by Lee Harris
He hung up and started writing. When he finished, he passed the sheet of paper across the desk. It was a brief description of the events of the night. Jane corrected a detail and passed it back.
“I’ll need the map,” he said.
“I’ll make a copy. It doesn’t belong to me.”
“Who knows about this find?”
“You, me, and the man who took me underground. He understands the importance of secrecy.”
“You tell a boyfriend where you were going? A girlfriend? Your mother and father?”
“No, sir.”
“Then it’s three people. We keep it at three. I’m delivering this letter to the Major Case Squad in a sealed envelope. They’ll get some detectives to go down and guard the stash. Get me a copy of that map. Make it two.”
“Yes, sir.”
When she returned to his office, he was writing the letter on a UF49, uniform force, in longhand, as Annie was not there to type it. He took the maps from her and set them aside.
“Anyone turn anything up?” she asked.
“Nothing. Manelli’s girlfriend got herself a lawyer, but I don’t think she has any idea where Manelli is. She’s home now, and we’ve put a bug on her phone.”
“That’s good.”
“That scumbag won’t call her. She’s a convenience in his life even if he’s more than that to her.”
“Right.”
“Anything else you want to tell me?”
“I wish there were.”
“Go home and sleep. You think all the missing guns are there?”
“I didn’t count. But there are some grenade launchers, too.”
“I’ll have to find out if they were listed as missing. If you get any cute ideas this weekend, you check with the lieutenant before you do anything.”
“I will.”
“I’ll see you Monday.”
She picked up her jacket and dragged herself home.
“You still got your shield?” Hack’s voice said in her ear.
“For the moment.”
“I could use a few grenade launchers. Maybe we’ll make a trip down there together.”
“Hack, I’ve had my fill of rats and water bugs for the rest of my life. It’s late, I’m tired, and after my tenth shower, I’m going to bed.”
“I’ll join you. We’ll have a good brunch together.”
“Don’t wake me.”
She didn’t hear him enter the apartment, but she woke briefly when he slid in beside her. “If it’s not Chief Hackett,” she mumbled, “I’m too tired to get my gun.”
“I’ll give you mine.”
She scrambled across the bed to press her bare back against the warm, hard, naked front of his body. He kissed her shoulder and dropped his arm over her side, letting it rest there. Comforted, she fell asleep.
15
IN THE MORNING he went out to pick up the Sunday papers and the fixings for a New York–style Sunday breakfast: smoked sturgeon, whitefish salad, a couple of other cold salads, cream cheese, and onion-covered rolls that whetted the appetites of true New Yorkers everywhere. Waiting for him, she set the table, took out the frying pan, and remembered Paris.
After the case they had cleared in Alphabet City, she and Hack flew to Paris. A planned long weekend grew to a week, which they took in March. Neither had ever been there. They stayed in a small, elegant hotel on a residential street on the Left Bank, half a block from the Seine, with a view of the Eiffel Tower almost directly across the river. They walked miles and took the Metro, the trains so quiet on their rubber tires that their arrival in stations surprised them. They ate sandwiches of French ham and cheese on baguettes, sometimes in cafés, sometimes on the move, and dined fabulously and expensively at night. It was the longest period of time they had stayed together, and Jane could not deny how much she loved it. After ten years of an evening here, an afternoon there, a precious weekend away from New York, she sensed their staying power, their ability to talk about anything, to make each other laugh, to disagree and move on. Until the last night.
The key in the lock brought her back to her West Village apartment. Hack tossed the papers on the sofa and brought the bags into the kitchen.
“I forgot to ask you if you needed eggs.”
“I’ve got them.”
“Put the papers away for later.” He unpacked the groceries, and Jane set the fish and salads on the table, covering the bullet holes. When they had eaten, they moved to the living room, each taking a different paper to read. Eventually, they sat on the floor, tossing finished sections recklessly aside on the rug, making intermittent conversation, reading small items to each other, laughing. Hack picked up the Times crossword puzzle and started working on it, asking her for input until she worked her way over to where he was sitting to look at the clues herself.
It was two when they got off the floor and made their way to the bedroom, stripping each other as they went, leaving behind a trail of clothing, a living room that looked as though the heavens had opened and rained down newsprint, dirty dishes on the table in the kitchen, the puzzle and its clues on the sofa. In Paris they had made love in the afternoon and felt renewed. Anything you could do in a Paris hotel room, you could do in a New York apartment. They hadn’t been together for a while; sleeping and eating and reading and puzzle solving had made them hungry. But they were always hungry.
He kept her close as one pleasure subsided and another took its place. “Jane?” The voice near her ear.
“Hmm?”
“Fuck sunsets.”
Later they talked about the case. “Graves said they’ve bugged Manelli’s apartment,” she told him. “But he’s such a creep, he won’t even think to call his girlfriend.”
“So they’ve got Defino somewhere, and you’ve looked in some likely places and he’s not there.”
“And now I’m stuck. I’m terrified that they’ve killed him. What do they need him for?”
“Maybe to bargain, although I don’t see for what at this point. The kidnapping was almost an accident: A cop was there; they couldn’t let him go because they thought he knew something he probably didn’t know. They didn’t think; they just followed their instincts.”
“I suppose we can try to chase down every blue van, starting with Fords, in the five boroughs. And then find it came from New Jersey.”
“Get your friend MacHovec on it. He shouldn’t be spending a single second doing nothing.”
“I’ll talk to Curtis Morgan’s wife,” Jane said. “We’ve got her staying with a sister somewhere; I think I have the address. Morgan’s friends may also be Manelli’s friends. Maybe the bargain they want is for Randolph.”
“The guy in Rikers?”
“Yeah. The one who set all this in motion. That swine.”
“Don’t get personal. Just do your job.”
“Where did they put Defino?” It was a question to herself.
“Where the neighbors won’t be aware of a body. I need my ice cream.”
She grinned. “I picked up some chocolate syrup.”
“You are one good woman, Bauer.”
“Come and scoop it out of the container.”
After he left, she checked her notes. Mrs. Morgan’s sister also lived in Brooklyn, out near Kings Highway. That was far but not inconvenient to reach; the D train ran from West Fourth all the way out there. Jane took some unread parts of the paper with her and left the apartment.
The train ride was long and she finished the paper before she arrived. She walked up East Seventeenth Street to Quentin Road and found the apartment house for Mary Ann Gibbons. On the second floor she pressed the bell for 2C, and Emma Morgan herself opened the door.
“You’re the detective.”
“Detective Bauer, Mrs. Morgan. I’d like to talk to you.”
“Where are you taking me?” She looked fearful.
“We can talk right here.”
Emma Morgan backed up, letting Jane inside. They sat in the living room, a homey p
lace with pictures of weddings and babies. The sister looked in, asked if they wanted coffee, and left them alone.
“Mrs. Morgan,” Jane began, “we have a very serious situation. A police officer, a detective, has been kidnapped. We haven’t received any word from his kidnappers. All we’re sure of is that it ties in to the murder of Det. Micah Anthony ten years ago.”
“I don’t understand. My husband had nothing to do with that and I don’t know anything.”
“Your husband may not have known who killed Micah Anthony, but he knew the people involved in stealing the guns—guns that have never been recovered.”
“He told me he didn’t.” She was starting to look uncomfortable. “He said he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and he got arrested with those men. He stood trial and he was acquitted.”
“I know that. And I’m not here to besmirch your husband’s name. I know he died a long, painful death, and I’m sorry for that. What I need to know from you is who his friends were that worked with him on the subway.”
“You mean from the Lex?”
“I mean the Second Avenue subway. You said he was involved in the building of the tunnels.”
She shrugged as though to dismiss the question. “It’s so many years since he worked there. I haven’t seen any of those people—it could be twenty years.”
“What was the name of his supervisor?”
“Who, Collins?”
“Do you have a first name?”
“Larry, maybe, Larry Collins. No. Maybe it was Barry.
It’s hard to remember. I never knew him. Curt would come home and bitch about him. ‘We took too long a break. We didn’t clean up right.’ Things like that.”
“How about someone he liked, someone he maybe had a beer with after work?”
“That would be Holy Joe Riso,” she said quickly.
“Holy Joe Riso?”
“That’s what the men called him. He was a charmer. I met him a couple of times. He had me in stitches. His wife was this little woman who giggled a lot. They were made for each other, I used to tell Curt. He told the jokes; she laughed at anything he said.”
“You remember where he lived?”
Emma Morgan shook her head. “I was never there. We met in the city once or twice for a drink or dinner. Curt liked him. I could see why. The union’ll have his address.”
“Anyone else, Mrs. Morgan?”
She closed her eyes. “Someone named Willie. I don’t remember the last name. Oh, yes, there was also a Ronnie or Donnie something. Let me think. Parnell? Parelli? I think it was Parnell. They were friends for years, him and my husband. They even went fishing a few times, no women allowed.”
“That sounds good.” Jane looked up from her notes. “I’ll take all the names you can give me.”
Emma Morgan shook her head. “I’m surprised I remember that many. It’s been so long. What are you looking for, Detective Bauer? What can these men tell you?”
“I don’t know, but maybe one of them knows something that will help.” She waited a moment, hoping for another name or two, but Emma Morgan was finished. Jane shook her hand, thanking her for her trouble. “If anything comes to you . . .” she said.
“I have your card. I’ll call. But don’t hold your breath.”
Ten minutes later Jane was back on an almost empty D train heading for Manhattan.
On Monday morning she told MacHovec that she would keep quiet till Graves allowed her to talk. She knew Sean had figured out where she had gone, although he could not know about the find. By late the night before she was sure a detail of a boss plus a couple of detectives from the Major Case Squad had been dispatched to the site in the Second Avenue tunnel, where they would guard the boxes of guns and take into custody anyone coming near the storage area.
“I talked to Curtis Morgan’s wife again last night,” she told MacHovec. “She gave me some names of friends of his who worked on the subway. Also his supervisor, but it sounded like there wasn’t any love lost between them.” She passed the names across to him.
“Holy Joe?”
“That’s what Morgan called him. A jokester, according to Mrs. Morgan. She met him a couple of times.”
“I’ll give it a try. These guys may have retired by now.”
“Or died.”
“Or been done away with,” MacHovec said, meaning, she assumed, by the people around Carl Randolph.
Annie came by and said the whip wanted both of them in his office right away. She didn’t accompany them, but McElroy was there, and he closed the door behind them.
“What I’m about to say is top-secret,” Graves said without introduction. “Detective Bauer knows most of it.” He had become formal in addressing them, and his face reflected the seriousness of the situation. “On Saturday night Detective Bauer and an unknown person went into the Second Avenue subway tunnel and found the cache of weapons stolen from the armory over ten years ago, the weapons that figured in the death of Det. Micah Anthony.”
MacHovec gave Jane a look of surprise that was noticed by Graves. “I am told all two hundred twenty-six weapons are accounted for. In addition, several grenade launchers are packed away, ammunition, and some other assets. A lieutenant and three detectives from the Major Case Squad are guarding the find until we determine what the next move is. Defino’s life is in the jackpot here, and we don’t want to jeopardize it by removing the weapons. On that score, we are no closer to finding him than we were Friday night, although the team in the conference room has been looking into Manelli’s life with a fine-tooth comb. We have a tap on Manelli’s phone at the Franklin address on Minetta Street, but so far he hasn’t called her. And her lawyer has ordered her to keep quiet.
“What I have told you doesn’t leave this room. You don’t talk to your wife and kids about it”—he looked at MacHovec—“or your parents or your lover or your girlfriends.” His eyes flicked over to Jane. “If you talk in your sleep, you’d better cover your mouth with duct tape. The chief of D’s is personally involved at this moment.” He stopped. “Any questions?”
Jane said nothing.
“The conference room is working on Manelli,” MacHovec said. “That leaves Morgan for us.”
“Sorry. I meant to say that. Where are you right now?” Jane briefed them on the previous night’s interview with Mrs. Morgan. “Sean’s about to look up the names she gave me.”
“That sounds like a good move. See if you can get more out of her, high school friends, neighborhood friends. Find out what school he went to. How old was he when he died?”
“About fifty.”
“And he worked on the subway in his twenties.”
“That’s the way it sounded.”
“You have her work address?”
“She’s a secretary at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. I’ll give her a call.”
“Get over there fast. Morgan’s got to be the key, now that we know about the subway connection.”
“Yes, sir.”
“This unknown person who accompanied you in the tunnel. How sure are you that he’s not involved?”
“I met him years ago, Inspector. I’d have to check records to find a date. He wouldn’t have led me to the stash if he’d been involved.”
Graves looked at his watch. “Get to work.”
It was what Jane wanted to do most.
16
BAM, THE UNIVERSALLY used acronym for the Brooklyn Academy of Music, was on Lafayette Street in Brooklyn, not a long trip on the subway. Jane decided not to call first, in case Mrs. Morgan decided to take some time off. It was midmorning when she arrived, and she found Emma Morgan at her desk in an office with several other workers. As Jane entered, Morgan’s eyes flitted uneasily from Jane to her coworkers, and she rose from her desk before Jane reached her.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I have to ask you more questions. It’s urgent.”
“I’ll talk to my supervisor.”
Jane watched as Morgan bent ov
er a desk, then returned to the door. “Come with me,” she said. She led the way to a grouping of comfortable chairs and they sat. “I’ve told you everything I know,” she said. “I thought about it after you left last night, but nothing else came to me.”
“I need to go deeper into your husband’s past,” Jane said.
“I want names of friends of his from high school, from the old neighborhood, people he went to kindergarten with. Brothers, sisters, cousins.”
“One brother is dead. His sister moved out to Los Angeles a long time ago. I haven’t seen her in years. She didn’t even make it in for Curt’s funeral. One brother . . .” She faltered. “His brother Tim is in jail.”
“What were the charges?”
“Armed robbery.”
Nice family, Jane thought. “Where did he work?”
“A company out on Long Island that makes tools.”
“He have a wife?”
“She divorced him after he was convicted. Not the kind that stands by her man.”
“Where’s he serving time?”
“Upstate in Attica.”
“Let’s go back to friends.”
They sat for another half hour while Emma Morgan searched her memory for names, addresses, and phone numbers. Jane took several pages of notes. Finally, the voice stopped.
“Your husband was arrested shortly before he died,” Jane said. “The man he was arrested with—how did your husband know him?”
“He never told me. When Curt left his job because he was sick, he just about went crazy. He was a man that needed something to do. He couldn’t sit around and watch TV. He wasn’t a cardplayer. He didn’t have friends he could hang with. Everyone he knew was working. He met this guy somewhere—Sommers I think his name is—and Sommers was looking for someone to . . . you know, what they got caught doing. Curt would go out at night sometimes; I didn’t know where, I thought maybe a bar. I didn’t ask him. Even if he came home late, I just kept quiet. Then one night he didn’t come home, and I got a call from him at two in the morning from the police station, telling me that I should get him a lawyer. That was the first I knew of what was going on.”
“That’s when he ended up in the hospital?”