Everybody Wanted Room 623

by Cecil Murphey

  Ollie shrugged. “What’s the difference? It got you off the streets—”

  “You are sure right about that, Mr. Policeman. Even if you allowed your partner to pump up the evidence.” He stressed the last word so that all three syllables received the same inflection.

  Ollie shrugged again dismissively. “You know how it is—”

  “Oh, I know,” Chops said, “and I ain’t never expected an apology from you. And ’course, you ain’t big enough to give me none neither.”

  “I was just trying to do my duty,” Ollie said. “Just trying to do my duty like I’m trying to do right now.”

  “And may I assist you to do your duty?” Chops asked. He gently pushed Ollie into the wing chair and sat on the sofa across from him. “As a public-minded citizen in good standing in this community, how may I render assistance to the police department?”

  The change in his voice amazed me. He had come in sounding like some tough guy who bounded out of the Wide World of Wrestling or Atlanta’s inner city. But this time his tough, uneducated street talk was gone.

  “Okay, let’s cut through all the garbage and get this straight,” Ollie said. “I didn’t like you before, and I don’t like you now, despite the DNA—”

  “You know, that’s funny,” Chops said. “I didn’t like you before. Now I just feel sorry for you. You’re such a small man on the inside. An extremely small man.”

  Ollie flushed, but to his credit, he didn’t say anything.

  Chops spotted the refreshments, hopped off the sofa, and went over to the ice-filled box. He took out a bottle of water. I half expected him to bite off the end. He slowly turned the cap, peeled it off, and took several sips of water. Even in taking the water, there was both a gentleness and a grace in his movements that seemed so different from the man who had walked into the room only ten minutes earlier.

  “So you wanted me here to answer questions,” Chops said. “As a law-abiding citizen in good standing with a clean police record, I have come at your request.” He bowed from the waist. “How may I assist you?”

  “You called room 623 eight times in the last five days,” Ollie said.

  “I don’t know about eight times, but if you say so. After all, why would you lie to me? You represent the—”

  “You deny you’ve called room 623?”

  “No, I don’t deny anything. I called Stefan Lauber. I didn’t know what room he was in. When the receptionist answered, I asked her to connect me.”

  “Yeah, right,” Ollie said. “Okay, let that go for now. Why did you call?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “Maybe I’m just a curious kind of guy.” Ollie leaned forward, and anger filled his face.

  “Stefan Lauber was murdered last night,” Burton said. “Ollie Viktor is investigating the crime.”

  Chops paled when he heard the word murdered. He staggered backward and sat on the sofa next to me. “Stefan? Murdered?”

  “You didn’t know?”

  He shook his head. Tears filled his eyes, but he said only, “Stefan? Stefan? But why?”

  “Tell us about the phone calls,” Ollie said. The anger had disappeared from his face and voice. I think he believed Chops.

  “I can’t believe . . . I just can’t—”

  “Sorry if I can’t give you time to mourn,” Ollie said, “but this is a murder investigation, and—”

  “Stop it,” I said to Ollie. “Can’t you see the shock on his face? Even you can give him a minute to absorb this.”

  “Whatever,” Ollie said, but I felt he heard me and was ashamed at his behavior.

  For perhaps a full minute no one said anything. We just stared at Chops. If we hadn’t been watching, I think he would have broken down and cried. I didn’t know anything about the relationship between Stefan and Chops, but it was obvious the man cared for the late Stefan Lauber.

  “He had planned to help me—help us—with a project in Decatur.” Chops said the words so softly I strained to hear him.

  “What kind of project?” Ollie asked.

  “Does it matter to you? It was legitimate. That’s all you need to know.”

  “Make it easy on yourself, Chops. Just tell me what I want to know.”

  Chops Harrison stared out the large window for several seconds as if debating whether to speak. He sighed and mumbled, “Okay.”

  “Okay, what?” Ollie said.

  “I have nothing to hide. It’s just so—so—” with his large right hand, Chops wiped both of his eyes before he turned his face toward the detective and said, “You see, I met Stefan when he was in prison up in Floyd County.” He turned to me and smiled. “I was only a visitor. I came to see Too Tall Tom Tomlinson, one of my boys who had messed up. I thought he was clean, but police caught him. Two honest policemen. Too Tall was slamming ice.”

  “He was injecting ice—the purest form of meth,” I whispered to Burton. In the past year, I heard that term a lot at our center.

  Burton nodded his thanks, because he obviously hadn’t understood.

  “Yeah, and it was a tough one and his second knockdown, but Too Tall Tomlinson is going to make it this time. He’s now in rehab, voluntarily.”

  “Okay, so you were at Floyd County,” Ollie said, “and that’s where I lost the trail.”

  “So while I was there, I met a neat dude from Africa named Jason Omore. I can give you his cell number if—”

  “Jason is here at the inn,” I said.

  “Really? I’ll look him up. Great man of God. You know him, huh?”

  “We do,” Burton said. “And we like him.”

  “How could you diss him? Mr. Policeman, Omore and I, man, we started rappin’ about things, you know, and we got pretty tight, and he introduced me to Stefan. We chilled for maybe ten minutes.”

  Chops had reverted to his street talk and I wondered if he had done it to antagonize Ollie.

  “How long ago was that?” Ollie asked.

  “Don’t know. Don’t matter now, do it?”

  “Just answer,” Ollie said. His voice sounded angry again.

  As I listened to the two men, it seemed as if they both shifted from one style to another. Ollie’s hand shook just a little more than it had before Chops entered the room.

  Chops closed his eyes as if in thought and said quietly, “Maybe a year ago. Yeah, just a year. After that I wrote Too Tall a letter every week.”

  “Yeah, right, of course,” said Ollie. “You wrote—actually wrote—letters?”

  “Excuse me,” Chops said, “but I have earned a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Georgia. That’s what I do now. I’m a journalist. In case you don’t know what that means, I’m the assistant bureau chief for the AP. Uh, sir, that’s the Associated Press.”

  “Well, miracles happen, don’t they?” Ollie said.

  “Indeed, they do,” Chops said. “And by the grace of God, I’m one of them.”

  “Okay, point well taken,” Ollie said. “Tell me more about the project in Decatur to which Lauber was purportedly going to offer help.”

  “Oh, it was more than an offer,” Chops said and genuinely smiled. The glint in his eyes had returned, and his voice softened. “We finalized plans to set up a series of homes there. It’s a new concept in children’s homes—what we used to call orphanages. Instead of one large, institutional setting, we have decided to set up group homes. They’re clustered together, but we will have such group clusters in other parts of the country. He had already put up a grant for a similar cluster near Auburn, Alabama.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I got it,” Ollie said. “Just tell us about the place in Decatur.”

  “Stefan bought eight houses. One is built and ready to move into. That was to be his house. The second is—”

  “What’s the address?” I asked.

  “It’s off Columbia Drive, and the street is called Royal Path Court.”

  “And is the house—the one already built—numbered 623?” I asked.

&
nbsp; “Exactly. Yes, that’s the one. Have you been there?”

  “Okay, okay, I understand. I know everything I need to know, okay?” an extremely irritated Ollie said. “Can we just stay with basics?”

  “First I don’t tell you enough; now I tell you too much,” Chops said. I saw the faintest hint of a smile. This man was bright and about ten yards ahead of the detective.

  “And the phone calls?” I watched Ollie’s face; he concealed all trace of emotion while Chops spoke. “Why did you call him?”

  “All the calls had to do with minor problems and details about the program. We wanted to name the cluster after him, but he refused. We finally decided to name it after Jason Omore.” He turned to Burton and said, “His name—Omore—means a happy person. So we’re calling the venture Happy Face Homes.”

  “And you can prove all this?” Ollie asked.

  “You’ll have to ask Jason. He told me that was the meaning of his name.”

  Ollie slammed his fist on the arm of the chair. “You know what I meant.”

  “Oh, that? Yes, I can prove it about as well as you can disprove it,” Chops said. “I have all the paperwork, but I don’t record telephone calls.”

  “Too bad the government will have to take it all away,” Ollie said. “Lauber used stolen money, you know.”

  “No, he didn’t,” Chops said. “That’s what part of the phone calls were about, especially the last one.”

  “Okay, so tell me,” Ollie said, and his voice was about as sneering as I had ever heard it. “And try talking loud, will you? If you shout, the argument becomes even more convincing.”

  I’m not normally an angry person, but I wanted to get up and slap Ollie’s face about ten times. And if he still kept that smug look, I would volunteer for another ten times.

  To my surprise, Chops didn’t react. “You may or may not know that Stefan had been an investment broker. He started out totally legit and made a lot of big bucks doing that. Good money. In fact, extremely good money.”

  “Oh, but of course,” Ollie said. “Another innocent in the world.”

  “I refer to the period prior to the diamond robbery. We can prove his honesty. I investigated him thoroughly before I became involved. For example, Stefan invested fifty-five thousand dollars in a start-up company close to thirty years ago—I think it was around 1977 or 1978, but I’d have to check my research. You see, another factor is that I wanted to write his biography. He refused but said maybe one day. So I collected information and—”

  “Yeah, I got that,” Ollie said. “About 1977 or 1978, what happened? I can hardly wait to hear this.”

  “Good, because it’s a great story. Stefan invested in a start-up company owned by two guys named Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank. They called it the MB Associates—”

  “Okay, so—”

  “So they later changed the name to Home Depot. Maybe you’ve heard of them. That fifty-five grand has made so much money that maybe a year before the diamond robbery, he sold his share of the company, reinvested in Google.com, and—”

  “Oh, I am so impressed.”

  “Ollie, cut it out, okay?” Burton said softly. “Let’s just listen.”

  “Yes, I have all the paper trail, and furthermore, three months ago Stefan sold his Google stock—all legitimately owned—and put every penny into a nonprofit organization. I’m on the board. Am I making sense now?”

  “But again, of course you can prove—”

  “Let me finish, sir, please. You see, Stefan was involved in the grand larceny deal—the theft of diamonds.”

  “And a murder,” Ollie said. “Don’t forget that. If he was guilty of the diamond theft, he’s tied in with and just as guilty of the murder.”

  “We can discuss that later. I don’t believe the diamonds and the murder are the same case, but that’s not the point I wish to make. May I continue?” Without waiting for consent, Chops got up and walked in a small circle, his huge arms behind his back. “Stefan was involved in the theft of the diamonds and was ready to make a full confession.”

  “And we know the diamonds were never recovered,” I said quietly.

  “That’s because Stefan had them.”

  “You’re positive?” Burton asked.

  “Absolutely. He told me. I didn’t see them, but I believed him. That is, he told me in such a way that I did not have legal knowledge because—as a good, law-abiding citizen and registered voter in DeKalb County—I would have felt it was my duty to go to the police. But I knew and he knew I understood.”

  “And the purpose of your last call was what?” Burton asked.

  “Stefan was ready to accept any further punishment for the diamonds and to return them. That wasn’t even the issue. The issue was the nonprofit organization. He wanted to make sure there was no smear or connection. It’s all documented. I mean legally documented to show that it’s clean money.”

  “Okay, yeah, maybe, so tell me about the diamonds,” Ollie said.

  “I don’t know anything except this: He planned to return them.”

  “Oh, right—of course he did.”

  “That’s what Jason Omore told us,” I said, but Ollie acted as if he hadn’t heard me.

  Ollie started to get up, but Chops still walked around the room in his tight little circles. The detective settled back into his chair. Both of his hands showed slight tremors now. “So Lauber got religion in prison and—”

  “Despite your caustic and somewhat negative attitude,” Chops said, “such transformations do take place.”

  I smiled. He was no longer talking like someone from the inner city. The more Chops talked, the more I liked him; the more he talked, the less I liked Ollie. He talked the way I would have in his place. I not only enjoy being a smart-mouth; I like other smart-mouths.

  “Okay, let’s move on to the return of the diamonds. How do you know?”

  “Simple. I was to be the go-between.”

  Eleven

  It took a few seconds for Burton, Ollie, and me to react to Chop’s statement. “Yes, I was the go-between to return the diamonds. Not to deliver them personally, you understand. I was the go-between to work this out with the police and the insurance company. He had someone else in mind to actually deliver the diamonds.”

  “And Lauber planned to return the diamonds? Just because he had a change of heart?” The disbelief was in Ollie’s voice.

  “Yes, because he had a change of heart,” Chops said. “Stefan asked me to come here today.” He looked at his watch. “Actually, it was to have been at 4:00 today—in less than an hour.” He turned his back to us. But I saw the tears spilling out. He pulled out a handkerchief and blew his nose. He walked over to the window as if to stare down at the lake.

  “Okay, let’s say I believe you—”

  Chops turned around. “You believe me, do you? I tell you what I would like you to do, Mr. Viktor. When you go to your home tonight, I want you to get down on your knees, look deeply into your heart, and ponder how little your opinion means to me.”

  I roared with laughter.

  Chops winked at me. “In short, I don’t care if you believe me. You didn’t believe me when I was innocent of a serious crime; I expect nothing has changed.”

  “Let’s say I believe you,” Ollie said. “Where are the diamonds?”

  “I have no idea. Stefan didn’t tell me. I assumed they were in his room here at the hotel.”

  “The room has been searched,” I said.

  “At least twice and also by the police,” Burton said.

  “Searched and ransacked,” I added.

  “Really? What happens now?” Chops asked. “If you don’t have the diamonds to return, there’s nothing I need to negotiate. Is that correct?”

  “Don’t leave town—”

  “I love it when you say things like that,” I said, cutting off Ollie. “It sounds so TVish. Aren’t you also supposed to tell him that you expect to be in touch with him?”

  “Get out of here,”
he said to Chops. He turned his back on him and glared at me. “I don’t think you like me very much, do you?”

  “You’re extremely perceptive.” I gave him my best smile.

  “I’m only trying to do my job,” Ollie said. “Give me a break.”

  Immediately I felt bad for being smart-mouthed. “You’re right. I apologize for my rudeness.”

  “Now what?” Burton asked. “Anyone have any idea what we do now?”

  “I think we need to wait,” Ollie said. “I expect at least two more visitors before the day is over.”

  “Who might they be?” I asked.

  “Lucas and somebody named Scott Bell-James—”

  “Is that the man in 621?” I asked.

  Instead of answering me, Ollie said, “I’ve left messages for both of them.”

  I didn’t want to sit in the room with Ollie and just wait. I decided to take a walk beside the lake. When I announced my intentions, Burton asked if he could accompany me. I readily agreed. Ollie said he had phone calls to make anyway.

  Frankly, I also wanted to get away from Ollie for a few minutes. He was quixotic—one minute he acted like a normal person, and then he’d shift and act like a man on drugs who was waiting for the next fix. I didn’t think he was an addict, but his habits were peculiar.

  The sun was a white ball, and even though it was mid-afternoon and I put on my sunglasses, I still had to squint. Part of the reason was the glare from the lake itself. In the warm afternoon sun, the impatiens were clumps of red, white, pink, and orange. They seemed to peek out from the immense variety of monkey grass and hostas. A small sign boasted of sixty-four varieties of hostas, and I didn’t doubt it. I had never seen such a variety in stripes and solids, variegated and in colors ranging from blue-green to chartreuse.

  When we reached the Southern Herb Haven (or so the sign declared), I wanted to pause and inhale the aromas that teased my nose: rosemary, sage, mint, the peppery scent of savory, and the fragrance of sweet marjoram. “Oh, this is wonderful, isn’t it?”

  “It’s nice,” Burton said, which made it obvious that flowers and spices weren’t high on his list of favorite things.