Faye Kellerman - Decker 11 - Jupiter's Bones

by Jupiter's Bones

Oliver said, 'Better question is why do women like opera and soup?'

  'Pardon?' Rina asked.

  Marge waved at her. 'Old conversation, Rina.' 'So you think Ganz was charismatic?' Decker said. 'Yes, I do. And I couldn't be all that off-base. How many members does the Order have?'

  'Someone told me two thirty-five,' Decker said. 'But I think there're babies, too.'

  'So how many kids in all?' 'Too many,' Decker answered.

  Marge waited until Rina left. Then she said, 'The thing is that Nova blushed when I asked if he knew who called Europa.'

  'I asked him the same question while you were in the John,' Oliver said. 'He denied it to me, also. Guy's a pisspoor liar. Which is good. Means he's probably not a total psycho.'

  'Why do you think he's a psycho?' Decker asked.

  'Anyone involved in that cult is a psycho.'

  Decker pondered the words, wondering how ultra-religious people fit into the definition of a cult. He thought about that aspect of his own faith every time he entered a yeshiva. After eight years, Orthodox Judaism was still foreign to him. Alien, but not oppressive. Certainly the yeshiva he knew wasn't a cult - not with Rabbi Schulman at the helm. Everyone came and went as they pleased. Look at Rina. After having lived there for four years - two with her husband and two on her own - she walked away with the rabbi's blessing.

  Glancing at his watch he saw it was almost nine. They'd been watching the tape for the last half hour. A waste of time. The case merited one more day of probing. Something to work on until the path, report came in.

  He picked up the thermal coffeepot sitting on an end table. 'Anyone for seconds?'

  Marge pushed her mug to him. 'To the brim.'

  Decker refilled her mug then his. 'Scott?'

  'Pass,' Oliver answered. 'By the way, that was smooth operating, Dunn.' He turned to Decker. 'You should have been there in person. She got him riled, but not so over the top that he didn't want to talk.'

  Decker said, 'Good job.'

  'All in a day's work,' Marge answered. 'Point is, we know that Nova had something to do with the phone call.'

  'Europa said the caller was female,' Decker said.

  Oliver said, 'So he got someone else to do the deed. It all makes sense now, Loo. Pluto put the screws on Nova to assign a cause of death and to ink the death certificate. Now Nova may be loyal to the Order, but he isn't stupid. He knows he isn't a qualified pathologist. So he had someone call the death in to the police, knowing that would cover his ass.'

  'Except that the caller phoned Europa, not the police,' Decker

  said.

  'Whatever,' Oliver said. 'I'm just saying that Nova was smart enough to pass the buck. He didn't want to take final responsibility for diagnosing Jupiter's death.' He chuckled. 'I can't believe these names - Nova, Jupiter, Venus... it's like kids playing outer space. They might as well put foil on a box and call it a rocket ship.'

  'Except Jupiter's dead,' Decker said.

  Marge brushed hair from her eyes and said, 'What are you thinking, Pete? That if Europa had been out to get her father, she would have needed inside help. The call could have been the inside help telling her that the job was done.'

  'You got it.'

  Oliver said, 'If Europa whacked her dad, why would she want to be associated with the death by phoning it in?'

  'Someone had to tell the police,' Decker said. 'If they'd waited much longer, the death would have looked really suspicious, and we would have been obliged to launch an all-out investigation. Also, since Europa did the calling, the police don't have a voice tape of her accomplice. So we have no way of knowing who from the Order helped her.' He thought about his words. 'Actually, we have no way of knowing who really called her. We don't even know if it's male or female. We're taking Europa's word for it.'

  'You have something against the girl, Deck?' Oliver asked.

  'Not a thing,' Decker said. 'I'm creating a "just in case" script.'

  'Why?'

  'For a variety of reasons,' Decker said. 'Ganz was a famous man whose death was far from straightforward. His demise is bound to be scrutinized, and I want to make sure we're prepared. Also, we know that the body was moved... some of the evidence was bound to get messed up - or maybe even cleaned up. I'm not saying it was a homicide. But if the Order is intentionally covering up Ganz's suicide, I'd like to know why:

  With the phone at his ear, Decker looked up from his desk, saw Oliver leaning against the door frame. Decker beckoned him in, then held up splayed fingers, indicating five minutes. 'The court case is at three, Captain. It's going to be tight for him to get downtown and then back here again... no, that's what I'm telling you, sir. It came out of CAPS, not Homicide... right, an assault with a deadly which, for some reason, was moved to downtown... No, I don't know why the change of venue. More than that, I don't know why the judge agreed to it.'

  He whispered to Oliver to pull up a chair. The detective closed the door and sat. Deck's office was small, but it was enclosed, affording a semblance of privacy even though the walls were panes of frosted glass - a step up from the usual cubicle.

  Into the receiver, Decker said, 'If I recall correctly, the DA originally filed it as an aggravated assault, which he later refiled as a homicide... about two months ago... I think this is the third continuance. The time lag is ludicrous. The incident happened a year ago, and the DA hasn't even settled on charges of man one or two. But this isn't our problem. It's all internal politicking over there. Meanwhile, they want me to give up one of my valuable men, so they can look good. I don't see the purpose...'

  Again, Decker glanced toward the door. Jane Heard, the squad room secretary, had come in. She handed him a fresh batch of phone messages, leaving without a word. Decker's watch read eleven-thirty. He'd been making calls since seven. If his right ear got any hotter, it could double as a griddle. As he listened to Strapp make his points, he flipped through the notes - routine business, routine business, routine, routine, routine, routine, a call from Rina reminding him that she wouldn't be home until three, more routine business-

  'Yes, I think it would be better if someone filed a continuance for tomorrow morning. First and foremost, it'll give them time to get their act together. At the moment, Wiggins's out on the field, handling a hot domestic. Why should I pull him off when they haven't even finalized the charges... all right... all right. That sounds good. I'll call you as soon as he's done.'

  Decker hung up the phone and mugged a madman's grimace, shaking his hands at the world. He picked up a pen and made a note for the trial tomorrow morning on his crammed-to-the-margins desk calendar. 'What brings you to the bowels of bureaucracy, Detective?'

  Oliver stated, 'He had insurance.'

  'What? Who?' Attention shift, Deck. He sat up. 'Ganz had insurance? How much?'

  'A mil for death benefits, and a cash policy roughly equal to another mil.'

  'Whoa!' Decker rolled his tongue in his cheek. 'Who's the beneficiary?'

  'Europa Dawn Ganz.'

  'Sole beneficiary?'

  'She was in the policy he had held with Mutual Guard via Southwest University of Technology. For all we know, he could have had dozens more. You want me to keep probing? I'll have to start from scratch. It's going to take time. Your call.'

  Decker picked up a mug sitting on his desk. It held tepid coffee, but he drank it anyway. 'How crowded is your day?'

  'My time's free at the moment. But Webster and Martinez were just called to the field. Marge and I are in line to catch the next case.'

  'If you get called, you go. In the meantime, see if you can do some follow-up.'

  'Not a prob. I'll phone while I eat lunch at my desk.'

  Mentioning lunch brought a rumble to Decker's stomach. He took out his own brown bag. 'A very big policy for a professor. Especially when you consider that Ganz took out the policy twenty-plus years ago.'

  'Twenty-five. Nineteen seventy-two.'

  'I wonder if Europa had filed a claim after Ganz's initial disappearan
ce?'

  'Funny you should ask. Mrs Ganz, Europa's mother, made a claim around five years after her husband vanished on behalf of her daughter. But Mutual Guard denied it. No proof of death.'

  'So someone was aware of the policy way back when.'

  'The mother was. I don't know about Europa.'

  'But she still would have been twenty - an adult.'

  'Absolutely,' Oliver said.

  'And this policy has remained in effect all these years?'

  'More than that, Loo. It was paid off a year ago. Europa is not only the beneficiary of a million in death benefits if we come back with an "accidental death," she can also lay claim to the policy itself.' Oliver let go with a knowing grin. 'All of a sudden, it seems that she has center stage.'

  Decker absorbed the words. 'I wonder if Ganz had planned to cash in the policy and live off the money when he did his disappearing act.' A beat. 'Then again, he couldn't have had much into it. Maybe two or three years' worth of payments. Hardly enough to sustain himself.'

  Oliver scrunched up his eyes. 'Just where did Ganz go for ten years?'

  'No one seems to know...'

  'Weird... just to take off like that.' Oliver shook his head. 'Course I couldn't imagine what it would be like to be that smart. Contemplate the beginnings of the universe. It's gotta do strange things to your psyche.'

  This brought to Decker's mind the Talmudic story about the four rabbis going into the forest to discuss the meaning of life. One of them died, one went insane, and the third became an apostate. Only Rabbi Akiva came out with his faith intact. The sudden relevancy became so apparent as to be transparent.

  Decker said, 'Scotty, back then, when Ganz took out the policy, premiums must have been very stiff on a million dollars. Why would he insure himself for that much? Take on that much debt when he was only a professor?'

  Oliver said, 'You know, I bet Ganz had been planning his Houdini for a long time. Could be he did it to take care of his family.'

  'Ah,' Decker said. 'So the money was guilt money to his family for deserting them. Or at least, guilt money to his daughter.'

  'Sounds good to me.'

  'But you said Mutual Guard didn't pay off.'

  'Obviously they had suspicions. And they were right because Ganz returned fifteen years ago.'

  Decker said, 'At that time, Ganz knew his daughter wasn't a millionaire. Somewhere along the line, he must have figured out that the claim wasn't paid. So he couldn't have felt that guilty.' He took out a sandwich from his brown bag. Roast beef and it looked good. But if he was going to eat bread, he'd have to ritually wash his hands. So instead, he liberated a piece of roast and downed it in one gulp. 'To keep the policy active all these years, someone was paying the premiums. Was it Ganz?'

  Oliver shrugged. 'I'll make a couple of calls. See if I can find who was keeping it alive, though the logical choice is Europa. She's the only one who had something to gain.'

  'How would she get the money to pay the premiums?' Decker stared at his sandwich, suddenly realizing that his head was pounding. He needed sustenance. 'I'm hungry. I've got to go wash.'

  'Go ahead. I'll get my lunch.'

  'If Marge is out there, bring her in.' Decker got up, went to the bathroom and washed his hands, saying the blessing outside the facilities. Rule number one. No blessing God in the John. By the time he came back to his office, Marge and Oliver were at his desk, lunches in tow. While Scott brought her up to date, Decker ate his sandwich, polishing off a couple of bottles of Snapple. When Oliver had finished, Decker wiped his mouth with a napkin and said, 'Suppose Jupiter suddenly discovered that the policy was still alive.'

  Marge said, 'You're thinking that suppose Jupiter decided to cash it in. Maybe even change the beneficiary to Venus. Europa took exception and bumped him off, and made it look like an OD accident.'

  Decker scratched his nose. 'Can you at least let me get the thought out?'

  'Am I right?'

  'That's not the point,' Decker said. 'If Europa's guilty, she had to have had inside help.'

  'What about Guru Bob?' Oliver suggested. 'She dated him.'

  'Why not Venus?' Marge said. 'They're girlhood friends.'

  Oliver said, 'Don't you think that if Jupiter was going to change the policy, Marge, he would have changed it in favor of Venus as the beneficiary?'

  'Not necessarily,' Decker said. 'If he pictured himself as Father Jupiter of the Order of the Rings of God, could be he intended to leave the money to the Order for the mutual benefit of all its members. Or maybe he backtracked and decided to leave it to science. I like Marge's idea. Just maybe the women got together out of mutual interest in money.' He turned to Marge. 'Did he have any other money stashed away elsewhere?'

  'Nothing like the insurance policy, but he had savings upward of fifty thou between three or four bank accounts.'

  'Maybe that money was used to run the day-by-day operations of the Order.'

  'Could be,' Marge answered, 'although the accounts are in Ganz's name. Ganz - not Jupiter.'

  'The guy was rich,' Oliver said.

  'True,' Decker said. 'However, he was still worth more dead than alive.'

  The preliminary path, report hadn't come through, and probably wouldn't be available until tomorrow afternoon. No sense in poking around the Order, upsetting the mourners, until there was something concrete. Again, Decker flipped through his phone messages. He picked up the receiver, then realized he could make the calls as easily from his home as from his desk. Besides, he was still hungry and the station house only had nonkosher vending machines. He telephoned his house, but no one picked up.

  Then he remembered that Rina had accompanied Hannah on a class trip to the zoo. They'd be gone until three.

  Which meant his house was empty. If he left now, he could grab two hours of quiet, uninterrupted work time. He loaded his briefcase with files from his most pressing cases, slipping in Wiggins's folder for tomorrow's court case. Lastly, he added his file from the Ganz case, and his message slips. He checked himself out, leaving his pager on for emergencies.

  The idea of solitude made him salivate, a part of him understanding the Ganzes, Gauguins, and all those disappearing artistes; that overwhelming desire to chuck it all and search for something more meaningful. But then he thought back to his divorced days, to the oppressive loneliness that dragged him down like an undertow. He had yet to find a meaningful relationship devoid of responsibility. A small case in point being the dog. There had been times when Ginger had been underfoot. But he had been depressed for days after the setter had been put down.

  He thought about his dog as he opened the front door, stepping quietly into his living room. He still missed Ginger's maniacal greetings. He and Rina had discussed getting another puppy, but with the impending move, it wasn't the right time-

  Decker's ears suddenly perked up.

  He realized that he was hearing things... noises.

  Listening with trained precision.

  It sounded like panting, and it was coming from the kitchen, which didn't make sense at all. Instinctively, his hand went to his gun. He tiptoed through the living room, stopped at the bedrooms. The boys' room was open, but his bedroom door was closed.

  His mind flashing to Jan... to that day and what he had walked into... to feelings of deep humiliation and betrayal.

  But this was Rina! She couldn't... It was impossible! She'd never... he'd stake his life on it!

  Still, as unexplained anger welled up in his chest, he unstrapped his shoulder harness.

  One sweaty hand grasped the knob as his heart pounded. The other hand wrapped around the butt of his gun.

  He threw open the door.

  One glance to take it all in. Two half-naked bodies on his bed. He was on top; she had her legs wrapped around his waist. His hand was on her bare chest. He bolted up into a sitting position, then threw a shirt over his friend's face as she let out a high-pitched scream. All of it taking just seconds.

  'Jesus!' Decker mutter
ed aloud as he slammed the door shut. From the outside, he pounded once on the portal and yelled, 'You got five minutes to get dressed and get your butt over here.'

  Feeling his heart jump through his throat. Half-naked, Decker. They were half-naked. Jake had his pants on - more or less.

  Securing his gun back into his harness, Decker stormed into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water - something to grasp to prevent his hands from shaking. He was angry at the situation, but even more so, he was pissed that his dream of solitude was abruptly rent asunder, leaving him with yet another crisis with which to deal.

  Suddenly, he heard the girl cry. She was weeping hysterically - big, deep sobs that ripped through Decker's heart. What he couldn't understand was why he could hear her so clearly. She was panicked.