by Lee Harris
“No, sir. I just looked at him and went back to my station.”
“Then what?” Jane said.
“I was pretty shook, you know. I had to rest awhile before I figured out what to do. After I rested, I knew it was my duty to report what I found. So I went to the token booth and said what I’d seen.”
“You hang around for the police or did they have to find you?” Smithson asked.
“I waited for them, Detective. I know my duty as a citizen.”
“Yeah, right.” Smithson looked at Jane.
“OK, Catty. Thanks for your help.”
As they started to leave, Smithson turned back. “Where’d you get the name Catty?”
Catty gave them a smile, reached into his shirt, and pulled out a small gray kitten. “I just love cats,” he said. “That OK with you?”
Smithson didn’t answer.
30
“SO FELLOWS SAW them walk by,” McElroy said. “Two men he can’t identify.”
“Or won’t,” Jane said.
“Same difference. But what he said makes sense. If he’d been facing them as they approached, they would have seen him. This way, they just appeared and kept going and all he saw was their backs. After the shooting, the killer kept walking to the next station, went up on the platform and out to the street, just another anonymous straphanger.”
“And if he’s smart,” Smithson said, “he got rid of the gun last night. Not that it matters. He’s gone.”
“What do we know about him?” McElroy asked.
“Catty Fellows said both men were white, older, or at least not young,” Jane said. “That’s no surprise. Micah Anthony was murdered ten years ago. This guy probably wasn’t a rookie at the time. Look, I’ve got two ideas.”
“Let me hear them.” It sounded as though McElroy had none of his own.
“When I went up to Sing-Sing, I didn’t ask Curtis Morgan’s brother if he knew what rank the Transit cop was.”
“Good thought. We could get a list of names from the year Anthony was killed.”
“And I could call Anthony’s wife and ask if they knew a Transit cop. It’s possible a friend set him up.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time.” McElroy looked at his watch. “OK. Go to it.”
They stopped for coffee on the way back. The pot was full and it smelled good.
Sitting down at his desk, Smithson said, “Am I missing something or is McElroy as out of ideas as we are?”
“McElroy’s not an idea man. But he recognizes good ones when he hears them.”
“Graves has the brains.”
“And the sweetness and charm,” MacHovec chimed in. “Not always for us.”
“Warren,” Jane said, “how ’bout we split up the Fives?”
“I’ll do them. I took the notes.”
Jane dialed Mrs. Appleby’s number to the uneven tune of the typewriter. Her machine picked up and Jane left a message. Then she called Sing-Sing and made an appointment to talk to Timothy Morgan at five o’clock that evening. She stressed that Morgan had to be in a private setting. No one was to know he was cooperating with the police.
When she hung up, Mrs. Appleby called. “Are you making any progress?” she asked.
“Quite a bit. We’ve had some lucky breaks.”
“Your partner, Detective Defino. I heard about him on the news. Is that connected with my husband’s case?”
“It is.”
“I’m so sorry. How is he?”
“He’s doing fine. He’s very anxious to come back, but they won’t let him for a while.”
“So you’ve shaken things up.”
“We have.”
“That sounds good to me, especially after so many years. What can I do for you?”
“I have some questions, and I’d like to ask that you keep them strictly to yourself.”
“I understand.”
“Did your husband have any friends among the Transit cops?”
“Yes, he did, someone he went to high school with. We didn’t see them often, maybe once a year, but Micah always talked fondly of him.”
Jane grabbed her pencil. “What’s his name, Mrs. Appleby?”
“John Beasely. His wife’s name is Cynthia.”
“Are you still friendly with them?”
A breath found its way across the distance. “I haven’t heard from them for a couple of years. A few. Widows don’t get the same social consideration that married women do.”
“I understand. When was the last time you saw them, or him?”
“Probably five years ago. They took me to dinner. I invited them out to the house after that, but they couldn’t make it. I tried a few times and then I gave up.”
“Do you recall what rank he was when you last saw him?”
“I think he had just passed the lieutenant’s exam but he hadn’t been promoted yet.”
“What was his rank when your husband died?”
“I think he was a sergeant. He was a smart fellow—both of them were—and he took the sergeant’s exam as soon as he could. I seem to remember he passed it the first time.”
“Did he and your husband go on the job about the same time?”
“Micah joined just after he graduated from John Jay College. I don’t think John was ready then. He went to City and then took some time off. He probably lost a year, so he would have gone to the Academy about a year or so later. May I ask why you’re interested in him?”
“I can’t answer that. I’m sorry. How did he react when your husband died?”
This time there was a distinct pause. “Detective Bauer, John Beasely may have stopped calling me, but he wasn’t involved in Micah’s death.” Her voice was strained, the impact of the questions having hit their mark.
“I have to ask.”
“Yes. Yes, I know you do. And I will answer because I have no choice and because you and Detective Defino have obviously made more progress than ten years of other detectives’ work. And Detective Defino almost gave his life for this investigation. You wanted to know how John reacted when Micah died. He heard about Micah while he was at work and he found me at the hospital where they had taken me. He had thrown a coat over his jeans but he had no shirt on over his T-shirt. He was in tears. He hugged me and we cried together.” She sounded near tears herself. “That’s how he reacted. He was my husband’s friend, one of the oldest friends Micah had.”
“Thank you. I have another question.”
“Go on.”
“You told us last week that you thought your husband would get into a car with someone he trusted.”
“Yes. I still think so.”
“If it was someone in uniform, or someone who had a shield, even if he didn’t know the person, do you think he would get into that car?”
“That’s very difficult to answer. Since he started working that case, he was always on guard. He didn’t want me answering the phone. I remember that. He was talking about putting in a second line, unlisted, just so his parents and a few close friends could call us. He became preoccupied with security, especially since I was visibly pregnant. Would he get into a car with a stranger who had the right ID?” The silence that followed the echoed question answered it. She couldn’t be sure. “I don’t know, Detective Bauer. Would I have gone with an unknown cop who showed up at my door with a badge and told me he had to take me to safety? Maybe I would. But Micah . . . I don’t know. You think someone in the car that picked him up showed him a shield?”
“I think many things are possible,” Jane said.
“He’d be alive if he hadn’t gotten into that car.”
“He may not have had a choice, Mrs. Appleby. There may have been several men with guns. We just don’t know yet.”
“But you’re coming closer. Your partner—”
“Yes, we’re closer, just not close enough.”
“Was there anything else?”
“Not today. I’m sorry I disrupted your afternoon.”
“Just get
them. I’m not made of steel but I won’t collapse. I want those people in custody.”
“We’ll do our best.”
MacHovec’s hand was reaching across to her desk for the sheet on which she had written the name. “You got something.”
“Anthony had a childhood friend who became a Transit cop a little after Anthony came on the job.”
“Beasely. Let’s see where it takes us.”
He went to work at the computer, making small sounds as he flipped from screen to screen. At least this man’s work history hadn’t been expunged. When he finally began to print it all out, Jane realized the typewriter had grown quiet. Either Smithson had finished the Fives or he had sensed a possible lead and was waiting to leap at it.
“Looks like a good career,” MacHovec said. “There may be issues in the personnel file, but from what I see here, he’s OK.” Personnel files were off-limits to them. McElroy or Graves could access them with the OK of the chief of personnel via a request from the chief of D’s office if they became necessary. He handed Jane some papers and started printing another set. “What I’ll do now is cross-reference this with Charley Farrar, see if they overlap anywhere. It won’t be obvious. One’s a cop; one’s a maintenance man. Maybe Beasely made a collar at a station where Farrar was working. Kinda thin, but what else do we have?”
“Not much,” Jane said. “They belong to different unions, different organizations.”
“And these guys wouldn’t socialize. A black cop and a white track man.”
“Sean, maybe Farrar had a brother or cousin who was a cop.”
“I’ll look into it later.” He tossed a second set of the printout on Jane’s desk for Smithson and started one going for himself.
Jane turned to Smithson. “Let’s look at the year before Micah Anthony was murdered. Think guns. Think armory. He ever cross paths with Carl Randolph or Sal Manelli or Curtis Morgan?” She found the page she had directed him to and started reading.
31
SMITHSON AND MACHOVEC were out of the office at four forty-five, and Jane pushed back from the desk and closed her eyes. It was Friday afternoon and she was exhausted. Considering that they had found Defino alive, it had been a good week.
The phone rang and Hack’s voice said, “When did I see you last?”
“Sunday?”
“Feels like a month ago. You OK for tonight?”
“Oh, yeah. I just have to talk to a guy at Sing-Sing at five.”
“I missed lunch today. I’ll bring something nourishing.”
She smiled. “I’ll be home by six.”
“I’ll be there when I get there.”
It was almost five when she hung up. She placed the call to Ossining and reached the officer she had spoken to earlier. Timothy Morgan was in a private room, awaiting her call.
“Mr. Morgan,” she said when he answered, “are you alone?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I have a question about something we discussed the other day.”
“OK.”
“Your brother told you there was a Transit cop involved in the gun deal.”
“That’s what he said.”
“Do you know what rank the cop was?”
“Jeez,” he muttered. “Yeah, he did say. Gimme a minute. I think . . . He used to say, ‘The sarge says.’ Yeah. I think it was a sergeant.”
“Did he know him well? Were they friends or just partners in the deal?”
“I couldn’t tell you. But I don’t think they were friends. I don’t know if they ever met.”
“Did he mention if the cop was black or white?”
“Nah. He just said ‘the sarge.’ ”
“Would he have mentioned it if the sarge was black?”
“He might’ve. He might not’ve. Those things didn’t make a lot of difference to Curt. He had his gripes against this one and that one, but it wasn’t a big deal with him. Like I said, I don’t know if they met.”
“Do you know anything else about this cop? His age. Where he lived. What district he worked out of.”
“I wish I could help you.” The tone of his voice told her he believed more information would yield greater benefits to him. “It was just some talk between us. The sarge said this, the sarge said that.”
“Did your brother ever mention a Charley Farrar?” She had learned about Farrar the day after her trip to the prison.
“Farrar.” He was silent. “Charley. Charley Farrar. Yeah, maybe. But I’m not sure, Detective. Charley’s a pretty common name. I’ve known a few myself.”
So had Jane. “Think about it. I could call you back.”
“I don’t think so. It’s so long ago, I don’t think I can dig it up.”
She decided to give up. If she pushed him, he would start to believe his brother had mentioned the name. If he wasn’t sure, he wouldn’t be able to tell her anything useful about Farrar anyway.
It was the end of the day, the end of the week. The man she loved was coming over with stuff to nourish her body and her soul, to give her what she needed to keep going on a case that was teetering between hopelessness and a strand of hope. For a while, she would stop thinking and give it some rest.
She showered and changed into clean clothes, touched her skin with cologne he had bought her in Paris, a delicious scent she used only when she was with him. Hurrying, she neatened the apartment, which usually got cleaned only between cases or when she was so dizzy with facts and theories that she needed to do something mindless. As she gathered up papers and magazines, and ran a cloth over the coffee table and a wet rag over the kitchen table, she thought about Warren Smithson and Gordon Defino. The partner relationship was key to good police work, but it was often uneasy, sometimes failing completely. Jane had never partnered with another woman. In the last twenty years, there had been several men, the best of them Marty Hoagland, her longtime partner in the Six. Over the years she had become friends with Marty, and also with his wife, which pleased Jane. Marty had briefly had a female partner who was so sexually aggressive, he eventually asked for a new one.
Defino, with whom she had worked since the previous fall when the cold case squad was organized, was a good detective and a good family man. She liked and respected him, and they got along well. She sensed she would never feel about Smithson the way she felt about Gordon. Smithson was more guarded, less a partner than someone working on the same case. MacHovec was another matter. Badly dressed, unwilling to leave the office except for an occasional trip to an inanimate source of information, he was largely an unknown. He occasionally drank during work hours and had made the worst possible impression on Defino. Their relationship had eased somewhat since MacHovec’s involvement in a shooting in the winter, when they were all working on a homicide that had taken place in Alphabet City a number of years earlier. Jane could see that Smithson couldn’t quite make out what kind of a man MacHovec was, and she had not discussed either man with the other. She knew she would feel more comfortable when Defino returned, but she assumed that it would not happen until the Micah Anthony case was cleared or abandoned.
Hack arrived at seven, carrying with him two enormous steaks and some accompaniments.
“Haven’t had any red meat for days,” he said. “Mind sticking these under the broiler for a few seconds on each side?”
She laughed and set the timer for five minutes. She came from a family where food was cooked to death—so did Hack, he had told her—and it had been a long metamorphosis to enjoying meat that was not dark brown and dry in the middle, and vegetables that were not falling apart, most of their taste left in the water they had cooked in. Hack’s turnaround had been rapid, initiated when he moved out of his parents’ home and sampled a world that was not Irish and insulated from the devils outside.
“The body in the subway,” Hack said when they were eating, “that’s your guy, right?”
“Right. We put out an alarm after he didn’t show up for work yesterday, and by the time it got to the detectives who que
stioned the homeless guy who found the body, they’d released him. We found him in Brooklyn. He changed his story for us. He saw two guys walk past where he sleeps in a little alcove off the tracks. Their backs were to him but he saw the guy in back holding a gun on the guy in front. And he probably heard the shot.”
“But the shooter never came back.”
“He must’ve gone on to the next station. The meat is great.”
“Don’t leave any over.”
She would hand over a piece of hers in a few minutes. For a man with a flat stomach, he had an enormous appetite. “It’s a great meal.”
“So you think the Transit cop who ordered the killing of Micah Anthony killed this guy Farrar.”
“I’m sure of it. He got rid of the only link between himself and the three guys who were tried ten years ago.”
“And now he’s home free.”
“And we’re out in the cold. I got one scrap of information from the guy in Sing-Sing. His brother referred to the cop as ‘the sarge.’ On Monday I’ll tell MacHovec to start looking at all the Transit cops who were sergeants at the time Anthony was shot.”
“Some job.”
“That’s what he does, Hack, sits at the computer and phone and pulls out facts. He’s also good at charming the women at Motor Vehicles.”
“They’re uncharmable.”
“Guess you just don’t have what it takes, buddy.” She grinned at him across the table. “And he’s good at Social Services—at least better than I would be—and all those other hellholes. We’ll check Farrar’s incoming phone calls, but this sarge guy is too smart to call from his desk.”
“Or from a phone booth in his district. Maybe he uses phone cards, the way we do.”
“There is one more thing.” She told him about Micah Anthony’s old friend John Beasely. “Mrs. Anthony—uh, Appleby—thinks he was a sergeant when Anthony was killed.”
“I like that.”
“But the homeless guy said it was two white guys who passed him. Beasely’s black.”
“It’s dark down there.”
“True.” She passed a third of her steak over to his plate.
“Ah. You’re a generous woman.”
She smiled, happy, comfortable, and well fed, dessert still to come.
