The problem never would have arisen in his day, Reuben thought. A signed consent on such an important matter would have to have been on the table before the merger closed as a matter of course. Or, if the deal was hurriedly being stitched together with baling wire (as it often was), with the possibility of a guarantee eliminated, perhaps one would have settled for a telex and a confirming telephone conversation with the signer.
Had the fax changed all this? Did the wonder of having a physical reproduction in New York of a document existing 6,700 miles away in Tokyo obscure the fact that the original was not in hand? Who was right? Juliana Merriman, proceeding cautiously, perhaps too cautiously? Or Brian Heyworth, assuming perhaps too easily that the fax copy gave Applications all the protection that was needed? The wonders of modern telecommunications, Reuben thought. The wonders and the complications.
CHAPTER
6
Probing
“What do you suggest we do now, Reuben?” Parkes asked, as he, Frost, and Heyworth sat in his office.
“Is Bill Richardson coming back to town?” Frost asked.
“I talked with him after I called you,” Parkes said. “He said he’d come back if I thought he should. I didn’t see any reason for it, so I told him to stay put. You disagree?”
“No, I was just asking. I guess the next thing is to see where the body was found. I’d like to do that.”
“Why don’t you go down there with Joe Conklin?” Parkes said.
“Good idea.”
Conklin was located through his beeper and appeared at Parkes’ office several minutes later.
“Do you need me anymore?” Heyworth asked, as Conklin and Frost started for the elevators.
“What do you think, Reuben?” Parkes asked.
“I think that’s up to you,” Frost said, turning to Heyworth. “If you leave, you ought to keep in touch with the switchboard.” Frost didn’t say that he thought most people, when a valued employee had been brutally murdered, would be concerned enough to stay around and find out as much as they could.
“One thing, Brian,” Frost said. “Was there a closing memo for this On-Line transaction? And a working party list?”
“Sure.”
“I want to be certain that I fully understand the deal and I also want to get a fix on who was here for your closing, and the pre-closing yesterday.”
“If Beth Locke is still here, I’ll have her bring up a copy.”
“What a tragedy, Mr. Frost,” Conklin said, as they took the elevator to the floor of the crime scene. “This is some way to end the old year, let me tell you. Everybody who was here when the news went around is petrified. And they’re all going to make me the fall guy.”
“I don’t follow you,” Frost said.
“They’re unanimous that the murder must have been committed by an outsider. Nobody from Chase & Ward could possibly have done such a thing.”
“Hmn. I would have thought it’s a trifle early to rule anybody in or out.”
“If an outsider did it, it was the security system that was at fault. Or more precisely, me, sir.”
“Now I catch your meaning. But even if it were an outsider, it could be one who had gotten into the office legitimately. Such as one of those people who was here for Ms. Merriman’s closing. Besides, this office isn’t exactly a quiet little private home. What do we have now, a hundred and fifty lawyers? And four hundred secretaries, messengers, file clerks and all the rest?”
“About that.”
“So there’s a vast crowd that’s authorized to be here. And then the people who come to see them—clients, other lawyers, wives, husbands, children.”
“Right. Absolutely right.”
“Plus, I’m sure, one or two bad apples who manage to get through the security net, however tight you make it, Mr. Conklin.”
“I wish Mr. Parkes and the others had your perceptiveness, Mr. Frost.”
At the thirty-first floor, a uniformed policeman blocked their way and told them they could not enter.
“I understand what you’re saying, patrolman, but could I see the detective supervisor?” Reuben said, with authority. His use of the NYPD term for the officer-in-charge impressed the rookie cop, who hesitated and then consulted with a colleague standing nearby. Soon the second cop went off and returned with a plainclothesman.
Frost introduced himself and found out that the man was Detective David Petito of Manhattan Homicide South. A short, barrel-chested, middle-aged man in a blue suit, he asked what Frost wanted.
“I’d like to see where Ms. Merriman’s body was found,” Reuben answered.
“Can I ask why?”
“I’m trying to help the Executive Partner of this firm clear this thing up. Ms. Merriman was a valued associate here, and we’re determined to find out who killed her.”
“What’s that got to do with visiting the crime scene?”
“I thought perhaps … Look, as it happens I’ve had some experience in these matters. One of my partners was murdered some years ago, and I worked with your people quite closely then. Especially with a fellow named Luis Bautista.”
“Who?”
“Luis Bautista. He was a homicide detective until a few months ago, when he left your Department to go into law practice.”
“Don’t know him.”
“Well, we had a number of dealings over the years. The Tobias Vandermeer murder last year. And Flemming Andersen, the head of Andersen Foods—”
“Sorry, I’m not familiar with those cases,” Petito said, cutting Reuben short. “Besides, this is a sealed crime scene. No one’s allowed on this floor except police and authorized medical personnel. Okay?”
“If that’s the way you want it, officer, fine,” Frost said. “We do have a common objective, but we can pursue it independently. Sorry to bother you.”
Petito turned and went back through the entry doors.
“So much for that,” Frost muttered to Conklin as he rang for the elevator. “The people who worked down here are in the cafeteria, are they? Let’s head up there.”
“I wouldn’t recommend it, sir. It’s sort of a police detention room. They’re questioning everybody one by one, then sending them home. If you go up there, they may hold you for questioning, too.”
“But I wasn’t even here when the murder happened.”
“That might or might not persuade them.”
“All right, I’ll take your advice,” Frost said, curtly. “Let’s go back up and see Charlie Parkes.”
“We struck out,” Frost told Parkes. “The police won’t let me into the library and Conklin, here, says the police will detain me if I go to the cafeteria. So let’s just sit down for a few minutes and review the bidding,” Frost said.
“If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen …” Conklin said.
“No, no, stay for a minute, Mr. Conklin,” Frost said. “Let me see if I have the facts straight. You told me on the way downstairs that Merriman was strangled. From the size and depth of the ligature on her neck, the police think with a necktie, right? And since there were no obvious signs of a struggle, they think she was taken unawares.”
“That’s about it. That’s all they’ve told me.”
“Do they have any idea where it happened?”
“No. They don’t think it was in the stacks, where they found her. Everything was too neat. They’re working on her office, which was on the same floor as the library and not too far from where she was found.”
“Where was the closing she was working on?” Frost asked.
“In a conference room on thirty, one floor down from her office.”
“And the pre-closing was there, too, I suppose?”
“Yes. She’d reserved it for two days.”
“Oh, Reuben, by the way, here’s the On-Line memorandum of closing and the working party list,” Parkes said. “Ms. Locke brought them in while you were downstairs.”
“Thanks.” Frost took the documents, folded them in half and stuffed them in t
he pocket of his suitcoat. “Do the police have any theory about who the killer is? Someone in the office? An outsider?” he asked Conklin.
“As far as I know, they’re as much in the dark as we are.”
“Excuse me, gentlemen, nature calls. I’ll be right back,” Parkes said, getting up and leaving the room while the other two men continued talking.
“While Charlie—your employer—is out of the room, let me ask you something,” Frost said. “How good is the security here? I know this place is called ‘Fort Bliss,’ but is it?”
“We’ve got a very sophisticated setup. But no system is perfect. You know how it works, or how it’s supposed to work? Everybody at the firm has a magnetic ID card that they have to put in a turnstile slot downstairs. I seem to remember that you got an ID.”
“Yes. They even issued them to supernumeraries like me.”
“The whole system’s computerized so I can delete your ID number from the list and your card won’t work anymore. That way we keep up to date on who’s authorized to be in here and who isn’t. When your card is used in the turnstile, the computer makes a record of your serial number.”
“It does?”
“Yes. Normally there’s no reason to look at it—it’s just another bell and whistle that comes with the system.”
“That may be, but this time it may be crucial. How long are the records kept?”
“Several days. It depends on the volume of people coming in. When the system gets to the end of a cycle, it starts recording over the old records.”
“It doesn’t automatically keep the information, then?”
“No. If you want to keep it, you have to print it out.”
“Don’t you think you’d better do that for yesterday?” Frost asked.
“You’re right,” he said, getting up to leave.
Charlie Parkes returned and asked what had happened to Conklin.
“He went to save the computer records on those gates downstairs.”
“There’s something you should know about him, Reuben. He’s an awfully nice guy, but a pretty dim bulb. We hired him from the company that put in our security system. He seems to know the electronic business inside out, but he’s pretty dense otherwise.”
“Thanks for the warning. He did seem to explain the system pretty well. What interested me was that it doesn’t rule out an inside job by someone authorized to be in the office. Perhaps even a lawyer. Perhaps even a partner!”
“Now, Reuben, let’s not get carried away,” Parkes said. “Of course, it could have been anyone. But I hope and trust you’re wrong when you suggest it could be one of us.”
“Look, we may as well go home,” Frost said. “There’s nothing more to be done here, and the police aren’t going to tell us anything.”
“I’ve called off Palm Beach,” Parkes said. “I couldn’t possibly enjoy the weekend after this.”
“Then let’s talk in the morning,” Frost replied. “Incidentally, I assume someone notified her boyfriend.”
“Yes. Conklin said the police went over to their apartment as soon as they found out about him. I’ve got to call him myself, but I’m going home to have some Dutch courage first.”
“What about her family?”
“The file lists her mother in Portland, Oregon, as the next of kin to be notified,” Parkes said. “Conklin apparently called her when they couldn’t locate her this morning, and the detective in charge was supposed to call her, too, now that the body’s been found.” Parkes sighed. “I guess I’ve got to do the same,” he said, making a note of the Portland number from Merriman’s records.
“After some more Dutch courage, no doubt,” Frost said. “I don’t envy you, Charlie.”
“Thanks. Can I drop you, Reuben?” Parkes asked. “You don’t want to be walking outside Fort Bliss this late.”
“Excellent. Thank you.”
On the way uptown, Parkes asked Frost if he really believed Merriman’s killer might be someone from the firm.
“Charlie, anything’s possible.”
“Who could it possibly be?”
“Damned if I know. Let me call you in the morning when I’ve had a chance to digest what I’ve learned,” Frost said.
“It’s a pretty light meal so far.”
“I have an idea there may be more courses to it than we imagine.”
CHAPTER
7
The Boyfriend
Reuben’s wife, Cynthia, bundled her husband off to a favorite neighborhood restaurant, Sette Mezzo, as soon as he got home. She announced that she was starving after a long day of reviewing grant applications at the Brigham Foundation, where she was in charge of awards to the arts.
Despite her slim dancer’s figure, kept in shape even years after her retirement as a leading ballerina with the National Ballet, that night she had an insatiable appetite and ate, as Reuben observed, as if it were her last meal.
Once he had told her about Juliana Merriman, Cynthia had an even bigger appetite—for details about the young woman’s death. Her husband was not helpful in sating her curiosity; he had really not obtained very much information on his visit to Clinton Plaza.
“It’s frivolous of me to bring it up, but this latest trouble reminds me of a mystery novel I once read,” Cynthia said. “I forget the name of it, but it was about a body found in a will box in a law office. I think it was written by a London solicitor, and I remember that it was very good.”*
“You know I don’t read mysteries,” Reuben answered. “They’re a waste of time.”
“I know, dear, you just live them.”
Saturday morning, as he ate breakfast, Reuben himself realized how little he knew about the situation. He had called the delivery service to get all the papers and was relieved to find that only the Times carried news of the murder, in a chaste and unsensational article. The tabloids had not caught up with the story; economic stringency might endanger their vitality, but in this instance he was grateful for the result.
Frost also read with interest the distillation of the Applications press release in the Times, remembering as he did so that he had brought home copies of the closing memorandum and the working party list. After breakfast, burping comfortably from the fresh orange juice his wife had prepared for him, he retrieved the documents from his desk and read through them. There were no surprises in the memorandum, which set forth precisely the steps that had been taken the day before to merge On-Line into Applications. It seemed to Reuben a perfectly routine transaction—“plain vanilla,” as the saying went.
Frost then called Beth Locke at home to determine who among those on the working party list had been present on Thursday and Friday. Locke was barely coherent when she answered and Frost did his best to calm her. Eventually she was able to go over the list and, as Frost had suspected, the number was well over a dozen. Had one perhaps lingered behind on Thursday and strangled Merriman? He hoped that the police had been given the list so that they could begin working down it. But unless and until there was more to go on, Frost saw no point in trying to investigate the participants himself.
What could he usefully do this morning? The weather was still bad. Friday’s snow had turned to a soft drizzle, which would make for a treacherous New Year’s eve if the temperature dropped during the day. He wasn’t keen on going out. And, anyway, who or what could he see?
The boyfriend, perhaps? He pulled down his copy of Mimi Sheraton’s restaurant guide. Marshall’s was not listed. The Zagat guide, which Frost did not fully trust, gave it a “15” across the board (for food, decor and service)—a middling rating.
He wondered what Genakis was like. Why not go see him? But on what excuse? Reuben turned the problem over in his mind for several minutes. Perhaps he could make a condolence call on behalf of the firm, like the visits to next of kin the Navy made, back when he was in the service, after a sailor had been killed in action. Genakis was almost a relative, he reasoned, and Merriman, if not necessarily killed in action, had certainl
y met her fate on Chase & Ward’s premises.
Frost called Charlie Parkes at home and learned that he had talked with Genakis the previous evening.
“How did he react?” Frost asked.
“He was surprisingly calm, but seemed a bit disoriented. I guess I can’t blame the poor devil for that.”
“Hardly.”
“He told me both Merriman’s parents were alive and that he’d talked to her father. I spoke to the father after that. It was a damned painful conversation, Reuben, but the guy’s either a stoic or the reality hasn’t sunk in yet. He and his wife are flying in today. I offered to arrange things for them here, but he declined. Genakis is apparently taking care of everything. The father didn’t exactly say it, and maybe I was just overly sensitive, but I had a hunch he felt his daughter would still be alive if she hadn’t been working at Chase & Ward.”
“He may be right, you know. Any other news, Charlie?”
“Nothing. And only that little item in the Times, thank God.”
“Don’t worry, that will change. Match a pretty girl, murder and our stuffy old law firm, and the tabloids won’t be able to resist.”
“Thanks.”
Finished with his call to Parkes, Frost looked in the Chase & Ward office directory and dialed the home number he found under Juliana Merriman’s name.
A hoarse, groggy voice answered. Once he had confirmed that he was talking to Genakis, Frost expressed condolences for himself and the firm and asked if he might drop by to convey them in person. Genakis did not oppose the idea.
Frost said that he could come downtown any time. “Give me an hour,” Genakis replied, so that, shortly after eleven, Frost retraced the taxi ride he had taken the night before.
The Genakis/Merriman apartment was in the larger of the two residential buildings in the Clinton Plaza complex. It was on a low floor but, facing across to the office tower, it was quiet and did not pick up the noise from the street.
In keeping with the fashion in new Manhattan apartment buildings, a “concierge” greeted Reuben when he entered the lobby. Standing behind a counter surrounded by an array of closed-circuit television sets and other high-tech equipment, the woman punched the name “Genakis” into a computer and told Frost that he lived in Apartment 3-C. (Did she really need a computer to retrieve that simple bit of information about one of the tenants? Frost wondered.) Once she had called upstairs to announce his arrival, Frost took the elevator to the third floor, where Genakis was standing in front of an open door.
Murder Saves Face Page 6