If New York City is a melting pot, then Brooklyn is the cultural hodgepodge that gives the stew its special kick. Throw a dart at a map of the world, and no matter where it sticks, the odds are there’s a mini-version of that country in Brooklyn.
Janek Hoffmann lived in Little Poland, a microneighborhood in Greenpoint, the northernmost section of the borough.
Kylie and I drove across the Pulaski Bridge, past alphabetically organized streets—Ash, Box, Clay, Dupont, Eagle—until we hit a working-class enclave where the mom-and-pop pharmacies are called apetkas, the butcher shops stock dozens of varieties of kielbasa, and the restaurants have hard-to-pronounce and impossible-to-spell names like Karczma and Lomzynianka.
Hoffmann lived in a five-story walk-up, across the street from a Catholic church and a short walk from where Aubrey Davenport had parked her car.
Rule number one when you’re making a house call: Don’t let the suspect know you’re coming. We entered the building, and I rang the super’s bell.
He buzzed us in and met us in the vestibule. It was only 5:15, but he was already dressed and working on a mug of coffee.
Rule number two: The super doesn’t have to unlock an apartment door just because a cop wants to question a tenant. You’d better give him a good reason to let you in.
“NYPD,” Kylie said. “We’ve been sent to check on Janek Hoffmann. His girlfriend was found murdered, and we’re concerned that it could be a double homicide. We need to make sure he’s all right.”
Rule number three: The super almost always knows you’re full of shit, but if you give him what he needs to cover his ass, he’ll usually cooperate.
This one did. “Four B,” he said, flipping through the oversize key ring attached to his belt. “Follow me.”
He led us to the fourth floor, unlocked Hoffmann’s door, and left in a hurry.
The first thing that hit me when we entered was the smell. Correction: smells. Sweat-stained gym clothes piled up in a corner, rancid food containers on the kitchen table, and the nasty, burnt-plastic stench of crack cocaine.
The second thing I noticed was the body lying facedown on the living room floor. He didn’t smell that sweet, either.
Kylie looked at me, pointed at the human heap, then reversed her finger and tapped her chest. Translation: This prick beats up women. He’s mine.
I nodded, and she drew back her foot and gave him a not-so-gentle nudge under his rib cage.
He groaned, rolled over, and looked up at us. “Who the fuck are you?”
“We’re from Better Homes and Gardens. We’re here for the photo shoot.” She flashed her badge. “Who did you think we were, asshole?”
She kicked him again, and he instinctively clenched his fists.
“Come on. Get up and hit me,” she taunted.
He stood up as far as he could go, which was only about five foot six inches high. But what he lacked in height he made up for in bulk. His biceps looked like they came off the label on a tub of whey protein powder, and his skintight muscle shirt showed off every pec, delt, and ab on his upper torso.
“Janek Hoffmann?” she said.
“Yeah, I live here. How did you get in?” he asked, staggering over to a tattered lime-green sofa that even the Salvation Army wouldn’t try to salvage.
“Your cleaning lady left the door open. Do you know Aubrey Davenport?”
That got his attention. He struggled to fight his way through a substance-induced fog.
“I work for her,” he said. “Well, technically, she fired me. But she’ll take me back. She always does.”
“When did you last see her?”
He closed his eyes and squeezed out an answer. “Friday.”
“You sure you didn’t see her last night?”
The eyes popped open, angry, challenging. “I told you: she fired me. The bitch makes me repent for a week before she calls and gives me another chance. It’s all part of her twisted dance.”
“Where were you last night?”
He gave a nod at his ravaged apartment. “Party for one.”
“I don’t think so,” Kylie said. “Aubrey’s car is parked around the corner. We know she was here last night.”
That stumped him. He scrunched his eyes tight again, rummaged through his muddled memory bank, and came up with insufficient funds. “She was?”
“You tell us, Janek.”
He sat forward on the edge of the sofa and massaged his temples. “I don’t know. Maybe she was. My brain is a little fuzzy since Friday. Why the hell don’t you ask her if she was here?”
Kylie squatted, leaned in so close that she was practically eyeball to eyeball with him, and whispered, “I can’t ask her. She’s dead.”
“Dead?” The wheels inside his steroid-addled head were turning now, and I could see that he was finally on the verge of being able to put two and two together. “And is that why you’re here? Do you think I killed her?”
“We don’t think you killed her,” I said, tired of letting my partner have all the fun. “We know you killed her. She parked her car nearby, then the two of you took your car to Roosevelt Island, where you tied her up, whipped her, choked her to death, came home, and fired up your amnesia pipe, hoping it would all go away. It won’t. The only thing going away will be you.”
He stared at me with his high beams on. “Roosevelt Island? Near the big old haunted house?”
If we had taken him into custody, we would have had to warn him that anything he said could be used against him. But we hadn’t arrested him, and cops are not required to stop a chatterbox from incriminating himself.
“Now it’s coming back to you, isn’t it?” I said. “That’s where we found her body. You’re in deep shit, Janek, but we can help. Tell us everything now, and we’ll see to it that you get brownie points with the DA’s office.”
Silence.
Kylie sat down on the sofa next to him, put a hand on his shoulder, and spoke softly. “Get it off your chest, Janek. Tell us the truth. Did you kill her?”
He shook his head, and began to sob. “I don’t know. I don’t remember.”