine’s number into my key pad. My caller ID would be blocked, so he’d have to answer in order to know who was calling at this late hour.
One ring and Carmine spoke into the phone. “Hullo?”
“Carmine? It’s Alex Cooper. I met you with Mike-”
“Is this more of his bullshit?”
“No, no. This is something urgent that I’m trying to speak to Ms. Hunt about, just between the two of us. I think Mike’s on his way to her home now-”
“What is he, nuts? It’s the middle of a Saturday night. She ain’t even there.”
“Look, there’s a woman who lives in the Village, on Bedford Stre
et. She’s made a complaint that Minerva Hunt stole something from her. I…uh…I-” I held my hand out, palm upward, trying to figure a direction to go.
Mike just nodded at me and mouthed the words You’re doing fine.
“She didn’t steal nothing. I drove her there myself. The lady had a present for her. All very civilized.”
“I think Mike’s blowing this totally out of proportion,” I said. “I disagree with him completely. I thought you might want to give her a heads-up, and maybe I can set up a meeting with her tomorrow.”
He wasn’t ready to trust me.
“Is Minerva with you now?”
“Cute, Ms. Cooper. Real cute. Then you tell the homicide dick whatever I tell you, so I’m just the schmuck who’s out of a job.”
He disconnected me the second he finished the sentence.
“Sonny? You got a location for me?” Mike asked. “Thanks, buddy. I owe you big-time.”
He dropped the phone on the seat and started the engine, making the turn from Forty-second Street onto Fifth Avenue.
“You did good, Blondie. It seems that Carmine took the odd couple downtown-Second Avenue, between Second and Third streets. Nearest cell tower is in front of Provenzano’s, a funeral home.”
“A little late for a condolence call, isn’t it?” Mercer said.
Traffic moved well on the straight run south to the point at which Broadway intersected Fifth Avenue, then Mike wound his way farther east.
As we crossed Third Street, I could see the limousine parked on the west side of Second Avenue.
Mike pulled over to the curb, several cars behind Carmine, and turned off the engine and headlights. “What do you think, Mercer? Him sitting in the limo all these hours, don’t you think all that weight would have flattened one of his tires by now?”
“I could do that,” our young charge said.
“You stay with me, Shalik.”
“C’mon, Coop,” Mike said. “Let’s all have a look around.”
As we got out, Mike walked ahead and peered into the window of Carmine’s car. Then he kneeled down. I tried to keep Shalik occupied while Mike scored one of the tires with his Swiss Army knife.
“I don’t think he should eat such heavy meals at night,” Mike said, coming back to get us. “He’s sleeping like a baby. Least they can’t make such a quick getaway if Minerva and Travis aren’t happy to see us.”
Mercer was on the sidewalk, checking out the block on either side of the avenue. “There’s a pizza joint, a Thai restaurant, and a neighborhood pub. We can look in each of those.”
He kept one arm on Shalik’s shoulder, and I walked on the other side of the kid, closer to the buildings. We watched as Mike tried the front door of the funeral home, but it was locked and all the lights were out.
We passed an alleyway fronted by a wrought-iron gate, and kept going. The night was clear and getting cooler. Mike went into each of the open restaurants and bars on both sides of the street but didn’t spot Hunt or Forbes in any of them.
“Go another block north,” Mercer said. Mike did, while I tried to find out from Shalik whether he had gotten inside Travis Forbes’s apartment before getting caught.
By the time Mike doubled back, the kid had described how the cops had arrived and nabbed him just after he’d jimmied the back door and wriggled in.
“No trace of them,” Mike said. “Time to interrupt Carmine’s dream cycle and have a chat. Worst he can do is call and alert them that we’re here to break up the party.”
We turned around and started walking back toward the limousine.
The light from the street lamp bounced off the gold paint on the narrow archway above the wrought-iron fence that closed off the alley to my left.
I read the words on the large sign, first to myself and then aloud: NEW YORK MARBLE CEMETERY. INCORPORATED IN. 1831
Below them was a smaller tablet, also engraved. I held on to one of the bars of the fence as I read again: A PLACE OF INTERMENT FOR GENTLEMEN.
“Gents like Jasper Hunt Jr. and his cronies,” Mike said. “Get the kid in the car, Coop. I’m going in.”
FORTY-FOUR
“Stay here, Alex,” Mercer said. “I don’t know how Mike thinks he’s going to get past this gate.”
Shalik Samson grabbed two of the vertical iron bars with his hands and tried to shake them. “You put me on your shoulders,” he said to Mercer, “I could be over that easy.”
“Getting you out might be the problem. Let go of those.”
Traffic was light on this part of the avenue, and there were no pedestrians to bother us.
“You think somebody inside?” Shalik asked, craning his neck to look up at Mercer. “It look like a little park in there.”
Mike was studying the lock, which was a single keyhole. There was no sophisticated equipment in place to protect the entrance, which seemed well groomed and tended.
“Pretty clever. If you’re going to break in to someplace right on the street,” he said, “dress Travis Forbes up like a cop to give you cover.”
Shalik was back against the bars, standing on the sharply pointed pieces that jutted up from the base of the heavy gate.
“Cut it out, Shalik. You’ll hurt yourself,” Mike said. “Coop, I told you to put him in the car.”
“Yo, look! It ain’t even locked no more.”
The teenager had reached his slim arm between the bars and retrieved a metal rod that must have temporarily held the bars in place. Someone had indeed broken in to the old cemetery, and in all likelihood was still somewhere inside.
Shalik pushed on the right side of the gate, and it creaked open against his weight. Before I could stop him, he ran ahead down the alleyway, which was bordered on both sides by brick walls.
Mercer gave chase and overtook him twenty feet away, where the passage opened onto a large grassy area, almost the length of a football field but half as wide. He put his hand up to his lips and told the boy to be quiet.
I closed the gate behind me and caught up with Mike, who had stopped to read a plaque on the wall.
“What does it say?” I asked as he turned away and headed toward Mercer.
“The oldest nonsectarian cemetery in the city. A hundred and fifty solid marble vaults,” he said, breaking into a trot. “All of them were built underground as a health precaution against nineteenth-century contagious disease.”
We were suddenly in a gardened oasis in the middle of the East Village that I had never known existed.
The tall walls around the open green space seemed to be made completely of stone, many parts obscured by the bushes and trees that had grown up around the borders.
Mercer was deputizing Shalik, trying to extract a promise from him to stay close and obey directions.
Mike jogged along the perimeter of the north wall, stopping at smooth marble tablets to note names of the occupants of the subterranean vaults. I was just a few steps behind him.
“Charles Van Zandt. Uriah Scribner. James Tallmadge,” Mike said, stopping to run his hand over the names, one above the other, as he read them from the engravings.
Ten feet farther along, another tablet, with numbers I assumed corresponded to the graves below. Some listed three or four vaults, though only one or two individuals’ names had been added to the list of the dead.
There were Auchinclosses and Randolphs, Phelpses and Quackenbushes, grand names that together created a history of New York City. I paused at the marker for the infant son of Frederick Law Olmsted, the man who had landscaped Central Park.
Mike crossed to the south wall and continued his search. Before he had moved very far along, he signaled me to join him.
“Here they are, kid. Jasper Hunt. Jasper Hunt Jr.,” he said, showing me the names of father and son, and their wives, the first dates for the family patriarch etched in the wall more than a century ago. “Four Hunts, six burial vaults.”
Beneath the neatly carved names and dates were the numbers: 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66.
&
nbsp; “They were obviously buried here originally, before the reinterment,” I said.
“And Minerva must know what’s in Millbrook-and what isn’t. She’d certainly have access to the family digs up on the property.”
“So maybe when they moved the bodies, nobody gave any thought to whether there was anything in these other two vaults they owned-whether any books were interred with the Hunt bones. There was certainly no record of other descendants on this plaque.”
“Wait here with Mercer,” Mike said.
“What are you going to do?”
“There’s got to be a way to get below to the vaults.”
“Mike, let’s get help.”
“And if something bad’s going on right now? You going to live with yourself if somebody’s down there, left for dead?”
Mercer was motioning to Mike. “Check out that corner.”
The dim light filtering in from the street and wind blowing the bushes played tricks with my vision. It looked like Mercer was right-that there was a hatch open in the southwest end of the enclosed area, a wooden door of some sort, against the far wall of the garden.
Mike sprinted forward and I followed, practically slamming into him when he stopped short just ten feet from the spot.
He was fixed on something on the ground.
I knelt beside him and saw the body of a man-short, over-weight, middle-aged-slumped beneath a small evergreen bush, his feet protruding into the pathway from beneath the branches.
FORTY-FIVE
“He’s alive,” Mike said.
I looked up to see Mercer and Shalik standing over us. Mike was already dialing 911 to ask for an ambulance and backup.
“Move the kid, Mercer. Get him out of here.”
There was something white on the ground, next to the man’s head. It was a handkerchief, and when I picked it up-ignoring all crime scene protocol-it reeked of sickly sweet chloroform.
I told Mike and stuffed the cloth in my pants pocket, then reached for the card in the man’s outstretched hand. It identified him as a caretaker of the New York Marble Cemetery.
Lethal Legacy Page 32