CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
All it took was a quick stop by the precinct for Ava and Frank to get all the information they needed on Alfred Moss. Ava had remained in the car while Frank ran in to get an address. When he came back, he had more than an address. He also had a thin folder he’d taken from records. As it turned out, Alfred Moss had a small police record.
“Had you ever heard of him before today?” Ava asked as Frank pulled back out into morning traffic.
“It’s one of those names I’m pretty sure I’ve heard before, but couldn’t tell you why. The sort of name you hear in passing from time to time.”
Ava opened up the folder and found only three pages. When she saw Alfred Moss’s mugshot, it became a bit clearer why he had a police record. From the photographs, she could see that Moss was a well-to-do black man. The three pages recounted two different incident reports. The first had been an arrest when he’d been apprehended due to suspicion of transporting and selling alcohol. According to the report, there had not been enough evidence. Still, he’d spent two weeks in prison just for the suspicion. The second report was for a public disturbance where Moss and several other black men had gotten into a fight in front of a train station. He’d spent no time in prison but had been fined.
“So the reports here really don’t amount to much,” she said. “And in his mugshot, he’s wearing what looks to be a nice suit. Is it too much of a leap to assume he’s a businessman of some kind? I don’t know what other sort of individual is going to be brave enough to toss around upwards of eight thousand dollars in Harlem right now.”
“There are a few black people whose names pop up in the papers in regards to real estate deals here and there,” Frank said. “Maybe that’s where I’d heard the name before. There’s also the fact that the address we’re heading to is Garver Financial Planning. That was the work address on file for him.”
Ava put it all together and it suddenly made sense—and also made her speculate on whether or not Alfred Moss might have had a hand in the murder of Monty Lincoln and was using a convenient bystander to take the fall. She tried to imagine how an up-and-coming black businessman would feel if he was preparing to buy a property in Harlem only to have a white businessman sweep in as well. And if Moss was heavily involved in real estate or the world of business within the area, she figured there was a chance he also knew about Monty’s plans to buy up several Harlem locations and make them white-only properties. And if a situation like that got out of hand, there was no telling what sort of hard feelings and hatred might come out of it. And in a city where the mere mention of money was enough to put people on edge, Ava found that it wasn’t too hard to imagine people sinking to deplorable depths just to make sure they remained safe and financially stable.
They arrived at Garver Financial Planning twenty minutes later. It was in one of the better parts of Manhattan, an area where the number of cars was much greater and nearly everyone on the street was wearing a suit or their Sunday best. When they stepped inside, the place was abuzz with activity. There were men on telephones, standing by the walls. Some were screaming into the phones while others took a more calm and measured approach. This, Ava knew, was a portrait of the city trying to make sense of the financial ruin it was starting to see; not everyone viewed the possible solution the same, as was evidenced in the mannerisms of these men.
A frenzied-looking man was standing behind a desk that was littered with piles upon piles of papers as they came in through a large lobby. He had removed his suit jacket and slung it over a chair behind the desk. His white button-down was marked in sweat, the collar popped and askew.
“Yeah, can I help you?” he barked, barely looking up from the paper he was currently reading.
“We’re looking for Alfred Moss,” Ava said.
“And you are?”
Frank, apparently already angry over the way they were being addressed, stepped forward and showed his badge. “Detectives Wimbly and Gold, NYPD. Now, again…we’re here to speak with Alfred Moss.”
“Downstairs offices,” the man said, hitching his thumb to the left. “In the colored offices.”
Ava gritted her teeth at the way he’d said it. It almost seemed as if he were speaking about the rodents inside the building’s walls. And it was a sentiment Ava knew all too well, thinking about the Women’s Bureau offices back at the station. It helped her to appreciate the black workers more as she and Frank found the stairs and headed down.
The downstairs area was nice, too, but not nearly as nice as the upstairs. It was a finished cellar, complete with wooden walls and finished floors. There was a large work area in the center of the single room. Two men sat around the table, one reading from a book while the other was working figures out with a pencil and a sheet of paper. They were dressed similarly to the white men upstairs but showed none of the worry or stress. The man looking over the book looked up at them and gave a nod and a smile, and then got to his feet.
“Can I help you folks?” he asked.
“We’re Detectives Wimbly and Gold,” Frank said, flashing his badge. “We were hoping to have a word with Alfred Moss. Is he around?”
The man turned behind him, to one of two offices built into the rear wall. As he gestured to the office on the right, a tall and handsome black man came stepping out of the office. He wore a hat, which he removed politely when he saw their visitors. Ava guessed him to be around fifty years of age or so, his face slightly wrinkled and the first signs of gray starting to weave in around his temples.
“That’s me,” he said. “I’m Alfred Moss.”
“Can we bend your ear for a moment?” Frank asked.
“Yes, sir. Come on in.”
Alfred Moss stepped aside, still holding his hat in his hand, and allowed the detectives into his office. It was small and cramped, but tidy. It was evident that Moss took great pride in the fact that he had an office in an institution such as Garver Financial.
“Sorry…but I don’t have chairs for you,” Moss said. “We don’t really get many visitors down here.”
“That’s quite alright,” Ava said. Moss himself had a small desk and a chair but he elected not to sit—likely out of respect and politeness.
“What can I help you with?” Moss asked. He seemed legitimately curious rather than scared or off his game.
“Well, we recently learned that you put an offer in on a place called the Candle’s Wick,” Frank said. “Is that correct?”
“Yes, sir, I sure did. Mind you, it was just a preliminary offer. I hadn’t settled on a figure with the owner.”
“And did you know that another potential buyer was also speaking to the owner?”