Murder in Hell's Kitchen by Lee Harris Page B

no reason to kill him, or have him killed.”
    â€œNone we could find,” Otis said. “She’s got a husband who makes more money than Quill, treats her real good, buys her nice things. Why should she get rid of the poor slob she ditched?”
    â€œSo what do you think, Otis? You think it was one of the folks in the building, one of those sad people that lived there all those years, or someone at work, or someone who just followed him home, killed him, heard a noise, and ran off scared before he took anything?”
    â€œI gotta tell you, I don’t think it was someone in the building. If it was someone where he worked . . . it was a hotel, right?”
    â€œRight.”
    â€œWe couldn’t find anything. He was Mr. Invisible at work. No one knew if he was there or not. They all said he was nice, but they didn’t know a damn thing about him. The trouble with someone following him home—” He stopped for a minute and caught his breath.
    â€œThey didn’t take anything,” Jane said.
    â€œNothing we could find missing.”
    â€œWell, Jane and I stumbled onto something,” Defino said.
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œSomething crazy. Tell him, Jane.”
    â€œI went into the building the other day on my way home. Every name on the mailboxes was different.”
    â€œThey all moved out? Every one of them?”
    â€œThe woman on one? Mrs. Best? She died in her apartment about six months after Quill was murdered. A stroke or something. Then Soderberg, the guy who found Quill’s body, he fell down the stairs and broke his neck.”
    â€œHe’s dead too?”
    â€œRight. The southern woman, Miss Rawls?”
    â€œOh, yeah, nice woman, sweet as sugar.”
    â€œShe found Soderberg, got so upset she moved out that night to stay with a friend, and went back to Oklahoma a few months later. Got hit by a car in a parking lot, hit-and-run, no ID on the driver.”
    Wright’s alert eyes glistened with interest. He looked at her with disbelief. “Go on.”
    â€œOfficially, vehicular homicide. The detective said it almost looked like homicide, but who would kill a nice lady like Margaret Rawls?”
    â€œI’m listening.”
    â€œHollis Worthman—”
    â€œThe black guy.”
    â€œRight. Moved out after Soderberg died and went back to Harlem. I talked to his mother. He was mugged in the street and killed.”
    â€œThis is crazy,” Otis said. “You’re gonna tell me they’re all dead. That’s all of them, isn’t it? Except Hutchins.”
    â€œIt looks like Hutchins went back to Omaha, Nebraska,” Defino said, articulating the city and state carefully, as though there were something unusual about it. “But we haven’t found him yet. He’s not listed in the phone book. We’ve got a detective calling high schools and checking the DMV.”
    â€œThis is crazy. I’ve never heard anything like this. You hear this, Betty?”
    â€œI’m listening to every word and I can’t believe it either.”
    â€œDamn peculiar. All of this must’ve happened after Charlie and me stopped working actively on the case, six months after.”
    â€œCharlie knew Mrs. Best had died,” Jane said.
    â€œYeah, OK, I remember that too. Skinny old gal wore a black wig to make her look younger. Yeah. It comes back to me now. There was nothing suspicious about her death.”
    â€œYou take them one at a time,” Defino said, “there isn’t much suspicious about any of them. Soderberg was changing a lightbulb and fell off a stool and went down a flight of stairs. You get mugged on a city street at night, you don’t go looking for any motive besides money.”
    â€œBut a nice southern lady getting run down in a parking lot,” Otis said. “Makes you wonder. And Hutchins disappears. I don’t like it one bit.”
    For a minute they all sipped coffee and