Murder in Greenwich Village

by Lee Harris

  “Another thing. I don’t know for sure that Bowman ordered Farrar to leave the Beretta in Riverside Park. That could have been Charley Farrar’s decision. I don’t even know if he told Bowman that Randolph had called.”

  “He had to,” Graves said. “Farrar wasn’t a decision maker. Maybe he just acted on impulse and left the Beretta. Which could be why Farrar had to go.”

  “Farrar had to go because Bowman was doing away with the links between himself and the men in the crib,” Defino said. “With Farrar gone and Manelli gone, Bowman was untouchable. Even if we offered Randolph a sweet deal, he had nothing to give us. He didn’t know who the sarge was, and no one except the sarge knew there was someone else in the hierarchy.”

  “Farrar knew after the sarge retired. A million-dollar heist and he gave all of it away to keep those guys quiet. One smart thief.”

  “He gave some of it away,” Jane said. “If you saw his apartment, you’d know he kept a good bit for himself.”

  “Kind of funny,” Graves said. “The sarge pulled a bigger heist to keep those guys quiet than they would have ever realized from the sale of the guns.”

  “But it kept them quiet.”

  “All right. I’m not with you a hundred percent, but we have to follow this up. We’ll need a couple of warrants, and I’d like you to handle those without Annie’s intervention. Write me up an application explaining why we have to search Captain Bowman’s office and home. We don’t need one for his locker; that belongs to the city.

  “Just one thing.” He looked at Jane, then at the other detectives. “This woman you found who you think was a friend of Bowman. How exactly did you come to her?”

  Smithson picked it up. “She lives on the block where Anthony was found. Jane thought the car that dropped him there may have been headed for a familiar location. Even if Bowman wasn’t in the car that night, he could have told Fitzhugh or Farrar to go there to get Anthony off the street till they decided what to do with him. Bowman would have had a key, and he could call the girl and tell her to let them in.”

  “We need her testimony. We need to know she knew Bowman, that Bowman had a key, if he did, and that she got a call from him that night, if she did.”

  “I’ll talk to her this evening,” Jane said. “She mentioned that she works. I think we should also check to see whether Fitzhugh or his widow sold or turned in a handgun.”

  “He wouldn’t do that,” Smithson said. “Not if he used it for a felony murder.”

  “Then we need a search warrant for her apartment.”

  “All right, Detectives. You’ve got a day’s work to do. I want those warrants before four o’clock, so let’s get cracking.”

  Graves hadn’t mentioned it, but Jane knew he would have to alert the chief of D’s to the situation. From the chief of Detectives’ office, word would go to the police commissioner’s office and then spiral out to the other super chiefs.

  Defino hung around, helping with the wording for the warrants. When Jane and Smithson went over to 100 Centre Street to get them, he took the subway to Queens. The warrants were issued by a judge who was less than pleased to do it, sorrowful that police officers might be implicated in one of the worst killings in department memory.

  The plan was to execute the Bowman warrants and the Fitzhugh warrant at nine A.M. Tuesday and take Bowman into custody. Jane and Smithson would be in on the collar, and Defino would make an appearance as well. She put the warrant for Bowman’s office in her bag. Detectives from two Queens precinct squads were on their way to pick up the warrant for Bowman’s home and for Fitzhugh’s apartment.

  At six thirty Jane walked over to Alicia Kislav’s apartment and rang the bell. This time she had a photo of Harold Bowman along with one of Garrett Fitzhugh.

  Alicia opened the door and smiled at her. “Detective Bauer,” she said with surprise. “Come in.”

  “Mrs. Kislav, we have to talk privately.”

  “I don’t know what else there is I can tell you. I answered all your questions the other day.”

  “I have some new ones.”

  Alicia left the room to talk to her husband, who looked in at Jane, then left with his son, going into a bedroom at the back of the apartment.

  “At the time that you moved into this apartment,” Jane began, “you were having a relationship with a man. Can you tell me his name?”

  Alicia smiled, looking flustered. “I’m sure I can’t remember. I went out with many men before I met my husband.”

  “I’m sure you did. You’re a beautiful woman. But this man caused friction between you and your roommate when you lived in Alphabet City. Tell me his name.”

  “It could have been that fellow Mark, I forget his last name, or Greg or Will—I really don’t know.”

  Jane put the photo of Bowman on the table in front of them and watched Alicia’s face. The eyes teared but nothing else showed. “What’s his name?”

  Alicia shook her head.

  “Mrs. Kislav, if you’re not going to cooperate, I think we should take a ride to the station house and continue our conversation there. I’ll call for a car.” Jane took her cell phone out and opened it.

  Alicia’s face turned fearful. “That’s not necessary,” she said. “I remember his name. Harold. Harold Bowman.”

  “And what did he do for a living?”

  “He was a lieutenant on the police force.” Her voice had become low and cloudy.

  “And did he come to see you in this apartment?”

  Alicia nodded.

  “Often?”

  “Once a week, twice a week.”

  “Did he have a key?”

  “Yes.”

  “On the night of the murder of the police detective, did he call you?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it. I can’t get into trouble.”

  “I don’t want to get you into trouble, Mrs. Kislav. I want to put together what happened that night. Did Lieutenant Bowman call you?”

  She nodded.

  “What did he say?”

  “He said . . .” She was weeping now. “Someone might come by that night, maybe a couple of people. I should let them in. They wouldn’t hurt me, they wouldn’t do anything, they just needed a place to stay for a while.”

  “And did they come?”

  “No.”

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing happened. I fell asleep and then it was morning and they never came.”

  “Did you ever tell anyone about that phone call?”

  “No one ever asked me, and Harold said to remember that he had never called. It just never happened.” She got up and came back with a box of tissues, using two of them rapidly.

  “What happened to your relationship with Lieutenant Bowman?”

  “It ended soon after that. We loved each other so much. I thought there was a chance that . . . But it ended.” She wept silently, a tissue held to her face. A past she had set aside had returned with a jolt.

  “Thank you for your candor,” Jane said. “You did nothing wrong and you’ve helped us in our investigation. You will talk to no one about this conversation.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “If you do, you will be interfering in a police investigation.”

  “I won’t tell anyone.”

  Assuming there was a trial, she would be called for the information she had just given Jane. But that would be later, perhaps as much as a year from then.

  Jane went home, told Hack what had happened.

  “I ever tell you you’re a good detective?” he said.

  “You’re just buttering me up. We have a good team.”

  “When are you making the arrest?”

  “Tomorrow at nine when we execute the warrants. I hope you’ll be there.”

  “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  47

  THEY ARRIVED AT the station house at eight thirty, Jane, Smithson, Defino, and two detectives from the Manhattan South Detective Task Force, accompanied by a
clearly confused uniformed captain from the Manhattan South-Borough Office. They kept out of sight, but Jane saw Bowman enter the station house a few minutes after she arrived. It was the last day of his life that he would enter that building, the last day he would exert the authority of a captain.

  At nine exactly they moved into the precinct in a group, Jane exhibiting the warrant as they passed the sergeant’s desk. The sergeant moved to the phone and she warned him away from it.

  Bowman glanced up from his desk as the door of his office opened and Jane walked in, holding the warrant, followed by the entourage.

  “Capt. Harold Bowman,” she said, “I am arresting you for the murders of Salvatore Manelli, Charles Farrar, and Det. Micah Anthony. You have the right to remain silent.” She read off his Miranda rights, then turned to Defino. “Detective Defino, please relieve the captain of his weapon.”

  As Bowman stood looking from one to another, Defino removed the Glock from Bowman’s holster and put it in a bag.

  “We have a warrant to search your office,” Jane went on, showing it to Bowman, who declined to read it. “May we have the key to your locker?”

  Bowman handed it over.

  “Thank you,” Jane said with a smile. “Please turn around, Captain.” When she stood behind him, she cuffed him. “He’s all yours, Detective,” she said to one of the borough detectives. Then she turned and shook Defino’s hand.

  The Queens police found a gun in Fitzhugh’s apartment that had not appeared on his ten card, the record of guns a police officer owns. His wife said she knew he had an extra, but when the precinct police came for his weapons after his death, that one wasn’t on the list, and she didn’t mention it. She turned it over willingly and it was sent to be tested by ballistics.

  At the same time, a second set of Queens detectives served the warrant at Bowman’s house. They found an unregistered Beretta in a closet and took it with them.

  The results came back late Tuesday afternoon, Graves having used his influence to rush the ballistics procedure. The gun in Fitzhugh’s apartment was the same one that had shot Micah Anthony. That didn’t mean Fitzhugh had committed the murder, but if he hadn’t, there were only two other people who could have done it, and they were Charley Farrar and Harold Bowman. The other three men in the crib that night would not have had time to get back to the West Fifties after the shooting before the police came to arrest them. The gun had been bagged at the Fitzhugh apartment and prints lifted before it was sent to ballistics. It was possible, although not likely, that the gun had never been used again and had not been cleaned.

  The Beretta found in Bowman’s house turned out to be the one used to kill Manelli a week earlier. That, at least, tied Bowman to the killing, and to the gang Micah Anthony was working to expose.

  At a quiet moment during the hectic afternoon, Jane called Mrs. Appleby.

  “I heard,” the quiet voice at the other end of the line said.

  “I’m sorry. I’m very sorry.”

  “Are you sure, Detective? I’m finding this very hard to accept. Captain Bowman was so kind to me. He seemed so sincere. He’s called me almost once a month since Micah was murdered.”

  “If he didn’t pull the trigger, he ordered it. I’m absolutely certain about that.”

  “Thank you. I don’t know what else to say. What kind of a man is he?”

  “A man that loves money, Mrs. Appleby.”

  “It’s more than that. I can’t talk about it. Thank you for calling. Thank you for doing your job.”

  Jane called her father after that and told him what had happened.

  “Will I see you on the TV tonight?” he asked.

  “I don’t think so. I’m ducking out when I’ve got my Fives done.”

  “This was a big case, Janey. Maybe you’ll get another medal.”

  “Probably not, Dad. And I don’t want one for this case. I just want to put it behind me.”

  Before the day ended, Annie came in and said the inspector wanted to see her first thing in the morning.

  “Thanks, Annie.” She had been expecting this.

  “What’s that for?” MacHovec asked.

  “I disobeyed a direct order. Tomorrow I get my twenty lashes.”

  “Fuck him.”

  Jane smiled. “Thanks, Sean.”

  When the two men were gone, she picked up her bag and left. It was a beautiful day and she decided to walk home, drink a beer, do nothing. A layer of depression had settled on her. She heard Mrs. Appleby’s soft voice in her head: “What kind of a man is he?” The worst, Jane thought. A traitor. She wondered for how long he would go away. The only homicide they had him for was Manelli. He would say Manelli shot Farrar and Farrar shot Micah Anthony. Neither of the guns that ballistics had tested was the one that shot Farrar. Where was that gun?

  Bowman’s legally owned guns would be tested, too, but Jane didn’t think he was stupid enough to use one of them in a homicide. Sooner or later he would be found out. When she got home, she called McElroy and said they needed a warrant to search the automotive shop in Queens. Manelli had never returned to Franklin’s apartment after the Defino kidnapping, so Roger’s shop was the only place he could have secreted a gun. McElroy said they would take care of it in the morning.

  After she changed her clothes, she opened a beer and sat in the living room. The outside light dimmed, but she didn’t move to turn on a lamp. When the phone rang, she thought she might not answer it, but changed her mind. It was Hack.

  “You want company?”

  “You know what? I don’t. I need to be alone. It’s nothing personal, Hack.”

  “You don’t have to explain.”

  “I talked to Micah Anthony’s wife.”

  “This must be quite a blow.”

  “It is. She said something very nice to me. She said, ‘Thanks for doing your job.’ ”

  “That is nice.”

  “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  When the phone rang again, she let the machine take it. It was Flora with congratulations. No one else called. It got dark, the beer long gone. She rinsed the bottle and went to bed.

  Wednesday Jane dressed for her meeting with Graves, choosing the black skirt suit and white silk blouse she had bought the year before for an interview with an insurance company she later decided not to work for. She added a pair of gold earrings her mother had treasured.

  Annie looked into their office at five to nine. “You look gorgeous,” she said, with just enough surprise that Jane wondered how bad she usually looked.

  “Thanks. He ready for me?”

  “Right now.”

  Jane walked to the inspector’s office. He was busy writing something, but looked up when she entered.

  “I don’t tolerate insubordinate behavior,” Inspector Graves began. “And I don’t believe the end justifies the means.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And you will pay for it.” He pushed aside the papers he had been working on, folded his hands, and looked at her directly. “A week’s vacation without pay.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And you will never disobey a legal order again.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Dismissed.”

  It sounded like a military order. She left the office, feeling she had won the battle. As Hack had said, she had so much lost time and unused vacation time accumulated, it would cost her nothing. Graves probably knew that but was unable to give her a punishment more severe that would not produce a backlash.

  “You still on the job?” MacHovec asked.

  “I got a five-day rip.”

  “Shit, you can do that without feeling it.”

  “I know.”

  “You dress up for the boss or you got a hot date after work?”

  She grinned at him. “Maybe both. Hide and watch me leave.”

  “And miss my train?”

  She laughed, took the suit jacket off, and hung it up. “You’re good, Sean.”

  They worked up
a request for a warrant to search Roger’s automotive shop, and Annie got the warrant with no difficulty. News of Harold Bowman’s arrest was everywhere.

  Jane and Smithson drove over to Queens and met a detective from the One-oh-eight, and the three of them went inside. On the day that Manelli had gone to the Village, they had searched the room he had been sleeping in and turned up nothing. Now they looked in bathrooms and store-rooms. They found the gun stashed behind cans of motor oil. They tagged it and bagged it and sent it off to ballistics. It was the make and model that had been used to shoot Charley Farrar.

  So far so good. But there was still one loose end. Back on Centre Street Jane said, “I need something, Sean, if you’ve got the time.”

  MacHovec looked at his watch. “Got plenty left.”

  “I want lists of sergeants who attended Police Academy prep courses for the lieutenant’s exam, going back two years before the Micah Anthony killing and ending with eight years ago. Just print out the lists. I’ll read them.”

  He swiveled back to the computer and started his search, printing out one list after the other as he found them and dropping each on her desk. She scanned the first few, finding nothing of interest on page after page, and left the rest for later.

  “That’s it unless you want to come up to the present,” MacHovec said, tossing the last sheaf on her desk.

  “This is fine. Thanks, Sean.” She stacked the rest to take home and went to see Annie about arranging to give up her lost time. This punishment would eat up hours that had been accumulated and forgotten long ago. The paperwork for handing over the hours indicated that it was an administrative disciplinary matter.

  Before she left, she called her old partner, Marty Hoagland, in the Six. “I’m all dressed with nowhere to go,” she told him when she finally reached him. “How ’bout I buy you a drink?”

  “Are we sneaking around or is this out in the open?”

  “Out in the open. We cleared the case.”

  “I heard. Graves was on the network news last night. Sounded like he and McElroy aced it themselves.”

  She wasn’t surprised. They picked a bar, one of their old favorites, and she took a cab over, having left her walking shoes at home.