“Sage begged me to help him. He feared that his career was on the line. He said that I had nothing to lose and everything to gain by doing as he asked.”
“You don’t deny being paid off to keep quiet about what you knew?”
Kiel shook her head. “He made me agree not to say anything, and he gave me plenty of money to make sure I didn’t. Gave! I never asked for any of it.”
“You took it?”
She hung her head. “Yes, I accepted the money, but I passed it along to my father. I knew he was in trouble because of gambling. It’s an addiction, a disease. I had to help him.”
Kiel watched as the sheriff wrote in his notebook. Trembling and near tears, she slumped back into her chair.
“I had no choice. He needed the money.”
“He put you up to it, didn’t he?”
“Who?”
“Your father.”
“No. I already told you, the money was Sage’s idea.”
“I don’t believe you. Your father was desperate. His creditors were hounding him, and he’d run out of options.”
“That’s not true. He could have taken out a loan if he wanted. He had the farm to use as collateral.”
She didn’t know. For the first time, Cubiak felt sorry for her.
“The farm was gone. Your father started selling it off years ago.”
Kiel started. “You’re lying, trying to get me riled. My father would never do that, at least not while Florence was alive.”
Cubiak opened a folder and laid out copies of the bills of sale. There were six altogether. One for each parcel of land that the neighbor had purchased from Tom Fadim.
Kiel blanched. “That fucker . . .”
Did she mean Smolinsky or her father? Cubiak wondered.
Kiel snatched the papers. “Where did you get these? How do I know if they’re authentic?”
She didn’t give up easily, he had to give her that much. “They’ve all been notarized. If you wanted to, you could check county records and find out who’s been paying the real estate taxes on the land.”
Kiel pushed the documents back across the table.
“The two of you made quite the tag team. Your father needed you to blackmail Sage, and you needed your dad to help stage the phony suicide.”
She refused to take the bait. “You’re fishing, Sheriff. You’ve got no proof. Sage left a note. And I’m sure if you’d check, you’d find gun residue on his hand.”
Cubiak placed another document on the table. “Here’s Sage’s note. All it says is that he is sorry for what’s happened. That’s a pretty vague statement. It could apply to almost anything. Also, suicide notes are usually handwritten, not typed. And notice the odd size of the paper and the rough edging here.”
She leaned forward and watched him run a finger along the top of the sheet.
“It almost looks as if the top part of the page had been torn off, carefully, perhaps using a ruler,” he said.
“Still no proof.” Kiel settled back and assumed the same arrogant stance she had had at the start of the interview.
Cubiak went on. “Men don’t generally keep stationery in the house, and if they do, you’d expect to find a box of it. But this was the only piece like it on the premises. And it doesn’t look like personal stationery, does it? I think it’s more likely the kind of stationery used by the institute.” The sheriff laid a second sheet alongside the purported suicide note. “I got curious and asked Noreen Klyasheff for a copy of IPM stationery. It’s a perfect match. That’s not just my opinion. I had the two analyzed by an expert. It would appear that there are plenty of arguments against calling this a suicide note. More than likely it was Sage’s letter of resignation, which you got hold of and used for your own purposes.”
Kiel was unyielding. “What about the gun residue? Or did you not bother to check for any?”
“Oh, we looked, of course, and we found it. Just as you knew we would.”
She started to say something and then caught herself.
“If I had to guess, I’d say that you put the gun in Sage’s hand after you or your father shot him, trying to make it look as if the doctor had pulled the trigger. Why not? It’s easy enough to do, and things like that happen pretty regularly on TV cop shows. The truth is that when a gun is fired, the residue spreads everywhere, so finding traces of it on Sage’s hand isn’t as significant as you’d like to think.”
Kiel went on the offensive. “Why would I kill Sage if I was blackmailing him? Isn’t there some quaint expression about cutting off your nose, et cetera?”
“Sage was well off, but he didn’t have limitless assets. Once you got what you could from him, he ceased being an asset and became a potential threat. You had to kill him, too, for much the same reason you had to get rid of Melk—to make sure there was no one left who could sue you for damages after your book came out.”
The journalist laughed. “You overestimate the power of the written word, Sheriff.”
“Do I? Medical exposés are always big news. You figured you were sitting on the kind of sensational story that would get you on the major TV talk shows and catapult you to the top of the New York Times bestseller list. An explosive story like that is worth a lot of money. It also comes with the kind of name recognition that can command big advances on future book deals.” He paused and then went on. “People kill for less.”
“But even you said Sage was in the clear, that he’d find a way of distancing himself from Melk’s activities, all of which had been going on for nearly a decade before Sage joined the institute.”
“He probably wouldn’t be held accountable in a court of law, but the court of public opinion is different. Alzheimer’s is a hot topic. You wouldn’t want to write a book that was stuck in the past. For you, probably for any writer, the temptation would be to link early research efforts to the work being done now. Sage was your answer because he bridged the two eras. A wordsmith with your skills would have no trouble casting a long shadow. If Sage was alive, he would probably sue for libel, but like Melk, he had no family. With him and his predecessor out of the way, you could write what you wanted without worrying about the consequences.”
Cubiak tented his hands and tilted forward. “In the piece you wrote for the Gazette after Melk’s death, you played fast and loose with the facts. You sensationalized where it suited your purpose and omitted details that lessened the drama. You also misquoted me. Given that sample of your handiwork, I can image the kind of salacious exposé you’d write. It used to be called ‘yellow journalism.’ I don’t know what the term is now, but I suspect that you wouldn’t hesitate to ruin Sage’s reputation to embellish your own.”
Kiel glared at the sheriff. “I don’t apologize for what I write. Melk was a monster, and the world deserves to know it. He built his reputation and his institute on the pain and suffering of the innocent. I don’t have to sensationalize what he did; the facts speak for themselves.
“As for Sage, I’m not going to shed any tears for him. He had his eye on the golden prize as much as Melk did and was willing to look the other way when it suited his purposes. Shouldn’t he have thought it odd that so many subjects were at hand, that they spoke little if any English and had no families that came to visit? Melk kept them prisoners of his work just as surely as he locked up Margaret and those other children in that wing at the mental hospital. And Sage never wondered, never questioned any of it? Don’t kid yourself, Sheriff. He knew more than he let on, he had to. But he looked the other way because it was in his best interest to do so,” Kiel said, as if daring Cubiak to contradict her.
“But I didn’t kill him. In fact, I think the assertion is ludicrous.”
She stood and stepped back from the table. “Look at me, Sheriff. I’m five two and never weighed more than a hundred and twenty in my life. Do you think any jury is going to believe that I could subdue a man as tall and strong as Harlan Sage? Do you think you or the prosecutor could convince anyone that I could hold him down wh
ile pointing a gun to his chest?”
Don’t be absurd.
She didn’t say it, but the look on her face conveyed the message. Kiel had played her ace card. She sat back, assured that she had won.
Cubiak threw his hand up in a gesture of defeat and allowed her a moment to enjoy her victory.
She was still gloating when there was a knock on the door and Rowe entered.
“It’s all here?” Cubiak said.
“Just as you suspected,” Rowe said as he set a blue folder on the table.
Kiel stared at the file.
When they were alone again, Cubiak continued. “You were having an affair with Harlan Sage. The evening Sage died you went to console him about Melk’s death—or maybe to celebrate. You did what a woman like you would do perched on his lap. When you finished, he relaxed and closed his eyes, unaware that at that moment you were reaching for your gun. He never had a chance.”
Kiel sneered. “Prove it. Prove any of it.” She tried to be resolute in her defiance but couldn’t hide her nervousness.
“There are witnesses to your midnight assignations with Doctor Sage,” Cubiak said.
Her right eye twitched.
“The doctor’s neighbors tend to be security conscious. More than one has installed cameras to track who comes and goes. Most of the cameras point at their own driveways and front entrances but a few focus on the road, and footage from them reveals that your car repeatedly made its way to Sage’s turnoff.”
“I had to interview him for the book.”
“Of course, and there were one or two afternoon visits, but the majority of your assignations occurred around midnight or later, and generally on those visits you didn’t leave until the next morning.”
Kiel started to object but Cubiak cut her off.
“The most interesting segment caught you and Sage leaving the house together. You’re wearing something like a cocktail dress, if that terms still holds, and you’re walking together toward his car.”
Cubiak slipped a photo from the folder and turned it toward Kiel.
“We were able to enhance the film enough to see him kiss you and slip his hand into a rather compromising position.” The sheriff paused. “Any chance you remember where you were going that evening?”
Kiel slumped in her chair.
“I’m not saying another word until I talk to an attorney.”
21
SHIFTING THE BLAME
A night in jail had done nothing to improve Tom Fadim’s mood or soften his surly manner. He hadn’t shaved and he sported a five o’clock shadow that might have appeared stylish on a male fashion model but had the opposite effect on him.
A nervous young man in a cheap suit sat alongside the suspect: the lawyer.
Cubiak clicked on the recorder and identified those in the room.
“Coffee?” he said, indicating the cup he had brought in for himself.
“Keep your swill,” Fadim said.
The lawyer had started to say yes but changed his mind.
“Whatever,” Cubiak said. He opened a green folder and took his time reviewing the contents. He knew everything that was typed up inside but wanted to keep the suspect on edge. Finally, he reached for his coffee and looked at Fadim.
“Please, state your relationship to Linda Kiel, aka Cody Longe,” he said.
The prisoner made a face. “Linda Kiel, or, as she liked to call her fancy self, Cody Longe, is my adopted daughter.”
“And by birth?”
“By birth, she’s my niece. My sister, Lorene, was her mother.”
“What happened to Lorene?”
“You must already know all this. What the hell are you asking me for?”
“I need to hear it from you.”
Cubiak talked over the lawyer, who had leaned toward his client and instructed him to answer the question.
“Lorene was killed in a car accident when Linda was eleven months old. She was a single mom, no father in the picture, so my wife and I took her in.”
“And you adopted her?”
“Eventually we did.”
“How old was she then?”
“Eight, nine? Something like that.”
“You waited nearly a decade to adopt her?”
Fadim squirmed. “Yeah. There were other relatives, and we figured maybe one of them would step up to the plate, but no one did.”
“Do you and your wife have any children of your own?”
“No. And it’s ex-wife.”
The sheriff pretended to make a notation in the file, knowing this would worry Fadim.
“And Florence Fadim? What is your relationship to her?”
“The old lady is my paternal grandmother.”
“What about your parents?”
“My father died years before. My mother was in the car with Lorene, coming home from Christmas shopping. They were both killed. The other driver was DUI. Walked away with a bruise on his shoulder.” Fadim pointed to a spot at the end of his left clavicle as if he carried a similar mark under his shirt.
“Sorry,” Cubiak said. For a moment, he felt sympathetic toward Fadim. Each of them was a man whose life had been changed by a drunk driver.
The sheriff closed the folder. “You know that your daughter was writing a book about the Institute for Progressive Medicine.”
Fadim slipped back into form. “Sure I do. I told you about it the first time we talked.”
“When did she tell you about the documents from the Northern Hospital for the Insane?”
“You don’t have to answer that,” the lawyer said.
Fadim waved him quiet. “She didn’t tell me anything.”
“But you’ve seen them?”
“Yeah, by accident. The old lady went on about someone breaking into the barn. When I went to look, I saw all that junk on the wall. I didn’t pay that much attention to it. What I saw didn’t make any sense to me. I figured Linda probably had something to do with it, so I asked her.”
“How did she react?”
“At first she was pissed that I’d seen it. Then she told me what she’d learned about Margaret and all those other kids. I couldn’t believe it and made her prove it to me. What the fuck, I thought. I wanted to go to the institute and wring Melk’s neck.”
“Or sue?”
Again Fadim swatted away the lawyer’s hand. “Sure, why not? I figured he owed us something. For what he did. For the grief and pain he caused my grandmother—all of us, everyone in the family.”
“You needed the money, didn’t you?”
Fadim exchanged a look with his attorney and clammed up.
“Why didn’t you wring his neck, as you said?”
Fadim snorted. “By the time I got the courage to do anything, he was already dead.”
“Linda took care of him, didn’t she?”
For the second time, the suspect heeded the cautionary look from his attorney.
“I won’t answer that. You can’t make me.”
“What about Doctor Sage?”
“What about him?”
“Did you know that Linda was having an affair with him?”
“My daughter is an adult. What she does with her life is her own business.”
“You’re denying that you knew anything about the relationship between the two of them?”
“She had to talk to him for the book. I know that. Anything else, like I said, it’s her business.”
“Did your daughter tell you about the photo of the boy on the wall and the cleaning woman who thought it was her missing brother?”
“She may have said something.”
“Did she tell you about the connection between Down syndrome and Alzheimer’s, and the illicit research that Melk had started and that Sage had continued?”
Fadim shrugged.
“Is that a yes or a no?”
“It’s a maybe. I don’t understand all that medical stuff, Sheriff. I never was any good at science in school. Now, Linda’s smart. She’d kno
w what it meant.”
A subtle way to try to shift the focus and blame to his own child, Cubiak thought. “She said it was your idea to blackmail Sage.”
The lawyer put his hand on Fadim’s arm, but the suspect tossed it off.
“That’s a lie on two counts. I never said anything about anything, and we never blackmailed Sage.”
“Where’d you get the money to pay off your debt at the casino?”
“My client has no comment,” the lawyer said, chiming in before Fadim could answer.
“Where were you the night Doctor Sage was murdered?”
Fadim started to reply, but the lawyer interceded again. “No comment.”
Cubiak opened the file and slid a piece of paper out. “For the record, I am showing the suspect a copy of Doctor Sage’s purported suicide note. Have you ever seen this?”
“No comment.” The attorney had taken over and Fadim let him.
The sheriff repeated what he had told Linda Kiel about the stationery and the torn edge along the top of the page. He ran through his theory about the seduction and the shooting and the journalist’s need for an accomplice to pull off the stunt.
Cubiak slid another sheet of paper from the file. “We did a cast of the tire tracks found in the lawn at Sage’s house on the day his body was discovered. They match those on your SUV. Tell me, Mr. Fadim, how do you explain that?”
“Are you accusing my client of a crime?” the lawyer said.
Unable to keep his silence, Fadim slid toward the front of his chair and rested his forearms on the table. “I just got new tires. There’s probably a dozen vehicles around here with the same kind. And what about the residue? There had to be traces of gunpowder on Sage’s hand,” he said.
Cubiak smiled. “Ah, that old theory. You’ll hear all about that in court and how numerous experts have come to disclaim it as evidence.”
Death by the Bay Page 21