Free Father's Day Murder by Lee Harris Page B

go.”
    That ended the conversation. I was disappointed, but I knew the doctor had no obligation to talk to me. His only obligation was to the police. At some point I would let Dr. Horowitz know what had happened but I didn’t want to bother him right now. Tomorrow, when I was driving through the Bronx with David Koch, I might be able to get some information out of him. And anyway, I had a full day tomorrow.
    We ate breakfast early Sunday morning as we always do, and then I picked up my cousin Gene to take him to mass. Gene lives here in town at a residence for retarded adults. We’ve been buddies since we were Eddie’s age, and I try to have him to the house on weekends if I can manage it. Today wasn’t a good day for dinner, but I took him to mass, took him home and chatted with him for a while, and then went home myself. I left lunch for Eddie, knowing Jack was better at putting together food for himself than I was, and he said he would make dinner if I promised to be home for it. I promised.
    I got to the Koches’ apartment house before noon, and David Koch and I went back downstairs to a waiting car. It was just a plain old black car, a Ford, I noticed, and we got in the backseat, assisted by the doorman.
    “Chris, this is Sergeant Harry Holt of the NYPD.”
    We exchanged hellos and I told him my husband was also a sergeant on the job.
    “Oh yeah? What precinct?”
    “The Six-Five.”
    “Brooklyn.”
    “Yes.”
    “I think I ran into him at a class last year or maybe the year before. Tell him hello for me.”
    I promised I would.
    He drove over to the East River Drive, otherwise known as the FDR Drive, and headed north. The drive runs along the East River and changes its name to the Harlem River Drive when the river changes its name. But we exited just before all the changes, taking the Triboro Bridge to the Bronx. Mr. Koch told Harry to take the Grand Concourse instead of a highway, and we drove north along the beautiful, wide boulevard with apartment houses along both sides.
    “This was once one of the finest places to live in New York,” Koch said. “It was very beautiful.”
    “It looks very nice right now,” I said.
    “Over to the left there is Yankee Stadium. I don’t have to tell you we were all Yankee fans. In the summer we lived and breathed baseball, even when we went away. The best thing was to find someone who lived in one of the apartment houses that overlooked the stadium. The stadium was lower in those days. They’ve added a tier on top. So you could sit on an apartment house roof and watch the game free.”
    “And feel you were getting something for nothing.”
    “Oh yes. We always tried. You can turn right at the next block, Harry.”
    We zigzagged a little and then there we were on 174th Street and Morris Avenue, the corner they all remembered.
    “Harry, turn right on Morris Avenue and see if you can park.”
    Harry made the turn and slid into the only vacant spot on the block.
    “That’s where Mort and I lived, right in that building across the street on the corner of 174th,” David Koch said.
    It looked very ordinary, a prewar building of not very clean yellow brick. There were two women standing around and talking, but not the women of David Koch’s memory. One way or another they were all gone.
    “I’ve never been up here,” Harry said.
    “It isn’t much to look at any more. Back there,” he pointed to 174th Street, “everything’s changed. That used to be a bustling street with stores on both sides. In the late fifties, they built the Cross Bronx Expressway, cutting through the rock so that it’s way down below the level of the street. To do it, they got rid of half of 174th, so it’s just a shadow of what it used to be. At this point, it’s one way going east. It used to be a wide, two-way street. Drive up to the corner, Harry.”
    We passed some single and two family houses, neat and clean, made of brick. At the corner of 173rd, there was Mt. Gilead Baptist