Manhattan Is My Beat

bring in the suspect, we’ll talk to him for hours and hours and hours and poke holes in his story until he confesses. That’s the way it happens. The way it
always
happens. But you get the picture? It takes
time
. Nothing happens overnight.”
    “Not if you don’t want it to,” Rune said. And before he got mad she asked, “So you don’t have
any
idea?”
    Manelli sighed. “You want my gut feeling? Where he lived, some kids from Alphabet City needed crack money and killed him for that.”
    “With fancy-schmancy bullets?”
    “Found the gun, stole it from some OC soldier— organized crime—in Brooklyn. Happens.”
    Rune rolled her eyes. “And this kid who wanted money enough to kill for it shot the TV? And left the VCR? And, hey, did Mr. Kelly have any money on him?”
    Manelli sighed again. Pulled a file from halfway down the stack on his desk, opened it. He read through it. “Walking-around money. Forty-two dollars. But the perp probably panicked when you showed up and ran off without taking anything.”
    “Was the room ransacked?”
    “It didn’t appear to be.”
    Rune said, “I want to look through it.”
    “The room?” The detective laughed. “No way. It’s sealed. No one can go in.” He studied her face. “Listen up. I’ve seen that look before…. You break in, it’ll be trespassing. That’s a crime. And I’d be more than happy to give your name to the prosecutor.”
    He broke off another piece of muffin, looked at it. Set it down on the paper. “What exactly do you want?” he asked. It wasn’t a dismissal; he seemed just curious. His voice was formal and soft.
    “Did you know he’d rented that movie that was in his VCR eighteen times in one month?”
    “So?”
    “Doesn’t that seem odd?”
    “I seen people jump off the Brooklyn Bridge because they think their cat’s possessed by Satan. Nothing seems odd to me.”
    “But the movie he rented … get this. It was about a true crime. Some robbers stole a million dollars and the money was never found.”
    “When?” he asked, frowning. “I never heard about that.”
    “It was, like, fifty years ago.”
    Now Manelli got to roll his eyes.
    She leaned forward, said enthusiastically, “But it’s a mystery! Don’t mysteries excite you?”
    “No.
Solving
mysteries excites me.”
    “Well, this’s one that oughta be solved.”
    “And it will be. In due time. I gotta get back to work.”
    “What about the other witness?” Rune asked. “Susan Edelman? The one who got hit by the car.”
    “She’s still in the hospital.”
    “Has she told you anything?”
    “We haven’t interviewed her yet. Now, I really have to—”
    Rune asked, “What’ll happen with Mr. Kelly’s body?”
    “He doesn’t seem to have any living relatives. His sister died a couple of years ago. There’s a friend in the building? Amanda LeClerc? She put in a claim for permission to dispose of the body. We’ll keep it in the M.E.’s office until that’s approved. So. That’s all I can tell you. Now, you don’t mind, I have to get back to work.”
    Rune, feeling an odd mixture of anger and sorrow, stood and walked to the door. The detective said, “Miss?” She paused with her hand on the doorknob. “You saw what happened to Mr. Kelly. You saw what happened to Ms. Edelman. Whatever you feel, I understand. But don’t try to help us out. That’s a real bastard out there. This isn’t the movies. People get hurt.”
    Rune said, “Just answer one question. Please, just one?”
    Silence in the small office. From outside: the noise of computer printers, typewriters, voices from the offices around them. Rune asked, “What if Mr. Kelly was a rich banker? Would you still not give a shit?”
    Manelli didn’t move for a moment. Glanced at the muffin. Didn’t say anything. Rune thought: He thinks I’m a pain in the ass. He sort of likes me but I’m still a pain in the ass.
    He said, “If he was from the Upper East Side? He was a partner in a big law firm? Then I wouldn’t be handling the case. But if I was, the file’d still be seventh in my stack.”
    Rune nodded at his desk. “Take a look. It’s on the top now.”

CHAPTER EIGHT
     
    She’d called Amanda LeClerc but the woman wasn’t home to let her into Mr. Kelly’s building.
    So she had to do it the old-fashioned way. The way Detective Manelli unknowingly suggested.
    Breaking and entering.
    At the bodega up the street from Mr. Kelly’s building she told the clerk, “Two boxes of