Murder in Hell's Kitchen

by Lee Harris

  “Does he answer when you call?”

  “Always.”

  “Give me a minute,” Defino said, and Jane took Mrs. Johnson out of the kitchen. He would be calling the telephone company now for the ownership of the cell phone. If it didn’t belong to Johnson himself, it might give some indication of whom he worked for.

  They sat in the living room, neither of them saying a word. After a few minutes, Defino came back, holding a piece of paper from the kitchen pad.

  “Our Mr. Johnson works for the U.S. Department of Commerce and has a pool phone. It’s paid for by the communications section of the department. They don’t have a record of his name as a subscriber, so I guess he just takes what they give him.”

  Mrs. Johnson’s eyes widened as she listened. “How did you find that out?”

  “We call him?” Defino said, ignoring her and addressing Jane.

  She nodded. “We’d like you to call your husband,” she said. “Is he in Washington today?”

  “I think so.”

  “Dial his number.”

  They went back to the kitchen and Mrs. Johnson dialed. Defino walked over to listen. Johnson must have picked up on the second or third ring, because his wife began talking. “The police are here,” she said. “They want to know where you are. They want to take me down to the precinct.”

  There was an exchange of conversation, and Defino took the phone from her. “Mr. Johnson, this is Detective Defino of the Special Homicide Squad. Detective Bauer and I want to talk to you concerning the murder of Wallace Caffrey, aka Henry Soderberg.”

  Defino walked the phone over to Jane and let her listen. Johnson responded to Defino’s statement with silence, realizing that the police knew something they should not have known. “Leave my wife alone,” he said finally. “She doesn’t know anything about my work and she can’t help you. I’ll come back voluntarily if I have your assurance that you’ll let her be.”

  They worked out a deal over the phone. Johnson would return to New York on the next plane he could get on. He would call Jane’s phone every half hour until he was on the plane. He wanted his wife at the airport when they met him. They promised to have her there.

  Finally he spoke to his wife again and outlined the agreement. She accepted it and Defino reiterated his own acceptance.

  They decided to stay with Mrs. Johnson until they heard that Johnson was on his way and knew which of the three airports he would be landing at. Then they would take the woman to the airport.

  “Shouldn’t be too long,” Defino said, “if he heads out to the airport right away. Hope he comes to LaGuardia. It’s a bitch of a ride out to JFK.” The tension was gone from his voice. The act was over. They had succeeded.

  “Maybe we’ll find something out,” Jane said. “It’s about time.”

  27

  CARL JOHNSON MUST have been nervous, because he stuck to the every-half-hour schedule of calls they had imposed on him, and he was on a plane in less than an hour. It was due in at LaGuardia at one-thirty, and they started out for the airport as soon as they got the word.

  They were driven in two radio cars, one from Midtown North and one from the Two-oh. Taking two cars from one precinct would leave them short, so they stole a car from the Two-oh for the ride out to the airport. One would later return Mrs. Johnson to her home; the other would take Jane, Defino, and Johnson to the Centre Street office. The plane was only ten minutes late, and Johnson was the second person off. When he saw his wife, he hurried toward her and embraced her. She was sobbing, and he comforted her until she had calmed herself. He had no luggage, so they walked out to the roadway and got into their separate cars.

  They drove one behind the other till they exited the Triboro Bridge in Manhattan. Then Mrs. Johnson’s car followed One Hundred Twenty-fifth Street across town to the West Side and Jane’s car traveled on the FDR south.

  The three people in the backseat said little, while the uniformed men in the front kidded around and gossiped. At Centre Street, they sent the sector car back uptown and went upstairs to the only small empty room on the floor, where MacHovec joined them. Johnson called his wife first and made sure she was safely home. Satisfied, he sat at the table and waited.

  “What kind of work were you and Henry Soderberg doing at QX Electronics?” Jane asked.

  “I spoke to my supervisor before I left D.C.,” Johnson said, “and he’s given me the OK to tell you what this is all about. May I give you some background?”

  “Give us all the background you want. We need to understand what the three of you were doing that would get Soderberg murdered.”

  “American companies do business with many countries of the world that by law are restricted in what materials can be shipped to them. I am talking about munitions, technology, weapons systems, anything that could be used against the United States.”

  “Makes sense,” Defino said.

  “It does, but there are overzealous American companies that don’t want to adhere to the rules because there’s big money in shipping prohibited technology to overseas buyers. Our job was twofold. One part was to see how honest these companies are and to prevent them from exporting illegal materials. The other side of it was a sting operation. We let it be known that we could obtain and ship the weapons systems used to launch missiles and rockets.

  “At one time, those systems would fill a boxcar. Today, because of miniaturization, those chips, circuits, and software fit in a suitcase, making it easy to hand over a whole weapons system to someone walking down the street.”

  “That’s pretty scary,” Defino said. “So Soderberg wasn’t selling electronic equipment.”

  “Actually, much of the time he was out trying to buy it.”

  “What made Soderberg the man for this kind of job?” MacHovec asked from his end of the table.

  “In the military, his specialty was electronic warfare systems. He started in communications, encrypted systems, and later countermeasures. He was an investigator and information gatherer. His onboard experience with the working pieces made him the ideal player for this business. And he played the part remarkably well. He was very believable.” Johnson closed his eyes for a moment. He looked exhausted, as though he’d been up since Friday night trying to fix the trouble that Jane had uncovered. “Do you suppose I could have a cup of coffee?”

  “Sure.” Jane stood and took orders. She came back with Annie, each carrying two cups and the requisite extras.

  Johnson removed the lid from his container and sipped without adding anything. He took a deep breath and sipped again. “I haven’t slept much,” he said. “I didn’t know until you visited on Friday that Henry had been murdered, although it was a possibility we discussed when he died. Nothing happened after his death, but if you’re stirring up the waters, there’s no telling what could happen now. Anyway . . .” He drank some more coffee.

  “What Henry was trying to do was play the part of a middleman who was buying weapons systems for an Asian country. He wanted to see whether the seller was obeying the law by refusing to sell. Since the potential sellers were private companies, that happens to be the responsibility of the Department of Commerce, and that’s who we all worked for.”

  “Commerce sounds so harmless,” Defino said.

  “It is harmless.”

  “But you set up a shell corporation to get the job done.”

  “That was the easiest way. We had an address, an office, a phone, an e-mail address. You could fax us, talk to us, make appointments with us. We were real people doing a real job, just the job wasn’t what it seemed to be. Henry went out and tried to buy systems for a country we could not export it to. When he found a company that was willing to break the law, he worked the case to a point where we had solid evidence, names, commitments, and then turned it over to the department, and they took it from there.”

  “Were you aware that Henry Soderberg was an assumed identity?” Jane asked.

  “I had some suspicions but we didn’t discuss it.
When Henry didn’t come in to work and didn’t call in, I called him at his apartment several times, but there was no answer. Finally I called the police and reported him missing. They got back to me after a day or so and said he had died in a fall down some stairs in his building. I called our supervisor in Washington and told him what had happened. It was at that point that I learned Henry’s real name as well as his wishes for the disposition of his body. I had the body sent to a funeral home in New York and from there to one in Arlington. It was Henry’s wish that the Navy League take care of his interment. I let them know that Wallace Caffrey’s body would be arriving under the name of Henry Soderberg.”

  “Why would he need this identity to do his job?”

  “What I was told when I reported Henry’s death was strictly on a need-to-know basis, and I’ve never learned anything further, although I’m sure the department knows all there is to know about Henry. He mentioned he had done some undercover work for another branch of the government prior to our work at Commerce. I don’t know the nature of that work, but I believe it was more dangerous and more secret than what we were doing. He could have worked for the CIA, but that’s just conjecture. Whatever he did, it’s my belief that he kept the name he assumed for that job. What probably happened is that someone at Commerce knew someone at Henry’s old job who recommended him for what we were doing. There’s a kind of old-boys’ network that goes into play when you’re looking for an operative.”

  “What became of Ray Kellner, the third man in your office?” Jane asked.

  “When I reported Henry’s death, I was told to begin closing down the operation. Ray was transferred to Washington, and he’s been working there since we closed down QX.” He reached for a pad on the table and wrote on it, then pushed it across to Jane.

  “What country or company were you dealing with at the time of Soderberg’s death?” Defino asked.

  “Several. There were always a number of deals going on at any one time. It wasn’t a sequential thing. I had some records in my apartment until Detective Bauer showed up on Friday. When I left on Saturday morning I took them with me, and they are now at Commerce. But I looked them over after your visit.” He glanced at Jane. “I think we were working on deals leading to North Korea and China.”

  “Stings,” MacHovec said.

  “Stings, yes. But Henry himself was attempting to buy from at least one American company that is no longer in existence.”

  “Was he personally involved in the Korean and Chinese stings?” Jane asked.

  “He was. He had met with a representative of each of those countries at least once.”

  “Where did he meet them?”

  “It depended. Sometimes in a park, sometimes at a coffee shop. He didn’t go to fancy restaurants. I saw his vouchers.”

  “Did he carry a weapon?” Jane asked.

  “I don’t believe so. But he had been a SEAL in the navy, and that time never wore off. He kept himself in top physical shape at a local martial-arts dojo. I picked him up once and had a chance to watch his workout. It was intense and pretty scary. Which makes it so odd that someone got the best of him.”

  “Did Henry Soderberg tell you that someone who lived in his building was murdered?”

  “Yes. He came in one day and said he had found the body at the bottom of the stairs, just inside the front door.”

  “Did he say anything else? Did he think that murder had anything to do with him?”

  “Not at all. He said it looked as though the man had been followed inside at night and had probably been killed for his money.”

  “Except no money was taken,” Defino said.

  “He must not have known that.”

  “And the man who was murdered had a strong physical resemblance to Henry Soderberg,” Jane said.

  “I see.” Johnson’s forehead furrowed. He didn’t come across as a good actor, more of an honest and concerned man. “What you’re saying is that the victim of that attack was meant to be Henry.”

  “That’s what we think.”

  “They waited a long time to get Henry.”

  “The police were in and out of that building for months, investigating the other murder. Whoever killed Soderberg waited till they were finished with their investigation so that no one would make the connection.”

  “And they made it look like an accident.”

  “Right. With no police investigation.”

  “So no connection.” He drank some more coffee, then stuffed his napkin into the empty container. “Then what you really want to know is not who we were dealing with when Henry died, but who we were dealing with when the first man died.”

  “You got it,” Defino said.

  “And that was months earlier.”

  “About six months. You have any recollections?”

  “There was a deal with two Chinese nationals; I remember that. Both of them met with Henry; I never did. He called them operatives, I know that. Henry went to an agreed destination with a suitcase of what was supposed to be the chips and circuits of a weapons system. He had worked on the deal for some time, and Washington had decided to close it down. The men came with money. They were arrested by the FBI on the spot. End of story as far as we were concerned.”

  “Why was it the end?” MacHovec asked from his distant position. “Wasn’t there a trial? Didn’t you turn over evidence?”

  “We turned over everything we had. We never heard anything more about it. Maybe they had diplomatic immunity. Maybe the government made a deal and got them back to China. I couldn’t tell you.”

  “Maybe they were madder ’n hell and got someone to kill Soderberg,” Jane said.

  “You may be right.” He looked troubled, as though trying to decide whether to add something. “Let me tell you a little more about it,” he said finally. “Henry said that when he met with the two operatives, he noticed someone on a park bench nearby.”

  “Man or woman?” MacHovec asked.

  “That’s just it; he wasn’t sure. It was a person, a shadow in the dark on a bench. When the FBI took the two men into custody, Henry glanced over at the bench and saw that the person was gone, so he took off to find whoever it was. He was unsuccessful, but that didn’t end it. Henry was a tiger. Give him the scent of blood and you couldn’t stop him. He contacted people he knew in Washington, put out bait, did everything he could to track down whoever had observed the scene in the park that night. He was sure that person was either a backup for the operatives or an observer to keep them honest with the money, but definitely part of the Chinese team. I would estimate it wasn’t long after that that the man in Henry’s building was killed.”

  “Did he keep after this guy after Quill was killed?” Defino asked.

  “Till the day he fell down the stairs. And he told me at the end that he was close. He said he could smell blood.”

  MacHovec sighed loudly. It was one of his habits that made Defino ready to kill. Defino shot him a quick look, as though telling him to keep his mouth shut, but MacHovec had learned to ignore Defino.

  “Mr. Johnson,” Jane said, “did Henry Soderberg ever tell you there might be someone living in what was thought to be an empty apartment on the top floor of his building?”

  At that moment there was a knock on the door and Annie stuck her head in. “Sorry to bother, but he says it’s important. It’s Detective Bracken.”

  Jane looked at her watch. “Let’s take a break. I’ll pick it up.” She returned to the office and pressed the button next to the flashing light. “Jane Bauer.”

  “Jane, Charlie Bracken. We’ve located Derek, the super.”

  “Is he alive?”

  There was a pause. “Yeah. What did you expect?”

  “I didn’t know what to expect. Charlie, we’re interviewing an important witness. Can I get back to you?”

  “Sure. I’ll keep him here. He said he’s hungry so I’ll fill his face.”

  “Thanks.” That was good news. She hung up and went back to the int
erview room. On the table her notebook was open to the diagram that she had drawn on the plane, showing the connections between Soderberg and the others in the building where he lived. She looked at it as she sat down: Soderberg and Margaret Rawls, Soderberg and Hutchins, Hutchins and Worthman. She looked up. “Bracken’s got Derek,” she said.

  “Hey, hey,” MacHovec said. “Dead or alive?”

  “Alive and hungry. Bracken’ll hold on to him till we’re finished here. Where were we?”

  “You asked about someone living on the top floor,” Carl Johnson said. “I don’t understand the relevance and I don’t recall Henry talking about it, but he kept a lot to himself. He always said it was safer that way. Also, that wasn’t our job.”

  “There’s a possibility that someone was squatting in the empty apartment on the fourth floor, and when Henry came upstairs to change the lightbulb, the squatter came out and killed him,” Jane said.

  Johnson seemed to be having difficulty coming to terms with what he was learning. “You think this squatter was staying in that apartment waiting for the chance to kill Henry?”

  “That’s what we think, Mr. Johnson.”

  “This is unbelievable. Ray and I were just plain lucky then.”

  “It looks that way.”

  “I hope my wife is safe.”

  Jane hoped so, too. They had left LaGuardia in two cars, and if she was tailed, she assumed the tail would continue to follow her car, but there was a chance it hadn’t. There was also a chance another tail had been brought in. “Why don’t you call her? You’ll feel better.”

  They waited while he made the call, a brief exchange between husband and wife.

  “She’s all right. One of the police officers is staying with her till I get there.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.” Jane smiled, feeling better herself. She looked at Defino and MacHovec to see if there was anything else they wanted to ask.

  “If you find anything in your files from those Chinese operatives,” Defino said, “we’d sure like a look at it.”

  “I understand. I intend to return to Washington as soon as we’ve packed and the movers have picked up our things. I’m not leaving my wife alone in this city after what I now know.”