Trophy Widow

by Michael A. Kahn

  I checked the client numbers on my five pages:

  C/RE 21563

  C/RE 33215

  C/RE 35411

  C/RE 23287

  C/RE 32906

  “Where are the files for these matters?” I asked.

  “In the warehouse,” Stanley answered.

  “I’d like to see them. Along with those canceled checks for the agency commissions. Today, if possible.”

  “We can arrange that.” He turned to Todd. “Who handles our dealings with the warehouse?”

  “Brian.”

  “Ask Brian to check with the warehouse, Todd. Tell him which documents we need. Miss Gold will also want to review the final three years of bank statements for the 309 Gallery. Be sure they include all canceled checks.”

  I asked, “Will those legal files show how much he billed each client?”

  Stanley turned toward Todd, who had paused at the door. “Do we have the billing records on the computer?”

  “We should.”

  “After you speak with Brian, please check on the billing records for Miss Gold.”

  I waited until Todd left.

  “Thank you, Stanley.”

  He frowned at his manicured fingernails. “I am doing this more for me than you, Miss Gold. I knew the two of them for years, Michael and Angela.” He paused and gave me a sad smile. “Truth be told, Miss Gold, I preferred Angela. She was a charming woman with a gentle soul. It pained me so to see their marriage fail. The murder was a terrible shock. A dreadful, savage act. But the trial—well, I confess that I never understood the defense. Angela was certainly bitter over the divorce. Who could blame her? But as bitter as she may have been, that woman was incapable of murder.” He paused and sighed. “Or so I tell myself. Perhaps I am wrong, Miss Gold. I have been convinced of certain verities in this life that have proven false. Nevertheless, in my heart I believe that Angela is innocent. If there is something in Michael’s files that could help exonerate her, I know that I am not alone in believing that you should have access to those materials. I am quite sure that Mr. Green himself would agree.”

  “Thanks, Stanley.”

  “As long as you are making the trip to the warehouse today, Miss Gold, can you think of any other records you would like to review?”

  “The only other area—and it’s probably just a wild-goose hunt—would be any unusual payments or receipts during the last year of his life.”

  “Anything in particular?”

  “No. But if Angela wasn’t the killer, someone went to a lot of trouble to make her look like the killer. Maybe Michael Green had some connection to the legal or business affairs of the killer. I have no idea what kind of connection, but one place to start looking would be any unusual payments or receipts.”

  He nodded. “We shall have all such records available for you at the warehouse.”

  “Thank you, Stanley.”

  A knock on the door. It was Todd again.

  “Brian called the warehouse,” he said to Stanley. “They’re open today until five. He told them the files we needed to see.” Todd glanced at me. “They’ll have all the boxes ready for your review in one hour.”

  “Excellent,” Stanley said. “I have one more set of files to add to that list. Tell Brian that Miss Gold would like to see the payables records for Mr. Green’s firm for the year before his death.”

  “No problem,” Todd said. He held up two sheets of paper. “I checked the billing records on those clients of Mr. Green. Here’s the printout.”

  He handed them to Stanley Brod, who reviewed them. “Curious,” he said and handed them to me.

  I scanned down the information:

  Twenty-three clients.

  Twenty-three legal bills.

  All for exactly the same amount: $25,000.

  ***

  I’d grabbed a take-out sandwich at the St. Louis Bread Company before heading to the warehouse. Now, as I approached the intersection on Page Avenue out near Westport Plaza, I glanced in my rearview mirror. As I did, I asked myself again whether it could be the same Taurus.

  I’d definitely been on edge since discovering Sebastian Curry’s body. Was it making me paranoid as well?

  When I’d gone to visit Stanley Brod that morning, I’d found a parking space on the street near his office. On the way back to my car I’d walked past a beige Ford Taurus parked three spaces in front of mine. The only reason it even registered in my brain was that its engine was idling, presumably so that the occupant could run the air-conditioning. By the time I’d started my car and pulled away from the curb, the Taurus had dropped from my consciousness.

  But twenty minutes later, when I came out of the restaurant and headed toward my car, I walked past a beige Taurus parked with its engine running. Another beige Taurus—or the same one? I’d turned my head as I passed. The windows were tinted. By the time I thought to look down at the license plate, my view was blocked by the next parked car. I kept walking.

  When I pulled out of my space that time, I drove past the Taurus and began watching for it in my rearview mirror. I purposely took a circuitous route and paced myself to catch a few red lights on the way to the warehouse. No sign of the car at any of the stops. But when I took the exit west off Lindbergh onto Page, I spotted a beige Taurus three cars back.

  I had a green light as I approached the intersection. Unsure what to do—they hadn’t offered this course in law school—I slowed as I glanced in the rearview mirror and checked the cars in the other lanes. At the last possible moment I made the right turn and pulled over to the shoulder about twenty yards down the road, just in front of the entrance to the small industrial park where the storage facility was located. I looked back to watch the cars pass. The Taurus seemed to hesitate as it entered the intersection, but only momentarily before it continued on its way and passed from view. I couldn’t read the receding license plate.

  I turned forward, my hands resting on the steering wheel. I sat there for a full five minutes, glancing up at the rearview mirror every few seconds. Finally, I put the car in gear, pulled ahead, and turned into the industrial park.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Sunday. Early afternoon.

  Angela and I were seated across the table in the interview room at Chillicothe. I’d driven out that morning to bring her up to date on my investigation and to probe her memory of people and events that had been ignored or quickly skimmed over during the original homicide investigation but which now seemed critical—or at least potentially critical.

  I started by briefing Angela on the motions in the Son of Sam case, which were scheduled for hearing tomorrow morning. Although she nodded as I spoke, I could tell that her thoughts were elsewhere. She hadn’t been all that engrossed in the case at the outset, and now seemed even less so. Not that I blamed her. The only thing at stake in the case was money. From the moment we’d discovered that her mysterious John was actually a former porn star named Billy Woodward who’d killed himself in front of Samantha Cummings’s home, the lawsuit took on the air of a sideshow. Although I was sure that the high-powered lawyers for the other defendants would mount a splendid production tomorrow, I was almost as sure that the judge would deny the motions. I’d joined in their court papers more as a show of solidarity than anything else. The best strategy in the case, of course, was to exonerate Angela. Clear Angela of the murder conviction and the Son of Sam case would instantly implode, ending not with a bang but a whimper. But that was still a long shot, which meant that I had to focus on preparing a more traditional defense to the lawsuit.

  I paused to refill our coffee mugs. For a treat today, I’d brought along a thermos filled with Shaw Coffee’s Sumatra blend and a gooey butter cake from Lake Forest Bakery.

  I shifted the conversation to Angela’s meeting with “John” on the night of the murder. According to the investigation file, they met fo
r a drink at Culpeppers, a popular restaurant and bar in the Central West End area not far from the hospital where Angela volunteered and Billy Woodward’s mother was allegedly a patient.

  “So the two of you had a table?”

  Angela nodded.

  “Did you ever leave the table? For instance, did you get up to go to the rest room?”

  “I’ve been thinking about that night, the whole sequence of events. Yes, I definitely went to the rest room.”

  “Were you feeling okay when you left the table?”

  “I was.”

  “Not dizzy or drowsy or sluggish?”

  “I was fine. I remember reapplying my lipstick in the mirror before coming back to the table where John—uh, where that man was.”

  “Tell me what happened after you got back to the table. First of all, what were you drinking?”

  “Gin and tonic.”

  “Was your drink full when you left to go to the bathroom?”

  “It was empty when I left. I remember that I finished the drink and told John that I was going to the ladies’ room.”

  “And when you got back?”

  “There was a fresh gin and tonic.”

  “Which you drank?”

  “Not all at once. I sipped it as we talked.”

  “What else do you remember?”

  “It was crowded. Noisy. We talked.” She frowned. “Then it all gets fuzzy.” She shook her head. “I’ve gone over this sequence carefully. I don’t actually remember leaving Culpeppers. I don’t remember anything else that night.”

  “So he put it in your drink while you were in the rest room.”

  She sighed. “I suppose.”

  “What do you remember before things got fuzzy? About him, I mean. What was he like that night? Calm;tense?”

  “Tense.”

  “More so than usual?”

  “Oh, yes. He seemed jumpy. He drank more, too. Usually, we’d both have two drinks—gin and tonics for me, beers for him. But that night he was drinking Scotch on the rocks. Doubles, in fact. He had at least three.” She took a bit of the cake and chewed slowly, remembering. “I told him I’d never seen him drink Scotch before. He told me he was feeling lousy because his mother had a bad day of chemotherapy.” She stopped and shook her head, horrified. “My God, I still can’t believe this. Do you really think he’s the killer?”

  “If someone wanted Michael Green dead and wanted to have you set up to take the fall for murder, this Woodward was a good choice to carry it out.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “He was a good enough actor to get close to you. That was critical, since the best way to set you up was to make sure there were plenty of clues pointing toward you and then to make sure to eliminate all possible alibis. Drugging you was the perfect way to eliminate alibis, since he could leave you at the scene of the crime and you wouldn’t remember anything that could help you out. Once he got close enough to drug you, the rest wouldn’t be that hard for someone like Billy. He had a history of breaking and entering, so he’d know how to get into Michael’s place while you were drugged in the car. If he was as good a burglar as he claimed he was to Samantha, then he’d be able to get in there quietly, which would make it a lot easier to kill Michael. Once he killed him, he could bring you in, make sure he got your fingerprints on plenty of incriminating surfaces, and then leave you there to sleep off the drug.”

  Angela listened to my explanation with growing distress. “Good Lord.”

  I took a sip of coffee and frowned. “But even assuming I’m right, even assuming he did all that, we’re still missing the key link.”

  “What?”

  “Who wanted Michael Green dead? Was it Billy, or was it someone else? If Billy, why? Jealousy at the prospect of his old girlfriend getting married? Would that be enough of a reason? Possibly. But what if someone else wanted Michael dead? Who? And why? And how in the world did they pick Billy to carry it out? And why all that elaborate effort to frame you? That makes the least sense.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “If the killer was clever enough to kill Michael and to frame you for the crime, then the killer should have been clever enough to kill him without leaving any incriminating evidence. Why not break in, shoot him, and walk away? That’s a whole lot easier—and a whole lot safer—than putting together an elaborate ruse to frame you. Why take that risk?”

  She shook her head weakly. “I don’t know.”

  “Me, neither.” I gave her a smile. “But I’m working on it. Let me ask you this. When you and this John guy talked, did you ever discuss Michael?”

  “Sometimes. He knew I’d gone through a difficult divorce.”

  “What about Samantha? Did you talk about her?”

  Angela nodded. “I did. Some days I was so upset about the whole thing I’m sure I just rambled on about them both.”

  “Did he show any particular interest in Samantha?”

  Angela thought that one over. “Not really.”

  I poured us some more coffee.

  “Stanley Brod sends his regards,” I told her.

  She smiled. “Dear Stanley. I absolutely adore that little man.”

  “The feeling is mutual.”

  “His wife Sarah passed last year.”

  I thought back to the framed photograph on his desk and felt a pang of sorrow. “He still wears his wedding ring.”

  “I so wanted to be at her funeral, to be of some comfort to Stanley. I felt so helpless locked up in here, Rachel. I wrote him a long letter about how much I loved Sarah, about all the nice things that beautiful woman had done for me over the years. He wrote me back the sweetest letter. I’ve saved it.”

  “He believes you’re innocent, Angela. That’s why he’s been so helpful. He arranged for me to look at several boxes of records in a storage warehouse yesterday. I found some interesting things.”

  She perked up. “Tell me.”

  I started with the Millennium checks, explaining the unusual system for payment of commissions. “I found all twenty-three canceled checks in the gallery’s bank records. All twenty-three were endorsed by Michael Green on behalf of Millennium and deposited in a bank in the Canary Islands.”

  “He had an account there?”

  “Probably not in his name. The checks were payable to that Millennium outfit, which I assume was his alias. If you recall, Millennium was also receiving management fees for all those minors’ trust accounts at Gateway. At the very least, it smells like tax fraud. Stanley confirmed that Michael had never reported any income from Millennium.” I frowned. “But there has to be more.”

  “What do you mean ‘more’?”

  “If the Millennium account was Michael’s account, then why was he collecting an agent’s fee on the sale of Sebastian Curry’s paintings? Sebastian didn’t know him, and Michael apparently didn’t know Sebastian. Something else was going on. Which tells me that either Michael Green wasn’t the only person on that Canary Islands account or that he was using that money for other purposes.”

  “What other purposes could there be?”

  “I’m trying to find that out. I gave the canceled checks back to Stanley. Normally, there’d be no way to access the records of a bank in the Canary Islands. That’s why people put their money there. But Michael’s probate estate is still open. Since that bank account could contain assets of the estate, that might give the court enough authority to order disclosure of the bank records on the account. Stanley and the lawyer handling the estate will start that ball rolling first thing Monday.”

  “That’s good.”

  “I found some other interesting things in those files.”

  I explained Michael Green’s client connection to each of the twenty-three men who’d purchased Sebastian Curry paintings from Samantha. “I checked all twenty-three clien
t files. He didn’t seem to do much for his legal fees beyond forming a simple corporation and helping it enter into what appears to be a standard real estate contract for the purchase of a two- or three-flat apartment building in the city of St. Louis.”

  “Michael handled a lot of real estate deals for his clients.”

  “I understand that. What surprises me is the fee. Most lawyers will charge less than a thousand dollars to form a simple corporation. The articles of incorporation, the bylaws, the state filings—they’re all fill-in-the-blank forms. Same with the real estate contracts. Completely standard. A thousand dollars in fees for the real estate contract like that would be high.”

  “Okay,” Angela said. “And the problem was?”

  “Each of those men paid your ex-husband twenty-five thousand dollars in fees for less than two thousand dollars’ worth of legal services. Right around the same time, each of those men paid fifteen thousand dollars for a painting worth less than a thousand dollars. Something shady was going on.”

  I paused to look through the notes I’d taken during my review of Michael Green’s documents in the warehouse. “Does the Blitz Agency ring a bell?”

  “Blitz?” She frowned. “What is it?”

  “A detective agency. Private eye. Doesn’t sound familiar?”

  “No. Why should it?”

  “Michael paid them four thousand dollars about three months before he was killed, which was also a few weeks before the divorce became final. I thought maybe he hired the agency in connection with the divorce.”

  Angela mulled that over. “I don’t know why he’d need a private eye. There was never any issue about my personal life. What did the bill say?”

  “‘For services rendered.’ Period. No description and no reference to any particular matter.”

  “I think Michael used investigators in some of his personal injury cases.”

  “I did a random check through his case files for that period. The only private investigator I found was an outfit called Metro Unlimited. I double-checked by calling Stanley from the warehouse. He ran the Blitz Agency through the accounts payable database for Michael’s firm. The payment I found was the only one to Blitz.”