With a little digging, and a pair of phone calls to old friends at the Department, Jake is able to gather possible family information on seven different individuals who were murdered or vanished in the Lower East Side over the past five years. Experience tells the detective that his best bet for connecting with those attached to the victims is to begin with the most recent crimes. Percy Coleman, the murdered jazz musician, was married just over a year prior to his death. His wife, Ireena, lives in a brownstone on Essex Street. Lorenzo Abbatelli, the father of murder victim Faustina Abbatelli, owns and operates a warehouse on Delancey Street, which primarily deals in construction materials.

Both addresses are in the Lower East Side. So Jake follows the leads there.

Driving in the direction of Essex Street, Jake pulls within sight of the main entrance of the Stanton Street Cemetery. He immediately notices that a pair of police cars are parked in front of the gate, along with a black ‘24 Model T, which he knows to be one of the cars driven by the precinct’s detectives. Loitering on the sidewalk nearby, smoking a cigarette, is Cameron MacBrady, his face fixed in a pensive scowl.

Jake parks his car, a 1923 Dodge 116, across the street and strolls across to approach MacBrady from behind.

"We gotta stop meeting like this, MacBrady," he grins, lighting his own cigarette and waving at the activity in front of the cemetery. "The boys are starting to talk."

He draws in a lungful of pungent smoke and blows it out, puffing a couple of smoke rings on the way.

"Digging one up, or putting one in?" he asks casually. His eyes flicker over the scene, aware that if Bishop makes an appearance and sees him, he may recognize him. But the opportunity to get a line on what is happening is too good to pass up. Much of his own detective work has been based on luck and following hunches.

”Putting some back in might be the best way to put it,” MacBrady answers with a disgusted shake of his head, ”Guess it can’t hurt telling you. Brass believes it might have something to do with the recent murders. I don’t know what I think.”

He nods in the direction of the cemetery. ”Got a call this morning from the owner and undertaker of this place. Seems that last night, someone broke into the mortuary, pulled three bodies that were awaiting embalming out of cold storage and mutilated them all. Literally tore ‘em to pieces. Bishop, the undertaker, is beside himself. Had to call the families with the news.”

He shrugs. ”Honestly, looking at the bodies, it could very well be the work of the killer. The condition they were left in was pretty similar to the murder victims. Maybe the sick bastard got bored, couldn’t find anyone wandering the streets, so he decided to hit up the graveyard.”

Jake nods sympathetically.

"A cop's life stinks," he agrees.

Feeling that his relationship with MacBrady should not be all in one direction, he tells him what he has planned for the morning.

"Did some digging in the newspaper morgue myself," he takes out his notebook to show the detective the list of names he has extracted. "Made a couple of calls. Came up with a list of similar victims in this area over the past five years. Thought I'd pay their families a visit, see if I can't find a common thread.

"These killings have been going on a while. I don't think the killer is picking his victims because he knows them. I think they have something in common. Or maybe it is random. They just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"I'll fill you in if I find anything useful."

With that, he returns to his car and heads toward the first address on his list.

”I’d appreciate that, Morris,” MacBrady says, his tone genuine, ”We can use all the help we can get.”

The brownstone where Ireena Coleman resides sits roughly in the center of the block, a three story, dark brick structure with tall windows. As Jake approaches the building, he notices a bearded man in an overcoat propped against the stoop, snoring loudly, the scent of liquor strong on his person.

Stepping inside, Jake finds the small foyer and adjoining hallway and stairwell dimly lit. From somewhere nearby, he can hear the muffled sounds of raised voices, likely a couple engaged in an argument. Climbing the stairs to the second floor, the detective is able to locate Mrs. Coleman’s flat easily.

The door opens a crack in response to his knock. A woman that Jake guesses to be in her early thirties peers out at him questioningly. ”Yes?” she asks.

"Mrs. Coleman?" he takes off his hat and waits a beat for a positive response before he continues.

"My name is Morris, Jake Morris. I'm a private detective investigating a series of murders that took place on the Lower East side over the last five years. I believe your husband, Percy Coleman, may have been a victim.

"I hate to dredge up bad memories, Ma'am, but I wonder if I can ask you about the details of what happened the day he died. It may help me get to the bottom of these awful crimes."

He tries to look as professional and non-threatening as he can. He no longer has the power of the badge. He has to rely on the goodwill of those he questions. That and their desire to understand what happened to their loved ones.

The woman hesitates for a moment, then opens the door. ”Of course,” she says, motioning for Morris to come inside, ”I want to help if I can.”

Jake steps into a small, neatly furnished living room. Besides a sofa and table, a portion of the room is occupied by an upright piano. Sitting beside the piano’s bench are a pair of instrument cases, which the private detective guesses to hold a trumpet and saxophone, respectively.

”I just made some coffee if you would like a cup,” Mrs. Coleman offers, ”May I ask, are you working for the family of someone who died?”

"Yes, Ma'am," Jake accepts the offer of coffee willingly, and though he yearns for a smoke, he holds off. The neat apartment speaks to him of someone who would not like the smell of tobacco.

"I'm investigating the horrible death of Miss Jennifer Hargrove. She was killed on the Lower East Side a few days ago and the police have found no clues. Her family is distraught and I'm trying to at least bring some level of comfort to them.

"These killings and there have been several in the same manner in the same area over the years, seem unrelated -- except in the nature of the deaths. But I wondered if the victims might have anything in common -- other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Jake took out his notebook and read some of the detailed notes he had made about her husband -- the when and where (if reported).

"Can you tell me what your husband was doing in that part of town on the night he was killed? Is it somewhere he went often, or only that night?"

OOC: Not sure how much detail there was in the clipping, but he's trying to get her to talk about why her husband might have been there. Since he has a suspicion that Jennifer might have been looking for cocaine, he may (depending on what she says) hint at illicit reasons for being there.

Mrs. Coleman takes a seat on the sofa. Sipping her coffee, she points to the collection of instruments on the other side of the living room. ”Percy was a musician. It was his passion. He loved creating music. He loved playing it.”

She smiles sadly. ”It doesn’t pay well. Not until you’ve achieved some recognition. So Percy worked as a stevedore at the harbor through the week, but some nights, he’d get the opportunity to play somewhere.” She glances over at Jake. ”Speakeasies, mostly. North of here. He was starting to get a reputation. Having more owners calling him to play. It made him happy that people enjoyed his playing.”

She sighs. ”I’d go with him quite a bit, but not always. I work at a garment factory in midtown. My shift starts early. On nights he was out late, he’d usually walk through the middle of the neighborhood, in a hurry to get home. We got in fights about it. He wanted to be here, with me, as soon as he could be, but there’s parts of this neighborhood after dark that don’t have hardly any light at all. He knew the stories the same as I did, about people getting hurt…or killed, but he always insisted he was being careful.”

She sets her coffee cup down on the table in front of her. ”We actually argued about it the night he died. It was the last conversation I had with him.”

"I'm sorry to hear that, Ma'am," Jake struggles with unfamiliar ways of speaking. He is more used to the insult and the crude joke than being sensitive to another's loss.

"Did he . . .  Percy . . . ever tell you about anyone in particular he noticed or was worried about on his walk home? Anything that sticks out at all?"

He's swinging at wild pitches, hoping to catch something using pure luck.

”I…” She pauses, then nods slowly. ”Yes, now that I think of it, he did. He said a couple of times, he’d noticed a tall man watching him on his way home. Always near the old cemetery.”

She frowns. ”Percy said he couldn’t ever get a good look at his face, but that he knew it was the same man. Percy said he dressed like it was old times. That he had a top hat on and a heavy coat with a fur collar. It sure sounded odd to me. No one that I know dresses like that nowadays.”

Jack writes down the description in his notebook. This might actually be something useful. It certainly ties in with the weird goings-on they have uncovered at the cemetery and the tall cove with the top hat sounds like the fellow Flatt spotted in that area and that the grounds keeper said worked at the mortuary, and who speaks only to Bishop.

"Thank you very much, Mrs. Coleman. This is precisely the sort of small detail that may help our investigation. Especially if it coincides with other people's recollections of events."

He writes his phone number on a sheet of his notebook along with his name and tears it out to pass to her.

"Please call me if you remember any more details like this. Anything at all. If it ties in with another person's memory, it may be the clue that breaks the case."

He stands to take his leave. Outside, he fires up a smoke right away and looks at the notebook to see who is next on his list: Lorenzo Abbatelli on Delancey Street, the father of murder victim Faustina Abbatelli. Delancy crosses Essex not far away, and he decides to leave the car parked where it is and walk the distance through the crowded streets. He'll check out the restaurants and food carts on the way there and pick the best one in his budget range to eat his lunch at on the way back.

Jake finds the Abbatelli Warehouse bustling with activity when he locates it. A group of workers are diligently loading a trio of trucks with lumber and other building supplies, navigating around one another with admirable efficiency, though not without the occasional mumbled complaint about the heat. A bald foreman, wiping his forehead with his cap, notices Jake and approaches him. Upon learning of the detective’s business he directs him into the warehouse through the nearest loading bay. ”Keep to the right. You’ll see a set of stairs against the wall. They go up to the office.”

Following the instructions, Jake finds himself in a neatly furnished room which smells of sawdust and cigar smoke. A young, dark haired secretary with a bob cut asks the detective his business, then escorts him into one of the offices behind her.

”Mister Abbatelli,” she says, addressing the black haired, barrel chested man seated behind the mahogany desk, ”This gentleman’s a detective. Looking into some of the murders around here.”

Abbatelli nods and gestures to one of the chairs in front of the desk. ”Glad to help. Take a seat, Mister…”

"Thanks for taking the time to see me, Mr. Abbatelli. I can see you're pretty busy around here. I'll get right to the point."

He takes out his pack of Luckies, shakes one out and offers a smoke to the burly man before lighting his own. Given the smell of cigars, he figures he's on safe grounds, smoke wise.

"Like your secretary says, I'm a detective -- private inquiry agent, looking into the murder of a young woman. Jennifer Hargrove. She was killed over near the old cemetery a few days ago. The police are stumped and her family has hired me to try other approaches.

"I've been doing some digging on other killings that happened in the same area back farther in time, and I came across your daughter's name, Faustina Abbatelli. She was murdered in a similar way in nearby location.

"So that's why I'm here. I'm sorry to drag up painful memories, but I just wanted to ask you about the details of your daughter's case -- there might be other similarities that would provide some kind of lead on who or why these murders keep happening.

"Any small detail you can remember might be the trigger."

Assuming Abbatelli doesn't give him the bum's rush, Jake asks him to detail why his daughter was in the area she was in, if she went there often, and if she had mentioned any odd people she might have seen in her journeys -- people watching her. He does not bring up the cemetery specifically, but he will steer any mention the man makes in the direction of more details.

”Anyone when can help find the bastard who did this to my little girl, I’m happy to talk to,” Abbatelli tells Jake. He retrieves a half smoked cigar from the ashtray on his desk and lights it.

”I read about the Hargrave girl. I share her family’s pain.” Exhaling a stream of smoke, he continues, ”Faustina, she was a smart girl. I think she could’ve done a lot if she’d had the opportunity. She was working here, for me, when we lost her. Did a lot to make the office run better. To get things organized. You could say it was her gift. Eventually, I expected she’d go to work for one of those big businesses in Upper Manhattan. Maybe a bank or a lawyer.”

“I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Lower East Side, Mr. Morris, but over the years it’s gained a reputation for being the sort of neighborhood you don’t wander around in after dark. Especially in the vicinity of that God forsaken cemetery on Stanton. Faustina was well aware of that. Even on nights when she went out with her friends or that worthless boyfriend of hers, she made sure she had a way home. And not the subway, either. A ride with someone she trusted.”

A scowl crosses Abbatelli’s face, then eases. ”The night she died, Faustina met her sister Sofia and her husband for dinner Downtown. Sofia lives in upstate New York now, so we don’t get to see her as much. Her boyfriend Jeremy was supposed to pick her up. I was in the middle of a nightmare with a building the city wanted finished in record time and Faustina’s mother was in Queens caring for her sick father. Jeremy made a promise to us that he’d see Sofia home.”

“He didn’t. Had some drinks with friends over at a speakeasy in Hell’s Kitchen, didn’t remember her until hours after the fact. By then, Faustina had taken the subway. Way it looks, she got off at Essex Street, which is right in the middle of the darkest stretch of this neighborhood. Milkman found her a couple of blocks away the next morning while he was making deliveries.”

Abbatelli is silent for a long moment, his gaze downcast. Finally, he takes another pull on his cigar. ”I asked around after it happened. Found out earlier that same night, a salesman going home had seen a stranger crouched down in the shadows near the station entrance. Scared the hell out of him. He reported it to the police, but the officer who responded didn’t find anyone in the area.”

“You may think I’m crazy, Mr. Morris, but when I was a kid, my friends and I wouldn’t go anywhere near that area. My grandfather told me and my brothers he’d seen people skulking around the tombstones at night and that he’d heard growling coming from that graveyard, like there were big dogs running loose in it. Place still gives me the creeps.”
This message was last edited by the player at 22:24, Wed 15 June 2022.

Jake made notes as Abbatelli spoke, and he wondered if Jeremy was still alive, or standing perpetual guard duty now at the bottom of the East River in a big pair of cement boots. He didn't ask. Sounded like the moron had not had anything to do with the actual death of his girlfriend anyway -- other than by failing his duty.

Once again the cemetery loomed large in the tale and local legends. Given what they had discovered themselves the night before, it was becoming pretty clear that the Stanton Street bone yard was a nexus of evil in the heart of the old city.

"Any chance you remember the name of the salesman?" he asked when the grieving father paused in his tale.

Abbatelli frowns and opens a desk drawer, drawing out a black notebook. Flipping through the pages, he says, ”Lesseee…here we go. Albert Collyer. Works at Reliable Appliances on Houston Street, just inside Greenwich Village.” He writes down the address on a piece of stationary and passes it to Jake. ”Stand up guy. Really tried to help when he found out what happened to Faustina. Doesn’t have the highest opinion of the police.”

Abbatelli pauses, the asks, ”Say, you happen to get a break in this thing, you wouldn’t mind letting me know, would you?”

Jake nods.

"Yeah, sure thing, Mr. Abbatelli," he says briefly, aware that this man is holding in a great deal of pain by keeping busy, and then says his farewells.

Outside on the street again, he doesn't feel like eating after all and heads back to the Professor's office at the university to share what he has learned. He writes Collyer's name in his notebook, but feel it is a tenuous connection at best.

The traffic light in Lower Manhattan, Jake makes good time on the drive back to Columbia University.

OOC: Jake can return to the In the Light of Day thread to rejoin his fellow investigators.