Julius Katz and Archie

by Dave Zeltserman

  “Leak what, Archie?” he murmured, barely paying attention to me.

  “Details of Kingston’s publicity stunt. He might’ve told someone else or had it written down somewhere. It could still come out.”

  He grunted at that. “I’ll take my chances, Archie.”

  Julius wasn’t about to budge, at least not until after tonight’s game. More calls came in from reporters and I stonewalled them. One of them tried to bribe me, offering me a trip to Hawaii if I would divulge the state secrets to him.

  “Not interested,” I said, “I sunburn easy.”

  “So use suntan lotion.”

  “Nah, beaches ain’t my thing either.”

  His voice got lower and a little meaner. “What will it take then?”

  “Nothing. I ain’t for sale. Sorry.”

  “Thanks for wasting my time,” he groused, then after a short pause, added, “Kingston really pay Katz fifty grand?”

  “Someone out there telling fairy tales?” I said.

  “That’s the amount I’m hearing.”

  “Yeah, well, better get your hearing checked.”

  I disconnected the line on that note and told Julius about the call. “The nerve of this joker. He tries bribing me and then complains after I turn him down that I’m wasting his time. Jeeze.”

  Nothing from Julius, not even a murmur. He was too absorbed in his studying to pay me any attention. I didn’t let that discourage me. I added, “He heard that you were paid fifty grand by your dead client.”

  That caught Julius’s attention. Not enough, though, to get him to look away from that recording he was so intently staring at. “Not factually correct,” he muttered.

  “Yeah, well, close enough, even if you want to insist the wine was a gift. That would just be great if it comes out. Kingston pays you almost fifty grand, gets killed, and you feel perfectly fine keeping the money without doing anything.”

  “You’re not being factually correct either,” Julius complained. “I let him invite those people over here. I questioned them. I entertained them. And I suffered abuse from that police officer because of him.”

  “I can’t argue with you about entertaining them. You put on a nice spread. With the wine and food, you laid out a good three hundred forty dollars, although the bulk of that was for a wine that I know you’ve been trying to empty out of your cellar even though it’s supposed to be an above average Riesling. As far as questioning them, maybe for twenty minutes. Once Tom called, that was it.”

  “I still spent another twenty-five minutes with them,” Julius said.

  “Okay, I’ll give you the full forty-five minutes you spent with them. And I’ll give you the hour you suffered with Cramer—”

  “I doubt I’m done with him yet,” Julius complained, his tone showing an increasing peevishness.

  “Alright, let me add another hour. I’ll even give you the half hour you must’ve spent preparing the food platters you served them, and even the fifty minutes you spent with Kingston—”

  “When you were napping I spent another twenty minutes with him.”

  “A whole ’nother twenty minutes, huh? Okay, I’ll give you that also. If I subtract the three hundred and forty dollars for the food and wine from the forty-nine thousand dollars, which is being generous on my part given that you could’ve very well had thrown out that wine if you hadn’t served it to them, you were in effect paid eleven thousand and seventeen dollars and thirty-six cents an hour for a job where you accomplished nothing.”

  “With him getting himself murdered, there was no longer anything for me to accomplish,” he said stubbornly. “According to our agreed upon service contract.”

  “Oh, yeah, the contract.” If I had lungs I would’ve sighed, but I didn’t, so I couldn’t. As it was, I knew I was pushing it given the grim lines deepening around his mouth, so I let it drop. “I have a question about the fifty grand that reporter mentioned. The police must’ve leaked that, huh?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” Julius murmured. He had tolerated about as much as he was going to from me. From his tone it was clear that I’d interrupted him long enough and that I’d better start leaving him alone, and since I had nothing to gain except being turned off, I did exactly that. As I said earlier, I knew Julius well enough to know when he wasn’t about to budge. There was no chance of it, at least not until after his poker game. Maybe then he’d accept the public relations disaster this mess could turn into if he wasn’t willing to jump into the fray.

  While Julius continued to study the recording of the poker game, I worked on simulations involving the six people on Kingston’s list, trying to create scenarios to explain one of them killing Kingston. I figured at least one of us should be making an effort, and besides, I started building these simulations right after I found out about Kingston’s murder. The problem was that while I had reams of information from hacking into their phone records, financial statements, and other online databases, I didn’t see how to fit it into my simulations for it to be meaningful, at least not without other information that I’d only be able to get by questioning them, or by listening in while Julius questioned them. Yeah, I might’ve discovered that Edward Marriston had unusually high credit card charges over the last three months, or that Zoe Chase was an obscure junior editor until Kingston personally chose her to edit his upcoming book, or that Jonathan Mable’s house burnt down fourteen months ago, or Herbert Richardson ended up in the emergency room seven months ago with a black eye, a split lip and other bruises and that since then his public rancor towards Kingston had only seemed to increase. I had those and many other facts, including a five thousand dollar withdrawal twenty days ago by Gail Kingston, but without Julius interrogating them about what those facts really meant, all I could do was blindly use them in my simulations. But since I had nothing better to do, I persevered.

  Not that I accomplished a hell of a lot.

  Chapter 9

  For almost two hours Julius sat as still as if he’d been carved out of marble, then at twenty-one minutes past eleven a glimmer of a smile showed on his lips. I was still working on my simulations, but I stopped then.

  “This is it, Archie,” he said.

  He paused the video recording. After stretching his arms in front of him with his fingers interlaced while cracking his knuckles at the same time, he got up to retrieve a cup of coffee from the kitchen. When he was seated again behind his desk, he continued playing the video recording from that point. Bluddock had just lost a hand. Not a large amount, but enough to have him ripping up his cards in a display of petulance. After that a new deck was introduced and as the next hand was being dealt, Julius paused the recording again.

  “The cards are marked,” he said.

  “I looked for that already,” I said. “There are no markings for him to see, at least not unless he’s wearing a special contact lens, but I haven’t been able to find any scientific papers which hint that that type of technology exists.”

  Julius nodded. “True Archie, but I’m suspecting auditory markings, not visual. I’m guessing a frequency that’s transmitted when the cards are lifted above a certain vertical angle.”

  It was possible. I tried scanning the recording, but if this was what was happening, they weren’t picked up, but that didn’t mean that wasn’t the case. I recorded frequencies only within the audible voice range to save disk space. I told Julius this.

  “During the game tonight, I’d like to ask you to monitor the full frequency spectrum for this type of signaling whenever a new deck is introduced.”

  I told him I’d do so. It was possible that was what was happening. Each poker night they’d go through half a dozen or more decks, and if Bluddock was cheating this way, he must’ve got his deck slipped in with the others. I went back to the recording from two weeks ago when Julius first lost big. Four decks were introduced before Julius’s steep losses came. In one case a known hothead ripped up his cards after a loss, in two other cases cards got accidenta
lly bent—or at least it was made to look like accidents since Bluddock was one of them who did this. Last week, it was five decks. Bluddock must have ripped up his cards because he was getting tired of waiting for one of the other players to accidentally bend a card or otherwise ruin the deck. Anyway, his outburst of petulance seemed to counter his otherwise enigmatic behavior. I asked Julius if he thought any of the other players were in on this.

  “No,” he said. “Not unless I’ve lost my ability to read their tells.”

  With that Julius was done with the matter, and picked up a new book, this one a biography on Samuel Hahnemann, the eighteenth century German physician who founded homeopathy. As far as Julius was concerned he had the matter solved. I wasn’t as convinced, but I found myself almost as curious to see if he was right as I was to find out who shot Kingston once through the heart in his soundproofed office.

  For most of the day, Julius and I went about our own private pursuits; me, trying to build my simulations even though I was missing too much key information for them to be at all meaningful, and Julius, first reading Hahnemann’s biography and then browsing through the latest issue of Wine Spectator.

  At four o’clock Julius put down his magazine and headed to the kitchen. From the platter of imported cheeses and dried meats that he put together, he was planning on relaxing out on his patio. Before he had a chance to head down to his wine cellar to select an appropriate bottle to bring with him, the outdoor webcam feed showed Detective Cramer. Instead of muddled fury darkening his face like it did his last two visits now he only looked miserable as he walked up the pathway holding a small paper bag in one hand. I warned Julius about this before Cramer reached the front door. Julius’s expression dulled with disappointment over the fact that the patio and his wine and platter of meats and cheeses were going to have to wait.

  “Should I call Henry?” I asked.

  Julius shook his head.

  This time Cramer rang the doorbell instead of pounding on the door. When Julius answered the door, Cramer didn’t complain about the thirty-nine seconds that it took Julius. With a look of contrition weighing down his features, Cramer nodded at Julius.

  “I apologize for the way I acted the other day,” Cramer said in a low mumble, his cheeks reddening. “I made assumptions I shouldn’t have made.” He looked excruciatingly uncomfortable for a long moment before adding, “Do you have a few minutes? I’ve got some questions if you’re not too busy.”

  Cramer’s demeanor was a hundred and eighty degrees from where it was with his previous two visits, but if this surprised Julius he didn’t show it. Instead he nodded and let Cramer into his home. Again, he led the cop to his kitchen instead of his office since he still wasn’t prepared to consider Kingston’s murder anything he needed to concern himself with. I was a little surprised that Julius was willing to be in such a forgiving mood after the way Cramer tried to bully him yesterday, but the fact that he took Cramer to his kitchen instead of sharing his prized patio with him showed that he was harboring at least some ill feelings. Once Cramer was seated at a small but very expensive oak table with an intricately inlaid ceramic tiled top, Julius asked him if he’d like coffee. Again, if Julius hadn’t been harboring any resentment from the other day, he would’ve brought out his platter of cheeses and meats and offered either wine or beer.

  Cramer shook his head. “I brought the coffee this time,” he said gruffly and with a tinge of embarrassment. He reached into his paper bag and pulled out two cardboard coffee cups, one of which he handed to Julius. “I know you like your fancy food so I stopped off in the North End and got these. Lattes with some chocolate syrup, also half a dozen boccones. Kind of like cream-filled doughnuts, but fancier. You got some plates so I don’t make a mess?”

  Julius graciously retrieved a couple of plates from a cabinet. I knew he couldn’t’ve been in the mood for any of this—not spending additional time with Cramer, and certainly not with the lattes and pastries that Cramer brought; especially after having his palate earlier tempted by his cheese and meat platter and his being in the mood for a fine bottle of wine. I was surprised when he took a sip of the latte with chocolate syrup. Julius usually only drank black coffee or espresso, and considered lattes an abysmal creation; something that was little more than a coffee-flavored children’s drink, and adding chocolate syrup to it would’ve done little to improve his opinion of it.

  Cramer took three of the Italian pastries from the bag and put them on his plate, then handed the bag to Julius who took out one of them. Cramer picked up one of the pastries and took a halfhearted bite out of it, his discomfort obvious. He gave Julius an uneasy look before forcing an even more uneasy smile. Self-consciously, he raised his hand to brush some crumbs from his lips but then remembered the linen napkin Julius had given him and used that instead. Mumbling, he mentioned how much heartburn this murder was giving him.

  “You can probably guess how much heat is coming down to make an arrest,” Cramer said.

  “I’d have to imagine quite a bit.”

  Cramer nodded. “Unlike anything I’ve ever seen,” he said. “A high profile writer shot to death in his home like that. And once word got out that you were involved it only got worse.”

  “I’m not involved, Detective.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Cramer conceded. “Maybe not technically, but it doesn’t help any that you were in his employ with a big fat fee paid to you. And now that loudmouth PI is making this into a circus.”

  “By loudmouth PI you mean Paul Burke?”

  “Yeah,” Cramer acknowledged. He made a face as if he was at that moment suffering some of the heartburn the murder investigation was causing him, then grimaced and took a sip of his chocolate-flavored latte. “My gut’s telling me that this is one of those murders that if it doesn’t get solved quickly it’s not ever getting solved,” he confided.

  “What about forensics?” Julius asked.

  “Nothing,” Cramer said with more of that heartburn look souring his expression. “The office where the victim was killed was completely clean. Only fingerprints and hairs came from the victim and his wife, nothing else. Same with the apartment. The whole place is carpeted. Expensive stuff. No footprints found, no debris brought in. A big fat zero as far as forensics leading us anywhere. And no sign of a forced entry. The killer either had a key or was let in. No signs of a struggle either, and no other marks on the victim. He was sitting in his office chair facing his killer at the time he was shot.”

  “Witnesses?”

  “None yet. The building’s got a concierge manning the front door, but they’ve also got a back door that’s got no security cameras or anything else watching it. As far as the concierge goes, we got nothing. Only people going in and out that morning were residents, delivery men and service workers, and those guys had appointments at other apartments. We’re still checking them out but it’s not going to get us anywhere. I’d bet anything the killer got in through the back door and then went up three flights using a back fire staircase to the victim’s apartment. At least if it’s not the wife.”

  “Do you have a timetable for her?”

  Cramer shrugged. “Concierge has her leaving the building at ten-thirty-five that morning, which was the same time that she told us. She could’ve killed her husband first or she could’ve left with him still alive. Right now I’ve got no way of knowing which, at least not unless we’re able to narrow the time of death from what we now have, which is from ten to eleven-thirty. She consented to let us test her hands and arms for gun powder residue, and nothing was found.”

  “Did she give you a reason why she left her condo at that time?”

  Cramer nodded. “Yeah, I asked her,” he said. “I found it funny given her two o’clock meeting with you. You’d think she would’ve left with her husband, but she claims she had errands to run, Maybe she did. Or maybe she knew we couldn’t narrow down the time of death enough to nail her. Or maybe she arranged for the murder and wanted to be out of there before the
killer showed up. Hell if I know which. We checked everywhere she claimed she went that morning, and it checked out. So you see where I got a problem?”

  Julius nodded. “And not an enviable one, Detective. How about the other five of them that came to my office. How many of them have unimpeachable alibis?”

  “Not a single one. They all got explanations of what they were doing, but not a single one can be verified, at least to a point where they can be ruled out.” Cramer scowled angrily, and in his anger popped the rest of his pastry into his mouth and absently chewed and swallowed it, then picked up a second pastry, probably without even realizing it, before meeting Julius’s gaze. “I need you to level with me, Julius,” he said. “Those six people Kingston invited to your office had to mean something, right? You were with them no more than four hours after he was killed. If one of them did it I’d have to think you’d be able to tell which one, or at least have some suspicions. So how about helping me out here?”

  This was a shock to me. Cramer must’ve been desperate. Not only was he calling Julius by his first name instead of spitting out his last name as if it were a dirty word, but here he was just about begging for any crumb Julius could toss his way, which was something I never would’ve expected from him. Julius’s features hardened as he considered what Cramer was asking. In the end, he shook his head.

  “I picked up nothing from their body language to point out any of them as a murderer,” Julius admitted. “If one of them committed this murder, then that person is a pure sociopathic personality and showed no evidence by their speech or action while they were in my office. I’m sorry, Detective, but as I said, I do not envy you this case.”

  Cramer accepted this glumly. “But do you think it was one of those six?” he asked.