by Dinah McCall
Until now.
Maybe it was because his headache was competing with the pain in his foot to see which could rack up the most misery. Maybe it was the guilt he was feeling for having fallen off the wagon after six long months of sobriety. But whatever the reason, yesterday, as he stood in that aley looking down into the old man’s face, he kept wondering what journey the man’s life had been on would cause it to end in an alley in Brighton Beach.
Today he had a dead man with no identification, no witnesses to the crime, and he wanted answers to both. Information from the coroner’s office would have to wait, but he was coming to the crime lab with more optimism. If he got lucky, the analysis of the crime scene evidence would give him something to go on.
Since he was expected, he walked into the lab without knocking and headed toward the small middle-aged man who was feeding information into a computer.
“Hey, Yoda, what have you got for me?”
Malcolm Wise had long ago accepted his nickname, but not without some disgust. It wasn’t his fault that nature had doomed him to look more like the famous character from the Star Wars series than he did his own parents. He turned to see Detective Butoli coming toward him and hit Save on the keyboard before giving him his full attention.
“Thy are you limping?” Wise asked.
“Broke my toe.”
Wise smirked. “I won’t ask how.”
“Well hell, now I am disappointed. I thought Yoda had all the answers.”
“Can the crap,” Wise said. “Short and balding I sexy to some women.”
“Then thank God I was born a man,” Butoli countered. “About my stiff…got anything that will help?”
Wise moved toward his desk. “The knife in his chest that was found in a Dumpster was Russian-made.”
Butoli rolled his eyes. “Damn, Yoda. This is Brighton Beach. It’s full of Russian immigrants. Give me something I can use.”
“The skin under his fingernails isn’t his own.”
Butoli stifled a curse and popped a couple of breath mints in his mouth.
“Anything that might help me put a name to the man?”
Wise grinned as he lifted a plastic bag from a box and slid it across the table.
Butoli caught it before it slipped off onto the floor.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“The victim’s shirt.”
“What’s so special about a shirt?”
“Maybe the name underneath the tag might help you.”
Butoli’s eyes lit up.
“His name? As in a laundry mark?”
“At least part of it,” Wise said. “F. Walton. Now all you have to do is find someone missing a man named Walton and your mystery is solved.”
“Only part of it,” Butoli said, thinking of who had put the knife in the old man’s chest. “Anything else that might help?”
Wise shrugged. “You’re the detective. I just got through faxing a preliminary report to your office. It should be on your desk when you get back. Some of the tests will take longer. I’ll let you know when the lab work is done.”
Butoli slapped the little man on the back.
“Thanks, Yoda. This is the first good news I’ve had in two days.”
Wise smirked. “May the force be with you. Now go away. I have work to do.”
Butoli left the crime lab with a bounce in his step that had little to do with his sore toe. Finally a name to go with the face—at least most of a name. He was going to swing by the office, pick up Marshall and a picture of the victim, and then take a ride back down to Brighton Beach. Maybe someone would remember a man named Walton. Hell. Maybe he was kin to John Boy. Wouldn’t that be a kick in the pants?
Five hours later, Butoli slid into the passenger seat as Larry Marshall got in behind the wheel. They’d been in and out of every place of business within a fifteen block radius of the area where the old man’s body had been found, with no response. It wasn’t until they’d gone into a small Russian restaurant adjacent to a thrift store that they’d gotten lucky.
The manager had frowned at their badges as he stubbed out a roll-your-own cigarette, glanced at the picture, then shook his head without looking up.
But Butoli had persisted.
“Come on, buddy. Look again. Somebody stuck a knife in his heart and left him to die in an alley alone. Somewhere he’s probably got family who are worried sick. I’m not asking you to ID a killer, just the man. It’s the least he deserves. Now look again. Have you seen him before?”
The manager looked up with a distrustful glare. His experience with public authority had begun at the age of seventeen, half a world away in a soviet prison. He felt no need to cooperate. But the look on the cop’s face seemed less threatening than most, so when Butoli shoved the picture back toward him he shrugged, then looked down.
“Yeah…maybe I see him before…two…three times. He liked my borscht.”
“Is he a local?”
“Nyet,” the manager answered, then qualified the Russian “no” with a negative shake of his head.
“How do you know?” Butoli asked.
“One time I think he pay with what you call traveler’s check.”
“Did you see anyone with him?”
The manager shook his head again.
Larry Marshall leaned against the counter, putting himself in the man’s personal space with only a small bit of wood and glass between them. The manager took a defensive step back as Larry Fired his first question.
“Any idea where he was staying?”
The manager shook his head again. “But maybe not too far away.”
“What makes you say that?” Marshall asked.
“He was old…sick, too, I think.”
“How do you know?:
The manager shrugged again, then glanced nervously around. It wasn’t good business to be friendly with the police.
“His skin…it was not a good color. But de did not ask for cab, so maybe he had room not too far away.”
“Good deduction,” Butoli said, and slipped the picture in his pocket. “Sir, I thank you for your help. If you think of anything else…anything at all…give me a call.”
He handed the manager his card, and then they left.
“Next on the list, hotels and rooming houses,” Marshall said, as he started the car and pulled away from the curb.
“Maybe we’ll get lucky again,” Butoli said. “But in the meantime, don’t get pushy with these people. Few of them have any reason to trust authority.”
Marshall patted the part in his hair without heeding Butoli’s caution.
“They’re in America now. If they don’t like the way we do things here, they can go back where they came from.”
Butoli’s toe was killing him, and his patience was gone. He had the strongest urge to slap the back of Larry Marshall’s head just to see the look on his face. Instead, he popped a couple of painkillers and leaned back against the seat.
Less than half an hour later, Butoli’s prediction was proven right. The desk clerk at the Georgian Hotel identified the picture before Larry Marshall could get out his notebook.
“Oh my…he is dead?” the clerk asked.
Butoli nodded.
“Poor man, but glad it didn’t happen here.”
Marshall smirked. “Yeah, I see your point. Not good for business, huh?”
The clerk flushed. “Sorry, I didn’t say that right. I’m sorry Mr. Walton is dead. He seemed like nice man, but you know what I mean…right?”
Butoli frowned. No luggage had been found with the body. Maybe they’d just found their motive for the old man’s death. People had been killed for far less than a suitcase of clothes.
“What name did he register under?” he asked.
“Walton…Frank Walton. I remember I teased him and asked if he was related to John Boy. You know…from TV show.”
“Exactly when did he check out?” Butoli asked.
The clerk turned to the computer and typed
in the name.
“Here it is. Yesterday morning.”
Butoli’s frown deepened. The coroner had told them that the old man had probably died between 7:00 and 9:00 p.m. the night before his body was discovered. So if Walton was already dead, then he couldn’t have checked himself out. His pulse skipped a beat.
“You’re sure? Did he check out at the desk?”
The clerk scanned the screen and then looked up. “I was not on duty. All I know is room key was turned in and his bill put on credit card he gave on arrival.”
“We’ll need that credit card number,” Marshall said.
The clerk frowned. “I am not supposed to give—“
“It’s to confirm identification and to make sure it wasn’t a stolen card, understand?”
The clerk hesitated and then copied it from the screen to a piece of paper and handed it to Marshall.
“Had his room been slept in?” Butoli asked.
The clerk shook his head. “I don’t know. You have to check with housekeeping.”
“Then get somebody up here,” Butoli said. “We’ll wait.”
“Can you speak Russian?” the clerk asked.
“No,” Butoli said.
“Then I need to call manager, too, or you get nowhere with the help.”
“You don’t speak Russian?” Marshall asked.
“I am not Russian. I am Slovak.”
“Whatever,” Marshall muttered.
A short while later they were in the manager’s office, conducting a half-assed interrogation through a man who quite obviously wished them to be anywhere else but here. The reluctant hotel manager was standing beside a cowering housemaid, who obviously thought she was in some kind of trouble. Despite the fact that they’d assured her otherwise, she hadn’t stopped crying since she’d entered the room.
“What the hell did you say to her?” Butoli growled.
The manager, who was also of Russian descent glared back at Butoli.
“I said noting,” he snapped. “She makes her own conclusion.”
“Fine.” Butoli said. “So ask her this. Did she clean Mr. Walton’s room every day?”
The manager translated the question, and the housemaid quickly nodded.
“Ask her if he ever had any visitors.”
The little maid shrank even smaller against the chair, muttering beneath her breath as she shrugged.
“She says she saw no one but him in the room.”
Butoli nodded and smiled at the woman, hoping she would take that as a sign he meant her no harm. It didn’t seem to work. She covered her face with her hands and refused to look him in the eye.
“God almighty,” Butoli mumbled, then took a deep breath and started over. “Did she clean that same room on the morning Walton checked out?”
“She says yes, but that there was not much to do. He had not slept in his bed.”
Butoli’s attention sharpened. “What about his clothing…his luggage? Was it still in the room?”
The manager relayed the questions, then translated her answer again.
“She says everything was gone. She turn in room key she found on bed later, when she finish her shift.” Then the manager added, “It is the way we do it here. Sometimes guests use speedy checkout system. Checkout on room TV. It is very up-to-date process. Georgian Hotel is finest in Brighton Beach.”
Butoli looked at his partner. It was obvious from Marshall’s expression that he was thinking the same thing Butoli was. Someone had come back to Frank Walton’s room and removed every trace of the man’s presence. But why?
He sighed. This case was turning out to be more complicated than he’d first believed. They could no longer assume it was a run-of-the-mill mugging gone bad. Someone had gone to a great deal of trouble to delay the identification of a dead man by removing all his personal ID, then gone to his hotel and taken everything he had with him, making it appear as if he’d checked out.
But why?
He put his notebook in his pocket and gave the manager a card.
“Please tell your employee that we appreciate her help, and that if she remembers anything else that might help us catch the man who killed Mr. Walton, to please call us.”
The manager relayed the message.
The housemaid stood, gave the men a nervous glance and bolted out the door.
Butoli shook his head. “What’s she so scared about?”
The manager didn’t bother to hide a sneer. “Being sent back, of course.”
Larry Marshall looked up from his notepad.
“Back to where?” he asked.
“Russia.”
Marshall’s gaze sharpened. “What? Are you hiring illegals? You can’t do that. You have to report them to—“
“Thank you for your cooperation,” Butoli said, then grabbed his partner by the arm and all but dragged him out of the hotel.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Marshall yelped.
Butoli took a deep breath, mentally counting from one to ten before he trusted himself to answer.
“Marshall, for once in your life, just shut the fuck up.”
Larry Marshall’s face turned a dark, angry red. “It’s people like you who screw up the systems we have in place.”
“Maybe,” Butoli muttered. “But it was people like you who put the cockamamie systems in place to begin with. For God’s sake! We’re trying to get them to help us find a killer, and you’re threatening to call INS? What the hell were you thinking?”
Then he threw up his hands and headed for the car, leaving Marshall with no option but to follow.
Marshall got in and started the engine.
“Where to?” he asked.
Butoli glared. “Back to the precinct. We’ve got a name to go with the body, and a credit card number that should give us enough background information to find his next of kin.”
“But don’t you think we should—“
The look on Butoli’s face was enough to stifle what he’d been going to say. Instead, he pulled into the traffic and took a right turn at the next block.
Isabella handed a room key to the couple who’d just checked in. In the years since her father and Uncle David had opened White Mountain Fertility Clinic, she’d seen hundreds like them—people desperate for a child of their own and willing to try anything to make it happen.
“There is an elevator just to the right of the staircase,” she said.
“We’ll take the stairs,” the woman said. “Exercise is good for me.”
Isabella smiled. “Do you need help with your luggage?”
The man shook his head. “No. We only have the two bags. We can manage just fine. Oh…what time does the kitchen open? We have an appointment in town in the morning, and we don’t want to be late.”
“We start serving breakfast at six o’clock and if you need a taxi into Braden, you’ll need to call ahead and expect about a fifteen to twenty minute wait.”
The couple nodded their understanding and started up the stairs, their heads tilted slightly toward each other as they spoke in undertones.
Isabella hurt for their sadness. It was evident in every aspect of their expressions and posture. How sad to want a child so desperately and yet be unable to make it happen. Even sadder were the children who were born to people who didn’t care. It didn’t make sense. Why didn’t God just five babies to people who wanted them and let the people who were unfit to be parents be the ones who were barren? But she knew her thoughts were fanciful. Nothing in life was fair. She thought of her father dying so suddenly and leaving not only family, but waiting patients behind.
The staff at White Mountain Fertility Clinic was well-trained and able to continue without her father’s presence. In the past few years he’d even talked about the time when he would retire and leave the creation of life to those younger than himself. Besides her father, Uncle David and Uncle Jasper still held active roles in the clinic, even though they took fewer and fewer new patients with each passing year.
“Abbott House.”
“This is Detective Mike Butoli with the Brighton Beach police. I need to speak to Samuel Abbot.”
Isabella’s breath caught as a quick film of tears blurred her vision. It was the first time this had happened since her father’s death, but she knew it wouldn’t be the last. She cleared her throat and make herself answer.
“I’m sorry, Detective, but Samuel Abbot recently passed away. I’m his daughter, Isabella Abbott. Maybe I can Help.”
Mike Butoli frowned. He hated this part of his job more than spinach—and only God and his mother knew how much he hated spinach.
“Did you know a man named Franklin Walton?”
His use of the past tense made Isabella’s heart drop.
“Uncle Frank? What’s happened to him? Has he been injured? Is he all right?”
Butoli sighed. Damn. As many times as he’d done this, it never got easier.
“I’m very sorry to tell you, Miss Abbott, but Mr. Walton was found murdered in an alley a few days ago.”
The wail that came out of her mouth was a mixture of disbelief and despair.
“Nooo,” she cried, and staggered backward into a chair.
John Michaels and Rufus Toombs, two of the men she called uncles, were just coming off the elevator from their third-floor apartments when they heard her cry. Without hesitation, they rushed forward.
“Isabella…darling what’s wrong?”
She recognized the voices but couldn’t focus on the faces. Everything around her was fast going black. Before she could answer, she slid out of the chair onto the floor in a faint.
Rufus quickly knelt at her side, while John went for the phone dangling from her hand.
“Hello? Hello? Who’s there, please?”
Butoli knew the woman had not received the news well.
“This is Detective Butoli with the Brighton Beach P.D.”
“What did you say to Isabella? What has happened?” John cried.
“Are you her family?” Butoli asked.
