by Gorman, Ed
“That is utter rubbish,” Julius said. “I have no knowledge of Miss Brewer’s murder other than what was reported on the six o’clock news and you have no legitimate reason to think otherwise. I spent the evening at Le Che Cru entertaining a date, and am just arriving home now. Until my assistant tracked me down a short while ago, I had no idea you or any other police official wished to talk to me.”
Cramer was beside himself. “No idea, huh?” He jerked a thumb towards Henry Zack. “That’s why you dragged your lawyer down here at this hour. I’ve heard all about you, Katz, and I’m not about to put up with your nonsense!”
Henry started to object, but Julius put up a hand to stop him.
“Once Archie tracked me down and relayed your message, I decided to take the proper precautions.” Julius smiled thinly at the detective. “Now this is very simple. If you arrest me, you won’t get a single word out of me. Not now, not ever. I can’t reward your belligerence by inviting you into my home, but this was a client of mine who was murdered. If you remove your mob scene from my door and agree to act in a civil fashion, I will give you two minutes of my time. And sir, that is the best you will get from me tonight.”
“Of all the unmitigated gall! Katz, if you think you’re calling the shots here — ”
“Sir, that is exactly what I think.” Julius’s voice was soft, but it cut through Cramer’s all the same. I knew Julius well enough to know the anger that that softness masked. “I am an expert poker player and know a bluff when I see one. Your puerile attempts to bully me show that you’re stumped, and further, that you have no expectation of that changing. If you want my help, it will be on my terms.”
I could tell Cramer wanted nothing more than to cuff Julius and drag him into a police cruiser. He wanted to do that — that much was evident, but the steam had already gone out of him. Almost embarrassed, he turned to the other officers and asked them to step back to the curb. Once they did this, Julius addressed Cramer, telling him he had some questions for him. Cramer’s face went from cherry red to bone white, but he nodded and told Julius to go ahead.
“I am assuming you have already talked with the sister, Helen Arden, and know what I was hired for. Have you talked yet to the brother?”
“Not yet. He’s agreed to come in tomorrow morning for questioning.”
“If you don’t end up arresting him, escort him here afterwards.”
“I can’t do that against his wishes.”
“He’ll agree. I’ll be calling him before then. Tell me about the murder.”
“She was hit on the back of the head and knocked unconscious,” Cramer said, his voice resigned but at the same time indicating how much he hated giving Julius this information. “After that she was strangled. Whoever did this wore cloth gloves. There was no sign of forced entry. So far, that’s all we’ve got.”
“What was she hit with?”
“A polished agate stone that was probably kept as a paperweight. About the size of a softball.”
“Could this have been a robbery turned murder?”
“Not likely. We had the sister walk through the house and she didn’t see anything obvious that was missing.”
Julius offered Cramer a grim smile. “As I mentioned before, I have no knowledge of this murder, at least nothing beyond what you already have. I do have suggestions, though. Miss Brewer mentioned a business she sold several years ago. I would strongly suggest you look into that to see if there were any hard feelings concerning the sale. Another avenue of investigation involves Miss Brewer’s brother-in-law, a Mr. Thomas Arden. I was told that he abandoned his family twelve years ago. It’s possible he’s back in the picture. That should be looked into too. That is all the help I can offer at this time.”
Cramer nodded, reluctantly accepting this. After he walked away, Henry Zack chuckled softly, and noted, “If nothing else, Julius, I can always count on you for an eventful evening.” Julius somberly bid him goodnight.
Once inside the house, Julius asked me to order a dozen roses for Lily Rosten and arrange for them to be delivered so that they’d be waiting for her when she arrived at work the next morning. “Have them add a note that I’ll be calling her soon,” he added.
I did as he asked, placing the order through a twenty-four-hour florist that Julius had used in the past. “You don’t believe Norma Brewer’s murder had anything to do with the sale of her business?” I asked.
Julius thought about this before shaking his head. “Not exactly, Archie, but it’s something to look into, and the police, with all their manpower and resources, are better equipped to do so than I. Besides, a general rule to follow is the more clutter that can be eliminated, the clearer the picture will become.”
From the moment Julius suggested to Detective Cramer that he investigate Thomas Arden, I began building a dossier on the elusive brother-in-law. I filled Julius in on the salient points. That Arden graduated with a degree in finance from Haverford College in 1983, married Helen Brewer shortly after graduation, later earned an M.B.A. from Harvard, and was working as the chief financial officer for what was at the time a small computer start-up company when he appeared to vanish from the face of the planet on August 7, 1997. There was not a single trace of Thomas Arden after that date, at least not in any of the databases I was able to access.
“Why August 7?” Julius asked.
“That was when his wife reported him missing to the police.”
“He could’ve been missing for several days before she contacted the police,” Julius said. “But never mind, it’s not important. Anything interesting about him going to Haverford College?”
“Lawrence Brewer went to Haverford for his undergraduate degree. They both graduated the same year.”
“Very good, Archie. What can you surmise from that?”
“That they were friends. That maybe Lawrence introduced Arden to his sister.”
“Again, very good. But, Archie, your dossier is missing a potentially critical fact. I’d suggest you keep working on it.”
Julius had obviously already built his own dossier on Arden, most likely when he had turned me off a few days ago, or maybe one of the times when he had put me away in his desk drawer so I couldn’t see what he was doing on his computer.
“What am I missing?” I asked.
Julius showed an exaggerated yawn. “It’s late, Archie and I have a busy day ahead of me. I’m going to bed. You keep working on it, though.”
Julius went upstairs to his bedroom and placed me next to his ear receiver on the dresser bureau before disappearing into his bathroom. The fact that I had missed something bothered me. I spun cycles like a crazy person building different logic models as I tried to figure out what it could’ve been. I was so wrapped up in this that I barely heard him gargling in the next room, or later, the shallow cadence of his breathing as he lay in bed. It was 3:47 in the morning when I figured it out. It had taken numerous adjustments to my neuron network, but I had it. As I mentioned before, Julius had already taken his ear receiver out for the night, and I was too excited to wait until 6:30 in the morning for him to wake up on his own and put his receiver back in, so I called him on his cell phone. He answered after the fourth ring.
“Archie, it’s ten minutes to four — ”
“I figured it out,” I told him.
I heard him sigh. “This is my fault,” he said. “I should’ve expected this. I’ve been pushing you too hard to create this type of personality. Archie, I’d like you to reprogram your neuron network so that you don’t wake me up again, at least not unless it’s for a legitimate reason.”
“Sure, no problem. After I tell you what I’ve found.”
“Let me guess, Archie. That you suspect Thomas Arden had embezzled half a million dollars from his company shortly before he disappeared?”
“That’s right. It was hidden in the company’s annual financial statement. A five-hundred-thousand-dollar line item for a tradeshow that didn’t exist. He stole that money.”
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br /> “Most likely.”
“Why didn’t the company file charges against him?” I asked. Julius let out another heavy sigh. “Good night, Archie. It’s late now.”
“Please.”
It wouldn’t have surprised me if he had hung up his cell phone, but instead he explained it to me.
“The company probably didn’t want their investors to find out about it. Most likely they needed another round of financing, and were afraid that this would kill it for them. Good night, Archie.”
I wanted to ask him whether he thought that Lawrence and Arden had been in contact over the years, and whether he suspected that Lawrence had used Arden to kill his sister by threatening exposure. That’s what I wanted to ask him, but I knew if I pushed it I risked being turned off again, so instead I held back. For the next two and a half hours, while Julius slept, I searched for any link I could find between Lawrence and Arden. By the time Julius’s alarm went off at 6:30, I had decided to keep my theory to myself. What I wanted to do was locate enough evidence to solve this murder before Julius did. I couldn’t help feeling that if I kept working on this I would beat him to the punch.
That morning, we mostly went our separate ways, Julius going through his calisthenics and martial arts training, and then mostly loafing about as he leafed through several books on the theory of war that he had recently purchased. Me, I spent my time building simulations that had Lawrence Brewer blackmailing Arden into killing his sister. One scenario came up that seemed plausible enough to research, and I was doing that when Julius interrupted me to get Helen Arden on the phone. Once I did, he had me patch him through.
“Mrs. Arden, first I’d like to offer my condolences for your sister’s death. I know this is a difficult time right now, but I have a few questions. They may seem odd, but they’re important. Have you had any contact with your husband since he disappeared?”
“No.”
“Do you have any idea where he is?”
“No, sorry, I don’t.”
“Do you know if your brother does?”
That seemed to take her by surprise. It left me crushed. Dammit! Once again Julius was going to trump me. It left me in a bit of a funk where I could almost feel my processing cycles slowing down.
“I-I have no idea. Why are you asking that?”
“I’m working under the hypothesis that your brother and Thomas Arden were college friends, and that he introduced the two of you.”
“Yes, that’s true. But I don’t understand why you’re interested in this?”
“It’s complicated right now, Mrs. Arden. I’ll explain in due time. One last question, what can you tell me about the business your sister sold?”
“I really don’t know anything about it.”
“But your brother handled the legal aspects for her?”
“Yes, I believe so.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Arden. And rest assured that I’ll be doing everything I can to assist the police in finding the person responsible for your sister’s murder.”
Julius hung up. I told him about my theory, as well as my simulations.
“It seems you’ve come to the same conclusion,” I said. “Would you like me to keep investigating my scenario?”
“I think that would be a splendid idea, Archie.”
I did just that for the rest of the morning. Julius started reading one of his books more intently, but he soon became distracted, and several times put the book down so he could stare into space. Once he took out his cell phone and frowned at it before putting it away.
“Is there a call you’d like me to make?” I asked.
“What? No, nothing,” he muttered, still obviously distracted. “Blast it, if I were to do this properly it would take several days, maybe longer. But that won’t do, not now. I need to wrap this up today. Archie, I do have a call for you to make. To Detective Cramer. Ask him to send Lawrence Brewer to my office now. That if he does I should be able to point him to the murderer by evening.”
I did as he asked. Cramer didn’t like it. He had a dozen questions for Julius. I told him I was just the messenger and that the genius was unavailable, but that if Julius was promising to wrap the case up for him he should take him at his word. Cramer hung up on me without telling me what he was going to do. I decided that the solution of the case was a draw between me and Julius, and I decided to take it as a moral victory. I was about to tell him I wasn’t sure what Cramer had decided when the phone rang. It was Lawrence Brewer. I patched the call through to Julius’s earpiece.
“Why should I bother talking to you?” Brewer said.
“Many reasons. Most importantly, it gets you out of the police station. The longer you’re there, the greater the chance they’ll arrest you for your sister’s murder. You must know at this point that they believe you murdered her.”
“And you don’t?”
“What I believe is beside the point. At least you’ll have a chance to convince me otherwise, and I’ll be offering far better refreshments than the police.”
“Like what?”
Julius paused. “Assorted cheeses, meats, wine,” he said.
“You’ve convinced me,” Lawrence Brewer said with a touch of sarcasm, and hung up.
• • •
Cramer and two other police officers escorted Lawrence Brewer to Julius’s townhouse. Julius brought Brewer to his office, and then left so he could argue with Cramer about why he wasn’t going to allow anyone else to sit in on his questioning of Brewer. The two men were outside and Julius’s office was soundproof, so there was little chance that Brewer would be able to listen in. While this argument went on I scanned the office’s Web cam feed to make sure Brewer stayed put.
“I’m engaged in an extremely subtle and sensitive plan,” Julius said as calmly and patiently as I knew he was capable of. A slight flutter showed along his left eye. “If you interfere, it won’t work.”
“Yeah, I know, you’ve been telling me that. And I’m telling you, I want to sit in and hear what he has to say,” Cramer insisted, his jaw locked in a bulldog expression.
“Detective, if you had enough evidence to charge Brewer, you would’ve done so already. My guess is that without my help you’ll never have enough. If you let me do things my way, you’ll have enough evidence by tonight not only to charge but convict Norma Brewer’s murderer.”
“So Lawrence Brewer is the guy,” Cramer demanded.
“Detective, some patience, please.”
Cramer didn’t like it. He could barely stand still. “And you just want me to let him walk out of here when he’s done?” he said disgustedly.
“He’s not going anywhere you won’t be able to find him later.”
For a moment I thought Cramer was going to tell Julius to go to hell. Instead, the steam went out of him. He told Julius that he had until the end of the day and after that he wasn’t going to put up with any more of this nonsense, although Cramer used a far more colorful word than that. Julius watched while Cramer left to join the two other police officers in a late-model sedan. After they drove away, he went back inside, first making a detour to the kitchen, where he picked up a tray of hors d’oeuvres that he had prepared earlier — buffalo mozzarella wrapped in prosciutto along with assorted cheeses and olives — and then returning to his office. A bottle of Californian Petite Syrah had already been poured into a decanter and was waiting there. It was a fair vintage at best, one that Julius had bought out of curiosity, and one which he normally wouldn’t serve to company, which showed his level of disdain for Brewer.
Julius placed the tray in front of Brewer, then sat behind his desk so he faced him. Julius next poured a single glass of Syrah and left it within arm’s reach of his guest.
“I promised you refreshments and, if nothing else, I’m a man of my word,” Julius said. “But, sir, let me say that without that promise you’d get nothing from me.”
Lawrence Brewer sat slumped in his chair. He looked worse than he had at the dog track the other day.
A weariness tugged at the corners of his mouth, pulling it into a slight frown, and dark circles under his eyes gave him a raccoonlike appearance, especially with the paleness of the rest of his skin. Physically he resembled Norma more than his other sister, and like Norma he had too much nose and not quite enough chin. He took several pieces of the prosciutto and mozzarella and popped them into his mouth, then followed that with a long sip of wine.
“It’s not as black and white as Norma made out to you,” he said in a tired monotone as he stared bug-eyed at Julius. “My mother has some bad days, but she also has some good ones, and the fact is, she doesn’t want to leave her home.”
“I’m not interested in what you have to say,” Julius said. “Nor would I believe a word coming from you. We both know that you are more concerned with your mother’s money than her well-being, so don’t insult me with this act.”
“How dare you — ”
“Shut up. All I want from you is to sit there and listen. We both know what you are, Brewer, make no mistake about that. I’m going to prove that you have borrowed large sums of money from a known gangster, Willie Andrews, so that you could finance your gambling addiction, and further, that you’ve been using your mother’s assets as collateral. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that you’ve in some way been responsible for her recent weight loss and obvious malnutrition with the hopes of getting your hands on her money all that much sooner. Take this as a promise, Brewer: By the end of the day I’m going to make sure that her money is off-limits to you. You’re going to need another way to satisfy your growing debt with Andrews. That’s all. Get out of here.”
The two men sat staring at each other, Brewer bug-eyed and Julius as still as if he’d been carved out of marble. Finally, Brewer broke off the staring contest and got to his feet.
“You better be careful what you say in public, Katz, or I’ll be suing you for slander,” Brewer said, a notable quaver in his voice. “This is a nice townhouse; I wouldn’t mind having the courts award it to me.” He left the office, and seconds later the sound of the front door opening and slamming could be heard.