by Gorman, Ed
“My mistake,” I said. “I thought your depositing our client’s check actually obligated you to earn the fee you were paid.”
“Archie, I am earning it.”
“By sitting around reading wine reviews?”
“Precisely. Sometimes the best action is waiting. Patience, Archie, patience.”
So there you had it. Maybe he was waiting on something, but more likely he had fallen into one of his lazy funks and was only trying to bluff me, and as part of the bluff he was going to stay holed up inside his townhouse. The thing with Julius was he had no “tell” — no visible indication of when he was bluffing, at least none that I had yet been able to detect. When he played poker, I could identify the other players’ “tells” pretty quickly, not that Julius needed my help in that area. He was astute at reading other players and detecting the slight behavioral changes that indicated as brightly as a flashing neon light when they were bluffing or holding what they thought were winning cards. Sometimes it would be the way their facial muscles contorted or their breathing patterns changed or maybe they’d scratch themselves or shift slightly in their chairs. The list was endless, but it was simple pattern recognition on my part to identify these “tells” by comparing recorded video of when they were bluffing and when they weren’t. I’d spent countless hours trying to identify Julius’s “tell” and so far had come up with nothing.
The rest of the day Julius spent mostly reading, cooking, and drinking wine. I was beginning to think if it were a bluff he would try to play it out for weeks if he thought he could get away with it. I tried several times to nag him into action, but failed miserably, with him smugly insisting that he was waiting for the right time before taking any direct action. That day his client called several times to find out when Julius was planning to talk to her brother. Julius had me answer those calls and directed me to tell Norma Brewer that he was in the midst of investigating certain issues regarding the case, and once he was done he would be interviewing her brother. It was utter hogwash, but I didn’t tell her that.
The third day it was more of the same, with Julius not venturing outside the townhouse, the only difference being that he seemed more distracted than usual. Also, the client didn’t call. At six o’clock he turned on the evening news, which was unusual for him. He rarely watched TV. During the broadcast it was reported that a local woman named Norma Brewer had been found murdered in her Cambridge home.
“Is that what you were waiting for?” I asked.
Julius didn’t answer me. He just sat grim-faced, his lips compressing into two thin, bloodless lines.
“So I guess that’s it. Your client’s dead and her money is in your bank account. Now you don’t have to do anything to earn it. Bravo.”
“No, Archie, that’s not what it means,” he said, his jaw clenching in a resolute fashion. “I’m going to be earning every penny of what she paid me.”
“Did you know she was going to be murdered?”
“I didn’t know anything with certainty.”
“How?”
“Not now, Archie. We’re going to be very busy over the next few days. For now, please call the sister, Helen, and find out what you can about the murder. In the meantime, make the earliest dinner reservations you can for me at Le Che Cru. The next few days I expect to be roughing it. If the police call, I’m out for the evening and you have no idea where I have gone. If Helen Arden asks to speak to me, the same story. You have no idea where I am.”
I did as Julius asked, first making him reservations at Le Che Cru for eight thirty, then calling Helen Arden. She sounded dazed, as if she barely understood what I was saying. I had to repeat myself several times, and after my words finally sunk in, she told me that the police had contacted her about Norma’s murder, and she was now trying to reach her brother and figure out how they were going to take care of their mother and at the same time make the arrangements for Norma’s funeral. She wasn’t even sure when the police were going to release the body.
“What if it’s weeks before they let us have Norma?” she asked. “How are we supposed to bury my sister?”
Her voice had no strength to it. It was as if she were lost and had completely given up any hope of being found. I told her it wouldn’t be more than a few days — however long it took for the coroner to perform an autopsy. I gave her the phone number for a good criminal lawyer that Julius had recommended to clients who had dealt with this type of problem in the past. I tried asking her whether the police had given any details about the murder, but she seemed to have a hard time comprehending what I was saying. After I tried several more times, she finally murmured that they’d told her nothing other than that her sister was dead.
I had been searching the Internet, and so far no details had been reported on any of the Boston newspapers’ Web sites, and neither was there anything of interest on the police radio frequencies that I was scanning. I told her Julius would be in touch sometime the next day and hung up. I filled Julius in quickly. He was in the process of changing into one of his dining suits. After slipping on a pair of Italian calfskin loafers, he hurried down the stairs and to the front door. He asked me whether I was able to detect any police car radios broadcasting in the area, and I told him there weren’t any and that nothing was showing on the outdoor Web cam feed. Still, he opened the front door only enough so he could peer out of it. Satisfied that the police weren’t lying in wait for him, he stepped outside and hurried down the street, his pace nearly a run. Once he was two blocks away from his townhouse, he slowed.
“Do you want me to call the brother?” I asked. “Maybe see if you can get an early read on him?”
“Not now, Archie. I’m sure he’s with the police presently, and it would be best to wait until tomorrow to call him.”
I remained silent while Julius briskly walked the five blocks down Pinckney Street to Charles Street. After hearing about Norma Brewer’s murder I started building simulations that modeled different scenarios that would explain Julius’s behavior since accepting the case. There was one scenario that stood out as having the highest probability. I asked him about it. Whether he was lying low waiting for the brother to kill Norma Brewer, knowing that if that were to happen it would make it easy for him to earn his fee, since all he’d have to do is wait for the police to arrest the brother and then have the courts vacate his guardianship.
“Are you asking whether I expected Lawrence Brewer to murder my client?”
“Yes, that’s what I’m asking.”
“No, that’s not what I was expecting.” A young couple was passing us on the sidewalk, and Julius took out his cell phone so he wouldn’t appear to be an insane person talking to himself. Somewhat amused, Julius asked, “Archie, what would be Lawrence Brewer’s purpose in doing that?”
“Because she engaged you. Maybe he was afraid you’d find some leverage that you’d be able to use against him. Maybe he thought if his sister were out of the way, you’d be also.”
“It’s possible, Archie, but he’d have to be a dolt to think that. Then again, the way he was acting at the dog track, as well as his behavior regarding his mother’s well-being, he could very well be a dolt.”
“So you think he murdered his sister?”
Julius made a face. “It’s a possibility, Archie. But it’s just one of many and there’s no point engaging in idle speculation now. The next few days are going to be hectic enough and this could be my last decent meal before this matter has been put to bed. So please, Archie, no more discussion of this, at least not tonight.”
I wanted to ask him the obvious question, which was, if he hadn’t been waiting for Lawrence Brewer to murder his sister, then what had he been waiting for? What stopped me was detecting a hint of a threat in his voice that if I continued this line of conversation he would turn me off. That would be twice in three days, and I didn’t want to set that type of precedent. I remained quiet while he walked to Le Che Cru and took a seat at the bar. The mâitre d’ came over with a com
plimentary bottle of a Chardonnay that he knew Julius favored, and apologized profusely that he wasn’t able to arrange for an earlier table for his favorite patron. Before leaving, he told Julius that he would have an order of seared sweetbreads in chestnut flour brought over immediately, on the house, of course. Julius graciously accepted all this. The sweetbreads were brought over within minutes and, while Julius was having his second glass of wine, a Detective Mark Cramer from the Cambridge Police Department called. I connected the call to Julius’s earpiece so he could listen in. Rather gruffly, the detective asked to speak to Julius.
“I’m afraid Mr. Katz isn’t available,” I said.
“Yeah, well, get him available!”
“I would if I had any idea where he is, but I don’t, so I can’t.” The detective used some choice invective on his end of the line, ending with the phrase “son of a bitch.”
“Is that all, Detective?” I asked, to Julius’s obvious amusement.
“No, that’s not all,” he said, his voice growing more exasperated. “Your boss is a material witness in a murder case — ”
“There’s been a murder?”
“Shut up,” he ordered, his exasperation growing. “I know damn well you called the victim’s sister within the hour, just as I know your boss is probably with you right now getting a good laugh over all this. The Boston PD filled me in on what to expect, so don’t think you’re fooling anyone with this, okay? You better just tell Katz to come in to Central Square station within the next fifteen minutes or I’ll be getting a bench warrant for his arrest. Ask him how he’d like a few days in lockup for contempt of court!”
Detective Cramer hung up on me. Julius shook his head, a thin wisp of a smile showing. “The man’s a fool,” he said.
“Dolts and fools, huh?”
“Precisely, Archie. That’s what you’ve gotten me mired in.” He took a sip of his wine and sighed heavily. “They probably have a squad car waiting in front of my townhouse.”
“Probably a fleet of them.”
Julius was going to say something else, but instead another long, heavy sigh escaped from him. He sat almost comatose for several minutes, not moving as much as a muscle, not even blinking. When he finally came out of it he appeared relaxed. Shortly afterward he started chatting with two women sitting nearby. One of them was a redhead with a smooth, cream-colored complexion who gave her name as Lily Rosten. She closely resembled the actress Lauren Ambrose. The other woman gave her name as Sarah Chase. She was a brunette and I was able to match her physical characteristics to actresses who were considered extraordinarily beautiful according to online surveys. Both women, according to their DMV records, were twenty-nine. While Julius was charming and polite with both of them, his attention was primarily focused on Lily, which surprised me since I had rated Sarah as the more attractive of the two. When Julius’s table became available, he invited them to join him for dinner. They both accepted, but Lily indicated that she needed to use the ladies’ room and dragged her friend with her. When they returned, Sarah Chase reluctantly informed Julius that something had come up and she wouldn’t be able to join them. Julius didn’t seem to mind, and neither did Lily.
Dinner was a long, leisurely three-hour affair, and Julius was in rare form; maybe somewhat subdued at times, but even more charming than usual. It was an odd effect the way Lily’s eyes appeared to glisten when she laughed, and even when she simply smiled. I also noted how they maintained eye contact almost continuously. When dinner ended, Lily announced to Julius that she lived in the Back Bay section of Boston off Marlborough Street, and Julius suggested that they take advantage of the pleasant weather, and that he walk her back to her apartment instead of calling a cab. I had already looked up her address and mapped it out to seven-tenths of a mile distant from where we were. Earlier, when I had tried filling Julius in on what I was able to find out about her — the amount in her bank account, the fact that she was single and never married, where she grew up and went to college, as well as her present job as an administrator for a local nonprofit organization — he stopped me with a hand signal.
Just as dinner had been leisurely, so was their walk to her apartment building, maybe even more so. Somewhere along the way, they started holding hands. When they reached her address, they were still holding hands. I recognized the pattern — the way she looked at him and blushed and how Julius responded. It was clear that she was going to invite Julius for the night, and this would allow him to bypass the police, which I figured was what he’d been after all along. I was astounded when he gave her a quick and somewhat chaste kiss on the mouth and told her he’d like to call her in a few days. She looked equally astounded for a few seconds, but smiled and blushed even brighter than before and told Julius she would like that. Julius stood on the sidewalk and watched as she disappeared inside the building’s vestibule. Only then did he turn back towards Beacon Hill and his townhouse.
As I said, I was astounded. His actions didn’t make sense. They didn’t fit his past patterns.
“I don’t get it,” I said.
“What, Archie?”
“Why didn’t you go up to her apartment with her?”
He didn’t answer me.
“Wasn’t that the point?” I asked. “So that you could elude the police until morning?”
He shrugged. “If that were the case, couldn’t I simply check into a hotel for the night?”
“You could, but the police might have a watch on your credit cards.”
“That’s true,” he acknowledged. “Very true, Archie. It would be best for you to call Henry and have him waiting for us at the townhouse.”
Henry Zack was Julius’s attorney, and Julius had him on twentyfour-hour call for just such emergencies. I knew Henry would moan about the late hour, which he did when I reached him, but he understood the emergency of the situation and agreed to meet Julius. I filled Julius in, and asked him again about Lily.
“I don’t get it,” I said. “She’s extraordinarily attractive, and it was clear from her behavior that she wanted you to join her. It was equally clear from yours that you wanted to, and you had your additional motive. This is a departure from your normal behavior patterns. An anomaly. It doesn’t fit.”
He remained silent as he continued along Beacon Street. After several blocks an odd, almost melancholy smile showed.
“There’s still a lot for you to learn, Archie,” he said softly.
That was all he was going to say on the matter. Along with Norma Brewer’s murder, I now had another mystery to solve.
• • •
It wasn’t exactly a fleet of police cars waiting at Julius’s townhouse, but there were more than I would’ve expected. Three in total, with a small congregation of officers milling around by the front door. Henry Zack was among them, and he was red-faced as he talked on his cell phone, his eyes bulging slightly. I spotted all this when we were two blocks away by tying in to the outdoor Web cam feed that covered the front exterior of Julius’s townhouse. I reported all this to Julius, and his lips compressed into a grim expression. He asked me to get Henry on the line.
I heard the unmistakable call-waiting tone as Henry put his other call on hold to take mine, and then I patched Julius in. “This is outrageous, Julius,” he said, his voice rising. “They have absolutely no grounds to hold you as a material witness, and I’m on the phone now with the chief clerk of the district court to have their warrant vacated. If they arrest you I’ll be suing the hell out of them — both the police department and each of the officers personally. Start looking for that retirement villa in Florence that you’re always talking about!”
Henry’s rant was more for the officers’ benefit than Julius’s. Julius informed him that he was three minutes away, and asked if it was safe for him to appear.
“It’s safe. It will be as good as winning the lottery if they so much as put a hand on you.”
Julius signaled for me to disconnect the call, and his pace accelerated as his expre
ssion grew grimmer. Within three minutes, as he had promised Henry, he approached his building and bedlam broke out. Henry was on the lookout for Julius and so he spotted him first. He attempted to distract the cops by bellowing more threats at them. It wasn’t until Julius was halfway up the path to his front door that the first cop noticed him, and then they swarmed toward him with Henry Zack in pursuit. A plainclothes detective with a large ruddy face and wearing a cheap, badly wrinkled suit reached Julius first. Having already accessed his departmental records, I informed Julius that this was Detective Mark Cramer. Cramer tried to shove a court warrant into Julius’s hands.
“My lawyer is standing right behind you, Detective Cramer,” Julius said. “Anything you have for me you should give to him.”
Cramer seemed taken aback that Julius knew who he was and reluctantly handed the warrant to Henry Zack, then turned back to Julius. According to Cramer’s records he was fifty-four, six foot two, and two hundred and twenty pounds. He appeared heavier than that, my estimate being closer to two hundred and forty-six pounds. He also had less hair than the photo in his file. He appeared both tired and cranky, and he tried to give Julius a hard, intimidating stare.
“You’re under arrest for obstruction of justice,” Cramer said.
“Nonsense.”
That brought a wicked grin to Cramer’s lips. “Is that so? I have a court warrant that says otherwise, smart guy.”
“I couldn’t care less,” Julius said. “This isn’t a police state. You have no justification for this harassment — ”
“No justification?” Cramer sputtered, almost choking on his words. He lifted a thick index finger as if he were going to poke Julius in the chest with it, which would’ve been a mistake unless he wanted to be wearing a cast on his hand for the next two months. Somehow he controlled himself.
“Norma Brewer, who was a client of yours, was murdered this afternoon. So far you’ve refused to cooperate with an ongoing police investigation and, as far as I’m concerned, you have been withholding evidence dealing with the crime.”