Murder Saves Face

by Haughton Murphy

  “That’s how I came out,” Frost said, and then asked, “What did your Gallup Poll turn up?”

  “Nothing. I talked to Keith, Simon and Ron,” Parkes said, confirming Frost’s guess that Parkes would call his “executive committee.” “I brought up the three names with all of them and they just laughed at me. Where the hell did you hear this story about harassment anyway, Reuben? Some drunk at a New Year’s party?”

  “New Year’s party, yes. But my source was sober and a man whose integrity I respect. And whose confidence I can’t breach, even to you. But Charlie, this allegation is one we have to take seriously.”

  “Okay, understood. But where do we go from here? I suggest we get together tomorrow morning—just you, me, Keith, Simon and Ron. No need for a New England town meeting. Best we meet outside the office, I think. Not the Regency, though. If anybody in the know spotted the five of us having breakfast it would be in the next issue of the American Lawyer, sure as anything. Come over to my place, say eight o’clock.”

  “How about nine? Give us time to get our gums working.”

  “Eight-thirty?”

  “All right,” Frost said reluctantly. He did not argue, since he had another matter he wanted to raise. “You know, Charlie, I’ve been thinking. This spot we’re in—the firm is in—is going to be bad for everything—morale, recruiting, you name it. Fort Bliss could turn into a ghost town, with nobody willing to work there. We’ve also got to chase down this harassment matter as discreetly as possible, so nobody gets hurt unless it turns out, God forbid, that there’s a reason.

  “It so happens I have a friend who’s just retired from the homicide squad of the Police Department. He’s first-rate and he knows something about us—he was the chief investigator when Graham was murdered. He’s a lawyer now and has just started up his own practice. But I’ll bet we can hire him as a private detective.”

  “Reuben, I’ll let you call the shot on that. If you think it would help, for God’s sake get him. I assume he can keep his mouth shut.”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you reach him today?”

  “He’s coming over for dinner tonight.”

  “You work fast.”

  “No, just a coincidence. If he’s available, shall I bring him to breakfast?”

  “As I said, I’d rather keep that to ourselves. You can liase—that’s a word, if it is one, I heard over at Salomon Brothers last week—with him later.”

  The holiday weather was still bad, and Reuben was glad he and Cynthia did not have plans to go out. Luis Bautista and his companion, Francisca Ribiero, were old enough friends, he reasoned, that he did not have to change his clothes. He did shave, tied a wool necktie over the Viyella shirt he had been wearing during the day and put on an aged tweed jacket.

  Frost had not seen his sometime collaborator since Bautista had set up his practice in the fall and was looking forward to the evening with him and Francisca. He was only sorry that business would intrude. He had called Bautista after talking to Parkes to warn him that the evening would not be entirely a social one; and to ask him to pry loose whatever information he could from his former colleagues in the NYPD.

  Luis and Francisca arrived at the Frosts just before eight. They made a stunning couple, perhaps the most attractive one the Frosts knew. A clear-eyed six footer, tall for a Puerto Rican and sensually handsome, Luis had on as conservative a suit as Reuben had ever seen him wear—Brooks Brothers, not Italian, and a three-pieced one at that. Francisca was more flamboyant, in a bright-red silk blouse and loosely cut flannel pants.

  “My, my, look at the attorney!” Frost kidded, using “attorney” mockingly, since he had always thought the word both pompous and affected. “You look like you’re ready to address the jury, or read the will to the survivors.”

  “I wish it were true,” Bautista said, throwing a broad arm around Reuben and laughing, revealing the sexy chipped tooth at the front of his mouth.

  “And you, my dear, you’re spring on a snowy New Year’s day,” Reuben said to Francisca, embracing her.

  “Reuben, I’ve heard that before. You always say I remind you of spring. How about summer?” she said, managing, in her sultry voice, to give a smoldering quality to the word “summer.” She loved to flirt with Reuben, almost fifty years her senior, and he always reciprocated.

  “Let’s just say you’re a woman for all seasons,” Frost replied.

  “Well, Reuben, I’m glad you’ve got something to take up the slack in the new year,” Bautista said, when seated between Francisca and Cynthia in the upstairs living room.

  Reuben, making drinks in the corner, recognized the inevitable, that social conversation would have to wait until the murder had been discussed. He asked Bautista whether he’d been able to learn anything from the police.

  “Not a lot,” Bautista said. “They don’t know much. A detective named Dave Petito caught the case.”

  “I met him at the office on Friday. He wouldn’t let me see the crime scene, as I believe you people call it.”

  “As they call it. You forget I’m a civilian now, Reuben. I know Petito only vaguely …”

  “He said he didn’t know you.”

  “That’s because I’m such a shy, retiring guy.” Bautista grinned. “Petito’s got a good reputation and is a stickler for the rules, as I guess you found out. They’re pretty sure Merriman was strangled with a necktie, or at least that’s what the ligature marks look like. As for suspects, the only possible one they’ve uncovered is the woman’s boyfriend, guy named Marshall Genakis.”

  “I’ve talked to him,” Frost said. “Why are they suspicious?”

  “You’ve got to start somewhere, Reuben. It’s a rule that goes back to the old-time Irish flatfoots. You find a dead woman who’s living unmarried with some guy, you look him over real careful.”

  “That’s comforting,” Francisca interjected.

  The two men discovered that the stories Genakis had told the police and Reuben were consistent. Reuben apologized to Francisca and Cynthia for going into such detail.

  “That’s all right, L-L told me you were back in the detective business. You know, the mortality rate at that firm of yours is getting right up there,” Francisca said to Reuben, using her pet nickname for Luis Lopez Bautista and alluding to the Donovan murder, which had brought Bautista and Frost together in the first place.

  “They get bored over there, Francisca,” Cynthia commented. “Murder livens up their practice.”

  “I’m going to ignore both of you,” Reuben said.

  “In that case I’m going to get the caviar,” Cynthia said. The Frosts had received three tins for Christmas and one, a large one, was still left.

  “Does Genakis’ story check out?” Frost asked Bautista.

  “There’s no way to know whether he and Merriman had dinner together. But his second in command and the bartender both told the police that he was at the restaurant from a little after eight on.”

  “There’s one thing I’m curious about,” Frost said. “He comes from California. Palo Alto. Did Petito say whether he’s inquired about him out there?”

  “Yes. They ran a computer check and came up empty. No record.”

  “Hmn,” Frost muttered. He told Bautista about Nancy Merriman’s suspicion that something had happened to Genakis in California, serious enough to affect his relationship with Merriman, at least temporarily.

  “There’s no record of it, I’m afraid,” Bautista said.

  “So much for Mrs. Merriman’s hunch.”

  “Come, let’s eat,” Cynthia said.

  The foursome moved to the dining room, where a ham and scalloped potatoes that Cynthia had prepared awaited them.

  “Just a simple country dinner,” she said.

  “You think there’s enough?” Reuben asked, viewing the large ham.

  “You can make sandwiches of the rest for the boys at the Gotham Club, dear,” she replied.

  “We only eat sweetbreads and foie gras at
the Club, as you well know.”

  “Must be something new since the last time I was there. And Reuben, some wine?”

  He had forgotten to open a bottle and now hastened to do so. “She may be serving a country dinner, but this is a city wine,” he explained. “Fitting to start the new year.” He poured the 1982 Chateau Pavie.

  “How’s your practice going, Luis?” Reuben asked, once he had finished pouring the wine.

  “Lack of practice is more like it.”

  “You mean you’re off to a slow start?”

  “You might say that. Couple of kids on mugging charges. A court referral—robbery, second—which looks like it’s going to trial. Plus a couple of tort cases.”

  “What you’re telling me is you’re getting rich in experience instead of just getting rich.”

  “Boy, you can say that again. I’ve got my pension from the NYPD, of course, and Francisca’s still working, so we get by.”

  The talk flowed easily as the bottle of wine, and then another, was emptied. Cynthia asked Bautista where his new office was.

  “If you can call it an office. I rent a room in a suite down on Centre Street. There’re six of us, so we do pretty good on overhead. Two secretaries, a library, or at least part of one, and a receptionist to answer the phone calls. If there are any, that is.” Bautista again looked slightly forlorn.

  “You know, Luis,” Reuben said, trying to cheer up his guest, “you’re a braver man than I ever was. I never had the guts to set up my own office or start my own firm. Cynthia and I used to joke about moving upstate, where I could try dog-bite cases and replevy cows. But the joke never lasted very long. I needed the security blanket of mother Chase & Ward.”

  “Reuben, come on,” Luis said. “You’re about as independent a guy as I’ve ever met. You stayed at Chase & Ward because you liked the practice—and the money—not because Chase & Ward was some big mamma giving you love and security.”

  “The fact remains that I regard you as brave, whereas I have always been a coward.”

  When dinner was over, Frost had a chance to talk to Bautista alone, while his wife and Francisca cleared the table.

  “Come into the library a moment, Luis, I want to talk to you,” Frost said. The two men sat down facing each other, Reuben’s personal computer behind them on the desk.

  “You still like it?” Bautista asked, pointing to the machine.

  “I don’t know how I got along for three-quarters of a century without it. I even learned how to address an envelope with it the other day. It took me a day and a half to figure it out, but I did it.

  “Luis, I want to make a proposition to you,” Frost went on. “I’m awfully afraid Juliana Merriman’s death is going to be an embarrassment to my firm. Look what Francisca said, about the Chase & Ward mortality rate. The second scandal in five years.

  “I’ve talked to Charlie Parkes, who heads the firm these days, and he agrees with me that we should hire you. I realize that playing detective is probably not what you have in mind, now that you’re getting started in your practice, but as a favor to me, I hope you’ll accept. We’d propose to compensate you at the regular hourly rate you’re charging as a lawyer.”

  “I don’t know, Reuben. Getting my practice going is pretty important to me right now.”

  “Look at it as just another job for a client. With any luck you’ll have disposed of the matter in a week or two, maybe less.”

  “Okay, let’s leave it that way. I’ll help you out for a couple of weeks. But then it’s over—whether the murder is solved or not.”

  “That sounds fine, Luis.”

  “As for my hourly rate, with the stuff I’ve been doing, I haven’t had to set one. Or if I did, no one could’ve paid it.”

  “You must have one in mind.”

  “I suppose a hundred fifty would be about right.”

  “Let’s call it two hundred,” Reuben said. “Agreed?”

  “Sure.”

  With Bautista committed, Frost discussed with him the slim leads they had to go on: the vulnerability of “Fort Bliss,” sitting in the midst of a neighborhood with a high population of disreputable characters; the On-Line transaction that Merriman had been working on and the antagonisms that had apparently been generated in the course of it; the possible cloud of suspicion over Marshall Genakis. Finally, Frost told Bautista about the harassment allegation, once again without naming his source.

  “We’ve got to get to the bottom of that one—quickly and quietly. We don’t want anyone’s reputation damaged if that girl was only imagining things. As far as we know, she wasn’t the type who’d make the story up, but we’ve got to tread very, very carefully.”

  “I can see that,” Bautista said. “When do we start?”

  “I’ve got a meeting with some of my partners tomorrow morning. Early. Too damn early. But I should be in the office by eleven, at the latest. If you’re free, come over then. Also, I wouldn’t lose touch with Detective Petito. Though I think it would be premature at this stage to tell him about the harassment business, don’t you?”

  “I agree, since we don’t have a name to give him.”

  “So we’ll see you tomorrow at eleven?”

  “Sure.”

  “Luis has agreed to help out on investigating Ms. Merriman’s death,” Reuben announced to Cynthia and Francisca when he returned to the living room.

  “That’s wonderful!” Cynthia said, with real enthusiasm.

  “The old team’s back together!” Francisca added.

  “Let’s just hope we have a run of good luck,” Frost said.

  Soon the party broke up, when Reuben again mentioned his early appointment the next day. “Never get involved in breakfast meetings, Luis. There’s seldom anything accomplished that couldn’t be done at a more civilized hour. Plus it’s much too early in the day to watch others eat. It’s amazing how many people have big breakfasts.”

  “I like breakfast meetings,” Francisca said. “The men all look scrubbed and fresh. No five o’clock shadow.”

  “I’m glad somebody thinks they have redeeming features,” Reuben answered.

  “That was a good piece of work, Reuben,” Cynthia said, once Luis and Francisca had left.

  “I think so.”

  “You know, I’ve been thinking about something all evening. Your talk with Mr. Genakis. He didn’t say anything about Merriman being harassed, isn’t that right?”

  “Correct.”

  “Don’t you think that’s odd? If his girlfriend was so upset, don’t you think she would have confided in him?”

  “Hmn.”

  “And if he did know about it, wouldn’t it have been logical to point the finger at whoever had made a pass at her?”

  “Yes. That sounds sensible to me. Good thinking, Cynthia. And thank you. You’re really very sweet, my dear.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Well, I was afraid I’d have to go to bed tonight without a burning question to keep me awake. Now you’ve solved my problem.”

  CHAPTER

  11

  Office Hours

  Riding through Central Park early Tuesday morning in a taxi, Reuben Frost reflected on the streak of independence that he had always found attractive in Charlie Parkes. Now an even sixty, he was the only senior partner of Chase & Ward in recent memory to live on the West Side. Some of the younger members of the firm did, but the Upper East Side or suburbia was home to all the rest.

  Parkes differed from his partners in other ways, too. His four children, two sons and two daughters, were all successful, for example—not always a distinction among well-to-do professionals in Manhattan. All four had gone to first-class colleges and done well there, none was on drugs, addicted to alcohol or in analysis, and all had reasonably interesting jobs that did not require subsidies from Charlie or his wife, Betsy.

  In Frost’s view, Parkes had done a fine, evenhanded job of running Chase & Ward. He used an astute mix of charm, persuasion and occasional c
oercion to corral the forty-four large and independent egos that comprised the partnership.

  At home, Betsy Parkes, an art historian, had opened her husband’s eyes to contemporary art at a time when most of his partners, while not quite contending that any five-year-old could paint as well as Rothko, nonetheless knew little about current painting and were basically uncomfortable when around it. Together the Parkeses had assembled a modest but distinguished collection. Even when they had reservations, many recalled with pleasure Charlie’s enthusiastic and knowledgeable guided tour of his acquisitions.

  Shown into the Parkeses’ living room by the maid, Frost scanned the canvases around him to see if there had been additions or changes since his last visit. Recognizing none, he told Parkes, when he appeared, that he “had run out of steam.”

  “Nonsense,” Parkes said. “Come see something.” He led Reuben into the dining room and pointed to a sculpture in the corner by the window. “Run out of steam, have I? Take a look at that.”

  The sculpture, a Nancy Graves, was indeed dazzling, a surrealistic and wild plant rendered in colored metals. Reuben, who had admired her work in other places, praised the Parkeses’ new acquisition. As he did so, Keith Merritt, Chase & Ward’s senior tax partner, came up behind them. “Does it bite?” he asked, in his mellifluous Southern accent. A popular figure at the firm, Merritt had been on the “executive committee” even before Parkes’ tenure.

  “Enough, enough,” Parkes said. “Let’s have breakfast while it’s hot.”

  The three men picked up plates and served themselves from a buffet at one end of the large eating table. Reuben took a slice of toast to go with his black coffee.

  Soon the group was joined by Ron Crutcher, the litigators’ representative on Parkes’ informal committee, and Simon Isaacs, a corporate lawyer who was independent by nature and unafraid to speak his mind (and admired for it, especially by those less brave in the partnership ranks).

  “Now that we’re all here, gentlemen,” Parkes said, “I want you to hear what Reuben has told me about Julie Merriman.”