Corpus Corpus

by H. Paul Jeffers

  "What about today's?" He looked at his wrist watch. "That is, yesterday's meals?"

  Dearborn answered, "Breakfast and lunch came up from room service. Dinner was Italian, from a ristorante Paulie knew about on First Avenue. It was delivered to the lobby."

  Bogdanovic blurted, "Are you telling us you let Paulie pick the take-out places?"

  "Why the hell not?"

  "I could give you lots of reasons not to. Especially if he recommended Italian. What did he order?"

  "I believe it was spaghetti and meatballs."

  Goldstein asked, "What did you do with the container?"

  "What do you think? We threw it out with a lot of other garbage that accumulated during the day. It went into a big plastic bag. Davis shoved it in a trash chute at the end of the hall."

  "How soon after dinner did Mancuso go to his room?"

  "We ate around seven o'clock. We watched a little TV until eleven or so. He went to bed to read."

  "Where did he get the book?"

  "His wife sent him a bunch."

  "Excuse me? His wife sent him books?"

  "Well, she didn't send them directly. She didn't know where he was. She sent them to him by way of our office."

  "Did she ever write to him?"

  "There were a few letters. But they were read by someone in the office before he got them."

  "Did he ever talk to her on the phone?"

  "Are you nuts? Phone calls can be tapped and traced."

  "What about the books?"

  "What about them?"

  "Were they examined before he got them?" "Certainly."

  "How were they examined?"

  "The pages were looked through and then they were turned upside down and shaken. If there'd been anything stuck between the pages it would have fallen out."

  "What mood was he in before he went to his bedroom to read?"

  "He was fine. For a lowlife and thug he was an amusing guy, always making jokes. I assure you there was nothing about him to suggest he was thinking about taking a swan dive."

  Goldstein sat silent a moment, gave a nod, and stood. "Where is Mancuso's room?"

  STANDING BESIDE DANE in the doorway at the end of a short corridor as Goldstein went into the room, Bogdanovic peered into a space that seemed barely larger than the state prison cell that certainly would have been in Mancuso's future if he had not cut a deal with the district attorney to testify as the star witness in a series of major trials against his former associates in crime.

  Motionless in the middle of the room, Goldstein stood with hands loosely clasped behind his back in a stance that brought to Dane's mind the image of another short, balding, and middle-aged detective. But her glance at the reflection in a mirror above a bureau of the clean-shaven face dispelled comparison to Hercule Poirot. Nor did she find any resemblance to the other sleuths in whom Harvey Goldstein found much that was admirable and eminently quotable for the instruction of his detectives.

  As she watched him opening and closing the bureau's drawers, she saw nothing about him physically that came close to the tall, thin, hawk-nosed automaton that Dr. Watson had described as the deductive reasoner of 221B Baker Street. Nor did Goldstein as he poked around in the single closet of the spartan but comfortable hotel room invoke a picture of a corpulent but sedentary deducer in a house on West Tliirty-fifth Street.

  Should she take up the writing of the mystery novels which Goldstein extolled as valuable textbooks for his true-to-life detectives, she decided as she and Bogdanovic observed him from the doorway, she would have to invent something distinctive for him. Holmes had his pipe, Inverness cloak, deerstalker cap, and ever present magnifying glass. Agatha Christie had bestowed upon Poirot a ridiculous waxed mustache and required him to wear spats long after they had gone the way of gentlemen's walking sticks. Rex Stout made Nero Wolfe an expert on orchids and beers. And in countless other mysteries other authors had created hallmarks to set their detectives apart from the growing pack. The little old lady from the quaint but illuminating English village of St. Mary Mead. A dapper Nick and chic Nora Charles belting down martinis. Suave and erudite Chief Inspector Roderick Alley n. Mozart-loving, lonely, and tormented Inspector Morse. Hard-boiled, trench-coated Samuel Spade, Philip Marlowe, and Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer. Early-years Ellery Queen, the supercilious aristocrat before he got a sense of humor. Pigeon-English, aphorism-quoting Charlie Chan. Columbo with his battered French car, rumpled raincoat, and cigar. Kojack sucking a lollipop and asking "Who loves ya, baby?" Jane Tennison with her fierce feminism. The streetwise New Yorker cops of Law and Order, the fouled-mouthed detectives of NYPD Blue, and the partner-teams working the murder beat in the City of Baltimore on Homicide, Life on the Streets, so far removed in time and place, as well as reality, from monosyllabic Sgt. Joe Friday of Dragnet.

  Yet here in this room with unexceptional hotel furnishings and a wide-open window of death was Harvey Goldstein, chief of detectives of the greatest police force in the world, looking at Man-cuo's unslept-in bed as if he were the traveling shoe salesman Willy Loman about to unpack a suitcase filled with samples of products that customers no longer wished to order.

  Standing beside the bed, Goldstein directed his attention to the nightstand next to it, and to a stack of six books atop it.

  Picking up the one on top, he turned a few pages and broke into a smile. "Well, well, well, what a small world we live in," he said. "Come in and check this out, John. You, too, Maggie."

  Bogdanovic crossed the room, took the book, and exclaimed, "A small world indeed. Janus for the Defense!"

  "Look inside at the tide page," Goldstein said.

  Scrawled across it in handwriting in black ink was:

  To Paulie Mancuso, a man of honor

  who loves his wife and children and will always

  do the right thing for them.

  Theodore R. Janus

  Bogdanovic passed the book to Dane and with a contemptuous sneer said, "This was obviously intended as a carefully crafted warning to Mancuso. It's a threat. If you want to protect your wife and kids, do the right thing. No wonder he took a header." He thrust the book to Dane. "No wonder your friend and colleague Janus is called the mouthpiece for the mob."

  "How very interesting," Dane said, studying the inscription. "The trouble with that theory, John, is that Theodore Janus did not write this."

  Goldstein grabbed the book. "What's that?"

  "It's a forgery."

  "Cite your evidence, please."

  "This is not Janus's handwriting. He always signs his books in green ink. And he invariably autographs them Theo Janus, not Theodore R. Janus. He is scrupulous about never using the exact signature that he puts on legal documents and checks."

  Goldstein frowned. "You're certain about this, Maggie?"

  "I am, but you don't have to take my word for it. Take that book to Janus and he'll tell it's not his hand."

  "Of course he'll deny it," Bogdanovic retorted.

  "If you don't want to believe him," Dane snapped, "then get examples of his writing. Then have your lab check the damn book for his fingerprints."

  "All right, folks, cool down." Goldstein pleaded. "We're on the same side in this unfortunate fiasco. From here on we'll be treating the demise of Paulie Mancuso as a homicide."

  Bogdanovic shook his head. "That's going to make a certain district attorney look pretty foolish."

  "If Vanderhoff's people had been on their toes, this mess wouldn't have happened. John, get the ball rolling by having Red and Al take formal statements from the three blind mice. Then I want a complete background check on them. Get a crime scene unit up here. I want prints lifted from all these books. Come morning Leibholz and Reiter are to find Mrs. Mancuso and inquire

  into the circumstances around the sending of the books, specifically where she got Janus's. My hunch is she never laid eyes on it, or any of the books for that matter. Also in the morning, or as soon as you can arrange it, Johnny, have a chat with Janus. Maggi
e, if you're not otherwise engaged, you're invited to go along as a referee. Okay with you, Johnny?"

  "Absolutely okay!"

  "Maggie, do you know where Janus is likely to be found on a Sunday morning?"

  "He'll probably be at his ranch. It's about three miles west of Newtown."

  "Ah, that's in Stone County," Goldstein exclaimed. 'John and I have a good friend up there. Her name's Arlene Flynn. She's the top gun on the investigating staff of DA Aaron Benson. John and she worked a murder case a couple of years ago."

  "Then Janus jumped in and kept the killer from landing in a cell on death row," Bogdanovic said in disgust as excited voices coming down the hallway drew his attention toward to the door.

  A moment later the familiar figure of the district attorney burst into the small room.

  Customarily pictured in newspapers in double-breasted pinstriped suit and glowingly described in articles as taciturn and stoic, he was wearing a navy blue blazer, pale blue polo shirt with open collar, and gray slacks. Looking around the room with ice blue eyes and an expression of unrestrained anger, he demanded, "What's going on here?"

  Turning with a smile, Goldstein exclaimed, "Cornelius!" His hand extended in greeting. "I'm glad you got here so quickly."

  Fists on hips, Vanderhoff said, "Harvey, an explanation is in order."

  "It certainly is," Goldstein said quietly. "I'm afraid we've got a rather sticky mess on our hands. Shall we find someplace where we can talk about it privately?"

  As the men left the room, Bogdanovic chuckled and whispered to Dane, "How would you like to be a fly on the wall of the room during that clash of the titans!"

  DURING THE NEXT hour and a half, Dane sat in a surprisingly comfortable overstuffed armchair in the parlor of the suite. Observing the activities of the New York City police in action at a crime scene and appreciating the opportunity for comparisons to the work of the Los Angeles police, she found herself recalling a debate with Janus on television years ago in which she had been required to defend the fact that while district attorneys were routinely on scene when an investigation was beginning in order to provide legal advice, supervise the collection of evidence, and authorize the detention of witnesses or approve the arrest of a suspect, defense lawyers were not.

  A defender was called in only after evidence was in hand and somebody was expecting to be, or had been, charged with a crime.

  Janus had been forceful in insisting that for many hapless and bewildered individuals it was often far too late. Their fates had been sealed, he argued, because they soon discovered that the scales of justice had already been heavily weighted in favor of the prosecution-unless they had the ability to hire a Johnnie Cochran, Robert Shapiro, or F. Lee Bailey, as O.J. Simpson had done. He also cited Roy Black, who had been called in by William Kennedy Smith to fight a rape case. After initial representation by Robert Shapiro, Lyle and Eric Menendez engaged Leslie Abramson and avoided the death penalty.

  Others had hired Theodore Janus with an equally satisfying effect, he had pointed out. But, he asked, how many prison cells held hapless, luckless men and women who could not afford such defenders?

  "I say that even if it's only one," he thundered in conclusion, "it is one too many."

  Now, silently observing the police as they followed the directions of Sgt. John Bogdanovic while he carried out the orders of Chief of Detectives Harvey Goldstein to treat the death of Paulie Mancuso as a homicide, she wondered what the presence of Janus might make of their efforts in a court of law. Would the police find themselves on trial? Might John Bogdanovic again find himself subjected to a withering Janus cross-examination?

  For a time she stood at the window and looked down to the sidewalk while the corpse was inserted in a green body bag, then lifted by a pair of husky white-gloved men in blue coveralls into a white van belonging to the medical examiner. In due course the verdict on the cause of Mancuso's death would state the obvious. He died because his plummeting body had slammed into the cement after a nine-story fall.

  Turning away from the window, she remembered Leibholz's word for what had happened in the adjoining room and muttered, "Death by defenestration."

  Summoned one by one by Detectives Leibholz and Reiter out to the corridor, the three blind mice had gone, tails between their legs, for questioning as to how such a thing could have occurred.

  A young woman wearing a blue jacket with "Crime Scene Unit" in yellow across the back had gone into Mancuso's room and come out carrying a plastic evidence bag containing Janus's book.

  In another room of the suite, she supposed, Goldstein was explaining to the district attorney that the inscription on the tide page of the book raised the tantalizing possibility that Mancuso had been driven by a concern for the well-being of wife and children when he had followed the implicit suggestion in the words that he do the honorable thing and take his own life.

  If this could be proved, she mused as she waited patiently, the death of Paulie Mancuso was not suicide. It was murder, as surely as if someone had pushed him through the window.

  Pondering this, she was startled to find Bogdanovic standing before her. "We're done here," he said. "The chief's waiting for us in the lobby."

  "I didn't see him go out."

  "That's why he's chief of detectives," he said, grinning. "He prides himself on being the unseen force. He had his heart to heart with Vanderhoff in a room across the hall. I'll drive him home and then I am to escort you to your hotel. Which one is it?"

  "The Waldorf."

  "Well, I'm impressed."

  "It's courtesy of the Wolfe Pack."

  "That's only fair."

  They found Goldstein settled into the rear seat of the car. "I'm glad I don't have the day ahead of me that Vanderhoff has in store," he said. "Sooner or later the poor guy is going to have the press all over him demanding to know how his star witness, who was in protective custody, ended up dead."

  "It's a good question," Bogdanovic said as he and Dane got in the car. "Suicide or murder, it happened under the noses of three of his own men. That's pretty embarrassing."

  "You're a prosecuter, Maggie," Goldstein said. "If you were in Vanderhofs shoes how would you handle it?"

  "There's a very simple solution, really. I'd say that it was under police investigation and refer the baying news hounds to the office of the chief of detectives."

  Goldstein grunted. "Thank you very much."

  As the car edged past a parked patrol car, Bogdanovic asked, "What did Vanderhoff say when you told him about that inscription in Janus's book?"

  "He looked at me as if I'd told him Mancuso was accidentally dropped by some little gray beings from outer space while loading him into a flying saucer in an attempted alien abduction."

  "So what is he going to say to the press?"

  "The official line will be that for a reason known only to the deity, Mancuso decided to kill himself. He will also say that his death will have no effect on prosecutions of his former pals in organized crime because Mancuso had already provided evidence in writing and on video tape sufficient to convict all of them."

  Dane shook her head slowly. "The man is whistling past the graveyard. Without Mancuso on the witness stand to verify those statements, any second-year law student could get a judge to toss them out as hearsay. And even if they were admitted before a jury, a good lawyer can argue that the statements were coerced. Given the attitude of the public in the wake of the Simpson case with its aspersions on police tactics, there is likely to be at least one juror willing to believe it. As you well know, one is all you need. I do not envy the task that confronts Vanderhoff."

  "Don't underestimate Cornelius," Goldstein said as the car turned a corner and moved westward. "He's cut from the same cloth as Fletcher M. Anderson. Vanderhoff is a man with professional ambitions, and no fool."

  Glancing at Goldstein's reflection in the rearview mirror, Bogdanovic asked, "Who the hell is Fletcher M. Anderson?"

  "You tell him, Maggie."
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br />   "In the Nero Wolfe novels he was at first an assistant DA in New York City. For a time he was the bane of Nero's existence. Then he married rich and moved up to White Plains, where he became DA of Westchester County."

  "To quote Wolfe," Goldstein interjected, " 'Nothing is more admirable than the fortitude with which millionaires tolerate the disadvantages of their wealth.' "

  Suddenly braking the car to avoid slamming into a cluster of giggling, boisterous, and obviously inebriated young men surging out of a corner bar and into the street against the light, Bogdanovic growled, "Look at those damn fools. They should watch out where they're going. They could've been killed."

  "You're right, John," Goldstein said, reaching forward and clapping him on the shoulder as the young men zigzagged to the opposite corner. "They are certainly drunk and disorderly. Will our youth never learn to behave properly?"

  'Jaywalking, too! And on the morning of the Sabbath," Dane added. "What is this old world coming to? Somebody should call the police."

  "You're absolutely right, Maggie," Goldstein exclaimed as he sat back. "But we all know that you can never find a cop when you really need one."

  "And even if they were arrested," said Dane, "some smart-assed lawyer and a bleeding-heart judge would have them out on bail. Before the arresting officer finished filling out the report those kids would be hitting the bars again."

  "Gilbert and Sullivan were right on the money,"

  Goldstein said. "A policeman's lot is not a happy one."

  Dane turned slightly. "Name a cop in a Nero Wolfe story who claimed to have once arrested a man who turned out to be guilty."