Bronx Noir

After letting Ray go on his way, the detectives went to Yolanda’s place, but she wasn’t in. They decided to execute the McElhone warrant.

Everything Detective Hamilton had imagined about the McElhone home was true. There was a gate where they had to be buzzed in, and a long drive up to the front door. The house was huge and could have been featured in an architecture magazine. Tim McElhone, his parents, and his lawyers were waiting for the officers in the formal garden in the back. A servant offered them tea off a silver tray. As Hamilton had predicted, nothing came from the search of the house and garage. The car, the detectives were told, was on loan to a friend for the day. The interview with Tim was almost as fruitless. DiRaimo asked about the person who was supposed to have been with Tim when he allegedly encountered Jasmine the first time.

“Detective,” one of the lawyers jumped in, “as we’ve said before, Tim has never driven into that part of the Bronx and we certainly don’t admit that he even met this…this girl. Your witness is mistaken or lying. There is no reason for Tim to supply you with the names of random friends just in case one might fit the vague description you have. ‘Husky, sweaty, short dark hair.’ Talk about fishing. You found nothing in your search and you’ve had ample time to interview my client. This farce is over. If you have any other questions, please direct them to me or one of my colleagues.”

The detectives were escorted out by the same servant who had shown them in.

“Did you see Timmy sweat?” DiRaimo asked.

“So what?” Hamilton answered. “You’re sweating too.”

“Yeah, but I’m twenty-five years older and a hundred pounds heavier.”

The banter was interrupted by the servant. “Sirs, I hope I am not out of place in saying this, but I think I know the man you were describing.” He went on to give them a name and address just a quarter of a mile down the road. The detectives decided to knock on that door.

This house was smaller and had seen better days. There were no servants answering the door, but the lady of the house was so meek that she could have easily been mistaken for one. The father of Tim’s friend was a lawyer and let the detectives know it. The friend, David Franklin, was also a lawyer, newly minted.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about…Never been in that part of the Bronx…Never been in Tim’s car…Yes, we’re friends…Don’t know any Jasmine or any other prostitutes,” were the highlights of this conversation.

Back in their car and headed for the house of the friend who had borrowed Tim’s vehicle, DiRaimo made another observation.

“Did you see that boy’s hands shaking?”

“Yeah, that was a little strange,” Hamilton agreed.

“You like him for this?”

“I’d like anyone if we could find the smallest piece of evidence,” Hamilton answered.

Tim’s car proved elusive. The girl it had been loaned to had gathered a couple of friends and taken it to an upstate lake for the day. It was nearing night when the detectives and the local police were able to find the car and lift fingerprints from both the outside and inside.

“But you see how useless this is,” Hamilton pointed out. “Even if we find the girl’s prints on this car, all that tells us is that she touched it. Hell, we’d basically have to find her body in here for anything to stick on anybody, and then this car’s been through a lot of hands.”

Nearly a hundred prints were lifted from the car, but Jasmine’s hands were very small and many of the prints could be discounted without even a close examination. The rest would be left for technicians to sort out.

“Progress?” the squad captain asked when the detectives finally returned.

“Started out cold and is getting colder by the minute,” Hamilton answered. “Right now we’re thinking it was either the lady who says she found the body and who happens to have spent time in the pokey for killing her own daughter and who was married to a guy who did serious time for a robbery that wound up with three bodies in the ground. Or maybe we’re looking at a squeaky clean millionaire’s son and his lawyer friend who also has no record. Who, by the way, are placed at the scene only by the aforementioned daughter-killer.”

“Physical evidence?”

“Sure,” DiRaimo said. “We have a body with a bunch of indistinct stomp and fist marks all over. Other than that, we’re waiting for forensics or the prints. Maybe some miracle…” He left it at that.

There was no miracle. No prints from Jasmine showed up on the car, forensics found nothing at the scene that might tie Tim or David or anybody else to the murder. What did show up, after announcements in the news, were distraught parents of Antonia Flores. She had run away from a loving home, they said. Just two miles from where she died.

They were saddened by the death of their daughter, but then it was explained to them that she had been drug-addicted and a prostitute.

“Can the city bury her?” the father asked. “It’s such a waste of money…she had become such a terrible person.”

“But she was only thirteen,” they were told.

“Yeah, but imagine if she had lived longer,” her father said. “She could have been a murderer.”

Almost a week later, Detective DiRaimo took a couple of hours of leave to place a bouquet of flowers on the newly carved grave in St. Raymond’s Cemetery. There was a potted Jasmine plant sitting there already. He had a good idea who it was from. He called on Yolanda.

“You put the flowers?” he asked from the doorway of her apartment.

“Wait,” Yolanda said. “Let me see. You find the killers?”

“For all I know, I could be looking at the killer right now.”

“Then you don’t know jack. But I know you playing me, because if you thought I could be a killer, I don’t think you’d be standing outside my doorway without backup. Listen, I like you…Can’t stand your partner, but I like you.