The Undertaker

by William Brown

  I got up and stretched. It was a nice little package they had put together, I had to admit. A perfect little scam. Who would ever notice? Other than the typesetter at the newspaper, who reads the thousands and thousands of obituaries you see in a big city newspaper during a typical year anyway? And once read, who would ever remember the details? Especially in the plain vanilla ones? It was clever. Very clever. And it was definitely a scam. But why?

  Looking down at my notes, I could see what they were doing and I even knew how they were doing it, but I didn't have a clue as to why. What could they possibly be accomplishing? I read them over again and recognized a few more similarities. They were shorter than most of the other obituaries and lighter on details. None of them listed any living relatives. No relatives meant no one to quibble over the fine print, like the identity of the bodies, and that was important. I also noted that all seven people had died at the Varner Clinic. Add in the two Talbotts and that made nine people, none of whom had a photo in the obituary of the deceased. To be fair, only about half of all the others in the paper had photos, but none of the Varner Clinic ones did, but even the IRS would consider fifty percent versus zero to be a “statistical anomaly.” And all nine had the key elements: they were younger, it was an accident, Varner issued a death certificate, Larry Greene and his pals in the black suits boxed them up, there were no photographs, they had a private service, they had all been planted under one of those pretty green awnings in the back row of Oak Hill Cemetery, and Ralph Tinkerton, Esq. was the executor.

  I sat back and thought about that for a moment. Ralph Tinkerton of Hamilton, Keogh, and Hollister. What was it Lawrence Greene called him? The managing partner in one of “our finest law firms.” He said I should be careful running around “impugning his reputation.” I figured the managing partner of a big downtown law firm would charge three or four hundred dollars per hour easy. So why would a public transit staffer, a motel desk clerk, a car mechanic, a carpenter, and a low-end bookkeeper hire high-priced legal talent like that to handle their estates? Pro bono? Hardly. It made no sense.

  I stared down at the obituaries again. What could be the link? Different ages, different hometowns, all big cities far away from Columbus, and each one in a different occupation. Mostly lower income. Fairly generic jobs. Sometimes when you can't see something that's right in front of your nose, you have to ask yourself what isn't there. There was no next-of-kin. Like my own Columbus funeral, I doubted there was any audience, either. No one knew these people and no one else knew or even cared what was going on. They had all come from some place else, some place far away, and they all died in Columbus, mostly from accidents. But why? It wasn't for the money, or at least not mine or the dumb schlep who lived on Sedgwick, because neither of us had any.

  Mr. and Mrs. Richard C. Skeppington, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas K. Pryor, Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Brownstein, Mr. Edward J. Kasmarek, and the new “Talbotts”. Could it be medical malpractice? Over a ten-month period, did the quacks at the Varner Clinic screw up a whole bunch of operations and accidentally kill all nine of them? Was this some new way to cover up botched surgeries? Was there some new disease cutting a swath through the Great Buckeye Heartland? One that would strike down a husband and the wife at the same time? Maybe biological warfare from Michigan? Nah. There were Health Departments and Centers for Disease Control for all that stuff. Eventually someone would wonder what happened to them. Someone would start asking why so many people were going in the Varner Clinic and coming out dead. Besides, how did that explain me or Terri? We had never set foot in the Varner Clinic. And what was the Varner Clinic to begin with? A fat farm? A nursing home? Maybe a drug rehab center or a private surgery theater?

  That left me stumped, so I tried to work my way through it logically a second time. First, scratch any good problem and you will find a lawyer lurking underneath. That was a given. Second, it was impossible to hatch a conspiracy of any size without a really big law firm to confuse things and muddy-up the waters. Still, any self-respecting lawyer's motivation was always money, and lots of it. Could it be that the eminent Ralph Tinkerton, Executor Extraordinaire, had been cleaning out his client's trust accounts and decided to clean out the clients, too? Nah. Any big corporate lawyer worth his salt could figure out a hundred ways to skin a trust account without spilling a drop of blood. Terri and I had no money and neither did CPA Talbott. I couldn't explain it. Why would someone in Columbus, Ohio want people to think Terri and I were dead to begin with? Suddenly, I sat bolt upright. That wasn't it. Terri already was dead and due to that old LA obituary from my trip to Baja, maybe they thought I was dead too. Maybe this whole thing had nothing to do with the names or biographies in the obituaries. Maybe it was all about the bodies. Someone was making people disappear by planting them under the names and IDs of people who were already dead, figuring that no one in Columbus would notice. Who would, especially if the people were already dead and buried halfway across the country, like Terri and I were. If the real people were dead and buried in Atlanta, Portland, Los Angeles, and Chicago, who would ever know?

  What was it Talbott's neighbor said? That old, gray-haired battle-axe in the denim work shirt? The Talbotts moved in about six months ago, husband and wife, a decent interval after Terri's funeral and my almost-funeral out in LA. The other Talbotts would have started living here in Columbus, living openly under phony IDs, right after that. In Pete's case, he was running an accounting business and using my name. That took help, the kind of big league help that a prominent law firm like Hamilton, Keogh, and Hollister and its managing partner Mr. Ralph Tinkerton could easily provide. Yes, the eminent Ralph Tinkerton was definitely worth a second look.

  What were those names Gino Parini threw at me back in the parking lot in Boston? Jimmy Santorini and Rico Patillo? Weren't those the names he mentioned, along with East Orange and Bayonne, New Jersey?

  Carefully and without making a sound, I tore the Skeppington obituaries from the newspaper and slipped it into my shirt pocket. I fed the printer a couple one-dollar bills and got copies of the ones on microfilm and then I walked over to the long row of encyclopedias. I tried the Britannica, the Americana, and Colliers, but I found no reference to any Jimmy Santorini. I looked him up in Who's Who, with no better results. Finally, I turned to the big green leather and gold lettered volumes of the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature and began flipping through the recent issues. I didn't find very much until I got back almost a year and found a flurry of stories. I jotted down the references in Time, Newsweek, and several pieces in the New York Times. I went to the magazine racks and it didn't take me long to find the stories.

  Jimmy “the Stump” Santorini was the mafia boss of eastern New Jersey, or he used to be. Lots of color pictures of a short, dark, very dapper-looking guy with a big cigar clamped grimly between his teeth trying to hide his face from the cameras. He had been an underling of the Gotti Mob across the river in the Big Apple and he was up to his eyeballs in the docks, trash hauling, drugs, prostitution, and the unions in Newark, Hoboken, and Jersey City. They called him “the Stump” because of his build and because nothing could knock him down. Probably cute and cuddly like old tree bark, too.

  Unfortunately, the last couple of years had not been kind to poor Jimmy. First, he got himself in a bruising power fight with the Patillo Mob out of Philadelphia. That cost him a lot of his coastal New Jersey territory like Bayonne and East Orange and most of his prestige fighting them off. Rico Patillo, Bayonne, and East Orange? Those were the rest of that grease-ball Parini's puzzle pieces and it was all starting to fit now. After Patillo finished battering him, the Feds grabbed what was left and “the Stump” found himself locked away in the big, new, federal maximum-security prison in Marion, Illinois along with a gaggle of his former lieutenants and muscle. Jimmy was none-too-happy about it, and none-too-happy that the Patillos moved in and took over most of the Jersey side of the River with him gone. However, locked up in the cornfields of central Illinois doing fifty-five years
to life, there wasn't much poor Jimmy could do about it. He was fifty-three years old when he went in and his prospects didn't look good for him to make to one-hundred and eight.

  Jimmy Santorini's troubles started with a series of prominent U. S. Senate Hearings on organized crime. I vaguely remembered all the dramatic TV coverage – bright lights, politicians with make-up, and a ton of demagoguery. A flashy new Senator from Illinois named Hardin led the charge, tanned, fit, and white capped teeth flashing. When he finally got the gumbas under oath in front of the cameras, he patiently painted them into a tight little corner. Someone had done his homework, because the hearings blew the lid off the Santorini mob and goosed the Justice Department into what they later described as, “one of the most intense investigations in the history of the Department.” A year later, “the Stump” was wearing a not-too-stylish orange jump suit in a broom closet of a cell in Marion.

  Big trial. Big name lawyers. Lots of press. What finally put Jimmy behind bars was the defection and testimony of several of Santorini's top “button men”: Richie Benvenuto, Johnny Dantonio, Paul Mantucci and Clement “the Mole” Aleppo, topped off with a bean counter named Louie Panozzo. Without them, the Feds would never have made their case. With them, it was a slam dunk. Apparently, the Federal Witness Protection Program sounded better than spending twenty-five to life behind the razor wire at Marion in the cage next to Jimmy. It was a good thing Marlon Brando was dead, though. Omerta must have died with the Godfather.

  Looking at the more recent news stories, I found some dealing with the investigation, the arrest, and the trial, but not much after that. The trial lasted months, but the half-life of a mob trial is only a week or two once it was over. Besides, it was mostly a New York/ New Jersey story to begin with. With the exception of a few quick blips, it faded as fast as Jimmy's suntan inside Marion. The New York Times put the best wrap on it:

  “When all is said and done, after all the prosecutors and politicians have done their final preening for the cameras, after all the big name lawyers have cashed their 7-figure checks and the reporters have written their last word, putting Jimmy “the Stump” to the Federal pen had all the permanence of throwing a rock into a big lake. Not that Jimmy Santorini didn't get what he deserved, but after the big splash, the hole in the pond quickly fills back over, the ripples fade to nothing, and some new “wise guy” has muscled his way in to take his place. In the end, we must ask ourselves, “What difference did any of it make?”

  I returned to the Reference Desk and found the same polite librarian sitting on her stool, staring across the counter at me.

  “If I wanted to find out about a lawyer, do you have a book or something I could look him up in?” I asked.

  “Some people have the damnedest hobbies,” she commented, straight-faced. “Why on earth would you want to do that?”

  “Oh, I'm just curious,” I smiled. “I want to make sure I'm hiring the right one, you know.”

  “You mean the one with the sharpest teeth?” She asked without blinking. “Well, each to his own. Come along, we'll see what we can find.”

  She led me back into the labyrinth of the reference shelves and paused in front of a long row of thick, yellowy-gold, black-lettered tomes. “That's the new edition of the Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory,” she offered proudly. “All thirteen volumes, divided by State and City. It'll tell you everything you ever wanted to know about every law firm and every lawyer in the Country — except which ones are honest and which ones ought to strung up and hung.”

  She looked up at me and flicked her finger against my shirt pocket where I had hidden the obituaries I ripped out of her newspapers. “Just don't go tearing anything out of these babies, okay? 'Cause if I catch you, it won't be pretty.”

  “Yes, ma'am,” I said as she turned and walked away, leaving me standing there with an embarrassed grin on my face.

  I had no idea there were that many lawyers in the country. Each volume of the Martindale-Hubbell set contained well over a thousand pages and each page consisted of two columns of very small print. It really made you wish for an open hunting season to thin out the herd. The thick, middle volume contained North Dakota, Ohio, and Oregon. Lawyers. They're nothing if not logical. In the middle of the thickest part containing Ohio, after hurrying past all the dead weight of Cincinnati and Cleveland, I found the long, alphabetical roster for Columbus.

  I flipped to the H's and found the heading for Hamilton, Keogh, and Hollister in big, bold, italic letters. Under the name was the address, Suite 1400, Fidelity National Bank Building, 147 South High Street. In smaller lettering I read, “General Trial, Appellate, and Federal Practice, Criminal, Federal Procedures, Business, Commercial, Corporate, Labor, Employment, Taxation, Estate Planning, Bankruptcy Probate, Real Estate, and Insurance.” It didn't mention chasing ambulances, getting scumbags off the hook, or being on the O. J. Simpson Dream Team, so how good could they be?

  Below the heading, I saw a long list of “Members of the Firm” which ran to eight pages, not including the Associates. The first among the many was:

  Tinkerton, Ralph McKinley, Managing Partner, Hamilton, Keogh, and Hollister, Columbus, 2004-Present. Born Amarillo, Texas, September 9, 1961. Admitted to the Ohio Bar, 2003. Also member in Texas, New York, Florida, and New Jersey; U. S. District Court, U. S. Court of Appeals, 6th Circuit, and the U. S. Supreme Court. Education: University of Texas, (BA, 1983, Phi Beta Kappa) Harvard Law (JD, 1993, magna cum laude) Editor, Law Review. Adjunct Professor Georgetown. Special Counsel, U. S. Justice Dept. Past President, Association of Prosecuting Attorneys. Former U. S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, 2001-04. Assistant U. S. Attorney for South Florida, 1998-01. Special Counsel, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1996-98. Agent, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1993-96. Captain, Special Operations, U. S. Marine Corps, 1983-90, Central America Military Assistance Command.

  Very impressive. Tinkerton was not your basic homegrown Buckeye. No, he was a transplanted Texan and ex-marine who went on to be a top-level Fed, a heavy-duty criminal prosecutor, U. S. Attorney, and an agent in the FBI. Hardly one of your typical family law snakes who lived on wills, deeds, and divorces, the kind you'd expect to find handling the minor executor duties of an autoworker, a motel desk clerk, a car mechanic, a warehouse supervisor, or a carpenter. Nope, there was no way a Ralph McKinley Tinkerton would come within five miles of the Skeppingtons, the Pryors, the Brownsteins, Edward J. Kasmarek, or Mr. and Mrs. Peter E. Talbott of Columbus, Ohio, unless he was about to throw them in the slammer, or get them out.

  The more I looked at Tinkerton's entry, the less sense it made. I looked at my watch. It was nearly noon and 147 South High Street was only a few long blocks away. They say you can tell a lot about a person from the books he reads, the company he keeps, and the way he keeps his office. I wondered what that would tell me about Ralph McKinley Tinkerton.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Carryout can kill, and mind the pickle, too…

  My first glimpse of 147 South High Street came from the sidewalk three blocks away. It was a twenty-eight story high-rise office building built of gleaming brown marble and dark tinted glass. Like a big magnet, I had felt it pulling on me and sucking me in all the way from Boston. Remembering back, maybe those were its first light tugs I felt when Gino Parini shoved that obituary at me. But I was here now and I had to climb that mountain and confront Ralph McKinley Tinkerton. Still, standing on the sidewalk and looking up at his lair, I felt more alone than I had felt since Terri died.

  The building looked expensive and state-of-the-art. You could find the same twenty-eight stories of polished granite and mirror glass in Westwood, Reston, on Sixth Avenue in New York, on North Michigan Avenue in Chicago, or looking out on the harbor of Boston. It featured a gleaming two-story lobby with three tones of contrasting marble, an atrium full of oversized plants that looked like they'd grown up near a nuclear power plant, and banks of whirring, high-speed elevators that shot the harried lawyers, bankers, and st
ock brokers to the upper floors in quick, ten story bites.

  I walked inside and took a quick glance around, but there was no tenant directory on display, only a guard in a dark blue uniform eyeing me from behind a round, marble-clad reception desk. It was strategically placed to block the path to the elevators, so the guard could scan all comers with the same dull, plastic smile. In this era of 9/11, with suicide bombers, eco-terrorists, postal clerks with assault rifles, militiamen with drums of fertilizer, angry husbands, angry wives, and every garden-variety local nut with a grudge, I didn't find it very surprising. Corporate anonymity was in vogue. Back in LA, you would not find very many logos on the exterior of the buildings any longer. No corporate names on the doors. No tenant directory inside the lobby. Especially not for a big law firm. If you didn't know the name of the person you wanted to see, who he worked for, and the location, you were shown the door. Even if you did, if that person didn't know you and expect you; if you had to ask or even hesitate, blink, or didn't maintain that downtown, get-out-of-my-way three-piece suit and button-down collar gait as you walked up to the guard, you still had a Hell of a time getting inside. One wrong look and he would point and pull you over like a motorcycle cop on an LA freeway.