“It’s a tricyclic antidepressant.”
“I thought you said he wasn’t depressed.”
“I said he wasn’t suicidal. OCD—obsessive-compulsive disorder—is thought to result from a chemical imbalance in the brain that causes the sufferer extreme anxiety if he doesn’t repeat certain habitual behavior patterns, sometimes for hours at a time. Tofranil seems to restore the balance, enabling the victim to refrain from his compulsion.”
“Judging by his apartment, I’d say he was still pretty compulsive about cleaning.”
“The drug doesn’t change the basic personality. Allan was a very fastidious man.”
“Was he gay?”
“No.”
“Female friends?”
Caleb answered slowly. Trying to put the answer diplomatically, Thinnes guessed. “One. Someone he’d known professionally for some time and was just getting to know socially.”
“Sleeping with her?”
“He was working up to it, but he said they’d just gotten as far as dating.”
That would explain the lack of feminine traces in the apartment, Thinnes thought. “The lady’s name?”
“Alicia Baynes.”
“Where did Finley work?”
“Wilson, Reynolds and Close, an accounting firm.”
“What about the people at work?”
“Miss Baynes is one of them,” Caleb said. “He respected her talent, though he said she was lacking in self-confidence—professionally, that is. She didn’t seem to doubt herself as a woman.” Thinnes nodded; Crowne scribbled furiously. Caleb went on. “Allan’s relationship with Marshall Close, his employer, was strictly professional. He’d been invited to Close’s house on a few occasions recently. Close was grooming him for a partnership.”
“What about Wilson and Reynolds?”
“Close bought Wilson out five or six years ago. Reynolds has been dead for ten years.”
“Go on.”
“Allan mentioned that he thought the office manager—I can’t remember her name—was insecure, but since rumors started going around about the partnership, she’d been quite obsequious.”
“What?” Crowne said.
Thinnes translated. “Sucking up to him.”
Crowne nodded and went on writing.
Because of his problem, Finley had been a private person, not getting close to anyone until just recently. As a result, he’d had sort of an outsider’s view of the staff at WR&C. Caleb gave a brief rundown on each of Finley’s coworkers, based on what he could recall of what Finley’d said about them over the years. “There could be things I’ve forgotten,” he added. “I’ll look over Allan’s file this afternoon and call you if I find anything else that seems important.”
“Maybe I could stop by your office and have a look for myself,” Thinnes suggested.
“Not without a subpoena.”
He said it quietly. Thinnes couldn’t detect any attitude behind the words. No defiance. No fear. It was nonnegotiable. There was no way to tell whether he was safeguarding his client privilege or covering his ass. And without probable cause, there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of getting a subpoena.
Thinnes decided to try another tack. “Tell me about Finley’s work.”
“The one area where Allen’s compulsivity paid off was his job. It required discretion and perfect accuracy, and scrupulous attention to detail.”
“He ever mention any clients?”
“Only once. He recognized that a print in my office was from the Margolis Gallery and said the gallery was a client.”
“So what’d he do for kicks? How’d he spend his free time? Was he a virgin? Did he have any vices?” Finley seemed so curiously vague that if they hadn’t had a corpse, Thinnes would have been willing to believe he hadn’t existed.
“People with obsessive-compulsive disorder often don’t have a life,” Caleb said. “Their compulsions take up so much of their time, they can’t develop relationships or interests, even hobbies. Often they can’t read or go out to dinner or travel or relax.”
Thinnes waited. Caleb seemed strangely detached about what he was saying. Thinnes wondered if he often lost patients. And if he was always so unmoved. Or maybe he was just real good at keeping it close to the vest.
“The irony,” Caleb was saying, “is that he was finally getting his personal demon under control, just beginning to come alive.”
Thinnes decided to try and shake Caleb up a little, get an off-the-cuff reaction. He winked at Crowne and said to Caleb, “You must’ve liked Finley a whole lot to make a house call.” Before the doctor could respond, he asked Crowne, “Doesn’t it seem a little strange that a high-powered shrink would take such an interest in a client?”
“Queer as Clark and Diversey.”
Caleb froze at the crude reference to the City’s gay center, then seemed to catch on to the ploy and relax.
“You ever have clients you don’t like, Doctor?”
“I try to encourage people I don’t feel I can work with to find another therapist.”
“Ever have one who wouldn’t go along with that?”
“Once.”
“What’d you do about it?”
“I charged him three times as much.”
“And he paid it?”
“He did.”
“Why?”
“Why do people camp out for days to get tickets for performances given by boors with no talent and obvious contempt for their audiences?”
Thinnes shook his head.
“May I go?” Caleb asked with impatience Thinnes was sure he feigned.
“You want to give us your number? In case we need anything else.”
It was too easy, Thinnes thought after the doctor left. Caleb’s interest in one nebbish of a client was too suspicious. Or maybe just weird. Weren’t shrinks supposed to be as goofy as their clients? And a rich shrink. A fat-cat doctor, insulated from the real world by his thousand-dollar suits and Gold Coast address. If he wasn’t returning to the scene of the crime—What crime? Maybe Finley did off himself!—what the hell was he doing here? Thinnes sighed. Rhonda, his wife, never understood why he wouldn’t help her with her jigsaw puzzles. Life’s already a puzzle. Actually, more like the results of a tornado in a puzzle factory. Thousands of puzzles. With all the pieces scrambled.
Four
The offices of Wilson, Reynolds and Close were typical high-power accounting-firm offices designed to set people at ease. The name was lettered on the plate glass entryway in gold leaf. The carpets were deep, the furniture pricey, the lighting subdued. Thinnes showed his star to the receptionist, who picked up her phone.
Marshall Close’s inner office had the same aura of money and success as the outer office, but with all the little touches of comfort that mark a head honcho’s perks. Smooth and confidence-inspiring, Close stood to shake hands with Crowne and Thinnes and offer them chairs.
Close sat down. “What can I do for you, gentlemen?” he asked when they were seated.
Male cauc, Thinnes thought, five ten or so, one seventy maybe. Black hair, gray at the temples. Blue eyes. Figure him for about fifty. “We’re inquiring into the death of Allan Finley,” he said. “What can you tell us about him?”
“We heard on the news. A horrible tragedy! I can’t believe it.” Thinnes nodded; Crowne got ready to put any relevant data in his notebook. “He was a person of the utmost integrity. I could cite numerous examples—but that would violate confidences. Just let me say that of all my employees, Allan was the most principled.”
“Had he found irregularities in any of his clients’ books lately?”
Close managed to look shocked. “Not to my knowledge. What is this leading up to? What have some hypothetical irregularities to do with Allan’s death?”
“I’m trying to find out why he died,” Thinnes said, “and I’m not going to overlook any possibility. Was he depressed lately? Had you noticed any changes in his behavior?”
“Actually, he’
d been more cheerful lately than I’ve ever seen him. I was going to take him on as a partner. He was elated.”
“Did you know he was seeing a psychiatrist?”
“No, but it would explain a great deal.”
“Would you have considered him for a partnership if you’d known?”
“Inspector, my company handles the business and personal accounts of some of the most successful people in the world. You’d be amazed at how many of them see psychiatrists.”
“Whose books was he working on Thursday?”
“That would be Margolis Enterprises, in Marina City. I believe he spent the entire day there.”
“Did he come back here afterward?”
“No.”
“Have you ever found any irregularities in Margolis’s books?”
“Of course not!” Close thought about it and added, “A few minor errors, now and then. Not everyone who’s worked on them has Allan’s accuracy.”
Personnel confirmed Thinnes’s guess about a sister. Adrianna Finley was on file as the person to notify in case of emergency. She lived in New York City.
Finley’s desk was in a huge room divided into identical cubicles by panels of sound-deadening material. The ceiling alternated between plastic-grilled fluorescent lighting and acoustical paneling. The floor was deeply carpeted. Each of the dozen or so employees of the firm had a cubicle with a desk, two chairs, and a desktop computer and phone, and each seemed to have tried hard to personalize the space.
Except Finley. Finley’s desk was as tidy as his apartment. Only the walnut name plate with its incised gold-plated lettering gave any sign the desk had belonged to anyone. Thinnes found nothing of interest in or on the desk except the appointment calendar, which he confiscated and signed for after allowing the office manager to note upcoming appointments.
Bettina Calder was a tall trim black woman in her forties who seemed genuinely disturbed by Finley’s death. Thinnes recalled Caleb’s comments as he questioned her.
“He was good?”
“Allan was almost overqualified.”
“He have any enemies?”
“None that I know of. I wouldn’t say everyone liked Allan, but I don’t believe anyone disliked him. Ms. Baynes probably knew him as well as anyone. Ah…” she hesitated. “She called in sick today.”
“Can you give me her home address and phone number?”
“Certainly.”
“Just one more thing, Ms. Calder. Was Finley right-handed or left-handed?”
“Left-handed, I believe.”
The other interviews were similar. Crowne noted the particulars. Thinnes asked the questions and compared each subject with Dr. Caleb’s assessment, wondering how much of what Caleb had told him was straight. Finley hadn’t seemed to inspire any strong emotions in anyone during his life. In death, he seemed mainly to have produced the feeling this can’t have happened to someone I know.
“Despondent? Quite the contrary. In the last few weeks, he was as optimistic as I’ve ever seen him.”
“And was he right-handed or left-handed?”
“To be honest, I can’t say for sure.”
“There may have been a few who were jealous, but I can’t think he had any enemies.”
“Was he right-handed?”
“No, I think he may have been left-handed.”
“I can’t say I knew him as a friend. He was a very private person—nice, but hard to get close to.”
“Was he left-handed or right-handed?”
“I’m sure he was right-handed.”
“…extremely versatile. He could do almost anything, any job.”
“Was he right- or left-handed?”
“Left-handed.”
Left-handed seemed to be the consensus.
Alicia Baynes lived on Wayne, north of Addison. The building was larger than Finley’s, but similar in nature and price. Thinnes found the listing and pushed the button beside her name. He waited. No one answered.
“Sick, huh?” Crowne said. He pushed the button marked BUILDING SUPERINTENDENT.
After a while a man appeared who looked more like a janitor than a super. He was wearing Levi’s and a sleeveless tee-shirt that showed off his tattoos. He opened the door cautiously. “Yeah?”
Crowne showed him his badge. “We’d like to talk to one of your tenants. Baynes.”
“She ain’t here.”
“We know that. You know where she is?”
“What’d she do?”
“We’d just like to ask her some questions,” Thinnes said.
The super shrugged. “I don’t want no trouble with the cops.” Thinnes nodded. “Said she was going away for the weekend to visit her folks. Said if anyone called from her job, to say she went to the doctor’s. Should be back Monday.”
“Yeah,” Crowne said.
Thinnes said, “What can you tell us about Miss Baynes?”
The super shrugged. “Not much. Not my type.” When he didn’t get a reaction to this, he added, “Pays her rent on time, doesn’t put grease down the drain. No pets.”
Five
By the time Thinnes and Crowne headed back to the office, the city’s infamous humidity had thickened to a serious overcast, threatening rain. They took their coats off before getting in the car, but even with the AC, their shirts were soon soaked.
Thinnes planned ahead as he drove. “I’ll call New York and see if I can get someone to break the news in person to the sister. And ask her a few questions. You call around and see if he owed any money.”
Crowne made a note in his notebook and Thinnes asked, “You ever do anything off the top of your head?”
Rumor had it Crowne had made detective in spite of a lousy score on the exam because of his political connections. He had no particular talent for detecting and none of the natural curiosity that makes a great detective. Still, in exchange for his doing much of the boring, routine work, Thinnes had taught him a basic line of questioning that served—sort of a who-what-where-when-how-and-why of detective work so that he’d been able to make out all right on performance reviews. They worked well enough together, though they didn’t hang out after work. Different ages; different aims. And Crowne was still single.
Crowne ignored the dig. “You’re gonna make a federal case outta this.” He wasn’t asking.
They came up on Western. Thinnes got a green and pulled through the intersection to turn into the Belmont entrance of the parking lot flanking the modern two-story dark brick building—headquarters for both Area Six and Police District Nineteen, and home of Cook County’s First Municipal District Circuit Court. Thinnes couldn’t find a parking space near the door and was forced to leave the car in the far northwest corner of the cops’ lot, near where the car buffs angled their new or rehabbed classic vehicles into two spaces each to avoid dents. He toted Finley’s check and appointment books and the UPS package, all smudged with black fingerprint powder and carefully packed in numbered Ziploc bags; Crowne carried their jackets. They passed through the building’s plate glass doors into the cool cave of the lobby, and nodded at the desk sergeant in the square stone ring that was the reception desk.
The Area Six squad room was on the second floor, a large, square room with standard commercial overhead lighting, yellow-painted cement block walls, and a red ceramic tile floor. North-south rows of tables and chairs filled the center of the room. On each was a phone, and on some, old manual typewriters. A small table off to one side held a thirty-gallon coffee maker, plastic cups, sugar, and nondairy cream. The three outer walls of the room were interrupted by the doors and Levolor-blind-covered one-way windows of the interview rooms, and by the doors of small offices—the Area Six commander’s and Property Crimes on the north, Karsch’s on the east, Violent Crimes on the south. The operations desk took up the whole west wall.
Detectives Viernes and Swann were at work at the two tables nearest the Violent Crimes office—Lieutenant Evanger’s—when Thinnes and Crowne came in and hung their jackets o
n the row of hooks near the door. Viernes, one of the area’s three Latino detectives, was questioning a woman in Spanish, typing her answers on a form; Swann was on the phone. Crowne carried a soft drink and the Sun-Times to a table, where he spread the paper out and started skimming through it.
Thinnes put the stuff he was carrying down near Crowne and went to get coffee. “God bless Karsch,” he remarked to no one in particular.
“You think he’s the only one makes coffee around here?” Swann said with a grin that emphasized his resemblance to the late beloved mayor.
“The rest of us have work to do.”
Viernes added his two-cents’ worth without looking up from the typewriter. “How long’s it take to get a Ph.D.?”
“In coffee making?” Swann asked.
Thinnes and Viernes laughed. The woman Viernes was questioning seemed bewildered.
“Hey, Thinnes,” Crowne interrupted, “our accountant made the afternoon edition.”
Thinnes walked over to read over Crowne’s shoulder. The story was captioned ACCOUNTANT SUICIDE.
“The reporter must have talked to Bendix,” Thinnes said dryly.
Later, Crowne and Swann had wandered off, and Viernes was talking on the phone when Thinnes pulled the report sheet from his typewriter, signed it, and said to no one in particular, “Read all about it.” He walked over to hand the sheet to the sergeant behind the operations desk. After he’d helped himself to more coffee, he tapped on Jeffrey Karsch’s door, which was partly open.
Karsch’s voice said, “Enter.” Thinnes pushed the door wider and walked in.
Dr. Jeffrey Karsch, Ph.D., was sitting at his desk in the uniform of his profession—a suit no honest cop could afford, a crisp, unrumpled shirt and civilized tie. He was a civilian—though word was out that he fancied playing cop—part of an experiment aimed at bringing mental hygiene to the police department. On the theory that since Mohammed wouldn’t go to the mountain, the mountain must be brought to Mohammed, the department had put shrinks right inside some of the area headquarters and attached them to Violent Crimes divisions, where it was assumed that both officers and crime victims would be in greatest need of their services. The psychologists were recruited from among the professionals the department had previously referred the walking wounded to. The National Institute of Mental Health was picking up the tab. Karsch happened to get an office because the space available at Area Six was the object of dispute between rival lieutenants. The area commander had been happy to resolve the conflict by assigning the office to a neutral third party. Karsch had decorated it with his own money. The comfortable chairs, plants, drapes and artwork—actually posters of city buildings—gave it a more civilized feeling than the no-frills squad room it was attached to. And to show he was just a regular guy, Karsch had the obligatory picture of himself with his wife, standing in front of the old ragtop T-bird he’d restored and drove to work on nice days.
The Man Who Understood Cats Page 3