Julius Katz and Archie

by Dave Zeltserman

  “So far I’ve been talking only in abstractions,” he said. “Let me start giving some specifics. While Kingston might’ve liked the idea of the publicity stunt he proposed, that wasn’t why he hired me. Fourteen months ago he had a man break into Jonathan Mable’s home to steal a novel that Mable had mostly completed, and then cover this up by setting fire to Mable’s home. I can’t say exactly why Kingston took this course of action. It could’ve been desperation over his failing writing career, or it could’ve been more that he couldn’t stand the idea of his ex-writing partner eclipsing him in popularity. Whatever his reason, it doesn’t matter. He knew his ex-partner was a superior writer and he also knew his habits, especially that Mable wouldn’t be discussing or showing his book to anyone until it was ready to be sent to his agent.”

  At this point my focus was on the murderer, since it was now obvious to me which one it was. I think it became obvious to the rest of them also. Outside of Julius talking, the room had become deathly still. I had to give the murderer credit. During all this he showed no sign of care or alarm. Julius paused for a moment to stare at the murderer too, and then he continued.

  “There were a number of reasons why I thought Kingston’s true objective for hiring me was to scare someone enough to force them to commit a crime for him, in this case, another crime. There was a passage in Kingston’s last book that I found interesting. This passage had his detective, Paul Buck, drinking with a writer friend, and they’re talking about a missing runaway girl that Buck had been looking for for over a year. There were lewd comments passed back and forth about how attractive this young girl was, and then this writer warning Buck not to mix drinking whiskey with tequila like he did the last time they were together. That if he did he might tell him again where the dead bodies were buried. I didn’t take this as innocent prose, but as a warning.”

  Julius turned then to face Burke. “Is that how Kingston was able to coerce you into stealing Jonathan Mable’s novel and setting fire to his home? That you got drunk with him one night on whiskey and tequila and told him where Deana Josteen’s body is buried?”

  Not a flinch or twitch as Burke told Julius he didn’t know what he was talking about.

  “I believe you do, but it doesn’t matter. The evidence against you is overwhelming. The reason you tried to kill me last night was because you made two mistakes in my office Thursday that you knew I’d pick up. One was telling me that I was making ten times for my meeting what you were making for staking out an alley for several nights. You would have no idea what Kingston was paying me unless you saw my contract with him, and the only way that would’ve happened was if you took it from him after you killed him. The other mistake you made was not accepting my help in your search for Deana Josteen. There’s not another private detective alive who craves media attention the way you do. The fact that you didn’t jump at the opportunity I presented you all but told me what was going on. That you couldn’t afford to let me near the case. That if you did, I might find where the body is buried.”

  “What you’re saying doesn’t make sense,” Burke said with a smirk, but still appearing completely unconcerned. “I didn’t want your help because I’d been working that case from the start, and I want to find Deana myself. You have no proof otherwise. And I know nothing about any fire or stolen manuscripts. So why would I kill Ken?”

  “Because he was threatening you, trying to force you to kill Jonathan Mable, which he needed you to do before his book was released. You probably would’ve played along and done what he was asking if you could be sure that would be the end of it, but you knew it wouldn’t be. He probably promised you he’d never bring up Deana Josteen again if you stole Mable’s book for him, and here he was doing it all over again. And then when he brought me into the picture, that was the final straw as far as you were concerned. You had no idea what he was telling me, but it must’ve terrified you that something might’ve slipped out or would slip out, something that Kingston wouldn’t realize was important but that I would. And, of course, it wasn’t just him hiring me. He was putting pressure on you from other sources.”

  Julius turned to the man that Willie had brought into the room. This man, Charlie Womack, was looking increasingly uncomfortable as he sat wedged between two cops.

  “Mr. Womack,” Julius said. “You’ve known Paul Burke for a number of years. In fact, you’ve worked as an associate of his.”

  Womack nodded, his jowls quivering as he did so. “Yeah, I guess so,” he said.

  “Did he ever introduce you to Kenneth Kingston?”

  “The writer? Oh yeah, he did. The guy needed to talk to someone like me for one of his books. You know, like research.”

  “Did Kingston contact you later?”

  Womack nodded.

  “What about?”

  Womack was sweating more profusely now. He took a dirty handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the side of his neck with it. “I need immunity for what I done,” he said.

  Cramer spoke up then, growling, “Anything short of murder, you won’t be prosecuted. You got my word. God help you if you hold anything back. I’ll see you thrown away if that happens!”

  Womack nodded, looking queasy. “He hired me,” he said. “Two weeks ago. He wanted me to call that girl’s dad, the one that’s been missing. That writer wanted me to tell him I spotted her in the city. Then after Paul was back on the case looking for her, I’m supposed to call him telling him that the girl was going to be in that alley in East Boston for a drug buy.”

  “You made both those calls?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did Kingston tell you why he wanted those calls made?”

  Womack shook his head.

  Julius thanked him for answering his questions, then turned back to Burke. “You had to go to that alley even though you knew Deana would never be there. Kingston might’ve had someone checking to see that you did, and if you didn’t, you’d have a hard time explaining why you were ignoring one of your informants. And I guess you also realized how that alley could later provide you an alibi.”

  Julius waited a few seconds, but Burke didn’t bother answering him. Julius continued.

  “The problem I had was I knew you murdered Kingston, and why, but I had nothing solid, just pure conjecture, certainly nothing that could be used in court. You were right about the gun. That was the key to this. But the problem was even if the police were able to obtain search warrants for your home and office, they never would’ve found it. You’re too smart for that. And without the gun, you would never be arrested. So I needed this charade today. I needed to pretend that the two of us were allies, equals even, and that you had my trust. I needed you to feel confident that we had strong cases against all of them, and that we would be searching all their homes later. And I needed you to be able to go out there alone without your camera crew. Given the chance, it was obvious that you would plant the murder weapon in one of their homes. While I thought it was likely you’d be picking Mable to frame, I couldn’t be sure of that. It was possible you would find his apartment too risky to break into, and that you’d pick one of the others instead.”

  Julius once more gave Burke a chance to speak. Burke once more chose not to, but still didn’t look overly concerned. Julius only had six minutes left to his deadline, and he hurried things along, asking Saul to identify himself and to report what he’d been doing that night. Saul was brief and stuck straight to the facts. He reported how he tailed Burke from Julius’s townhouse to an abandoned warehouse in South Boston.

  “He retrieved a gun that he had hidden there. I then followed Burke from the warehouse to Mable’s apartment in the South End. I watched as he broke into the building, and later as he broke into Mable’s apartment.”

  “His word against mine,” Burke said. “You hired him for this frame, Katz, and it means nothing. I was nowhere near any warehouse or the South End tonight.”

  Julius didn’t bother arguing with him, and next asked Tom Durkin the same as he did
Saul. Tom explained, how with Mable’s permission, he had searched Mable’s apartment thoroughly that afternoon.

  “Was a gun found?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Did you do anything else while you were in Mable’s apartment?”

  “Yes, sir. I wired it with spy cameras.”

  Burke reacted to that. Not much, but still, his body jerked a little and a muscle started beating along his jaw.

  “Were you able to record Burke breaking into Mable’s apartment.”

  “Yes, sir. I have the recording with me. It shows Burke planting the thirty-two caliber in a wall access panel. The gun’s still there. It hasn’t been touched. If you want I can show the room the recording.”

  Tom took a couple of steps forward. Suddenly Burke lunged for the switchblade that Julius uses as a letter opener and had somehow been left on his desk. Julius moved even quicker. He didn’t do any of his fancy martial arts moves, but in a blink of an eye he was out of his chair and throwing a straight right punch which connected brutally with Burke’s jaw. Julius put his whole body into the blow, and with the power that he has from all his years of martial arts training, he shattered Burke’s jaw as if it was glass. With the force that he put into the punch he would’ve broken several wooden boards. Burke crumpled to the floor unconscious. Cramer and the other cops were moving fast then. So were Tom and Saul. Julius still had a minute to spare before his midnight deadline was going to run out.

  Chapter 26

  An ambulance came for Burke. He wasn’t dead, but he wasn’t in very good shape either. I’d learn later that Julius’s punch shattered his jaw into over twenty pieces as well as knocking out seven teeth. After the ambulance carted him away, Julius, Tom and Saul needed to spend another hour with Cramer before he was satisfied that he had everything and that all the i’s were dotted and the t’s crossed. While this was going on, I put out a press release, including a statement that Julius would be attending a police press conference on the matter the following day and would be available for questions only then, but certainly not before or after.

  It was late by the time the police cleared out, and when they did, they took Herbert Richardson away in handcuffs, charging him with extortion. Even with the late hour, Julius opened a bottle of one of his better champagnes to have a toast with Saul and Tom. Willie Cather had stuck around and joined them.

  “I’d like to thank all of you for dropping your plans today and helping me out like you did,” Julius said after they had their toast.

  “After you being shot at like you were, nothing in the world would have kept us from doing that,” Tom said, speaking also for Saul and Willie, who were both nodding. “It’s just too bad Archie couldn’t be here with us.”

  “He was busy with another aspect of this investigation, but I’m sure he was with us tonight in spirit,” Julius said. “I know we didn’t talk about bonuses, but one’s in order. And don’t worry, I’m being paid well for this.”

  I was comforted to see that Julius paid Tom and Saul twelve grand each, and Willie six grand. At least the thirty grand that was supposed to be going to Burke was being spread out. Saul, when he had beaten the cops to get to Burke first, had performed some pickpocket magic and removed the five grand check from Burke’s wallet that Julius had given him earlier, and he did this without anyone other than maybe Julius and myself noticing.

  It was still much later after two more champagne bottles were emptied by the four of them and it was just the two of us left alone in his office. It was even later still when Julius finished making a call to Lily Rosten in London.

  “So you had a wisp after all,” I said.

  “It appears so, Archie.”

  “Quite a show,” I said. “Too bad Margaret Herston wasn’t here. You certainly would’ve given her her money’s worth. My apologies for doubting you earlier. It turns out you needed her after all. You needed an excuse for Burke to go off on his own for an hour. And, of course, you needed her to be paying Tom, Saul and Willie their bonuses. Very generous of you, by the way, to split that sixty grand with them. If you had given them a couple of grand each for the day, they would’ve been happy.”

  “They deserved the money for what they did,” Julius said.

  “Saul and Tom, maybe. They did the lion’s share. All Willie did was bring Womack here. Six grand for that was awfully generous. Here’s a question. How are you going to keep Burke from talking about Kingston’s affair with Margaret Herston? He’s got nothing to lose by talking about that now.”

  “It will be months before he’s able to talk about anything.”

  “True. Very true. But at some point he’ll be able to. What then?”

  “If he’s able to remember what happened today, and he tries something like that, he won’t get anywhere. I’ll see to it.”

  I digested that. Julius was probably right. At this point Burke’s credibility was completely shot. “What about that girl?” I asked. “Deana Josteen. He killed her?”

  “I’m afraid so. The police will be looking into that now. Hopefully they’ll find where he buried her so that the family can have a tiny amount of peace.”

  “You had a tail on Burke the whole day,” I said.

  “Yes. Tom had him early, and Saul took over once he was back from New York.”

  I thought about it all then. About what Julius had done that day, and Burke also. I could see why Burke wanted so badly to team up with Julius. He wanted to know what Julius knew. Maybe also to try and establish enough trust so if he needed to, he’d be able to take another shot at Julius. I also knew why he was spreading the word on the street about anyone buying a thirty-two. It was part of the frame he was setting up. If he thought he could sell Julius on it, one of his informants would’ve miraculously been coming up with a name, and lo and behold, the gun would’ve been found at that person’s home. Julius short-circuited all this and made Burke rush his frame job. Still, there were a couple of things that bothered me.

  I asked, “About the suspects you met with—not Mable, but the others. Were they all psychopaths?”

  “No, just Burke.”

  “What about Richardson?”

  “He’s a narcissist, no question about that. But not to the degree I painted him as.”

  I spent a few additional milliseconds trying to fit everything into place, but it still didn’t add up to me. “The whole setup was screwy,” I said. “All of it.”

  Julius kept his poker face intact as he asked me, “How so?”

  “Once you had that recording of Burke breaking into Mable’s apartment, you had him. You could’ve had him arrested then. You didn’t need any of the rest of the production.” I’d been working on a series of analytical models in the hopes of figuring out why Julius did what he did, and a light came on then. “But I know why you did it,” I said.

  Barely a murmur, Julius asked, “Why was that, Archie?”

  “Same reason you agreed to having this filmed by that reality show. The same reason you arranged so that Burke would be facing all of them and, more importantly, that he’d be sitting close to you. As a psychopath, it couldn’t have been easy for him facing the rest of the room knowing that he was now exposed. You wanted him to suffer as badly as you could make him suffer for taking those shots at you. It’s the same reason you accidentally left that knife on your desk instead of putting it away, even after I warned you several times about it being left out. You wanted him to make a play for it. It wasn’t enough to have him arrested for murder, you wanted a chance to punch him hard enough to shatter his jaw.”

  Julius was rubbing the knuckles on his right fist. “It’s late, Archie,” he said. “Very late.” With that he removed me from his tie and headed upstairs.

  He was right. It was late. And I still had a lot to do that night.

  Chapter 27

  Julius slept until ten the next morning, which was unusual for him. At noon he was at the police press conference as he had promised, and was polite and thorough in the quest
ions he answered, and even deferential towards Cramer, making a point of graciously giving Cramer and the Cambridge police department the bulk of the credit for catching Burke.

  When the press conference ended, Jonathan Mable was waiting for Julius. He wanted to take Julius out for lunch, and while I knew Julius was itching for a late Sunday afternoon cognac sampling at the Belvedere Club, he agreed. Once they were seated at a private booth at Rousseus’s, Mable thanked Julius for what he did for him.

  “You saved my life,” Mable said. “Or at least saved me from a life in prison. And you certainly saved my writing career. It’s crazy. Because of my book being tied up in this mess, I’ve been getting calls from publishers offering seven-figure advances sight unseen. After your fascinating piece of theater yesterday, Zoe Chase cornered me and begged me to give her first crack at my book.”

  “She claimed to have found it beautifully crafted. And so did I.”

  Mable nodded in appreciation. “Thank you,” he said. “It’s just crazy. Ken was trying to ruin me by stealing my book, instead he ended up having the opposite effect. Anyway, I want to reward you for what you did for me.”

  Julius shook his head. “That won’t be necessary,” he said. “I already have a client who paid me handsomely for solving this murder.”

  Mable looked surprised at that. “Who?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say.”

  “Okay.” He chewed on his thumbnail as he thought that over. “My agent dropped me after my first book on my own bombed, and I need to find a new one. The job’s yours if you want it. Fifteen percent on a minimum seven-figure advance.”

  “I thank you, but no. I don’t know the business, nor do I want to. I’m quite happy being a private investigator.”