by Lee Harris
“Sugar Hill it is. The Three-oh.”
Sugar Hill was an area north of Harlem whose residents were middle-class blacks. Many of the homes there were fine old town houses. The crime of Harlem did not extend to this community, nor did the poverty. But that was not what struck Jane.
“Sugar Hill,” she said again. “That’s where—”
“Right. Where Lt. John Beasely lives.”
39
“THERE’S A SUBWAY station at a Hundred Forty-fifth on both the Number One line and the A and D,” McElroy said when they were all together in Graves’s office. “One’s on Broadway; the other’s on St. Nicholas Avenue. He gets off the subway, makes his call, and walks home. I don’t know. I thought Beasely was clean.”
“Let’s slow down,” the inspector said. “He may be. Could Manelli have made this call? Could Manelli have shot Farrar?”
“Manelli could have shot Farrar,” MacHovec said, “but I don’t see what he gets out of it. And I don’t see Manelli taking the train up to the One-forties just to make a phone call so we can trace it later. Why did he call Farrar’s number and leave his Queens number if he just killed him?”
“Then we have to look at Beasely again,” Graves said.
“The homeless guy who saw the shooting of Farrar said it was a white man who did it,” Jane said. “His description is general enough to include Manelli. But I agree with Sean; I don’t see a motive.”
“Let’s think. Suppose the sarge tells Manelli to kill Farrar.”
“How does the sarge find Manelli?” MacHovec said.
“Through Farrar. Farrar is the conduit. Farrar has always been the conduit.”
MacHovec looked ready to explode. “You’re saying the sarge calls Farrar, tells Farrar to call Manelli and have him get back to the sarge? The sarge wouldn’t do that. He has to keep the discipline. No one can contact him except Farrar.”
“Calm down, Detective,” McElroy said.
“Yes, sir.” MacHovec muttered.
Jane restrained a laugh. Whatever else you could say about MacHovec, he didn’t beat around the bush.
“It works if the sarge is planning to kill Farrar anyway,” Graves said, sticking to his theory. “There are two possibilities here. One is that the sarge locates Manelli by calling Farrar’s number. Whether he talks to Farrar or the wife doesn’t matter, as long as Manelli has called first and left his new number in Long Island City.”
“According to the phone company, Manelli called Farrar’s number after Farrar was dead, or maybe during the day that Farrar was killed,” McElroy said in a peacemaking voice.
“The second possibility,” Graves said, ignoring McElroy, “is that the sarge killed Farrar and then called Farrar’s number to see if Manelli had reported in to Farrar. He has no other way to find Manelli. Randolph doesn’t know where he is. We couldn’t find him. So he gets lucky. Manelli has called in and left a phone number. The sarge calls Manelli and says to meet him in the Village or go down to the Village and make the phone call to the auto shop, leave a message, and then come back. He makes a trail we can follow, but the sarge is waiting for Manelli over in Queens and that’s it for Manelli.”
“Why does Manelli do it?” MacHovec asked. “It’s a wild-goose chase.”
“Because Manelli still believes the sarge is in charge and that there’s a big score for him at the end of the job.” Graves turned to Jane. “You working on that TA heist, Detective?”
“Yes, sir. We interviewed two suspects, got nothing promising.”
“Keep at it. Where was I? Manelli. If Manelli shot Farrar, the sarge could be black. If the sarge shot Farrar, either our information is wrong or your homeless man didn’t see straight, or Beasely’s not the sergeant. These phone calls to Farrar’s number: Did you check back before Farrar died?”
“No, sir,” MacHovec said, on good behavior again. “I just checked from the day he died forward.”
“Go back to the day before you found Defino. Manelli may have called in more than once, telling Farrar where he was staying. And maybe the sarge called in, too. I’d like to see what pay phones he used. The sarge may have told Manelli to call Farrar and leave the Queens phone number even after one of them killed Farrar just to lure our detectives up there. This is a smart guy.”
“Beasely’s smart,” McElroy said sadly.
“A Hundred Forty-fifth Street,” Graves said reflectively. “How many white men get off a train up there?”
“Some,” Jane said. “They walk up toward Washington Heights.”
“True.”
“You want us to do anything about Lieutenant Beasely?” McElroy asked.
“Not at the moment. Get back to work. Get a list of every call to and from Farrar’s phone from the day before Defino was found. Check out every sergeant in the TA and start talking to them. We are going to clear this case.”
“He’s right,” MacHovec said in their office. “We need to go back further in time, see who Farrar called.”
“Farrar didn’t use his phone for outgoing calls,” Jane said, “certainly not after Randolph made that last call. The sarge wouldn’t allow it. After that gun in Riverside Park, he had to know we were on his trail, that we might find Farrar and check his phone.”
“Why the fuck did he leave that gun there?” MacHovec asked.
“Because he’s a cocky bastard and he was playing with us. I’d like to get him just for that. Unless . . .” She considered. “Maybe Farrar acted on his own, decided to leave the gun in the park and the sarge offed him for it.”
“So the mistake was Farrar’s,” MacHovec said. He put in a call to the phone company, enlarging the scope of his request. Jane and Smithson went out for a late lunch. She really hated getting up late. It threw her day into chaos. They talked about the case. Graves had proved to be inventive. The idea that Manelli could have shot Farrar had occurred to neither of them.
“Graves has a brain,” Smithson said.
“And ambition.”
“Good combination. When he said Manelli could have shot Farrar, that hit me like a thunderbolt. It gives us Beasely as a possible for the sarge and makes Catty Fellows sound like a goddamn oracle. We just have to figure out the phone calls.”
“MacHovec’ll have that soon. These guys really come through for him. We have to start looking at Transit sergeants, Warren. Graves doesn’t want this to be Beasely. I don’t either. Mrs. Appleby is sure he’s OK. If it turns out he isn’t, she’ll be destroyed. This was her husband’s closest friend all his life.”
“Those are the breaks,” Smithson said breezily.
When they got back, Jane made the call to Mrs. Farrar, working her way through protective relatives.
“Detective Bauer?” Mrs. Farrar said finally.
“Yes. Mrs. Farrar, I know this is a difficult day for you, but I need to know if anyone besides me called to find out Sal’s phone number.”
“Someone may have called Charley and talked to him. I wouldn’t know about that.”
“If you find any written messages, would you get back to me?”
“Of course.” The weariness in the woman’s voice was a reminder of the ordeal this day had been for her. “Detective, if my husband got a call and I left a message for him, that message wouldn’t be around anymore. Charley was very good about cleaning off the answering machine tape and throwing away little pieces of paper. I’ll look, but don’t expect me to find anything.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Farrar.” Jane hung up. “I’ve pushed her as far as I can. She doesn’t remember anyone calling for Sal before the day of Charley’s death, and the message chits don’t go back that far. We’ll have to wait for the phone company to come through.”
“Tomorrow,” MacHovec promised. “What are you thinking?”
“That the call from Manelli on the day Farrar was shot was for show. It was to lead us up to the auto shop. I’m betting the sarge already knew where Manelli was. He found out from Farrar. He was checking to see what we knew, figuring even
tually we’d think to check Farrar’s phone.”
“So what’s the point? Why get us up there?”
“Maybe to arrest Manelli. Get him out of the sarge’s hair. Maybe to see what we know and when we found out.”
“So you think this guy, the sarge, is staking out the auto shop to see if we show?”
“He could be retired by now. He could—” Her phone rang and she picked it up.
“Detective Bauer, this is Mrs. Farrar. My sister-in-law tells me that a man called, she doesn’t know when but probably over the weekend, to ask if anyone had called to get Sal’s phone number. And someone called here yesterday—I talked to him. It was after you called and he asked the same thing. I said the police had called.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Farrar. I appreciate your calling.” She turned to MacHovec. “The sarge has been calling her number to find out if anyone else was looking for Manelli. He called yesterday after I talked to her. She told him the police had called.”
“OK, how’d he get hold of Manelli to make that call from the Village?”
“Manelli carries a cell phone. Farrar could have given the sarge the address in Queens. Or they had a time and place to call each other every day.”
“Just keeping you on your toes,” MacHovec said. “So the sarge knows we know where Manelli is. Maybe he calls Roger’s place and one of the guys tells him Manelli’s gone for the day. The sarge knows we’re gonna have people at the auto shop waiting for Manelli to come back. He tells Manelli to make that call from the Village and leave that message, then get a taxi or whatever and go back up to Queens. You won’t be there because you heard the message, checked with the phone company, and verified where the call came from. Maybe he doesn’t count on the local cops being there. But he’s sure he can get to Manelli before you get back to Queens.”
“It could work,” Smithson said. “He makes sure we won’t interrupt him while he takes care of Manelli. Except there are two detectives looking for Manelli when the sarge gets there.”
“And Manelli takes care of them. Don’t those guys look over their shoulders?” He looked at his watch and started printing out a file. “Here’s what I got on your sergeants. This is how you’re spending the rest of your life.”
The list was pages long, with retired people starred and dead ones starred twice. Jane passed a copy to Smithson and looked down the list to see if any names looked familiar. “How many sergeants do we have to check out?” she asked.
“Four hundred, give or take. There were about four thousand Transit cops at that time. About ten percent were sergeants.”
“Any women?”
“I noticed a few names. Probably not more than a dozen.”
“You hit it right, Sean. This is how we’re spending the rest of our lives. We’ll divide the list up tomorrow. Better cancel your vacations. Nobody’s going anywhere.”
“Start with the retired guys and the dead ones,” MacHovec said. “There’s less of them.”
“That wasn’t any dead man over in Queens last night,” Jane said.
“It’ll give you some Fives to fill the file. Graves likes thick files.”
“I want a living killer, not a lot of paper.”
“Hey, everybody wants something. Me, I want to go home.” MacHovec turned off his computer. “I’ll bet you he’s retired.”
“You’re on,” Smithson said. “He’s on the job.”
Jane was tempted to bet that the sarge was dead, but decided to keep her mouth shut. “See you tomorrow,” she said to MacHovec, who was locking his desk drawer. He waved as he flew out the door.
Jane took the list of sergeants home with her. MacHovec had included a history for each name so she could see what district each had worked out of ten years before and at the time of the cable truck thefts. She began with the names at the district closest to one of the thefts, although any Transit cop had access to any area of the subway system. Beasely was not among those names. Several were retired and a few were dead. After dinner she called the first retired cop on the list. He answered and she asked him what he remembered about the theft. Plenty, he said, although he had not worked the case.
He went on to tell her what she already knew and little else. She threw out a few names—Farrar, Morgan, Riso, Garland, and Crawford—but he claimed not to know who they were. Like many retired cops, he was eager to talk to her, to bring back the good old days, and she let him ramble, hoping something new would emerge, but it didn’t. She ended the conversation with thanks and went on to the next name.
It was more of the same, and so was the one after that. When she hung up, her phone rang. It was Hack.
“You talking to suspects?” he asked.
“I wish they were. They’re Transit sergeants who’ve retired. If they’re telling the truth, they know nothing, and I have no reason to doubt them, at least at this point.”
“Tell me what’s going on.”
She told him what had developed, the shooting of Manelli, the appearance of the sarge, whom no one except Manelli had eyeballed.
“You’re really moving,” he said.
“I thought so last night, but today we’re checking out four hundred sergeants, dead or alive, and this guy is smart enough to know how to answer questions. I started with the retired ones and all they want to do is reminisce.”
“Sounds familiar. Try the dead ones.”
She laughed. “That was my first idea, but this guy over in Queens last night was very much alive.”
“If he’s smart, he knows how to fake his death.”
“Then he loses his pension. And Social Security.”
“His wife’ll collect, and he probably put away enough to live on for a long time.”
“I’ll give it a try.”
They talked about other things till his phone card ran out. OK, she thought as she hung up. In the morning I’ll check out the dead guys.
40
BEFORE SHE HAD a chance to make her first call on Thursday morning, her phone rang.
“You got him killed, you miserable—” The woman broke into tears.
“Judy,” Jane said, recognizing the voice, “your friend Mr. Manelli was in a dangerous business. I’m sorry for your loss, but I’m not surprised at what happened.”
“He didn’t do anything,” Judith Franklin screamed into the phone. “He was in the wrong place that day when you were here. He’s dead now. My life is over. Who’s going to give me back my life?”
“I’m sorry. I can’t help you. Perhaps your family—”
“Thanks a lot.” The phone was slammed, and Jane felt relieved.
“Franklin?” Smithson asked.
“Yeah. Now I have to repair her broken life. How does a nice woman get involved with a creep like Manelli?” She dialed the number for the first dead cop on the list. The phone rang several times and then a machine answered with a man’s voice: “You have reached Garrett and Rosemary Fitzhugh. Leave a message and we’ll get back to you.”
She looked down at the list after hanging up. Garrett Fitzhugh was the name of the “dead” sergeant. According to MacHovec’s record, he had died more than three years before. She wrote a question mark next to the name and dialed the next dead man on the list. She talked to the dead man’s daughter, then his wife. The sergeant had talked about the big theft “because it was so spectacular.” But they had nothing to contribute.
To Jane’s left and right Smithson and MacHovec were also on the phone, talking to living cops or their families. She tried another dead cop and then another one. She was working her way down her share of the list. Each of them had over a hundred names, but Jane had reserved the dead and retired cops for herself.
By noon they had covered many of the names, although a third of them had to be called back. After lunch she tried the number for the dead cop, Garrett Fitzhugh. The same message came on and she hung up once again. Was he alive or dead? Had his wife kept the message out of sentiment? Or perhaps he was alive, unbeknownst to the Transit cops.
Defino called and said no one else except jokesters and creeps had called about the ad in the paper. He was bored and disappointed, and thought maybe he would take the subway in and they could have lunch and talk.
The call from the phone company came halfway through the afternoon. “The answer is yes,” MacHovec said. “Farrar got phone calls before the day of his death from pay phones and phone cards. I have to believe the pay phones were set-ups. The phone cards were used when the sarge didn’t have time to call from the right pay phone.”
“You’re saying it’s not Beasely?” Smithson asked.
“I’m just saying this guy is covering his tracks when he wants to. There’s one call from that phone in Sugar Hill and two calls from phone cards.”
Annie appeared at the door with the fax of the calls. She dropped it on MacHovec’s desk and left.
“OK,” he said, “now we know that the sarge could have known where Manelli was before Manelli left his own message.”
By late afternoon they were all making callbacks to numbers that had not answered. At four fifteen they hung up and exchanged information. Each of them had several favorites that rated face-to-face interviews.
“Let’s do this solo,” Smithson said. “I’ve got a Fourth of July vacation bought and paid for and I don’t want to be sitting here talking to Transit cops all summer.”
“Defino’ll be back by then,” MacHovec said. “He gets his OK from the doc, you’re outta here.”
“Thanks,” Smithson returned. “I’ll remember that.”
“How’d it go today?” the lieutenant asked from the door when the two men had left the office.
She gave him the gist of it, the calls, and the information from the phone company.
“Tell me, how are Smithson and MacHovec getting along?”
“We’re all working together, Loot. No problems.”
“Because MacHovec’s behavior yesterday with the inspector was almost over the line.”
“You know MacHovec,” Jane said. “He says what he thinks. It’s nothing personal.”