Julius Katz and Archie

by Dave Zeltserman

  “I want to know what Kingston hired Katz for,” Cramer said.

  Julius breathed in heavily to demonstrate how much his patience was being tried. “I’m sitting right here,” he said. “You can address me.”

  “So answer my question!”

  “I already did earlier this evening,” Julius said. “And I am not in the habit of repeating myself.”

  Henry cut in, telling Cramer the same that Julius had told him earlier, that Julius was hired to help Kingston promote his upcoming book. “As my client already explained, he is not willing to go into any further detail without a court order compelling him to do so, and that is solely to protect his client’s reputation.”

  “How do I even know that he was hired by Kingston?” Cramer demanded, his exasperation again showing.

  “You told me you found a note about it in his day planner,” Julius said.

  “That’s not what I told you!” Cramer insisted. “I told you we found a note that he paid you fifty grand, not that he hired you. For all I know you extorted that money from him.”

  Julius nodded, seeing the logic of that. “If you searched Kingston’s home you would’ve found his copy of our service agreement.”

  “We searched his home and we didn’t find any copy of any contract with you.”

  I found that interesting, but if Julius found it interesting also he didn’t show it. “I can give you a copy,” he offered magnanimously since the contract wouldn’t tell Cramer a thing Julius hadn’t already told him. “It has Kingston’s signature, and you’ll have to trust that I didn’t forget it. What else do you want from me?”

  Cramer flashed a suspicious look, but decided to give him the benefit of the doubt, at least regarding Julius’s contract with Kingston. “I want to know about that meeting of yours,” he said.

  Julius surprised me by nodding and telling Cramer that he’d give him a full transcript of it. “My assistant, Archie Smith, has already transcribed the meeting and I hope that will be sufficient. If not, I should be able to provide an audio recording.”

  I took the hint and produced a transcription of the meeting, as well an audio file, and moved both over to Julius’s computer. “Done,” I told him.

  “Anything else, Detective?” Henry asked Cramer.

  “Let me see that contract and transcript and I’ll let you know,” Cramer said guardedly.

  Julius took a final sip of his coffee and pushed himself off the counter stool. “Very well,” he said. “I’ll make copies of both and bring them back here.”

  “Like hell you will,” Cramer said. “Nice try, Katz, but I’ll be watching when you produce those documents.”

  Julius turned slowly to stare at Cramer, and from the look on his face he was about to say something to the effect of ‘not a chance’, although I doubt his words would’ve been as polite as that. Henry, though, cut him off by telling Cramer that that wouldn’t be necessary.

  “This is getting very tedious, Detective,” Henry said with disgust. “If you want to insinuate that Julius will be doctoring what he gives you, then I don’t see any point in us wasting further time trying to cooperate with you.”

  Cramer wanted to argue with Henry, but he instead wisely clamped his mouth shut and didn’t try following Julius out of the kitchen. Once we were in Julius’s office and he had the door closed behind us, I told him that the transcript wasn’t complete. “It doesn’t start until after I was, uh, woken up from my nap,” I said.

  “That should be fine,” Julius said, his mood still soured from having to deal with Cramer. “You didn’t miss anything.”

  “Okay. Also, the transcript only covers what was said in your office,” I said. “Your conversation with Tom was left out.”

  He nodded at that. “Very good, Archie. Exactly as I expected from you.”

  I waited until after Julius made a copy of his contract with Kingston and was printing out the transcript I put together before bringing up what I knew would be a delicate subject. “I don’t blame you for not wanting to tell Cramer the details of Kingston’s publicity stunt, but maybe you should? Let him decide whether Kingston believed one of those six were going to be murdering him.”

  Julius’s lips pressed into a harsh line on his face. He shook his head, dismissing my advice. “You’ve seen the way that man acts,” he said. “No, Archie, I can’t do that. If I did he would be convinced that I was holding some secret piece of evidence concerning Kingston’s murder and he would badger me incessantly, far worse than he’s done so far. Once he has this transcript, he’ll have everything that I have, and I can wash my hands of this matter. And unless the man is a complete dolt, he’ll investigate thoroughly the whereabouts of each of these people during the time Kingston was likely murdered, and if he’s able to poke holes in any of their alibis he’ll catch his murderer, assuming that it is one of these six.”

  “You think it could be someone else?”

  Julius shrugged. “I have no idea,” he said. “I have no evidence to point me to the murderer. It could be anyone as far as I’m concerned.”

  I didn’t believe him, at least about him not having any ideas. He might not have any hard evidence, but I was sure he had ideas on the matter. The problem was he wasn’t going to spend any effort thinking about them since he didn’t feel as if the matter concerned him. I didn’t push him on it. I knew the mood Cramer’s visit had put him in, and I didn’t want to give him another excuse to turn me off. That would not be a precedent I’d want set—having him turn me off twice in less than three days! So I kept quiet while Julius gathered his papers and brought them back to the kitchen. Of course, while the reason he gave for not telling Cramer about the details of Kingston’s publicity stunt had some merit, we both knew that wasn’t his real reason. His real reason had nothing to do with the possibility of damaging Kingston’s reputation. But I kept quiet about this also.

  Cramer read over the contract first and looked up to glare hotly at Julius when he saw the details of the work described as ‘unspecified services’, but he bit his tongue and pulled his glare away from Julius so that he could read through the transcript. He didn’t much like what he read there either, but again, he held his tongue until he was done with it.

  “What time were these people here?” he asked Julius.

  “From two o’clock until a quarter to three, as spelled out on the transcript.”

  “Any of them come late?”

  Julius shook his head. “No,” he said. “They were all waiting outside my door at two o’clock when I let them in.”

  “Why these six people?”

  Julius shrugged. “That was Kingston’s decision. He was the one who invited them to my office. I believe they were all going to be involved in his publicity stunt.”

  “Did they know what this stunt was about?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Cramer scowled at the transcript for another minute, then asked Julius why he wanted to know whether these people liked Kingston.

  “I didn’t,” Julius said.

  Cramer’s jaw dropped as he gave Julius a dumbfounded look, but he controlled his temper enough to ask Julius why he asked them that if he didn’t care about their answers.

  “It was an innocuous question. Nothing more than that. Something I asked only to see how they’d react.” Julius’s chest expanded as he breathed in deeply. “Detective,” he continued, “if that transcript includes a hidden piece of evidence or clue regarding Kingston’s murder, then you are welcome to it. As of now, you have everything that I have.”

  “So what do you say, Detective,” Henry jumped in. “Are you satisfied?”

  Cramer gave him a hard look and told him he was far from satisfied. Then he moved his stare to Julius.

  “Your client, Kenneth Kingston, was murdered sometime between ten o’clock and eleven-thirty,” he said, nearly spitting out the words. “Katz, I don’t believe for a second that you sat with these people no more than four hours later and couldn’t pick up whi
ch one of them killed him.”

  “If it was one of them that did it,” Julius said. He made a face and shook his head. “I don’t have a shred of evidence that one of those six murdered Kingston. If it was one of them, I wouldn’t be able to tell you which, at least not by their body language while they were in my office. I’m sorry, Detective, but I can’t help you. Fortunately, I don’t have to. It’s not my business, it’s yours. And I do not envy you it.”

  Cramer right then looked both angry and exhausted. He didn’t bother saying another word to Julius. He just turned and headed out. I made sure he left the townhouse without incident, but I didn’t bother telling Julius since he heard the front door close as loudly as Henry and I did. Henry finished a piece of biscotti and then chuckled lightly to himself.

  “Always an experience, Julius,” he said. He took one last sip of his coffee, then got to his feet. “You really have no interest in this murder?” he asked.

  “None whatsoever.”

  “I guess that’s good then. It will keep you out of trouble. Call me if anything arises.”

  He nodded goodnight to Julius, and Julius thanked him for keeping him out of jail that night. Henry chuckled again, most likely over the thought of Cramer trying to put handcuffs on Julius, which wouldn’t have been any easier than putting handcuffs on a cougar, then turned and walked out of the kitchen. I knew I didn’t need to watch Henry’s exit, but I did so out of force of habit.

  Julius might’ve wanted to believe that he had no interest in Kingston’s murder, but deep down inside he had to know otherwise. I’d been following the local newscasts, and I could’ve shown him a segment that would’ve made that obvious, but it was late and I figured it could wait until morning.

  Chapter 8

  The next morning I waited an appropriate amount of time for Julius to digest his breakfast and enjoy his morning coffee before telling him about the local news clip I had waiting for him. It wasn’t easy for me waiting to do this; especially given how anxious I had gotten after having to first wait all night and then two additional hours for Julius to perform his exercises and martial arts training. If I could’ve, I would’ve told Julius about it while he was going through his morning routines, but since he doesn’t wear his earpiece then, I had to wait. Even if I tried calling him on his cell phone or his home line it wouldn’t have done me any good since he would’ve left it to me to answer his calls.

  So you can imagine how anxious I was while Julius had his breakfast, but I bided my time and forced myself to wait, even though it was near killing me with the way my processing cycles were skipping on me, almost like a fluttering sensation. This sensation only got worse when Julius picked up the newspaper, especially with news of Kingston’s murder splashed over the front page. He always read the day’s paper with breakfast, but he didn’t bother reading the article about his client’s murder, and I didn’t push him to, figuring it would be better to wait until I could show him my news clip. If he had read the article, other than seeing the insinuations being made about him, he would’ve learned that Kingston was found dead in his office, shot once through the heart as Cramer had already said. He also would’ve found out that Kingston’s office had been soundproofed so nobody heard the shot. Also that there were no witnesses, at least none who had yet come forward. While Julius liked to warn me that newspapers usually had more facts wrong than they had right, in this case their facts matched what I was able to find by hacking into the Cambridge Police Department’s computer system. While none of the newspapers had the caliber of the bullet used, the police did. A thirty-two. And it was fired at close range and with no signs of a struggle.

  Once Julius was finished with his breakfast and back in his office, I waited several more minutes until he had the last of his coffee before telling him he needed to watch a portion of last night’s late newscast.

  “Is that so, Archie?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I think so. Maybe not. You can tell me later whether you needed to see it. Anyway, I have it waiting for you on your desktop.”

  For a moment I thought he was going to be stubborn, just as he’d been by not reading the newspaper accounts of Kingston’s murder, but he clicked on the video file and watched the ninety-second interview with Paul Burke that ran on one of the local channels last night, although nearly identical interviews ran on six other local channels and they’d since been picked up by the national networks. In each of them Burke mentioned how much Kingston had helped his career, that he considered Kingston a close friend, that he wasn’t going to rest until Kingston’s murderer was brought to justice and that he would be working around the clock to see that happen. He didn’t end it there, also talking about how Kingston had recently hired Julius. Of course, he didn’t know why Julius was hired, and he said as much, as well as also telling about how he had asked Julius to team up with him to catch Kingston’s killer but that Julius declined, expressing that he had no interest in the matter. In all of his interviews he made the same passive-aggressive comment that when he took a client’s money he felt an obligation to them and that he wasn’t going to run away from something because he found it too hard. I found that an unnecessary cheap shot, but to each their own. I guess he wasn’t too happy about Julius turning down his offer last night, and decided to take it personally.

  After the news clip finished, I asked Julius if he wanted to see the interviews that ran on the other stations. “They’re all about the same,” I said. “But I can pull them over for you if you want.”

  “Thank you, Archie, but that won’t be necessary.”

  “These have since gone national. To make matters worse, reporters, both local, national, and international, have been calling since last night wanting to know what Kingston hired you for. They have other questions too. So far I’ve been stonewalling them. You want me to keep doing that or do you have a statement you’d like me to give them?”

  “What you’re doing is fine.”

  “Okay. But you do realize this is a big story and they’re not giving up until they have something. It’s only a matter of time before they start camping out on your doorstep and making themselves an even bigger nuisance than they usually are.”

  Julius’s eyes narrowed. “Archie,” he said, “please adjust your programming so that it’s impossible for you to accidentally or otherwise slip the details of why Kingston hired me.”

  “Done,” I told him, although it wasn’t necessary for me to change anything. My programming was already set to prohibit me from doing something like that, but even if it wasn’t there was no chance I would’ve leaked that kind of information. I might pester Julius at times, but it’s because he needs it. Without my occasional pestering, his funds would eventually dry up and he’d find himself unable to afford what he claims are his necessities for living a civilized life; such as dining out at Le Che Cru or buying a bottle of ridiculously priced wine, and it would break my heart to see him have to eat a bologna sandwich. But pestering Julius was one thing, allowing him to be publicly humiliated was something completely different.

  Of course, this was the real reason Julius couldn’t tell Cramer the details of Kingston’s supposed publicity stunt. If it came out that what Kingston hired Julius to do only two days before he ended up being murdered was to figure out which of the six people on his list were planning to kill him, then Julius would have no choice but to investigate Kingston’s murder—even if it was all only supposed to be a publicity stunt. And even then Julius would be opening himself up to ridicule from certain members of the media who seem to relish the idea of tarnishing Julius’s reputation. So far these jackals have had little luck, but instead of dissuading them it only seems to drive them harder.

  “I know you don’t feel any moral obligation to solve Kingston’s murder,” I said. “And I don’t blame you, especially with him never being square with you. But I think you’re going to have to bite the bullet and do it anyway. There’s not a chance in the world the media’s going to let go of this, at leas
t not until Kingston’s murderer is caught. And then you got Paul Burke. I think you hurt his feelings when you turned down his offer to team up with him. It’s not good that he’s out there making noise suggesting you’re too chicken, disloyal or lazy—take your pick—to get involved. And you realize how embarrassing it’s going to be if he’s the guy who catches the killer? None of this is good right now, but if that were to happen we might as well close up shop.”

  “A persuasive argument, Archie. Let me guess, you were up all night working on it?”

  “No, not exactly all night. I came up with it pretty quickly, but I did spend a few extra minutes here and there polishing it. So what do you say?”

  Julius smiled pensively. “I’m afraid I still have to decline. It’s not my business. It’s police business.”

  “You could make it your business.”

  “No, I can’t. The police have resources I don’t. They have all the forensic evidence. I have none. If that points them to the murderer, fine. If not, they can hunt for witnesses. If they fail there, they can have an army of officers trying to poke holes in alibis, and not only for the six people who were invited yesterday to my office, but others who might’ve wanted Kingston dead.”

  “What others?”

  He shrugged. “I have no idea,” he said. “Again, it’s not my business to worry about.”

  I didn’t argue with him. It would’ve been pointless, and it didn’t surprise me when without any hesitation he brought up the recording I made of his last poker game and began studying it as if he had nothing else in the world to worry about. So that was the way it was going to be. Kingston’s murder was already out of his head. With his poker game tonight, he wasn’t about to expend a single iota of brain power on anything else, even given how much damage this whole mess with Kingston being murdered could cost him. I should’ve expected as much. I left him alone for the next ten minutes before mentioning the obvious. That someone else could leak it.