Too Quiet in Brooklyn (14 page)

In my hands I held all the information I’d need, all the particulars if they were accurate, complete with address, phone number, and New Jersey plates. The VIN report listed an accident some nine months ago. Six months after that—three months ago—Arrowsmith switched insurance companies and had the vehicle checked and photographed, as per New Jersey state law. The shop that did the work was Allentown Auto Body on North Main Street. Policy number with the new insurer was also listed.

“How about prior arrests?” I asked.

“Yes. In 2002 he was arrested and convicted of armed robbery, first degree. Served eight years of a ten-year sentence. Paroled for the remainder.”

“So you got a mug shot and prints?”

She nodded.

“But you haven’t lifted his prints from anywhere near Mary Ward Simon yet or you’d have told me. That means at least two men are involved.”

Jane nodded again.

“What I don’t understand is why they moved the body, why they chose the heart of the Heights to dump it when they were going to torch the van? It doesn’t make sense. There’s got to be some explanation, unless these guys are morons.”

“It doesn’t take brains to be a killer,” Willoughby said.

“Maybe they wanted the body found,” Denny said. “Maybe they were told where to dump it.” He slid his eyes to mine.

I said nothing, chewing on that thought, not saying anything until it hit me. My mother, a vice-president at Heights Federal Bank, was found with her wrists slashed in the same place as Mary Ward Simon was today. And Mary Ward Simon was in the midst of auditing Heights Federal, the mortgage division. There had to be a connection. I shot a glance at Denny who opened his mouth to say something, but must have decided to say nothing because he shut it again.

“We think there’s a connection,” Jane said.

I looked from Jane to Willoughby who stood there nodding.

“But right now—”

I didn’t let her finish. “I’m with you,” I said. “Let’s get these guys alive and hope they lead us to Charlie.”

Jane smiled. She reached into her bag and pulled out Arrowsmith’s photo.

I stared at it. “I swear I saw him at the site this afternoon. Right before I talked to you. The FDNY ambulance had just arrived and a crowd was gathering on the other side of the street. Denny and his partner were busy taping when all of a sudden this guy’s breathing into my face. It looked like he had been talking to some of them and he walked across the street. Nosey guy, he got too close to me, him and his bad case of beer breath. He was dressed like a gardener or a painter. Had bits of grass on his shoes. Cookie saw him too. I wish she was still here.” I shot Denny a look. He had the grace to say nothing, just glanced at me with his haunted baby blues.

I gave Jane back the photo and dialed Arrowsmith’s phone number. I got an answering machine with a canned recorded message, so I left one of my own. I told him I worked for an attorney who was attempting to trace parties named as beneficiaries in a will and asked him to return my call at his earliest convenience.

“Allentown. Isn’t that in Pennsylvania?” Willoughby asked.

Jane shook her head. “This one’s on the western edge of Monmouth County in Central New Jersey.”

“Sure you don’t want something to drink?” I asked. “I need to get up anyway, my computer’s upstairs.”

“Why do you need your computer? Are your search engines are better than ours?”

Denny got his licks in. “That’s Fina. She was passed over when the trust gene was doled out.”

Upstairs I searched and got Arrowsmith’s cell phone number and dialed it, but Verizon told me the phone was no longer in service. So I called a buddy I worked with at Brown’s and in a minute he emailed me Arrowsmith’s mobile service records for the last three months. It was probably a mortal sin against the privacy laws, but a little boy’s life was at stake. Looking up the numbers would give me something to do tonight, or early tomorrow morning while we drove to New Jersey. I would have suggested my driving out there, but I wanted to hear Jane beg a little longer.

When I got back, Jane was talking. It was clear her head was still in the Garden State. “We’ve issued an APB, but I personally called the local police chief and asked for his help tracking down Arrowsmith in conjunction with a murder and abduction. I called him a person of interest, but, hell, he’s our prime suspect.”

“Isn’t local law on the FBI’s radar?” Willoughby asked. “They should have sought their help hours ago. After all, the feds are supposed to be leading the investigation.”

“Maybe, but it doesn’t hurt to call,” Denny said.

I kept my mouth shut, but I admired Jane for her communication skills. She’d reach out to Satan himself if she needed help. Then I remembered what Cookie told me about the neighbor with the nose.

“Did you do a neighborhood around College Place?” I asked Jane.

She nodded. “We didn’t turn up much. Most folks said they weren’t home. But it’s a matter of priorities. Neighborhoods take time. You got to keep going back. I just don’t have the manpower or the hours right now, and ever since those damn CSI shows, it’s forensics, forensics, forensics. Got to have it for the trial.”

Like I didn’t know. “I might have something.” I told her about Cookie talking to Hector Pool and what he said about Mary Ward Simon’s handymen, and that I scheduled a meeting with him for tomorrow morning.

“He saw two men?”

I looked at my notes just to make sure and nodded.

Jane was on it like a shark eating a guppy. She called him on the spot. “I could come over now or tomorrow morning, whatever’s more convenient,” I heard her say.

“It fits, doesn’t it?” I said. “Have you done a neighborhood yet of the scene on Henry Street?” I asked.

“What’s with you and these neighborhood things?” she asked. “We’ll get to it, don’t worry.”

I told her what we’d discovered from talking to a couple of people on Henry Street, what they’d seen or thought they’d seen shortly after eleven this morning and gave her phone numbers and addresses from my notes.

Jane listened, took notes and started in again about New Jersey. I could tell she’d rehearsed it. “I suppose I could work with New Jersey’s state cops and the Allentown police, but I don’t know about their workload.” She paused for effect. “Of course when they hear that a child’s life is at stake, they might do me a solid, blue to blue, and slide my case to the top of their pile, but I can’t take that chance.” She stopped talking and looked at me long and hard but I looked back at her all innocent and clueless and said nothing so she kept it up. I’ll admit it, I wanted to hear her grovel.

So she yapped on. “To tell you the truth, you’ve been such a great help, giving me all sorts of leads and I owe you one, I realize that. If you’d like our help with anything, anything at all, not that we don’t have lots of work left to do.”

Right.

“The FBI knows about this?” I asked.

She paused a beat too long. “Of course,” she said, her second lie of the evening. “They’re working it, too, but you know them. I figured you wouldn’t mind checking things out. I trust you.”

I nodded. “I’ll take a ride out there myself.”

Jane visibly relaxed.

“And I’ll go along. I’m off duty tomorrow,” Denny said.

I leaned into him and kissed his shoulder. I felt like making up for my earlier behavior right there in the middle of the floor, but restrained myself.

I knew a couple of New Jersey people from my years at Brown’s but I hadn’t talked to them in a while, so I was out of touch. Besides, they worked in Newark, not in central New Jersey. I couldn’t think of anyone to call in Allentown who could help. I felt like I’d struck out until it occurred to me that except for the information about the van, all the detail had been flowing in one direction, big time, from me to her.

“Not to change the subject or anything,” I said, “but I didn’t hear the results of the autopsy.”

To her credit, Jane said, “And you texted me about that, too, didn’t you? I apologize.”

Geez-a-loo.

She looked at her watch and Willoughby loosened his tie.

“Mind if I get my laptop from the car?” he asked.

“And I need to use the facilities,” Jane said.

“Gotta walk through the kitchen and it’s on your right,” I yelled after her. “An afterthought in these old houses to have a john on the first floor.” I told them I’d make a fresh pot of coffee, and suggested we sit around the table. I fetched some power cords and handed one to Denny.

When Jane was out of earshot, I said “They don’t know I have the vic’s laptop. Barbara gave it to me today before you guys arrived.”

“No time like the present to break it to her. After all, Barbara’s your client. She’s entitled to give you anything.”

When we were reassembled, sipping fresh coffee, a box of chocolate chip cookies in the middle and laptops all plugged in, I stole a glance at Denny who sat next to me. His hand squeezed my knee and slowly made its way up my thigh. I didn’t disabuse him, but what with minor stroking going on under the table and my eye doing a fresh throb, my hair in knots and the results of my recent bout of sobbing, I must have looked a sight.

Into a slight lull, Jane said, “Cause of death was asphyxiation on account of strangulation. Hyoid bone broken.”

Willoughby bit into a cookie and sprayed crumbs on himself and the table. He began swiping at his crotch, or at least at whatever was in the spot where his legs came together. Jane and I watched. Denny watched us watching Willoughby.

“This happens a lot,” Jane said. “Can’t keep the car clean with all the crumbs.”

Willoughby raised an eyebrow. “And she has trouble steering when it happens, too.”

The tension in the room took a breather.

“And you must have gotten prints,” I said. “I saw orange goggles on one of your guys.”

She shook her head. “A lot of good it did. Nothing in AFIS.”

“I thought everyone wore gloves. Who’s naive enough not to wear?” I asked.

“Someone who knows he’s not in AFIS. Someone who’s never been in the military or held any type of government job. Someone who never crossed the border,” Denny said.

“Did the techs pick up any other trace?” Denny asked. “That old coat must be loaded with stuff.”

“Good question. They found a few wood chips sold just about everywhere including the mega groceries and home improvement stores, a few blades of your ordinary grass, some spider eggs indigenous to this area, some strands of hair not belonging to the vic. They’re culling for DNA now, and once we have a suspect, it’ll all come in handy and the D.A.’s office will be happy when it comes time to prosecuting.”

“Did your guys go through the shed in the back?” I took a sip of java. It was just what I needed. My low-grade headache shot up a notch.

“They must have,” Jane said, taking a gulp of coffee. She turned to Willoughby. “Did you get the report yet?”

“Last I checked, it hadn’t come in,” Willoughby said, crunching on a chocolate chip. He started his laptop and when he was ready for it, I typed in the password for our wireless network then excused myself and took a break.

When I returned, he said, “Here’s the preliminary report.” He scrolled through the PDF and squinted at his screen. Scrolled up, scrolled down, took the last cookie and spewed crumbs on the keyboard and table. “Nothing here about a shed in the back. They found garden tools in the yard near a flower bed.”

I sat up. “I saw the tools and judging by the job they did, they were no gardeners, believe me. But I saw a shed. Barbara gave me a tour of her mother’s house while we were waiting for you.” I held my breath waiting for a reaction, but there was none. “It’s in a corner of the garden hidden by a small blue spruce or something. Padlocked. At the time I didn’t have the key, and I heard sirens approaching. But I have a key now—Barbara gave it to me before she left for the morgue. Bet you anything the coat’s from that shed. We might find other stuff there, too. It could be important.”

The Primary Crime Scene

“Damn!” Jane looked upset. I was glad I wasn’t the one who filed the report.

“It might show up on subsequent versions,” I said.

“It’s got a time stamp of eleven thirty five, just a few minutes ago. They probably wanted to get this out before midnight,” Willoughby said, looking at his watch. “Well, nothing we can do about it tonight.”

“You bet there’s something we can do about it.” Jane was halfway out of her chair. “Don’t just sit there, get a move on!” She stabbed her phone and in a second, spoke to someone on duty telling them to get their asses over to College Place. I felt their fear. It came through loud and clear over the wire.

Denny looked at me and winked. “Meet you there,” he called to Jane.

“C’mon, daft and serious,” he said to me. It was his way of trying to make up, but I knew we had to talk—I felt the elevator plunge to my lower depths.

As I climbed into Denny’s jeep, I apologized and kissed him on the neck. “I’m messed up, I know. I just didn’t expect to hear Heights Federal Bank tonight.”

“It’s Cookie you need to talk to. She’s the one who’s upset.”

“With me? Angry?”

“No. Hurt. I can’t blame her. She’s doing the neighborhoods for you, and what does she get? A mumbled thanks and a rant. Besides, she’s hurting herself.”

“She’s used to my rants.”

“Not this time.”

While Denny drove, I texted her a gushy one and asked if she wanted to go to New Jersey with us tomorrow. “Might be dangerous,” I added.

Two seconds later she replied in the affirm.

“See? She’s not hurt.”

“Dream on.”

Jane and Willoughby were standing by the fence, gloves on, when we pulled up. We opened the gate and I showed her the shed, reaching in my pockets for latex gloves and the key, trying to fit it into the lock. After a few vain attempts to open it, I let Jane try, and the tumblers fell and the lock turned. We stood peering inside trying to see into the cavernous space with the aid of one flashlight.

I smelled cut grass and cordite and something else. The hair on the back of my neck stood at attention. I knew something bad had happened in there. Jane shone her light around.