Murder in Hell's Kitchen by Lee Harris Page B

do for you?”
    â€œWe’re doing OK,” Defino said.
    â€œYou’re on the Quill case, right? I looked that one over. Everything’s a dead end there. They questioned every mugger in Manhattan about that homicide. Got nowhere.”
    â€œWe turned something up,” MacHovec said.
    â€œOh, yeah?”
    â€œAnother suspicious death in that building.”
    â€œOK!” McElroy said with feeling. He sat on the nearest desk. “Let me in on the secret.”
    MacHovec gave it to him, and McElroy almost beamed. He had something to take back to his boss.
    â€œHey, it sounds like you’re really onto something. Any chance this was a homicide?”
    â€œA chance,” MacHovec said. “The ME came down on accidental death.”
    They talked about it for a couple of minutes and then McElroy left.
    â€œJust enough to let the whip know we’re on the job,” MacHovec said. “I’m on my way. See you guys tomorrow.”
    â€œWere you holding your breath?” Defino asked when he was gone.
    Jane laughed. “I was. I was afraid he’d give McElroy everything and then we’d find out tomorrow it was all worthless. But what he said was OK. He was right. It was just enough.”
    â€œGo home,” Defino said. “I’ll be using the typewriter for the next half hour.”
    Before she left she called the mover. They had a cancellation for Saturday morning. Could she be ready by then? She said yes and took a deep breath. It was really going to happen.
    The steam was puffing up in little spurts as she entered the apartment. The sight of the packed cartons startled her; they seemed so out of place. She wondered if leaving this apartment for the last time would affect her. This was only the second real home in her life, and after she left her first home, she watched her mother get sick and die there. She had pleaded with her father to leave then, to find a small, clean new apartment in a safe neighborhood, but he would have none of it.
    She had never felt that kind of fierce affection for a place, but she knew he felt it, and as long as he was able, he would stay there, and she would see to it that he could.
    The answering machine was blinking and beeping, and she pressed the play button as she took her coat off. It was a man’s voice: “Jane.” A brief silence. “I’ve been missing you. I just wanted to hear your voice.” That was it. The mechanical voice told her the call had come in less than five minutes ago. She dropped her coat on a chair and pressed the replay button.
    â€œJane . . . I’ve been missing you. I just wanted to hear your voice.”
    So I heard your voice and you heard mine on the recording. There was never anything simple about the man. Had he called early so as to miss her or had he called as late as he could, just as he was leaving for home, hoping to catch her as she walked in the door? How many hours or days had he thought about calling before picking up the phone?
    She hung up her coat and listened to the message a third time. “Jane . . . I’ve been missing you. I just wanted to hear your voice.”
    â€œMiss you too, Hack,” she said to the machine. The voice still did it to her, hit her where it hurt most. She had done the right thing, breaking it off, but righteousness was a cold bedfellow. She let thoughts of him enter her mind as she changed her clothes and went to the kitchen to scrape up some dinner. The relationship had been long and warm and rewarding. Even the end was not bitter. Maybe the breakup was the greater reason for her deciding to take the new job. In a high-rise office building there was no chance of crossing paths. The insurance business was another world, one he would not enter.
    And soon there would be another apartment. Would he call this number in a few weeks or months and hear a robotic voice telling him the number had been changed? Would he think she had married or