“Why would they be kidding you?”
“Hell if I know.” There was a yawn on his end, then he continued, saying, “I didn’t think they were. But I also wasn’t putting it past them. I thought there was a chance they made up the story as some sort of ploy.”
“Yeah? What kind of ploy would that be?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m too tired right now to know, but the whole thing sounded loopy to me. I guess it was on the level.”
His voice had a tired, ragged quality to it, and he got quiet on his end, then I heard what sounded like him sipping on something, probably coffee to help him wake up. If it was coffee, it either wasn’t high enough octane or he was beyond help, because he didn’t sound much better when he got back on the phone.
“If someone’s going to shoot at Julius, I could be next,” he said with a fatalistic air. “But I’m not going to let that stop me. Right now I want to catch this creep more than ever. And I’m guessing your boss is feeling the same. My offer from before still stands about Julius and me working this case together. I know Julius is some kind of genius and all that, but I’ve been doing a lot of legwork on this already and I’d have to think we’d have a better chance catching this guy if we teamed up.”
Julius signaled to me okay, which surprised me. Not that it didn’t make sense, but that Julius wasn’t the kind of guy to team up with anyone. I guess it showed how much he wanted to catch this guy. Still, I put Burke on hold so I could double-check with my boss that I didn’t get his signal wrong.
“You sure?” I asked Julius.
He nodded. “It seems the most effective way to get this done,” he said. “Ask Mr. Burke if he can come here today at noon.”
I wasn’t about to argue with Julius. As I said, it made sense, and all I could figure was his lack of sleep made him less pigheaded than usual. Or maybe the reality of his midnight deadline was hitting home and he realized he had to take whatever measures he could to find this killer no matter how distasteful they might be—even if it meant working on an equal basis with another PI. I relayed Julius’s request to Burke and he told me meeting with Julius at noon would be no problem except for a possible deal breaker. He hesitated briefly, then told me he’d have to be able to bring a camera crew with him. “This is for my reality show pilot,” he explained. “Ken’s murder is the first case we’re doing and the deal is they get to follow me every step of the way. I hope Julius keeps an open mind about this. This could be good exposure for both of us.”
I didn’t think there was any chance Julius would agree to that, and was about to tell Burke no dice when Julius surprised me once again by signaling that that would be fine. Again, all I could imagine was this was due to his sleep-deprived brain, but I wasn’t about to argue. Burke was right. Even if Julius didn’t really need it, the exposure couldn’t hurt. I told Burke he could bring his camera crew as long as they didn’t get in the way.
After I ended the call with Burke, I asked Julius if he wanted me to get a makeup artist over so he’d look his best for the camera. Julius smiled thinly at that. “Not this morning, Archie, please,” he said.
He was referring to my pestering him and not my offer to find him a makeup artist since we both knew he wouldn’t have any interest in being made up for the camera, although I was willing to bet Burke would be arriving later with rouge and eye-liner and the works. “Okay,” I said. “I was just surprised to see you being so cooperative, that’s all.”
“When am I not cooperative?”
I left that alone. Why push my luck? Yeah, it would be nice if he told me what half-baked wisp of a suspicion he thought he had, or better yet, admitted to me that he was only bluffing about his so-called wisp, but that wasn’t going to happen. The fact was, I had no real complaints. Not only was he putting his genius at work to solve a murder, but he was doing so for one that he wasn’t going to be paid any additional money to solve. And now he was willing to not only play nice with another PI, but do so in a way that could end up giving him a good chunk of national exposure. In the past, Julius never had a problem finding cases when he needed them—usually there was a long backlog of clients waiting to hire him. But as I mentioned earlier, this time things had been bleak with only Kingston’s publicity stunt and the Bolovar security fraud case available when Julius needed something. Maybe this had been only a fluke, but I figured the additional exposure couldn’t hurt, even if it was only going to be on some rinky dink cable reality show.
Chapter 15
I left Julius alone while he drank his coffee and ate his breakfast, and instead waited until he was seated behind his desk before I asked him if he wanted to see the profiles I’d built on each of the six suspects, assuming he still considered Paul Burke a suspect. He thanked me, but declined. I emailed them to him anyway.
Of course he was going to be stubborn and not look at my profiles. He had that wisp floating around that he was still trying to grasp, or at least sell me on the idea of it. So instead Julius spent the rest of the morning reading a book on horticulture, and at times taking notes. When I asked him about it, he told me he was jotting down ideas for his garden-level patio. I left it alone. It was his business if he wanted to spend his time thinking of his garden instead of a murder which he had promised the world—or at least had me promise for him—he would solve by midnight.
At twenty past ten I spotted from the outdoor webcam feed a cameraman taking shots of Julius’s front door. I told Julius this, and he wasn’t happy, but I promised him I’d take care of it. It took some doing before I was able to match the perpetrator against photos stored in the Department of Motor Vehicles database, but once I had his name I was able to find that he worked as a freelance photographer, and then after hacking into his phone records I knew which New York newspaper hired him. The Daily Gazette. One of their reporters, Len Cohen, called that morning, and I was even less happy about this than Julius had been. I called Cohen back to let him know he was in deep trouble.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, trying to be casual and convincing but failing miserably at both.
I gave him the name of the freelance photographer his paper hired, and he got quiet for a moment before claiming the guy wasn’t sent by them.
“Not the answer I wanted to hear.”
“Let me check,” he mumbled hurriedly, as if he actually had no clue about what I was talking about. “Maybe someone sent him without me knowing about it.”
“You could do that,” I said. “Or you could stop being a lying weasel and make sure the photos are erased with the knowledge that access will be cut off until the end of time if they ever appear anywhere. Both to your newspaper and to you personally. Oh yeah, the guy gave you up as the one who hired him, so quit the innocent act.”
Again, I had hacked into the freelancer’s cell phone records, so I knew this. Cohen started swearing then using language that isn’t fit to repeat, so I won’t repeat any of it. When he was done cursing out this freelance photographer as the worst excuse of space he’d ever encountered he complained to me how you can’t trust anyone these days.
“The pictures are dead,” he sighed unhappily. “They won’t be used. But the lousy ethics out there these days. I promised this guy an extra two hundred bucks to keep his mouth shut if he was spotted, and he swore to me he would.”
“Yeah, my heart bleeds for you,” I said, and I disconnected the call.
No other photographers or cameramen made an attempt to photograph Julius’s door. Leave it to a New York paper to try something funny. At eleven o’clock it was no longer an issue as workmen came and filled in the bullet holes and then repainted the door.
At twenty minutes to twelve, Cramer called Julius to fill him in. The Boston Police so far had no witnesses, and Cramer had checked out the six suspects and none of them had anything approaching a solid alibi, at least none of them had anyone who could corroborate that they were doing what they claimed they were. Cramer had men now trying to verif
y what they could.
“To me this looks like a dead end,” Cramer grumbled. “Even if each of them had something solid for last night, it wouldn’t help any. They could’ve hired a professional to do both hits. Yeah, I know, it might not seem likely with a thirty-two being used, but not unheard of for a pro to use that caliber.”
“There is that possibility,” Julius agreed.
“And you still think you’re going to get this joker by midnight?”
“You have my word on it,” Julius said as if he meant it. Maybe he did, but I was still betting on the fact that he was bluffing.
Cramer didn’t sound entirely convinced either, but he gave Julius the alibis each of the six gave, and the two of them arranged a schedule for when Cramer would be bringing the suspects over. When Cramer got to Paul Burke’s name, Julius interrupted him to tell him Burke was going to be at his townhouse at noon.
“What do you mean noon?” Cramer demanded, annoyed. “That’s only seven minutes from now! We agreed I’d be with you when you interrogate them!”
“I’ll be using a webcam to record my meeting with Mr. Burke,” Julius said. “If you need to, perhaps you can watch that. We’ll see. But this just came up and it’s imperative that I speak to him as early as possible, and you have my word that I’ll fill you in on any pertinent information that I get from him.”
I don’t think Julius’s answer satisfied Cramer much, and I suspected Julius was exaggerating concerning how imperative this was. More likely, Julius probably didn’t want Cramer to see him agreeing to team up with one of the suspects, especially with a camera crew being dragged into it. Still, as much as Cramer didn’t like what Julius was telling him, the promise of having the killer unveiled by midnight mollified him, at least enough where he held onto some of his composure.
“You can damn well bet I’ll be watching that recording!” Cramer growled, but it was mostly an empty growl without much bite left in it. His raspy voice softened with something close to concern as he added, “Maybe Burke’s on the level with what he’s saying about trying to hunt down our perp, but his alibi for last night was just as bad as all the others. I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“He’s not the only one,” I piped in.
Julius ignored me and told Cramer not to be concerned. It was two minutes to twelve when they wrapped up their call, and the doorbell rang only one minute later. Paul Burke stood on the doorstep looking every bit as beat and disheveled as he had sounded earlier. With him were two men, both in their early thirties. One was a thin sallow-looking guy with a ponytail and a distinctive tattoo made up of the Chinese word for wisdom on the right side of his neck. It didn’t seem to me all that wise to have ink injected into the side of your neck, but what did I know? He wore torn and dirty jeans, a dirtier polo shirt and an even dirtier pair of sneakers, and carried a large video camera. The other guy was shorter and stockier and more neatly and conservatively dressed. He didn’t have any visible tattoos but wore diamond studs in both ears and was lugging around a large case, and from the way his muscles were straining it must’ve been heavy. I told Julius who was out there waiting for him.
“Only two of them in his camera crew?” he asked.
“That’s all that’s out there unless others are hiding.”
Julius had resigned himself to having his office invaded by a larger team of technicians and producers, but if he was relieved at having this smaller crew instead, he didn’t show it. He got to his feet and made his way out of his office and down the hallway to answer the door. When he did, he nodded to Burke and then addressed the two men with him.
“I am allowing you into my home on one condition,” Julius stated curtly. “And that is that you remain unobtrusive. If you interfere in any way, I will remove you from my home. That means if you ask anyone to repeat what was said because you want another take, or if you make any suggestions, or you hold a microphone in my face or anyone else’s, or in any other way let your presence be felt, you’re gone. Do we have an understanding?”
The taller, skinnier guy with the pony tail showed a slight tremor in his left hand as he swallowed and nodded at Julius. He was nervous. I’d seen enough people being nervous around Julius to recognize it easily when I saw it. “Yes, sir,” he said, his voice weak and nervous. The other one, the stockier man, smiled pleasantly at Julius and told him he had nothing to worry about. “That’s why there are only two of us,” he said. “We brought only a skeleton crew so you won’t even know we’re here.”
“I’ll see about that,” Julius said dubiously while giving both of them stern looks. “And your names?”
The nervous pony-tailed one introduced himself as Jerry Cantrell; the stockier, more relaxed one gave his name as Leonard DiNatale. Julius told them that he assumed they knew who he was, and he led them and Paul Burke into his office. Julius took a seat behind his desk and Paul Burke slumped in the chair directly in front of Julius. Cantrell stood nervously off to the side with his video camera trying his damndest to be unobtrusive. DiNatale calmly opened his case and took out a light meter and went about adding extra lighting without being a nuisance and barely getting much more than a scowl from Julius. Once he was done with that, he took from his case a sound recorder with a very expensive top-of-the-line microphone. I looked this microphone up online, and according to its specs, DiNatale would have no problem recording Julius and Burke from a distance. Like Cantrell, he stood off to the side so he wouldn’t be noticed, at least no more than he had to be.
Paul Burke had me fooled. He wasn’t wearing any makeup for the camera as I had expected. Instead, he had thick grayish bags sagging under his eyes, several more days of stubble on his face, and his skin color looked bad. He had a slightly baffled expression on his face as he looked around the room and then back at Julius.
“Where’s Archie?” he asked. “I thought he’d be here.”
“I sent him to New York,” Julius said. “The reason’s a long shot at best. I’ll tell you about it later.”
Julius often had to make up white lies to explain why I wasn’t around. Usually, if he was annoyed at me, he’d tell the interested party that I was away doing court-ordered community service for some sordid business that he didn’t wish to go into. I was grateful that he didn’t do that this time, and told him thanks. He gave me a signal in return to tell me to think nothing of it.
Burke looked disappointed and told Julius that he was. “That’s too bad,” he said. “I was looking forward to meeting the guy, and it would’ve been good getting him on the show.”
“Even if Archie was here, that wouldn’t happen,” Julius said. “I need to keep Archie anonymous.”
“Yeah, that’s right, you told me about that,” Burke acknowledged. He scratched under his left ear and smiled weakly at Julius.
“I apologize if I smell kind of gamey,” he said. “I haven’t slept much the last four days. When I got home this morning, I was going to shower and shave and try to catch a couple of hours of sleep before going out again, but I had the police waiting for me so no such luck. But Julius, I’m glad you’re teaming up with me on this. I don’t care so much about credit for this one. It’s all about catching the sonofabitch who killed Ken.”
“You don’t want credit, and yet you’re having this filmed to be shown on TV,” Julius said.
Burke shrugged, exhaustion showing in his movement. “Why not?” he said. “Forget about the fact it will make a dynamite premiere episode for my new reality show, Burke’s Files. More than that I want the world to see Ken’s killer being caught.”
“Tell me why you haven’t slept much in four days, especially last night?” Julius asked.
Burke’s eyes dimmed and his lips receded so that his weak smile became more of a bare-fanged variety.
“What’s this, Julius?” he asked. “You’re not suggesting I might’ve killed Ken and taken a shot at you, are you?”
“It would’ve been three shots,” Julius said. “But never mind that. Satisfy m
e that you didn’t.”
So that was it. Julius’s reason for agreeing to team up with Burke. This way he’d have Burke in his office with his camera crew filming, and Julius would have him in a situation where he’d have to answer his questions or come off looking like a potential murderer on camera, or at least as if he had something to hide. Without this setup, Burke could’ve easily stonewalled him or told Julius what he could go do to himself. And although I saw the look flash over Burke’s face about what he’d really like to tell Julius to do, he had no choice now but to play ball. I could see his eyes dull a bit as he resigned himself to this.
“I haven’t slept much the last four days because I’ve been working almost around the clock trying to find my teenage runaway and Ken’s killer, and I guess maybe your attempted killer also.”
“Tell me where you were last night.”
“I was with these two until eight o’clock,” Burke said as he tiredly used his thumb to gesture towards Cantrell and DiNatale. “After we went our separate ways, I went back to my apartment, caught a couple of hours of sleep, and changed into these same ratty clothes I’m wearing now. Then I was out in the same alley I’d been at the last four nights looking for my runaway.”
“Where is this alley?”
“East Boston. Off Chelsea Street.”
“Why are you looking for her there?”
“A tip.”
“Your client’s name and the source of your tip.”
Burke didn’t like this. The way he shook his head and grimaced, it was obvious he didn’t like the idea of giving Julius this, but he had no choice, so he gave Julius the information and asked him to be discreet. “They’re not going to like this,” Burke said. “Either of them. My client or my informant.”
Julius Katz and Archie Page 14