“What the hell are you talking about, Leo? She was an eighteen-thousand-dollar victim of their scheme!”
“Not a word about her suicide. Not a word about the affair. At no point did she ever complain about the McDonalds’ services, which is the only thing relevant. The rest of it is prejudicial. Just because you can’t hang a murder on what is really a suicide, don’t try to drag it over into a fraud case. A case which will never reach trial because there was never any fraud.”
“Plead guilty and there won’t be a trial,” said McCoy.
“Dream on,” said Herlihy.
172
CONFERENCE ROOM
ONE HOGAN PLACE
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1:32 P.M.
“Because nobody asked me,” said the computer tech.
“Didn’t it occur to you that this would be the normal thing to do?” shouted McCoy. “Why did you wait? Knowing this could have helped our strategy.”
The way McCoy saw it, they had wasted a lot of time trying to stick a pin in Rosserman. He had seemed suspicious and the circumstances pointed to him, particularly when he produced the “suicide note,”
but any defense attorney could turn such an obvious piece of exculpatory evidence into not just an acquittal, possibly even a lawsuit.
McCoy, Southerlyn, Briscoe and Green all looked toward the tech, David Grunion, as if he should take all the blame. McCoy had called the meeting to see what kind of circumstantial homicide case might be assembled from the evidence, if possible, but not to dismantle it. The tech shrugged. “Nobody said to check for deleted stuff until a few hours ago. When the laptop was delivered, the detectives told me to get by the password and see if that note was there. I did that. It wasn’t.”
He looked at McCoy and blinked. “We’ve got a lot 173
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of work to do, you know. It’s not like the city has extra computer guys. And a lot more cases these days have computers in them somewhere.”
McCoy rolled his eyes. “It didn’t occur to you while you were checking all those deleted files on Rosserman’s computer?”
The tech did a slow burn. His bleary eyes narrowed.
“Hey, three hours ago, your guys asked me to take a stroll among the deleted files. That’s what I did.”
“You’re understaffed, maybe you need to get back to work.”
Grunion rose slowly and left the room without closing the door. Green glanced at McCoy, drumming his fingers on the case files, then stood and banged the door shut.
“So much for that!” said McCoy.
“Look,” said Briscoe, “we thought maybe there would be something on her laptop that pointed to murder, a motive or something.”
“It’s just we should have known this sooner,” said McCoy. “Did you get anything that might help us build a fraud case?”
Briscoe shrugged. “Some old Quicken files. They showed what we already knew. Her payments to Redux.”
“Jack,” said Green, “the computer was discarded in the lobby. The note could have been written by Rosserman on her machine after he killed her, copied on a diskette, then printed elsewhere.”
“And why would he erase it, then?” said McCoy.
“Why would he write a note to be discovered in his office, that’s allegedly by Barbara Chesko, and then try to remove all traces of the fact that it’s on her machine where she’s supposed to have written it?
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Isn’t it more likely that she wrote it? We can’t know for sure that Rosserman even took the machine out of the hotel room.”
“Does it make any sense that she erased her own note?” said Briscoe. “Why would she care? She intends to kill herself when she’s writing it.”
“The pawnbroker did it? The Santonios?” Southerlyn ventured.
Green shook his head. “They couldn’t get past the password.”
Briscoe leaned toward the table. “Listen, from the time we talked to McDonald, we knew he was lying, but everybody lies. The interesting question is always
‘why?’”
“What’s your point?” asked McCoy. “Why would he kill her?”
“I’m not saying he did,” said Briscoe. “But he was cheating her.”
“And what could Barbara Chesko do about it?” said McCoy. “Whack him in the head like Herman Rauch whacked Rosserman? For McDonald, it was water off a duck’s back.”
“I push a woman out a window,” McCoy continued.
“I don’t know who’s seen what or how quickly the body will be noticed. But I pause to write a phony suicide note? Maybe the obvious thing is staring us in the face and we refuse to accept it. Barbara Chesko killed Barbara Chesko. What have we got to contradict it?”
“Did we get a psychological profile?” asked Green.
Southerlyn lifted a thin file. “Emil Skoda talked to Glenda Atterby, Hannah Wolfe, and Melva Patterson, all women in the writers’ group, and looked over the case file. He says there’s nothing that particularly 175
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constitutes a suicide predictor. Her parents died of old age. She never attempted it before, et cetera, et cetera. The fact that she was brokenhearted over the book doesn’t indicate she’d kill herself. On the other hand, there’s nothing inconsistent with suicide, either.”
“Nothing like a firm conclusion!” said McCoy. “Our psychologist, yet!”
“Well, it doesn’t affect making a fraud case, does it?” said Southerlyn. “There are many victims other than Barbara Chesko.”
McCoy rocked back in his chair. “But none with a suspicious death that we know of. I can see the worth of trying to get it in the jury’s minds that the consequences of the fraud were larger than just money.
But, I’m also thinking maybe we don’t want to touch Chesko’s death. God knows how Ellis or Herlihy could twist it around, sowing a lot of confusion.”
“Especially Ellis,” said Briscoe. “I’ve seen him in action. He’s a twister, force five.”
“That’s why he makes the big bucks,” said McCoy.
Southerlyn straightened the hem of her skirt.
“In some fraud cases people lose their homes or their entire life savings,” McCoy continued. “The jury wants to do something to help the victims. When the victims don’t lose as much, it doesn’t seem as serious, even if the total take is huge.”
“Victimizing a million people at ten dollars a head isn’t as serious a crime as stealing one man’s life savings,” said Briscoe. “Ten million dollars versus a hundred thousand.”
“That’s the way it often goes,” said McCoy. “Look at what some corporations get away with.” He shook his head. “Well, you play the cards you’re dealt. The 176
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tech wizards never pinned down the printer, did they?”
Briscoe shook his head. “It wasn’t hers and it wasn’t Rosserman’s or any of the office ones we found.”
“There are a lot of printers in New York City,” said Green.
“Well,” said McCoy, “I guess you guys have better things to do. We’ll drop the homicide and build the fraud case. It’s all right, Lennie,” said McCoy. “You and Ed did a good job.”
Southerlyn reached for the computer tech’s report and said, “I’m not even sure it’s a suicide note anymore: ‘YOU HAVE USED ME. RALPH USED ME.
AVERY USED ME. I AM ALL USED UP AND
WON’T TAKE ANOTHER DAY OF IT. MY LIFE
HAS BEEN OVER FOR YEARS. LET THAT BE ON
YOUR HEAD—NOT THAT YOU’LL CARE.
YOU’VE SHOWN ME HOW MUCH YOU CARE.’
Couldn’t ‘won’t take another day of it’ be more of a threat against Rosserman rather than the threat of suicide?”
McCoy took the note and read it slowly. “It might be. It could mean ‘I’m not going to play anymore.’
What’s your point?”
She shot a quick laugh. “I haven’t the slightest. No, what I’m saying is that if I wanted to fake a suic
ide note, wouldn’t I be more explicit?”
“Good-bye cruel world,” said Briscoe. “So you’re saying you think it’s the genuine article?”
McCoy read the tech’s printout again and tossed it on the desk. “Who knows? Let’s let the detectives move on.”
“You know,” said Briscoe, uncrossing his legs and getting ready to rise, “when I was younger I used to 177
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think I could tell if a moke was guilty, could feel it in my bones. Now, my bones just creak. I was sure McDonald had something directly to do with the woman’s death, but I don’t know.”
“Maybe something will surface in the larceny trial,”
said Southerlyn.
McCoy looked at her curiously. “We’ll take what we can get, which usually isn’t much,” he said. “Either it was suicide or McDonald or Rosserman have pulled off the perfect crime. It may sound strange, but I’d sleep a lot better if I could convince myself it was suicide.”
178
DISTRICT ATTORNEY ARTHUR BRANCH’S
OFFICE
ONE HOGAN PLACE
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 11:32 A.M.
Southerlyn and McCoy were in his office about to discuss how to proceed when Arthur Branch called them in for an update. It was a good idea to pick his brain as well. Probably Chesko had been stirring the pot at City Hall again, McCoy thought. Branch didn’t usually get this interested in smaller cases, but they would need his support on something as slippery as this one. He and Southerlyn reconvened in Branch’s office and Branch listened placidly to the summary of Rosserman’s and McDonald’s stories. Rosserman had received the manuscript of Shafted: Memoirs of a Marriage about a year ago. It didn’t take him long to figure out that William Shaft in the novel was really Ralph Chesko, the financier, who was being investigated by the SEC. That caught his interest, he said, and he contacted Mrs. Chesko to try to convince her to recast the novel as a nonfiction book, with as many details as she could remember about his financial dealings. After the first conversation, however, it became clear she didn’t have the slightest idea what her husband actually did to bring home the bacon.
What’s more, he said, she was determined to be a 179
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novelist. She was like many people who think of nonfiction writing as some kind of Grub Street occupation, while fiction writing is all freedom and glam-our and the immortality of art.
He explained to Mrs. Chesko that the manuscript wasn’t really in shape to be published as fiction (or nonfiction for that matter), and she asked what it needed. He explained it wasn’t his job to revise manuscripts, not many editors had time to do real editing, and she asked if there might be someone he knew of.
“When I pressed him,” said Southerlyn, “he admitted that many people ask for someone to help them.
They take the bait, and Rosserman would ‘help’ by letting the McDonalds reel them in.”
“Especially if he implied the book was worth spending the money on, I suppose,” said Branch.
“Exactly. He made it look like a favor, when he was actually picking up a fifteen percent commission.”
“How often did he do this?” asked McCoy.
“He says four or five times a week. I’d guess he did it more than that. Not all of them would become clients of Redux.”
“For how much?” asked Branch.
“Fifteen percent of at least two thousand. Usually more. So three hundred a victim and up.”
“The victim we’re concerned with is Barbara Chesko. So how’s this lead to her death?”
Rosserman’s normal routine was to send names and addresses to Monica McDonald, who would mail a letter describing their services. The letter pretended that Rosserman had incidentally mentioned the book (presumably at some glamorous literary cocktail party) to one of the McDonalds, as if the manuscript had 180
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made an impression. Usually, he would either get his finder’s fee or not, and that would be the end of it.
Occasionally, someone resubmitted, and Rosserman would send the preprinted note that said the book
“doesn’t fit our needs at this time.” They usually took the hint and didn’t try again. Barbara Chesko was more determined. Obsessive, he had said.
Several weeks after he turned down her manuscript the first time, Barbara Chesko sent him a silver pen with a thank-you note for recommending the McDonalds. The note said they were working hard on the manuscript and hoped to have it back to him soon.
“He knew all along there was no chance he would buy her book,” said Southerlyn. “He had already classified it as an unsalvageable sow’s ear.”
Branch looked up. “All right, so she showed up again.”
“Not with the manuscript,” Southerlyn said. “Barbara Chesko called Rosserman about meeting for a drink. At first, he says he resisted, but she said the novel was coming along so wonderfully under the McDonalds’ guidance that she wanted to express her gratitude. He decided it wouldn’t hurt, but says he took pains to explain he didn’t have the final decision on publication.”
“Getting himself off the hook,” said Branch.
“He said she apologized for making him think she was trying to bribe him. According to Rosserman an attraction developed. It’s more likely he saw she was a pushover for what he was pretending to offer: publication. They ended up having dinner at Minos, the Greek restaurant in the Waterloo Hotel. Then they had Greek coffee and ouzos, too many ouzos.”
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“What a shame!” said McCoy. “He was seduced, poor fellow!”
Branch gave him a cold eye. Southerlyn cleared her throat and continued. Rosserman and Chesko met several more times. She showed up once at his apartment, even though he’d never given her the address. She took him to her apartment. One time she took him to a friend’s apartment. All this while he knew he would have to break it off somehow. She badgered him with questions about how books were selected. He blamed most choices on the marketing and sales departments. He’d “spontaneously” kiss her just to shut her up.
So, when the inevitable happened and she turned up with a revised manuscript, he pretended that the editorial board had turned it down. Actually, he had never proposed it to them. He gave her a short list of flaws, supposedly from notes he had made at the meeting. She seemed disappointed and maybe upset, but he was relieved that she didn’t call back for a while. He claimed he didn’t know she had gone back to Redux, until he received another commission.
Avery McDonald told him that she had come back with the list of flaws and insisted they work on it more.
Rosserman didn’t hear from her for several more months. Then she appeared at his office with a completely new revision and a bottle of Calvados to cel-ebrate. He explained to her that once the board turned down a book, they almost never considered it again.
One shot of Calvados invited another and soon it was dinner again, and she begged him to ask the board to reconsider.
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“so he told her he would plead her case and they went to the Waterloo.”
“Not this time. They went to the Waterloo, I mean, but he says he told her that submitting it to him would never work. His bosses had made up their minds.”
“I bet he didn’t tell her that before the sex,” said Branch.
“Three editing jobs!” said Southerlyn. “She submitted her book to Rosserman four times and the McDonalds took her for three editing jobs and almost nineteen thousand dollars. Rosserman took her to bed a half a dozen times, and she paid for it.”
McCoy shook his head.
“You’re thinking she was stupid,” said Southerlyn.
“If she waddles like a duck…”
“Have you ever tried to write a novel?” asked Southerlyn. “Do you have any idea how much work it takes? How much she got her hopes up? People put their souls into it.”
“But three payouts!”
“They threw straws and she kept grasping,” said Southerlyn.
“Okay, it’s a dirty deal,” said Branch, “but she didn’t have to do it three times. And that’s just the money.
She thought the sex was buying publication as well.”
Southerlyn’s tone was icy. “That’s a nice thing to say. You’re both forgetting who’s the victim.”
“To this point, she’s cooperating in her own victimization,” said Branch.
Rosserman said Chesko submitted it for the fourth time after a detailed line edit, and he bit the bullet and told her there was no way that the board would ever accept the book. The season’s list was full and they just wouldn’t be persuaded to reconsider. He 183
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recommended she try it elsewhere. She said that she had, a dozen times. Each time it was turned down with hardly any explanation. Once a different editor at a different publisher had also recommended Redux, she told Rosserman. What if she had an agent? Could Rosserman recommend an agent? She had tried a couple and they had turned her down. He pretended it was unethical to do that, directed her to the public library, and then begged off, saying he had an appointment.
“The woman wouldn’t go away,” said McCoy.
“Exactly,” said Southerlyn. “He said he was beginning to feel like he was being stalked and just wanted it over.”
“So you think he killed her?” asked Branch.
“He says he didn’t and we’re beyond that now,”
said McCoy.
“So how did she die?”
Chesko showed up at his office and waited through a long afternoon, scribbling on her manuscript and working on her laptop. Rosserman thought he had waited her out. She was trickier than he realized.
When he came down in the elevator, she was waiting in the lobby. To keep her from making a scene, he took her arm and led her out on the street. She told him she had a room at the Waterloo, where they could talk. Rosserman refused, but then she began to cry and he agreed to talk, but no more.
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