The Now-And-Then Detective

by William Wells

  21.

  Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner

  I figured that drinks would be served at the Levertons’ dinner party at seven, so that’s when I parked the Taurus next to my favorite fire hydrant, stopping for directions only once on the way, asking a UPS driver. If I kept at it, I might even find my way to Fenway Park. I always wondered how their hot dogs compared to Wrigley Field’s. Or did they only serve New England victuals? I imagined Fenway vendors walking the aisles and yelling: “Clam rolls! Getcha fried clam rolls hea! Quahogs on the half shell!”

  I walked up the steps and rang that doorbell for the third time. Jeeves the butler answered as before and said, “I told Mr. Leverton you were here earlier, sir. He said that if you returned you should call his secretary at his office and make an appointment to see him there.”

  “Do they serve cocktails and hors d’oeuvres at his office?” I asked. “I especially like pigs-in-a-blanket.”

  “I expect not,” Jeeves answered.

  “Then I’d prefer to see him now.”

  “Just a moment,” he said, and closed the door. It never reopened.

  I called the Levertons’ home number on my cell phone.

  “The Leverton residence,” my old friend Jeeves said when he answered.

  “Stewart Leverton,” I said.

  “Whom may I say is calling?”

  “Tell him it’s John Updike. I’d like to write a piece about the dinner party for the New Yorker.”

  “Just a moment, Mr. Updike,” he said. If I’d said I was Charles Dickens, he would have seen through the ruse.

  After more than just a moment, Stewart came on the line and said, “John Updike is deceased. Who is this really?”

  “Would you believe Oliver Wendell Holmes?” I asked him.

  “Also dead. Before you try again, I’m going to hang up and block your number,” he said with great annoyance in his voice.

  As they said at the Department of Homeland Security, it was a credible threat, so I said, “I am in fact the police. We believe in anticipatory service.”

  Silence on the line.

  The door opened and Stewart Leverton, dressed impeccably in a blue blazer, white shirt with a paisley ascot, and pink slacks said, “If you really are a policeman, and you do have that low-rent look, you might as well come in. We can talk in my study.”

  Note to self: When trying to crash a high-rent dinner party, always wear an ascot.

  Stewart Leverton was a handsome man of medium height, with dark hair greying at the temples. He was wearing rimless glasses. He had a thin white scar running along his right cheek. A dueling scar? Is that how Boston real estate developers settled disputes among themselves?

  He opened the door wider and stepped aside. I entered and heard the sound of jovial conviviality coming from another room. I wondered if his hit man was in attendance and was schooled in the proper use of cutlery. At least knives, obviously.

  “This way,” Leverton said.

  I followed him down a hallway and into his study. The decor was what one would expect in a 1783 row house owned by a successful, or maybe previously successful, businessman: knotty pine paneling, an oak floor covered with an oriental rug, a vanity wall hung with photos of Leverton and what must be a panoply of VIPs, none of them Ted Williams. Stewart didn’t play in that league but I did recognize him with a fellow developer, Donald Trump. Leverton and Trump were standing together on a job site, each with a hand on a silver shovel, ready to turn over the first scoop of dirt before the heavy equipment arrived.

  He didn’t ask if I wanted a drink or tell me to take a seat. Clearly I wasn’t going to be there that long. He cut me a look that could have melted a subcontractor’s heart and asked, “Now who exactly are you and what do you want?”

  “I’m Detective Jack Starkey of the Naples, Florida, Police Department,” I told him. “I’m investigating the murder of your wife’s uncle, Henry Wilberforce.”

  “That crime took place in Florida?”

  “Yes, that’s correct.”

  “In that case, you have no authority here, Detective,” Leverton said. “You are no more than a tourist.”

  “There’s certainly a lot to see in your city,” I replied. “I especially like the prime rib at Fat Thomas’s Tavern, not to mention the spaghetti carbonara at a little Italian place in the North End whose name escapes me. However, I’m here investigating Mr. Wilberforce’s murder with the knowledge and permission of Boston Police Chief Anton Summerfield. I would like to have a discussion with you and your wife about that murder.”

  “And you think that this social gathering at my home is the appropriate time and place for that discussion?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure I can find my way to your office again,” I said. “I’m lucky to be here.”

  He glared at me and said, “Just a moment.”

  But I was wise to that dodge and said, “That’s fine, but after any more than a moment, I’m joining the cocktail party.”

  He left the study and, not wanting someone who’d obviously gone to a public high school to mingle with his high-class pals, he returned right away, accompanied by a man who said, “I am Mr. Leverton’s attorney, Detective Starkey. I assume that you do not have a search warrant and that you are not here to arrest my client, even if you had the authority to do so in Boston, which you do not.”

  Leverton’s lawyer was holding a glass, crystal no doubt, containing three fingers of a rich brown liquid, no ice. It would be a crime to add ice to what was most likely a thousand-year-old single-malt scotch. I could smell the earthy aroma of peat bogs. When I entertained aboard Phoenix, I served drinks to guests in a matched set of Welch’s Grape Jelly glasses. They worked just fine.

  “All that is correct,” I told the mouthpiece. “I don’t have a search warrant and I am not here to arrest Mr. Leverton, only to talk to him and his wife about a murder they may have knowledge of.”

  I was tempted to ask if he’d read Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part 2 containing the line, “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” Another tip of the hat to my good Jesuit education. But I did not want to get off on the wrong foot with him.

  “In that case,” he told me, “you need to leave immediately.”

  The “or else” was implied. Maybe Stewart Leverton’s hit man really was present and would come into the study holding a martini in one hand and a .22-caliber pistol with a suppressor on the barrel in the other, take a sip of his drink, and then ventilate my head.

  “I can do that,” I said. “And my next step will be to have a Florida court issue subpoenas to the Levertons to come to Naples for depositions.”

  He looked at Leverton. They stepped into the hall, closed the study door, and came back in a few minutes.

  “You realize that their aforementioned depositions could just as easily be taken here,” he told me. “I can petition the court for that.”

  Aforementioned. Harvard Law, no doubt, where they probably wore black robes and powdered wigs during moot court sessions.

  He continued, “However, in order to avoid that formality, and in the spirit of full cooperation with your investigation, Mr. Leverton agrees to meet with you in my office at a mutually convenient time.”

  He reached into the inside breast pocket of his blazer, came out with a monogrammed gold case, opened it, and handed me his business card, which was made of a rich cream-colored stock as thick as a piece of Sheetrock. The card identified him as Worthington Dewey III of the firm Dewey, Cheatum, and Howe. Not really, but it amused me to think so.

  “Works for me,” I said, and put the card into my pocket.

  Our business concluded, Leverton and his lawyer walked out of the study. I assumed they wanted me to follow them, which I did, down the hallway and back to the foyer. Jeeves was on station to open the front door and close it behind me, a bit harder than necessary, I thought.

  Assuming that I’d still be hungry after crashing the Levertons’ party, I’d arranged to meet
Danny O’Rourke for dinner. This time, he chose a place called Paddy O’Doul’s Pub. I’d asked him if they had good cell phone reception. He said yes, they did, why?

  “Because, if Paddy’s is what it sounds like, I’ll have to call my AA sponsor from there.”

  He said, “I hear you. The corned beef and cabbage is intoxicating enough.”

  And so it was.

  O’Rourke had given me excellent directions to the pub. “But don’t ask me how to get to the Boston Opera House,” he added.

  When I arrived, O’Rourke was seated in a red-leather booth with a black-and-white checked tablecloth. “Whiskey in the Jar,” a song by The Dubliners, was playing on the sound system, and more than a few of the patrons were singing along in full-throated voices, more enthusiastic than on key.

  There were Irish pub kits you could buy, have shipped to your location, and constructed. But Paddy O’Doul’s was obviously the real deal, built after 1783, I’d say, but old enough to reek of authenticity as well as stale beer, and cigarette and cigar smoke. Sawdust on the worn wooden floors. Brass spittoons, which you didn’t see much of anymore.

  “You should feel right at home here, Jack,” Danny said. “Being Irish Catholic and all.”

  “Oh yeah,” I told him. “I have been in a few Irish pubs over the years.”

  And that’s when we both ordered the house specialty and talked some more about my case.

  “If this was Chicago,” O’Rourke said, “we’d grab Leverton off the street, stuff him in the trunk of our car, take him to an abandoned warehouse, and chat with him using enhanced interrogation techniques.”

  Now the song was “Molly Malone.” A brawny fellow with a full red beard, wearing the attire of a construction worker, was standing on the bar, leading the chorus.

  “Things like that did happen,” I said. “A local station house on the South Side, Homan Square, was nicknamed The House of Screams. I was aware of it, we all were, but I never took part. You could get someone to confess to anything, including the JFK assassination, by putting his balls in a vise, but it rarely held up in court.”

  “There’s a story about the old days in Boston,” he told me. “There was a detective, skinny little guy, who could really hold his liquor. He’d come into an interrogation room with two glasses and a bottle of Jameson Irish Whiskey.”

  “I’m familiar with the brand,” I said. “One of my old friends.”

  “So our detective and the suspect would drink together until the suspect was all but unconscious,” O’Rourke continued. “Then the detective would have the alleged bad guy sign a document. It was a previously prepared confession, but the suspect was told it was something else. A receipt for the return of his personal effects, whatever.”

  “And that worked?”

  “The story is probably apocryphal. But stories about coaxing out a confession using the Boston telephone directory as a motivational tool probably are true. Of course, those were the good old days.”

  We finished dinner. The City of Naples picked up the check. Tom Sullivan wouldn’t mind because I was getting free rent in O’Rourke’s Homicide Unit.

  “Good hunting tomorrow,” Danny O’Rourke said as we walked outside toward our cars.

  22.

  Shakespeare Was Right

  The next morning, I called the office of Stewart Leverton’s attorney. His name was Gilbert Norquist, not Worthington Dewey III, and his law firm was Norquist, Harvey & Sommerfield, not Dewey, Cheatum & Howe. A distinction without a difference.

  After telling the receptionist what my call was regarding, she transferred me to his assistant and I made an appointment to see him at two o’clock that afternoon. He’d notify Leverton about the meeting, I assumed. I’d packed my exercise gear. I killed time by taking an easy run around the city, my grey Loyola baseball sweatshirt and sweatpants keeping me warm enough. Boston’s Ye Olde streets were easier to navigate on foot.

  After about fifteen minutes, I found myself at the Charles River watching collegiate rowing crews having a morning workout. No ice on the river, but a winter row was not my cup of tea. We did not have crew at Loyola. Based upon what I was watching, I would have chosen the Men’s Ultimate Frisbee Club, which we did have, because Frisbee clearly required less aerobic conditioning, as did my sport, baseball.

  I continued my run, finding my way back to the Hyatt Regency without having left a trail of bread crumbs, which pigeons would have eaten anyway, took a shower, and dressed in attire suitable for a visit to a white-shoe law firm, meaning I wore socks.

  I had lunch at Mike’s City Diner on nearby Washington Street, recommended by the hotel desk clerk, then drove to the law firm’s building on New Sudbury Street, directed by the Google Maps lady, who’d finally found her voice. Maybe she’d been overwhelmed at first by the challenge of finding her way around the city and needed a reboot.

  I parked at the curb in a loading zone, went inside the building, and rode the elevator to the twentieth floor of the thirty-story tower. Maybe, if the partners of Norquist, Harvey & Sommerfield raised their hourly billing rates, they could afford a higher floor.

  Without waiting for the receptionist to ask what my presence in her lobby was regarding, I told her who I wanted to see, and why. She spoke quietly on her phone and then told me, “Mr. Norquist will see you momentarily. May I get you something to drink? We have coffee, tea, hot and iced, soft drinks, and water.”

  “No, but do you have a Boston telephone directory?” I asked. “The printed kind? White or Yellow Pages, whichever is thicker.”

  She looked confused, then recovered her poise and said, “Yes, I do. Shall I get one for you? We keep them in the stockroom.”

  “Hold onto it for now,” I said. “I’ll let you know if I need it.”

  After a while, she answered a call and told me to follow her to the conference room. When I got there, Stewart Leverton and Gilbert Norquist were seated near one another at one end of a long conference table. One measure of an enterprise’s success apparently was the length of its conference table. The mine’s-longer-than-yours syndrome.

  Leverton and Norquist, who were talking, looked up at me but didn’t stand when I entered. Maybe Leverton was afraid that, if he offered a handshake, I’d slap cuffs on his wrists. I took a chair without being invited to do so. I thought they taught good manners in prep school. Maybe Norquist missed that class.

  Norquist said, “First, the ground rules, Detective Starkey. Mr. Leverton is willing to answer certain questions about the unfortunate demise of his wife’s uncle, although, as he has stated to you previously, he has no specific knowledge of that event, nor has Mrs. Leverton. If I feel that your questions are straying too far afield, this session will be ended. Understood?”

  “Sure,” I said, “as long as we agree that ‘unfortunate demise’ is a euphemism for murder most foul.”

  “We will stipulate to that,” Norquist said.

  I felt a rumbling in my stomach: the Mike’s City Diner chili, which was nice and spicy, the way I like it. I hoped the conference room was well-ventilated, just in case.

  I asked Leverton, “Do you know that Henry Wilberforce was shot in the forehead while he slept with a .22-caliber bullet in what was a professional assassination?”

  “Asked and answered,” Norquist said before his client could open his mouth.

  “Huh. I don’t recall ever asking that question, or hearing an answer,” I told him. “But if your client didn’t know those details, he does now.”

  “That’s terrible,” Leverton said.

  Norquist gave him a look that communicated extreme displeasure that he had actually spoken to me. Bad doggie.

  “Moving on,” I said, “I’d like to discuss a family meeting that was held about three months ago at the Washington, DC, law firm of Alan Dumont, husband of your wife’s cousin June.”

  Leverton didn’t seem surprised that I knew about the family meeting in Washington. If this had been a Senate hearing, Norquist would have covered
the microphone on the table in front of Leverton with his hand while they conferred.

  “So, about that meeting,” I said to Leverton. “I’m told that you also attended.”

  He hesitated, looked at his lawyer, who nodded permission to answer, and said, “I did, at my wife’s request.”

  Now Norquist was allowing his client to talk. Maybe his retainer had run out.

  I continued. “I’m also told that, during the meeting, it was decided to look into filing a petition in Lake County, Illinois, probate court seeking to have Mr. Wilberforce declared mentally incompetent and unable to manage his own affairs. The reason for that decision being that he was giving away large amounts of money and his sole surviving relatives, they being your wife, Libby, and her cousins, June Dumont and Scooter Lowry, were distressed by that largesse and wanted to stop it.”

  Largesse. I could hold my own with any Ivy Leaguer.

  “That’s wrong,” Leverton said. “We were concerned that Henry was not able to properly take care of himself or his personal affairs. We thought it would be in his best interest to have a guardian appointed.”

  “The aforementioned guardian being your wife, or June, or Scooter?”

  Aforementioned. Back atcha.

  “Or whoever the court thought best,” Leverton said.

  “Speaking of Scooter,” I said, “are you aware that Libby visited me in Florida and told me that she suspected Scooter was responsible for Mr. Wilberforce’s murder because Scooter had financial problems and needed an inheritance?”

  Leverton began to answer, but this time Norquist put his hand on his arm, looked at me, and said, “This session is ended, Detective Starkey.”

  I thought about getting that phone book from the stockroom or showing them the Glock I had in a belt holster at the small of my back, but decided against that because it would guarantee I would never dine at the Leverton residence.

  I stood and, before leaving the conference room, looked at my watch and said, “I clocked this session at exactly seventeen minutes, Stewart. Don’t let your attorney charge you for a minute more, unless it’s the firm’s policy to round upward, making it twenty minutes.”