“I don’t understand,” Petersen said.
“Well, take your self-important pal Ms. Turnbull. Her hatred of Clifton was almost pathological, yet she would consider it the highest form of insult if she weren’t consulted about the memorial performance. So you have to call and say, ‘Andrea, dear, we want to dedicate a NatBallet performance to Clifton Holt and were thinking about next Tuesday. Would that be convenient for you?’ Andrea being Andrea, it naturally isn’t. ‘Then what would be convenient, dear? Wednesday, Thursday or Friday? Splendid. Let me talk to the others and get back to you.’”
By this time Cynthia was standing in front of Petersen’s desk and punctuating her monologue with mimicking gestures. Petersen was laughing hard.
“So then, dear Arne, you call the others, several of whom object to Tuesday as well. That’s when you begin Round Two.”
“What happens then?”
“Hello, Andrea? Dear, I don’t know what to tell you. I’ve talked to everyone and I’m terribly afraid Tuesday comes up as the most convenient day. Is there any way you could change your plans? No? Well, I’m very sorry, but I’m afraid we have to go with Tuesday; it’s the best night for weeks to come, and we must have the ceremony soon. We’ve got to change it, you say? Well, I don’t see how we can; it’s everyone’s best night but yours.… I understand, and you certainly should be there.… But no, I’m afraid we can’t change now, otherwise we’ll never get this done.… No, Andrea, TOO BAD, ANDREA, WE’RE GOING AHEAD WITH TUESDAY!” Cynthia poked Petersen in the ribs as she raised her voice. They both were laughing as they kissed on the cheek and parted.
10
A NEW TWIST
Reuben Frost was glad for the peace and quiet that prevailed for the next several days. The shock of Clifton Holt’s murder had begun to dissipate. Frost had abided by Teresa Holt’s instinctive feeling that a funeral would have been a mistake. Holt’s body was cremated without ceremony or incident, and the memorial performance by NatBallet that Cynthia and Arne Petersen were arranging was the only obsequy remaining to be observed.
Holt’s estate had to be settled, but Melvin Lincoln and his firm seemed to have the matter well in hand; if lucky, Frost would have nothing more to do than sign the necessary papers prepared by Lincoln & Gold. He had neither seen nor talked to Teresa since the day after the murder. Except for insistent calls from Andrea Turnbull, he had really had little to do with NatBallet business, other than long conversations with his wife about the Company’s future.
Turnbull had finally been successful in trapping him, and he had reluctantly agreed to see her at her apartment this Monday afternoon, a week after Holt’s death. Aside from this meeting, which he dreaded, he looked forward, as he drank the morning orange juice Cynthia had squeezed for him, to a quiet day. He would spend the morning in his office at Chase & Ward with, to his satisfaction, some actual legal work to do. An old-time client, Earle Ambler, had called the week before with a thousand questions about “leveraged buy-outs,” “poison pills” and the like, and requested a meeting to discuss them. As always, Ambler had insisted that the meeting be in Portland, Oregon, where Frost’s crusty old client presided over his prosperous empire of radio and television stations.
Frost knew it was futile to argue for a meeting in New York; Ambler hated the City, and Frost was sure that he derived secret pleasure from bringing the mountain (Chase & Ward, or more particularly, Frost) to Mahomet (Ambler Broadcasting Company, or more particularly, Earle Ambler). Frost knew that Ambler was at least a year or so younger than he was, but that carried no weight either. But Ambler, however unreasonable and complaining in other respects, always paid his bills, and his insistence on having Frost do his legal work, even though Frost was retired as a partner of Chase & Ward, gave him greater standing, as far as Frost was concerned, to make demands that might not have been agreed to so readily by the younger, active partners in the firm.
The first mutually convenient date the two men could arrange was the upcoming Wednesday, April 13. Frost would fly to Portland that morning, meet with Ambler the same day, and return to New York on Thursday. But this morning he felt that he had to do a bit of homework at the office. He recalled the observation an astute senior partner in one of the Big Eight accounting firms had made to him years before: “When we send a young man out to a client, we want him to be knowledgeable—and if we can’t succeed in doing that, at least we want him to give the appearance of being knowledgeable.” Frost realized that the same was at least partially true for lawyers and, in the present circumstances, could even be applied to himself.
Frost knew very little about the mysterious new world of “M&A”—mergers and acquisitions—that had become such an important part of Chase & Ward’s practice, just as it had in other major New York firms. He knew in general terms about tender offers, friendly and unfriendly, for the shares of public companies; colossal mergers of industrial giants under the benign and passive eye of the Reagan Justice Department; leveraged buy-outs, or “LBOs” as they were known for short; going private; and all the other M&A techniques.
Discussions among the partners at the Chase & Ward lunch table and in informal conversations around the office had given Frost at least a surface degree of familiarity with these new legal tricks. But M&A was a game for young and ambitious investment bankers and lawyers willing to work impossible hours with intense and high-pressure dedication. As an older lawyer nearing the end of his career, Frost would need to ask a few discreet questions of the firm’s go-getting younger partners in order to give Ambler the benefit of his knowledge—or the appearance of his knowledge.
Frost had toyed with the idea of taking one of these partners with him to Portland. But that had seemed a waste of money—Ambler probably had nothing concrete in mind at all and just wanted to talk things over. (Ambler was always alert to every trend, and Frost suspected that the old man probably felt he was not part of the hectic corporate landscape if he did not at least think about taking over someone else—or, possibly but not likely, having Ambler Broadcasting bought out by someone else.)
As usual, Frost took the subway to One Metropolitan Plaza, then the elevator to Chase & Ward’s offices on the fifty-first floor. He greeted Dorothea Cowden, the firm’s receptionist, and made his way to his modest office overlooking New York harbor. (In earlier times, as Chase & Ward’s Executive Partner, Frost had had a corner office with a sweeping and breathtaking view of downtown New York; now he had only a slice of that view, albeit an attractive one.) Having not been in the office for several days, he turned to the pile of mail his secretary, Miss O’Hara, had placed in the center of his desk. He soon discovered to his disappointment that it consisted largely of fund-raising appeals. Where do these obscure charities get the money to make such elaborate mailings? he ruminated as he turned irritably from the pile.
Frost was about to begin his homework for Earle Ambler when the intercom rang. Luis Bautista, his detective friend, was on the phone.
“Reuben, can I come over?” the detective asked, without any preliminaries.
“Certainly, Luis,” Frost answered. “What’s up?”
“I’ll tell you when I get there. Can I come right now?”
“Yes, yes. Come as soon as you like. But what’s going on?”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” Bautista said, ignoring Frost’s question a second time. “All I can say is, we’re back in business.”
“We’re what?” Frost asked incredulously. But Bautista had already hung up.
Frost was stunned. What did the detective mean—“back in business”? It had to be murder. Holt’s? But his murderer had already been caught, and caught red-handed. Frost simply could not imagine what Bautista had been talking about and resigned himself to waiting, however impatiently, for the detective’s arrival.
Bautista found Frost pacing the floor in his office. They had barely shaken hands when the lawyer began bombarding his visitor with questions.
“Sit down, Reuben,” Bautista inter
rupted. “I’ll tell you all about it.”
“All right, let’s hear it.”
“I wanted to tell you before you read about it in the afternoon Press. The long and the short of it is that Jimmy Wilson has been murdered.”
“Murdered? How? Where?”
“He was stabbed by another prisoner at the Men’s Detention House on Rikers Island last night. He’d been acting crazy ever since he was arrested—not surprising, since he’s probably been cold turkey since he went into the Detention House, which makes any junkie crazy.”
“Cold turkey—that means no dope?”
“Yes. Unless he’d bribed his way into a supply, and I doubt he’d been there long enough to do that. Anyway, he’d caused a lot of trouble, though the other prisoners in his area seemed to be afraid of him—he was in on a body, after all—and kept their distance. But last night he got into a fight with a white prisoner and the white guy stabbed him with a sharpened table knife.”
“Incredible,” Frost said. “Poetic justice, I guess. Wilson stabs Holt, then gets stabbed himself.”
“Yes, I suppose it is,” Bautista replied.
“But how does this make more business for us, Luis?” Frost asked, after a pause. “I would have thought young Mr. Wilson’s death closed the case once and for all.”
“There’s more to the story, Reuben.”
“Go on.”
“Before he was killed, Wilson was bragging to anyone who would listen that he had killed Clifton Holt for money.”
“Oh, my God!” Frost said quietly, slumping in his desk chair.
“And it seems to check out. After Wilson was arrested, the policemen who went to his apartment on Tenth Avenue found twelve thousand dollars in new hundred-dollar bills. They thought at the time it was probably linked to his drug operation—which was fairly extensive, judging by the address book and the records they found. Wilson was an addict himself, but he was a sharp little dealer as well, with some fancy connections.”
“Couldn’t he have been just bragging about being hired to murder Clifton?”
“Sure. But the sum he mentioned—twenty-four thousand dollars, twelve thousand down and twelve thousand after the murder—agrees with the twelve thousand the police found.”
“Who did he say paid him?”
“He didn’t.”
“Man or woman?”
“He didn’t say that either.”
“Damn,” Frost said, hitting his desk with his fist. “Will all this be in the papers?”
“Wilson’s murder will be—it’s probably on the radio already. But the other part, the murder-for-hire angle, I think we can keep the lid on, at least for a while.”
“Will you be handling the case?”
“Yes, thanks to you. Because of your call to me the night of Holt’s murder, I claimed it and I got it.”
“Thank God for that.”
“I don’t know, Reuben. Cases involving famous people can be tricky. But they’re more interesting than guys shooting their brothers-in-law. And besides, it means we can work together again.”
“Mmn,” Frost said. “So what do we do?”
“You remember the drill, Reuben. We need a list of suspects to start working on.”
“That’s very hard in Clifton’s case. He was a genius, but he certainly wasn’t well liked. For example, Luis, look at this.” Frost picked up a NatBallet program from his desk and turned to the roster of Company dancers. “See this list? Eighty-plus dancers. All dependent on Holt for the advancement of their careers. Ballet masters are always dictators at heart, but Holt was a true martinet. Nobody got a part, or got promoted, without his say-so. So right there you’ve probably got eighty grievances, eighty motives for killing him. Plus all the backstage crew that he was more than capable of insulting.”
“But just because they had reasons for disliking the man doesn’t mean they would have him murdered. If that were the case, at least half the Police Department would be dead.”
“True enough.”
“And besides, how many of those dancers would have access to twenty-four thousand dollars?” Bautista asked.
“Maybe they took up a collection,” Frost answered. “No, Luis, you’re right. Twenty-four thousand dollars is more than a year’s salary for most of the younger ones.”
“Surely, Reuben, there must be some obvious suspects.”
Frost turned and stared out the window without answering. “You know,” he said, finally, “I was thinking about something Cynthia said the night Holt was murdered.”
“Like what?”
“She said she was glad Clifton’s murderer had been found because otherwise the number of suspects would have been very large. When I pressed her, she named four obvious ones without even trying.”
“Who were they?” Bautista asked, pulling out his notebook.
“Luis, I will tell you, but it’s going to be difficult. Some of them are good friends of ours, and I mention them only because they are suspects in theory only.”
“I understand, Reuben, but we have to begin somewhere.”
Frost gave the detective the four names mentioned by Cynthia—Arne Petersen, Teresa Holt, Andrea Turnbull and Veronica Maywood, adding in each case a short description of who they were, and why they might have wanted Holt dead. Then he added two more—Jack Navikoff and Arthur Mattison.
When Frost had finished, Bautista put down his notebook.
“I see what you mean—six people with real motives, but not an obvious killer among them. So I guess we’ll just have to start digging.”
“Where will you start?”
“The money looks the sexiest to me. From the way you describe them, Teresa Holt, and certainly Andrea Turnbull, could put their hands on twenty-four grand easily. How about Petersen?”
“Possibly. He’s a bachelor and I don’t think a high liver. He probably has some savings. But understand, Luis, this man lived under our roof for almost a year. We are practically his adoptive parents.”
“Reuben, I do understand. But as you yourself admit, he did have a motive for getting rid of Holt at NatBallet. Now, to go on, what about Navikoff?”
“Being the Hollywood operator he is, I’m sure he could have gotten the money too, even though he’s supposed to be in financial trouble, as I told you.”
“Maywood?”
“No problem there, I’d guess. She can command pretty big fees—three or four thousand—for guest appearances.”
“Let’s see, that leaves Mattison.”
“I don’t know about him. He’s a notorious freeloader, always looking to pick up a quick buck. I suspect the money goes out just as fast—or faster—than it comes in. But I can’t really be sure.”
“Well, that’s a start,” Bautista said.
“Can you trace the money?”
“Maybe. The police report said it was in new bills. I’ve got to retrieve it from the Property Clerk’s office—assuming they haven’t lost it.”
“Is that possible?”
“Unfortunately, yes. I’m sure the investigating officers bagged the money and that it was logged in with the Department’s Property Clerk. But that doesn’t mean the dimwits who run that office can find it again. But if we do find it, maybe we can trace the serial numbers to a local bank.”
“What about the forty-seven eighty-nines? Isn’t that what they’re called?” Frost asked.
“That’s right, form forty-seven eighty-nine. To register large cash transactions. Designed to thwart drug dealers and tax evaders—if the form is filled out. But how do you know about forty-seven eighty-nines?”
“Just run-of-the-mill law practice, Luis,” Frost answered, smiling. “Some years ago, after the Feds put in that reporting requirement, a bank out West that we do work for got caught not filing the reports. There was a branch in Los Angeles, I recall, where the little-old-lady tellers were ‘accommodating’ their customers by taking in bagfuls of fives and tens and giving back brand-new hundreds. And accepting little twenty-
dollar tips for the trouble of counting the dirty small bills. What they were really doing was laundering dope money from the streets, and getting bribed for it in the process—and not filing the forty-seven eighty-nines with the Internal Revenue Service. But they thought they were just being nice to their customers, hard as that may be to believe.”
“What did you do?”
“We advised the bank to plead guilty, pay a fine—and revise its internal controls.”
The two men laughed.
“I remember that every transaction involving ten thousand dollars or more has to be reported. That amount hasn’t gone up, has it?”
“I don’t think so.”
“It’s easy enough to check,” Frost said, pressing the intercom. “Miss O’Hara, have the library send me the CCH Banking Law Reporter,” he asked, then added, turning to Bautista, “If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to trace the money to a nice branch bank and then find a form forty-seven eighty-nine with a familiar name on it.”
“If I’m lucky. If I’m very lucky,” Bautista said.
“And if you’re not?”
“Well, maybe Wilson’s address book, or his customer records, will yield up a name.”
“I certainly hope so. Oh, thank you, Miss O’Hara,” Frost said, as his secretary brought in the bulky black Commerce Clearing House loose-leaf volumes. Frost looked in the index and quickly found what he wanted. “The Bank Secrecy Act of 1970, designed quote to require certain reports or records where they have a high degree of usefulness in criminal, tax, or regulatory investigations or proceedings unquote. Yes, here it is. Ten thousand dollars.”
“Well, at least the Feds aren’t against us and didn’t raise the floor for making currency reports.”
“Let’s hope that’s a good sign.”
“Reuben, I’m going off now and chase down some of these leads. Can we talk later this afternoon or tonight?”
“Yes. I’m headed up to my club now, and then, believe it or not, I’m seeing one of the suspects. Andrea Turnbull. So you can call me at home later in the afternoon.”
Murder Takes a Partner Page 10