by Michael Kahn
Bornstein just sat there, eyes blinking.
Benny unclasped his hands and gestured with his thumb at the Grey’s Anatomy slogan on his shirt. “You see this?”
Bornstein nodded.
“I happen to like the other Gray’s Anatomy, too. The textbook by Henry Gray. You familiar with that one?”
Bornstein nodded.
“Fascinating stuff,” Benny said. “Everything you need to know about the human anatomy. I took a look at it this morning, Miltie. With you in mind. And guess what I learned? If you get indicted, that prosecutor and judge are going to shove your bald head so far up your ass that when you fart your lips’ll quiver.”
Benny leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. Bornstein’s hands were clasped on his lap and he was staring at his knees.
“How’s that diagnosis sound to you, Miltie? And that’s only the beginning. Once you get to prison, you and your asshole are going to have even more adventures. So let’s cut to the chase, eh? Either give me the name or get the fuck out of here.”
Benny stood and leaned forward, his fists on the desktop. Bornstein flinched as he looked up at him.
“As you weigh your options, Milt, you need to factor in one more thing. Two men connected to Corundum have already died. You know what that means? If you walk out of here without telling us what you know, you can expect that before too long someone will come knocking on your front door. The dilemma for you is that you won’t know who is doing the knocking. It could be an officer of the law standing there with your name on a grand jury subpoena or it could be a hit man standing there with your name on a bullet. So, at the risk of repeating myself, either give me that name or get the fuck out of here.”
Bornstein lowered his head.
“You won’t tell them about me?” he said in a hoarse whisper.
Benny gave him a benevolent smile. “Rest assured. Our lips will be sealed.”
Bornstein looked down at his hands, which were now clenched beneath his knees.
Benny glanced over at me and winked.
In a barely audible whisper, Bornstein said, “The lawyer.”
Chapter Forty-three
Ironically enough, the lawyer called the next morning. He reached me on my cell phone as I was driving into the parking garage of the building in Webster Groves where Linda Dobbins now worked She had been Nick Moran’s office manager.
“We need to meet,” he said.
“About what?”
“You know what.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Quit playing games. This is serious.”
“What are you talking about?”
“My client is furious.”
“Which client?”
“Come on, Rachel.”
I pulled into a parking spot on the first level and turned off the engine.
I said, “What’s your client upset about?”
“You.”
“Tell him to chill.”
“Cut it out, Rachel.”
“What are you talking about?”
“This is serious—and it will get a lot more serious if we don’t get this resolved as soon as possible. I booked a private dining room at the Noonday Club for lunch today. Just the two of us. I rescheduled two other meetings so that I’d be available. It’s important. Can you meet me there?”
“I have some meetings out of the office this morning. I couldn’t be there before one.”
“One is fine.”
I got out of the car and locked the door.
“You want to tell me what’s so important, Rob?”
“Not over the phone. I’ll see you at the club. One o’clock.”
I rode the elevator up four floors to the offices of Salsich & Gerber, a small real estate firm where Linda now worked as a bookkeeper. The receptionist took my name, and a few minutes later Linda came out and took me to a small interior conference room near the back of the office. I’d called her at work yesterday and explained what I was looking for. She’d agreed to search through her records from Nick Moran’s company, which consisted of a dozen file boxes and a set of CD-ROMs she kept stored in her basement.
“Any luck?” I asked.
“Not much. I looked through all twelve boxes. They were still pretty well organized. I’d already looked for Corundum for you last time, but I looked again just to be sure. Nothing. And no mention of Ruby Productions either. I checked that list of addresses you gave.”
“And?”
I’d put together a list of addresses by going back through the Corundum building permits in the various cities with TIFs involving Ruby Productions and identifying the other aldermen or council members in each city who’d voted in favor of the TIFs—i.e., the ones who’d had no work on their homes by Corundum. I’d thought that perhaps Nick Moran had done rehab work on one or more of their homes during the relevant time period.
She shook her head. “Nick never did any work at any of those houses. Same with the job files on the CD-ROMs. The only place I found any mention of Ruby Productions was in the email folders.”
“What did you find there?”
“Just four emails. I printed them off for you.”
She handed me a folder. “You know Nick. He just wasn’t big on computers.”
“I have to get back to my desk.” She stood. “We’re running last month’s inventory numbers today. Just call me if you have any questions.”
“Thanks, Linda.”
“I hope you can find out what really happened that night. He was a good man. I miss him.”
After she left, I opened the folder. Inside were four sheets of paper, each a printout of an email message with a header that showed the email had been sent or received from Nick’s computer. The most recent of the four was a few weeks before Nick’s death. The oldest was four years ago.
All four were from sub-contractors, each notifying Nick when they would be available to work a particular remodeling project. Linda’s search had turned them up because each mentioned a prior commitment to a Ruby Productions project for certain dates. For example, one was from a guy named Billy at a company called Mound City Home Audio:
RE: In-Ceiling Speaker Install – 725 Davis Street
Hey, Nick, no can do next Thursday. Sorry, bud. Got a major install for Ruby Productions all week at their Balmoral Castles development in Wildwood. Does the following Monday work for you?
To which Nick had replied: “Monday works.”
The other three emails—two from a glass company regarding a skylight and one from a company that installed outdoor fireplaces—were similar in content and tone.
I drove west to Fenton to see Nick’s sister, Susannah Beale. We were meeting at her favorite spot, the local Krispy Kreme store, while her mother-in-law watched her kids. She was waiting when I arrived and gave me a big hug.
“Thank you so much, Rachel, and thank you for coming out here.”
The last time we’d seen each other, she’d been almost six months pregnant with child number three and looked a little frazzled. Today she looked ready to go into labor. I went up to the counter, placed our order, and came back to the table with two glazed donuts and a cola for her, and a cinnamon twist and a coffee for me.
She said, “I know this has been a frustrating case for you.”
I took a sip of coffee. “I’ve been able to find out a little more about that night, but there are still lots of holes.”
I filled her in on what we’d learned from Gene Chase—namely, that Nick had died somewhere else and been dropped off in the park.
“Gene was connected to that Corundum company,” I said, “and Corundum is connected to Ruby Productions. Ruby Productions might be connected to that list of names and addresses I gave you.”
I’d given Susannah the same list I gave to Linda.
<
br /> She sighed and shook her head. “I looked through all his papers. I couldn’t find any of those names.”
“What kind of papers?”
“Mostly bills, bank account statements, auto insurance policies—that sort of stuff.”
“Anything personal? Letters? A diary?”
Her eyes reddened. “He wasn’t that type. Nick had such a hard time reading and writing growing up. They finally tested him in high school and found he had dyslexia. He couldn’t read a book—or even a newspaper—but he was amazing with machines and tools. Carpentry, electrical stuff, you name it. He could fix anything. He never had to read instructions, which he probably couldn’t have anyway. All he had to do was study the machine, fiddle with it some, and next thing you know it was working again. But that’s why there weren’t many papers beyond bills and that sort of thing.”
“That’s okay. It means I can check that open item off my list. It helps me focus on where to look.”
I took another sip of coffee and watched her eat her second glazed donut. She seemed a little more disheveled than last time, but with two little kids at home and the third about to arrive, she was entitled.
I said, “I located the three women whose names you gave me. I spoke with each.”
“And?”
“You were right. Two of them had a fling with Nick.”
Susannah smiled. “Good for him.”
“The third one is Barbara Weiss. She was married. Still is, though she’s separated from her husband. Your brother did work on their house. Think back. I know he mentioned Barbara to you. Did he ever mention her husband? Did he ever talk about the job?”
“Is the man a jerk?”
“Barb thinks so. Why?”
“Nick didn’t talk much about his work with me, but he was over for dinner one Sunday night—oh, maybe three months before he died. I asked him how things were going. He said he’d learned a lesson: never do work for a builder. He told me he was doing a rehab at this guy’s house and was going crazy. He thought he might actually lose money on the job because of all the re-dos the guy’s inspector was demanding. ‘Never again,’ he told me.”
“The timing’s right. That’s when he was working on that house. Do you remember anything else he said?”
She mulled it over. “No.”
I made a note on my legal pad: Barb Weiss—husband a builder—check out.
“When you looked through Nick’s bills,” I said, “did you see anything from a dentist named Gutterman? Anything about a root canal?”
She gave me a puzzled look. “No. Why?”
“Just another loose end. One of the other women—Brenda—was married to a guy who did root canals.”
“I don’t think he had a root canal. If he did, I didn’t see a bill for it.”
I made another note: No root canal—no tie to Gutterman besides rehab.
I set down my pen and gave Susannah a smile. “Barbara Weiss was very fond of your brother.”
“Everyone was.”
Her eyes reddened again. She used the napkin to wipe her nose.
“Nick was wonderful, Rachel. My kids adored him. I brought some pictures today. So you could see that side of Nick.”
She took an unsealed envelope out of her purse and opened it. She handed me a snapshot of a Nick holding a little blond girl in his arms. Nick was smiling toward the camera, and the little girl was smiling at him.
“That’s Ashley. That was at her second birthday party. Nick made her a big dollhouse. Made it from scratch.”
She showed me about a dozen photos of Nick, some with Ashley, some with her son Logan, and some with the whole family. It was clear from the faces in the photos that everyone in Susannah’s family, including her husband Earl, adored Nick Moran.
I handed her back the pictures.
“I’m getting closer to an answer for you, Susannah. I promise. I’ll call you as soon as I know something more.”
“Thank you, Rachel. Thank you so much.”
Chapter Forty-four
The Noonday Club is on the top floor of the 40-story Metropolitan Square building downtown. As I got off the elevator and started toward the club entrance, my cell phone rang.
“Bertie?” I said.
“Whoa, you got ESP?”
“Caller ID. What’s up?”
“Some intriguing new tidbits on your favorite case. You got time to drop by this afternoon?”
“I’m walking into a lunch meeting. How ‘bout three?”
“See you then, gorgeous.”
I put the phone back in my purse and walked over to the maitre d’, who smiled and bowed slightly.
“Madame?”
“Rob Crane?”
“Ah, yes. Please follow me.”
He led me back to a small private room with a large picture window that looked south past the Arch and down the broad waters of the Mississippi River. The dining table could have seated ten comfortably but was set for two, the place settings across from each other in the middle.
Rob Crane stood by the window, his back to the door, talking on his cell phone as he watched a tugboat pushing a string of eight barges upriver toward the Poplar Street Bridge. The barges were lashed in two rows of four and loaded with black coal. It was a sunny, clear day. From forty stories up, you could follow the river as it curled to the right just south of downtown and then swung back to the left off in the distance beyond the redbrick complex of buildings that comprised the brewery and headquarters of Anheuser-Busch.
Crane turned and nodded at me.
“Hey, Marty,” he said into the phone, “I have to go.”
He listened, nodding to what Marty was saying. Crane had on his standard power outfit: navy pinstriped suit, crisp white button-down shirt with gold cufflinks, navy-and-red striped tie, dark hair slicked back, strong cologne. He’d actually be sexy if he weren’t such a testosteroned jerk.
“Sounds good, Marty. I’ll take care of it.”
He disconnected the call, slipped the cell phone inside his suit jacket, and held out his hand.
“Hello, Rachel.”
We shook.
“I appreciate you joining me here today.”
“You sounded distraught.”
“Distraught?” He chuckled. “I hope not.”
I shrugged but said nothing. This was his party.
He gestured toward the table. “Please sit down. I told Julius we’d need to be served promptly. I know you’re a busy gal.”
As if on cue, an elderly black man entered the room.
“Mr. Crane, sir?”
“Hello, Julius. This is Ms. Gold. If you can tell us about today’s specials we’ll place our orders now.”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Crane.”
He ran through them. I picked the Greek salad. Crane opted for the corned beef sandwich special, in defiance—or perhaps ignorance—of one of the fundamental teachings of our Talmud, which is never order a corned beef sandwich at a goyishe club.
Crane’s phone rang again just as Julius left to put in our order. He checked the number and gave me an apologetic shrug as he answered. The call sounded personal. I strolled over to the window to watch the tug’s progress upriver as Crane tried to end the call without being rude. He succeeded just as Julius entered with our iced teas. I returned to my seat.
Crane lifted his iced tea toward me with a forced smile. “Cheers.”
I nodded, took a sip, and lowered my glass.
“Why am I here, Rob?”
“As you and I have discussed before, my client is—”
“—which client?”
“Which?” He gave me a look of puzzled irritation. “Ruby Productions, of course. What other client could I possibly be talking about?”
I shrugged. “Corundum Construction.”
H
e paused, expression neutral.“Ruby Productions is my client. Of what possible relevance is that construction company?”
“What don’t you tell me?”
“I don’t represent—what’s their name?—Corundum.”
“Proceed.”
“My client is convinced you are investigating the possibility of another lawsuit involving one of his TIFs.”
“So what?”
“That would put you in violation of the signed representation of yours that we attached to the settlement agreement.”
“Only if I had been representing another adverse party at the time of the settlement.”
“My client believes you were.”
“On what basis?”
“Among other things, based upon persons you contacted before the settlement.”
“What persons?”
“In other cities where Ruby Productions was involved in projects.”
“Your client is mistaken.”
“Do you deny those contacts?”
“I don’t admit or deny anything, Rob. It’s none of your business—or your client’s business. I stand by the truth of that statement I signed for the settlement. Period.”
There was a knock on the door. Julius entered carrying a platter with our lunches. We waited until he had set them down. I noted that the corned beef special was served on white bread with two small condiment dishes, one with yellow mustard and the other with mayonnaise. Q.E.D.
Crane waited until Julius had refilled our iced teas and closed the door behind him.
“You claim your statement is true,” he said. “Fine. I have a proposal for you that should be irresistible if you are in fact representing no party adverse to Ruby Productions.”