Fare Play

by Barbara Paul

  He said, “Lieutenant, I’d like to run a background check on Elmore Zook too. He’s just too much in the thick of things. He represented Oliver Knowles and now he’s representing Knowles’s son as well as Unger in the sale of shares they’re working on—I know it’s all family stuff, but it doesn’t smell right.”

  “What smells wrong?”

  “Zook himself,” Perlmutter said. “The man’s just too … calm. Too sure of himself. If he was arrogant or liked to play one-upmanship games, well, that’s what you expect in high-powered types. But this guy gives the impression that he knows things the rest of the world isn’t allowed to know. Sort of like he’s saying that he’s safe no matter what.”

  O’Toole said, “That’s a good description of Unger too.”

  “And probably of Oliver Knowles as well,” Marian murmured. “All right, Perlmutter, go ahead with it.”

  “Where’ll you be, Lieutenant?”

  “If we’re going to make David Unger our prime suspect,” she said, “then I think it’s time I met the gentleman. I’ll be at O.K. Toys.”

  18

  O’Toole was right: not a toy visible anywhere at O.K. Toys.

  Marian mentioned this casually to David Unger’s secretary when asking to see the boss. The secretary, a smartly turned-out woman in her late forties, had sighed with regret and said the place used to be filled with toys. But once Mr. Knowles stopped manufacturing his own and switched to distribution only, there really wasn’t much point in displaying the vendors’ toys. New models came out every month now, for one thing. The market had changed drastically the past few years; no one any longer even tried to make toys that could be passed down to the next generation. It seemed to Marian that the woman’s regret was sincere.

  The suite of offices in the Flatiron Building was smaller than Marian had expected and looked like any ordinary business office on a budget. “A lot of people had to be laid off, I suppose,” she said. “When Mr. Knowles stopped manufacturing, I mean.”

  “There weren’t all that many workers left,” the secretary said. “The factory in New Jersey was the only one still operating, and it was a small one. Mr. Knowles had been cutting back gradually for several years before he decided to make the switch.”

  “Why did he switch?”

  She smiled, a little sadly. “Age, mostly. And even though he never said so to me, I think he was disillusioned with the market for toys. All those breakable plastics, you know.”

  Marian didn’t but nodded as if she did. “When was the last time you saw Mr. Knowles?”

  “Oh … three or four days before he died, I think. He still came in about once a week.”

  It all sounded so up-and-up that Marian was beginning to suspect O’Toole had been reading something fishy into O.K. Toys that simply wasn’t there; perennial pitfall for the rookie detective. David Unger was in a meeting, his secretary said; she notified him Lieutenant Larch of the NYPD was there.

  Marian waited only a few minutes before a door opened and a fortyish man with a luxurious mustache and longish brown hair stepped into the reception area. He was poised, well-dressed, pleasantly professional in his manner. “Lieutenant Larch? I’m David Unger.”

  “Mr. Unger. I’d like to talk to you about Oliver Knowles.”

  “I spoke to a Detective O’Toole yesterday. I told him everything I know.”

  Marian doubted that. “Just a few minutes of your time, please.”

  “Of course.” He gestured toward the door he’d just come through. “We can talk in here.”

  Marian thought the door would lead to his private office, but instead it opened into a small conference room. Two people were seated at the circular table, Austin Knowles and a man Marian had never seen before. Knowles rose when she came in and asked, “Do you have any news for me, Lieutenant?”

  “Not yet, Mr. Knowles.”

  Before Oliver Knowles’s son could say anything else, David Unger stepped in smoothly and said, “Lieutenant, this is Elmore Zook. Mr. Zook handles the company’s legal affairs.”

  The lawyer was also on his feet, a bald, stout man in his sixties with the same easy manner that David Unger had; Austin Knowles was the only tense one in the room. “Lieutenant,” Zook was saying, “if there’s anything we can do to help, just say the word.”

  “Well, what do you know about professional hit men?” Marian asked, taking the chair Unger offered her.

  Zook smiled wryly as all three men resumed their seats. “Very little, I’m afraid. You’re convinced it was a hired killing?”

  “No question of that. The question is why.”

  “It had to be a mistake,” Unger interposed. “There’s no reason anyone would want Oliver dead. The killer shot the wrong man.”

  Zook nodded. “That’s the only explanation.”

  Well, no, it’s not. “Who’s Rosalind Bowman?” she threw at them.

  “Who?” Austin Knowles said. The other two looked the same question at her.

  “Rosalind Bowman. She’s a woman who has disappeared—voluntarily. She’s undoubtedly left the city by now. But before she left, she hired a detective agency to follow Oliver Knowles and report on his activities.”

  “What?” Austin Knowles was on his feet again. “Why did she do that?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me,” Marian replied.

  “How the hell can I tell you when I never heard of the woman?”

  “Austin,” Zook said mildly. The architect sat back down. “That’s interesting, Lieutenant. What was the connection between Oliver and this Bowman woman?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out.” Holland had said Rosalind Bowman formerly worked in radio and television, but there must be some connection to Knowles. Marian turned to Unger. “Did she ever work here?”

  “Not that I know of.” Unger pressed a button on the intercom on the table. “Iris, I need you to check our personnel records. See if we ever had a Rosalind Bowman on the payroll … Bowman, that’s right.” He turned back to Marian and waited—pleasantly cooperative, offering nothing.

  Marian tried another tack. “What am I interrupting here? The transfer of stock?”

  “You’re not interrupting,” Unger said easily. “We’ve finished everything except the signing of the agreements.”

  “Do you have any objection to telling me how the stock is distributed now?”

  Unger didn’t quite smile as he said, “Elmore, do we have any objection to telling her?”

  Zook did smile though. “No, we don’t have any objection to telling her.” He turned to Marian. “Before Oliver died, Austin, Dave, and I each owned ten percent. Oliver held the rest. Austin inherits his dad’s shares, but he doesn’t want to run the company. So he’s selling a few shares to me and most of the rest to Dave. Now Austin and I each hold fifteen percent, and Dave will have the other seventy. It’s Dave’s company now.” The lawyer was well satisfied. “We’ve agreed on a payment schedule.”

  “Congratulations, Mr. Unger,” Marian said tonelessly. “I understand you’ve pretty much been running the company the last few years.”

  “Pretty much,” Unger agreed. “Oliver was still contributing, though. He never stopped having ideas. But he no longer dealt with the day-to-day details of the business.”

  “What about Oliver Knowles’s wife? Did she never own a percentage?”

  A momentary silence, and then Austin Knowles said, “No. She and my father were estranged. Dad had been supporting her all these years, but she didn’t own shares in the company.”

  “Why were your parents separated, Mr. Knowles?”

  “Really, Lieutenant,” Zook protested. “That’s a highly personal matter.”

  “Yes, it is,” she agreed. “Why, Mr. Knowles?”

  He spread his hands. “Why do any two people separate? People change. They didn’t even like each other anymore. There was no reason for them to stay together.”

  “Who changed the most? Your mother or your father?”

&n
bsp; “That’s a little hard for me to say,” Knowles answered tightly, “since I didn’t know them before I was born.”

  Zook spoke up again. “Austin has been through a terrible experience, Lieutenant Larch. Raking up old troubles is painful for him—can’t you see? And how could his parents’ past marital problems have anything to do with what happened on that bus? Far be it from me to tell you how to do your job, but it seems to me you should be looking for the man who pulled the trigger.”

  “Yes, once you find him,” Unger said, “you can work a deal with him. Reduced sentence in exchange for the name of the man who hired him. Isn’t that how you work these things?”

  Zook nodded. “It’s standard procedure. Your shooter will give up the name to shorten his time—there’s no honor among thieves, folk wisdom to the contrary.” The other two nodded with him.

  They’re humoring me, Marian thought, both amazed and annoyed. “The one thing I do see,” she said, “is that the only three people who profited from Oliver Knowles’s death are sitting right here in this room.”

  A stunned silence while three formerly pleasant faces lost their pleasantness. “Are you out of your mind?” Austin Knowles asked softly.

  “I don’t think so. You inherited a lot of loot, Mr. Knowles. You’ll make money on the sale of your shares to Mr. Unger. I’ve seen your father’s apartment—the contents are worth a small fortune, not to mention the value of the apartment itself. There could be even more, for all I know. Investments, perhaps.”

  “That’s ridiculous!”

  She turned to David Unger. “And you, Mr. Unger … you now own the company where only last week you were just a salaried employee. People have killed for a lot less than that.” Finally she looked at the third man. “Even you, Mr. Zook. Your holdings just jumped fifty percent. Fifteen percent now instead of ten.”

  If he was angry, he was careful not to let it show. “Do you think I’d kill a friend of nearly forty years for a lousy five percent of his company?”

  “I don’t know, Mr. Zook. Would you?”

  “This is absurd!” Unger protested with a half laugh. “I would have ended up with control of the company eventually anyway. I didn’t need to kill to get it.”

  “And you really think I could have killed my own father?” Austin Knowles asked. “A man dies, someone inherits, the police suspect the heir. One, two, three. Just like that.”

  “All right, then,” Marian said, unfazed, “tell me who else benefited. The only one I’ve learned of who had no use for Oliver Knowles was his wife, and she’d been dead for a month when he was shot—she didn’t order the hit. Maybe Lucas Novak suddenly got tired of his cushy life. Maybe he didn’t want to be Oliver Knowles’s personal secretary any longer and put an end to it by having his benefactor killed. Or maybe you think the housekeeper suddenly went berserk and put an ad in the paper saying ‘Killer Wanted’—do you think that’s what happened? That’s what’s absurd. Who else could it be? If you know somebody, give me a name!”

  Zook protested, “Oliver had hundreds of business contacts. Any one of them could have done it.”

  “He was retired. No longer a player. Why kill him now?”

  Just then the door opened and Unger’s secretary stepped into the room. “Mr. Unger, no one named Rosalind Bowman ever worked for O.K. Toys.”

  “Thank you, Iris,” he said automatically. She withdrew. Unger was playing with his mustache, the first nervous mannerism he’d shown.

  “What about her, the Bowman woman?” Austin Knowles asked. “She could have done it.”

  “Then why did she hire a private detective to follow your father at the same time she hired a gunman to kill him?”

  A pause. “To check up on the gunman? To make sure he did the job?”

  Marian shook her head. “Rosalind Bowman has disappeared, remember. The detective wasn’t able to report back to her.”

  “So she learned about the shooting from the newspaper. She didn’t need to ask the detective.”

  “You’re grasping at straws, Mr. Knowles.”

  An uncomfortable silence grew in the room. David Unger stood up and went over to gaze out the window. “You truly believe one of us had Oliver killed?”

  Marian said nothing, waiting.

  Unger turned back from the window. “Then I’m probably at the top of your list of suspects. You think I wanted O.K. Toys so much I killed the company’s founder to get it. That’s what you think, isn’t it?”

  “The thought has occurred to me.”

  “Lieutenant, the killer shot the wrong man.” Implied: Can’t you get that through your thick head? “Are hit men infallible? Don’t they ever make mistakes?”

  “Mr. Unger, there was no one else on that bus who matched Oliver Knowles’s description.” No need to mention the passengers who escaped before the police got there. “The killer made no mistake. Oliver Knowles was his target.”

  That sounded like a good exit line, so Marian stood up to leave. She’d wanted to shake these three big shots up a bit but wasn’t able to gauge how successful she’d been. Austin Knowles appeared agitated; but then, he’d been agitated the other time she’d talked to him. Zook and Unger just stared at her blankly.

  “I’ll be talking to you again,” she said pleasantly, and left.

  19

  Marian used her car phone to call Kelly Ingram. “Lunchtime, toots. Are you up to facing food? I can pick something up.”

  “Soup,” Kelly’s voice said thickly. “Bring soup.”

  “Soup it is,” Marian said cheerfully, and disconnected. Kelly didn’t really start to perk until about midafternoon. Her friend always needed to unwind after an evening performance and rarely got to bed before the wee hours. Marian stopped at a deli and got two different kinds of soup; a choice was always nice.

  No parking place in Kelly’s block, so Marian had to walk back a ways. She was approaching the building where Kelly lived, doing her usual cop thing of checking out the neighborhood, when a figure standing in a doorway across the street caught her eye. A familiar figure at that.

  Marian darted through the traffic and hurried to where the figure was standing. “Hello, Carla.”

  Carla Banner did a double take—and then remembered Marian. “Oh, you’re Kelly’s friend,” she said effusively. “I remember you. At Gallagher’s, right? But I don’t know your name.” She actually simpered. “Kelly forgot to introduce us.”

  “The name is Larch,” Marian said, taking out her badge and showing it to the young woman. “Lieutenant Larch, NYPD. That’s police, Carla.”

  She took a step back. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “You’re doing something wrong right now,” Marian said. “Kelly told you to stop following her.”

  “I’m not bothering her! She doesn’t even know I’m out here.”

  “She will as soon as I tell her. Is Kelly going to have to get a restraining order? Will she have to go to court to make you stop?”

  Carla gaped. “Can she really do that? Get a restraining order?”

  Probably not. “Of course she can. Is that what you want? You’re making her hate you, you know.”

  Carla looked shocked. “I don’t want her to hate me! I want, I want …”

  “You want her to like you. To make you part of her life. But you can’t force yourself on people, Carla. You wait for an invitation. And Kelly has made it quite clear she doesn’t want you hanging around. So, take off, Carla. And don’t come back.”

  If looks could kill, Marian would have dropped dead on the spot. Carla muttered something under her breath, but turned away and slouched off down the street.

  Marian waited until she was out of sight and then crossed to Kelly’s building. Once Kelly had buzzed her in, she told her friend about Carla’s lurking across the street.

  “Aw, gawd,” Kelly said, taking the soup cartons out of their paper bag. “She does know where I live after all. Shit.” She opened the cartons. “Lima bean or beef veggie?”

>   “I don’t care.”

  Kelly took the lima bean, pouring both soups into bowls. “I don’t know what to do about her, Marian.”

  “I chased her off for now, but she’ll be back. And there’s nothing the police can do, because she hasn’t broken any laws. Maybe you should take Ian Cavanaugh’s advice. Try yelling and screaming.”

  Kelly swallowed her soup. “Even tepid, that tastes good.” She ate some more. “Maybe that’s what I should do. Every time I see her from now on, I should just tell her loudly to go away and leave me alone. Maybe I can embarrass her into stopping.”

  “Worth a try.”

  “I called you after the performance last night, but you weren’t home.”

  “I was at Holland’s.”

  Kelly digested that, nodded. “So he’s back, then.”

  “Looks like it.”

  “Well … good luck. At least you’ll never get bored.”

  Just then Marian’s beeper sounded. She used Kelly’s phone to call in. She finished quickly and reached for her coat. “Captain wants me. Toot sweet.”

  Kelly poured the rest of Marian’s soup back into its carton. “Can you eat cold soup and drive at the same time?”

  “I’m an expert at it.”

  No sign of Carla Banner down on the street. Marian finished her soup just as she arrived at the Midtown South precinct building.

  Upstairs, Captain Murtaugh was waiting for her. “You’ve rattled a cage,” he said by way of greeting.

  That was fast. “I sincerely hope so. Who complained?”

  “Elmore Zook. I’ve been ordered to tell you you’d better be damned sure of your facts before you start accusing prominent men like Elmore Zook of murder. Are you sure?”

  “Nope.” She held up a finger. “But I didn’t accuse him. I merely pointed out that he was one of the only three people who benefited from Oliver Knowles’s death.”

  “Uh-huh!” Murtaugh was satisfied with this observance of the letter of the law, if not its intent. “Who are the other two?”

  “Austin Knowles and David Unger.”