Nick was thankful that they had remained friends after college. Alex had become one of the few constants in his life, a supportive force through his hiring as a police officer, the death of his father, his struggle to establish himself as an heir finder. When he had made the decision to expand the business, she had been the obvious choice as partner, and the arrangement had worked out well. Although they had experienced some shaky moments back in college, Nick felt the relationship had grown into a friendship they never could have realized while in school. Just maybe they were coming to understand each other after all.
Alex entered the room and pulled a chair next to his bed. She had changed into an oversized T-shirt and shorts. The shirt hung on her a bit lopsidedly, revealing a shiny bronze shoulder.
“So I suppose Doug’s just a little excited about all this,” she commented.
“Who, Doug? Excited about twenty-two million? C’mon—no big deal to him.”
“Yeah, right. He must be running around the office like a chicken with its head cut off.”
“Sounds like me you’re describing.”
She smiled. “My mother says hello, Nick.”
“How is she?”
“Fine. Still in the same dump. Soon as we solve this one, I’m getting her out of there.”
“She kind of likes it there, I thought.”
“That’s a load of crap. She thinks she does. I tried to get her to move in here with me, but she’s stubborn. Doesn’t want to impose.” She shook her head. “I guarantee you I’m getting her out of there soon. I don’t care if I’ve got to tie her up and carry her out myself, I’ll do it.”
Nick nodded and said nothing. He remembered how things were. Alex’s mother still lived in Spanish Harlem and worked long hours in a garment house in downtown Manhattan. He knew Alex still sent her a portion of every check she made.
“I really want this case, Nick.”
“You and me both. But we’re up against the big boys here, Alex. I bet we’re not the only ones who bribed that attorney. We’ve got a shot, but don’t go booking any cruises.”
“Hell with the cruises. I’d love to buy my mom a house, get her out of that hellhole.”
“You can buy her a castle if we solve it.”
“She already lives in a dungeon.” She leaned forward toward him. “You know what’s strange? Why’s a guy who’s worth twenty-two million living in Hudson? There’s no way I’d live there if I had that kind of money.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” said Nick, sitting up in bed. “Hudson isn’t some well-to-do community, is it?”
“Not really. It’s kind of changing. All these ritzy antique shops have cropped up on the main strip, so you have all these yuppy types coming in to shop on the weekends. But overall it’s still an old town with a lot of crime and unemployment.”
“It doesn’t add up. Take it a step further, though. Where’d he get all this money? As a glassworker? I don’t think so. Unless we’re talking about fourteen-karat glass. Maybe he was a jewelry broker.”
“Maybe he won the lottery.”
“Can we check?”
She shrugged. “There must be some sort of a state lottery headquarters. I don’t know if they’ll release any information, though.”
“Worth a shot,” said Nick, lying back down. “About the only thing we can conclude about the old man so far is that he was a big-time loner. If he’s got family, none of them seem to care about him very much. Either that or they’ve just lost contact with him.”
Alex failed to stifle a yawn. “So what’s the plan in the morning?”
“I’ll be up at six. I want to see Jacobs’s neighborhood, take a look at his house. How about I go talk to his neighbors and you go visit that woman Bonnie?”
“Sure. I hope my PI’s reliable. He said he would have that address by seven.”
“Call him by seven-fifteen if we don’t hear from him.”
“Yes, master. Anything else?”
“Sure. How about finishing that massage?”
“Your masseuse is worn out.” She mussed his hair with her hand and got up. “Close your eyes and pray for some heirs.”
Nick watched her legs appreciatively as she walked from the room. He clicked the nightstand light off and turned back to the ceiling. An eighty-seven-year-old dead man stared down at him in the dark.
Gerald Raymond Jacobs—who were you?
There was an incongruity here, this pairing of a seemingly humble immigrant worker and an eight-figure fortune. Something odd was buried in his grave.
Castleton awoke at 5 A.M. In recent years, he had allowed himself to sleep in until six-thirty, but the appearance of the Jacobs case mandated a return to the old ways. In the office at 6 A.M. to review the current probates. And today there was only one.
Richard Borg could read it in Castleton’s face. Borg was a former Detroit police officer whose yearnings for private investigation had driven him to General Inquiry some twenty-one years earlier. As Castleton’s chief researcher and senior associate, he was the one Castleton sought out when his brilliant mind was stymied. And today Borg could see the tension. Even during the million-dollar Luchetti case in Italy several years ago, Castleton had remained at his usual ease. The old man had his game face on now.
“What do we have, Richard?” Castleton asked sharply.
Borg hoped his news would loosen him up. “It’s looking like the old guy was never married in the States. We’ve checked the marriage indexes in forty-eight states, as well as Puerto Rico and Guam. Nothing. I’m still waiting for responses from my Delaware and Wyoming people. What I’m really anxious for is a callback from our man in the Federal Immigration Archives.”
“Jacobs was an immigrant?”
“Looks that way. Immigrants from the twenties and thirties who came to America alone and unmarried statistically had very low marriage rates once they were here. This matches with Jacobs. Once we get our hands on the immigration record, we’ll have an English port of departure. Then our people in the UK will do the genealogy.”
Castleton twirled the hairs of his mustache thoughtfully. “When are Lake and Risso due to arrive in New York?”
“They’re already there. This morning they’re approaching the neighbors.” He reached over his desk and found a paper. “Here’s the obituary.”
Castleton took it and read. “Not much here.”
“That’s good. Merchant must be pretty lost right about now.”
Castleton walked silently to the third-floor windows, his arms folded behind his back. “So are we certain no other companies are on this?”
“I know that Hogue and McClain aren’t. If they don’t know about it, I doubt anybody else would. I checked up on Merchant’s office. His secretary says he’s out of town.”
“He’s in New York already.”
“He’s in way over his head, Lawrence. Jacobs is looking like one tough nut. No wife, no children, no family stepping forward. I guarantee Merchant isn’t finding much.”
Castleton had his chin buried in his hand as he paced in front of Borg. “Sounds like we’re dealing with an alias.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised. We’ll know soon.”
“Omar Morales was an alias. Somehow Merchant found that out before we did.” He stopped and looked at Borg for a response.
“I don’t see any parallels besides that. Lawrence, Merchant doesn’t have some special knack for uncovering fake identities. You said yourself he got damn lucky with Morales. I can think of at least a dozen other cases involving aliases which we landed. Where was he for those?”
“He can’t get that lucky again.”
“He doesn’t have people in England. That’s where this is going.”
Castleton rubbed his chin and looked thoroughly sour. “Once Lake and Risso talk to the neighbors, I want one of them to follow Merchant. We need to know what he’s up to.”
“Follow him? Jesus, Lawrence—”
“Don’t fight me, Richard. I’m not
taking any chances here. We know where his partner Moreno lives in Albany, right? I want a tail on that son of a bitch today.”
Borg nodded and reached for the phone.
Blue sky had suddenly torn a hole in the gray morning clouds of Albany. A thick-bearded, middle-aged man sat in Washington Park with his hands deep in his coat pockets. He smoked a cigarette and watched disapprovingly as an old woman tossed handfuls of seeds to an army of pigeons. He couldn’t stand the flying rats, and he hated people who treated them like pets. He was angry that he had to sit and watch this disgusting display, but he had agreed upon the arrangement.
His name was Kragen, and he had driven all the way from his home in Brooklyn Heights for this special early morning meeting. His contact had told him to be at the park at 6 A.M. and to wait on the bench nearest the lake. He thought the cloak-and-dagger stuff was unnecessary, but it amused him in an irritating kind of way, and as long as money factored into the equation he would of course play along.
At ten minutes past the hour, a figure holding a briefcase walked casually toward him along the paved walkway by the lake. Kragen straightened up a bit on the bench and purposely looked away from the approaching stranger. Just an innocent early morning stroller, he thought—to anyone else’s eyes. He flicked his burning cigarette butt away and waited. He wasn’t particularly nervous, but something about this group always made him feel strangely tense. His gun was in his coat. You never knew.
The visitor reached him and sat on the opposite side of the wooden bench. Several seconds passed before the new arrival spoke.
“We have something else for you.”
Kragen nodded and looked at his shoes. The two of them watched the pigeon woman dump the remains of her paper bag at her feet as a hundred gray wings flapped about her. She stood muttering in the center of the mess, watching her babies eat.
“What is it?” asked Kragen. He knew the man was getting to that, but he was tiring of the dramatic pauses.
“Within the next day or so, the house in Hudson will be emptied. Everything will be loaded up and taken away. We want you to simply watch the house for a day or two until it’s cleared out. Send the same two men as before. Can you have them there by noon?”
“No problem. All you want them to do is watch the place?”
“That’s all.”
“Are you expecting anything unusual to happen?”
“No. It’s just a precaution. Just make sure it stays secure at all times.”
“No problem.”
The man reached for the briefcase and opened it on his lap. He found a thick manila envelope and handed it to Kragen without looking. “As agreed upon. That’s for Hudson and the city job.”
Kragen didn’t bother to count it. As weird as these characters were, they had always been reliable when it came to payday.
The man stood. Kragen looked up at him and studied the spectacled, bland face. He wasn’t intimidated, but something about these people was just plain spooky.
“Have them there by noon.”
“You got it, buddy.”
The man nodded stiffly and walked away down the concrete. When he disappeared from sight, Kragen got up and walked back through the silent trees to his car.
CHAPTER
6
NICK HAD NEVER been through Hudson before. He consulted his map and took Mill Street on the northern edge of town to Harry Howard Avenue, and after two errant passes found the street sign he was seeking.
Michael Drive was off Michael Court in the northeastern corner of Hudson, about as far from the river as one could be without leaving the city limits. Nick wasn’t surprised about the locale. One of the more isolated parts of town, Jacobs’s neighborhood was far from the commercial strip of downtown, a dead-end street rarely frequented by anyone but residents. Knowing what he did of Jacobs, it seemed appropriate.
Making a sharp right onto Michael Court, Nick realized just how excited he was. But nervous. Neighbors could be a pivotal source of information—or a huge waste of time. Getting them to talk usually didn’t pose a problem. The trick lay in finding someone who actually had information worth hearing.
He drove to the end of the street, reaching the ninety-degree turn to Michael Drive. He parked on the corner of Michael Court and dragged a sleeve across his brow. It was 8:30 A.M. and a muggy seventy-five degrees. He was glad to be getting his visit over with before the mercury could climb any higher.
He stepped from the car and walked casually around the corner to Michael Drive. Overall the neighborhood was more impressive than he had expected. The homes were actually a curious mix of shabby Victorians and larger, more elegant Greek Revivals. The lawns were neat and spacious, the streets wide and tree-lined. It appeared to be a quiet neighborhood devoid of much traffic, a place where a barking dog might pose the most serious threat to the pleasant stillness of the air. Pleasant enough, thought Nick, but still odd. A perfect neighborhood perhaps for someone who didn’t want anyone to know he was a millionaire.
He headed north on Michael Drive, scanning each home. It was hard to feel inconspicuous walking on a dead-end street, but he was doing his best. He stuck his hands in his pockets. Outside of a couple of joggers running the opposite way, the sidewalks were barren. Just another Friday morning.
Gerald Jacobs’s house was the fourth from the corner, a two-story white and gray colonial with large windows and a prominent brick chimney. It was one of the nicest on the block, albeit a bit neglected looking. The paint was cracked and peeling in large sections, and the front yard was unkempt, weeds encroaching over a stone walkway that led to the front porch. The shrubs and bushes adjoining the front stairs were overgrown and untrimmed. Gardening didn’t appear to have been the old man’s favorite pastime.
He walked slowly along the sidewalk, his eyes on the house. What he saw wasn’t a home—it was nothing more than a giant, double-floored treasure chest, not full of gold or precious stones, but secrets—the glimmering, private gems of a wealthy recluse’s life. He frowned. Everything he needed was probably in that house.
He approached the building to the right of Jacobs’s house. All neighborhoods shared one characteristic—residents normally loved to talk about each other, especially the strange ones. From all indications, Jacobs may have been the oddball on the block. He needed to play off any possible animosities.
Nick sidestepped a small boy playing on the front steps and pressed the front doorbell. A woman of about forty quickly opened the door.
“I hope you’re not selling anything,” she said, pointing a stubby finger at a brass NO SOLICITORS sign affixed to the door frame.
“No, I’m not, ma’am. My name’s Nick, I’m a skip-tracer with the credit bureau of New York. I’ve been trying unsuccessfully to contact your next-door neighbor, Mr. Jacobs. I was hoping you might have some idea where he is.”
“I’ve got an idea all right. They pulled him out of there about a week ago.”
“Pulled him out? Is he . . .?”
She nodded. “As a doornail. What’s this all about?”
“Mr. Jacobs owes a number of creditors a little bit of money.”
“You don’t say,” she said, suddenly interested. “Well, what is it you need to know?”
Nick smiled slightly. A busybody—the investigator’s best friend. “How long did you know Mr. Jacobs and what did you know about him?”
“Well, I tell you, George and I have been here for nineteen years now, and Mr. Jacobs moved in about three years ago. I don’t know that we even exchanged three words with the old grouch. He was a strange one. Liked to keep to himself, real unsociable. The kind of grumpy old man who wouldn’t wave back if you waved at him. You know, the type who’d turn off all his lights on Halloween just so the kids would leave him alone. He just wanted nothing to do with his neighbors.”
Small wonder, thought Nick. “So you really didn’t know much about him . . .”
“I didn’t know a damn thing about him,” she said. “And that was ju
st fine with me. I don’t know what his problem was. Never waved, never said hello. Just crazy if you ask me. Makes you wonder who showed at his funeral.”
“Did you ever see anyone visit him? Any friends or next of kin?”
“Oh, who’d want to? I never ever saw anyone visit that man. As far as I could see, he was all alone. That’s the way he wanted it, I guess. Stranger than strange.”
Nick was convinced she knew nothing. He turned to leave. “Thanks for your time.”
“So Jacobs owed some money, huh?” she asked after him. “How much?”
“Nothing to get excited about,” he replied, not looking back.
Five remarkably similar interviews later, Nick opened his car door and collapsed onto the seat. He hadn’t expected it to be easy, but he was getting nowhere fast. No one had any clues, any leads. The man was a complete question mark, as mysterious an individual as he had ever investigated. He leaned his head back against the headrest and thought of Alex. Her meeting with Bonnie was suddenly looking absolutely pivotal.
He stared over the steering wheel and frowned. All the answers were in that house. Short of breaking and entering, he didn’t see much hope in getting a peek.
He stepped from the car and walked back around to Jacobs’s home. He paused, then strode up the cracked stone walkway leading to the deserted house. Miss Busybody was probably watching from behind her curtains, but that couldn’t be helped. He stepped up to the porch. Wiping what he assumed to be the living room window with his hand, he narrowed his eyes and peered inside. A thin white curtain obscured his view, and he couldn’t see anything but vague, dark shapes. The furnishings seemed to be in place. He approached the front door and tried the knob, gave it a little shake. Flimsy, weak wood. Not even a dead bolt. God, this was tempting.
The Heir Hunter Page 5