Firm Ambitions

by Michael A. Kahn

  “Listen carefully,” I told Ann. “We’re not going to say anything about Uncle Harry to the police. Not yet. If we’re lucky, there’ll be another can of cyanide in Uncle Harry’s box.”

  “Lucky?”

  “It makes it easier to argue that someone set you up, that someone planted that can of cyanide. That stuff is hard to buy. If there already was a can in Uncle Harry’s box, there’d be no reason for you to go through all the trouble of trying to buy another can. It helps show that you were set up.”

  She was staring at me, barely listening. Suddenly her face contorted in anguish. “Do you believe me, Rachel?”

  I squeezed her hands. “Yes. But we have to convince the others—the police, the bail judge, maybe the prosecutor.” And, I said to myself, a jury, God forbid.

  Her eyes went dull again. “Ask Richie. Maybe he’ll know what’s in the box.”

  I didn’t tell Ann what else the police had found in the white powder at the bottom of the can of cyanide: one half of a yellow capsule. It was the same make as the eleven yellow capsules in Andros’s pill bottle that were filled with cyanide powder. That news could wait until after I had a chance to see what Uncle Harry had put in the box.

  “I can’t remember what I wrote in that letter,” Ann said. “Did I really threaten to hurt him?”

  She was referring to the angry letter she’d sent to Andros. It was postmarked the day she got back from Las Vegas. From what I had been able to piece together in my ride to the police station with Poncho Israel, the discovery of that letter in Andros’s apartment had changed Ann’s status in the homicide investigation from photo album curiosity to possible suspect.

  “Not specifically,” I told her as I opened my briefcase. “Detective Israel made a copy for me.”

  I handed her the photocopy of her letter. Although it was unsigned, it was on her personalized stationery and was clearly in her handwriting: I absolutely cannot BELIEVE you could be such a TOTAL HEARTLESS JERK. I am not one of your bimbos, MISTER! Forget it! You are SO TACKY! I will not ALLOW you to USE me…or anyone else, buster!!

  ***

  Ann read through it twice, nodding darkly. “He really was a bastard. Whenever I think of that horrible photo album, that’s when I say to myself that that creep got exactly what he deserved.”

  I pointed to the last sentence of her letter. “That’s what the police are focused on. They think it’s a threat.”

  “It probably was, but not a physical threat, for God’s sake. I may not be the Gold girl who went to Harvard Law School but I’m not dumb enough to send a death threat on my own stationery.” She handed me back the photocopy. “That’s all?”

  I paused a moment. “No.”

  She looked at me, her eyes narrowing. “What else?”

  “A real threat.”

  “A letter?”

  “More like a note. Like one of those kidnap ransom notes—you know, with cutout letters and words arranged in a message and pasted onto a piece of cardboard.”

  She looked surprised. “What did it say?”

  “Your basic threat. That he had violated the trust of too many women, that he was a cold heartless jerk—that’s a direct quote. It warned him that his days were numbered.”

  She frowned curiously. “Why didn’t he call the police when he got it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “When did he receive it?”

  “The police don’t know. They found it in the trash can under the sink. They haven’t been able to find an envelope for it, so they don’t have a postmark.”

  “So he could have received it anytime.” She made a dismissive gesture. “It could be a year old.”

  “No, Ann,” I said with a worried shake of my head. “It’s not more than a month old.”

  She gave me a puzzled look. “How do they know that?”

  Although I believed my sister, I watched her face carefully as I told her. “When the police searched your house, they found last month’s Harper’s Bazaar and Cosmopolitan between the mattress and the box springs in the master bedroom.”

  She looked bewildered. “What?”

  “They’re yours,” I said, “or at least the Bazaar is. It has your mailing label on it.”

  “But what was it doing under my mattress?”

  “That’s what they asked.”

  She still looked confused. “Go on,” she said.

  “There are four pages missing from the Bazaar and four missing from the Cosmo.”

  “So?”

  I paused. “None of this is ringing a bell?”

  “No,” she said with irritation. “Of course not. I’ve never put any magazine under any mattress. Maybe it was the maid. Or one of the kids. I don’t know. What’s the big deal with the missing pages? Maybe there were recipes on them, or some of those reply cards for mail-order catalogues.”

  I shook my head. “According to Detective Israel, the words and letters on those missing pages match the words and letters pasted on the death threat.”

  She tilted her head. “Huh?”

  I continued, “The police obtained complete copies of both magazines. They compared the words and letters in the death threat with words and letters on the pages missing from your issues.” I paused. “Detective Israel says they’re a perfect match.”

  Ann sat back in her chair as it sank in. For the first time, she looked scared. “Who would do this to me?” she asked quietly.

  I came around the table and sat next to her. “I’ll find out,” I said, putting my arm around her shoulder. “I promise, Ann.” I squeezed her shoulder. “I promise.”

  Chapter Eight

  The judge set Ann’s bond at $50,000. Richie was in the courtroom with us. He had the dazed look of an accident victim as I helped him fill out the bond forms. I told Ann I would come by the next morning after her kids were off to school. She and Richie seemed in shock as they left.

  I caught up with Detective Israel in the hall.

  “You called earlier,” he said. “What’s up?”

  “I want to go over to Firm Ambitions and look around.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “When?”

  “Today. The sooner the better.”

  He tugged at his mustache. “Well…” he drawled in a doubtful tone.

  “Come on, Poncho, she’s my sister.”

  He sighed. “Okay. I’ll send someone over with a key.”

  I smiled. “Thanks.”

  “No problem. Say, do you know how to use a computer?”

  “Sure. Why?”

  “There’s one on the premises. You can look through the computer files. We’ve already made a copy of everything on the hard drive.”

  “Good.”

  “If you need anything else after today, ask for Detective Green, Curt Green. I’ll be out of town for the next couple days. Going on a fishing trip with my son. Curt’s covering for me.”

  “Have fun.”

  “I sure hope to. Oh, by the way, Rachel, did you ever cancel your personal fitness session with Andros?”

  I hesitated. “I didn’t realize I had one.”

  He tugged at one side of his Fu Manchu mustache. “He has you listed on his appointment calendar for three that afternoon.”

  “What afternoon?”

  “The afternoon he died.”

  “Oh, right,” I said as I recalled my efforts to cancel it. “He made that appointment, not me.”

  “Come again?”

  “I went to one of his workouts at Firm Ambitions a few weeks back. He started pestering me to sign up for his personal fitness sessions. I wasn’t interested. I kept turning him down, and then, out of the blue, he sent me a postcard confirming an appointment. I canceled it. Why?”

  He shrugged. “Andros died around four o’clock. If you hadn’t canceled your sessi
on, the odds are he would have been with you when he died.”

  “That’s weird,” I finally said.

  We rode the elevator down together and said goodbye in the lobby. I called my mother from a pay phone. She was waiting at Ann’s house with the two children.

  “They should be there in a few minutes,” I told her.

  “So?”

  “Not good.”

  “How bad?”

  “Bad enough.”

  “Who would do such a thing to Ann?”

  “I don’t know, Mom. Neither does she.”

  “When’s the trial?”

  “That won’t be for months.”

  “Months? Why months?”

  “It’s how the system works. But I’m hoping she won’t ever have to go to trial. First thing we do is hire a good private investigator. I’ve got some names. I’ll start making the calls later this afternoon.”

  “Later?”

  “I’m going over to Firm Ambitions now. Detective Israel agreed to let me look around the space. He’s sending someone over to let me in. I want to get there right away, before he changes his mind. I’ll start calling around for investigators when I get back to the office.”

  “Good.”

  “I’m thinking of talking to Charles Kimball.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “A criminal lawyer. One of the best.”

  “What do we need him for?”

  “For Ann, Mom.”

  “She’s got you.”

  “Mom, I’m not an expert in criminal law. He is. He’s a first-rate lawyer.”

  “So are you. We don’t need a stranger. This is family. You should do it.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Mom,” I said patiently.

  “Of course it’s a good idea,” my mother answered firmly. “You’re her sister. How could anyone represent her better than her own sister?”

  “Mother, you don’t understand. Doctors don’t treat their own family members.”

  “Don’t talk to me about doctors, those gonifs. Especially heart surgeons. But you’re not a doctor. You’re a lawyer. A great one. And she’s your sister.”

  “Okay, Mom,” I said wearily. As I had learned by the age of thirteen, it is pointless to argue with my mother once she makes up her mind about something. About anything. She immediately becomes impervious to logic, empirical data, rational argument, and all other forms of persuasion, whether the subject is the merits of capital punishment (“Don’t talk nonsense to me about rehabilitation. What if, God forbid, that animal killed me? Then what, Miss Smarty-Pants Liberal? You’re going to teach him how to make hand puppets?”) to the demerits of some guy I was dating (“Don’t ask me how I know. A mother knows these things. This one is not going to be a good provider”). The best—indeed, the only—way to get my mother to change her mind was to let her calm down and then have someone else raise the issue. Such as Tex. I smiled. I could have Tex do it. She might listen to a judge explain why it isn’t wise for a criminal defendant to be represented by her sister.

  “We’ll talk later, Mom. I love you.”

  ***

  Poncho Israel sent a female officer over to Firm Ambitions to unlock the door. She showed me how to lock up on my way out and told me she’d stop by in a few hours to make sure ev-erytfiing was okay.

  The layout of the Firm Ambitions space was simple and functional. The glass entrance doors opened into a reception area not unlike a physician’s waiting room, complete with magazine racks and a sliding window cut into the wall between the waiting area and the receptionist’s desk within. Unlike a doctor’s office, however, the walls had framed Nike “Just Do It” posters instead of Norman Rockwell prints and the magazine racks held the latest copies of various aerobics, exercise, and beauty magazines instead of stale issues of Family Health and Ranger Rick.

  A set of swinging cafe doors led from the waiting room to the interior space. There was a receptionist cubicle on the left, with an IBM personal computer and telephone on the desk, a set of filing cabinets in the back, and a small Canon photocopier. Directly ahead was a short hallway leading to the dance studio. To the right was another short hallway leading to the women’s and the men’s changing areas. To the left, beyond the receptionist cubicle, was a door leading into Andros’s office. I poked my head into the dance studio and the two changing rooms. All three areas were empty.

  Andros’s office was surprisingly small and dull. There was a cheap table desk with nothing on it but a telephone, a pad of paper, a dozen sharpened pencils in a green cup, and a Rolodex. There was a couch—his casting couch?—against the wall facing the desk. Against the wall beyond the couch was a mini-refrigerator. I crouched down to open it. There were a dozen or so cans of Bluebird brand grapefruit juice and several eight-ounce cartons of lemon yogurt. Beyond the refrigerator was a private bathroom with a shower. Next to the bathroom was a closet. On hangers inside the closet were several aerobics outfits, a loud yellow sports jacket, and a Reebok sweatshirt.

  On the credenza behind the desk was a Sony boom box and a portable color television. Strewn across the credenza were several CDs—Paula Abdul, Michael Jackson, C+C Music Factory, the Pointer Sisters, Miami Sound Machine, En Vogue. There was nothing noteworthy in the credenza drawers other than a box of condoms and a tube of K-Y jelly in the bottom drawer.

  On the wall above the credenza were two framed 8x10 black-and-white photographs. In the first picture I immediately recognized former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson. Dressed in a tuxedo and grinning broadly, he was in the center of the group of people posed for the camera. Standing next to him was Andros, who was wearing a casual sports jacket over a shirt unbuttoned halfway to his navel. Tyson was half a head taller than Andros and had one of his huge arms draped around the smaller man’s shoulder. I leaned closer. Standing next to Andros was that dark-haired man from the funeral who had gestured to Christine Maxwell, the one with the deep tan and black mustache. He looked like a middle-aged, huskier version of Olympic swimmer Mark Spitz. The fourth person in the photograph, standing to the left of Tyson, was a slender woman with long, coal-black hair parted in the middle. She had sharp Mediterranean features and a sad smile. She looked familiar, but I couldn’t place her. In the background was the insignia for the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

  Andros was also in the other 8x10 glossy. It was another group shot, but this time the celebrity in the middle was Donald Trump. Andros and Trump were shaking hands as they both smiled stiffly at the camera, posed in what looked like a huge hotel lobby. The words TRUMP PALACE were engraved in the marble floor at their feet. The dark-haired man from the funeral was in this shot, too. And so was another familiar face: Christine Maxwell. This time the dark-haired man was positioned to the left of the celebrity. Christine was standing to the right of Andros. She was wearing a low-cut sequined dress and smiling at the camera, her hand resting gently on Andros’s shoulder.

  I looked back and forth between the two framed photos. And then it clicked. Now I remembered where I had seen the black-haired woman in the Mike Tyson photo. I leaned forward and studied her face to make sure. It was definitely her. I took the Mike Tyson photo off the wall, carefully removed it from the frame, and went down the hall to the copy machine. After adjusting the darkness level several times, I was able to make a fairly clear copy of the photograph.

  I hung the framed picture back on the wall and put the photocopy in my briefcase. I looked again at the other picture— the one with Donald Trump and Christine Maxwell. As I turned to leave I glanced at the Rolodex on his desk. Leaning over, I flipped through the M’s and found the card for Christine Maxwell:

  MAXWELL, CHRISTINE O.

  MAXWELL ASSOCIATES

  (Insurance)

  The card listed her home and work addresses and phone numbers. I jotted them down on my legal pad.

  I walked back t
o the reception desk, pulled up the chair, and flicked on the computer. As it booted up, I checked the desk drawers: nothing but standard office supplies. Paper clips, note pads, pens, stamps. The computer terminal beeped. The screen displayed the menu, which included word-processing software, an appointment calendar, and an accounting program.

  I started with the appointment calendar and browsed backward through the days and weeks. The calendar entries included his regularly scheduled aerobics and jazz dance classes at Firm Ambitions and the personal workout sessions at the homes of his clients. He had three or four personal workout sessions most days. I flipped back to the day he died. Sure enough, for 3:00 p.m. it showed a session with Rachel Gold at my home address. I kept flipping back. Eileen Landau had a regular session at her home at 2:00 p.m. every Tuesday and Thursday. I found my sister’s last appointment, which was the day before her trip to Las Vegas. On a hunch, I entered a search command for the name Maxwell. Sure enough, Christine Maxwell had been a regular Wednesday and Saturday personal workout client for more than a year. Curiously, however, her last session had been almost three months ago. I leaned over and turned on the printer. After some fiddling around in the calendar program, I figured out how to print out the last six months of his appointments. If his killer was a jilted lover or jealous husband, her name would likely appear on the calendar.

  As the calendar pages began advancing out of the printer, I switched to the word-processing program and found the directory. There was nothing that looked exceptional. Mostly client form letters: confirming an appointment, describing a new program, enclosing a bill. There was a press release file. There was an advertisement file. There was a general file of approximately fifty business letters (most one-pagers) to various individuals and companies. When the printer finished the appointment calendar, I had it print off the entire collection of business letters.

  As the printer clicked and whirred, I browsed through the accounting program. It included a general ledger, a checkbook ledger, a list of accounts receivable, a list of accounts payable, and various form invoices. I skimmed through the accounts receivable data base. Based upon the names and the zip codes, the accounts were mostly women from the affluent suburbs. I printed the list.