She’d been ready for the question. “He didn’t. If there really is an insurance policy, like the papers are saying, then she must’ve taken it out without Phil knowing about it.”
“In your talks about a life together, he didn’t tell you that he was planning to come into a lot of money?”
“No.”
“She’s gotten more nervous,” I told Julius. “I don’t think she’s being completely honest with you.”
Julius nodded a quarter of an inch for my benefit. He said, “I’ve been trying to figure out what motive you might’ve had for killing Vance.”
She showed Julius a tense smile. “Good luck. I’m the last person who would’ve wanted to hurt Phil.”
Julius folded his hands over his stomach as he leaned back in his chair. “Unless Vance had found himself a new girlfriend,” he mused. “Perhaps that was who he was meeting that night. In which case, you might’ve been the one to stalk him to the Blue Parrot.”
Amanda Chapin wasn’t beautiful right then. Or pretty. One thing she definitely was, though, was too restless to sit still. She popped out of her chair, muttering that Julius’s accusation was ridiculous.
“I’m not going to stay here another minute and be accused of something that ridiculous,” she further muttered while giving her best ventriloquist dummy impersonation of the afternoon, and she wasn’t kidding as she turned and made a quick beeline out of there. She made near record time leaving the townhouse as it took only four point three seconds from when she exited Julius’s office to unceremoniously slamming the front door behind her.
“You seem to have struck a nerve,” I said.
Julius grunted in response.
“So you’ve got two prospective suspects who think you’re being ridiculous, although I might agree with the last one. I don’t see anything from Vance’s phone calls or emails to suggest he found himself a new girlfriend.”
“You’re forgetting about Jane Frost.”
He was right. Jane Frost was one of Vance’s client’s that Julius had arranged to speak with later that afternoon. She had also written one of the manuscripts that he’d been reviewing. I’d assumed that Julius was looking at her only as a suspect, but given the frequency of phone calls between the two of them over the last four months of Vance’s life, including several the day Vance died, she could’ve been Vance’s new girlfriend. Like Amanda Chapin, she was younger than Susan, in her case by eleven years, and from photos on her author’s website, she was attractive in a mousy sort of way. My processing cycles were racing like a demon as different scenarios came to me that I hadn’t considered before. I had been so dead set on Chapin that I hadn’t considered Chapin’s wife, but I realized now that Julius might’ve wanted to speak to him to get evidence against her. There was that embezzled fifty grand, but she could’ve done that if she had access to his office. Realizing that she was a legitimate suspect left my virtual head spinning, at least for as much as one hundred and thirty-three milliseconds.
“She might’ve done it if there really was a new girlfriend in the picture, which would almost have to be Jane Frost,” I said. “So you had a theory after all, and that was it.”
“Patience, Archie.”
Julius said that in a way that I found disconcerting, but I didn’t question him about it. If he wanted to act overly mysterious, fine let him. I did ask if he wanted me to cancel his next appointment, which was with another writer named Douglas Tolliver. I thought it was a reasonable question since there no longer seemed any point in talking with Tolliver, but Julius told me to leave the appointment as is, so I did. Tolliver ended up being more prompt than Amanda Chapin had been, ringing Julius’s doorbell thirty-nine seconds before his scheduled two thirty appointment.
I’ll say this about Tolliver: he didn’t look the part of a writer. Maybe that was because I had a preconceived notion of what a writer should look like, but I’d also seen thousands of author photos, and I stand by my assessment. It’s also possible I was being overly influenced by what I’d read of his novel while Julius had been reviewing it, which in my opinion hadn’t been very good, to be kind.
According to his driver’s license, Tolliver was thirty-eight, five feet nine, and a two hundred and four pounds. In the flesh, he had a compact, muscular body, a square face, a somewhat flattened nose, ruddy complexion, and thick blond hair cut short so that it resembled a brush bristle. He was dressed in worn jeans, biker boots, and a brown leather bomber jacket. He must’ve forgotten my warning regarding Julius not shaking hands, because he held his out which Julius ignored. If he felt insulted by the snub, he kept it to himself and didn’t say anything as Julius led him to his office. Once Tolliver was seated across from Julius, he offered a curious smile and said, “I was surprised when your man called me saying you wanted to see me about Philip Vance’s murder. The guy wasn’t even my agent.”
“That may be, but my interest is due to several phone calls Vance made to you before his death. The first one being a little over three months ago, and the last call the day of his murder.”
Tolliver made a face at that. “Yeah, that makes sense, I guess, but it’s nothing for you to get excited about. Around nine months ago I sent him a copy of my first novel thinking he might want to represent me. I’d given up on hearing back when out of the blue he called me, which I guess was three months ago. He had interest. We met and discussed some changes he wanted, and I worked on them but in the end I wasn’t happy with how it was coming out. That last time we talked, I told him I was going to look elsewhere for an agent. It was all amicable. Too bad about what happened to him.”
“You didn’t make plans to meet with him at The Blue Parrot in Cambridge?”
“Nope, there wouldn’t have been any point in me seeing him again.”
“Why’d you pick Vance to submit to? He handles exclusively literary novels, while yours is a crime novel.”
Tolliver seemed surprised by the question. “You read my book?”
“A portion of it.”
“What’d you think?”
“I’ve found it interesting, but please answer the question.”
“Okay, sure. I’m just surprised you have a copy of The Double-cross Gang—”
“I thought the title was Million Dollar Baby. At least that’s what’s written on the cover.”
Tolliver smiled in a tightlipped sort of way that showed he didn’t find anything agreeable or humorous about that title. “That was his idea, and one of the reasons he wasn’t a good fit. But to answer your question, I thought I’d try someone local. I should’ve paid more attention to the books he was selling. Live and learn, you know.” He tried to look nonchalant as he asked, “So what was it about my book that you found interesting?”
“The details of the robbery were fascinating,” Julius said. “The plan the criminal gang came up with seemed not only plausible, but highly likely to work in the real world. Did you base it on the Foxworth armored car robbery?”
“Not bad picking that up, but let’s say instead I was inspired by that robbery,” Tolliver said, smiling just enough to show a glimpse of his teeth. “But yeah, that’s what got me writing the book after playing a lot of what-if games in my head on how it might’ve taken place and what might’ve happened to the money since the police have been pretty tightlipped about the details, even though it took place four years ago.”
“Did you research the book? Possibly interview the detectives involved in the investigation?”
“Nope, everything came out of my imagination. Pure fiction, nothing else.”
Julius nodded at that. “Doubtful you would’ve gotten anywhere if you tried speaking with them. As you said, they’ve been keeping whatever they have close to the vest, as I’m sure they’re still hoping to apprehend those responsible, as well as recover the money.” He paused for a moment before adding, “Of course, if it ends up the way it did in your book with one of the three involved stealing the money and hiding it only to have one of his betrayed partne
rs kill him and the third member in an unsuccessful attempt to torture the location of the stolen money out of them, then the police will have no hope of ever finding the money. Or the two dead members of the gang.”
Tolliver smiled more broadly at that. “Again, that was only my imagination, but it would explain why none of the money ever surfaced given that it came out later that the casino marked the bills.”
I interrupted Julius. Jane Frost was approaching his door forty-five minutes earlier than scheduled. I asked if he wanted me to call her to come back later. He signaled for me not to, then thanked Tolliver for his time, telling him that he had someone else to see. Tolliver seemed taken aback by the abruptness of this.
“Sure, yeah, of course,” he said. “The idea of me being able to help you with this murder was obviously ridiculous, but I wanted to see you anyway about maybe interviewing you about one of your cases. I’d like the opportunity to fictionalize one of them for my second novel.”
“Interesting. Perhaps at a later time we can discuss that further,” Julius agreed. The doorbell rang then, and that got Tolliver moving faster as he pushed himself out of his chair and headed to the front door with Julius following several steps behind him. Before opening the door, Tolliver craned his neck back and told Julius he’d call him in a couple of weeks about interviewing him, and Julius told him that would be fine.
In the flesh, Jane Frost looked as pretty as she did in her author photos, and as mousy also. She was a slender, small woman, and wore a sleeveless full-length, brown-and-yellow patterned dress that went down to her ankles, and kept her long, thick brown hair pulled into a ponytail. It took her an awkward moment to realize Tolliver wasn’t Julius, but was instead someone on his way out, and it was only then that she stepped aside for him. Once Tolliver had cleared out of the way, Julius held the door for her and proceeded to bring her to his office. After they were seated and she declined his offer for refreshments, Julius asked about her relationship with Vance.
She smiled pensively. “Philip had been my agent, although he probably wouldn’t have been for too much longer, even if he hadn’t been shot to death.”
“Why was that?”
“At the end he was talking about dropping me, and I reached a point where I wouldn’t have cared if he had.” She pursed her lips more, which made her smile more pensive. “Mr. Katz, I’ll save you the trouble of asking whether I was the one to shoot Philip. The answer is no. I’ll even save you the trouble of asking whether I ever wanted to shoot Philip. What writer has never wanted to murder her agent?”
She might’ve looked mousy, but she was far bolder than she appeared. Even if she turned out to be a murderess, I was impressed. I wasn’t sure Julius felt the same way with how his eyes narrowed as he considered her.
“Why did you want to murder him?”
She laughed and quickly covered her mouth. “I didn’t say that I did, I simply asked a rhetorical question. But the problem between Philip and me is probably a common one between writers and agents, although I can’t say that as a certainty since he’s the only agent I’ve had, and I’ve only written two novels so far. We had an editor at Harsleton Press who kept us dangling on the hook for four months as she was supposedly going to make an offer for my second novel, but in the end passed on my book. Once that happened, Philip started talking about dropping me, although he never had the chance to do so officially.”
She was still smiling pensively, but a bitterness had darkened her eyes. Julius said, “Your novel passed on is titled The Quaint Girl?”
She seemed as surprised by Julius knowing about her book as Tinker and Tolliver had been about theirs. “Why yes,” she said.
“A copy had been in Vance’s possession and I took the opportunity to review it,” Julius explained. “I’ve so far been only able to skim it, but the pages that I were able to read more carefully were beautifully written, and the denouement of the quaint girl’s secret of murdering her friend when she was thirteen was chilling. I am sure your book will find a worthy publisher at some point, and when it does I will be buying a copy. Even if you turn out to be Vance’s killer.”
She had stopped smiling completely and her eyes had grown a shade darker. “Thank you. I guess. Are you giving all of Philip’s clients this much attention, or am I simply one of the lucky ones?”
“You’re one of the lucky ones. Over the last three months how many times have you met with Vance?”
“In person? Not once.”
“Were you the client he was supposed to meet at The Blue Parrot the night he was killed?”
“Philip was supposed to meet a client that night? Hmm. If I had been that client, I certainly wouldn’t admit to that,” she said.
Julius offered, “Because whoever he was supposed to meet most likely murdered him.”
She smiled, but there was little humor in it. She also no longer looked mousy to me. “Precisely,” she said.
“Were you and Vance ever romantically involved?”
She laughed at that. “I never met Philip. None once. Even though we lived less than twenty miles from each other. Which should help explain how much of a priority I was to him.”
I interrupted Julius to tell him that there’d been activity on one of Chapin’s credit cards. “He bought a one-way ticket to San Antonio that leaves from Providence airport in eighty-nine minutes. Most likely he’s planning to slip over the border.”
Julius abruptly thanked Frost for her indulging him, and equally abruptly, escorted her from his townhouse. Once he had the front door closed on her, he asked me to call Cramer. After Cramer got on the line, Julius told him about Chapin’s travel plans. “Seeing as how fifty thousand dollars has been embezzled from his workplace and he is trying to flee the country, it would make imminent sense for you to pick him up. In fact, if you can bring him and several others to my townhouse by six-thirty, I should be able to deliver you Vance’s murderer before your seven-hour deadline.”
By the time Julius got back to his office, he had finished giving Cramer the list of people that he wanted. As he was sitting down behind his desk, I remarked that I had no luck getting any sort of read on Frost.
“I know you’re zeroing in on Chapin,” I said. “Especially with his latest action, but still, something about her doesn’t seem quite right. She’s also the only one you’ve talked to so far who doesn’t think it’s ridiculous you’re considering her as a murderer. But if she has a tell, I can’t figure it out. Same if she was lying to you.”
Julius grunted, but otherwise didn’t bother answering me. Instead he picked up the spreadsheet of Vance’s calls over the last six months, most likely searching out the ones between Vance and Frost. When he asked me to dial one of the numbers for him, things clicked and I started to see the real theory Julius had been working under. I also realized I wasn’t two steps behind him this time, but a mile.
◆◆◆
At six-thirty that evening, Julius’s office was as packed as it’s ever been. Stewart Chapin wasn’t cuffed, but he didn’t look too happy as he sat sandwiched between two beefy uniformed officers on the sofa to the right of Julius’s desk. Susan Vance had the seat of honor directly across from Julius, and Jane Frost and Paul Tinker each sat rigidly on the love seat to the left of Julius. A chair had been wedged in between the wall and the sofa for Amanda Chapin, and another chair was wedged on the other side of the sofa for Douglas Tolliver. Cramer sat on a chair that had been placed next to Julius’s so he could take in the room, and two more patrolman stood behind the sofa, keeping themselves at arm’s length of Chapin. Behind them, Tom Durkin and Saul Penzer stood guard. Finally, a thin, grim-faced man in a cheap suit who had arrived at five o’clock sat quietly in the back of the room. Cramer had eyed this man suspiciously when he first came in, but otherwise hadn’t bothered asking for the man’s identity.
Julius cleared his throat and acknowledged his audience with a nod. “Excepting of course the individual who murdered Philip Vance, I’d like to apologize t
o the rest of you for my brusque manner during our interviews,” he said. “I could go into my reasons for it, but let me simply say it was not my intent to bully any of you, but rather to expose a murderer—”
Cramer cut in, probably thinking Julius was next going to mention how this murder had stymied the police for three weeks. “Katz, how about cutting to the chase and explaining what you got on this guy, other than embezzling fifty grand.”
Cramer had used his thumb to point at Chapin, which didn’t go unnoticed by the man. “I didn’t steal any money or kill anyone,” Chapin grumbled morosely to Julius. “When I heard about the missing money from work I knew the conclusion you’d be jumping to, especially after the veiled threats your jerk assistant made to me last night. So I panicked and ran. I was afraid if I didn’t you’d frame me for murder.”
I badly wanted Chapin to be guilty after that jerk comment, but unfortunately I knew he wasn’t. Still, I took a small amount of solace in seeing how miserable he looked as he sat slumped between two of Cambridge’s finest. Of course, he wasn’t telling the whole truth. Even though Vance’s killer at that moment was trying hard not to look pleased with the prospect that Chapin was going to take the fall for the murder that still didn’t mean Chapin was completely innocent. Julius knew that Chapin embezzled the fifty grand. He knew this because he had me search through Chapin’s phone records for any calls that might’ve been made to known drug dealers or bookies, and I found seventeen over the past sixty days to a familiar number, which was to a bookie Julius uses occasionally. While the bookie wouldn’t level with me, he did to Julius after Julius promised that nothing would be repeated to the police. Four weeks ago Chapin had paid off a fifty grand debt, and since then had racked up twenty-eight thousand more in losses, probably in a futile effort to win enough money to replace what was taken from the escrow account before anyone noticed it was missing.
“I can’t give you Chapin for murder,” Julius said. “If you look into the matter, I’m sure you’ll be able to charge him with embezzlement, but he didn’t use the stolen money to pay for a hit man, nor is he responsible for Vance’s death. But Vance’s killer is sitting with us. While I needed to consider several other possibilities, I believed early on that the key to solving this murder was the life insurance policy, and I’ve been proven right.”
More Julius Katz and Archie Page 15