Firm Ambitions

by Michael A. Kahn

  “Reschedule that meeting for Friday at ten,” Christine told her secretary, who was scribbling furiously. “And tell Frank I want all the numbers on my desk tomorrow morning at eight. All of them. No excuses.”

  Christine’s outfit was as imperious as her manner. She was wearing a bottle-green double-breasted jacket edged in navy over a severe knee-length navy dress. The jacket had wide padded shoulders. Her short red hair was parted at the side and brushed back behind her ears, revealing gold dome earrings.

  “One more thing,” she said to her secretary as she picked up the small portable dictaphone off her desk. Using her thumb, she clicked open the chamber and slipped the microcassette into her palm. “Take this,” she said, holding her palm out. “I have about a dozen letters on there, along with several quotes and proposals. I want them typed in draft form and on my desk when I return from lunch at Cardwell’s.” She dropped the microcassette into her secretary’s hand and said, “That’ll be all, Dotty.”

  I stepped back to let the older woman hurry by and then walked into the office. Christine took a seat behind her desk and stared at me as I stood before her. She was strumming her fingers on the desk pad. After a moment, she frowned and said, “You are persistent.”

  I smiled graciously. “Thank you.”

  She leaned forward aggressively. “As you already know, Rachel, I have a busy day. I told you that yesterday. You shouldn’t have come here.” She checked her wristwatch. “You have exactly five minutes. What is it you want?”

  I remained standing. “Whatever you can tell me about Andros.”

  She studied me coolly. “Why should I tell you anything?”

  I kept my temper under control. “Because my sister didn’t kill him. If you killed him, tell me. If you didn’t, then something you know might lead me to the person who did.”

  She gave a short laugh. “I certainly didn’t kill him, and I hardly think I know anything that might help you.”

  “Let me be the judge of that, Christine. You were in his aerobics class, right?”

  She rolled her eyes impatiently but nodded. “Yes.”

  I watched her carefully as I continued. “But you stopped your personal workout sessions with him three months before he died. Why?”

  The question clearly caught her off balance. “What do you mean by that?” she asked testily.

  “I don’t mean a thing. I just want to know why.”

  “Well, I don’t know,” she said with an irritated wave of her hand. “I don’t remember.”

  “Did your relationship with him change at that time?”

  “No,” she snapped. “We weren’t like that. I wasn’t one of his bimbos. I didn’t pose for his album.”

  “What album?”

  She caught her breath, sensing her strategic error. “You know exactly what I mean,” she said, pressing on as if I were the one who had originally mentioned the album. “We weren’t like that. We were friends.” She gave me a proud sneer. “Unlike some women, I tried to keep my relationship with that man on a professional level.”

  I didn’t believe her, but I’d heard enough from her on that subject and needed to move on. Nothing compelled her to talk to me. I’d bluffed my way into her office, and she could order me to leave whenever she wanted. The goal was to find out whatever else I could before she ended the conversation.

  “Speaking of professional,” I continued, “did you ever provide him with any goods or services?”

  She eyed me cagily. “What do you mean?”

  “According to the sign in your reception area, you’re an insurance agency and a financial consultant. Did you ever do anything for him in those areas?”

  She crossed her arms. “Such as what?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Sell him insurance? Maybe for his car?” I paused. “Maybe on his life?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “It’s possible. My company is quite successful. We sell thousands of insurance policies every year. I’d have to check my files.”

  “Nothing comes to mind?”

  She sat back in her chair and eyed me with a smirk. “I was in a lawsuit once.”

  “I know.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Oh, you do?”

  I nodded.

  She paused a beat. “Well,” she continued, “the other side took my deposition in that case. Before they did, my attorney gave me marching orders. He told me that if I wasn’t sure of the answer to a question, I shouldn’t guess and I shouldn’t speculate. I should just say I don’t know.” She unfolded her arms and turned her palms up. “That still seems good advice. Did I sell him a policy?” She shrugged and switched to a helpless maiden voice. “I don’t know, Miss Gold.”

  I could feel my nostrils flare. “But if you did, there’d be a record in your files?”

  She shrugged again. “I don’t know, Miss Gold.” She checked her watch. “My, my, time’s up.” She stood up, the helpless maiden replaced by the iron one. “You’ll have to leave.”

  I held my ground. “Will you have someone check your files on Andros and let me see what you find?”

  She gave me a sarcastic look. “Why should I do that?”

  I leaned forward and slowly inhaled. “Because my sister didn’t kill him, Christine. And if that’s not enough reason, then because I’ll say ‘pretty please.’ And if that’s still not enough, then because you can do it quietly and without a lot of fanfare now, or you can wait a week and I’ll serve you with a subpoena and show up at your office with a reporter and a minicam from Channel 5 News.”

  Her face flushed with anger. “I’ll think it over,” she said through clenched teeth.

  I nodded. “Don’t think about it too long.”

  “I’ll think about it as long as I need to.” She pointed toward the door. “Now leave.”

  “Goodbye, Christine.” I turned to go.

  “Hey,” she said fiercely as I reached the door. I turned. She was still standing behind her desk, visibly seething.

  “What?” I said.

  “Don’t fuck with me, bitch.”

  I gave her a perplexed look. “You eat with that mouth?” As I turned to leave I said over my shoulder, “It’s the files or the six-o’clock news, Christine. Your choice.”

  ***

  By the time I pulled out of the parking lot of Maxwell Associates, it was quarter to twelve. I was supposed to meet Benny and my mother at my office for lunch so we could bring each other up to date on the morning’s events.

  As I got on the highway heading east toward the city I thought again of Kimmi Buckner, Andros’s administrative assistant. I had tried to call her that morning to ask about the storage space Firm Ambitions leased at Mound City Mini-Storage. But when I dialed her number, a Southwestern Bell recording informed me that her phone had been disconnected, which meant I had to go to her house to make contact. Heading down Highway 40, I decided to swing by her house before my office.

  It took fifteen minutes to get there. I rang the doorbell several times, but she didn’t answer. I peered through the living-room window. Everything looked the same as before: the framed painting of Jesus Christ rolling his eyes heavenward, the rickety couch upholstered in orange corduroy, the three empty, crumpled thirty-two-ounce bags of M&M’s on the TV tray next to the La-Z-Boy. But no sign of Kimmi.

  I banged on the front door. No answer. Thinking that she might be working out back, I walked around to the tiny backyard. There was a birdbath filled with greenish water, a concrete Madonna, and a rickety clothesline. I knocked loudly on the back door and looked through the window into a dingy little kitchen that was absolutely filthy. There were food-encrusted plates stacked in the sink, dirty pots on the stove, a rusty kitchen knife on the counter. A box of Trix cereal had been knocked over on the table, spilling out its brightly colored contents. For a moment it looked like the table was vibrating.
I squinted for a better look and straightened up with a shudder. The table wasn’t vibrating; it was seething with black ants feasting on Trix.

  I took out one of my business cards, which listed my office and home phone numbers, and scribbled a short note on the back asking her to call me. I came back around to the front of the house and wedged the card into the space between the jamb and the front door just above the knob.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “That’s all,” I said with a shrug. We were sitting around the conference table in my office—Benny, my mother, and I. I had just finished filling them in on my morning, beginning with the inconclusive encounter with Sheila Kazankis and ending with the inconclusive nonencounter with Kimmi Buckner.

  Lunch today was compliments of Benny, the Marco Polo of barbecue, who’d brought us a sampling of hickory-smoked goodies, fried yams, and cole slaw from his latest discovery, a place called Auntie’s Rib Shack in north St. Louis. There were ribs, rib tips, burnt ends, homemade smoked sausage, and Benny’s latest revolting passion, pig’s ears, all smothered in a hot vinegary sauce. With the possible exception of the ears, which neither my mother nor I would taste, the meal was luscious.

  I licked my fingers and reached for another rib. “All I’m doing is getting myself more confused,” I said. “What do you two have?”

  “For starters,” Benny said as he took a bite out of the smoked sausage, “more goodies from large Marge.”

  “Is that the lady at the life insurance company?” my mother asked.

  Benny nodded. “She had the information on the change of beneficiary on the Firm Ambitions key-man policy. Guess who?”

  “The Cayman Islands outfit?” I said.

  “Bingo,” he answered with a wink.

  I sat back and mulled it over. “If Tommy Landau’s father’s firm formed the Missouri company, there’s a good chance they’ll know who owns the Cayman Islands company.”

  “But will they tell you?” Benny asked.

  “There’s only one way to find out,” I said. “I’ll call after lunch.” I turned to my mother. “You have any luck, Mom?”

  She nodded. The plan had been for her to spend the morning reading through police reports of burglaries over the past six months in the more affluent suburbs of St. Louis.

  “How many?” I asked.

  She smiled triumphantly. “Six.”

  “Whoa!” Benny exclaimed. “Way to go, Sarah.”

  “Six counting Ann?” I asked.

  “Six plus Ann plus Eileen.”

  “Eight,” Benny said. “Shit, that’s got to be more than just a coincidence.”

  She took us through her notes, which showed what she had been able to piece together by comparing the police burglary reports with the appointment calendar I had printed off the Firm Ambitions computer. Including Ann and Eileen, during the past six months burglars had hit the homes of eight women who had been personal fitness clients of Andros during the same period.

  “Eight out of how many clients during that period?” I asked.

  My mother counted the names on the appointment calendar. “Sixty-four,” she said.

  “More than one in ten,” Benny said as he wiped a glob of barbecue sauce off his chin.

  “How many burglaries in all during that period?” I asked.

  “I didn’t count,” she said. “More than a hundred.”

  I looked at Benny. He shrugged as he stuffed two slices of fried yam into his mouth. “Sounds suspicious,” he said.

  I nodded. “Very suspicious,” I said. “I’m going to call Poncho after lunch. I want him to go look at the stuff out at that mini-storage place.”

  “You really think this guy was breaking into the homes of his clients?” Benny asked me.

  “It’s possible. That’s why I want the police to look at that place. So what about the parent companies?” I asked him. “What else did you find out?”

  “Interesting,” Benny said. “I had the Missouri secretary of state’s office do a records search back to the origins of the Missouri company. It’s been around for almost ten years.”

  “So it predates Firm Ambitions?” I said.

  He nodded. “Definitely. It’s apparently owned two other companies over the years. The first was a company called Arch Alarm Systems.”

  “What’s that?”

  “No idea. According to the corporate filings, the president of Arch Alarm was a man named George McGee. I checked the phone books. No listing for the company or McGee.”

  “You said there was another company,” my mother asked.

  “Six years ago,” Benny said. “Coulter Designs, Inc.”

  “Which is what?” I asked.

  “Don’t know that one, either,” he said. “No listing in the phone book.”

  “Coulter,” my mother repeated.

  “What, Mom?”

  “I remember a big-shot designer named Coulter.”

  “Really?” I said.

  She rubbed her forehead in concentration. “He was an interior decorator, I think. It was a real shanda.” Shanda is Yiddish for “disgrace.”

  “What was a real shanda?” Benny asked.

  “I think he killed himself,” my mother said.

  “A decorator?” Benny asked.

  “I think it was him.”

  “That’s a good explanation for why he isn’t in the phone book,” Benny said.

  My mother frowned. “I remember hearing about it on the radio, or maybe I read it in the papers.”

  “His suicide?” Benny asked.

  My mother nodded. “In fact, I’m going to go to the library to make sure.” She turned to me. “You want to go with me?”

  “Let me call Detective Israel first,” I told her. “I want to see if he can meet me out at that mini-storage place.”

  I cleaned my hands and face enough to pick up the phone. The police dispatcher told me Detective Israel was out for a few days. “That’s right,” I said, remembering his fishing trip with his son. “Let me talk to Detective Green.”

  “Detective Green isn’t in.”

  “Is he out of town, too?”

  “Oh, no. He’s just out of the office at a meeting.”

  “In St. Louis?”

  “Well, actually at the airport.”

  “Perfect.”

  I explained who I was. “I need to show him something out near there,” I told her. “If you could get in touch with him now it would save him from having to drive all the way back out there again.”

  She took my name and telephone number. Ten minutes later, while I was telling Benny and my mother about Charles Kimball’s theory on defending a circumstantial case, the phone started ringing.

  “Miss Rachel Gold?” the man asked when I answered.

  “Yes. Detective Green?”

  “You got him, ma’am. What can I do you for?”

  He confirmed that he was in charge of the Andros homicide while Detective Israel was out of town. I explained what I had seen yesterday at the Firm Ambitions storage space at Mound City Mini-Storage.

  There was a pause. “So?” he said.

  “So he could have been running an illegal operation out there.”

  “And exactly what kind of operation would that be, Miss Gold?” There was an edge in his voice. I couldn’t tell whether it was impatience or sarcasm.

  “Burglary,” I said.

  “I’m in homicide, ma’am.”

  “This involves a homicide, Detective.” I explained the pattern that my mother had pieced together from the burglary reports. “Eight of his clients had their homes burglarized.”

  “Which tells you what, Miss Gold?” Definitely sarcasm.

  “It tells me that maybe what I saw in that storage space is connected to some of those burglaries. One of the homes that was bu
rglarized was my sister’s, Detective. She’s the person you’ve charged with his murder.”

  I heard him sigh. “Miss Gold, just because you can match eight burglaries to the homes of eight of that man’s customers doesn’t suggest much. You can find those kind of patterns everywhere. I could take the customer list for a lawn service or a pool service or a fancy hairdresser or a dry cleaning delivery service in that area and I bet I would come up with at least as many matches. These are wealthy people, Miss Gold, and for wealthy people this is a small town. They all shop at the same stores, get their BMW’s serviced at the same place, belong to the same clubs, and get ripped off by the same burglars.”

  “Come on, Detective, you’re five minutes from there. I can be there in fifteen minutes. What’s the harm? If some of the stuff in there is from one or more of these women’s houses, then you have something worth pursuing. If it turns out to be a dry well, all it will cost you is thirty minutes.”

  Another pause. “Well, I don’t know.”

  “You people have charged my sister with murder. All I’m asking for is a half hour of your time. A half hour to let you make sure you charged the right person.”

  He gave an exasperated grunt. “What’s this place called?”

  “Mound City Mini-Storage.” I gave him directions from the airport.

  “I still have no idea how this storage space is supposed to have anything to do with that homicide, Miss Gold, but I’ll meet you there in fifteen minutes.”

  ***

  Detective Curt Green crossed his arms and turned to me with an aggravated expression. I could see my reflection in his aviator sunglasses. “This little peckerhead is right on target.”