When I left a business card on Karen Huston’s end table, as part of my marathon effort to get out the door without being eaten by a Dalmatian, I hadn’t expected it to ever be used, but I took a shot. I did it because I wanted Karen to have the ability to call me without having her lawyer present. It is a Murphy’s Law of Freelancing that no great source ever calls you except after you’ve decided to forego the story.
“How you doing, Karen?” Maybe she was just calling to be social. After all, she’d just buried her husband. Maybe she was looking to start new friendships.
“Not well,” she said. “I’m still adjusting.” That was it. She wanted a friendly voice, a shoulder to cry on with no history. I could understand that.
“Well, that’s certainly understandable,” I said. “I can’t imagine how hard it must be for you.”
“That’s not why I’m calling,” she said in a flat tone. “Now that my attorney isn’t here, I want to discuss this with you in detail.” In one’s journalism career, there are maybe four occasions when someone who’s not actually crazy insists on giving you highly confidential information, and those are times when you absolutely don’t want it.
I did my best to hide my lack of enthusiasm, but I had to protect myself. Suppose Mr. Shapiro had my phone tapped? Suppose he had my house under surveillance?
“You’re voluntarily calling me,” I said to whoever else was listening. “I didn’t ask you to call.”
“Well, I did find your business card on my end table,” she said helpfully, “but no, you didn’t ask me to call. I thought you wanted to hear about Michael.”
If it’s possible to sigh internally, I did. “Yes, I do,” I said, resisting the impulse to bite my tongue. “But I’m guessing there’s something specific you want me to know, or you wouldn’t have called.”
There was silence for a few seconds, and Karen said, “Yes, there is something.”
“Is it linked to what you told me before—that you don’t think Justin Fowler shot your husband?”
“Yes,” she almost whispered. “I just keep thinking about that poor young man, and I can’t let him be put him in jail. You know, he’s got some condition . . .
“I know,” I said. I wasn’t interested in giving her any autobiographical details.
“Well,” and I heard a major sniffle in her voice, “I can’t let him suffer for something he didn’t do. I think it was much more complicated than that. I think I know who . . . who shot Michael.”
Never let it be said I didn’t deliver the straight line when necessary. “Who?” I asked.
“I can’t be sure,” she said, “but I think Michael was involved with the Mob.”
You hear that, Mr. Shapiro?
Chapter Twenty
After I caught my breath, I managed, “What makes you think that, Karen?”
Her voice took on an eerie quality, as if it weren’t emanating from a human being, but coming from somewhere other than her body. It sounded far away and slightly pained. I’m not sure Karen was thinking about what she was saying. Might she be on tranquilizers to deal with Michael’s death? Was her judgment impaired?
“He was never secretive about his work. He had always told me everything, even when it was clear I wasn’t interested. Michael was a financial planner and a good one, but I never really understood what he was talking about when he told me about his day. I have more of an artistic mindset. But Michael was thrilled with the numbers game, and he played it very well. I’m sure that if he’d . . . lived, we’d have moved into a much bigger, more expensive house within a year or two.
“But lately,” Karen continued, “he was coming home and not telling me about his day. At first, I’m ashamed to say it, I didn’t mind very much, because I didn’t have to pretend to be fascinated by interest rates and brilliant financial strategies. But after a while, I became concerned. It wasn’t like Michael to shut me out from such an important area of his life, and he was truly proud of the work he did. He wouldn’t keep it from me unless there was something wrong.”
“Was there something wrong?” Okay, so it’s not a brilliant question, but it gave me something to say. How does a guy not telling his wife about a day at the office lead to involvement with the Kosher Consigliore?
“He never said anything, but he started getting phone calls. At home. Calls that made him nervous. Calls he wouldn’t tell me about. And Michael said he thought someone followed him when he walked Dalma at night.” Karen Huston’s voice had almost no affect at all—it was like the tone you hear when you talk to someone more severely autistic than Ethan or the other Asperger kids.
I thought, naturally, of Big, Bigger, and Biggest, otherwise known as the Hyman Shapiro Trio.
“There was something else,” Karen added suddenly. “Michael didn’t leave a will.”
“Well,” I said, thinking I really ought to get around to writing one myself one of these days, “he was such a young man.”
“Aaron,” she interrupted with an urgent tone, “you’re not listening. Michael was a brilliant financial planner. He spent his days consumed with the idea of being ready for contingencies and emergencies, and he helped his clients consider every possibility in their financial lives. He is . . . was . . . the last man on earth who wouldn’t have been prepared.”
“So you think . . . what?” Respect, reschmect. I wasn’t following.
“I think someone stole the will because of what he might have included in it,” Karen said. “I mean, I don’t think Michael left a fortune to gangsters, but it’s possible he fell into debt with them by gambling, or . . . something, and couldn’t pay it off. And maybe no one wants me to know how little is left.”
“Has your lawyer looked into this?” I asked.
“Yes, but he hasn’t found anything yet. Michael didn’t use the same lawyer as I did. I know it sounds odd, but we both had reasons to be loyal to the attorneys we each had before we met, and we just never thought it would be an issue. Michael used to joke that we were all set for the divorce.” She put a laugh on the end of the sentence for me, but it wasn’t real.
“Who was his lawyer?”
“John Markowitz,” she said without hesitation. “He’s in Metuchen.” She gave me the phone number, and I promised to give him a call.
It wasn’t the most convincing argument I’d ever heard: a man doesn’t leave a will and clams up about his job, and thus is involved with organized crime. If I hadn’t had the visit from the Three Tenors, I’d have dismissed the whole notion as the thoughts of a recent widow obviously still in mourning and not necessarily thinking as clearly as she normally would.
But I had been visited by Shapiro’s men, and that, added to Karen’s suspicions, had to mean something.
I put in a call to Abby, to see if she knew anything about either Rezenbach or Markowitz. Sleeping with a lawyer is a great way to find out about other lawyers. But she was in a client meeting. So I weighed my options. They weighed 156 pounds, and thanks for asking.
My intention this afternoon was to completely distance myself from the Michael Huston story—an effort that had been, let’s say, less than one hundred percent successful thus far, inasmuch as I was now more involved than I had been, with sources actually calling me on the phone to offer their somewhat bizarre theories on the subject. But the strong possibility existed that people with guns that shot more than one bullet before reloading were interested in my not asking any more questions, and since my first responsibility is to my family, I felt I had an obligation not to be dead.
On the other hand, there was Lori Shery, who was threatening to let herself become dead if I quit the investigation. It wasn’t Lori’s intention to keep me involved, but I couldn’t let her be the most visible target. And then there was the Snapdragon assignment, which was only my second from the magazine. It’s bad for business to back out of a commissioned story.
Clearly, this was a conundrum. If I were sports agent Myron Bolitar, no doubt somebody would drop dead right in front of
my eyes and I’d be implicated, thus necessitating my seeing the investigation to its conclusion while pining away for one of the many former loves of my life. This is what I got for not being Myron Bolitar.
Ethan and Leah would be home within an hour, and only the deity that governs the severely Yuppified would know when Howard and his Band of Renown would be back. I had an hour, and what I clearly should be doing with it was making the changes Glenn Waterman wanted in my screenplay.
So, naturally, I called Mary Fowler.
“Mary, is Justin at home right now?”
“Yes, but I’m not sure this is a good time to come see him, Aaron.”
“I don’t want to see him. Put him on the phone, okay?”
She hesitated, but put down the phone, and I heard her ask Justin to pick up. Mary told her son who was calling, but he took the phone anyway.
“Hello, Mr. Tucker. My mom said to pick up.”
“Yes, Justin, I have a question . . .
“No, no, no! I’m not saying anything about that.”
I knew that was coming, so I waited for a pause and jumped in. “Justin, where would someone find ammunition for a vintage gun like the Booth deringer?”
He showed no sign of surprise at the conversation’s direction. “The .44 Deringer was a percussion cap and ball type,” Justin immediately began lecturing. “Several companies still produce the lead ball type ammunition, as well as the black gunpowder and percussion caps needed to fire the weapon.”
“But the gun that shot Michael Huston”—and I felt this was a less threatening way to bring the murder into the conversation—”wasn’t a vintage gun, was it? It was a replica, right?”
You could pretty much hear him nod through the phone. “Yes,” Justin said. “But such replicas are not at all uncommon, and are actually available through several sources. In fact, many states do not require a replica weapon like this to be registered, or for the owner to fill out a permit request, as they would with modern weapons.”
That made sense. The killer didn’t want the gun to be traced to its owner, so buying a gun that didn’t need to be registered, even if it were purchased in another state, would be a simple way to remain anonymous.
I had read a little about the Lincoln assassination (in fact, I’d written a screenplay about it, and am more than willing to discuss the rights, but that’s another story), and knew something about Booth’s gun. “It wasn’t like a gun today, was it, Justin?” I asked. “I mean, to fire it.”
“No,” he agreed. “It predated the kind of ammunition we would use today. There was no cartridge. The shooter would have to load the weapon separately for each shot fired.”
“And that was a complex process, wasn’t it? I mean, you practically had to load it up like a musket, didn’t you?” Keep him talking, and ease into the questions you really want to ask.
“In a way, yes,” Justin said. “The shooter would pour a measured amount of black powder down the muzzle, and then center a fabric patch on the muzzle. A lead ball, or the bullet, would be placed on top of the patch, and then rammed together with the fabric patch, in a move similar to that of tamping down a musket shot. Once the ball was tight against the fabric patch, and they sat next to the powder charge, the friction-fit was tight enough to prevent it from rolling out of the barrel. The final preparation would be to press a percussion cap, filled with mercury fulminate, onto the nipple the hammer rests against.”
“Mel Gibson would have a rough time loading that and jumping out a window at the same time, huh?”
“Yes,” Justin said without a chuckle, “he would.”
I decided to push just a little bit harder.
“So if someone wanted to shoot a man out in the street, he’d really have to plan ahead, wouldn’t he?” Just start moving in the direction you want to go, and see if the subject follows you.
But there was a tense flavor to Justin’s voice now. “Yes,” was all he said.
If Mr. Shapiro was on my trail, there wasn’t much time. I had to get to the real questions. This is a careful process, one that is less knowledge than a combination of instinct and practice. I’ve had a lot of practice. “Justin,” I started slowly, “why did you confess?”
“Goodbye,” he said, and hung up.
Chapter Twenty-One
Dinner that night was a relatively calm affair, since Howard thought so much of his sister that he decided to stay in New York for the evening repast rather than spend an evening with her and her family. Some people travel 2,000 miles to see family members, and others come to check out works of modern art and use family members’ homes as hotels. Not that I minded being without the three non-Abigail Steins for the night, but I could tell Abby was a little hurt, and that doesn’t sit well with me.
They walked in, of course, while I was throwing the softball around with Mahoney. Jeff and I have this routine, which we started during the purgatory years known as “high school.” When a problem perplexed us enough, which at the time involved virtually every female we knew, we hashed it out while throwing a softball back and forth. More than twenty-five years out of high school now, our arms are not as accurate as they once were, our breakable possessions somewhat more expensive—and we’re now the ones paying for them—and our problems no longer involve getting to a particular base with a particular girl. We’re both married, and believe we’ve already reached most of the important bases.
“What I don’t get is why someone from my own company would be blowing up my work on purpose,” Mahoney said as he whizzed a throw directly into my hands, necessitating no movement at all on my part, “What’s the motivation?”
“There are two possibilities,” I answered, having actually given this topic some thought while I was supposed to be writing an article on lap-top computers. “Either someone thinks they can advance in the company by making it look like you’re slipping . . .
“Or?” Mahoney was concentrating so hard he almost missed my throw, which was admittedly errant, and came close to dropping it on Warren, who as usual had abandoned the entire family he lived with and glued himself to Mahoney’s left calf the minute my best friend walked in the door. Yes, man’s best friend, but they don’t specify which man.
“Or, someone just hates your guts.”
“Well, that doesn’t seem likely. It must be the first one,” Mahoney said, tossing the ball casually at me and dropping it into my hands so effortlessly it was embarrassing when I couldn’t hold on.
“Clearly, no one could ever be annoyed with you.” The ball rolled a few feet, and I had to get up to retrieve it. For those of you keeping track at home, that last remark was sarcastic.
Mahoney, of course, took it seriously. “Obviously. So . . . we have to determine who would benefit from my apparent slippage.”
“That, and I have to figure out why Michael Huston’s wife thinks he was mixed up with Tony Soprano’s rabbi.” I tried my curveball on Mahoney, who managed to snare it just before it hit Warren in a most unfortunate part of his anatomy. Luckily, Warren had already been taken in for the customary surgery.
“We’re back to that? I thought you were going to turn this one over to the cops and lawyers, and protect that low-to-the-ground ass of yours.” Mahoney didn’t like shifting the discussion away from his problem, so he emphasized the difference in our height.
“Lori wanted me to,” I told him. “But she wasn’t going to give up herself.” He nodded.
“Can’t let her be the primary target,” he agreed. His throw was a little softer this time, protecting my hands.
“Besides,” I continued, “the victim’s wife called me herself and said she thinks he was involved with the Mob.” I decided on a one-hopper to Mahoney, and Warren practically had a heart attack when it bounced over his head into Mahoney’s hands.
“Why did she do that?”
“Only one in a series of interesting questions. But it seems to answer why Mr. Shapiro and his minions are concerned about my general nosiness.”
Mahoney smiled. “Minions?”
I was sitting too close to the door, so when it flew open, letting in the coldest air in the universe and, appropriately enough, Howard, the softball almost hit my brother-in-law in the face. The fact that I managed to snag the ball and save him any serious injury seemed not to impress Abby’s brother.
“Whoa!” he recoiled, the ball floating harmlessly into my hands. “What is going on?”
Andrea rushed in after him, not understanding why her husband was leaning backward. Dylan squeezed in behind them, sauntered past, and headed upstairs, where he would no doubt try to shame Ethan into letting the guest play on the PlayStation. He had no idea the force of nature he was up against.
(Yes, I know I had mentioned that Ethan was supposed to be banned from PlayStation for biting his cousin. But I figured that was Abby’s rule to enforce, and so far, she hadn’t done so.)
“Close the door!” I shouted. “We’re thinking!”
Andrea closed the door while Howard stood in her way, looking like he was going to ground us for a week before he realized it wasn’t his house (and he probably thanked whatever deity he worships for that). I threw the ball back to Mahoney, and Andrea, lacking any conditioned response for the situation, ran into the kitchen—and I mean ran —to see if Abby needed help making coffee, or something. It’s my belief that coffee-making is a one-person task, but it seemed like Millie Helper was always aiding Laura Petrie in that very endeavor, so what do I know?
Howard stood there and watched incredulously as we tossed the ball back and forth a couple more times. Neither Mahoney nor I advanced any theories about either of our dilemmas while Howard watched. It was intimidating.
“Hi, Howard,” Mahoney said.
“Hello,” the Imperious One answered, clearly having forgotten either Mahoney’s name or his entire existence since they’d last seen each other.
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