by Bill Bernico
“Our going rate is two hundred dollars a day plus expenses,” I told Larry. “It could get expensive.”
“Not as expensive as choosing the wrong man to partner with me.” Larry reached into his coat pocket and produced a checkbook. He scribbled a figure on it and handed it to me. “Will that be enough to secure your exclusive services for two days?”
I looked at the check. He’d made it out for one thousand dollars. I looked up at him. “That’s a little more than I was going to suggest,” I said.
“You’ll earn every penny of it,” Larry said. “But I need results by Friday morning.”
I stood, shook Larry’s hand and said, “And you shall have it. You have my word on it. Now, is there anything else you want to tell me?”
Larry looked puzzled and then offered, “Oh yes, I really appreciate what you’re doing for me and…”
I stopped him. “No,” I said. “Don’t you want to tell me the name of the person you want the background information on? I’ll need that and anything else you know about him.”
Larry nervously laughed. “Oh yes.” He pointed at my yellow legal pad. “May I?”
I handed him the pad and my pen. Larry jotted down a few lines of information and handed the pad back to me. “That should get you started,” he said. “The rest you’ll have to find on your own.” He turned to leave but hesitated at the door. He turned back to me. “Thank you, Mr. Cooper. Thank you both.” And with that he was gone. The clock above the office door said nine forty-five.
I turned to Gloria and held up the check. She looked at the amount and her mouth fell open. “We’re in business, Mr. Cooper,” she said, taking the check from me. She pulled out her checkbook, ripped a deposit slip from the back and made it out for the amount of the check. She looked up at me. “I’ll get this to the bank if you want to start with a search online. By the time I get back, we can hit the road and do some further checking.” Gloria didn’t wait for an answer. She was out the door before I could give it much thought.
I flexed my fingers, stared at my computer screen and said, “All right, Mr. Nathan Killian, let’s see just who you are.” I entered a search engine and pecked away at the keyboard. I got thirty-seven hits for the name Nate Killian and started with the first one. A new screen opened to the Nate Killian web site. This Nate Killian was a Baptist minister from Nebraska. He was also too old to be Louis Feinstein’s prospective partner. The guy I was looking for would be forty-three years old and living in Los Angeles. The next Nate Killian on the page turned out to be a Holstein farmer and breeder from Iowa. No good. I moved on. By the time I got to the thirteenth Nate Killian on the list, I was beginning to wonder if that was his real name.
Gloria got back inside of fifteen minutes. “Any luck?” she said.
“Yeah, all bad.”
“Well, you’ve got a contact at City Hall, don’t you?” Gloria said. “Come on, let’s get over there.”
I cleared my computer screen and shut it off. I switched on our answering machine and escorted Gloria down the hall to the elevator. We took her car downtown and parked in the City Hall parking lot. The contact Gloria was talking about was a woman named Tracy Caldwell. I found her in the records department on the first floor. She smiled when I came in.
“Elliott,” Tracy said. “How nice to see you again.” She shifted her gaze to Gloria. “And Mrs. Cooper. Good to see you again, too.”
Gloria nodded politely. I stepped up to the counter. “Tracy,” I said, “where did you find it?”
Tracy looked puzzled. “Find it?” she said. “Find what?”
“The Fountain of Youth,” I explained. “You look younger every time I see you.” Gloria turned away and rolled her eyes. I slapped her lightly on the shoulder.
“Oh, Elliott,” Tracy said. “You are smooth.”
“Good to know my three years of schmoozing classes weren’t for nothing,” I said.
“So what brings you downtown on a day like this?” Tracy said. “Must be ninety-five out there.”
“Ninety-eight,” I corrected her. “Listen, Tracy, I’m in a bit of a bind. I only have two days to do a background check on a client. Can you help me out?”
“Sure,” Tracy said. “What do you need?”
“Can you get me tax records, real estate holdings, bank balances, driver’s license info...”
“Hold on there, Elliott,” Tracy said. “I don’t have access to all that stuff from this office. I can give you what I have, but you’ll have to check elsewhere for the rest of it. Hang on. I’ll be right back.” Tracy left through a door behind her.
“Oh, Elliott,” Gloria said in an exaggerated voice. She hung on my arm and batted her eyes at me.
“What are you doing?” I said.
“You mean that doesn’t work with me?” she said. “Seems to work with Tracy.”
I had to chuckle. “Why, Mrs. Cooper, I do believe you’re jealous. It looks good on you. Most women can’t pull off that look, but you somehow managed to make it work.”
Gloria punched me in the triceps. “Ouwww,” I said, rubbing my arm. “Next time I’ll leave you in the car and in this heat by the time I came out again there’d be nothing left but a melted puddle of you on the front seat. Try to behave now, will you? She’ll be back any minute now.”
Gloria glanced at me from the corners of her eyes.
“I mean it, Gloria,” I said. “We’re supposed to be professionals. And that doesn’t include your undeserved wrath for something I didn’t do. Save that for when you actually catch me doing something wrong.”
Tracy returned with two large ledger books in her hands. She had both her index fingers inserted in each of the books. She laid the first book on the counter and flipped it open to the page with her finger in it and turned it toward me. She laid the other ledger open in front of Gloria. “This one will give you last year’s tax records,” Tracy said to me before turning to Gloria. “And this one,” she said, pointing to a specific line in the ledger, “is the description of Mr. Killian’s real estate holdings.” Tracey looked at Gloria’s neck and said, “What a beautiful necklace. Where did you find it?”
Gloria smiled and touched the string of beads. “It’s my favorite,” she said. “I found it on sale at the mall.”
“Do you know if they have any more like it?” Tracy said. “I’d love to get one for myself.”
Tracy was good, I thought. She must have sensed Gloria’s annoyance at our friendly banter and had managed to turn my mad wife into an ally in a matter of seconds. I continued scanning the ledger while Gloria and Tracey discussed costume jewelry. I’d finished with my journal, closed it and slid the other journal out from under Gloria’s hands. When I had everything I needed I nudged my wife.
“That’s it, Gloria,” I said. “Let’s go. We have work to do.”
Gloria waved me off without turning toward me. “In a minute, Elliott,” she said impatiently. “Just let me give Tracey the name of the place where she can…”
I nodded to Tracey. “Thank you,” I said, pulling Gloria away from the counter and back out the door. Once we were outside, I stopped on the steps, turned to Gloria and said, “If you remember, we are on a case. Now, do you mind if we get back to it?”
“My aren’t we impatient today?” Gloria said, walking ahead of me back to the car.
“What happened to the attitude you got with Tracey?”
“Elliott,” Gloria explained. “If you live to be a hundred and ten you’ll never understand women. Unlike men, we can get over attitudes and get along with each other. Men are a different story, though. Most men get mad at some guy and stay mad for years, long after they’ve even forgotten why they got mad in the first place. Don’t try to figure it out. Just accept it.”
“Fine,” I said. “Can we get back to this case?”
“What did you find out?” Gloria said.
“Well,” I told her, “While you two hens were drooling over jewelry I was checking out Nate Killian’s finances.
Turns out Mr. Feinberg needn’t worry about Killian’s liquidity. He could probably buy Feinberg out, lock stock and both barrels. This has to be the easiest case we ever concluded in less than two hours. But the question is, should we contact Mr. Feinberg right away or give it another day and collect for two day’s pay?”
Gloria looked at me like I’d poked a snake in her face. “All right,” I said. “I guess I wanted the work as much as the extra day’s pay. We’ll go see him right away.”
We drove back toward the office in relative silence for a few minutes before Gloria turned to me. “Elliott,” she said, her eyes narrowing. “That information we just found at the hall of records…”
“I know,” I said. “Feinberg could have found that on his own without our help. Are you wondering why he hired us to do his leg work for him?”
“Exactly,” Gloria said. “Suppose we skip going back to the office and go see Louis Feinberg.”
“I’m way ahead of you,” I said, turning south several blocks short of Hollywood Boulevard. I drove directly to the parking lot outside of Fein and Dan D. and killed the engine. I turned to Gloria.
“This shouldn’t take long,” Gloria said. “You want me to come along with you or should I wait here in the car?”
“Relax,” I told her. “I’ll be back with our check in ten minutes.” I slid out from under the wheel and walked up the cobblestone path to the office entrance. Inside I found a receptionist sitting behind a chest-high counter. She looked up when I approached her. The nametag on the counter identified her as one Doris Daily.
“Good morning,” she said to me. “May I help you?”
I fished a business card out of my shirt pocket and handed it to her. “My name’s Elliott Cooper. I’d like to see Mr. Feinberg, please.”
Doris’s face fell apart. “He’s, uh, not here right now. I’m not sure when he’ll be back.”
I watched Doris for a few seconds before asking, “Is there something wrong?”
Doris wrung her hands for a few seconds before offering, “Actually, he’s downtown at the twelfth precinct. There were a couple of policemen here just twenty minutes ago. They took him away in one of those black and white police cars.”
My eyebrows furrowed. “Did they arrest him?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t exactly hear the word, arrest, but one of them told Mr. Feinberg that they wanted to talk to him downtown. I didn’t get a chance to say anything to Mr. Feinberg before he left with those two policemen.”
“Don’t worry,” I told Doris. “I know the lieutenant at the twelfth precinct. I’ll go over there now and see what I can find out.”
“Oh, thank you…” She looked back down at my card. “…Mr. Cooper.”
I hurried back to my car and drove out of the parking lot, filling Gloria in on what I’d learned. “What do you suppose he did?” Gloria said.
I shook my head. “Beats me, but I’m sure Eric will fill me in when I get there.” Eric was Lieutenant Eric Anderson, a personal friend.
Ten minutes later we pulled into the lot behind the precinct and hurried down the hall to Eric’s office. The door was closed but we could hear voices on the other side. Gloria whispered in my ear, “Should we knock?”
I shrugged and hesitated before I heard Eric’s voice say, “Come on, Mr. Feinberg. Let’s go over this one more time.”
That’s all I needed to hear. I knocked and opened the door far enough to see Louis Feinberg sitting across from Eric’s desk. Eric looked up at me. “This is not a good time, Elliott,” he said, waving me off.
Feinberg turned his head and saw me standing there. “Mr. Cooper,” he said, turning in his chair.
“You two know each other?” Eric said, I assume to me.
I opened the door farther and stepped inside. Gloria followed me in and closed the door again. I turned to Eric. “What’s going on here, Eric?”
“I don’t know what makes this any of your business, but I aim to find out,” Eric told me. “How do you know this man?” He gestured toward Feinberg.
“Gloria and I are working for him,” I explained. “I stopped at Mr. Feinberg’s office and his receptionist told me you had him brought in, for what she didn’t know.”
Eric stood now. “Elliott,” he said. “This is a serious matter—a lot more serious than whatever he hired you to do. Now would you excuse me? I’m not finished questioning Mr. Feinberg.”
“What is it he’s supposed to have done?” Gloria said.
Feinberg stood now, obviously agitated. “They think I killed someone, Mr. Cooper.”
I shot a quick look at Eric. “Is that right?”
Eric came out from behind his desk and ushered me out of his office, closing the door behind him. Gloria stay in the office with Feinberg.
“Now what’s this all about?” I said.
“Feinberg is being questioned in connection with a murder that was called in to the station,” Eric explained. “A paper boy was delivering the morning paper and thought he saw signs of a struggle through the curtains. He called us and I sent a patrol car to have a look. My men went in and found a man hanging from a beam in the living room.”
“I take it you don’t suspect it was suicide,” I said.
“Not unless the victim found a way to tie his own hands behind his back, gag himself and then slip a noose over his head from behind,” Eric said. “By the time they cut him down, he was dead.”
“And what does this have to do with Mr. Feinberg?”
“The man we found hanging over on Melrose Avenue was Feinberg’s partner,” Eric explained.
“His partner?” I said. “He didn’t have a partner. His partner is dead.”
“Yes, I know. We have him in the morgue.”
“Not that partner,” I explained. “His original partner, Daniel Douglas, but he died nearly a year ago from a heart attack.”
“Well, then, obviously the guy on the slab is not Daniel Douglas.” Eric checked the notepad in his pocket, flipped it open to the last page and said, “The victim’s name is Nate…”
“Killian,” I said, finishing Eric’s sentence.
Eric lowered the notepad. “Now just how would you know that?”
“Killian is the guy Feinberg hired us to look into,” I explained. Gloria and I were doing a background check on him because Feinberg told us that he was considering taking Killian on as a partner to get some more money flowing in his business.”
“Interesting,” Eric said. “According to him, he and Killian have been partners for the last six months. Come on, let’s see what else Mr. Feinberg is holding back from me.” Eric took his seat behind his desk again and I pulled two more chairs up for Gloria and me.
“All right, Mr. Feinberg,” Eric began. “Let’s go over this from the top one more time.”
Before Feinberg could explain anything else, there was a knock at Eric’s door and Andy Reynolds, the medical examiner, poked his head in. He handed Eric a paper and said, “Here’s that report you wanted,” and left the office again.
Eric examined the paper in silence for a few seconds and then looked at Feinberg. “Mr. Feinberg, where were you at approximately nine-fifteen this morning?”
“Why?” Feinberg said. “Is it important?”
“Just answer the question, Mr. Feinberg. “Can you account for your whereabouts during that time?”
Feinberg looked puzzled and then shook his head. “Let me see,” he said. “I’ve done so many errands this morning that it’s all just a blur.”
“Well, try to concentrate,” Eric said. “It’s important.”
“I know where he was,” Gloria said, turning toward Eric.
“What?” Eric said.
“Sure,” Gloria explained. “Elliott and I got to the office right at nine this morning. The phone was ringing and Elliott took the call.”
I saw where Gloria was going with this and jumped in. “That’s right. I took a call from him,” I said, gesturing toward Louis Feinberg. “And he showed
up in my office about ten minutes later.”
“That’s right,” Feinberg said. “I remember now.”
“How long was he there?” Eric wanted to know.
“Oh, I don’t know,” I told Eric. “Probably twenty, twenty-five minutes.”
“Thirty-two minutes,” Gloria offered. I looked at the clock over our office door when he left. It was just after quarter to ten.”
Eric turned to Feinberg. “Is that about right?”
Feinberg shrugged. “I guess so, if that’s what the lady says.”
“I guess you’re off the hook then,” Eric said to Feinberg. He turned back to the paper in his hand. “The coroner put the time of death between nine-fifteen and nine thirty.”
Gloria looked puzzled. “Can Andy be that certain?” she said. “I thought there was a margin of error of about an hour or two. How can he be so certain about the time?”
“Because the paper boy got there at approximately ten minutes past nine,” Eric explained. And the victim was still struggling at that time. That’s the commotion the kid must have seen through the curtains. And my guys got there at exactly nine-eighteen. He’d stopped struggling by then and was dead.”
“And where was this that your men found him hanging?” I said.
Eric checked his notes again. “The sixty-eight hundred block on Melrose just west of Highland Avenue.”
I shook my head. “That’s more than three miles from our office,” I said. “A drive like that would have taken him at least twelve or thirteen minutes.”
Eric looked at Feinberg. “It looks like you’re free to go, Mr. Feinberg.”
Feinberg let out a deep breath and lowered his head. When he looked up again, it dawned on him that the police had driven him here. He looked back at Eric. “I’m going to need a ride back to my office.”
I held up one hand. “You can ride with Gloria and me,” I told him. I turned back to Eric before I left his office. “Looks like you’re back to square one. Good luck.”
Gloria and I walked Feinberg back out to our car and headed back toward Fein And Dan D. A few blocks away from the police station I said to Feinberg, “Something’s been bugging me, Larry. This morning you told us you wanted us to look into Mr. Killian’s background because he was a potential partner. Lieutenant Anderson says you told him Killian had been your partner for at least six months. What’s going on here?”