by Owen Parr
Kapzoff, the attorney for Evans and Albert, was losing his patience. “Are we getting somewhere with this?” he blurted.
I went on. “Mr. Parker had a life insurance policy of five hundred thousand dollars whose beneficiary is Mrs. Parker, so she’s not without means, albeit, a trivial amount for some. However, a year ago a new policy for two million dollars was issued on Mr. Parker’s life. But there are two problems with that. One is the fact that the policy in its first year does not cover suicide as a cause of death. It seems the medical exam was done a month after the policy was signed, and thus, the effective date of the policy, or I should say the first anniversary of the policy, is two weeks away. The insurance company has declined to pay on the policy since the death was ruled a suicide. But here is the biggest problem with the policy: Mr. Parker, Jonathan, never signed the application for the policy, and the person who took the physical for the approval of the policy wasn’t Mr. Parker.”
Huffing snapped at me, “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Let me get to that,” I replied, glancing at the back of the room. “A Mr. Robert Sands took the physical, posing as Mr. Parker. Mr. Sands, who unfortunately was unable to attend this gathering, was the general manager of Andrew’s Sporting Goods, a company owned and later sold by Mr. Huffing and his two daughters, Mrs. Parker being one of them. Mr. Sands also has had a secret liaison with Mrs. Parker for the last year.”
Huffing turned to his daughter Adelle and asked, “Is this right?”
“Mrs. Parker,” I said quickly, “I would not answer that right now. But handwriting experts have examined the insurance application and have concluded that you signed the documents, not your husband. The PA, or physician’s assistant, who performed the medical exam has agreed that it wasn’t your husband that took the physical. Furthermore, the same PA identified Mr. Sands as the person he performed the exam on.”
Huffing said, “This is preposterous. How do you know all this?”
“It seems that Mr. Parker was suspicious of his wife, thinking that she was being unfaithful, and hired a private detective to follow her.”
“He hired you?” Huffing asked, as he pointed at me.
“No, that would’ve been too much of a coincidence. But, I do have the private detective’s report,” I said, picking up a file from the table behind me. “Mr. Parker made a copy of it and handed it to his assistant, Kathy Miller, killed on Thursday, and we were able to get a copy of it from Kathy’s boyfriend. You see, Mr. Parker feared for his life and handed his assistant a sealed envelope in the event something happened to him—a sort of insurance, pardon the pun.”
Adelle Parker was in tears. I raised the file and saw Marcy. “Ms. Martinez,” I began, as Marcy was already on her way to the front, “I think it’s your turn now to take Mrs. Parker to the back.”
Marcy came to the front and cuffed Mrs. Parker, removing her to the back of the bar.
Huffing turned to Mr. Kapzoff and asked, “Can you handle another case?”
“Of course,” Mr. Kapzoff replied, dispatching another associate to sit with Adelle in the back.
Kapzoff then turned to me and asked, “So, did Mrs. Parker kill her husband?”
I made eye contact with him and then with the audience. “She had a motive, right? But, stay with me; we’ll get to that. I glanced at Andrew Huffing. “Mr. Huffing,” I said, “Let me address you now.”
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“By the way, we have ice-cold water on the tables,” I said. “However, if anyone wants an adult drink or a cigar, we can accommodate that, too.”
The district attorney raised his hand. “I’ll take you up on the adult beverage and a cigar,” the DA said, asking Kapzoff if he wanted anything.
“Great, Mr. Pat can take care of you with that,” I said, pointing at Patrick, as he got up from one of the side chairs next to Father Dom. “Anyone else? Feel free; it’s on the house.”
The uniforms grabbed bottled waters from the ice-packed buckets in the back. I waited a couple of minutes. Some had a need to use the restrooms, and others were taking advantage of the freebies Mr. Pat was handing out.
Marcy came up to me. “You’re such a ham, Mancuso.”
“Sweet ham, I hope. Is your boss happy with us now?” I asked Marcy.
“She loves you. I told her to wait for more surprises.”
“Let’s get back to business, folks,” I said, asking everyone to take their seats. My last three suspects hadn’t moved from their chairs. The DA was the last to sit. Raising his second Belvedere on the rocks, he thanked me for the beverage. I winked at him.
“Okay, let’s go on,” I said. “I have to thank my brother, Father Dominic. We started this investigation at his request. Mr. Parker had been a patron of our little establishment and visited us the night before his untimely death.” Dom seemed excited at my recognition and smiled. “As you can see, he’s not your typical Catholic priest. And next to him is a young lady who has been instrumental in our investigation.” Agnes smiled and waved at the crowd, I think, expecting applause, which wasn’t forthcoming.
I began, “Mr. Huffing, you, too, were possibly one of the last persons to see Mr. Parker alive, so we had to include you in our research. We were unable to speak with you in the last few days. Your daughter Adelle told us you were in the Caribbean, trying to free up some of the funds tied up in offshore certificates of deposits—deposits made by Evans and Albert’s company. It seems Mr. Parker persuaded you to invest the proceeds of the sale of your business, Andrew’s Sporting Goods, after Parker joined Evans and Albert.”
“That’s right, but when I left his office, he was alive,” Huffing said.
“We’ll get to that, yes. At this point, I want to thank the FBI office in New York for allowing me to make this presentation before they acted, which was planned for this morning.”
Andrew Huffing looked back and saw a new group of attendees wearing blue windbreakers with a yellow “FBI” emblazoned on the back.
“Besides visiting the Caribbean island of Bonaire—an excellent place for scuba diving, but I digress—you also visited Mexico City,” I said, noticing Huffing uncrossing his legs and rubbing his forehead. “In Mexico City, you met with Señor Rafael Galan, who was the attorney that represented the consortium that purchased your sporting goods business a few years ago. Galan is also the attorney who represents Señor Ricardo Lindo, who is the alleged drug lord of Lindo's drug cartel in Mexico and California. Remember the name Robert Sands from a few minutes ago?” I asked. “Mr. Sands, who became your daughter’s lover and partner in the insurance fraud, was also your general manager and has been with you many years, working at your stores.”
Huffing could not take it. “Where do you think, you’re going with this?”
I ignored his question, reviewing my notes before I proceeded. “Mr. Robert Sands is being held for another fraud case unrelated to this and has disclosed your entire scheme to launder funds for Lindo’s cartel. You were paid twice as much for your stores as they were worth when you sold them. Forty million dollars, I believe, when at most, the stores were worth twenty million. But for years, you laundered drug funds through your store’s cash sales. Mr. Sands has testified that you convinced Galan to invest Lindo’s share in the Evans and Albert hedge fund with Mr. Parker, to further layer the illicit money. The problem is that you just recently realized that the funds were illiquid and Lindo was asking for his money, which you didn’t have access to. So, the proverbial shit hit the fan, and you were trying to buy time with Lindo.”
Attorney Kapzoff reached over and touched Huffing on the shoulder. “We can help you, too.”
Huffing glanced back and stayed silent.
“To aggravate matters a bit more, both your daughters were ten percent owners each of your business. This morning in Tallahassee, Florida, the FBI took your daughter, Anita, into custody.”
“My daughters were not involved in anything,” Huffing said.
Legal eagle Kapzoff reached over t
o him. “Don’t say another word.”
I winked at Marcy; she was already walking towards the front. “Ms. Martinez, if you will,” I said, nodding in the direction of Huffing.
Marcy cuffed Andrew Huffing and sat him next to his daughter Adelle, who had broken into another crying fit.
Kapzoff asked, “Are you almost done?”
“As a matter of fact, we’re coming to the end. But I wouldn’t complain if I were you. You picked up four new clients this morning,” I said, as the law enforcement crowd broke into laughter.
Evans and Albert sat there, subdued. They knew that their turn had come.
33
My front row was depleted. Three of my suspects in the Parker murder had been removed and cuffed on other charges.
“We’re almost done, folks,” I said. “Mr. Evans, may I pick on you now?”
Robert Evans got up from his chair. “I’ve had enough of this,” he said, turning to leave the room and seeing for the first time the number of law enforcement personnel in the back of the room.
Lucy, my former partner, who had been smiling all along and sitting on her wheelchair, cried out, “Sit your ass down.”
Attorney Kapzoff stood, reached over to Evans, touched his shoulder, and pointed to the chair. “Rob, sit and don’t say a fucking word. I’ve got this.”
Evans uneasily returned to his seat and sat.
I started again. “My last case at the NYPD went unsolved. I ran into a lot of walls during my investigation. After that, I retired from the force—I’ll leave it at that. But it bothered me that an innocent man lost his life and we weren’t able to bring his murderer to justice.”
Evans turned to Kapzoff and whispered something.
“The case was a murder in an alley behind the 21 Club. An excellent restaurant, by the way. The victim was a homeless man, a John Doe. Mr. Doe’s COD, or cause of death, was the result of being struck on his head by a blunt object. Earlier that evening, Mr. Doe and another homeless person witnessed an argument in the alley behind the 21 Club. Later that same night, our John Doe died in the same alley. By the way, the other witness identified Mr. Doe as Jimmy, so I’ll use ‘Jimmy’ instead of ‘John Doe.’ Jimmy and the other witness identified the two men arguing in the alley as Mr. Robert Evans and U.S. Congressman Horatio Stevens. Mr. Stevens was only a candidate then.”
Evans couldn’t resist. “Those bums were drunk in the alley.”
Kapzoff reached over. “Don’t say another word.”
“Besides the fact that Mr. Evans just admitted to being in the alley, we were able to confirm that Evans and Congressman Stevens were patrons of the 21 Club that evening. Employees in the restaurant will testify that they saw both men walk to the back of the club and into the alley. We don’t know the reason for the argument between those two, but that doesn’t matter at this point. What we do know is that Mr. Horatio Stevens was one of the original investors in the company formed by Evans and Albert. Moving on, the second witness that had been AWOL since the incident came forward after all this time.”
Evans became restless in his chair. I nodded to Agnes to flash a photo on the screen behind me.
“The witness, call him ‘Ed,’ was in the alley when his buddy Jimmy was struck in the head with a piece of wood, a two-by-four you see on the screen. Ed never came forward for fear that the same outcome that befell Jimmy would come his way. Ed saw our murderer hit Jimmy on the head. He then followed our perp around a corner in the alley, where the perp disposed of the weapon in a trash bin. But Ed retrieved and kept the murder weapon all this time. That weapon is in police custody and has evidence of blood on both ends. On one end, once the forensics team does an analysis, we’ll find Jimmy’s blood, and on the other end, there are specs of blood from the murderer, who cut himself with splinters. I am sure that the blood will match the killers. Also, we have fingerprints the police have already matched to Mr. Robert Evans.”
Evans raised both his hands in desperation.
“Detectives Farnsworth and Charles, if you’d be so kind,” I said.
Lucy, my partner in this old case, chimed in, “Go get that asshole, boys.”
We’d seen this scene three times before, the perp walk. The detectives cuffed and moved Evans to the back. I waited a minute or so and went on.
“We can move on to Mr. Thomas Albert III,” I said, as Albert crossed his legs in front of me. “As much as both Evans and Albert want to hide it, their company is in dire financial straits. Our research shows that both have maxed both their personal and the firm’s lines of credit.”
Attorney Kapzoff moved from the second row of seats and took a seat next to Albert in the front row.
“However, our deceased Mr. Parker, we uncovered, had realized that the hedge fund of Evans, Albert, and Associates, was not only trading on insider information, but also involved in a Ponzi scheme, defrauding their investors. For those interested in a little trivia, Charles Ponzi in the 1920s is credited with the name. The practice is simple. You promise investors an above-average return, and you pay these investors with new money coming into the company from unsuspecting new investors. Our most recent case in New York would be Mr. Bernard Madoff.”
Albert thundered, “You have no proof of that.”
“Frankly, I’m not here to prove that case. I’ll leave that to the authorities. However, the documents Mr. Parker left with his assistant, Kathy Miller, do show a chain of events and accounts in which clients’ funds were inappropriately commingled with company funds. His notes tell us that he brought this up to both Evans and Albert within the last month, because he feared that the infusion of two hundred million dollars from his new client was going to be misused. To quiet him down, he was offered a partnership in the firm. The fact he handed his assistant a file with this information shows he was still troubled by the arrangement and feared for his life.”
I took a moment to let that sink in. Everyone was still waiting for the reveal of the person who took Mr. Parker’s life. I raised my gaze towards the back. “Could you bring forward our cast of characters and uncuff them, please? They can have a seat here in the front again.”
Reluctantly, the detectives and Marcy brought everyone to the front and removed their handcuffs. Farnsworth, Charles, and Marcy, plus a uniform, stayed to the side by the perps.
34
Annoyed by my little game, Kapzoff asked, “Is this some off-Broadway play, Mr. Mancuso?”
I smiled and walked towards Kapzoff. “It does seem that way, doesn’t it? We have a cast of characters, love triangles, greed, mystery, and murders. And all plays have three acts. So now we enter the third and final act,” I said, glancing around at the audience.
“Something bothered me about the cause of death attributed to Mr. Parker. And, as we progressed in our investigation of the so-called suicide, all these other things that we have discussed came out. All five of you,” I said, pointing at my front row, “seemed to have had the motive to kill Jonathan Parker. All of you pointed to others as having been last in Parker’s office.”
I walked over to Melody Wright. “Ms. Wright’s motive could have been jealousy. She was dumped by Parker one day before going on holiday with him and was supposedly planning a wedding in Aspen for New Year’s. Then we uncovered a secret liaison with Mr. Evans and a prior relationship with Vittorio Agostino, when she called herself Susan Osmond. Agostino, one of the original investors of Evans and Albert’s company. A little convoluted, right? Allegedly Ms. Melody ran over and killed Kathy Miller,” I said, as Melody lowered her head.
“I can say more about that,” Melody interjected.
I put my hand out, stopping her from going on. “There’ll be time for you to tell your story. Now is not that time.” I moved over to Mrs. Adelle Parker.
“Let me go on. Mrs. Parker, who was having an affair with Mr. Sands, may have had an idea that her funds invested in the hedge fund were probably lost. So, she concocted an insurance fraud with her lover and was waiting until the policy
was in effect.”
“Mr. Huffing, her father,” I began, taking a couple of steps towards him, “was also there the day of Parker’s death and had a heated argument with Parker. He realized the money he had laundered for the Lindo’s cartel could be lost, and now he feared for his life.”
Walking over to the partners seated by Kapzoff, the attorney, I stated, “The partners, as we have shown, had plenty of motive. If there was a Ponzi scheme and insider trading going on, that would have brought an end to their company, and they would be facing over one hundred years in jail, each. We know they were operating on fumes, as most of their money was gone.”
The DA had been silent but smiling all along, enjoying his Belvedere vodkas on the rocks and a nice, expensive cigar. Now he asked, “So, who killed Parker?”
I moved to my table of props and removed a white sheet, uncovering five golf putters. I handed one to Ms. Melody, which she grabbed with her right hand. One to Mrs. Parker, who did the same thing, and one to Mr. Huffing, who followed suit and grabbed one. However, when I got to both Evans and Albert, neither one reached for the putter. They both ignored me and didn’t grab it. I laid a putter between their opened legs, but neither one of them touched it. I then nodded to Agnes, and she flashed a photo of the same golf putter. I had handed out all five, on the screen.