Killer Look

by Linda Fairstein

  “If you don’t care about protecting your own reputation,” Mike said, “the least you can do is show a little respect for mine. Who do you think you are? Miss Marple? Stumbling over poisonous mushrooms in the vicarage? Just nosing around in other peoples’ business like you’re going to solve a crime?”

  “Whoa, Detective Chapman. Would there have been any autopsy if not for me? You could have been so embarrassed if Wolf Savage had been cremated by his relatives and then you got DNA results matching him to his daughter.”

  “Give her some props, Chapman,” Mercer said.

  “I tried calling but you didn’t answer me,” I said.

  “What have you got?”

  I took the small pouch holding two envelopes out of my pocket. “Buttons.”

  “Swell. Now what?”

  I turned my back to Mike and talked to Mercer. “Remember when we were in the Silver Needle Hotel the other night, and I found a glittery little piece of metal in the carpet?”

  “Yeah.”

  “A button. Or at least a piece of a button.”

  “Could have been there for ages,” Mike said.

  “But it wasn’t,” I said. “So I took it to a button store today to see if I could match it to anything.”

  “And I take it you did,” Mercer said.

  “Here’s what I got,” I said, placing the two different pieces on the desk. “The broken piece is from a Wolf Savage garment. That’s for certain.”

  “It was in Wolf Savage’s row of suites,” Mike said, behind my back but clued into the conversation. “I’d expect it to be from his line.”

  “Do you have the list of the clothes that were on the hand truck when his body was found?” I asked.

  “Sure, there’s an inventory. And I’ve also got a photograph.”

  “Look through them both and see whether there’s any item of clothing that’s got an animal pattern on it.”

  “I’ve got the photo right here,” Mike said, opening the app on his phone. “Like cats and dogs? Is that what I’m looking for?”

  “Like jungle. Wild animals.”

  “Not that I can see. Everything on the rack is in light colors. No sign of a safari.”

  “I didn’t think so. The clothes I saw when we were there were all pastel. A spring palette.”

  “What does that tell you?” Mike asked.

  “That the button you vouchered was broken in a struggle,” I said. “And that it didn’t fall off something from the hand truck. Someone must have been wearing it.

  I pulled up the photo of the gold-tone object I had spotted in the carpet. I put it on the desktop beside one of the buttons I had just purchased.

  Mercer leaned in. “Good possibility, Alex. The devil’s in the details,” he said. “It’s a woman’s blouse you’re looking for, right?”

  “WolfWear from the nineties.”

  “That puts a woman at the death scene,” he said. “Or a cross-dresser.”

  “Or someone trying to frame a woman,” I said.

  “What if there was a struggle when someone—or more than one person—tried to put the bag over Wolf’s head?” Mercer asked. “Could be he grabbed a sleeve or an arm.”

  Mike picked up the new button and twisted it with his fingers.

  “Be gentle—that little devil cost me thirty bucks,” I said. “And just in case you think it isn’t relevant, the morning after Wolf Savage was killed, some guy walked into the same shop and bought another one of these.”

  Mike looked at me and winked. “Now you’re talking. Mind if I take this pouch along for safekeeping?”

  “All yours, Detective,” I said. “Okay, will you please tell me why Lily Savitsky is here this morning, and what the autopsy proved?”

  “The postmortem was just what Dr. Parker expected with a helium inhalation death. Nothing remarkable to observe,” Mike said. “But just as importantly, there was absolutely no sign of disease. That alone justifies the procedure.”

  “The lungs?”

  “Clean as a whistle. The blotches that presented as aspiration pneumonia when Savage was at the Mayo Clinic were completely resolved. Probably a short course of antibiotics.”

  “So as far as the man’s medical prognosis,” I said, “Wolf Savage had no terminal illness? Lily was right about that?”

  “She was right. Maybe he was sick and tired of the relatives around him, pawing at him all the time,” Mercer said, “but he certainly was not sick.”

  “The toxicology will also be a useful piece of this, won’t it?” I asked.

  “Of course it will,” Mike said. “But you know that can take four to six weeks.”

  Television shows had such inaccurate portrayals of postmortem tox results, making the reports available to the medical examiner at lightning speed. But the real-life examinations were painstaking and complicated. It was expected that Savage’s blood would have traces of oxycodone in it, based on the pill bottle that was found at the scene, and the news of his prior addiction that Tiz Bolt had provided to me. But the lab would also look to see whether the concentration of the drug was in the toxic or lethal range, and, as usual, check to determine whether any other substances were mixed with it. For toxicologists, there is always a new drug of choice.

  “What brought Lily to her father’s office today?” I asked. “I thought she hadn’t been able to penetrate the glass ceilings and doors.”

  “Looks like the family members regrouped after meeting with the lawyer yesterday,” Mike said.

  “Why? What did the will say?”

  “We were just getting into that with her,” Mercer said.

  “Did her father include her in his estate?”

  “He did,” Mike said. “She doesn’t get as much as Reed, but she’s very relieved.”

  “I’m happy for her. Maybe it’ll help her find a way to participate in the business,” I said. “I guess that’s why she’s here today.”

  “The reason Lily’s here today, Coop, is because each one of these Savages is trying to keep an eye on the others.”

  “Why?”

  “Wolf Savage certainly knew he had a daughter named Tanya Root, even if no one else in the family did.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because he went the distance and disinherited her.”

  “Damn. He had to name her in order to do that,” I said.

  “Well, he did,” Mike said. “Is that what it takes?”

  I was trying to remember my law-school course in trusts and estates. Just the omission of a child in a will isn’t enough to cut her out of the estate.

  “To hold up in court, the child must be specifically named in the document. The man had to state that it was his intention to disinherit her,” I said. “Otherwise, she could have come along and make a claim for a portion of the estate after her father’s death, arguing that it was just an accidental oversight.”

  “That figures,” Mike said. “Well, Tanya Root is most specifically disinherited in this document. And none of these relatives even knew she existed.”

  “Are you bringing Lily back in to continue your conversation with her?” I asked.

  “Just as soon as you hit the road.”

  “Oh, I’ll go,” I said, with one hand on the doorknob, “the moment you assure me you’re up to snuff on your Surrogate’s Court trivia.”

  “Look, Coop,” Mike said. “Don’t play games with me.”

  “Is the name Wolf Savage anywhere in the will?” I asked.

  “Lily doesn’t have a copy yet. I figure I can get one when it’s filed with the Surrogate’s Court,” Mike said.

  “When David Jones died earlier this year—leaving a one-hundred-million-dollar estate—the media went crazy trying to get their hands on the document, with no success,” I said. “As I’m sure they’ll do in this case—maybe before you get there.”

  “Why did the media care? Who was Jones?”

  “We all knew him better as David Bowie, but he never changed his birth name—Jones
—legally. Little legal factoids like that you might need to know.”

  “You mean this will could be drafted in the name Velvel Savitsky?” Mike asked.

  “If he was as sentimental about his family and his upbringing as Hal suggests, he probably never made the legal change,” I said. “We all laughed at the morgue when Hal introduced himself as Hershel Savitsky, but the fact is they might never have gone to court to have the actual change made.”

  Mike grimaced. He didn’t want to get smacked down again by Keith Scully for having me around, but he knew nothing about the legal issues surrounding the estate.

  “Just call if you need me,” I said.

  “Get your hand off the doorknob, Coop,” Mike said. “You know I need you.”

  I swiveled and rested my back against the door. “Were there any other specific disinheritances?” I asked.

  “Lily said no, but we’re not done with her.”

  “I’m thinking of Wanda, the housekeeper who found the body. Maybe that child that Wanda babysat for wasn’t Wolf’s kid,” I said. “But things could get complicated if he had this history of fathering children with casual lovers.”

  “They’ve already gotten complicated,” Mike said. “You might as well take a seat.”

  “How so?”

  Mike looked to Mercer and got a confirmatory nod before speaking to me. “Lily claims that her father has a more recent will than this one.”

  “What?” I was shocked. “How long ago did Wolf create this will? It’s only been a couple of years since Lily and her father have been getting along, so it must be fairly current.”

  “Lily told us that her father had mentioned that he had retained a new lawyer just two months ago, for the purpose of changing some of his bequests.”

  “Doesn’t she know the lawyer’s name?” I asked. “There’s no suggestion that anyone has come forward to the family, even with all this publicity.”

  “Could be it’s just wishful thinking on her part,” Mercer said.

  “You think the only reason she’s in this office this morning is because Uncle Hal and her brother Reed want to keep her from mouthing off about some other will that’s floating around?” I said. “You think they’re just trying to keep her from fishing in dark waters?”

  “Everybody’s on tenterhooks,” Mike said. “They can’t possibly know whether Wolf got far enough with a superseding will to make it stand up in court—and whether they do better or worse in the new version. I think they want to keep Lily under their control.”

  I was trying to remember everything she told us the first day I met with her.

  “They’re sure using the right buzzwords,” Mercer said. “Anything drafted more recently than this, her brother told her, could be tied up in Surrogate’s Court for years.”

  “For what reason?” I asked.

  “She said Hal was throwing around words like fraud,” Mike said. “That if Wolf changed his will again so shortly after working out all the mechanics of this one because of pressure from a particular individual, they might be able to prove—what’s the expression?”

  “Undue influence,” I said. “They’d argue undue influence.”

  “That’s it.”

  “But who? Who does she claim—or do they claim—was the person exerting the bad influence?”

  Neither Mike nor Mercer answered.

  “Wolf would have to have been vulnerable in some way for a person to be successfully charged with undue influence. There are thousands of court cases with examples of that,” I said. “Now we know after the autopsy that Wolf Savage wasn’t even ill. What would have made him so vulnerable—even if he had some business problems—that would convince him to change his will?”

  “How’s this for vulnerable?” Mike said. “Lily hasn’t mentioned it to the rest of the family, but she thinks her father was being blackmailed.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  “By whom? For what reason? Why?” The questions came out of my mouth faster than I could think.

  “You keep quiet and sit in the corner,” Mike said. “My story to the commissioner, should he ask, is that you were just paying a sympathy call on your old backstroking buddy when we walked in the door.”

  “I hear you.”

  I took a chair in the far corner. Mike opened the door and signaled to Lily to come back into the room.

  “It makes me so much more comfortable to have Alex in on our conversations,” Lily said. “You must know how it is, when it’s your first experience with the police. I’m overwhelmed by everything that’s happened this week.”

  Mike had parked himself on a corner of the desk, opposite Lily, forcing her to look up at him. He liked being in control.

  “I was just telling Alex that you have a suspicion about some kind of blackmail,” he said. “What brought that on?”

  “I was right about the homicide theory,” Lily said. “Wasn’t I?”

  “Do you mind starting with what happened at the lawyer’s office yesterday?” Mike asked. “We were interrupted before you finished. Work up to your idea about blackmail.”

  “Like I said, I was just beginning to spend more time with my father in the last year. He had divorced his fifth wife—thank God—and we were trying for a reconciliation of some sort,” Lily said.

  “How did you approach him?”

  “I think I mentioned this to Alex the other day. My husband, David, thought it had a better chance coming from him, so he called my father to invite him to lunch. He did it the smart way,” Lily said. “David took photographs of our kids with him. I think it touched something deep inside my dad that there was actually another generation that could be part of his legacy.”

  “He must have liked that,” Mike said. “Tell me about David.”

  “We met at business school. Columbia. He’s a partner at a private equity firm in Connecticut.”

  “I suppose that means he makes money.”

  Lily nodded. “He’s been very successful. He knew my father would appreciate that he didn’t come here with his hand out, expecting financial aid.”

  “But you were looking for a job here,” Mike said.

  Lily sat back as though Mike had slapped her. “I would have liked that, yes. I’ve got all the qualifications to make an impact on this business, Detective.”

  “You and your husband, are you two solid?” Mike nipped at her again.

  “I should hope so. What a mean question to ask,” Lily said. “Do I have to answer all this, Alex?”

  “It would help them, Lily,” I said. “This is a really unusual situation, even for a homicide investigation. They need to know everything.”

  “I’m going to ask you again, are you and David solid?”

  There was something about her reaction to the question that kept Mike on her.

  “We are now. Our older kids are nine and seven. We separated for a while five years ago. But we’re really good. We’ve got a two-year-old.”

  “The make-up kid,” Mike said.

  Lily angled her head and forced a smile. “We named him Wolf. That seemed to please my father enormously.”

  “I’ll bet it did. Your brother has no children?”

  “No, he doesn’t.”

  “Would you mind telling us how your father’s estate was split?”

  “In a word,” Lily said, “unfairly.”

  “Where were we before Alex came in?” Mercer asked, trying to get Lily and Mike back on the same page.

  “I was trying to explain what we’ve learned so far. First of all, there’s the real estate,” she said. “A loft downtown and a house in the country. They’re both worth a lot of money, but Dad’s lawyer suggested that they’re mortgaged to the hilt. I don’t know why, really, but it’s a hint of the fact that Dad’s finances weren’t quite what he wanted us—wanted the world, and the gossip columnists—to think.”

  “Aren’t there homes abroad too?” Mike asked.

  “Several, but I believe they’re owned by the corporation. So n
othing coming to any of us from that.”

  “I don’t mean to be crass,” Mercer said, “but how much money is there in the estate?”

  “The lawyer doesn’t have any idea of the current values,” Lily said. “They’ll start to marshal the assets now. According to the will, sixty percent of everything my father had goes to my brother, Reed.”

  She had on her best poker face. That still left a large chunk for her, I thought. I’m not sure why she would have expected more, since she and her father had not enjoyed a long, close relationship.

  “Then,” she went on, “there were percentages for his favorite charities, of course, and smaller amounts for some of his longtime employees. He made sure to take good care of them. For me? Ten percent of his estate. That’s for me personally, and the country house is in a real-estate trust for my children.”

  “That’s pretty damn good,” Mike said. “Ten percent, I mean.”

  “It might seem that way to you,” Lily said. “It’s not what he told me he was planning to do.”

  “But he’d been estranged from you for most of your life,” Mike said.

  “You’ll forgive me if I’m not as pleased as you think I should be, Detective. I’m still his flesh and blood, and worked hard at getting back in his good graces.”

  “How about Hal?”

  “The business is a major asset of course,” Lily said, biting one of her fingernails. “That’s split between Reed and my uncle Hal. So my father shut that door on me, too.”

  “It sounds like there are some financial concerns about the health of WolfWear,” Mercer said. “Do you know anything about that?”

  “Not enough, apparently.”

  “Can you help us with that?”

  “You’ll have to talk to my husband. To David.”

  “Why would he be the one to know?” Mike asked.

  Lily hesitated, looking over to me before she answered. “My father trusted David. He was looking to him for an outside perspective on the company.”

  “What’s this about the possibility of a newer will?”

  “Have you mentioned it to Alex?” Lily asked. “No offense, but she’s a lawyer.”

  I stood up and came closer to the desk. “What makes you think there’s another will? That could change everything.”