Murder in Greenwich Village by Lee Harris

Sixteenth Street at seven sharp, mounting the stairs to the Columbia University side of the street. She was at the back of the train and exited at One Hundred Fifteenth, then crossed Broadway and walked one block sharply downhill to Riverside Drive. Hack, also in jeans, walked the short distance between them. They kissed and crossed the street to the park. It was a fine evening and still light, the river calm, high-rise apartments along the Palisades forming the New Jersey skyline. In a little while the sun would set just across the river.
    â€œWhat did you want to see?”
    â€œIf someone could have been hiding in the brush nearby.”
    â€œLooks possible. You think he was waiting for a guy to call nine-one-one?”
    â€œI’m sure of it. If the dog walker had picked up the gun and put it in his pocket, he wouldn’t have gotten very far.”
    â€œSounds about right.”
    They walked downhill to the highway and stood in the evening breeze, looking out over the quiet river. Several miles off to the right the George Washington Bridge glistened in the late sunlight, a tanker sliding under it.
    â€œDid you see what you wanted to see?”
    â€œUh-huh. You have time to wait for the sunset?”
    â€œSure.”
    â€œGood. I like sunsets.”
    He drove her home afterward, although it was out of his way. “I can’t come up,” he said. “Parking is impossible. And I thought about what you said, that lovers don’t always get together for sex. Sometimes it’s for a sunset.”
    â€œI like that.”
    â€œSo do I.”
    She awoke wondering what new disaster had happened overnight. She had tried Judith Franklin twice more but with no response. Franklin would probably return this weekend.
    The morning news had nothing related to the case, and no desperate messages lay on her desk as she slipped into her chair. By this morning the partners had all finished or nearly finished the three sections of the Micah Anthony file. Even after a cup of coffee, no one had any ideas gleaned from the file that hadn’t been worked over and found to yield nothing.
    â€œRandolph was the leader,” Defino said, almost as though he was talking to himself.
    â€œSo we should start with him,” Jane said.
    MacHovec had just turned on the computer and it was making musical sounds. “You want a life history.” It was a statement. “A lot of it’s in the file, but I’ll dig up the last ten years and print it out. You’re a glutton for punishment. You see he’s a Brooklyn boy? Didn’t grow up anywhere near Anthony.”
    In New York, living in different boroughs could be like living in different countries. People attended distant schools, played pickup ball with their immediate neighbors, shopped in local stores, went to their own clubs, and married spouses doing all of the above. They might as well have spoken different languages.
    â€œThat’s why the gun deal worked.”
    â€œI’ll get on it.”
    The idea of canvassing streets in Bedford-Stuyvesant was more than unappealing. Two white cops walking through a poor all-black neighborhood, where trouble sprouted intermittently, was almost an invitation to trouble. And no one would say anything useful to them. They would display hard faces and pretend not to recognize the name. Unless they had been personally harmed by Randolph and bore a grudge against him, the people in Bed-Stuy would simply not be forthcoming. The only hope was that some connection might be drawn on the basis of an address or a workplace, if he had ever held a real job.
    â€œLet’s pay a visit to Manelli’s PO,” Jane said.
    MacHovec turned away from the computer and picked up the phone as his partners sat back and waited. Hanging up, he said, “He can see you this morning. He didn’t sound happy when I mentioned Manelli’s name, but who would be?”
    Jane took her bag out of her drawer as