by Lee Harris
“We think Morgan was connected to someone higher up in the TA who was giving the orders.”
“I wouldn’t know who. I used to get pretty dirty doing my job, but I lived a clean life.”
“Who did you report to in those days?”
“Why are you doing this?” Collins said with annoyance.
“Morgan’s dead and they didn’t convict anyone of the cop’s murder. Why don’t you leave it alone?”
“Because it’s my job. Because a cop got killed. Because I don’t want firearms in the hands of the people on the street.”
He shot her a look intended to shrivel her. She met it without blinking. Then he said, “I reported to Orville Chambers at that time. Is that it?”
“That’s it for tonight, Mr. Collins.” She made her way through the corridors and tunnels till she reached her subway line. In less than half an hour she was home.
18
SHE PICKED UP the car after breakfast and got on the West Side Highway going north, away from the bulk of the traffic. Beyond the northern tip of Manhattan it became the Saw Mill River Parkway. She took that to Hawthorne, picked up the Taconic Parkway, and continued to Ossining.
The prison stood at the top of the hill, where she left her car at the outer perimeter fence. Inside, she checked in, had her paperwork authenticated—Graves had taken care of that—and surrendered her weapon and her handbag. After the metal detector, she was escorted by a corrections officer to a secure conference room.
She had made good time and was seated with Timothy Morgan before ten a.m. He had the sallow look of a man who had spent time inside, but his arms were muscular, the skin taut.
“Mr. Morgan, I’m Det. Jane Bauer of NYPD. I’m here because your brother’s name has come up in an old case.”
“Who? Curt?”
“Yes. He was arrested about ten years ago in a case that involved the murder of a police detective.”
“He was acquitted. And he’s dead.”
“We want to know who his contact was in the Transit Authority, the person who was running the operation.”
“You came up from New York to ask me that?”
“It’s important.”
“Suppose I don’t know.”
“Then maybe you know something else that will give us a lead.”
“A lead on what?”
“Stolen guns were found in the apartment where your brother was arrested.”
“They belonged to the guy that rented the apartment. Curt didn’t know nothin’ about them.”
“How long are you in Sing-Sing for?”
He paused, considering the implication of the question. “I got three more years.”
“Long time.”
“Yeah.”
“Did Curt talk to you about the gun deal?”
“He didn’t say anything that would help you.”
“He talk about the killing?”
“He said he didn’t know the black guy was a cop and he didn’t know who killed him. I sure as hell don’t know who killed him.”
“And you don’t know who stole the guns.”
He didn’t answer. He looked like a man who needed a smoke or a long walk, time to be by himself and think about alternatives to sitting in Sing-Sing for three more years.
“I know something,” he said finally. “I didn’t know before the trial. I stayed away from Curt till it was over. I’ve had my own problems.” He looked around at the secure room they sat in. “I didn’t want any more than I already had. But when he was acquitted, it was OK for me to talk to him; he wasn’t a known convict.”
Jane waited. She hadn’t asked him for the location of the stolen guns because they already knew that, and if he gave them that, it would show cooperation but they wouldn’t be any farther ahead than they were now. What she wanted was names. Why recommend a shorter sentence for old information?
“Curt knew the black guy from somewhere, the guy who was convicted. If he told me where, I forgot it. The black guy stole the guns from an armory in New York.”
“Randolph,” Jane said. “His name is Carl Randolph.”
“Right.” Morgan nodded. “Randolph. He stole the guns. Curt told him there was a safe place to hide them; they’d never be found. Problem is, Curt never told me exactly, and what I know isn’t going to reduce my sentence a week.”
“Let’s leave that for a moment, Mr. Morgan. Do you know anything about the third man in the group?”
“Guy with an Italian name? Yeah, a little. Always seemed to me he was the loser in the pack. Never married, lived with his mother, for chrissakes. I think he was the guy who said he could sell the guns. That was his job.”
“So Randolph stole them, your brother hid them, and Manelli was going to sell them.”
“Right. But it didn’t work out is what I remember. Manelli had a buyer who backed out. Then Randolph met this guy, the one who turned out to be a cop, and made a deal with him. It looked solid. He had cash, he had buyers, he didn’t fuck around.”
“Tell me what you know about the shooting.”
He shrugged. “The buyer was there in the place in the Fifties. They were talkin’ about when and how and how much and then he left. Next thing happens, the cops’re breaking down the door.”
“Anyone leave with the cop?”
“If he did, my brother didn’t tell me. I wasn’t interested in details. I wanted to know if my brother was involved. He wasn’t.”
“Did the cop know where the guns were hidden?”
“I couldn’t tell you, Detective. We didn’t talk about that.”
“So you don’t know if the cop left alone or if someone went with him.”
He shook his head. “Curt just said when the cops came to the door—that was a few hours later—it was a surprise to him. That’s all I know.”
“You in touch with Randolph and Manelli?”
“Me? I never met them. I don’t talk to no one. Even my lawyer don’t always take my calls. I call Emma sometimes, my brother’s wife. She’s a nice woman, nicer’n the bitch I was married to. Soon as I got locked up, she filed for divorce. At least she don’t get alimony from me.”
“Let’s get back to Manelli for a minute. If the deal Manelli made to sell the guns fell through, what did they keep him for?”
“Beats me. Maybe he told good jokes. Maybe they thought he’d rat them out if they cut him out of the deal.”
“You’re sure your brother never said that Manelli left that apartment with the cop?”
“Never said a word.”
Which didn’t mean he hadn’t. She was running out of questions, and he had few answers that added to what they already knew. “OK, Mr. Morgan. What do you know that you think could help us out?”
“Two things. I can’t give you names and places because I don’t know them, but Curt told me the guns were hidden in the subway. Curt was a track man. He worked down there all his life. In the end, that was what killed him, the steel dust. He said they had a perfect place where no one would find them. That’s all I can tell you. Those guns are somewhere down there. Curt never told me where, and I don’t think he ever told anyone else.”
That, at least, was the truth. “And the second thing?”
“I wanna know what it’s worth.”
“I’ll be back.” She signaled the officer outside the door and had herself escorted to an office with a telephone. Graves had said he would wait for her call, and he was as good as his word.
They talked for about five minutes, Jane emphasizing that whatever Morgan had would not be a specific name and that what he had told her about the location of the guns was true.
“Tell him we’ll cut his bit in half. I’m pretty sure we can get an ADA interested if we mention the guns and Micah Anthony in the same sentence. The DA’s office loves good publicity.”
“Thanks, Inspector.”
“So that leaves me eighteen months,” Morgan said when she gave him the news.
“And leaves us with somethin
g but not as much as we need.”
He turned his face away from her and looked at the institutional walls and ceilings, as though they could measure the depth of his misery, the difference eighteen months less of it would make in his life. “You asked me who his contact was in the TA. I don’t know the name and I don’t know if Curt knew it. But I know one thing. The guy wasn’t in the TA. He was a cop, a transit cop.”
“Thank you, Mr. Morgan.” Ideas were flooding her mind. “You’ll be out in eighteen months.”
19
ON THE DRIVE back to New York, Jane thought about what she had learned. It explained a few things. Mrs. Appleby had said whoever was driving the car that picked up Micah Anthony had to be someone he trusted. He would trust a cop; he would recognize the car. If the cop was wearing a uniform, he would get in with little hesitation. That this cop was on the other side might not occur to him till it was too late. Morgan might have known who the cop was; Randolph definitely knew. That was ultimately the person Randolph had called from Rikers, the one who had seen to it that the Beretta was left in Riverside Park, because his call from Rikers had almost certainly gone to an intermediary point, one with no suspicion attached to it. From that point a call had gone to the transit cop.
The Transit Police and NYPD had merged in 1995, uniting them in a single department with almost identical benefits. Even so, they didn’t pal around with each other and they tended to work on different kinds of cases. Jane had met Ron Delancey while she was chasing a perp into the subway. Other than him, she couldn’t think of a single Transit cop whom she knew personally.
This new piece of information would give MacHovec a ton of work. He would have to identify all the transit cops who were active ten years before and see if some connection existed between one of them and Randolph or Morgan, a monumental task. Perhaps, she thought, a cop lived down in the Village at that time and had driven Micah Anthony there in the hope of getting him to talk before killing him. She made a written note to have MacHovec check addresses. This indefinite piece of information might evolve into a solid lead.
“Keep me busy till Christmas,” MacHovec said when she told him and Graves what she had learned.
“You think this Transit cop drove Anthony down to the Village to his apartment?” Graves said.
“Maybe to find out what he knew. I’m sure they intended to kill him, but they wanted to see what they could learn first. Just happens, Anthony saw a chance to get out of the car and run when the car slowed down, but whoever was sitting next to him shot him as he hit the street.”
“It’s a theory,” Graves said noncommittally.
“And maybe Defino’s in that apartment now. Maybe when Manelli and his pals grabbed Gordon, they called this cop—if he’s still a cop—said they were in the Village, asked what should they do with this cop who was investigating the Micah Anthony death, and the cop said, ‘Take him to my apartment.’ ”
“It’s a long shot.” Graves was still smarting over the failed search in the Lex. “But if it works, we find Defino and the guy responsible for Anthony’s killing at the same time.”
“Right.”
“Get to work on it,” Graves said, looking at MacHovec.
Back in their office, they spread out a map of Manhattan on Defino’s desk and drew a rough circle with the location of Anthony’s body at the center. The car could have slowed when they neared their destination, or someone could have pulled a car away from the curb ahead of them, causing them to slow blocks from their destination. That area had been canvassed thoroughly several times and no one suspicious had turned up. The original team that investigated the shooting had returned to the block many times. That was in the file. No one had vacated an apartment precipitously after Anthony’s death; no one had disappeared.
“You know,” she said as MacHovec peered at his screen, “Manelli’s never coming back.”
“Right. He surfaces, we nab him for the kidnapping, assault, God knows what else.”
“I wonder if the girlfriend’s aware of that.”
“Whatever she tells us, it won’t make any difference to him. He’s looking forward to the rest of his life underground unless he gets out of the country.”
“Sean, there’s been no body. I’ve got to believe—”
“I know.”
She got up and went to Graves’s office.
“Got something?” He was reading some department forms.
“I’d like to grab Smithson before he leaves and canvass the block they found Micah Anthony on. Tonight. When everyone’s home.”
“Can’t hurt.”
“I was just thinking that a Transit cop could have taken Anthony to a friend’s apartment, an accomplice’s apartment, a married sister’s apartment. It’s worth a try if Defino’s in the same place.”
“Catch him before he leaves.”
It was quitting time, not that people were sticking to a schedule anymore. She went into the conference room. It stank of cigarette butts, coffee, and sweat. Smithson looked up, eyebrows raised, sensing that Jane was about to ruin his evening. She went over and explained what she wanted. To his credit, he said, “Sure. Let me make a phone call,” and he called his wife and told her not to hold dinner.
Parking was allowed on most Village streets overnight, and as in Jane’s neighborhood farther west, cars parked within inches of each other. Assuming that the car carrying Micah Anthony slowed for whatever reason, he would have had to skip between bumpers to reach the sidewalk, probably with someone carrying a gun at his heels. The original plan could not have been to shoot him on Waverly Place. Hundreds of people lived in the apartments that lined the street. Although it was late at night, the chance of someone hearing a gunshot or shouts was good, and they would want to avoid that. So it had to be that Anthony was taking advantage of an opportunity to run.
Jane and Smithson had eaten dinner before driving up to the Village in his car. They began their canvass at one corner at seven o’clock and worked their way down the street to the far corner. Jane kept a record of which apartments didn’t answer the bell; she could come back the next night. On the assumption that Defino might be held in one of these apartments, they attempted to enter each one that answered and look around. No warrant was needed to eyeball what was visible.
The residents were a representative sample of the population of the Village. There were singles, male and female, couples, families, roommates both heterosexual and homosexual. Many of the younger people had not lived there ten years before ; most of the older ones had and remembered the incident.
“I didn’t hear the shot,” an old woman said, “but my husband did. It woke him up and then I got up. He thought it was a car backfiring. We never dreamed it was a gunshot or we would have called the police.”
Others told similar stories. One man thought he heard the car gunning its engine as it drove away. No one actually saw the car, but several apartments with windows facing the street had changed hands. That didn’t matter to the canvass. If those tenants were gone, they weren’t holding Defino on that block.
When they finished the first side, they stopped for coffee. It was a depressing job.
“Think it’s still early enough to do the other side?” Smithson asked.
“Let’s give it a try.”
They were no more successful across the street, and it was close to ten when they finished. Smithson dropped her off at her building and went home. Upstairs, there was a brief message from Hack. She played it twice, enjoying the low rumble of his voice even more than the sense of the words. She would not call him back. It had been a long day and she didn’t want to take any chances.
20
“JANE, TELL ME what’s happening.” It was Toni, Defino’s wife. Jane had talked to her daily since Gordon’s disappearance on Friday. It was nine o’clock Wednesday morning.
“We have dozens of people working on it, Toni. New ideas pop up all the time and we’re acting on all of them.”
“What you’re say
ing is you’re no closer to finding him than when he was kidnapped.”
“Not exactly.” Jane was becoming an artful hedger. She couldn’t say what Toni wanted to hear, but she couldn’t lie. Cops’ wives were hard to deceive, and she owed Toni honesty. “We’ve come up with some good leads, and MacHovec is working night and day to follow up on them.”
“I know I’m bothering you.”
“You’re not. I should have called you but I drove up to Sing-Sing to talk to a prisoner yesterday, and when I got back we canvassed a street in the Village.”
“You’re working so hard. I feel so guilty.”
“Toni, you’re number one on my list. When I know anything, you’re the first one who’ll hear after the inspector.”
“Thanks, Jane.” The voice was almost a whisper.
“Hang in there.”
“I will.” Now it was a whisper.
Jane hung up and took a moment to calm herself. It was always right there, the possibility that Gordon was dead, that the kidnappers had gotten nothing from him because he knew nothing, and they couldn’t let him go because he could identify them.
“His wife?” MacHovec asked.
“Yeah. It gets harder every time.”
“I’m going through blue vans registered in the five boroughs, starting with ten years old.”
“Old ones first.”
“Right. There aren’t as many so it goes faster. When I get bored with that, I’m looking at Transit cops’ addresses for ten years ago. I actually found one, but he was a rookie and lived with his parents at the outside of the perimeter.”
“He still on the job?”
“Yeah. Lives in Queens.”
So not a suspect. “I actually made a list last night of women on Waverly Place who might have been somebody’s lover ten years ago.”
“What’d you use, bra size?”
She smiled. “Partly. Also age. One woman said she had lived there alone ten years ago and when she got married, her husband moved in with her. She had the better apartment. So she’s a possible.”
