Hot time, p.9
Hot Time, page 9
Chief Conlin opened his mouth, then changed his mind. Rafe could see the fight melt out of him. “Very well,” he said with an ostentatious bow of the head.
Rafe crossed out 200 and wrote 400.
“If I may proceed?” the chief asked. “We will cordon off a square block around the Garden, beginning at five o’clock.”
“Good,” Mr. Roosevelt said.
“No one without a ticket will be permitted to enter the area.”
“Excellent.”
“The doors will open at seven, and Mr. Bryan is to begin speaking at eight.”
Rafe wrote, 5:00–7:00–8:00.
The chief went on. There would be ambulances standing by and a temporary infirmary set up in the basement, with surgeons in attendance. Nothing would be left to chance, he assured the commissioners. They had no cause to worry. But judging from the furrows in his brow, Mr. Roosevelt wasn’t convinced.
Afterward, as they made their way back to the commissioner’s office, Rafe thought Mr. Roosevelt might ask about his extended absence that afternoon, but he only said, “Rafe, write up your notes in a thorough memorandum.” So there was his answer. If there was trouble at the speech, the commissioner wanted a detailed record of what the department had done to try to prevent it. “And let me see it before you file it,” Mr. Roosevelt added. That was unusual. Rafe wondered, was it a measure of the matter’s importance or some new lack of confidence in him? He couldn’t shake the feeling that the commissioner had seemed curiously distant today, guarded, suspicious even. Did it have to do with the questions he’d raised about the Mann case? In any event, he knew this wasn’t the time to tell him everything he’d learned this afternoon. Mr. Roosevelt stalked into his office, and Rafe went back to his desk to draft his memorandum. From across the anteroom, Minnie was watching him.
Later, he mouthed. Then he leaned in her direction. “Was Captain O’Brien here?”
“Yes,” she said. “Right before the meeting.” So Rafe was right, O’Brien and the commissioner had discussed the Bryan matter beforehand.
“With Detective Gallagher.”
Rafe nodded, but uncertainly. Gallagher again? In ten months he had never seen Gallagher in the commissioner’s office. Now he’d been there twice in two days, both times in the company of the chief of detectives.
Just then, Rafe and Minnie were startled by a cry from Mr. Roosevelt’s office.
“Hi! Yi! Yi! Hey, Riis!”
Minnie gave a tolerant smile. The commissioner liked to summon his friend by leaning out the window and shouting across the street. Presently Jacob Riis bounded through the anteroom and into the inner office.
“Shut the door,” Mr. Roosevelt told him.
The moment the latch had clicked, Minnie asked, “Well? Did you go to the alley?”
“Yes,” he told her. “And to the morgue.”
Her blue eyes widened in a most appealing way. “So that’s why you were gone so long.”
Rafe hoped it was admiration he heard in her voice. He wanted to draw out the story for her benefit, but Mr. Roosevelt’s door might open at any time. “Despite what Gallagher’s report said, Mann wasn’t killed in the alley,” he whispered. “He’d been brought there from somewhere else. His heels were dragged through the dust, and there was no blood to speak of.”
She whistled, a bracingly unladylike sound. “You have to tell the commissioner.”
He shook his head. “It’s too soon. I need some idea of who or why.” And he needed to understand why the commissioner seemed so uninterested in the case.
“Oh,” he added, reaching into his pocket. “And I found this in the alley. A woman’s handkerchief. It had fallen inside one of the crates. I never would have seen it, except the sun just happened to catch one corner.” He held it up for her to see.
“That’s strange,” she said. “From the looks of it, it wasn’t there very long. It’s still clean and neatly folded.”
Just then Mr. Roosevelt’s door opened and Riis hurried out. Rafe pulled out his top desk drawer and laid the handkerchief inside. When he caught up to Riis, on the staircase, the Dane stopped and faced him, almost as if he were expected.
“I saw your piece this morning,” Rafe began in a friendly way. “About William d’Alton Mann.”
Riis nodded.
“Congratulations, another scoop. What luck you happened to be there, in the middle of the night and all.”
“Half of all reporting is just luck,” Riis said.
“But of course, if you put yourself in the right place, you improve the odds that luck will find you.”
“Quite so,” he said, starting downstairs again.
Rafe walked alongside him, dodging the other policemen on the steps. “I guess you were making the rounds at that hour alone, since the commissioner was occupied with Mr.—?”
“Appleby.”
“Yes, Appleby. You’ve seen quite a few murder scenes in your time. I was wondering, did you find anything unusual about that one?”
Riis pushed his spectacles up the bridge of his nose. “No, not that I can say. I’m sure Detective Sergeant Gallagher has made a very thorough report.”
“The fact that Mann was on Rose Street at that hour, dressed in his day clothes, that doesn’t strike you as odd?”
Riis didn’t look at him. “Not necessarily, no.”
“Or the fact that the robber left a pair of gold cuff links behind?”
“You’d be surprised how often that happens.”
“Or that there were heel marks down the alley, as though someone had been dragged?”
Riis shot him a look, and Rafe could tell he had caught the reporter off guard.
“We didn’t see that last night,” he said.
“‘We’?” Rafe asked.
“Gallagher and Miller, I mean.” He stopped at the landing. “Look, if you have questions about the Mann case, I suggest you take them up with the commissioner.”
“Of course. I just thought that since you were there and he wasn’t …”
But Riis had already started down the stairs again. Rafe watched him go. There was something about that familiar “we” that made him doubt it referred to just Riis, the detective, and the roundsman. What a shame that Mr. Roosevelt had just happened to be otherwise engaged on a night when the reporter had found a murder to write about. And how did Riis know that the commissioner had been busy with Mr. Appleby? Rafe had placed his own note to Mr. Roosevelt in a sealed envelope and hadn’t mentioned the name to Riis. He supposed the commissioner could have mentioned it to him just now, but why would he have done that?
Rafe walked back upstairs distractedly, his eyes combing the treads as if for clues. That was the second time today that he’d been referred to the commissioner for more information about the Mann case. But not just yet, he decided.
With a bundle of the late edition tucked under his arm, Grady hurried past the Newsboys Lodging House and turned onto Rose Street. Earlier, around lunchtime, he’d spotted Dutch on the sidewalk with that copper who bought a paper from him every morning, the one who gave him a nickel that day. Seeing the cop and Dutch together, he’d ducked into a doorway. He’d been on the street long enough to have had more than a few scrapes with the police, and as a rule he tried not to attract their attention, not even from the friendly ones. He didn’t know this copper’s name, and that was fine with him. As he’d watched, Dutch and the cop had walked up the other side of the road, past the lodging house, and made the corner. He hadn’t followed.
But later, he’d remembered Dutch’s questions about killers and crapes and coppers, and he’d wondered what the kid was mixed up in. Just now, when he’d gone to pick up his afternoon stock, there’d been no sign of Dutch at the World Building. And he hadn’t been on his beat at Broadway and Pearl. That left one place to check, the alley on Rose Street where he’d been bedding down. If he wasn’t there, Grady would have to wonder if he got himself arrested, or worse.
Now Grady stood at the entrance to the alley and called Dutch’s name. The only answer was his own voice echoing off the dusty bricks. He ventured a little way into the shadows and called again. Nothing. He turned to go, but a burly man was blocking his path. He recognized Gallagher, one of the worst cops he knew. Sometimes he thought the man would take a swipe at a newsboy just because he could. Grady stopped, and Gallagher started toward him.
Standing over him, he asked, “Grady, what brings you here on this warm day?”
“Good afternoon, Detective Gallagher,” Grady said. “Nothing. Just looking for a place to sleep tonight is all.”
Gallagher inched closer. “Did you sleep here last night?”
“No. Why?”
“Do you know who did?”
“Nobody I know. Why?”
Gallagher held up a gray newsboy’s cap. Turning it over, he pointed to the initials inked on the inside band. “Who’s ‘D.M.’?” he asked.
Grady shrugged. “No idea.”
Before he could see it coming, Gallagher grabbed him by the throat and pinned him against the brick wall. “You lying son of a bitch.”
“No, I ain’t!”
“You’ve done some stupid things in your short, miserable life, Grady. But this is the stupidest. It’s one thing to snatch a wallet or two, but when you kill a man—”
Grady’s eyes widened. “What are you talking about?”
“A man died here last night. And I come back today, and who do I find?”
“I told you, I was looking for a place to sleep.”
“With your bundle of papers under your arm?”
“I was just passing by, and I saw the alley, and—”
Gallagher slapped him hard across the cheek. “Who’s the cap belong to, Grady?”
“I told you—”
Gallagher slapped him again. “All right, then. Down to the station we go. Maybe you’ll talk better down there.”
“Hold on a minute,” Grady said. “If it’s a newsie’s, they’ll know at the lodging house—you know, on the corner.” He felt the pressure ease just a little on his throat. “I bet they can tell you who belongs to it.”
“I’m heading over there tonight,” Gallagher told him, “but now I come here and find you.” He leaned so close that Grady could see the flecks of dust in his razor stubble. “If you’re playing with me, Grady, you’ll regret it, you hear?”
“I ain’t playing with you,” he said. “They can help you out at the lodging house, I know they can.”
Slowly, as though it was costing him money, Gallagher released his grip on the boy’s throat. Grady watched him stalk up the alley. It was a mortal sin to squeal on another newsboy. But he hadn’t really squealed, he told himself. He didn’t say the cap belonged to Dutch. Dutch wouldn’t be at the lodging house tonight anyway, with the heat and all. The next time Grady saw him, he’d warn him about Gallagher. He rubbed his cheek. He’d also give Dutch a good smack for not being square with him.
Rafe stood on the corner of Fifty-seventh Street and Ninth Avenue, eyeing the front of the Kenmore Apartments. With its seven-story limestone facade and terra-cotta-and-iron trim, the building made an impression, substantial but understated. A comfortable building for comfortable people. Rafe doubted many murder victims had called the Kenmore home.
He took out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead. The sun was down, but the thermometer hadn’t budged. And he had to admit, it wasn’t just the temperature that was making him sweat. On the long trolley ride uptown, he’d asked himself what he thought he was doing. He had never investigated so much as a lost dog before. What made him think he could solve a murder on his own? It was true, what Minnie had said about getting on the list for the detective exam. As usual, she had seen right through him and wasn’t afraid to let him know it. Of course he wanted to make detective. Sometimes at night, when he couldn’t sleep, he would lie in bed listening to his father and brother breathing, and he would think what a promotion would mean to the family—a bigger apartment, where they wouldn’t have to sleep three to a room, far away from the filth and the crime of the Lower East Side. He would also think of the pride on Minnie’s face when he told her the news.
And until very recently, he would imagine the commissioner’s look of satisfaction as he presented him with the silver detective’s badge. But over the past several hours, he’d become less sure about Mr. Roosevelt’s approval. And he certainly knew better than to expect anything like that from his father. Even so, he imagined what it would feel like to carry a detective’s badge in his pocket, and he knew the extra heft couldn’t be measured in a few ounces of metal. He could sense himself on the verge of something, though he couldn’t yet say what. The fact was, he couldn’t not come to the Kenmore.
As Minnie had pointed out, Mr. Roosevelt hadn’t forbidden him from looking into the murder. But why had the commissioner been acting so cold toward him? How would he react when he learned what Rafe was about to do? It was one thing to ask a few questions at the morgue; it was another to enter a murder victim’s home under false pretenses. He gazed up again at the imposing facade of the Kenmore Apartments. Well, if he could run into a burning tenement in the middle of the night, he guessed he could do this. Crossing the street, he made for the building’s entrance.
A liveried employee had the door open before Rafe reached the threshold. “Good evening, Officer.” Then, leaning closer, he whispered, “I imagine you’re here about the matter of last night. Such a shame. We’ve been expecting you.”
Rafe tried to hide his surprise.
The doorman went to his desk and picked up a key. Rafe followed him through the lobby, past electric chandeliers, oak paneling, damask sofas. At the back they stepped into an elevator. The doorman closed the brass safety gate and pulled the lever, and the cab rocked into motion.
“Such a shame, such a shame,” he was saying. “Such a friendly man. And very popular, you know.”
“He had a lot of friends?” Rafe asked.
“Oh, yes. The very best people were always coming and going.” He frowned. “But I thought the newspaper said it was a robbery. Why would you need to—?”
“We just have to be thorough,” Rafe said. “You know.”
“Of course.” The elevator stopped on the sixth floor. At the end of the hallway, the doorman slipped his passkey into the lock, then stepped back. “There you are,” he said. “I must return to my post, so just ring for the elevator when you’re finished.”
Rafe stepped inside. It was a big apartment, a rich man’s apartment. In the foyer was a round table carved from some kind of dark, gleaming wood. In the living room, an antique sofa and chairs were arranged before a marble mantelpiece. On the walls were oil paintings of horses and hounds. No one had closed the windows or the curtains, and the last of the sunlight was reflecting off the polished parquet floor. He stood for a moment, taking in the unnatural stillness. The stillness of the grave, he thought.
On a low table near the sofa he spotted a silver cigarette box. Beside it was a copy of a magazine. Town Topics read the glossy, oversize cover, “The Journal of Society.” Rafe picked it up and riffled the pages. It was a magazine for the upper crust, just as Riis’s story had said, with articles on weddings, benefit galas, the racing meet at Saratoga, the sailings of New York’s most prominent families. He laid it down.
In the bedroom were more antiques. Rafe went to the closet and opened the door. Hanging to one side were the evening clothes that Mann hadn’t been wearing last night. On the far wall, under the window, was an elegant writing desk. Rafe walked that way. The top was vacant except for a green blotter and a silver pen set. He pulled out the narrow drawer and found several sharpened pencils. Reaching inside, he felt something smooth and flat. A small leather notebook. On the front, on a pasted paper label, was penned in a careful, angular script, “Town Topics” Stock Purchases.
It was a ledger. There were no headings, but the left-hand column was a list of dates, beginning on page one with September 5, 1891, and ending on page six with August 9, 1896—the day before Mann was murdered. Filling the right-hand column was a string of figures, most of which read $2,500. In the wider center column was a list of enigmatic words—Golden, Capitol, and Steel, among others. Rafe had heard that businessmen sometimes committed their telegrams and letters to code, and he guessed these must be code names for the individuals who had paid the amounts in the second column.
This year alone, Mann had supposedly sold shares worth nearly $50,000. Rafe whistled at the amount. He understood nothing more about stocks than he could glean from the business page of the New York Sun, but even he knew that a society magazine didn’t need that much cash, or could be so attractive to investors. A more likely alternative began to take shape in his mind, and it had nothing to do with stock purchases. He took his pencil and notebook from his pocket, but as he thumbed through the pages of names, he realized he could never copy them all. Not if he were going to finish before the chatty doorman got curious and came to see what was taking so long. He slipped his own notebook back in his coat pocket, along with the leather ledger.
He glanced into the small, dark kitchen, then went to the outer hall and rang for the elevator.
As they rode down to the lobby, the doorman asked, “Nothing, right?”
“Not a thing,” Rafe told him.
Walking east on Fifty-seventh Street, he noticed the brand-new building of the Young Men’s Christian Association. But as he went, head down, pondering what he’d discovered and feeling overwhelmed by what he’d taken on, he neglected to notice another figure in the quiet, darkening street, following at a distance of half a block.
Rafe walked to Eighth Avenue and caught the southbound trolley. As the cable car jerked down the avenue, he asked himself, how did one conduct a murder investigation? Wasn’t it just a matter of looking and listening and following where the evidence led, of forming theories and testing them until you teased out the truth? Wasn’t it above all a matter of logic and determination? The idea was heartening, because Rafe was nothing if not logical and determined.
