Bitter Business

by Hartzmark, Gini

“I’m glad you’re still here,” I said as Elliott slid across the ancient vinyl to make room for me beside him.

  “Are you kidding?” said Blades. “Of course we waited. Elliott told me you were picking up the check.”

  Elliott grinned hugely and motioned to the waitress that I needed coffee.

  “Breakfast is a small price if you tell me what’s going on with this bottle of perfume. Jack Cavanaugh is busy beating himself up over the fact that it was originally sent to Peaches and he decided to give it to Dagny. But what I want to know is whether there’s any evidence that the cyanide was already in the perfume bottle when it arrived?”

  A waitress appeared and filled my cup with coffee. I took a sip. It was surprisingly good.

  “Here’s the lowdown,” said Blades, laying down his fork and knife and briefly applying his napkin to his lips. “The lab turned up cyanide in a one-ounce bottle of perfume taken from the medicine cabinet of the bathroom in Dagny Cavanaugh’s office at Superior Plating and Specialty Chemicals. The brand of the perfume is Forever, and according to Jack Cavanaugh, it was sent to him at the office by a sales rep named Chip Polarski as a present for his wife, Peaches. When we dusted the bottle for prints we came up with a partial that might belong to Jack Cavanaugh, but it’s such a small fragment the lab says they can’t be sure. But they lifted clear prints from both of the dead women.

  “According to Jack Cavanaugh’s secretary, the perfume arrived in a cardboard box. I’ve got a couple of uniforms over there right now turning the place upside down in case by some miracle the box wasn’t thrown out. Not that I’d hold out much hope of it being of much use as evidence after it’s been kicked around the plant for a couple of weeks.”

  “Fortunately,” interjected Elliott, offering me a piece of his pecan roll, “the secretary kept the card that arrived with the perfume. It was just this guy Polarski’s business card with ‘best wishes’ scribbled on the back.”

  “No signature?” I asked.

  “Nope,” Blades replied, “and no prints on the card. Not that you’d expect any. Paper is a shitty surface for lifting prints.”

  “But you’re leaving out the best part,” Elliott complained.

  “I was going to let you tell her.”

  “That’s okay—you tell her.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Would one of you just spit it out already,” I demanded. The two of them together were no better than a couple of little kids.

  “We just stopped and paid a call on Mr. Polarski, the chemical rep who supposedly sent the perfume in the first place,” Elliott replied.

  “And?” I prodded.

  “And he denies sending it.”

  “I don’t know what that proves,” I replied, disappointed. “If you had sent someone poisoned perfume, wouldn’t you deny it when the cops came calling?”

  “In the first place, I believe him.”

  “And in the second place?” I asked. I couldn’t believe it—this was like pulling teeth.

  “In the second place Jack Cavanaugh remembers receiving the perfume a few days after the anniversary party that Dagny threw for them on the tenth of February. Not only that, but we checked with his secretary and Jack dictated a thank-you note to this guy Polarski on the sixteenth. Well, according to Polarski, he was in the hospital having hip-replacement surgery from February sixth through the twenty-fourth. According to his wife and his doctor, there is no way he could even go to the bathroom without help during the entire month—not to mention go out, buy, and mail a bottle of perfume. Of course we’ll follow it up, but I’m inclined to believe him.”

  A beeper went off and both men instinctively went for their belts. The page was for the homicide detective. While he excused himself to use the phone Elliott cut me off another piece of pecan roll.

  “I don’t know if I told you,” he said, “but a check of personnel records at Superior Plating turned up diddly. No litigation, no likely cause for a grudge, and no obvious psychopaths. Also, Joe and I both did a thorough background check on both women—Cecilia and Dagny. Dagny checks out completely. As far as I can make out, she was exactly what everyone thought she was. Did you know that she was pulling down two hundred and ten thousand dollars a year in salary? Joe got her financials. She was a sharp investor, too.”

  “I got a letter from the lawyer Cecilia Dobson’s family hired,” I said, mentally kicking myself. I had wanted to mention the possibility of a lawsuit to Jack Cavanaugh, but in the face of his distress, I’d forgotten. “They’re threatening a wrongful-death action.”

  “What did you expect?”

  “I guess I just didn’t expect it quite so soon.”

  “There’s nothing like the promise of big bucks to spur people to action.”

  Detective Blades came back to the table.

  “Guess what, boys and girls?” he inquired genially. I couldn’t help but notice that there was a spring in his step and mischief in his eyes.

  “What?” Elliott and I chorused.

  “They found the box. Cavanaugh’s secretary put it away in a closet in case she ever had to mail something small. According to the uniform, she hasn’t touched it since.”

  “Now what?” I demanded excitedly.

  “Now the uniforms wait for the guys from the crime lab to get off their coffee breaks and get their asses over to Superior Plating to dust it for prints,” Blades reported, calmly helping himself to a piece of toast and starting to butter it. “Then they’ll bag it and tag it and dump it on my desk. Haven’t you ever heard the phrase ‘the wheels of justice grind slow, but...’ hey, Elliott, how does the rest of it go?”

  “Stop giving the lady a hard time,” said Elliott with mock severity, “especially since she’s paying for your damned breakfast.”

  “Before we get too excited over this whole perfume thing,” I said, cutting into the little Laurel and Hardy routine they were getting going, “would someone kindly tell me how we can even be sure that the poison in the perfume is the same poison that ended up killing the two women? I was talking this over with someone I know who is a chemist.” I felt Elliott stiffen beside me at this reference to Stephen. “He says that it wouldn’t be fatal if it was absorbed through the skin. Since it strikes me as unlikely that the two of them were drinking it, where does all of this evidence about who did or did not send the perfume get us?”

  “Maybe nowhere. But right now it’s all we’ve got. I talked to Dr. Gordon at the medical examiner’s office about it. She wants to send the perfume to the FBI lab in Quantico for testing, see if maybe there’s something else in it in addition to the cyanide.”

  “How long will that take?” I demanded.

  “Three to six weeks, but she says she’ll sit on them and see if she can get them to turn it around faster.”

  “I don’t believe it,” I groaned, my frustration mounting. “What the hell are they going to do with it that takes three weeks?”

  “From what Dr. Gordon tells me, the test only takes a couple of minutes, but it’s done on a very expensive, high-tech piece of equipment called a G-mass spectrometer that the FBI has only one of. It’s the waiting list to use the machine that runs the three to six weeks.”

  “If I can find you one somewhere else—in a research lab somewhere—could you release a sample to be tested?”

  “It would be up to Dr. Gordon. She’s the one who’s responsible for maintaining evidentiary integrity at this stage of the game.”

  “But if I could make arrangements for the perfume to be tested privately and could get Dr. Gordon’s permission, the police department would have no objections.”

  “Again,” Blades replied, “I can’t speak for the department. If it’s okay with Dr. G, it’s okay with me. Between the two of us, the sooner we know what else—if anything—was in that bottle, the better.”

  When I got to the office Cheryl informed me that Ken Kurlander had spent the better part of the morning in Skip Tillman’s office screaming bloody murder, claiming tha
t I had encouraged Dagny’s daughter, Claire, to change attorneys.

  “For God’s sake, Cheryl,” I moaned. “This is the absolute last thing I need to deal with today. Can’t Kurlander think of anything better to do—like retire?”

  “Mr. Tillman said he wants to see you in his office as soon as you get in. Also, there’s a pile of stuff on your desk chair that Daniel Babbage’s secretary, Madeline, says goes with the Superior Plating file.”

  “Wonderful. Why don’t you put it on the pile with the rest of the Superior Plating stuff I have no intention of reading. And while I’m tap-dancing in Tillman’s office, will you get Bob Halloran at Goodman Peabody over here today? Jack Cavanaugh’s finally given permission to get a valuation started on Superior Plating, so I’ll need you to pull a copy of their incorporation papers and any financials we have as well. And make sure that I call Stephen when I get back. I have to ask him for a favor on the Superior Plating file.”

  “When you’re through with your trip to the woodshed,” my secretary continued as she followed me down the hall, “Wesley Jacobs wants you to call him on Cragar Industries and Adam Beeson says he needs your opinion before three o’clock on that securities offering he sent you the memo on.”

  “What securities memo?” I asked, rounding the comer toward the managing partner’s office. Cheryl rolled her eyes heavenward and struck a dramatic pose of martyred secretarydom.

  “I’ll put it on the top of the pile.” She sighed.

  Having already frittered one hour away that morning in cop talk with Joe Blades and Elliott Abelman, I found the time wasted in Skip Tillman’s office unruffling Ken Kurlander’s feathers especially painful. The truly sickening part of the whole thing was that all three of us, including Tillman, who reportedly billed three hundred and eighty dollars an hour, would undoubtedly bill the time spent reinflating Ken Kurlander’s ego to the Superior Plating file. It was a perpetual mystery to me how the clients put up with it.

  Prodded by Cheryl, I managed to get Stephen Azorini on the phone about the G-mass spec test and the problem we were having getting the cyanide-laced bottle of perfume tested. It turned out that Azor Pharmaceuticals possessed no fewer than three G-mass spectrometers, any one of which Stephen was more than willing to put at our disposal. When I brought up the possible objections of the medical examiner’s office, Stephen merely took Dr. Gordon’s phone number and said, “Leave her to me.”

  The rest of the afternoon flew by. Bob Halloran at Goodman Peabody and I played at least six rounds of phone tag before actually speaking to each other. When we finally made contact I set up a meeting for six o’clock at my office. I also spent a couple of hours on Frostman Refrigeration, a deal I’d mentally filed as completely sewn up that suddenly showed alarming signs of coming unraveled. Between phone calls, I also sat down with a highly regarded third-year associate named Nora Masterson, who agreed to take on the matter of Claire’s estate.

  Elliott Abelman called at some point to report that the box that the perfume had been delivered in was made of plain brown corrugated cardboard. Furthermore, the package had arrived regular U.S. mail and was postmarked on February 12. While the exterior of the box was covered with the fingerprints of half of the U.S. postal service, the interior was negative for prints. The only item of any possible significance was that neither the address nor the return address had been written on the box by hand. Instead, one of Chip Polarski’s business cards, identical to the one that had been included with the perfume, had been taped to the upper-left-hand corner while one of Jack Cavanaugh’s business cards had served as the address of the intended recipient.

  I had no time to either absorb or contemplate the implications of any of this. I had less than two hours before the meeting with the investment bankers from Goodman Peabody. In desperation, I took the memo on the proposed securities offering that Adam Beeson had sent me more than a week before and read it in the ladies’ room on the couch usually reserved for typists with the vapors. By the time I flipped the cassette onto which I’d dictated what I hoped was a coherent legal opinion, Cheryl came to tell me that Stephen was on the phone, saying that it was urgent.

  “What is it?” I demanded, once I’d gotten to the phone and had Stephen on the line.

  “I need to see you for a few minutes,” Stephen said.

  “When?” I demanded.

  “Now.”

  I looked at my watch. The investment bankers from Goodman Peabody were due in just about an hour.

  “Has something happened with the Swiss,” I demanded, “or can it wait? I’ve got a meeting at six.”

  “It can’t wait, but it will only take ten minutes,” he replied cryptically.

  “What is it?” I demanded again.

  “I can’t tell you,” he replied. “You have to see it for yourself.”

  26

  It was raining, so naturally, every available taxi in the city of Chicago had vanished from the face of the earth. The address where Stephen had asked me to meet him was on the north end of the Magnificent Mile. From the number I figured it was either the Drake or the Mayfair Regent. As I made my way miserably up LaSalle Street, waving frantically at every yellow cab that passed, I wondered who or what it was that I had to see in person and not be told about over the phone.

  Finally, a cab pulled to the curb. There was already someone in it, an associate at the firm whose name I had once known but could no longer remember. He was on his way to a Bar Association function and had spotted me slogging through the rain. Out of either charity or an unwillingness to pass by an opportunity to suck up, he decided to stop and offer me a lift.

  By the time we got out of the loop, we were in the thick of rush hour and traffic on Michigan Avenue had coagulated to its usual near standstill in front of the Water Tower, so I thanked him and bailed out, deciding that I’d cover the last four blocks faster on foot. I dodged through the crowds of aggressively fashionable shoppers on Michigan Avenue like a running back.

  Stopping under the awning of the Drake, I scrabbled through my pocket for the scrap of paper on which I’d jotted the address that Stephen had given me. He wasn’t at the Drake. Sodden and out of breath, I continued walking toward the Mayfair Regent, reassuring myself that the numbers increased as I proceeded toward the lake. I stopped in front of the Mayfair Regent to check the number and was surprised to see that I still had a couple of buildings to go. Everything west of the Mayfair was residential—beautiful old buildings that had been built at the turn of the century, a quiet pocket of real grandeur set between Michigan Avenue and the lake.

  Fifty feet ahead of me I spotted Stephen standing beneath a dark blue awning. There was a woman at his side with whom he chatted amiably. No doubt expecting me to arrive by car, their eyes were fixed on the street.

  I was in a snappish mood, my feet were soaked, and I was feeling damp and overheated from running in my raincoat. Moreover, I was anxious about getting back to the office in rush hour in time for my six o’clock with the investment bankers.

  “Stephen, what is it?” I asked breathlessly, once I’d gotten close enough to speak. He held his hands out to pull me into the circle of their conversation.

  “Patty, this is Kate Millholland. Kate, Patty Malloy.”

  “Are we ready?” Patty inquired, pertly.

  “If it’s okay with you, I’d like to take her up alone,” he said.

  “Of course.” Patty smiled knowingly and handed Stephen a set of keys as I looked on, bewildered. “I’ll just wait for you downstairs.”

  “What is it?” I demanded. “Where are we going?”

  “You’ll see,” said Stephen, taking me by the arm and steering me into the building. The doorman snapped to attention and swung the door open for us, putting his gray-gloved hand to the bill of his cap and wishing us a good evening.

  After the wet dusk outside, the lobby of the building seemed bathed in a golden light. The walls were covered with butter-colored damask. A crystal chandelier glittered above an enorm
ous arrangement of yellow roses and calla lilies set on an antique pedestal table of carved rosewood. Very little had changed since I was a little girl.

  The elevator doors slid open silently and Stephen and I stepped in. My heart turned over when he pushed the button for twelve, but I did not say a word. My heart was beating absurdly fast and suddenly the air seemed thin— I knew exactly where I was going.

  When the doors opened I stepped out into the apartment that had been my home until just before my sixth birthday. Stephen turned the key in the door and I brushed past him to get inside. The place was completely empty and smelled vaguely of Murphy’s oil soap and old lady. I ran from room to room like a little girl, my high heels clattering on the parquet.

  It was an enormous apartment—eight bedrooms, if I remembered, with a formal double drawing room and a separate ballroom—in what was arguably the city’s most opulent address. Fourteen-foot ceilings and a wall of windows in the living room that seemed to actually own the lake. Every apartment took up an entire floor of the building, but my grandparents, who had once occupied the apartment upstairs, had given their apartment to my parents so that Mother could combine the two. They hired an architect and broke through the ceiling in the living room to accommodate a grand staircase and an upstairs portrait gallery.

  Whoever had lived there after us had done little to alter my mother’s decorating. There were so many things I remembered: the yellow chintz in the sunroom, the enormous six-burner restaurant range in the kitchen, the black-and-white checkerboard of linoleum on the floor. There was a dumbwaiter that still worked in the butler’s pantry, as did the bell system that was connected to the servants’ quarters, which were located in the basement of the building.

  I climbed the kitchen stairs that led to the second floor, taking them two at a time. I hurried past the rooms once occupied by my parents, the nanny, and my older brother, Teddy. The door to my old bedroom was closed. I turned the handle and stepped inside. The wallpaper was still the same—Regency stripes of Wedgwood blue on a white background; Mother believed that anything that smacked of the nursery was in poor taste. I walked into the closet and turned on the light. There on the inside of the doorjamb were the tiny penciled marks that set out my growth through the years.