Murder in Hell's Kitchen

by Lee Harris

  Someone banged on the door, then banged again and called in Chinese. Jane hung her head as far forward as she could, although she couldn’t hide the open bag on her lap. There was a sound of a key in the lock; then someone burst in.

  He said something, perhaps asking her a question she could not answer, then, sounding disgusted, went out and slammed the door, turning the key again before he raced downstairs.

  It was like a reprieve. He had not seen the duct tape hanging from the side of her mouth, had not noticed the bag on her lap. She tried to see inside the bag, hoping she could snag something with her teeth, but there wasn’t much left in it, and the logistics seemed impossible. That meant she could not untie the rope keeping her hands behind her.

  OK, use your brain, Jane. Think. She wriggled her hands and realized that her coat was unbuttoned and had opened as she had worked the bag up to her lap. In fact, the coat was no longer covering her lap. With some more wriggling, she might get the right-hand pocket near her hands.

  She worked at it, relieved to see that her efforts were producing results. She bounced on the chair a couple of times, pulling the back of the coat more and more to the left so that the right pocket came closer and closer to where her hands were tied behind her. It was slow and tedious and her whole upper body was hurting from Wang’s blows. But she had to do it, and soon. Wang had been gone a long time now. If he came back, it was all over.

  Suddenly her left hand felt the slit of the right-hand pocket. She worked her hand into the pocket and touched the phone. A minute later she held it in her hand. She could pull it out but she couldn’t see it, and she would have to operate it blindly. She got it out, carefully set it in her left hand, still tied closely to her right, and got it open. Her best bet was 911, if she could find the two digits, which she wasn’t sure she could do. There were several buttons on the phone, one of which turned it on. She was confident she could find that one, but where to go from there?

  And then she remembered the redial button. Who was the last person she had called? She couldn’t remember. She knew she had taken the phone out when Defino was there because he had made a crack about not letting MacHovec know, but whom had she called? Shit. She couldn’t remember. Which left 911.

  And then it came to her. She had dialed Hack’s number while waiting for the rain to subside on Centre Street. That was the last number in the phone’s memory. If she could find the redial button, it would call his cell phone, which he always had on him.

  She closed her eyes and tried to picture the phone. The on-off switch was in the middle in red, which wasn’t much help right now. Where was the redial button? Somewhere along the top. Left or right. Her instinct said left, and she would go with that. If she screwed up, she’d try for 911. She pressed the middle button and heard the dial tone, the most beautiful music of her life. Then she pressed the button to the left and heard the tinkle of ten beeps in a row. You did good, Janey. It rang once, twice, three times. Where the hell was he?

  “Inspector Hackett’s phone,” a woman said, barely audible.

  Oh, shit. “This is Detective Bauer. Can you hear me?” She had to raise her voice, taking a chance that someone outside would hear.

  “Detective who?”

  “Bauer. B-A-U-E-R. Tell Inspector Hackett this is a ten-thirteen. I am—”

  “Detective, Inspector Hackett cannot take your call. Please call your squad.” And she hung up.

  I will kill her, Jane thought. I will wrap my hands around her neck and strangle her. She was panting with anger. She waited half a minute. Wherever he was, he would return for his phone. He was never without it. He would answer and he would save her. He had to.

  She pressed the on-off button again and heard the dial tone with somewhat less enthusiasm. Then she pressed the button to its left once more. It rang twice and she thought, The bitch is going to let me die.

  On the third ring, it was picked up. “Hackett.”

  “Hack,” she said, almost shouting, “it’s Jane Bauer. Ten-thirteen, Hack. I’m tied up in a room in Chinatown, Bayard Street between Mott and Elizabeth. No number on the front door. Between a restaurant and a laundry. Third floor right. The door is locked. They’re going to kill me when they get back.”

  “Hang on. I can hardly hear you. Bayard Street, between a restaurant and a laundry, third floor right.” He was talking loudly himself now.

  “That’s it.”

  “Leave the phone on as long as you can. We’ll try to trace it. Are you all right?”

  “I’m alive.”

  “Stay with me.” He called, “Mike,” and started shouting instructions. She heard him say “We have a ten-thirteen,” and then there were other voices.

  She sat back, holding the telephone carefully, hoping Hack would get there before Wang did. Her coat was half off her right side and she was feeling cold, but there was hope now and that would have to keep her going.

  “You still with me?”

  “Yes,” she shouted.

  “They’re on their way.”

  She knew it wouldn’t be Hack who broke through the door, but it didn’t matter. He was clean and he loved her and he would save her.

  The footsteps on the stairs were so quiet, she didn’t know anyone was there till she heard the key in the lock and saw Chong Wang enter the apartment.

  35

  HE STARED AT her, his eyes darting around, and it hit her that he was no longer wearing the ski mask. His bare face was her death sentence. He didn’t care anymore whether she saw his face because he had come back to kill her. Time had run out.

  The open handbag was back on the floor and her chair was near where it had been when he had left. But the duct tape was hanging from her left cheek, the coat was off her shoulder, and behind her back she was holding an open cell phone that emitted occasional noises.

  “Who was here?” he said.

  “One of your friends. He walked in and walked out.”

  He ripped the duct tape from her face. “How did you get this off?”

  “It got loose.” Her voice was that of a frightened child.

  He smacked her face with his bare hand, left and right, bringing tears. She wanted to hurt him. She had never wanted to hurt anyone so much in her life. She strained at the ropes to kick him or knee him, but she couldn’t.

  From a distance came the sound of a siren, but in New York there were always sirens. She didn’t know what to do about the phone. It was impossible to get it back in her pocket, but she could turn it off if she wanted to. He had not walked around behind her, but if he saw it, that would be the end.

  Suddenly he dashed away into a room she could not see. Maybe he thought someone else was in the apartment. He was jittery with fury, banging things around, slamming a door, then kicking it open. Then he was back. He took the gun out of his pocket and rubbed it as though it were a fine piece of furniture.

  “I’m tired of you and it’s time for you to die,” he said.

  “Tell me one thing,” she said, playing for a few seconds more. “About Olivia Dean. You killed her, didn’t you?”

  “What do you know about Olivia Dean?”

  “Just that she’s missing. I think you killed her.”

  “She started asking for too much. It had nothing to do with Soderberg. That was years ago. We were finished with her and she was a bother. It was better to get rid of her.”

  “I see.” There was an explosion of sound from the cell phone and she thought, Oh, Jesus, this is it.

  “What’s that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He looked around, then walked to the back of her chair. He grabbed the phone out of her hand and started shouting in Chinese. Then he held the phone to his ear and said, “Who is this?”

  Come on, Jane thought. For the love of God, get here while I’m still alive. Get here, get here. The distant siren had stopped. Wang continued to talk on the phone, threatening to kill her. Finally, he threw the phone against the wall.

  The gun was
still in his hand. He leveled it at her. He was wired and ready to kill. His eyes burned with the thrill of it. In the moment she had left, she thought of her father.

  They came through the door like a battering ram, three of New York’s finest shouting at Wang, “Police, don’t move,” and then firing. The multiple gunshots threw Wang backward. The space was short, less than ten feet between him and the cops. The gun in his hand dropped to the floor as he fell, and bounced away.

  When the noise stopped, she said, “Thanks, guys,” her voice so weak it hardly made a sound.

  “Detective Bauer?” one of them asked.

  “I think so.”

  “Hang on there. We’ll get you free.” A knife went through the ropes, and a sturdy hand helped her stand. “You need an ambulance.”

  “I just want to get home.”

  “We’ll take you to Bellevue.” It sounded more like an order than a suggestion.

  She stood for a moment, swaying, tears on her cheeks, then leaned on the young cop who had cut the rope. She felt cramped and achy from the waist down. Above the waist was more serious pain. When she took a deep breath, her chest hurt.

  Without looking around, she picked up her bag, stuffed the contents back in, and put the strap over her shoulder. “He has my cuffs and keys,” she said. “And my guns.”

  “We’ll retrieve them for you when the crime scene unit comes.”

  She was aware that a uniform was bending over Wang and picking up his gun.

  Going downstairs wasn’t easy. A uniformed sergeant helped her, giving her welcome support. Outside only the sky was dark. The street was being closed off with yellow tape that said CRIME SCENE DO NOT CROSS, and lights were being set up in the entrance. There were more police vehicles than she had seen outside a station house parking lot in a long time. She looked around as the sergeant led her to the waiting ambulance. A door opened on a car halfway down the block and a man got out and stood in the middle of Bayard Street. Jane gave him a small wave and got into the ambulance. Then they took her to Bellevue.

  Captain Graves showed up and Defino and then McElroy. MacHovec called. The doctors cleaned up her face and told her she had abrasions but no broken bones or teeth. The worst damage was where the zipper had scraped away her skin and left a nasty wound that they medicated and covered. An X ray indicated a possible rib fracture, but that would take care of itself. “Just don’t laugh too hard,” the doctor said without a smile. There was pain medication if she needed it.

  Mike Fromm called, having gotten the word from Defino. That was nice of Gordon, she thought.

  “And by the way, if you still care, we found the aunt.”

  “Hutchins’s aunt is OK?”

  “She was sleeping over at her daughter’s house. No question of who she is.”

  Hack called about midnight. “How bad does it hurt?” he said.

  “It’s OK. I’m fine. I think they’ll let me go home tomorrow.” Her voice was still weak.

  “I apologize for my PAA.”

  “I wanted to kill her. How long has she worked for you?”

  “A couple of years, maybe three.”

  “Did she go to China with you, Hack?”

  There was a pause. “Yeah. She did.”

  “She could be the leak.”

  “I’ll take care of it tomorrow.”

  “I’m too tired to talk.”

  “I’ll see you first thing in the morning.”

  He arrived with flowers, beautiful flowers, yellow roses and orange mums and lots of other things. “For your new apartment. I like it, by the way. I like it a lot.”

  “Is Wang dead?”

  “Yeah. They weren’t taking any chances. All three guys tapped him. I guess our training is paying off. Frank Graves tells me this is about weapons systems getting to the Chinese. The PC will be meeting with the Feds later today. They’ll want a piece of the case, or at least the information that closed it.”

  “That’s what Soderberg was working on, finding Americans who were selling it to the Chinese and grabbing the middlemen who were getting it to China. He set up a sting and put a couple of them out of business.”

  “This guy Wang do him?”

  “A woman did. She’s missing, and he admitted to me last night that he killed her. I think I know where to find her.”

  “I hope you’ll let me know.”

  “You’ll hear, I promise.”

  He leaned over the bed and kissed her lips. “Gotta go. I have a date with my PAA.”

  When he was gone, she called Eddie on Walker Street.

  “Hey, hey,” he said. “Detective Bauer. You the one I heard about on the TV last night?”

  “I wouldn’t know, Eddie. I haven’t turned my set on for a month. But it could have been. I was on my way over to see you when this happened.”

  “See me about what?”

  “You said there was something else chained to that rack where the bicycle was.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “What was it?”

  “It was all collapsed. It was flat against the wall. It wasn’t a baby carriage. It wasn’t a kid’s stroller, too big for that. It could have been like a small wheelchair.”

  “Thanks, Eddie.”

  She lay back on the pillows and looked at Hack’s flowers. She knew exactly where Olivia Dean was.

  She was home before noon, driven by a sector car. There was a message to call Captain Graves, and when she reached him he said he wanted to drop over this afternoon, if she was up to it, bring some food, and debrief her. If it was all right, Defino and MacHovec would join him. It was fine with her, especially if they brought the food.

  “You still in a lot of pain?” the whip asked as they trooped into her apartment. “The son of a bitch really beat you.”

  “It looks worse than it is. I’m fine.”

  The men took care of the food, which was very nice. There were salads and cold cuts and bread and a couple of half gallons of Coke. She had made coffee before they arrived. While they ate, she told them what had happened. Graves’s tape recorder was on the whole time.

  “That phone saved my life, Boss. I think it’s gone now. He smashed it against the wall. The Communications Division is gonna be bent out of shape.”

  “We’ll get you another one in fourteen-carat gold. Not to worry.”

  “So what’ve we got?” Defino said. “Wang was the guy in Omaha, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Do we have the leak yet?”

  “We should hear about that soon. There are a couple of suspects.”

  “So where’s the Dean woman?” MacHovec asked. “Gone to China on a slow boat?”

  “I don’t think so. I talked to Eddie this morning before I left the hospital. Remember he said there was something else chained to the rack where the bicycle was? Well, I got him to guess it might be a small wheelchair.”

  “But Dean was an athlete,” Sean said. “What did she need a wheelchair for?”

  “What did she need the wigs for? What did she need the party clothes for? It was how she worked. She had a lot of props, and the wheelchair was one of them. She had a falling-out with Wang—he said she wanted more money—and he killed her in City Hall Park.”

  There was utter silence. Then the whip said, “Holy shit, multiple clearances, all with results.”

  “Her body’s still in the morgue. We’ve got plenty of fingerprints and plenty of DNA from the apartment on Fifty-sixth Street. They shouldn’t have much trouble matching it.”

  Graves was beaming. “I’ll make the call right away,” he said. Then he shook his head. “No. This is your case. MacHovec, you know how to make a phone call.”

  MacHovec grinned and went to find the phone.

  36

  THE MATCH ON the prints came by late afternoon. The DNA would take longer, but who needed it? Before the end of the day it was announced that Inspector Hackett’s PAA had been arrested. The charges began with endangering the life of a police officer and w
ent on from there. The Feds would have seconds with her later.

  The story that developed, much of which was reported in the local media, was that the PAA, Emily Wilson, a middle-aged New Yorker with superb secretarial skills, had been approached in China two years earlier and asked to be alert to information on the Soderberg case and a couple of others that were not reported. There was a modest retainer for her vigilance and a promised large bonus for actual information, which she was supposed to telephone to Mr. Chong Wang.

  Jane healed and was relieved to hear that Hutchins was truly on the mend. Her father said he always knew she would solve the City Hall Park Murder, and as always, he was very proud of her.

  The police department decided to award her a Meritorious Commendation, and she had a chance at the Medal of Honor. On Medal Day at One PP, the Chief of Detectives was unavoidably busy at something, and Inspector Hackett stood in for him. The picture of the smiling Hackett and the smiling Jane Bauer was on the front of the Daily News and the Post. The Times used it in the Metro section.

  Hack called her afterward—they had not spoken since she left the hospital—and said he had always wanted a picture of the two of them that he could hang on the wall in his office, and he thought he had worked this one out pretty well.

  “Nearly got me killed,” she said.

  “Then there wouldn’t have been a picture. Can I ask you what your job prospects are?”

  “Captain Graves wants the three of us to continue in the cold-case task force.”

  “Sounds like a good idea to me.”

  “Defino hates MacHovec and I spend half my time keeping them from killing each other.”

  “It’s good training. You didn’t answer my question.”

  “I told the insurance company I’d be staying on the job.”

  “You won’t regret it, Jane.”

  “It’ll mean bread and water if I keep the apartment.”

  “You’ll figure something out,” he said cavalierly. “You’ll get a raise. The promotion list is making the rounds, and I recognized a few names from your office, a couple to first-grade detective and a handful to second. And maybe someday you’ll have a roommate.”