Murder in Greenwich Village

by Lee Harris

  “What did Sal do when the trial was over?”

  “He got a job. I can’t remember what. He’s had a lot of jobs. Most of them don’t interest him, so he doesn’t stick with them long. And it’s not easy to find work when you’ve got a record.” She looked pained, as though the world had slighted Manelli when he deserved a fair shake.

  “He got out of jail recently,” Jane said.

  “That was so unfair. He was meeting someone in a bar, a guy who owed him money. The guy didn’t have it and they started arguing. Sal got so mad, he threw a punch, and the bartender called the police and had Sal arrested for assault. It was a trumped-up charge, believe me.”

  “You’ve been on vacation the last week or so. Where did you go?”

  “We got a little cabin in the Catskills. It’s so nice up there, cool at night. You can do a lot of walking, even fishing if that’s your thing.”

  “Were you together all the time?”

  “You mean like did we stick together like glue? No. Sal likes to walk early in the morning and I’m not a morning person. I’d rather go after breakfast. I need my coffee first thing.” She had finished her cup and Jane signaled for refills.

  “He get any calls while he was there?”

  “Phone calls? I don’t know. He has a cell. I don’t remember if he used it. The cabin didn’t have a phone. If you wanted to make a call you had to hike a mile to a grocery store.”

  “Did he meet anyone while you were up there?”

  “You mean like a friend? I didn’t see anyone. Why are you asking? This was a vacation. We didn’t do any entertaining. We just wanted a rest and some peace and quiet.”

  “Did you know that Sal quit his job at the shoe store?”

  Franklin’s face became fearful. “That’s not true. He just took unpaid vacation. He didn’t work there long enough to get time off. He’s going back to work on Monday.”

  Jane said nothing. Sal would keep up the hoax as long as he got away with it. It was the way he lived. She looked at her watch. They had been at the table for half an hour. If Defino had been as successful talking to Sal, together they wouldn’t have one untainted piece of information.

  “All right, let’s get back. It’s after four.”

  “I hope I’ve been helpful,” Franklin said.

  “I hope you’ve been truthful.”

  “Why should I lie to you?” She used the voice of an innocent.

  Jane dropped some bills on the table and said, “Let’s go.”

  9

  JUDITH FRANKLIN RANG the doorbell to alert Sal, and put the key in the lock. Inside, she called, “We’re back,” in a lilting girlish voice. When no answer came she cooed, “Hello?”

  Jane moved past her to the empty living room, where, she saw, a floor lamp had been knocked over. She unholstered the Glock, feeling a chill. Hurrying, she checked the kitchen— empty—and the bedrooms in the rear of the apartment, also empty. “Gordon?” she called. The apartment was silent.

  “They must’ve gone out,” Franklin said.

  In the larger bedroom the window that opened onto a fire escape was closed and locked, and dust had accumulated on the horizontal surface. A smaller bedroom was made up as a guest room, and no one was there. Jane opened the closet door but found nothing but clothes. She passed the bathroom on her way to the kitchen, feeling adrenaline moving through her and hoping it would outweigh the beginnings of panic. Except for the two women, the apartment was empty.

  “Any note from them?” she asked Franklin.

  “I don’t see any. Maybe they went out for a beer.”

  Jane pulled her cell phone out and dialed Defino’s number. He didn’t answer. She called McElroy’s number at 137 but he was apparently gone for the day. She tried Annie, then MacHovec, which was a joke. Finally she keyed the number for Graves.

  Everyone was gone. She called McElroy’s cell number. He was probably on his way home, somewhere between 137 and a train, or already on a train.

  He answered quickly.

  “Lieutenant, Jane Bauer. We may have a situation here.” She gave him the details quickly.

  “A lamp overturned?”

  “Yes.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Not that I’ve seen. I’ve only looked quickly. But that lamp is his message to me. He didn’t leave voluntarily.”

  “Give the Six a call. He could be interrogating Manelli in the house. And keep me informed.”

  “Yes, sir.” She dialed the Six and gave her name and shield number to the sergeant, and then on his request, her tax registry number, which he could use to confirm her identity. Finally, she asked if Defino was at the precinct with a suspect. As she waited for an answer, she watched Franklin, who had become pale and tense during the phone calls.

  “Sorry, Detective,” the sergeant’s voice came back at her. “No outside commands in the interview rooms.”

  She left a message for Defino, in case he showed up, then turned to Franklin. “All right, Judy. My partner is missing and Sal is with him somewhere. You are now going to talk to me truthfully. You lie and my partner is hurt, you are an accessory to a violent crime.”

  “How could I know anything? I was with you.”

  “Were you or Sal expecting anyone this afternoon?”

  She shook her head. “I wasn’t, and he didn’t say anything.”

  “During your vacation, did he meet anyone? Did you see him talking to anyone?”

  “Um . . .”

  “Judy, a police officer is missing and I have to find him before something terrible happens. If you know something, you tell me now.”

  “One day, maybe yesterday, maybe two days ago, I thought I saw someone through the trees talking to Sal.”

  “Was there a car?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Did you recognize this person?”

  “I couldn’t even see them clearly. It was a man, I’m sure of that. That’s all I can tell you. They were standing and talking. I thought maybe Sal met someone from one of the other cabins and they were just being neighborly.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “A man, I don’t know.”

  “Was he black or white?”

  “White, thinner than Sal, not much hair.”

  “You ever see him before?”

  “I don’t know. He was just a man through the trees.”

  “Stay here. I’m going downstairs. Don’t touch that lamp.” She went down to the street and wrote down the plate numbers of the cars parked on both sides. Then she went into the dry cleaner across the street and asked if they’d noticed two or three men getting into a car or van in the last half hour.

  “There was a blue van parked illegally across the street for a while,” the woman said. “I noticed it because a car was honking at it to move. They should know better but they never do. Then I looked over and it was gone.”

  “Any lettering on the side?” Jane asked.

  “Nothing. Just blue. Could’ve used a paint job.”

  “Thanks.” She dashed back, went upstairs, and rang the bell to Philip Sklar’s apartment.

  “You,” he said. “Didn’t I just talk to you a little while ago?”

  “Mr. Sklar, did you see anyone go in or out of the Franklin apartment this afternoon?”

  “I didn’t see but I heard. Remember you asked about men’s voices ten years ago? I don’t know about ten years ago but this afternoon, just a little while ago, I heard them, men’s voices. How do you like that?”

  “How many voices did you hear?”

  “Two anyway. And people going downstairs. But I didn’t look out so I can’t tell you who it was.”

  “Thanks.”

  She banged on Franklin’s door and, once inside, made a careful search of the apartment, checking her watch as she moved. Time was passing too quickly and she had accomplished little. Aside from the lamp, nothing else seemed awry. She asked Franklin several times if things were correctly placed and she said yes each
time.

  “You’re sure nothing’s missing? Sal’s suitcase is here?”

  “I’ll look again.” Franklin went to the master bedroom. “It’s here,” she called. “It’s in the closet. Mine’s on the bed where I left it.”

  A blue van parked illegally. That meant another person in addition to Sal. He knocks on the door, Defino stands back and lets Sal answer while Defino watches. The other man—or two men—come in, enough to overpower Defino, who might not have had his weapon out, as he wasn’t expecting trouble.

  How did they get him to go downstairs without making the kind of racket that would motivate Phillip Sklar to call 911?

  “His raincoat’s gone.”

  “What?”

  “Sal’s raincoat. He walked in the apartment with his suitcase and went into the bedroom to take off his raincoat. It was on the bed the last I saw it, and now it’s gone. Maybe he put it on when he left with the other detective.”

  Or maybe they threw it over Defino while they took him down the stairs, and told him they’d kill him if he made a sound. Jane looked at her watch again. They could be in any of the five boroughs by now, in New Jersey through the tunnel, or on their way to Long Island. She pulled out her cell phone to call McElroy when the phone rang.

  “Lieutenant McElroy. What’s going on?”

  “He hasn’t been seen in the station house. The store across the street saw a blue van parked in front of this building about the time Gordon disappeared. No ID on it. A man’s black raincoat is missing from this apartment.”

  “I see. Describe the building.”

  She told him it was a brownstone, two apartments on a floor, Franklin’s on three. She described her search of the premises, and the lack of any message except the lamp lying across the sofa.

  “OK. I think it’s time to call in the Borough Detective Task Force. Let them get started canvassing. I’ll get back to Centre Street as soon as I can. I’ll leave a message for Inspector Graves. I don’t like the look of this. We’ve got a murder in Rikers Island, a weapon missing from an armory for over ten years found in Riverside Park, and now a detective missing along with one of the original suspects in the Anthony case.”

  “Right on all three.”

  “Get yourself back to Centre Street as soon as the borough detectives arrive. Don’t hesitate to call.”

  “Yes, sir.” She hung up and called the task force, going through the identification process once again and explaining the situation. She spoke to a lieutenant who promised two detectives ASAP and as many as might be needed later. Off the phone, she called back the Six and asked to be connected to the sector car that covered Minetta Street.

  The car was only a block away, and they drove over rather than talk on a staticky line. Officers Piedmont and Glover pounded up the stairs, something exciting finally happening on their watch.

  “A blue van?” Piedmont said. He looked at Glover for confirmation. “Yeah, we saw it.”

  “Yeah,” Glover agreed. “It was pulling out when we came up Minetta.”

  “You remember anything about it?” Jane asked.

  “A Ford maybe. Double doors in the back.”

  “Can you give me a time?” Jane asked.

  “Right near the beginning of our tour. Could’ve been four thirty.”

  “Shit, we just missed them. You didn’t see anyone get into it?”

  “They were moving when I saw it,” Piedmont said.

  “OK. Thanks, guys.”

  “Anything we can do?” Glover asked.

  Jane shook her head. All she could do now was wait for the borough detectives to show up, then go back to Centre Street and put in a hellish weekend.

  When the sector cops had gone, she made the call she had left for last. They needed MacHovec on this. MacHovec was the best researcher she had ever known, even if he rarely got off his ass or put in a second of overtime.

  He answered on a cell phone she knew he carried but that never rang in the office, not that hers or Defino’s did during the workday.

  “Sean, it’s Jane. We’ve got a problem.”

  She had anticipated trouble from him, excuses for not working at night or over the weekend. The brief pause between her explanation and his answer was the only hesitation.

  “I’m almost home. I’ll take a shower and come back. It sounds like a long night.”

  “A long weekend.”

  “Yeah. See you later.”

  After the detectives came, she did the same thing.

  10

  MCELROY WAS ALREADY back at 137 when she arrived. One team of detectives had been requisitioned and another might be called. Inspector Graves had been informed and would show up if needed.

  The two detectives arrived first and sat with Jane and McElroy to be briefed. They would try to track down every known business and personal associate of Sal Manelli, talk to as many as they could reach, and attempt to find the missing suspect. The detectives set up an office in the conference room and carried in computers not in use and telephones. By the time they got started, MacHovec arrived.

  “Anything?” he said.

  “Nothing.” She told him what was going on in the conference room.

  “Why don’t we try Randolph? They’ve got Manelli covered.”

  “OK.”

  MacHovec flicked on the computer and began to work. “Tell me what happened,” he said. “I probably have enough of a brain left to key and hear at the same time.”

  She ran through the visit to Franklin’s apartment, the interview in the coffee shop, the return to the empty apartment.

  “Just one lamp?”

  “Just one. I think Gordon kicked it over to send me a message.”

  “Could be.”

  “The rest of the apartment was untouched. The man across the hall heard at least two men’s voices and footsteps going downstairs.”

  “Gotta be more than two. Defino didn’t let that creep get his gun all by himself.”

  “Right.” She told him about the van. He nodded and hit the print key and paper started flowing out of the printer.

  “There’s enough here for both of us for a while.” He handed her one sheet, put the other down on his desk, and picked up the phone.

  Names, addresses, and phone numbers filled her page. She began with a man named James Randolph Jr., a brother. A woman answered. She had never met James’s brother Carl and didn’t know where he lived. It was news to her that he was in jail. What had he done? Her voice turned up like a child’s. No, she said, James wasn’t home just now but maybe later. Try back about eight.

  Jane hung up and listened to MacHovec’s call for a moment. It sounded no more enlightening than hers had been. Either Randolph had trained his family well, or he kept his life so separate from theirs that they honestly knew nothing.

  MacHovec put his phone down. “You try the wife,” he said, switching sheets.

  “I’m out of charm, but I’ll give it a try.”

  Randolph had spoken fondly of his family when they saw him at Rikers. Maybe there was a relationship there, a wife who might believe she could help him.

  “I hear he’s in jail,” the woman at the other end said in answer to Jane’s first question.

  “Does he live at your address, ma’am?”

  “Well, he drops in now and then, when he needs a good meal, you know?”

  “Mrs. Randolph, do you know who his friends are?”

  “You askin’ me about girlfriends?” The voice turned cool.

  “No, ma’am. I’m trying to locate someone who might have done business with your husband.”

  “He got a brother James and he got another one, Raymond. I could give you their numbers.”

  She took them, although they were already on MacHovec’s sheet. “Do you have children?” she asked.

  “I got a son and a daughter.”

  “Are they at home with you?”

  “They’re grown-up now. They got apartments of their own.”

  Nothing Ran
dolph had said was true. “Do you know where your husband stays when he’s not with you?”

  A breathy silence. “My daughter knows. I’ll give you her number.” She gave numbers for both of them and ended the conversation.

  “I hope they put him away for a thousand years,” she said when she hung up.

  “Randolph?”

  “Yeah. What a shit. Here, you take the son; I’ll take the daughter.”

  They developed some new contacts, but no new information. No one knew anything; no one was talking. Most of them swore they hadn’t seen Randolph in a long time. But they were Randolph’s friends and relatives; they would swear to anything.

  At eight Jane got back to James Jr. He was actually there and they had what passed for a conversation. He sounded high on something, slurring words, answering questions that hadn’t been asked, gliding past those she needed answers to, humming a tune. She was glad to get off the phone.

  The phone rang almost immediately.

  “Jane?” It was a frightened female voice. “It’s Toni Defino.”

  “Toni. We’re all working to find him.”

  “What happened? Lieutenant McElroy called. I was going crazy. Gordon’s always on time or he calls.”

  Jane sketched it out, omitting details. “We’re going to find him, Toni. It’s just a matter of time.”

  “This seemed like such a safe job. I kidded him about taking his gun to work.”

  “I promise you, I’ll call the minute we know something.”

  “I’m scared.”

  “I know. I am too. But Gordon’s smart, and we’re smart, and we’ll find him.”

  She got off the phone and let out a breath.

  “You lie as well as Randolph’s family,” MacHovec said.

  “I didn’t know what to say. Jesus, where did they take him?”

  “You want a list?”