Free Death Angel by Linda Fairstein

spread out over the table, held down by rocks so they didn’t blow away.
    “Just trying to keep my overwrought little brain occupied,” I said, lowering my sunglasses to avoid the glare. “Did you see these things at Primola, or were you on the phone when Mike showed them to us?”
    “I didn’t see anything Friday night,” Vickee said, lowering herself into a chair and pulling the closest page toward her.
    “It’s a printout of the shot I took with my cell. Looks like an antique model of Belvedere Castle, doesn’t it?”
    “I’m not so familiar with Belvedere. Does it have something to do with the dead girl?”
    “Who knows? Mike says cops were just picking up everything in sight.”
    “Well, Logan would have a swell time with this, wouldn’t he?” she said. “Just throw a few of his little knights on the parapet up here. And this one? Ah, it’s the Obelisk.”
    I pushed the third printout over to her, and she picked it up to study the image.
    “An angel,” Vickee said, pushing her sunglasses on top of her head to look more closely. “A dark little figure, isn’t she?”
    I nodded.
    “Mike didn’t say this was part of this other stuff, did he?”
    “No,” I said, pointing out the differences in scale and substance to her. “Just somewhere northwest of the Lake. She’s unusual, isn’t she?”
    Vickee sighed. “Not if you grew up in my neighborhood, Ms. Alex. We’ve got our own angels, just like we’ve got our own devils.”
    “Well, it’s an odd find in Central Park in the West 70s. Forget the murder case, this precious little object just makes me wonder about the child she belonged to.”
    “Exactly where did the cops pick it up?” Vickee wasn’t joking around now. “Where does the bridle path cross near the Lake?”
    I pulled the large map Mike had given me closer to us. “There, right below the transverse.”
    “So 78th Street? 79th? Not far from Central Park West?”
    “About there. What are you thinking?”
    “That maybe this angel’s a relic from Seneca Village. Maybe that has something to do with the girl—or the man who killed her.”
    “What’s Seneca Village?” I asked. “Where’s that?”
    Vickee sat back to tell me. “It used to be right close to that area, say 80th Street up to 89th Street.”
    “Near Central Park?”
    “Not just near it. It’s inside what became the Park—a stone’s throw from where this figurine was found. There was no Park when the village existed, in the mid-1800s. Seneca was the first significant community of African American property owners to be created in Manhattan.”
    “I’ve never heard of it.”
    “And it wasn’t a ghetto, Alex, but a stable settlement of working-class people.”
    “Houses—and . . . ?”
    “Houses and schools, all seized by the government in 1857. An entire thriving village simply destroyed to create the great Park.”
    No doubt the state had authorized the legal doctrine of eminent domain to take the private property for public purposes.
    “Your landscapers—those Olmsted and Vaux guys—they just displaced two hundred fifty people and knocked down their houses.”
    “I had no idea.”
    “Not many people do,” Vickee said, holding up the picture of the ebony statuette. “They even destroyed three churches that served the little village. And one of them was called All Angels’.”

EIGHT
    “How do you know about this?” I asked. “I mean, maybe it’s nothing—our victim’s Caucasian—but what if it’s related to the perp or the scene?”
    I picked up my cell phone and dialed Mike’s number. It went to voice mail immediately, and I left a message for him to call me.
    “It’s called black history, Ms. Cooper. Just like that graveyard you stumbled into near City Hall. And this place has a special connection to my family. So you know that Logan is named for my great-granddaddy Logan Bateman?”
    “I do. He was a carriage driver for a wealthy family that lived on Fifth