Lieberman's thief al-4

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  "Understood," said Lieberman. "Thanks for coming."

  In the hall, walking toward Kearney's office, Lieberman said, "What're you, catching my insomnia? Father Murphy, you look like a wet dog biscuit."

  "Lot on my mind, Rabbi," Hanrahan said. "Got a lot on my mind."

  "What happened to Chuculo Fernandez?" asked Lieberman.

  "Victim's not so sure anymore," said Cadwell without looking up. "Captain says we come up with something sure or we tell the public defender why we're not releasing him. Next time we get Fernandez in here it'll be for murder one. Remember I said it here and I said it first."

  Hanrahan met his partner's eyes as they approached Kearney's office.

  "Don't look at me like that, Rabbi. I'm sane, sober, and wide awake."

  Kearney's office was in the corner of the squad room. It was small, but it was almost soundproof. The captain was seated behind his desk, waiting for them. The detectives sat.

  "Well?" asked Kearney.

  "I'd say Rozier recognized him."

  "So would I," said Kearney.

  "So, most likely case," said Lieberman, "is Rozier hired Patniks to kill his wife,"

  "Doesn't figure," said Kearney.

  "Nope," agreed Lieberman. "It doesn't figure. Patniks's not a gun for hire. Certainly not a knife. But who knows?"

  "Who knows?" agreed Kearney, looking down at notes on his desk. "Mrs. Rozier was insured for twenty-five thousand. Harvey Rozier spends that in two months on public relations and lunch. The funeral will cost at least five or ten thousand. Mrs. Rozier left everything to him, but that's just about nothing but her half of the house. Doesn't look like a money motive."

  "Doesn't look," Lieberman agreed. "Did he fool around?"

  "Looking at him, I'd say yes," said Kearney, "but that's not money in the bank. You thinking she was threatening divorce, going for everything he owns?"

  "It's happened," said Lieberman.

  "Our Harvey, the grieving widower, does not have a hell of a lot she could have taken from him," said Kearney. "He's in a break-even business, scrambling every month to keep it going. Overhead-entertaining, rent, support staff. Our Harvey didn't have much, but he could use some big money."

  Kearney bit his lower lip and scanned the notes again.

  "Rozier's in good health. No shady deals we can find. Can't say the same for our lawyer, Kenneth Franklin. Franklin is very rich and very sick. Cancer."

  "Accounts for some of his attitude," said Lieberman.

  "Might," said Kearney, looking up at Hanrahan. "What the hell were you trying to do last night?"

  "We," said Lieberman. "Bill and I agreed he'd go talk to Rozier."

  "At ten at night? The time alone, without an emergency, is enough to give some weight to Franklin and Rozier's screams about harassment."

  "He's guilty of something, and-" said Hanrahan.

  "And you're sorry you did it," Kearney finished.

  "Absolutely," said Hanrahan.

  "The bottle of ipecac," Kearney said, dismissing the reprimand. "No fingerprints on it. Not a trace. Not a smudge. Wiped clean. Know anyone who wipes medicine bottles before they put them away?"

  "An odd fetish," said Lieberman.

  "Evidence says the other bottles in Dana Rozier's closet were handled by her. Best possibility here?"

  "Rozier wiped his prints off the bottle and put it in his wife's drawer," said Hanrahan.

  "Rozier or the killer. Can you think of any reason a break-in burglar who just committed a murder would wipe fingerprints off a bottle of ipecac?" Kearney paused. "Neither can I. So why didn't Rozier throw the bottle away?"

  "Smart enough to know that we might find traces in her," said Hanrahan. "We find it. Looks like she kept it hidden. It's all a puzzle to the grieving spouse."

  "So," said Kearney, "what have we got?"

  "Bubkes," said Lieberman.

  "Right. We've got nothing," said Kearney. "A bottle of throw-up medicine with no fingerprints, a suspect who we think recognizes a burglar in a lineup but says he doesn't, a suspect with no apparent motive and an alibi. What do we do?"

  "We find some evidence," said Lieberman. lago Simms was grinning, but unless you knew him as well as Dalbert and Lonny did, there was no way of knowing, lago's face sagged to the left and his teeth were exposed on the right.

  "Yes," said lago, holding up the pistol he had found in the glove compartment of the car they had just borrowed from Reno the drug dealer.

  Getting into the garage had been harder than they thought it would be. Three locks on the door. It wasn't daylight yet so they were reasonably sure no one had seen them. Lonny was all for giving up on the whole crazy idea, but there was no way he'd let Dalbert and lago know it.

  "Fuck, kick it down," Lonny had said, and Dalbert hadn't hesitated. Over two hundred pounds hit the garage door. It gave but didn't break. Dalbert turned to Lonny.

  "Again," Lonny said, looking around to see if any lights were going on in the houses behind them.

  "Put some shit in it this time," lago encouraged.

  And Dalbert tried again, throwing himself against the door. It cracked and spat open, cracking against the wooden wall and almost hitting Dalbert in the face when it bounced back.

  "Get the garage door up fast," Lonny said. lago moved to the maroon Chrysler and opened the driver's side door, heading straight for the wiring under the dash. Dalbert hit the switch, opening the garage doors. They slid open smoothly in spite of the breaks.

  "Hurry up," Lonny cried.

  "Got it. Got it. Got it," called lago. The engine purred awake. "There."

  The three of them scrambled into the car, Lonny driving, and sped down the alley.

  "Hey, we didn't close the door," Dalbert cried, looking through the rear window.

  "Don't matter," said Lonny.

  "Why?"

  " 'Cause," said lago, turning in the front seat, "you kicked the door to shit. No way we can get it back and not have some nigger fool with a sawed-off waiting for us. We do the job and drop the car wherever. That right, Lonny?"

  "That's right," Lonny said. lago had turned on the radio. Some woman was singing about men being no good. Lonny reached over and turned the radio off. It was then that lago opened the glove compartment and found the gun.

  "Our lucky day, damn sure," said lago, aiming the gun out the window with one eye closed.

  It didn't feel lucky to Lonny. The day already felt like bad news, but there was no going back. He drove without talking, drove within the speed limit north on Lake Shore Drive, past Lincoln Park and Lake Michigan following them on the right, luxury high-rises beyond the park to the left.

  Lonny had trouble finding the windshield wiper switch and almost lost control of the car, but after three false tries, he hit a button and the wipers came on, spreading the thin layer of rain into the morning.

  Twenty-two minutes from the time they left the garage, Lonny was parking on Argyle across from Jacob Berry's office.

  "He there yet?" asked Dalbert.

  "Don't look it," said lago.

  "What we do?" asked Dalbert.

  "Wait, that's what we do," said Lonny. "We just wait. When he comes, someone should stay in the car, be ready. We got no time to fool around disconnecting and shit like that, you got that?"

  "No lie," said lago. "But I'm not stayin' in the car. Dalbert can stay."

  "No way," said Dalbert angrily.

  If he could have trusted the two of them, Lonny would have sighed his put-upon sigh, his I-don't-know-how-I-put-up-with-you sigh. Then he would have stayed in the car. It had felt bad when they got to the garage and it didn't feel any better now, sitting there waiting for the doctor to come to work. Shit, they'd all go in.

  "Maybe we can just like break in up there and look for the drugs, money, all that shit. See what I'm sayin'?" Dalbert tried.

  "We wait for him," Lonny said, imitating that bald dude Hawk used to be on "Spencer" on TV. "We wait."

  Jacob Berry woke up that morn
ing not sure whether he felt worse or better about coming to Chicago. The sky was dark and drizzly, no better or worse than East Lansing but maybe a little grittier.

  He showered, shaved, dressed, had a large glass of orange juice-not from concentrate-a cup of decaf Folger's, and a toasted poppy seed bagel as he listened to the radio.

  Rain, rain, more rain, and then rain again. Killers of little girls in the news. Fathers going mad and taking their children hostage. Bus crashes. No leads yet in the knifing of the woman in a good neighborhood, in her own home. And this was just in the city. Dr. Berry changed the station. Rock music. He changed it again. Oldies. Chubby Checker.

  Bagels were better in Chicago. Food was better. People were not.

  He rinsed the dishes and put them neatly into the dishwasher before he walked to the front door, picked up his briefcase, opened it on the table, and checked to be sure the gun was there, reassuring, ready. He considered putting the weapon in his pocket, but that was too awkward and heavy. When he got to the office he would remove the gun and put it in the drawer.

  Jacob was ready to meet the day. He encountered no one on the elevator, which was fine with him. He didn't want to tell people he was a doctor and have them give him a strange, questioning look that said, "If you're a doctor, what're you living in this building for? I've got no choice, but a doctor?"

  Jacob didn't know the names of anyone in the building, though he did recognize a few faces.

  He made it through the small, dank-smelling lobby and onto the street, where he found his '90 Toyota unscratched and not broken into. It wasn't much of a car, but he didn't want to go through the anguish of dealing with the insurance company.

  Jacob was only ten minutes from his office. He had a paid parking space behind the Golden Wing Vietnamese Restaurant. For thirty dollars a month, the Hee family would keep an eye on the vehicle for him and provide him a reasonably certain parking space in a heavily trafficked neighborhood. In East Lansing he had a free space with his name on it right outside the clinic.

  Mrs. Hee came out when he had parked and waved at him as she dropped a plastic bag of garbage into one of the containers chained to the wall. Jacob waved back.

  A distant el train rumbled as he came through the alley and headed toward his office. Cars already lined the street, some of them belonging to people who lived nearby, others belonging to early customers or the people who worked in and owned the shops. A shiny maroon Pontiac Grand Prix idled across the street. There seemed to be no one in the car.

  Jacob unlocked the downstairs door, flipped on the hall lights, went up the stairs, and opened his office. When he nit the switch he knew that all was well. Everything was where it should be.

  He moved into the office examining room, opened his briefcase, and put his gun in his desk, leaving the drawer just slightly open.

  He checked his watch. Nine. He had an appointment at nine and another at ten, both police physicals. Jacob went to the window and pulled up the shade, just a little, enough to let in a dusty stream of gray light but not enough to allow anyone to look in from the el platform or a passing train.

  His nine o'clock was late. He heard someone try the front door. As usual, Jacob had locked it. Someone knocked.

  "Coming," he called, adjusting his starched lab coat.

  Jacob was sure it was his nine o'clock physical. He never considered any other possibility as he opened the door and saw the three young men in front of him. They had come. The ones who had looked through the window. Jacob Berry's knees started to buckle.

  One of the three, a little one with a twisted face, held a gun to Jacob's belly. A second one, short and solid, held a knife in his hand. The third, tall with a dark, angry scar through his eyebrow said, "Back in."

  The little one pushed Jacob back with the barrel of his gun and the one with the scar closed the door behind him.

  "Now," said the big one with the scar. "You go fill a bag with money, drugs, everything you got, and fast, or we operate on you, and believe me, motherfucker, we don't know shit about surgery."

  Jacob couldn't speak. His legs carried him backward but threatened to buckle.

  "I've only got a few drugs and the money in my wallet, about forty dollars," he said, reaching for his wallet.

  The heavy-set one with the knife wrenched the wallet from his hand and shoved it in his pocket.

  "You lyin'," the tall one said. "Find somethin', and fast. We got no time to spend here."

  "But I don't…"

  "Find it or you're dog food," said the little one with the gun.

  "OK, all right," Jacob said, backing up. "I've got something."

  The one with the knife grinned and Jacob eased around the desk to the partly open drawer.

  "Move your ass," cried the one with the gun.

  And then all hell broke loose. The nine o'clock appointment, a patrolman named Matthews, who also happened to be black, came through the unlocked outer door, noticed by no one in the office and noticing nothing unusual. Matthews had a fear of needles. He just wanted to get the physical over with.

  When he stepped into the door of the inner office, he saw the three young men, saw the gun and knife, and met the frightened eyes of Dr. Berry behind the desk.

  Matthews went for his gun. lago Simms turned and fired. Jacob Berry groped for the weapon in his desk, pulled it out, aimed in the general direction of the three hold-up men, and began pulling the trigger. Someone screamed.

  Panic in the Streets

  Lieberman and Hanrahan had just moved to their desks, which faced each other next to the heating duct. Today was just cold enough for the automatic thermostat to kick on the heat. Hot air baked the right side of Lieberman's face. His phone was ringing.

  "Lieberman," he said, answering the call.

  "Nervous guy on the phone says he's got to talk to you," said Nestor Briggs. "Says he's a rabbi. Says it's important."

  "Put him through," Lieberman said, looking across at his partner with a shake of his head.

  "Lieberman," Abe said again.

  "Lieberman?" asked Rabbi Nathanson.

  "Yes, what can I do for you, Rabbi? I haven't had a chance to call my lawyer or discuss this further with my wife, but-"

  "I've made a list," Nathanson said, and Lieberman imagined the langa-loksch, the long noodle of a man, with an unfurling parchment scroll before him.

  "A list?"

  "Problems which must be remedied, alterations which must be made before we can move into the house."

  "Alterations?"

  "And some necessary remodeling," confirmed Rabbi Nathanson. "All wallpaper removed and replaced with paint conforming to my specifications. Carpets out and wooden floors sanded and treated. Complete reslating of the roof and new electrical outlets throughout."

  "You want me to pay for this?" asked Lieberman.

  "It is your responsibility," said Rabbi Nathanson.

  "I thought you loved the house just the way it is."

  "I do, but it requires some maintenance to make it livable," said the rabbi.

  "I don't think we can do business, Rabbi," Lieberman said.

  "We have a good faith contract," Nathanson said sternly. "I gave you a check. There were witnesses."

  "Your check is going back to you in the mail tonight. No, better yet, my wife is dropping it off at B'nai Shalom this afternoon."

  "That is not acceptable, Lieberman. This is a breach of contract-no, it is a breach of faith," said Nathanson.

  "Breaking a commandment is a breach of faith," said Lieberman calmly. "Giving your check back is common sense."

  "I have a lawyer," said Nathanson. "Two lawyers, Greenblatt and Greenblatt."

  "Send in the Greenblatts," said Lieberman. "Now, I've got to go find a murderer. Someone cut up a woman. That's a little more important right now."

  "Dana Rozier," said Nathanson. "I saw on the news. Are the Roziers Jewish?"

  "I don't think so, Rabbi," said Lieberman.

  "Thank God," said Nathanson.<
br />
  "My wife's returning the check. Your lawyer and my lawyer can get together and bill us so we can both be sure of losing money on this deal. Good-bye, Rabbi."

  "It would be easier to be reasonable," Rabbi Nathanson tried with great self-assurance.

  "We agree on that," said Lieberman and hung up the phone.

  "What was that?" asked Hanrahan.

  Lieberman tapped his finger on the phone and changed the subject.

  "Let's switch. I play nice guy with Rozier. You play bad guy with Patniks."

  "You think we could be wrong on this one, Rabbi?" asked Hanrahan.

  "On Rozier? No, Father Murphy, he's at the top of the short list Patniks, I'd say he didn't kill her, but he knows something. Maybe Rozier paid him and he backed out at the last second. And our Harvey has a hell of an alibi. Clean."

  "Then who killed Dana Rozier?" Hanrahan asked.

  Lieberman shrugged. His phone was ringing again. He picked it up and heard Bess say, "Abraham, Rabbi Nathanson just called me demanding about ten thousand dollars in changes to the house."

  "You know where the check is?"

  "In my hand. I'd like to tear it into little pieces."

  "Put it in an envelope and drop it off at B'nai Shalom."

  "I'm Federal Expressing it with a return receipt requested," Bess said.

  "Better yet," said Lieberman. "I gotta go."

  "Lisa wants to talk to you."

  "Bess…"

  "Dad." Lisa's voice, as calm and resolute as that of the mad rabbi.

  "Lisa," he said, looking at Hanrahan, who got up and moved toward the coffee across the room.

  "We've got to talk, today."

  "I'll try to get home early," he said.

  'Today, not tonight."

  "I'll be at the T and L for lunch, maybe two, maybe a little earlier."

  "I'll be there."

  "You're not working?"

  "Not today," she said.

  Lisa hung up the phone as Hanrahan returned with two cups of coffee. He handed one to Lieberman and sat down.

  "With caffeine?" Lieberman asked, looking at the cup, which had AMSTERDAM CRUISES printed on it in purple letters.

  Hanrahan shrugged. Lieberman drank.