Animal Instinct

by Rosenfelt, David

  Musgrove frowns. “Let’s get this over with.”

  Andy and I agreed that I would not contribute to the interview unless I saw something important that he was missing. So he starts it off.

  “Great. What exactly do you do?”

  “Me or my company?”

  “Your company.”

  “Medical information comes in to us, we catalog it, preserve it in our computers. Then we supply it to medical providers and insurance companies who require it. That’s the simple version.”

  “Whose information?”

  “Almost everyone’s. Even yours, I would bet.”

  “Don’t I have to authorize that?” Andy asks.

  “Of course. But you very likely did when you visited your doctor. It was a lengthy form. It’s unlikely you read it, more likely it was summarized for you.”

  “Why would I sign?”

  “To take a drastic example, let’s say you are allergic to a number of drugs. You are in Ohio on business, and you get in a car accident. You arrive at the hospital unconscious. They are going to administer drugs; wouldn’t it be nice if they had your list of allergies?

  “Or you want medical or life insurance. Do you want to have to round up your records by calling all your doctors and then sitting for an invasive physical, or would you like the insurance company to easily access the information?”

  “Do you have competitors?”

  “Not really. Other companies do what we do, but they are spread out geographically. We handle most of the East Coast; this is our home office, but we have five satellites. It’s a bit of an anachronism; computers make geography relatively meaningless, yet that’s how our industry is organized. We have working relationships with the other companies.”

  “What was your working relationship with Gerald Kline?”

  “He was a headhunter for us. If we had an opening, he recommended candidates. We interviewed them, and if we agreed with his assessment, we hired them.”

  “Was he the only person you used?”

  “Yes. We hire people on our own through HR; but for the higher-level jobs, we used Gerald’s services. He was very good at it.”

  “What were the talents necessary for the higher-level jobs?”

  “Reliability, experience, computer expertise is essential…”

  “What will you do with Kline out of the picture?”

  “When I make that decision, you’ll be the first to know.”

  I thought I would find it annoying not to be asking at least some of the questions, but Andy is covering the ground quite well.

  “How well did you know Kline personally?”

  “I would say moderately well. We had lunch quite a few times, and maybe three or four dinners. Most of the time we talked about work, but that wasn’t all.”

  “Did you talk about Lisa Yates?”

  “Some. He and Lisa were together for a while.”

  “Did it bother you that he was in a relationship with one of the employees he recommended?”

  Musgrove shakes his head. “No. First of all, their relationship began well after she came here. And second, it’s not like he was her boss; they had nothing to do with each other in their work life.”

  “Any idea who might have viewed Kline as an enemy?”

  Musgrove looks at me. “Present company excepted?” Then, “No; I was quite shocked when I heard the news.” He looks at his watch. “Are we done here?”

  Andy nods. “I believe we are.”

  IT would be overstating it to say that Jason Musgrove was worried.

  At most, it could be said that he had some concern. Not because there was any real danger, but rather because things had gone so smoothly for so long that even a slight glitch assumed a greater importance.

  The ex-cop and his lawyer had said nothing in the meeting to indicate they had the slightest idea what was going on. They asked questions about Gerald Kline because they were trying to find his killer. That made perfect sense given that the ex-cop was going to be put on trial for the crime.

  But Musgrove would alert his team, so that they could then be on the lookout for any developments that might be worrisome. They were thorough and had immense resources and abilities, and Musgrove could count on them to be extra careful. There was too much at stake, and they had waited too long, to take any other approach.

  Musgrove was in charge of the operation, but he had ceded much of it to his associates. Part of it was because they were so good at what they did, but the truth was that Musgrove set it up this way with an eye to the future.

  When it was over, the others would disappear, never to be found again. That was how they wanted it, and they were capable of making it happen. Musgrove, on the other hand, wanted to remain behind, living the life he had built.

  At times Musgrove felt uneasy about his having given the team too much power, too much leverage over him. But there was no way around it, and he was not truly worried.

  When the time came, Musgrove believed he could handle any and all eventualities.

  IN my view the Crown Inn is not an inn. It’s a motel.

  Inns are places that are old and quaint and have two faucets in each sink, one for the hot and one for the cold. They don’t have televisions in rooms, but they do have stairs that creak, and four or five thousand antique shops within a mile radius. They serve good muffins and coffee in the morning, but you have to sit at a large table and make conversation with the other guests.

  Motels are two-level buildings that look run-down about an hour after they are built. You can park your car in front of your room. There are vending machines on each floor, but no place to get change to use them, and no way to effectively complain if the bag of M&M’s doesn’t actually fall into the bottom tray. They have televisions, but no guide to tell you the channels. The soap is the size of a saltine, and their carpets are bought already pre-worn.

  I may be generalizing here.

  By any standard other than its name, the Crown Inn in East Rutherford is a motel. It’s also the place that Sam Willis said Lisa Yates paid for with a credit card during the last month of her life. Lisa’s house on Derrom Avenue was nice; this place would not seem up to her standards.

  I’m not sure that there is anything to be learned here, but I’m positive that there’s nothing to be learned by sitting home. I’m certainly curious as to why Lisa would stay in this place; my best guess is that she was hiding. Unfortunately, I’m not likely to learn who she was hiding from by talking to the staff at the Crown Inn.

  I walk into the small office out front and ask the blank-faced teenage boy behind the desk to get the manager.

  “He’s not here.”

  “You have got to be kidding,” I lie. “He said he’d be here.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you.”

  “I don’t have time for this.” I look at my watch to demonstrate my focus on time. “I’m here to get Lisa Yates’s things.”

  “Who is she?”

  I feign increased annoyance, leaning toward anger. “Who is she? Is this your first goddamn day? She was here for a month and then had to leave town. She sent me to get her stuff. Look it up.”

  He sits up straighter. “Okay … okay…” He looks her up on the computer and says, “Here she is. She owes two weeks’ rent.”

  “I know. I already had this damn conversation with the manager. Now how much does she owe, I’ll pay it. Then you take me to her room, I’ll get her stuff, and get out of this dump.”

  He looks at the computer again. “Three hundred forty dollars.”

  “What a damn rip-off,” I say, but I count out the cash and give it to him. Maybe I can fill out an expense form and get Andy to reimburse me. “Let’s go.”

  He gets the key and takes me to her room and opens it. “See you later,” I say at the open door, to make sure he leaves.

  I go inside. Gathering her stuff is pretty easy; there are two suitcases, still closed and filled. There are no clothes in the closet or the drawers
, no toiletries in the bathroom, nothing to show that she stayed here. Actually, it’s obvious that there is no way that she did stay here; I’d bet she was keeping this room as a potential place to hide. At least that’s how I see it.

  I take the two suitcases, make one more check to see that nothing else is in the room, and leave. I walk around to my car, which is near the motel entrance, and load them into the trunk.

  Obviously the police never became aware that Lisa was renting the room or they would have come and confiscated her stuff. I suppose at some point it could come back to haunt me that my GPS monitor will show that I was here, but I’ll deal with that when the time comes.

  In the meantime, I head home to look through the stuff I’ve just stolen.

  “YOU moving in, or moving out?” Dani asks, when she sees me come in with the suitcases.

  “I stole these from Lisa Yates’s motel room.”

  “You know, it’s possible that you’re a career criminal.”

  “And a damn good one.” I bring her up-to-date on the circumstances behind my theft.

  “What are you hoping to find?”

  “A clue, maybe. I have no idea. You want to help me look through all of this? In case there’s female stuff I shouldn’t see?”

  “Sure; I certainly wouldn’t want you to see female stuff. But if I help, will that make me an accomplice?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Can I be a sidekick instead? I’ve always wanted to be a sidekick.”

  “I can’t think of a better sidekick to have.” I point to the suitcases. “You take that one and I’ll take this one.”

  We open both of them on the living room floor; they seem to be filled with clothing. I take the items out of my assigned bag, and at the bottom there is a toiletry case. I open it, but there doesn’t seem to be anything unusual in it.

  “Just clothing and stuff in here,” I say.

  “Same here.” But Dani’s going through her bag more slowly than I am. “Wait a minute.…”

  “What is it?”

  “An envelope.” She takes out an eight-and-a half-by-eleven-inch manila envelope, which looks thin. If anything is inside, it couldn’t be more than a few sheets of paper. She hands it to me to open, which I do, being careful not to tear anything inside.

  It is, in fact, three sheets of paper. They are three newspaper obituaries, which appear to be printed from the internet. I look through them quickly, and they seem not to be out of the ordinary in any way.

  One is for a Mr. Samuel Devers, 71, of Springfield, Massachusetts. Another is Ms. Doris Landry, 73, of Somers Point, New Jersey. The third is Mr. Eric Seaver of Brunswick, Maine. The dates that they died are listed and are all about seven weeks ago. These three people died within five days of each other.

  The obituaries themselves are boilerplate; they don’t do much more than announce the deaths. There are no mentions of planned services, though in two cases the families recommend donations to specific disease charities in lieu of flowers. I assume those are the diseases they died of.

  In two cases the people are survived by their spouses; Ms. Landry is survived by her son, Steven.

  I call Andy and tell him what I’ve done and about the discovery of the obituaries. I tell him I’ll scan and email them to Laurie, and he says that Dani should do it on her computer, in case the authorities issue a subpoena to go through my emails.

  Andy puts Laurie on the phone, and I suggest that she give this information to Sam, to see what he can find out about the three deceased people. “The obituaries were hidden at the bottom of a suitcase. They weren’t there by accident.”

  When I get off the phone, I ask Dani to scan and send them to Laurie.

  “No problem,” she says. “That’s the kind of stuff that sidekicks do.”

  “I just don’t see anything unusual about these people. They basically lived normal, uncontroversial lives.”

  Sam has done a quick background check on the three deceased people whose obituaries Lisa had in her suitcase. I was hoping he’d come up with some case-breaking clue, but he obviously has not.

  “Did they have anything in common?” I ask.

  “Well, they’ve all kicked off, so there’s that. And while I don’t want to speak ill of the dead, none of them seem to have made much of an impact on the world. They lived pretty long lives, and then sayonara.”

  “That’s beautiful, Sam,” Laurie says. “You have the heart of a poet. No criminal records for any of them?”

  “No. Not so much as an unpaid traffic ticket. I’m getting copies of the death certificates, so maybe you’ll see something unusual in them.”

  “Any of them wealthy?”

  He shakes his head. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

  I try again. “So no reason to think that Lisa Yates had a relationship with any of them?”

  Sam shrugs. “I can’t really say that. I can say that there is no obvious connection that exists online. But I can dive a lot deeper; I just did a surface search. They could have been pen pals for all I know.”

  Sam’s comment gives me an idea. “Can we get access to Lisa Yates’s emails? Maybe she communicated with them that way.”

  “Do you have her computer? Or phone?”

  “No and no. I assume the police have them.”

  “Can you get me her email address? If not, I’m sure I can get it. So the answer to your original question is yes.”

  “I’m sure I can get her email address from her sister. I was going to contact her anyway.”

  “Okay, let me know when you have it, and I’ll get her emails. Last three months good enough?”

  “Plenty good enough.”

  When I get home, I call Denise Yates, Lisa’s sister. “Sorry to bother you. I’m calling to ask you a few more questions, and to see how you are doing.”

  She sounds tired. “Getting by. One day at a time; isn’t that how you’re supposed to do it?”

  “So I’m told. I’m lucky that I haven’t had to go through something so awful.” I’m a bit relieved; if Denise is aware that I have recently been charged with murder, she isn’t acting like it.

  “I hope you don’t have to. Any progress on the case?”

  “Some, but that’s what I wanted to ask you about. Do these names mean anything to you, and do you know if Lisa had any connection to them? Samuel Devers, of Springfield, Massachusetts; Doris Landry, of Somers Point, New Jersey; and Eric Seaver of Brunswick, Maine.”

  She thinks for a few moments. “Not off the top of my head. Can you tell me them again? I want to write them down. Maybe something will come to me.”

  I tell her the names again, and I assume she’s writing them down. “I also wanted to ask you for Lisa’s email address.”

  “That’s one I can answer. She had two; one for personal and one for work.”

  She gives me the addresses and I thank her. “I’ll be in touch when I come up with something.”

  I get off the phone frustrated that we can’t yet find a connection between Lisa Yates and the three people in the obituaries. Their deaths were in some way meaningful to her. They all died shortly before Lisa rented the motel room in what looks like a plan to hide, if she needed to run.

  She packed bags to keep there, and those obituaries did not print and pack themselves. She did both, and she wouldn’t have done those things without a reason. That motel room was going to be her safe place, where she felt she could hide and not be harmed. She wanted those three pieces of paper with her.

  I just wish I knew why.

  MY father, if he was alive, would have described Don Crystal as a “character.”

  Most people of my father’s generation would have said it as a negative, but not him. If he encountered someone like Crystal, he would have been sort of bewildered and sort of amused, but he wouldn’t have been critical. He was a live-and-let-live guy, even if he couldn’t identify with certain offbeat kinds of “living.”

  Crystal certainly has an interesting look about
him. His hair is long; if it were combed down, it would probably not reach his shoulders, but would come pretty close. But that is a moot point; his hair does not look like it’s been combed or brushed since the Mets last won a World Series.

  When I get to his house, he greets me at the front door in pajamas … with feet on them. They’re not bunny feet, so that’s a plus. But I haven’t seen an adult in pajama feet in a while; it takes a major effort not to stare.

  He lives in what seems like a fairly large, and quite old, house in Tenafly. When I walk in from the front door directly into the den, I am struck that, besides a couch, there is no other furniture at all. No chairs, tables, television, nothing. I can’t speak to what might be in the bedroom or kitchen, or in what I assume are quite a few other rooms, judging from the outside, but I’ve got a hunch that this house is not home to many book- or bridge-club gatherings.

  Crystal practically jumped at the chance to talk to me when I called him. All he had to hear was that I wanted to talk about Ardmore Medical Systems, and I thought he was going to send a limo to my house to bring me here. That he referred to Ardmore as “that cesspool” leads me to believe his assessment is not going to be all positive.

  When I interviewed Susan Redick at Ardmore about Lisa and her work there, Susan had said that if I talked to Don Crystal, I’d learn about the “nitty-gritty” of the place. Based on this house, I definitely think she was right about at least the “gritty” part.

  “You want something to drink?” Crystal asks. “I’ve got water and Tang.”

  “Tang? The stuff the astronauts used to drink?”

  He nods. “They probably still do; it’s good stuff.”

  “I didn’t know that it was still around.”

  He gives me a look. “Oh, sure. You just have to know where to find it.”

  I decline the Tang, and he sits on the couch. I sit on the arm of the couch farthest from him; it seems to be the cleanest available spot. I tell him I’m looking into the death of Lisa Yates.