Keegan 00 Soft Case

by John Misak

  Rick sighed. “Go ahead.” It was too easy.

  I popped the tape in the player, and hit the rewind button. I hoped that the woman didn’t get like 20 messages that we had to go through to get to the good one. That would only figure.

  The tape didn’t take long to rewind, and started playing. There was a lot of feedback, but we could hear the tape clear enough. The first message came on.

  “Professor Minkoff, this is Harold Neidemeyer, from last semester’s Anthropology class. I wanted to know if you had that copy of my paper. Please call me back at 677-0296.”

  So Mrs. Minkoff was also a professor. How appropriate. Perhaps a little Indiana Jones in her. It actually sounded kind of hot. I didn’t go for older women, but hey, nothing wrong with a little adventure. Life surely needs it these days.

  “Ms. Minkoff, please call the Long Island Power Authority regarding last month’s statement.” I reminded myself to call her Ms. Minkoff, not Mrs.

  “Jackie, this is Tom. I just wanted to wish you luck on your dig. Sorry I didn’t call you sooner. Take care.”

  Then, the message came. The one we had been waiting for. “Mom, it’s me. I guess you left for the Andes already.” Mullins sounded distraught. “I just wanted to apologize. This is all going to be hard on you. Understand that it’s the only way. I just hope this won’t make things too difficult. I’m doing it to help undo the damage to what Dad started. And don’t listen to what is said afterward. You’ll know the truth.” Then, the message got cut off. Rick stopped the car. “Rewind that,” he said.

  We listened to the message again. It sounded like an apology for the suicide. Or perhaps an apology for something else. It could go either way.

  “That doesn’t sound like a suicide note,” Rick said.

  “Well, it could be. He is apologizing. Could be the suicide he is apologizing for.”

  “He gets cut off. If he was going to kill himself, and it was planned, don’t you think he would have timed his final message a little better?”

  “We’ll have to let Geiger hear it.”

  “He’s gonna think what I think. Regardless, we are going to have to investigate it. I think we should get a hold of Ms. Minkoff as soon as possible.”

  “And Mullins’ wife and partner. If he was distraught, they should have seen some indication of that.”

  “Absolutely.” Rick checked his watch. “It’s almost twelve. Mrs. Mullins should be touching down at JFK at any moment.”

  We were right near the airport. I had to control my urge to make us go to the airport and head her off. It wasn’t correct procedure, and the woman really didn’t deserve to be bombarded right away. Yet, something told me to get to this woman immediately. Call it my suspicious mind. Call it my insanity. Call it my good cop instincts. Call it whatever you want, because I didn’t follow it.

  And I should have.

  Five

  Geiger didn’t look happy. Though he was a tough man at times, he generally walked around with a smile on his face, and his disposition was always pleasant. It wasn’t right then. Not at all.

  “Who did you two talk to,” he said, meeting us in the back parking lot.

  “Just the housekeeper,” I said.

  “No one else?”

  “No, why?”

  “I just received a call from Sondra Mullins’ lawyer. He said that if we want to speak to her, we have to contact him first. Someone tipped him off,” Rick said. He whined when he said it. I mean that.

  “It could just be that he saw the news, and came to his own conclusions,” I said, trying to ignore him.

  “No. Someone spoke to him.”

  Rick looked at me. “The housekeeper,” he said. “She’s the only one we spoke to.”

  “And the neighbor, last night,” I added.

  “What neighbor?” Geiger said, his voice raising in pitch and volume.

  “The one who lives next door to the mother. Actually, he spoke to us first,” I said defensively. Sometimes talking to Geiger reminded me of talking to my father.

  “What did you say to him?”

  “Nothing. He was the one who told us that the mother was away, and that the housekeeper would be there the next day.”

  “Nothing else?” Geiger asked.

  “Nothing. He kept asking us questions, but we didn’t answer them.”

  “I expect that information will be in your first report.”

  “Of course,” Rick said. “Don’t fuck around. Don’t talk to anyone that you don’t have to.”

  “We won’t.”

  “Don’t,” Geiger repeated.

  “Okay,” Rick said. He was getting ruffled. I found all of this amusing, because I knew something of this sort would happen. We should have gone to the airport.

  “Where’s the tape?” Geiger asked.

  “Right here,” Rick said, removing the plastic bag from his jacket pocket.

  “You listen to it yet?”

  Rick gave me a stem look, the kind that made me want to knock his front teeth onto the pavement.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Anything on it?”

  I nodded.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Best if you hear it for yourself. Rick and I have conflicting opinions on it.” That made Geiger smile a little, an indication that he was happy we were working together on this case. He wanted conflicting opinions. He wanted all angles covered. He wanted us to argue our prospective ideas so that we might find something new in the argument. Geiger was a smart man. Rick and I would argue a lot.

  He grabbed the tape. “Let’s go.”

  Geiger led us to the department audio lab, which basically consisted of a decent rack system, a few monitoring tools, a souped-up computer, and a technician, who went by the name of Jacob Nomar. Jacob didn’t look like he belonged working in a police department. He looked more like someone who would be a guest in such a place. Jacob stood at about 6”1, weighed about 225bs, had long red hair, which came down to his shoulders, a neatly trimmed beard (on Geiger’s orders), and green eyes that spoke of some sort of rage or insanity. Of course, one should never judge a book by its cover. Jacob was one of the warmest people I knew, and didn’t seem to have a violent molecule in his body. Still, he was on ‘My List of People Never to Piss Off.’ That was an elite crowd he ran with, but I figured he would probably laugh if I ever told him about it.

  When we walked into the room, Jacob was busy listening to interrogation tapes from another case. Jacob did this for two reasons. One, if he heard anything that was really out of line, he notified Geiger. And two, he had an uncanny ability to notice slight changes in the tone of someone’s voice, and could tell they were lying. He’d give this information to the detectives, and they’d go and press the witness or suspect further on that subject. It worked pretty well, and a lot of us wondered how the hell Jacob did it.

  He turned around when we walked in the room, acknowledged our presence, and turned back to his equipment. Speaking of his equipment, my earlier descriptions were only physical. His stuff looked like common consumer electronics, but he had overhauled just about all of it, to the point that I wouldn’t even dare to try and listen to a CD on his system, for fear that I might cause the Russians to launch a nuclear attack on Antarctica, or something like that.

  Bach was playing softly on the small portable unit he had in the corner. I knew it was Bach because I had made the mistake of saying the same song was by Mozart the week before, and Jacob went into a long lecture about the differences between the two men, ranging from height, food preference, to their music. He was quite a knowledgeable guy, Jacob, but most of his expertise fell into what I considered useless knowledge.

  Geiger flipped Jacob the tape when he turned back around. “Pop this in, and let me know what you think of its quality.”

  “It’s an answer machine tape,” Jacob said.

  “Yes it is. The one with what we think are Ron Mullins’ last words.”

  That fact made Jacob hurry a lit
tle. He was a computer buff, and knew who Ron Mullins was. Anyone who had a computer on his or her desk knew the man’s work. And anyone who had a television or radio knew the name.

  “You want computer analysis, or just a quick judgment on whether or not it’s been tampered with,” Jacob asked.

  “I don’t think it’s been tampered with,” Geiger said. He paused for a moment, then said, “Better check it,” he added.

  Jacob played the tape, both through two little speakers on his desk, and the headphones he perpetually wore on his head. The band was nearly invisible in his thick hair, but the earpieces were huge, covering his ears and almost all of his sideburns.

  While we listened to the tape, I tried to concentrate on the sound of Mullins’ voice. From what I know about suicides, when the person has come to the conclusion that they are going to kill himself, they become calm, comforted. There is no distress in their demeanor. But, then again, I hadn’t spoken to, or heard the recorded voice of, a suicidal person who has made the final decision. My gut, however, besides telling me that I was hungry, also told me that Ron Mullins’ distressed voice was not one of a suicidal man, it was one of a scared man, perhaps a little angry, too. Definitely angry, I decided. And I wanted to know why.

  “I’m doing it to help undo the damage to what Dad started,” Geiger said, when the tape was finished, “That’s the most important part of the whole tape. You guys get anything on that yet?”

  “No,” Rick said. “We haven’t gotten the chance.”

  “That part bugged me too. If we find out what that is we have almost everything we need, in a sense.”

  Geiger nodded in agreement. “We have to find out what his father was in to.”

  “Mullins’ father was the founder of the business,” Jacob said, taking the headphones off. “They started in the late sixties making computer components out of a warehouse on the east end of Long Island. From there, they decided to custom build mainframes and desktops, but the market really wasn’t ready yet. Sam Mullins then decided to take on a partner, for financial reasons. Holden Chapman, a Wall Street broker, became interested in Sam’s company, and the two became partners sometime around Watergate. They fought often, but they ran one hell of a company. Mullins saw the declining profits in hardware by the early eighties, and decided to go into the software end. He groomed Ron as a computer programmer, and the kid produced at the age of seventeen, coming up with an office suite that, with only 100 code changes, could run on both an Apple and a PC. Apple was still a force to be reckoned with during the mid-eighties, mainly because so many people had bought them, and the cycle of buying a new computer every two years hadn’t developed yet. People thought they were going to keep their computers forever. Sam Mullins brought innovations to almost every aspect of computer software, from fighting piracy to Internet encryption, all with the help of his son’s expertise. Both Sam Mullins and Holden Chapman died within two years of each other, both by heart attack, leaving Ron, and Holden’s son, Harold, in charge of the business.” Like I said, the man knew a lot, and if not for the fact that I was working on this case, I would find all of his information useless. But, he did save me a lot of research with that diatribe. I looked over at Rick, who had been jotting all of this down, trying to keep up like a student trying to take notes in a fast-talking teacher’s class. I wondered if he was going to raise his hand and ask Jacob to repeat part, or all of what he said.

  “Impressive,” Geiger said. “What do you know about Harold?” “Not too much. He really didn’t start taking an active interest in the business until after Sam Mullins died, and his father’s health started to deteriorate. He handles much of the corporate aspect of the company, though it has been reported that Mullins is even better at that part.”

  “How do they get along, compared to how their fathers did?” “Pretty well, from what I have read. I think they learned from watching their fathers argue all the time.”

  “Makes sense,” I said.

  “Where’s the partner?” Geiger asked.

  “In Amsterdam. Expected home tomorrow.”

  “Damn. I’m sure I’ll hear from his lawyers soon too. This is getting more and more difficult.”

  I had nothing to say to that.

  “What do you think?” Rick asked Geiger.

  “About the tape?”

  “About whether it came from a suicidal man, or not?”

  “Tough one to call. Evidence points either way. On the surface, it sounds like a suicide note, but there seems to be something else lying underneath. It could be nothing.”

  “How do you want us to investigate? Should we go in with the assumption that this was a suicide, and try and prove that, or should we look for another angle?”

  “Don’t go in assuming anything. And keep your eyes open for all angles. Once you speak to the partner and the wife, some things should become a little clearer. Or, if our luck continues, everything will get even cloudier.” He looked to Jacob. “Make me two copies of that tape. I want to send one to the Captain, and keep the other for myself.”

  “No problem.”

  Geiger walked toward his office. “Don’t forget, I want a report from you two as soon as possible. And get over to Mrs. Mullins’ house. I want you to try to get something out of her, even if the lawyer is present. No one’s telling me how to run my department.” “Yes, sir,” Rick said.

  I moved over toward Jacob. “Make me a copy too, okay?” “Sure.” He pulled me closer. “This is no suicidal man. Trust me on that.”

  “Any way you can get more out of that tape? Ambient sounds that might lead to a better understanding of the accident?”

  “I was just about to do that.”

  I tapped my cell phone, which I only carry on important cases. “Call me as soon as you find out. And tell no one about it until you speak to me.”

  He nodded.

  Rick, who was still busy jotting things down into his trusty notepad, looked up.

  “What should we do first, the report or the visit to Mrs. Mullins?”

  “Well, the report will have a lot more information in it after we speak to her, won’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then we might as well get all the information we can.”

  “Okay, let’s go.”

  “And one thing,” I said as he pulled the keys from his jacket, “I’m driving.” I snatched the keys out of his hand.

  “Jesus,” he said.

  “He ain’t got nothing to do with it.”

  Six

  We took another drive, but this one was more tolerable than the others. I was driving. I didn’t drive too often, mainly because I didn’t have a car. Didn’t need one. Most New Yorkers, city people I mean, will expound on the lack of a need for a car like they were talking about their kid. Sure, cars are really the most important status symbol in America. Forget houses, Rolex watches, Hugo Boss or Canali suits, the car is the epitome of status symbols. Judging from the automobile I drove, I was a nobody, but I borrowed a personality from time to time. A cop personality, but a personality nonetheless.

  When I did get the chance to drive, I drove at insane speeds. I tailgated, wove in and out of traffic, and rarely, if ever stopped at stop signs or red lights. People may attribute this to my being a cop, and being able to get away with it. Not true. I drove like that before I became a cop, and putting on the badge didn’t change things, for better or worse. That’s how I drove. I couldn’t wait until I became an old man. No one likes an insane-driving old man. Well, no one likes old men either, but I think my point is clear. If it isn’t, go into your toolbox, take out the hammer, and smash it just above your eyeball. That should clear things up a bit.

  Sondra and the late Ron Mullins called Massapequa home. They had lived there when Ron was making a puny amount of money and was going to school for computer programming, or at least that’s what Jacob told me, just before we left. Because they had made their home there, and also because they didn’t want to make it look like the mo
ney changed them, they stayed when he hit it big. Jacob confirmed my suspicions that Ron was an unassuming man. He also told me that the wife had changed, and wanted to move. According to rumor mills, they were near divorce three years before, but they had successfully smoothed things out. I didn’t know where Jacob got this information from, and wasn’t sure how true it was, but it sounded good, and I was surprised to hear Jacob talk that long. He usually never said more than a sentence or two. Part of the reason why I liked him.

  “You know where you are going?” Rick asked.

  “The Mullins’ live right near Joey Buttafuoco’s old house.” “You know where he lived?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “Long story.”

  “We have time.”

  We did. “I dated a girl whose father was buddy-buddy with him.”

  “And you met him?”

  “Yeah.”

  “During the whole thing?” Rick really seemed interested in all this. Could he have been stars truck about a man who overstayed his 15 minutes of fame by two years?

  “Yes, it was about four months after the shooting. I went over his house for a barbecue. Nice guy, and he cooks a mean steak.” “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope.”

  “Wow.”

  I began to pity Rick’s wife. The man was strange, no question. Sure, she had power over him, which is sort of satisfying, I guess. But he certainly wasn’t a conversationalist, and he could be nicely described as a simpleton. Not the sort of character that sets women into a sexual frenzy. She probably married him for his looks and wasn’t surprised that there wasn’t much else there to put in the win column. Actually, that sounded a lot like my dating profile. Scary. “So, you remember where Buttafuoco lived?”

  “Have I asked you to look at the map yet?”

  “Okay.”

  We drove a few more minutes, but I sensed that it wasn’t going to be quiet. Rick was in a chatty mood.

  “Let me ask you a question,” he said, uttering the six words I hate most.

  “I’ll let you.”

  “You’ve been on the force what, ten years?”