The Fundamentals of Murder (Davey Goldman Series Book 2)

by Love, William F.

  “Maureen, Maureen.” He said soothingly. “Don’t take me so seriously. Okay, they were — friends. And everyone knew it. Their pictures had been in every paper in town for a couple of years. They were what we call here an item. Surely she sent you some of those pictures.” Maureen turned away, but Roger acknowledged George’s point with a nod.

  “That’s all I meant,” George continued. “Anyway, I took a close look at those numbers and had my company accountant do the same. And we both noticed that the models’ fees paid to Models for Hire were about half again as high as what they were paying their other models. But they were capitalizing the difference as Goodwill, so they were overstating earnings by nearly one hundred thousand dollars a year. In a company that was only making two-and-a-half times that! In other words, earnings were overstated by nearly forty percent, while an absolutely meaningless asset was growing by the same amount. And Bob Theodore passed it right by without so much as a nod.

  “I was being asked to buy in at nearly double the realistic value, if you think twenty times earnings is realistic, which…” He grinned at Betty. “…I guess it is, in view of their growth.” He’d lost me with all the financial mumbo-jumbo, but Regan was hanging on.

  “So,” the Bishop said, “they were valuing the company at five million, giving you a one-point-seven-million-dollar cost to buy in. But a true valuation would have put the value at three million, meaning you should have been able to purchase your one-third for only one million.”

  “You people listening?” McClendon chortled, looking around at his three cohorts. Maureen sniffed, Roger nodded agreeably and Betty’s face reddened.

  Aiming his big smile at the Bishop, McClendon said, “I should have brought you in as an expert witness, Bishop. But, yes, that was the problem.” The businessman settled back, as comfortable in that hard chair as Betty was uncomfortable in her soft one.

  “Of course, my first reaction was that the girls were out to screw me. I shot right over to Laura’s office to have it out with her.”

  “Exactly when was that?” Regan demanded sharply. Everyone looked at him.

  McClendon took a minute to consider. He pulled a small notebook from his pocket. “No need to guess,” he muttered. “It was, umm, September fifth, two months ago. Yes, the day after Labor Day. I’d been in my own office plenty over that weekend.

  “Anyway, Laura’s first reaction confirmed my worst suspicions. She turned red, stuttered and stammered. It was obvious to me she was covering up. Finally, she said she had to talk to Betty. Alone. That it was all a mistake, she was sure they could straighten it out. I first insisted on joining them, but she got her back up, so I gave in.

  “At that point, I was pretty sure the deal was dead. I certainly wasn’t about to get in bed with anyone — even someone as pretty —” George remembered Laura’s parents and backed away from whatever he’d been about to say. “Anyway, they came back to the office, the two of them, and they got me to believe them. Right, Betty?”

  Donovan managed to stop fidgeting for a moment.

  “Right, George. Laura came into my office, all flustered. She almost broke down. She explained that Steve Sarnoff was an old friend of hers, she’d had to do this deal with him, she’d explain the whole thing to me later. She said —”

  “Just a moment, Madame.” Regan. “Weren’t you already aware of this arrangement through your financial responsibilities with the company?”

  Betty met his gaze and shrugged. “I agree I should have been. If that’s criticism, your point is well taken. That’s one thing I warned George about this morning. Right, George?” McClendon nodded.

  “I told him to make sure the new financial VP, or whatever he’s going to call them, take responsibility for the whole operation from day one. Laura and I operated a lot looser than that. I kept my hands off the people part of it — the models. That was Laura’s bailiwick, she was good at it. She decided what they should be paid, who we should use, who worked best with which photographer, the whole thing. I left it up to her, and she did a great job of it. Till this.

  “Well, she felt so awful. Like she’d let me down.” Betty looked at the parents. “She was not out to cheat me, Maureen. I never had the slightest suspicion of that. She just hadn’t been able to tell me, for her own good reasons. She was going to, I’m as sure of that as I am about anything. She just never got the chance. She —” Betty’s voice caught, and she dropped her head.

  “And did Miss Penniston ever tell you what that explanation was?” Regan asked. Betty raised her head immediately and looked Regan in the eye.

  “Never.”

  Regan nodded and looked back at George, who resumed gently, with a sympathetic glance at the woman.

  “Right. And Laura never had it in mind to cheat me either. When she and Betty came back in, they both assured me it had been a mistake. Laura took the whole blame, said she just forgot to warn Bob about it. She didn’t lay it on him, either, though it had to be embarrassing for her, his being her boyfriend and all.” George looked Maureen’s way but she didn’t seem to object to boyfriend. Just fiancé.

  “Well, Laura was just so sincere about it,” McClendon went on, “and Betty certainly hadn’t known anything, though she was embarrassed about it slipping by her, her being the financial factotum.” Betty nodded, blushing. “And I’m not one to hold a grudge. I just told them in no uncertain terms that I didn’t want Theodore coming near the company any more. And that was the end of it. We were going to go ahead and get the whole thing revalued. But then Laura —” McClendon stopped abruptly.

  The Bishop filled the silence. “Couldn’t you merely have eliminated Goodwill and used the resultant value?”

  “You kidding?” McClendon was contemptuous. “Theodore’s blow-up on that threw his whole audit into the ashcan. I’m willing to forgive and forget, but I’m not stupid.”

  “So the negotiations were still very much alive the night Miss Penniston died?”

  “Oh, yes,” Betty said. McClendon nodded.

  *

  The Bishop’s questioning went on for another hour, but you don’t need to hear it. None of it came to anything. Regan wound it up just at six without so much as asking me if I had any questions.

  “Thank you for indulging me,” he murmured. “I don’t know if you’ve gotten me any closer to my goal — freeing Mr. Fanning and locating Mr. Sarnoff — but if not, it hasn’t been for lack of effort.”

  Roger was on his feet. “You mean you won’t tell us how you know that man is innocent?”

  “I can’t, Mr. Penniston.” Regan shook his head decisively. “Not without breaking a sacred confidence.”

  Response to that wasn’t enthusiastic. Maureen sniffed, Roger scowled, the other two glanced at each other.

  I followed the four down the hall, helped them into their coats and saw them out onto the stoop. Having exhausted every known method of precipitation, the sky had dried up, but the wind was just as fierce and it was even colder than before. I was happy I didn’t have to go out.

  “I’m exhausted, David,” said the Bishop when I returned to the office. He looked it.

  “We’ve got Rozanski coming over at eight o’clock,” I reminded him. “Do you want to bug out on that? I could take plenty of notes. You know,” I added sarcastically. “Like I did this afternoon.”

  The sarcasm went right over his head. “No, I’ll join you. But I want to rest first. Please tell Sister I’m foregoing dinner.

  “In the meantime, I need to ponder — and you might, also — the rather interesting similarity between certain letters of the alphabet and certain numerical symbols when written by a person in a hurry.”

  31

  Rozanski arrived ten minutes late for our eight o’clock appointment.

  “Sorry, Davey, sorry,” he said, bustling down the hall. “The damn paper’s going to hell in a handbasket, I swear. I was on my way over here a half hour ago, when…” And so forth. I believed him. Chet’s the promptest person I kno
w, outside of myself. But you don’t need to hear all the things that can go wrong with an evening daily just when the presses are ready to run on a Tuesday night.

  As he sank gratefully into the chair, I saw lines and wrinkles in Chet’s tanned face I’d never seen before. He was tired.

  If Rozanski’s had a few more lines in it, the Bishop’s face had a few less. It was puffy from his evening nap. Just as well Rozanski’d been late: the Bishop hadn’t come down till a minute after eight himself.

  The Bishop likes Rozanski. Evidence: Chet’s one of the few people he grants permission to smoke in the mansion. This time, he even invited it. “Please, Mr. Rozanski. Feel free to enjoy a cigar. I’ve been looking forward to the aroma ever since I found out you were coming.” Rozanski grinned and pulled out a cigar.

  “Well, I wouldn’t want to disappoint a man of the cloth. “ He carefully clipped off the tip and lighted up. Puffing a white cloud in Regan’s direction, he peered at the prelate through the smoke.

  “Smell good?”

  “Marvelous.” But that was as far as the levity went. The Bishop got right to work.

  “Now, Mr. Rozanski. Let us explain — to the extent we are able — why we are convinced Mr. Fanning is innocent of the charges against him. Then perhaps you can tell us about some of the people you have researched in your own investigations.”

  Regan filled Chet in without getting into the porno flicks. Of course, being deprived of our privileged info didn’t make Chet happy.

  “Come on, Bishop!” he complained. “You can do better than that! You haven’t given me a thing I can even use.” Chet looked in my direction. “Davey, give me a break. Tell him what good all this is going to do me. Like none.”

  But with the Bishop’s vow of silence — or whatever he called it — we couldn’t help him.

  “See here, Mr. Rozanski. I understand your point and sympathize. All I can tell you is I am not at liberty to give you my reason for knowing the gentleman to be innocent, beyond telling you that it is cogent.” Regan paused and leaned forward. “But I do offer my assurance — and David’s — that you will be the first — except for the police, of course — to know anything we know about the true killer, once we learn his identity.”

  “Okay, Bishop. Since it comes from you. If it were Davey talking, I’d tell him to stick it where the — well, I just wouldn’t accept it.”

  Unsmiling, the Bishop nodded. “Very prudent of you, Mr. Rozanski. Now. What can you tell us about Miss Penniston’s friends and associates?”

  Rozanski slumped comfortably into the chair and exhaled smoke.

  “Quite a bit, actually. I’ve dug up a few things I didn’t know when I talked to Davey yesterday morning. Let’s start with the partner.”

  Chet kept the floor for the next hour and a half with very few interruptions. About halfway through he got a little dry and accepted the beer he’d declined the first time I offered.

  I joined Chet with a beer for myself. I didn’t bother asking the Bishop if he’d have anything. He quit drinking before I knew him, right after the shooting. I don’t know why. A few subtle hints from Ernie suggest he had been in the habit of having a drink or two — maybe even more — before then, but those are just hints.

  As Chet talked, I jotted down the items we hadn’t heard before. There were several. In fact, he gave us at least one thing we didn’t already know about each of the five players.

  The reporter opened with Betty Donovan. Five years before, Betty had gone on a tough weight-loss program. She’d tried everything from diet pills to Chung-Mu-Quan to bicycling around Central Park a half hour every morning. And every diet from Scarsdale to liquid to fasting — you name it, she’d tried it. This had gone on for six months. Results: twelve pounds gained.

  “My sources say it didn’t bother her that much,” Chet concluded. “But one thing. There are rumors that she got into drugs during the weight-loss kick. Marijuana and possibly worse. Which brings up the next person on the list of associates: George McClendon.”

  Rozanski had more — and dirtier — dirt on McClendon than he had on Donovan. He was a known drug user, first of all, but it got worse. He’d been charged twice with battery in sexual situations. Both times the prostitutes involved had dropped charges — most likely following a payoff by George.

  “I’ve met McClendon,” Rozanski said, “and I’d never have guessed it, but he’s a real fetishist. Gets off on bondage and torture. Both those cases with the prostitutes apparently started with comparatively innocent sexual role-playing, involving spanking and maybe some light whipping — leather and chains, you know?” Rozanski glanced at Regan. “Sorry, Bishop.”

  The Bishop shrugged. “‘There but for the grace of God…’ How badly were the two women hurt?”

  “Badly enough, I guess. I’ve got their names and addresses; I’ll leave that with Davey. Neither of them had any lasting injuries, but one had to be hospitalized. Happened in hotel rooms. They made a racket, other guests reported it, and the police got called in.

  “Which makes you wonder how many other times the guy’s done it but never got caught. Also makes you wonder how far the guy’d have gone if he hadn’t been stopped. An informant of mine who happens to be on Vice told me George was just getting started when the cops arrived — one of the times.”

  The Bishop didn’t look as shocked as I thought he should have. Or as I was. McClendon — a seemingly decent human being. And successful businessman. You never know.

  “And as I said,” Chet went on, “the guy’s also a known druggie.”

  “What about Laura Penniston?” Regan asked. “Did she use drugs?”

  Rozanski shook his head. “No, why would you think that? Oh — birds of a feather, you mean. Nope. Not that I’ve heard, anyway.”

  Next, Chet talked about Sandra Norville. “Beautiful gal. I met her, as I told Davey. Both a friend and an employee of Laura’s. But I got it from someone reliable that maybe they weren’t such good friends. Maybe Sandy resented Laura’s success.

  “And — get this! — Laura was jealous of Sandy. Yeah! Hard to believe, but Sandy had stolen two of Laura’s boyfriends in the past. People were wondering when she’d get around to stealing this guy Theodore.” I didn’t say anything, just glanced at the Bishop. He didn’t meet my eyes.

  “Which brings us,” Chet went on, oblivious to my reaction, “to the man in Laura Penniston’s life, the last of many. He’d hung on with her longer than most. Laura was always in the news, you know. She seems to have had a nose for publicity that told her just which men would help her the most. A real self-promoter, this gal, no disrespect to the dead intended.

  “Bob Theodore was well wired-in, a scion of wealth, as we journalists put it, plus good-looking, debonair, knows which fork to use. For Penniston’s purposes, perfect.

  “But there’s some other stuff on him, too. Word is, when he got out of school the old man put him in charge of the company pension fund. Junior promptly invested far too much of it in oil stocks in the late seventies and early eighties — exquisitely bad timing. When oil prices crashed in ’eighty-two, he got clobbered.

  “After that, daddy kept a tighter rein on him, but he kept fumbling balls. Word is, daddy’s about had it with Junior.

  “For some time now, Junior’s had to live on straight salary. Partnership distributions at Theodore and Theodore have been nil for three years, due largely to Junior’s stock market screw-ups. But that hasn’t stopped him from cutting a wide swath on the party circuit, or from heading over to Antibes, Capri or the Seychelles whenever the urge strikes him.”

  “How about this banker, Stubbs?” I threw in as Chet picked up his beer. “I understand he used to date Laura.”

  Rozanski looked at me, took a small sip of beer and put his glass down. “Just coming to him, Davey. Met him?” I nodded. “Well, you’re right. He was Penniston’s steady guy till Theodore came along. If you know Stubbs and Theodore, or even what they look like, you know there’s no compariso
n between the two, looks-wise. Am I right?”

  I grinned. “The prince and the frog.”

  “Yeah. Well, early last year — it was at the mayor’s big Valentine’s Day gala — Stubbs brought Penniston to the party, but she left on Bob Theodore’s arm.”

  “That would have been February, twenty-one months ago,” the Bishop murmured. I looked at him. It was the first time he’d opened his mouth in the last ten minutes.

  “Umm, right,” said Chet. “Stubbs apparently just shrugged it off. Of course, Penniston Associates is one of Mid-City’s biggest accounts, so I don’t suppose he’d want to jeopardize that. Plus, he must have realized a mere bank vice-president can’t compete with the son of the founder of a big accounting firm. Especially when said son is taller, blonder, younger and better-looking. So I guess Stubbs lumped it. He and Penniston stayed on speaking terms, and her company continued to bank at Mid-City.”

  Rozanski said plenty of other things by the time he walked out at 9:40, but nothing you need to hear. When I returned from seeing him out, the Bishop had selected his book for that evening’s reading in bed — something highly philosophical by a couple of Frenchmen, Garigou and LaGrange — and was wheeling for the elevator.

  “I’m exhausted, David,” he told me without slowing down, “and disgruntled. I have to get my mind off this case. Goodnight.”

  I watched him gun down the hallway and into the kitchen. I was tired, too. A good, solid night’s sleep would do us both a world of good. Right.

  32

  My solid night’s sleep never stood a chance.

  I’d been drifting in and out of a nightmare — in which Sarnoff, a six-foot-six giant of a man with gleaming eyes and a jet-black bushy beard, tightened a garroting wire around my throat — when I sat bolt upright, dripping wet, wide awake.

  What was that noise? And where was it coming from? It wasn’t my alarm clock. Ugly sound, halfway between a buzz and a wail. Suddenly I knew. My face went cold. When I’d last heard it, six years previously, I’d hoped never to hear it again. Regan’s emergency alarm signal.