“You won’t get away with this.”
“Yes, sir. Which will it be?” She kept her voice level.
“I should have listened to that cop.”
“Which cop is that?”
He shrugged. “Big guy. Came to pay his respects last night. He told me you would make things difficult and encouraged me to demand you be removed from the case.”
“And have you?”
“Not yet.”
“What did he look like? What was his name?”
“I didn’t catch his name. He was, I don’t know, average looking.”
She was sure Gus was plastered and had no idea what the guy looked like. “Did you get his card?”
“He didn’t offer one. Better behave.” With a wave, he turned and stumbled toward the elevator, tossing an order over his shoulder. “I expect to be notified when you’re finished. I’ll see Cummings. And I’m perfectly capable of getting home on my own. But that reminds me. Are you finished with my chauffeur yet?”
“We’ll be finished with Mr. Martucci tonight.” She tilted her head, indicating that Hernandez should follow him to the elevator.
Parker watched him stumble away. “I thought we were going to have to wrestle him down.”
Corelli shook her head. “A lot of bluster.”
Edwards piped up. “You’re right, Detective. He gets nasty, but Ms. Winter used to say, ‘he’s long on posturing and short on action.’” She blushed. “Oh my, I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Actually, that is definitely something you should have told us. That old cliché is true. A victim of murder loses not only his or her life but also the right to privacy.”
“It doesn’t sound like she had much respect for him,” Parker said.
“She was working on a divorce agreement.” Edwards’s hand shot up to cover her mouth.
“Is that the only thing you held back yesterday?”
“How did you…?” she flushed. “She was also working on changing her will.”
Corelli held Edwards’s gaze for a moment. “Speaking of her work, I’d like to have another go at her office.”
“Do I have to come?”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Edwards, but we need you to open the safe, and, if you can, help us figure out if anything is missing from her office. We still haven’t found the murder weapon.”
Edwards grimaced. “I guess I’ll need to go in eventually.” She retrieved a flask of perfume from her purse, sprayed some under her nose then removed a dainty white handkerchief and snapped the bag shut. “I’m ready.”
Corelli led them into Winter’s office. The smell of decaying flesh had diminished somewhat, but the room was still pungent with it and the odor of stale cigarette smoke and the metallic smell of blood. Edwards gasped and turned back toward the door, but Corelli put a hand on her arm to keep her there and to reassure her. “Cover your nose with the handkerchief.”
Edwards squared her shoulders and moved to the credenza. “Ms. Winter was afraid I would forget the combination, so we used my mother’s birth date, ten-two-eighteen.” She knelt, opened the door and removed several large books.
Parker prowled the room, examining the photographs placed on various tables and the magazines and newspapers piled on the cocktail table in front of the sofas.
Corelli watched Edwards enter the combination. “From what you’ve said, she was obsessed with confidentiality.”
“She sure was. And not only with Gus. She seemed terrified someone would learn something about the business that she considered secret. She fired people for leaving confidential documents out on their desks, and she used employee passwords to read their email. I think that’s why occasionally people were fired without explanation.” She removed a sheaf of papers from the safe.
“Is anything missing from the room?”
Edwards hoisted herself up and leaned on the credenza. She turned slowly, scanning the office. “Everything seems to be in place.”
“What about her desk?”
“It was always clear except for the ashtray and whatever she was working on.”
“Let’s go to your desk and see if we can figure out what she was doing when she was killed.”
“Wait,” Parker said. “She has all these newspapers with articles about the award she got on Tuesday and this picture with the governor shows her holding a glass pyramid. Do you know what she did with it? I don’t remember seeing it at her house.”
Edwards thought for a second. “You know, you’re right. It was so new that it wasn’t fixed in my memory, but she put it right here.” She half-turned and patted the top of the credenza. “She was very proud of that award.”
“When did you last see it?” Parker asked.
“It was here on Friday. I remember because I nearly knocked it over when I kneeled to open the safe. It was heavy glass. And, oh gosh, she jokingly admonished me to be careful because it was so heavy it could kill me if it fell and hit me on the head.”
With that she started sobbing. Parker shrugged her shoulders as if to say, “I’m sorry I mentioned it,” but Corelli gave Parker a thumbs-up as she guided Edwards toward the door.
Edwards regained control and dried her tears. “It’s so strange. She rarely joked, but she seemed happy last week. That award meant so much to her. I feel so bad.”
As Edwards walked to her desk, Corelli hung back to grab a private moment with Parker.
“The pyramid is a good bet for the murder weapon. Excellent work.”
“Thanks.”
“As a reward you get to do a thorough search of Ms. Winter’s office while I review the documents with Ms. Edwards.”
Parker shook her head. “Wow. Is that the method of motivation they teach in Homicide 301? Anything in particular I’m looking for?”
“You’ll know it when you find it.”
“It would be nice to have some idea what I’m looking for,” Parker grumbled, as she headed back into the office.
Corelli pulled a chair around to sit next to Edwards. “What do we have?”
“The July thirty-first financial statements and her analysis. She allocated a great deal of her time to analyzing the firm’s finances. She got daily, weekly, and monthly summaries and detailed reports, and of course, the quarterlies. She scrutinized all of them and often called staff in for explanations of expenses or investments.”
“Was there anything unusual about any of the current reports?”
“Nothing that I’m aware of, but Phil Rieger, the Senior Vice President of Finance, would know more. There’s also a draft of a letter to Henry Bearsdon, terminating her arrangement with his law firm, and a draft of the letter to Paul Donaldson, engaging the services of Donaldson, Friedman and Ratner as Winter Brokerage’s attorneys, effective this Friday.”
“Ms. Gianopolus said she terminated Bearsdon’s firm without prior notice or discussion. Any idea why?”
“She asked Henry to prepare divorce papers and he tried to talk her out of the divorce.”
“That was the reason?”
“That was it.” Edwards thumbed through the papers. “Hmm. She was working with Donaldson on changing her will and drafting the divorce agreement, but neither is here.”
“Why did she want a divorce?”
“I’m not sure about the specifics. I haven’t worked on the documents myself and I didn’t ask. I guess you can get copies from Paul Donaldson.”
“Did Mr. Gianopolus know about the divorce?”
“He wasn’t supposed to until she decided what the agreement would be, and I heard her warn Henry she would ruin him if he said anything.”
“Do you know anything about a prenuptial agreement?”
“I’ve heard it mentioned but I’ve never seen it. Henry should have a copy.”
“Anything else in the papers?”
“The plan to take over a small brokerage firm. I’ve been typing the plan for her and doing the charts she needed, but there’s a space for the name, so I don’t know which one
she was targeting. Ms. Cummings could tell you. They were working on it together.”
A shot of heat rushed through Corelli at the mention of Cummings’s name. Edwards didn’t seem to notice. She was frowning as she looked through the papers. “Odd, the application for North Ridge Military Academy isn’t here either. She planned to send Gussie there in September, so getting it done was a priority.”
“Maybe she mailed the application.”
“Possible,” she said, “but not very likely. That was my job.”
“I’d like to see Ms. Winter’s calendar. Is it on the computer?”
“No, she liked it on paper, not that she did much with it. I kept track of everything.” Edwards unlocked her desk and removed a large book.
“I’ll need to borrow this for a few days. Also, would you make a list of the people Ms. Winter talked to recently, who she called and who called her?”
“Some of that is noted in her calendar. Whenever I put a call through to her, I entered the name and the time, and if she asked me to get someone on the line for her, I did the same. She was a stickler for tracking her time and remembering every contact.” Edwards reached into her drawer again and pulled out another book. “We also maintain this log of all incoming calls including those Ms. Winter didn’t pick up.” She opened the book. “We write the date, time, name of the caller, their phone number, and the message, if any. The original went to Ms. Winter and the carbon copy remained in the book to maintain a continuous record. This book goes back to April. Earlier months are filed.”
Corelli pulled the book toward her as Parker came out of the office, looking happier than when she left.
“Find something?”
Parker extended her hand. “This. It was taped in the safe, on the top, in the very back.”
Corelli examined it. “A safe deposit box key.” She showed it to Edwards. “Any idea where this box might be?”
“I didn’t know she had a safe deposit box. Her personal accounts are with the JP Morgan Private Bank, but to be frank, I’ve never known her to walk into a bank herself, for anything.”
“We’ll check the banks. Do you recall any unusual calls or visitors? Any problems in the past few weeks?”
“No. And the calls are all in the telephone log.”
“We’ll take the key, the calendar and the log with us. Parker will give you a receipt for them and we’ll call if we have questions. Also, I have a team coming to search for the murder weapon, and I’d appreciate it if you would hang around until they finish, in case something comes up. Then someone will drive you home.”
The rumble of voices from the direction of the reception area announced the arrival of the team.
“Speak of the devil,” Corelli said as Watkins appeared at the end of the hall, ambling toward them. Corelli introduced Watkins and Edwards. He greeted her then excused himself to go wait for the rest of his team to arrive.
“We’ll continue the twenty-four-hour guard at the elevators until we release the office. Detective Watkins will let you know when you can bring in a service to clean it.”
She picked up the two books and stood, ready to leave.
“Wait,” Edwards said, grabbing Corelli’s arm. “We did get some strange calls. Ms. Winter’s picture was in the newspapers and on television Tuesday when she received that award. The next day we got a couple of obscene calls, you know heavy breathing and dirty talk, but there was one man, John something, sounded like a hillbilly, who said he was her brother and that he needed to speak to her. When I buzzed her, she reminded me that she was an orphan and had no family except Gus and the kids. When I told him he must be mistaken because Ms. Winter was an orphan and had no brothers or sisters, he got angry and said I would be in trouble when she found out I was keeping him from her. He said, ‘Tell her that her niece Stacy is in real trouble. She’ll talk to me.’ When I told her that, she said, ‘get rid of him, he must be crazy.’ But he called repeatedly Wednesday and Thursday. Then he showed up downstairs on Friday. They didn’t let him up, of course.”
“Do you remember his name?”
“No, it was something foreign sounding but…Oh wait. What am I thinking? It must be in the phone log along with his number. I don’t know how I forgot about him, but with all the excitement it seems like weeks ago. At first, he sounded like he really believed Ms. Winter was his sister, but I started to feel nervous when he became increasingly angry and abusive with each call.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Hmm. Just looking at the written messages we would never have picked up the escalating anger or the fact that this caller claimed to be Winter’s brother or that he showed up here and was tossed out of the building. Edwards’s knowledge of the players will speed things up.
“On second thought, I’d like to go over the calendar and phone log before we leave. You do the phone log, Parker. I’ll do the calendar.”
“If we sit in the conference room, I’ll be able to help you both,” Edwards said.
They settled at the table with Edwards between them. Parker opened the phone log to the last page.
Edwards leaned over and pointed to an entry. “That’s him, John Broslawski. He’s the one who claimed to be her brother.”
Parker wrote the name and number into her notebook and started looking back through the log. “Lots of calls from her kids in the last week or two.”
“Yes. The two of them launched a campaign to convince Ms. Winter not to send Gussie to military school. She never picked up for them.”
“Did you give her the message Aphrodite left Friday, ‘If Gussie goes, so do I.’”
Edwards looked at the entry. “Felicia, Brett’s assistant, took the message, but we were instructed never to interrupt her for their calls, so I doubt Ms. Winter saw it.”
Parker was at the beginning of the May entries when she turned to Edwards. “There are weekly calls from someone named Tess Cantrell going back about three months, but there’s no number or message. Her last call was Friday. Do you know what she called about?”
Corelli raised her head.
“No. Ms. Winter told me not to ask for a message or a number. Occasionally a messenger delivered an envelope from her. I signed for it and gave it to Ms. Winter unopened.”
Parker copied Tess Cantrell’s name into her notes. “Here’s another one who never left a message or a number. Cowboy. He called two or three times a month, including Friday afternoon.”
Edwards looked at the message book in front of Parker, as if to confirm her finding. “Cowboy. I didn’t ask and she didn’t explain, but she always returned his calls as soon as I gave her the message.”
“Maybe she was having an affair,” Corelli said.
Edwards shook her head. “More likely she was recruiting him.”
When they completed a first pass through both books Corelli stood. “We’ll take the books, but you’ll get them back eventually. Oh, one more thing. The porter said a very big policeman in street clothes used to visit Ms. Winter at night. Do you know his name?”
“Doesn’t ring a bell. But I understand the porter is usually drunk at night so I’m not sure I’d trust him.”
“I gather some of her guests at the award dinner Tuesday night were from the police department,” Corelli said. “Maybe Ms. Winter had a business or personal relationship with one of them?”
“It’s possible but I’ve never seen a police officer here in the office until now, and Ms. Winter certainly didn’t discuss her love life with me.”
Corelli smiled. “And would you tell us if she did?”
Edwards flushed. “Yes, at this point, I would.”
“Good. We’ll be in touch but give us a call if you think of anything we should know.”
When Corelli and Parker arrived in the reception area, Watkins was there with the search team. He introduced them to the group, remarking that the Police Academy had sent over its best trainees to assist. Corelli thanked everyone for coming and showed them the picture of the pyramid, indicatin
g that it was missing and might be the murder weapon.
She took Watkins aside and filled him in on Broslawski. “Get his address and ask the local police to check him out for us. Also, Parker found a safe deposit box key. Start with the JP Morgan Private Bank and move on from there.”
“FYI, boss. Dietz got detectives Heiki Kim and Iggy Filetti, assigned to the team. He says they’re both happy to work with you. I’ll have them follow up on the key and interview the assistants. Also, Dietz will supervise the search while I take Gianopolus to the morgue.”
“Great. I’d also like you to meet with the two lawyers involved. And send someone to check on Phil Rieger in Princeton, New Jersey, but be sure they bring backup. Rieger’s been missing since Friday, so we need to be cautious. Edwards can give you names and addresses. Have someone drive her home when you’re done.”
“See you tomorrow, usual time.”
As they went down the elevator, Parker said, “You didn’t ask Watkins to track down Cantrell. Should I do it?”
“Tess is a private investigator and a friend of mine. Her office is in downtown Brooklyn, not far from the cleaning service.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
The offices of the New York Office Cleaning Service were on Court Street in downtown Brooklyn, on the second floor of a narrow three-story building with an Italian grocery on the ground level and a yoga studio on the third floor. The twelve wooden steps told the story of generations of use, worn down in the middle, splintery, and not a trace of paint.
A middle-aged woman with Raggedy Ann red hair answered the door. The room contained a desk and a row of molded orange plastic chairs squeezed in front of a spotless window overlooking the street. Another woman slumped in one of the chairs, staring into space.
“Please come in,” the red-haired woman said in accented English. “How can I help you?”
Corelli displayed her shield. “We have an appointment with Marek Kozinski.”
The redhead’s penciled eyebrows shot up. “Ah, you are the detectives.”
A Matter of Blood Page 13