“I know.”
“What I want to find out is, what happened to the money after it went to the holding company?”
Mulloy gestured toward the papers on Tolliver’s desk. “According to the reports, the biggest stake is in the family’s real estate company. But there’s also a whole range of investments. They’re in cable TV companies, insurance underwriters—the list is as long as your arm, and they’re all legitimate. So I would guess the dough went into more of the same.”
“Maybe. But that’s why I want to see Cunningham Mining’s records. It’s the only way we can get a complete picture.”
“And right there you run into a brick wall.”
“Why?”
“Because you couldn’t get those records without a subpoena, that’s why. Where’s probable cause? Any judge’d know it wouldn’t be like dicking around with some guy who sells bagels. Unless there were solid reasons, he wouldn’t touch it.”
Tolliver thought about that. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. But has Shackley ever gone for one?”
“Not as far as I know.” Mulloy returned to his chair. “The trouble is, there’s no basis to force the holding company to open up. They filed tax returns and the IRS accepted them. Same with the brokerage, for that matter. The agents went over all of it like ants at a picnic and found nothing wrong.”
“Then it looks like Cunningham Mining is clean.”
“Far as anybody can tell, yes. So where do we go from here?”
“I want to noodle around with this some more, and meantime you think about it, too. How’re you doing with what I asked for, by the way—you find anything unusual in the trading patterns?”
“Not yet. But I’ll stay after it.”
“Okay, we’ll talk again, when you’re ready.”
“Sure. It’s a bitch, though, isn’t it? Makes me think of one of those gag boxes. You open it up and there’s another box inside, and then another one inside that.” He went back to his desk, shaking his head.
The phone rang and Ben answered it. The district attorney’s secretary was on the line, asking the lieutenant to come to Mr. Oppenheimer’s office. Tolliver said he’d be there right away.
29
Oppenheimer wasn’t nearly as affable as he had been the first time Tolliver had visited him. When Ben was led into his office, the DA was sitting at his desk, talking with two young men who were standing in front of him. Remonstrating with them, actually. Tolliver assumed the men were ADAs. Oppenheimer paid no attention to Ben, who stood nearby waiting to be acknowledged.
Tolliver had heard the DA had a temper, but it was something else to see it in action. Under the wreath of white hair, Oppenheimer’s face looked not so much ruddy now as livid. In fact, it looked as if he was about to blow an artery.
“But sir,” one of the young guys was saying, “we have more than enough evidence to take to a grand jury. Two witnesses saw the accused pull the driver out of the truck and beat him with a baseball bat. We have sworn statements from both of them.”
“Goddamn it,” Oppenheimer said, “that’s nothing but a charge of aggravated assault. Not even assault with a deadly weapon. What I want is a proven link between the perpetrator and the Gambinos. Otherwise, we’re throwing away a chance to nail those bastards. Is that so difficult for you to grasp?”
“No, sir. But—”
“No buts,” the DA said. “Get me what I’m asking for, and get it fast. Otherwise, this isn’t going before a grand jury or anywhere else.”
Ben realized what this was about. One of Oppenheimer’s pet projects was to break the mob’s stranglehold on the drivers of delivery trucks. No previous DA had ever taken the problem on, but no previous DA had shown Oppenheimer’s courage and tenacity, either.
The two young guys gathered up their papers from the desk and hurried out of the room.
The DA looked at Tolliver. His face was still red, but at the sight of his visitor, his tone grew less strident. “Morning, Lieutenant. I’ve been waiting to hear from you.”
“I’m still working on my investigation,” Ben said.
“And what progress have you made?”
Ben had already decided to level. He gave Oppenheimer a briefing on what he’d seen and learned, including what the embalmers had told him about the condition of the senator’s body and their convictions, along with the pathologist’s remarks. He also gave him an account of how he’d gone to Jessica Silk’s apartment after her death. Lastly, he related what he’d seen at the postmortem and what he’d been told later by Dr. Feldman.
There were a few things Ben didn’t mention, such as the attitude of his superiors in the NYPD and his examination of the files on the Cunningham brokerage investigation. Everything else, however, he laid out in detail.
Oppenheimer never took his eyes off Tolliver’s face, listening intently to every word of the recap. He didn’t ask Ben to sit down, but kept him standing in front of the desk throughout the recitation.
When Tolliver finished, the DA said, “So there’s no hard evidence of any wrongdoing. Is that right, Lieutenant?”
“Depends on how you look at it,” Ben said. “I’ve seen a lot of things that make me suspicious. No matter what’s been said, I don’t believe we know the truth about Senator Cunningham’s death. Or about Jessica Silk’s, either.”
“That may be. But suspicions don’t constitute evidence. As far as the senator is concerned, I’m sure you’ll agree with what that medical examiner told you. Without an autopsy, speculation on the part of morticians is of no value, except to fuel your curiosity. And you have nothing that would discredit the statements of the two women who say they were with the senator at the time he died.”
“Nothing except the discrepancies in their stories.”
“Which amount to very little. They told you they were flustered at the time, which is certainly understandable. Anybody could make a mistake under those circumstances.”
“But Silk’s death was even more suspicious,” Ben said. “Especially when you consider what the ME found when he did the post. There was evidence of physical abuse, and also what he discovered in her vagina. That’s proof she wasn’t alone before she went off that terrace.”
The white eyebrows went up a notch. “Proof? What proof? All you have is his report that semen was present in the body of the deceased. What that proves is that she had sexual intercourse at some point before she died.”
“Feldman said he thought shortly before,” Ben said.
“But isn’t it possible that he could have been wrong? That another medical expert might offer a different opinion? That he might say the woman had intercourse the night before?”
Ben shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Yes, that’s possible.” Jesus, this was the same kind of lecture he’d given Shelley, about the need to have concrete evidence. Maybe Jack Mulloy was right; the criminal-justice system today was hopelessly mired in procedures intended to protect criminals, not apprehend them.
The DA wasn’t through. “And the marks on her body. Bruises, you said. And burns that might have been caused by a lighted cigar, or might not. None of those wounds were life-threatening, and there is no way they could be traced to the person who inflicted them. Is that right?”
“I—yes, it is.”
Oppenheimer shook his head. “Lieutenant, you’ve been around long enough to know that what you have so far amounts to little more than hypothesis. What you don’t have are reasons for you to challenge Dr. Phelps’s conclusions as to the cause of the senator’s death, nor to challenge the judgment of the officers who investigated Miss Silk’s suicide—Lieutenant Watts and Detective Collins. So why not put that in writing and go back to your squad?”
Tolliver should have kept quiet. It was time to fold his hand and get out of here.
But he didn’t. “I think I have some very good reasons.”
Oppenheimer surprised him. Instead of showing annoyance, the old man sat back in his chair and studied him intently. The
n he said, “You’ll recall that when I first gave you this assignment, I let you know there were weighty political implications involved in the case. That it could be highly charged and sensitive. Do you remember that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And since then, you’ve no doubt also become aware that a fair amount of pressure has been exerted to close this up and move on. True?”
“Yes.”
“Yet you persist in shaking the situation like a terrier with a rat. In doing so, you put your own career at risk, not to mention the negative effect your actions could have on this office. Do you understand?”
“Yes, I do.”
“And?”
“And I want to finish the job I set out to do.”
“Even though the more prudent course, or at least the more expedient one, would be to take the out I’m giving you? Think hard, Lieutenant, before you answer that.”
Why the fuck, Ben thought, did this have to come down on me?
“Well?”
“I want to stay with it.”
Oppenheimer remained impassive, his eyes revealing not so much as a hint of what he was thinking. “All right, Lieutenant, I’ll tell you what I’m willing to do. I’ll give you a little more time, to see if you can come up with something substantial. If you can, fine. If you can’t, I think we can put this to bed. I’ll make an announcement that after a full investigation into the senator’s death, it was determined that he died of a heart attack, period. There was nothing to indicate that anything out of the way went on, and there was no cover-up.”
“What about the Silk woman?”
“What about her? Your own department has already concluded her death was a suicide. And you admit you’ve discovered no evidence to the contrary. Is that correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right, then. Get back to me in a few more days, and I’ll make a decision at that time.”
Ben returned to the investigators’ offices, feeling thwarted and angry. Captain Brennan had called the shot on this, after all. Let it go, he’d said. Give the DA what he wants and that’s the end of it. Don’t go messing with a political bomb; it just might go off.
So why not pack it in? Wouldn’t that have been the smart thing to do, and hadn’t Ben thought so himself, right from the start? And what about his own situation? Was he going to blow his chances for promotion when common sense was telling him to put this thing behind him and move on? Could he really be that stubborn?
Yeah, he could. Everything he’d ever learned about police work, to say nothing of what he’d seen from the moment he’d been handed this thing, told him something very wrong was going on here. And not only to do with how and why the senator and Silk had died, either. A number of people were pushing for this case to be buried along with the senator and Silk, for the DA to put out the expedient announcement he’d talked about.
Then why not let it go?
Because Tolliver would be damned if he’d just knuckle under. Instead, what he had to do now was hurry. A few days wasn’t much time.
30
A key question was what actually had happened that night in the senator’s office. Tolliver decided that if he could answer that, he could track down whatever else there was, including what had caused Jennifer Silk to go off her terrace. He left the Criminal Justice Building and drove up to East Seventieth Street.
When he arrived, there was only one uniformed officer on the sidewalk, patrolling back and forth along the stretch in front of the mansion and its neighbor. No media people were present; they’d moved on to the scenes of other disasters. Tolliver identified himself and went into the stately building where the foundation offices were located.
This was a routine business day; people were sitting in the reception area and he saw others going into one of the meeting rooms on the first floor. He told the receptionist who he was and said he wanted to see Ardis Merritt. She spoke into a telephone and then asked him to be seated.
A minute later the security chief, Evan Montrock, walked into the area; apparently he’d been summoned. “Hello, Lieutenant. Want to follow me, please?”
Ben did, through a door and down a corridor to a room that contained a desk and no windows, evidently Montrock’s station. There was a bank of TV monitors over the desk, showing that the cameras were trained on different areas of the building.
“Miss Merritt is in a meeting,” Montrock said. He was bulky in the gray suit, lamplight shining on his bald head. “But she won’t be long. Said she can give you a few minutes when she gets out. How about a cup of coffee?”
“No thanks.”
Ben glanced at the monitors. On one of them, he could see people sitting around a conference table. Other pictures showed the interiors of offices, hallways, sitting rooms. In nearly all of them, the images revealed industrious goings-on.
Montrock’s tone was affable. “How’s life in your department? This isn’t the best town to be doing police work these days, is it?”
“There are worse places,” Ben said.
The security man smiled. “I know. I was a cop myself for over twenty years—in D.C. That’s a worse place.”
“Uh-huh. That where you met the senator?”
“Yep. I was on a guard detail and he got to know me, took a liking to me. Eventually, he said if I ever wanted to quit the force, I could go to work for him.”
“And so you did.”
“Signed on right away. Best thing ever happened to me.”
“Shame that he died.”
“Terrible. Never was a better man. At least none I ever knew.”
“But you’re able to stay on here.”
“Oh yeah. I’m like part of the family now. During the week I’m here, of course, but then on weekends I go out to the estate on Long Island. Then during the winter season, I go to the house in Palm Beach.”
“Sounds like a nice life.”
“It’s great. I have men assigned in each of the places, but I personally go where the family is at the moment.”
“What about the other homes?” Ben asked. “Where the senator’s son and daughter live? What happens when they’re not all together?”
“They all have their own security.”
“Also part of your organization?”
“Right.”
Tolliver indicated the television monitors. “You can see into every room in this building, right?”
“Not all, but most of them. The public rooms and the hallways. The cameras sweep automatically, you know, like they’re doing now. If there’s a particular place I want to look at, I just punch it in.”
“That include the senator’s office?”
“No. That’s off limits.”
“What about Miss Merritt’s apartment on the top floor?”
“Also private.”
“The night the senator died,” Tolliver said, “you let Miss Silk in, didn’t you? Took her up to his office. Isn’t that what you told me?”
“Yes.”
“What was she carrying with her?”
“Carrying? A purse and a black case.”
“Like an attaché case?”
“Yes.”
There had been no black attaché case in Silk’s apartment when Ben had gone there after her death. “She always have that along when she came here?”
“Far as I remember, yes.”
“She take the case with her when she left here that night?”
“Yes, I believe she did.”
“Where were you while she was in visiting the senator?”
“Right here at my desk, most of the time.”
“But not all the time?”
“I don’t think so. Might have walked around a little. Checked on the other guards, taken a leak, whatever.”
“But you were here when the call for help came in?”
“Yes.”
“It was Miss Merritt who called you?”
“That’s right.”
“What if you hadn’t been here when sh
e called?”
Montrock pointed to the radio attached to his belt. “She still would have reached me. This operates as a cordless phone as well as a walkie-talkie.”
“So you can make calls, receive them, and talk to other frequencies if you want to.”
“Correct.”
“There was a total of five people here that night, in addition to the senator. Is that right?”
“Yes. The two women, two of my guards, and myself.”
“Suppose someone other than you five had been here and you weren’t in this office to see the monitors. Then you would have missed seeing that person, true?”
“Very unlikely, Lieutenant. I wouldn’t have been gone for more than a couple of minutes at the most. And we have a very sophisticated system here. No one could get in without my opening a door for them.”
“The senator did. Isn’t that so?”
“He came in from his home, which is connected by the door I showed you. I took you into the house that way, the morning you came here after he died. Even so, whenever he used that door, he had to punch in a combination in an electronic lock.”
“I see. Anybody else know that combination?”
“Only the members of the family.”
The telephone rang and Montrock picked it up and spoke briefly to the caller before hanging up. “That was Miss Merritt. She can see you now. Come on, I’ll take you up there.”
31
I had a talk with Jessica Silk,” Tolliver said. “The day after Senator Cunningham’s death. Not long after I spoke to you.”
Ardis Merritt surveyed him coolly. She had on the usual stodgy outfit, a plain blouse with a mouse-colored sweater over it, her brown hair tied back in a bun. Ben wondered why she seemed to go out of her way to look unattractive. They were in her office, just down the hall from the senator’s, and she was making him feel about as welcome as herpes.
“How well did you know her?” he asked.
“Not well at all. Only through the work she was doing with the senator.”
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