“Very good, Archie.”
“Eight o’clock?”
“Excellent.”
I called the restaurant and they gave me the reservation that I asked for. While it was short notice, and at that hour on a Thursday night they were certainly already booked solid, they always tried hard to accommodate Julius. This worked well to my advantage, at least I hoped it did. If Cramer tried storming Julius’s townhouse while he was out, he’d end up calling me with some sort of threat or outrageous demand that I present Julius to him immediately, which would give me more than enough time to arrange for Henry to be present when Julius returned back to his home.
At eight o’clock on the dot, Julius entered Le Che Cru and the maître d’hôtel rushed over to enthusiastically greet him. As I suspected, the place was crowded with a long line of diners waiting to be seated. The maître d’hôtel had the best table in the restaurant reserved for Julius—a quiet booth against the wall and on the opposite side from the kitchen. Before taking Julius there, he first introduced Julius to several guests from France who were waiting for a table—a world class chef from Paris, the owner of a vineyard located in the Alsace region and the vineyard owner’s wife. The vineyard owner produced a label that Julius was well aware of and admired. The chef, Sophie Bouchez, was gorgeous. Long golden blonde hair, slender build, dazzling blue eyes. I didn’t even need to do a comparison of her to Hollywood starlets to know she was gorgeous and her French accent was something even I found myself attracted to. With little discussion, Julius invited them to join him at his table, and for the next three hours they ate the best food the chef at Le Che Cru could cook, drank several bottles of the best wine that the restaurant had in their cellar from the vineyard owner’s label, and talked French cuisine and wine making. It was a little after nine o’clock when I got a call from Paul Burke wanting to talk to Julius. Even though I knew there was little chance Julius would be willing to interrupt his dinner, I gave him the message and he gave me a signal that he had no interest in talking to Burke or anyone else who might call.
“Sorry,” I told Burke. “Julius is unavailable right now, and doubtful he’ll be available any time soon.”
“He must know Ken Kingston was murdered today, right?”
“Yeah, he knows.”
“Ken was a friend of mine,” Burke said. “He helped put me on the map and threw a lot of business my way. I’m dedicating my talents now to catch his murderer. I thought Julius might want to team up with me.”
“Nah, Julius would have no interest in that.”
Burke tried sounding nonchalant as he suggested I ask Julius whether he’d have an interest, but I heard an edge creep into his voice, the kind of edge from someone who feels he always needs to prove himself.
“Not necessary,” I told him.
“He feels he’s too much of a big shot to work with me, huh?” Burke said. “Yeah, well, maybe it will help if you tell him I’ve been talking with the producers of my reality show, and it’s sounding like it’s going to be greenlighted with Ken’s murder kicking things off.”
“You misunderstood me. It’s not that he doesn’t have any interest in working a case with you. Whether he does or not, I have no idea. What he doesn’t have any interest in is worrying about who killed Kingston. As far as he’s concerned, that’s not his problem.”
This seemed to catch Burke by surprise, at least by the dubious note in his voice. “You’re kidding?” he asked.
“I kid you not.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. Ken was a client. He just paid Julius a ton of money. I don’t get it. Why wouldn’t your boss feel obligated to catch Ken’s murderer?”
“He doesn’t. All he feels obligated to do is what Kingston hired him to do, and that’s it. But I’ll pass on your offer to Julius. Maybe he’ll have a change of heart.” I hesitated, then added, “I’ve got a question.”
“Shoot.”
“Did the police talk to you yet?”
“Yeah, they did.”
“Did you tell them about the gathering Julius had with all of you today?”
“Nope,” Burke said. “They didn’t ask, so I didn’t bother volunteering it. Why? Is this something Julius wants to keep hushed?”
“No, not at all. Just something I was curious about.”
With that I ended the call and for the next hour and forty-five minutes spent my time mostly enthralled with the sound of Sophie Bouchez’s voice. It was partly this throaty purring quality to her voice, partly her French accent. While I listened on about the newest trends in haute cuisine in Paris, I was also monitoring the Cambridge police department’s computer system and the outdoor webcam feed at Julius’s townhouse. It was shortly after espressos were being served that I picked up from the police department that an arrest warrant had been issued for Julius on obstruction of justice charges. I told Julius this, but he didn’t seem to care.
About the time Julius was settling the bill and saying goodnight to the vineyard owner and his wife and a clearly disappointed Sophie Bouchez—disappointed because she had made her intentions for Julius clear with the way she flirted, laughed at his jokes and touched his arm while Julius remained impervious to her attentions—I saw over the webcam feed a fuming Detective Cramer storming his way down Julius’s pathway towards his front door. I told Julius about this. Again, he didn’t seem to care.
“Maybe you should use the opportunity being presented to you,” I suggested. “Mademoiselle Bouchez clearly wants you to spend the night with her, and it would allow you to avoid the police, at least until the morning, which probably wouldn’t be a bad thing.”
Julius ignored me. It wasn’t as if I’d never in the past witnessed Julius doing exactly what I was now suggesting, but that was all before Lily Rosten. When Sophie Bouchez suddenly embraced Julius for a goodbye, I saw her slip a folded note into Julius’s coat pocket. After she left with the vineyard owner and his wife—all the while making sure to linger at the door—I told Julius about her note. He still had time to go after her. Instead he waited for her to leave the restaurant, then he tore up the note unread. During all this I continued watching Cramer through the webcam feed as he pounded on Julius’s front door and yelled for Julius to open his damned door, that he had a warrant for Julius’s arrest. For a moment it looked as if he were going to try to kick it down, which would’ve been a mistake since Julius had enough added security features to make the door impenetrable and all Cramer would’ve accomplished would’ve been damaging his knee. Instead of doing that, he took out his cell phone and tried calling Julius. I answered and patched Julius in so he could hear also.
“Put your boss on the phone,” Cramer ordered, his voice barely able to contain his exasperation.
“I would if I could but I can’t, so I won’t.”
“I’ve got a warrant for his arrest, so you better damn well listen to me.”
“Well, now, that’s all fine and dandy, but it’s four minutes past eleven right now, and I have no idea why you’d think I’d be with him. I do know he had plans to go out this evening. I’ll try to track him down. If I’m able to do so, where should I tell him you’ll be?”
From what I could tell through the webcam feed he was beyond fuming. “Playing the same games as your boss, huh?” he forced out. “You can tell Katz I’ll be waiting for him outside his front door for the next ten minutes. After that I’ll be breaking down that door and waiting for him inside!”
With that Cramer disconnected the call.
“The man’s a dunce,” Julius muttered.
“Yeah, I know, a fool and a dunce. But he still has an arrest warrant with your name on it. Should I call Henry Zack?”
“Don’t bother.”
“Your choice. If after an evening of fine food and drink and sterling conversation you’d like to spend the night in a jail cell instead of your own bed, that’s up to you. I would think the prudent thing would be for me to call Henry.”
Julius knew I was right but he didn’
t want to give in, at least not completely. Stubbornly he told me to do as I wished. I called Henry and filled him in on these latest developments, including Cramer’s threat. Henry lived in the Back Bay section of Boston which at that hour would only be a few minutes drive to Julius’s townhouse. He promised me he’d be there in less than the ten minutes that Cramer had given in his threat.
“Probably best that Julius wait until I give him a call before he shows up.”
“Not a problem,” I told him. “He’s got at least a ten minute walk from where he’s at.”
“Are you with him, Archie?” Henry asked. I think Henry’s always wondered about me, about why he’s never seen me with Julius, or has ever seen me, period. I told him I was, but the two of us would be going our separate ways as I would be calling it a night, and I wished him luck in keeping Julius out of jail. I had Julius patched in on the call so he could hear the conversation, but if he felt any relief over me making this call he didn’t show it with any change in his expression. After the call ended, I suggested that Julius have an after dinner drink or another espresso to guarantee Henry beating him back to his townhouse.
“Not necessary, Archie.”
“Okay, suit yourself.”
Julius had a few words with the maître d’hôtel, and warmly shook hands with him. As I mentioned before, Julius rarely shook hands with people, at least if they weren’t beautiful women, but the maître d’hôtel at Le Che Cru was an exception. After that he was out the door and walking at a brisk pace. I calculated at the pace he was walking that he’d cover the three blocks to his townhouse in seven point two minutes, which would make it a tossup as to whether he’d beat Henry there. As I strongly implied earlier, Julius could be both childish and bullheaded when he chose to be. There was nothing I could do about it, not even my attempts to goad him about Sophie Bouchez’s obvious interest in him had any effect in slowing down his pace, nor did my telling him about the details of Paul Burke’s phone call, so I admitted defeat and stopped trying.
Chapter 7
Henry Zack ended up beating Julius back to his townhouse by a whopping forty-seven seconds. We were less than a quarter of a block away from Julius’s address when I received a call from Henry to let me know it was safe, and then watched on the webcam feed as Julius’s lawyer moved quickly towards Cramer to demand that he show him the arrest warrant he had for Julius. Cramer didn’t want to, and told Henry he wasn’t going to until he had confirmation that Henry was Julius’s attorney, which was just plain juvenile on his part since he knew full well from an earlier experience who Henry was. It was at that moment as the two men were arguing that Julius showed up on his pathway. Cramer stood facing the street so he saw Julius first. For several seconds his jaw clamped shut, then his anger got the better of him and he bellowed to Julius in a voice even more hoarse than earlier that he was under arrest and that he had better not move.
“My attorney is standing right next to you,” Julius said in a patient and calm voice. “I believe he’s been asking to see your arrest warrant.”
Reluctantly, almost as if it killed him to do so, Cramer shoved the document into Henry’s outstretched hand, which Henry then made a show of reading; scowling and grimacing as if the warrant was causing him great personal pain. He already knew what was in it since I emailed him a copy earlier while he was still at home. He didn’t ask me how I had gotten my copy—he never asked me questions like that, but I had little doubt that he was very curious about it.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Henry said, shaking his head to show his dismay. “If you insist on executing this warrant, I’ll have it vacated before you’re able to bring Julius back to your precinct. This warrant should never have been issued. You have no cause for it—”
“The hell I don’t!” Cramer interjected. His ears had turned a deep cherry red as he stared fuming at Henry and then at Julius. “Your client is interfering with a homicide investigation, as he damn well knows!”
Henry frowned as he gave Julius a puzzled look. “Are you aware of doing this?”
“Not in the slightest,” Julius said.
“Is that so?” Cramer demanded, his focus fully on Julius. “Is that why you had Gail Kingston over to your office? And others associated with the murder victim? You think I don’t what you’re up to, Katz?”
“I have no idea what you’re thinking,” Julius told Cramer. Then he turned to Henry and said, “I did have Gail Kingston and others over today for a private matter.”
“Did this have anything to do with Kenneth Kingston’s murder?” Henry asked Julius.
“No, of course not. This was in the early afternoon, and I didn’t learn of his murder until ten minutes to five, which was when the detective here came pounding on my front door like some sort of lunatic.”
Cramer did not appreciate that comparison. You could tell from the way he glared at Julius and began breathing in a more ragged way. “You’re going to stand there and say with a straight face that you didn’t suspect when you had his widow and those other people in your office that your client hadn’t been murdered?” he croaked out incredulously, his voice little more than a raspy whisper.
“Why would I have?”
“How about that he didn’t show up like he was supposed to? Or that you found an excuse to get rid of them quickly without even bothering to call your client to see why he didn’t show up? Are those good enough reasons for you?”
“Hardly,” Julius said. “I dismissed my guests because of my policy, which is to cancel an appointment if someone is fifteen minutes late. My first thought when someone fails to show up for a scheduled appointment is not that they have been murdered but that they’re too inconsiderate to value my time, and when that happens I have no interest in calling them to hear their excuses. If you were in private business dealing with the public as I’ve been, you’d probably learn to think the same.”
Julius did have that policy regarding late appointments. Of course he was still lying, although he gave no indication of it from his body language or his expression—again, Julius has no ‘tell’ when he doesn’t want to have one. Still, though, even given how convincing Julius might’ve been, from the look on Cramer’s face he knew that Julius was lying. Not about what Julius might or might not suspect when a person is late for an appointment, but about Julius’s suspicions concerning what had happened to Kingston when he failed to show today. The problem was unless he knew about Saul and Tom being assigned to watch Kingston and Tom’s phone call to Julius there was little chance he’d be able to prove it. Henry, though, didn’t give him any time to think about it.
“Does that satisfy you, Detective?” he asked.
“Not even close,” Cramer said.
“Well, it should,” Henry stated. “Let me explain to you what will happen if you try to arrest my client based on the flimsy and ridiculous reasons stated on this warrant. Police harassment charges being brought against you will only be the beginning of it. I’ll be filing civil lawsuits against you, your department and the City of Cambridge, and I’ll be collecting enough in damages so you’ll never have to worry about your path crossing with Julius again even if you somehow remained a police officer, which I think would be highly unlikely. But if you were somehow able to keep your badge you’ll still be free of any future alleged interference from Julius since he’ll be retired and living in that villa in Tuscany that he has always talked to me about.”
Henry Zack was sixty-three and was a much smaller man than Cramer at only five foot six inches and rail thin, weighing no more than a hundred and thirty-four pounds. You wouldn’t have thought he could’ve rattled Cramer as much as he did, especially given how he said all this in such a mild and soft voice. But even given his stature, he could present an imposing figure with his thick mane of white hair and a burning intensity in his eyes that even I had little trouble recognizing. He got to Cramer. Not enough to make him back down, but enough where you could see a flicker of doubt in the detective’s eyes.
“You had your chance to see the warrant,” Cramer said stubbornly. “Tell your client to cooperate with the arrest or I can’t be responsible for what happens.”
Cramer slipped a pair of handcuffs from his belt, but his heart was no longer in it. He took a reluctant step towards Julius. When Henry cleared his throat to get his attention, Cramer stopped and looked back at the attorney.
“Detective,” Henry said. “I’d like to suggest that the three of us sit down and talk. If you continue on this course of action, you’ll achieve some level of notoriety for arresting Julius, but outside of that you’ll be causing nothing but legal and financial problems for yourself, and you certainly won’t get the information from Julius that you’re hoping to get.” Henry nodded over towards Julius and asked, “If Detective Cramer were to arrest you, would you ever utter another word to him that you weren’t legally required to?”
“Certainly not,” Julius said.
“There you have it, Detective,” Henry said as he showed both his palms in a what-are-we-going-to-do-now gesture. “Should we see if we can solve this in a more calm and reasonable manner?”
Cramer blinked then. Both literally and figuratively, and all the steam seemed to go out of him. “I’ll give your client ten minutes,” he said, staring fixedly at Henry and refusing to give in and look in Julius’s direction. With that he stepped aside so Julius could move past him and unlock his front door. After that Julius led Henry and Cramer to his kitchen, not his office, which told me that he was still unwilling to consider Kingston’s murder as something he needed to concern himself with. This time Cramer grudgingly accepted Julius’s offer for coffee. While Julius ground the beans and made the coffee, Henry sat perched on one of Julius’s counter stools while Cramer stood with his arms folded across his chest. Once the coffee was served and a plate of biscotti put out Julius took a counter stool next to Henry, and Henry asked Cramer what he wanted.
Julius Katz and Archie Page 7
