Collar Robber: A Crime Story Featuring Jay Davidovich and Cynthia Jakubek

by Hillary Bell Locke

  “Did you look for an empty soda can?”

  “I didn’t see one.”

  “My question was did you look for one.”

  “Not specifically.” He looked a little nervously at the judge as she bristled.

  “One more question, Counsel,” she said icily.

  “Very well, Officer, one more question. In your seventeen years as a law enforcement officer, how many well-dressed white men have you arrested for ‘loitering or prowling’?”

  “All right, that’s it,” Childress said. “The witness is excused.”

  Washington then told his story. He even remembered to say he’d been kicking a Sprite can. The city attorney was new at trial work, so his cross-examination consisted of having Washington repeat the story. Childress instantly found Washington guilty, making some crack about how, “the game here wasn’t kick the can but liar-liar-pants-on-fire. Forty-dollar civil forfeiture. You have—”

  “Waive reading of appellate rights.” I snapped that instead of just saying it. “We’ll file an appeal for trial de novo in the Court of Common Pleas and a jury demand by nine o’clock.”

  Childress gave me a look that could strip chrome from a semi’s bumper.

  “Counsel, you realize that the appellate filing fee is fifty dollars, right?”

  “Yes, your honor.”

  “And that it is non-refundable, even if you win?”

  “Yes.” Oops. Actually, I hadn’t known that. But I was in way too deep to back out now.

  “Why are you going to spend fifty dollars to try to overturn a forty-dollar fine?”

  “On the record or off the record, your honor?”

  “Off the record. I want to hear this.”

  “Because your ruling pisses me off.”

  “First straight answer I’ve gotten from a lawyer in six months.” She shook her head. “Submit a chit and I’ll sign off on half-an-hour for your work this morning. I don’t think your appeal has substantial merit, though, so good luck with getting a per diem on that one.”

  Well, if I end up handling it pro bono it’ll be a thousand years off my time in Purgatory—and I can use it. I managed not to say that out loud.

  As I was showing Washington out into the hallway, I spotted Fenzing and company in back of the courtroom, presumably waiting to tell the judge about their plea bargain. Judging from his expression, Fenzing didn’t think much of the deal his lawyer had cut. Introducing myself to him right now looked like a low-percentage play. Washington had a major glow on, but it was wasted on me.

  Even so, I let him get it out of his system—“Man, I gots Perry Mason up there! How’d she rule against us, anyhow?” I told him what the whole appeal thing meant. The main thing it meant to Washington for the moment was that cops couldn’t run him in for not paying an outstanding fine just because he struck them as an unsightly blot on a downtown sidewalk some afternoon.

  I gave him my card and we parted company. I turned back toward the courtroom and waited for Fenzing and his lawyer to come out. When they did, Fenzing looked like an eight-year-old who’d just been spanked in public. A world-class chewing out from Judge Childress can do that. Some survival-of-the-fittest instinct must have alerted his lawyer to what I had in mind. He moved smoothly in between me and Fenzing.

  “Nice job in there playing a tough hand. Call it a moral victory.”

  I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, so I decided to go provisionally with the ten percent chance that this guy was a genuinely empathetic professional colleague instead of a condescending prick.

  “Thanks, but I’m not a great believer in moral victories. If a case goes to decision you win or you lose. So far I’ve lost, but the fat lady hasn’t even warmed up her voice yet.”

  Fenzing brusquely pulled his lawyer out from between us.

  “Do you handle all kinds of cases, or just stuff like this?”

  “General corporate and commercial trial and appellate work and counseling.”

  “Do you have a card?”

  “Sure.” I handed him one.

  “Thanks. Before much longer I might be looking for a lawyer with some balls.”

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Jay Davidovich

  Father Utica and I were wrapping up his call-back when the shysterette’s call came in. I figured Jakubek really wanted to talk to me and the padre was mostly being polite, so I decided not to cut our conversation short.

  “It doesn’t particularly surprise me that the Vienna police had my name,” he said as the shysterette went into voice-mail.

  “Why is that?”

  “I spent a term at a school in Linz called Katholisch Theologische Privatuniversitad, taking advanced scriptural studies. German scriptural scholarship is world renowned. For almost fifty years, the seminary where I’m rector now has been sending promising students there if they have a little German.”

  For some reason the university name sounded familiar, and I couldn’t think of any reason why it should have. I had a witness to locate, though, so I went on with my conversation.

  “Your studies there had to be quite a while ago.”

  “Well over thirty years. But Austrian police are very thorough.”

  I shook my head. I’d give you six-to-one under a full moon that the Vienna cops had gotten Father Utica’s name from something they’d found on or near Ertel’s body, not from a local college’s foreign student records. No sense arguing with a source who’s trying to be helpful, though, and I thought Utica was.

  “Thanks, Father. Listen, would you mind texting me the name of that university?” Including a phonetic spelling that would look like gibberish in the report I sent Proxy would ruin her day. Might even cause her to indulge in an extra carrot stick as comfort food.

  “Certainly, Mr. Davidovich. I’ll get it to you within the hour. Please feel free to call me again if I can be of further help.”

  I thanked him again and hung up. Something he’d said was tickling an overworked neuron somewhere in my brain. I was anxious to talk to Jakubek, though, so I couldn’t fuss with it right then.

  “Thanks for calling back,” I said when I reached her. “von Leuthen is an interesting lady. I’d like to have a little heart-to-heart with her. Any idea how I can get in touch?”’

  “Nope. I’ve got something else for you, though, if you’re willing to tell me what’s so interesting about her.”

  “Sure.” I yawned and stretched. “You go first.”

  “The Taser used in that elevator job was stolen from my client’s condo.”

  “What?” I sat up straight in a hurry.

  “It gets better. The guy who stole it was bidding on the bill of sale that Transoxana ended up buying.”

  “And who is this guy?”

  “No name, but a description. Amber, you’re on.”

  “Okay,” a different female voice said. “So. I surprised him while he was doing the place. He busted me one, but I got a look at his head. Black hair cut real short, like a soldier’s, and brownish skin. But not real dark brown like a black guy’s skin. ’Cause his face looked like a white guy’s face, not like a black guy’s, you know what I mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “And there’s one more thing. He’d gotten a pretty good clop in the chops not long before. His nose was swollen and bandaged, and he had a black eye. I mean, someone clocked him a good one. You know what I mean?”

  “Yes.” Someone like me, for example.

  Amber’s description could have covered the wheelman who’d picked up Ertel after I’d relieved him of Proxy’s attaché case. Of course, it could have covered a thousand other guys as well. But I didn’t see any way Amber or Szulz or Jakubek would have known about our little dust-up, and no one ever went broke betting against coincidence.

  Fair’s fair. I told Jakubek and Amber (and, I ass
umed, Szulz) what I knew about Frau von Leuthen.

  “She sounds interesting more in a Letters to Penthouse sort of way than in a fine arts hustle kind of way,” Jakubek said.

  “I don’t think she high-tailed it to Geneva when she did to get a watch fixed. Do you see an innocent-bystander explanation for that?”

  “It doesn’t leap out at me.”

  “Me, either. I’m developing a theory. I know there are things you can’t tell me, so why don’t I just spin it out as a hypothetical and see where we are?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “First point: if Taser-guy in the elevator was bidding for the bill of sale, then he had a partner. That partner happened to pass away just before I could talk to him in Vienna, and just after von Leuthen left. Second point: I’m ninety-eight percent sure your client was in Vienna that same night. Third point: your client has to be on pretty thin ice, what with a cop getting nailed with his Taser.”

  “Where are we going with this?”

  “I’d like to know why your client was in Vienna and whether it has anything to do with Alma von Leuthen.”

  “Tell you what,” Jakubek said, “can I put you on mute for a few minutes?”

  “Sure.”

  A few minutes is a long damn time on a silent telephone. I put the muted phone on speaker so that I could tell when Jakubek came back on, and started reviewing emails. Nothing worth opening until I got down to one from Proxy that led to an extended dialogue:

  Status on AVL contact? PVS

  Nothing yet. JD

  Leads? PVS

  Negative. Not really going the leads route. JD

  What route are you going? PVS

  I replied with an eight-line response that explained the magnet theory: you get several different people sending out feelers on her from different angles, sooner or later it gets back to her—and when it does, you have a fifty-fifty chance that she contacts you just to get it over with and make the searches stop.

  Okay. Keep me posted. PVS

  Will do. JD

  Hearing an upsurge in white noise over my speaker I picked the receiver back up.

  “Okay,” Jakubek said, “I’m going to go the hypothetical route with you, just like you did with me.”

  “Fine. I’m betting your hypothetical starts with, ‘If Willy was in Vienna.’”

  “If Willy was in Vienna that night, it would have had nothing to do with Eros Rising. His interest in Alma von Leuthen, if he had any, would relate to an entirely different matter.”

  “And I’m taking his word for this, right?”

  “Well, you can verify it by talking to von Leuthen, if you can find her.”

  “I suppose I could.”

  “So I’ve got a deal for you. We’d both like to talk to von Leuthen. Let’s agree that if you turn her up, you’ll cut us in on the deal, and if we turn her up, we’ll cut you in.”

  I felt like a rube in New York City being offered a Rolex for fifty bucks. Alarm bells went off in my head, but that watch sure looked shiny.

  “I’ll need to think about that one,” I finally said.

  “Fine with us. While you’re thinking about it, let me finish my hypothetical.”

  “Sure.”

  “If Willy had been in Vienna that night, there’s a pretty good chance he would have seen C. Talbot Rand there too. Have a pleasant day.”

  The Third Monday in April

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Cynthia Jakubek

  “Yo! Juice! Over here!”

  The heavily tattooed white dude who barked this instruction snapped his fingers above his head in case I couldn’t hear him from fourteen feet away. I moved in his direction, taking my time about it. St. Benedict the Moor Open Door Café, third Monday of the month, Cindy on the drink line.

  I take attitude like his as part of the deal. Some guests act grateful, with lots of smiles and thank-yous. Some seem grudging: “Yeah, I appreciate this but, frankly, it’s the least you could do.” Some deeply resent needing help, and therefore resent you for helping them. And some apparently just plain feel entitled.

  Reaching the formica-topped table that looked like something out of June Cleaver’s kitchen would have if she’d been on food stamps, I poured thin, orange stuff into a plastic cup in front of an unambiguously phallic snake inked onto the guy’s forearm. He had cut the sleeves off a denim shirt at the shoulder, so the snake looked really long.

  “About goddamn time.”

  “Watch your mouth!” This from black lady across the table. “You gettin’ a free meal! Be blessed!”

  Tattoo boy opened his mouth, but he shut it quick. A glance up told me why. Sister Luanga was making her stately way from the meal service area to the table. Her ebony face glistened under an ample white veil that complemented her royal blue, ankle-length dress. She didn’t have a ruler, but she might as well have.

  “If you must abuse someone, then abuse me as you think best,” she said in lilting English with a distinctive West African accent. “But please do not take the name of our Lord in vain, for it wounds me to the heart when you do.”

  The tattooed guy looked sullenly down, muttering, “Sorry.” Even the snake looked a little sheepish. I distractedly filled a couple of other cups on my way back to the coolers and coffee urn that defined the drink line here. I had my mind on something less noble than giving drink to the thirsty.

  Willy’s little bombshell about thinking he’d seen Tally in Vienna had provoked a succession of unpleasant thoughts. Willy had a motive to kill the guy in Vienna. Hijacking the bill of sale, though, made sense for him only if it was phony, and I wasn’t buying that. I couldn’t see how the Vienna murder accomplished anything at all for Tally. He wouldn’t want the Museum to lose Eros Rising, but he wouldn’t stick his own neck out to save the painting, and one thug more or less didn’t figure to change that equation much anyway.

  But what about my good client Sean? I didn’t know about Austria, but he’d sure been in Europe at the right time. And he’d told Willy more than he should have, which might have something to do with Willy appearing in Vienna. Suppose Sean killed the thug with the idea of framing Tally for the murder? Might that make Tally more flexible on the annulment negotiations? On the other hand, wouldn’t committing cold-blooded murder just to have a church wedding qualify as the ultimate unclear-on-the-concept move? That leaves out the Abbey factor, though. I’d seen the adoring gaze that Sean laid on Abbey. For all values of y and x, if y is male and x is female and the question is whether y would kill for x, the answer is: don’t bet against it.

  I shook my head. Ridiculous. I saw someone else asking for orange goop and ambled toward her. Yeah, keep telling yourself that, Cindy. It’s ridiculous.

  As I headed back to the drink line I noticed a reed-thin, older white woman in a black habit. Not as full a habit as Sister Luanga’s. The veil stopped short of salt and pepper hair at the top of her forehead, and the skirt came only to mid-calf. But I could tell she was a nun. She stood beside Sister Luanga, looking directly at me. Didn’t recognize her. As she gestured toward me, Sister Luanga caught my eye and nodded. After setting my pitchers on the counter, I walked over to them.

  “Sister Bettina Fouts, St. Scholastica Abbey.” She held out her right hand while I still had a good four feet to cover. “Are you Cynthia Jakubek?”

  “Yes, Sister.” I shook her hand. “Happy to meet you.”

  Her introduction puzzled me. St. Scholastica Abbey is a Benedictine Convent about sixty miles outside Pittsburgh. “Benedectine” as in the original St. Benedict, not St. Benedict the Moor, who was named after him. The convent had nothing to do with the parish church that ran the Open Door Café.

  “I’ve driven someone over here who’s anxious to speak with you.”

  “No kidding. Who’s that?”

  “Her name is Alma von Leuthen.”<
br />
  HELL-O. I glanced at my watch.

  “Well, I still have about half an hour here. Can Ms. Von Leuthen wait—”

  “No worries.” Sister Luanga brushed my left arm reassuringly. “We will cover for you. Run along with Sister Bettina.”

  “Rectory?” I asked as we headed upstairs.

  “No. Father Larry is letting us use the reconciliation room.”

  That floored me at first. Not quite like using the sanctuary of the church for a spelling bee, but close. Then I thought it over for a second. Reconciliation rooms are where priests hear confessions these days. The one at St. Ben’s is about the size of a small office. Basically soundproof, but with a window in the upper half of the door so that no one will think any hanky-panky is going on inside. For a meeting like the one coming up, it made a lot of sense.

  Not sure what I expected von Leuthen to look like. Cliché from a 1930s movie, maybe: six-inch cigarette holder, faux hauteur of faded aristocracy, clothes with old, elegant labels inside and threadbare hems outside. The tall, slender woman Fouts introduced to me didn’t bear the slightest resemblance to that image.

  If I hadn’t known she was in her sixties I would have guessed her age at something south of forty-five. Hints of silver-white here and there made her golden hair somehow more striking rather than less. Her pale blue eyes laughed in a secret-joke kind of way, against a background of wistful resignation: Yes, the human condition is tragic, but as long as we’re all here, let’s have a drink. She wore an ivory silk blouse and a charcoal gray wool skirt that struck me as comfortably soigné. Leather dress gloves matching the skirt lay in her lap. Pale, delicate complexion; simple gold earrings, understated but pricey watch, no other jewelry.

  She didn’t shake my hand when she rose to greet me. She took it and grasped it confidingly while her eyes held mine with a gaze that mutely pled for something I couldn’t figure out—maybe that I wouldn’t disappoint her. We both sat down as von Leuthen glanced at the nun.