Murder in Hell's Kitchen by Lee Harris Read Free Book Online

be because I can eat anything and she can’t. Without gaining weight. It’s a struggle for her every day. I don’t even think about it.” He took the ketchup and poured it generously over the fries and burger. “That guy over there? Sitting alone near the wall? Defense lawyer. Tried every trick in the book to get me to back down on my story about a year ago. I didn’t give him an inch. Jury came back in twenty minutes with a conviction. Makes you wonder. Guy must have no self-respect.”
    â€œIt’s a job. I do things all the time I don’t want to do.”
    â€œWe all do.”
    â€œWhat got you on the team?”
    â€œYou mean how did I fuck up?”
    â€œWhatever.”
    â€œThe truth is, I heard about it and I volunteered. I wanted to get away from my old squad for a while. You?”
    â€œI got pulled off the City Hall Park homicide. I’ll hit twenty years soon.”
    â€œYou pulling the pin?”
    â€œIt’s still a few months away. I got the feeling this was my punishment.”
    â€œSo what do you think?”
    â€œAlways like a good homicide,” she said.
    â€œSo where do we go from here?”
    â€œDepends on whether MacHovec got anywhere while we were gone. I think we have to talk to those tenants.”
    â€œI agree. So if he didn’t get anywhere, that’s what we do this afternoon. What did you think of Bracken?”
    â€œI liked him. He looks like a good man. Still . . .”
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œI’d give Otis Wright a call. You never know.”
    MacHovec was out to lunch when they returned but, surprisingly, he had had not just a busy morning but a productive one. A sheet of paper left on Jane’s desk contained an annotated list of names, addresses, and phone numbers, starting with the landlord and super, which they had just picked up from Bracken. There was a date of death for Elaine Best, approximately six months after the Quill homicide, the cause listed as a stroke. Her age had been seventy-nine.
    The space next to Hollis Worthman’s name was blank. Worthman had lived above Mrs. Best. Across the hall from him, Henry Soderberg, who discovered Quill’s body, had, with quotes around the words, “met with an unfortunate accident,” probably the words of the landlord or super. Soderberg had died a couple of months after Mrs. Best. The other tenants, Miss Rawls on three and Hutchins on four, apparently moved but left addresses for their security checks to be sent to.
    Jane handed the sheet to Defino. “I think I can tell you why the tenants are all gone. After Best died of a stroke, Soderberg died of some kind of accident. That would make three deaths in the building in less than a year. The others probably got scared. Anyway, it looks like MacHovec is good for something.”
    â€œA telephone detective. Good at making phone calls.”
    â€œThat’s OK with me.”
    â€œSo we have Hutchins on four, Rawls on three, and Worthman on two who are presumably alive and living somewhere else. We’ll have to track them down.”
    â€œI think we should talk to the landlord in person, find out what this unfortunate accident was, and see if he knows where the other three went.”
    â€œI got the time.”
    Jane called the landlord. A secretary answered and said Mr. Stabile would be back from lunch by one-thirty, which was a few minutes away, and he was free and was always happy to work with the police. This last she said as though reading from a script. Jane said they would be there in half an hour.
    MacHovec returned before they left and filled them in on a few details. He had informed the landlord that some detectives would be interviewing him, which most likely accounted for the secretary’s agreeable disposition. A landlord who cooperated with the police generally felt somewhat secure in the event that tenants banded together to protest the kinds of things that tenants