The Sandler Inquiry

by Noel Hynd

  Opposing attorneys wondered what had hit them.

  Thomas looked up.

  "Do you remember the Luther Adley case?"

  "The black militant?"

  He nodded. '1970," he said.

  "Adley was up on charges of armed robbery and possession of narcotics.

  He'd been a militant in the civil-rights movement and-' "-and claimed he was being framed," she, recalled He nodded again.

  "My father brought the case into the firm" Thomas said.

  "Good practice for you," he said to me. And he dumped it in my lap.

  "Here," he said.

  "Here's a big liberties case for you." I "You won it, didn't you?" she said.

  "Surel he said sullenly.

  "On perjured testimony."

  "What?" Her mouth flew open.

  He remembered that she was a reporter as well as his friend.

  "Off the record, of course," he said quickly, raising his hand. She grimaced, conceding the point, and so he went on.

  "My dear father arranged a key witness for me. The witness was pure fabrication.

  Perjury all the way." Seeing her incredulity, he added,

  "I had no idea at the time. None at all" "But afterward?"

  "We were hardly back in the office when my father told me what he'd done. It was to serve a point' Thomas said, "a point my father considered a crucial principle' of courtroom justice" Thomas' paused and recalled with acrimony,

  "That will teach you two lessons, Tom,he said to me.

  "Nothing, but nothing is black and white.

  And never trust another attorney. Even me'" Thomas let his words sink in, waiting for her to speak next.

  Her face was contorted into an inquisitive frown. Her mind was racing ahead, wondering if someday she could print the story.

  "Is that what you wanted to tell me?" she asked with a certain degree of sympathy.

  "No," he said, "that's only background. It explains why I'm a bit of a disappointment. I wasn't honest enough to come forward to tell the court the truth after the trial. I wasn't dishonest enough to do the same sort of thing again. It was as if the old man had been testing me, seeing how corrupt he could make me' ' "A strange sort of challenge to throw down to an only son," she said, hoping he'd keep talking. She almost felt like taking notes, but her memory would suffice.

  "He was a strange man'" Thomas said.

  "Sometimes I think I never really knew the man. He left me with that feeling. And the feeling that he must have been disappointed because I'm just plain nowhere near as good as he was. Similarly, I disappoint you."

  "What?"

  "Which is why you and I will never make it on a permanent basis, and why you persist with your casual liaisons with other men.

  Which, as you know, drive me insane."

  "Thomas-" she snapped.

  He held up his hand, cutting her short.

  "Please. My final point."

  She was silent.

  "There is, however, someone I have not disappointed. That person burned me out. And that is why you're here. That is the beginning of the story I'm letting you in on. But it's also all I know."

  "Who burned the offices?" she asked flatly.

  "I don't know," he said.

  "But someone had to have a certain folder from my files. Imagine.

  Something so valuable in those crumbling old files that someone went to these lengths to get it. The old man would have appreciated that wouldn't he?"

  "All right," she said.

  "You've got me. I want to know. What was it?"

  "Don't know," he said with exasperated amusement.

  "Something long forgotten, but so valuable that it had to be taken without anyone even learning that it was missing. Want more?"

  "I didn't come for the lecture," she said.

  "Wonderful." He smiled.

  "Follow me" He led her into the filing room and gestured her toward the burned frames and ashen contents of the wooden filing cabinets.

  He could see her discomfort.

  He walked to one of the remaining files. A drawer was open, just as he had left it before calling her.

  "I have a good memory," he said, pointing toward the cabinet.

  "These drawers were the Ss" He patted the charred frame of the file.

  "The beginning of the Ss.

  "S' as in Sandler."

  "Sandler as in Victoria Sandler?"

  "The same " "Cut the bullshit, Tom. I want to know what you're talking about."

  "With pleasure," he said.

  Carefully he drew her closer to the open file drawer. He fingered the drawer's contents. The drawer had not been tightly shut during the blaze, and much of the fire had crept in. Yet the folders and papers hadn't been completely destroyed. The tops and corners had been burned or blackened, but the lower half of each particular folder was intact.

  "I would never have noticed this if I hadn't seen Victoria Sandler's obituary," he said.

  "Her death was reported the day of the fire."

  "Yes." Andrea had an inquisitive frown on her forehead.

  "So?"

  "So it made me curious. My father represented the Sandler family in several cases. Zenger and Daniels handled the Sandler fortune for years. So Victoria finally died, long after most people had forgotten about her." He smiled and his tone changed.

  "What do dead people leave besides bodies?"

  "Wills " "Exactly. That old woman had been out of her mind for years.

  Probably didn't know where her own will was. The previous will, Arthur Sandler's, was probated by Zenger and Daniels. That made me wonder if-' if Victoria Sandler's will was in your Ale" she said.

  "And if you were sitting on a massive probate case."

  "Brilliant deduction."

  She smiled coyly.

  "In other words, if the probate fee were enormous enough you wouldn't mind being a lawyer again?"

  "With the probate fee on a will like that I'd gladly accept it as my first and last big case. Then I'd take the money and get out of this sleazy profession. To be specific, I'd be able to buy my freedom."

  Her grayish-blue eyes glanced to where his fingers ran up and down the charred center drawer of that filing cabinet.

  "What did you find?"

  "A black hole in space," he said.

  "There's enough left in this drawer for me to know what was here when the fire started. The beginnings of the Ss. Lbok." He fingered each file as he spoke.

  "Eugene Sabato. Margaret Saichter. Robert Samuelson He reached a space filled only with ashes from the other folders.

  "Here it skips' he said excitedly.

  "No Sandler. It continues with Saperstein, @oward. Then Saxon, Reginald. And that's the end of the drawer." His hand moved back to the center.

  "Nothing but ashes and an empty space where the biggest frigging folder in the whole office should be."

  He looked at her. Her expression was pensive yet skeptical.

  "What do you think?" he asked.

  Her eyes met his.

  "Flimsy," she said.

  "What's flimsy?"

  "Your whole theory."

  "Why?" His tone was almost belligerent.

  "One of your associates could have taken the file' ' "They'd have no reason to," he said.

  "Anyway, I asked them.

  They didn't "When's the last time you definitely saw it?"

  He shrugged. He had no idea.

  "See?" she asked.

  "The Sandler file could have disappeared months ago. Maybe even years ago. Linking its disappearance to the fire is an excellent theory. But it's farfetched. Where's the motive?"

  "I don't know," he said.

  "Who's alive who'd even have a motive?"

  He shrugged again.

  "Somewhere someone must be," he said.

  "Whoever burned me out knew what he was doing. And he didn't start in my filing room for fun "I'm not disputing that," she said.

  "But I say you're leaping t
o conclusions. Whoever burned you might have taken twenty folders out of your file. And who knows what they might have been taken for. He might have used them for kindling in this same room' He thought about it.

  "Possible he conceded.

  "But I could have some fun with the only clues to me. I could find out what was in the Sandler file " "How?" she asked.

  A sly smile crossed his face. He led her from the blackened filing room back to the one clear working area in the office.

  "I talked to the old man's former associate," he said.

  "Zenger?" she asked.

  "Zenger."

  "I'd forgotten he was even alive."

  "It's not hard. He's eighty-two. Lucid, though. His mind works even though I suspect the body is failing. He lives on Nantucket.

  Genteel retirement "What did he say?"

  "About the Sandlers? Nothing" "Big help that is," she said. He sat behind the desk. Failing to find a chair, she sat on the edge of the desk. He was aware of her gracefulness and figure as she sat and looked him in the eye.

  "He said he'd talk to me personally about it," Thomas said.

  "I'd have to go up there to meet him."

  "How's he going to remember what's in a ten-year-old file?"

  "He's not" Thomas said.

  "But I think with old Victoria dead he's ready to tell me about the Sandler family."

  "Are you going up to Massachusetts to see him?" she inquired.

  He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms in front of him.

  "It would be intriguing," he said.

  "But no. I won't. It doesn't matter enough. I'm ending my involvement with this once-corrupt firm here and now."

  "What's that mean?" she asked.

  "Remember I told you I was thinking of closing the office?"

  "Yes " she said.

  I'm not'thinkin@ about it. I'm doing it. I'm closing this office on Friday and I'm getting out of law."

  There was a silence as she weighed his words.

  "I don't believe you" she said.

  "You'll come back to it. It's… it's in your blood: " "No' he said, shaking his head in resignation.

  "If I don't do it now, I'll never do it. I'm broke. The office is bankrupt. All the past has been burned gloriously away."

  He looked out the dark window at the empty office building across the street, a building much like the one he was in. The lights were off across the street. But the offices waited for their workers the following morning. And the morning after that and every morning thereafter.

  "I'm thirty-three," he said.

  "I figure I have half of my life ahead of me. I'm not going to spend it in this office. I'm not going to grow old and die doing something I hate and something I'm not that good at."

  "What will you do?" she asked.

  He held his hands apart, as if in wonder.

  "All I know is what I won? do " He moved back to his -desk and sat down. He folded his hands behind his head and leaned back.

  "I'd love to solve a mystery," he said.

  "And I'd love to play amateur sleuth. But nothing here matters enough anymore. Everything was my father's, not mine" "I, He glanced in the direction of the charred filing cabinets. in closing the doors" he said.

  "And you know what? I'm not unhappy about it."

  Chapter 4

  It was well past four o'clock on Friday afternoon. The young woman in the camel's-hair overcoat tried the front door to the Zenger and Daniels offices. The door was locked.

  She looked at the dark walnut door. She knocked again at the door and tried the knob. Again, no response. The door was unyielding. Yet she knew she was in the proper place-she could smell the stale odor imparted days ago by the smoke. Besides, the newspapers had mentioned Zenger and Daniels and that was the name on the door.

  She noticed a doorbell to the left of the entrance, a feature of an older New York office building. She pressed it. Several seconds passed. She was just about to turn to leave when the door abruptly opened and a man spoke.

  "Yes?"

  She was almost startled. The man before her wore no tie. His hands were dirty, his hair disheveled, and his sleeves rolled beyond the elbows. His clothing suggested maintenance rather than the practice of law.

  "I wasn't sure anyone was in" she said.

  "I… I don't have an appointment but I wanted to see someone' "Anyone in particular?" he asked.

  She glanced at the names on the door.

  "William Ward Daniels," she said.

  "If he's available."

  He smiled slightly.

  "You're a bit late for him, he said.

  "He died a year ago."

  "Oh, I'm sorry," she said. She seemed taken aback, searching for the next words but not finding them immediately.

  "I'm his son," said Thomas.

  "Maybe I can help you She thought for a moment.

  "Perhaps you can'" she said. She looked him up and down, wondering what to make of his attire. It was the last Friday in January. Thomas had been packing what was salvageable in cartons and storage crates. On Monday the landlord would be bringing in construction men to rebuild the entire suite.

  After today, the offices would be made habitable for new tenants.

  Zenger and Daniels would exist only as a memory.

  Thomas looked at himself and suddenly realized her apprehension.

  "I've, uh, been moving things. Don't mind my appearance.

  What did you want to see my father about?"

  "Could we discuss it inside?" she asked. She hesitated again, then added,

  "I understand your office had something to do with the Sandler estate."

  He looked at her carefully, almost in disbelief She was well-spoken, nicely dressed, and she possessed a face that might brighten a magazine cover.

  "Of course," he said.

  "Come in."

  He held the door open and she followed.

  She was apparently struck by the condition of the office. Blackened walls, packing crates, the scent of smoke even stronger now.

  Blackened furniture had been shoved against sooted walls.

  "I should explain" he said. He did, about the fire.

  "Your offices are relocating?" she asked.

  "In a sense," he said. He led her to the one room in the suite that was presentable and functional. He removed two crates of papers from the top of his desk. He avoided mention of his intention to leave the practice of law. He'd listen to her and guide her on to someone else who might be able to help.

  She sat down in a hard-backed wooden chair near his desk, attempting to sit comfortably on what was essentially a rigid and uncomfortable chair.

  "I don't know whether you'll be able to assist me or not" she said.

  She glanced around and began to sense the moribund state of the office.

  He was now aware of her slight English accent.

  "You might not even believe me. And you might be too busy moving."

  "It doesn't take much space to listen to a problem," he said.

  "I suppose not," she said. She eyed him carefully, deciding whether or not to go on. But he did sound sincere. And this was the firm mentioned in the newspapers.

  "I read last week that a woman named Victoria Sandler had died" she said. "The article stated that this firm once handled the Sandler family's business' "At one time," he said. Thomas mentally pictured Andrea, who'd written the Times article which other newspapers had picked up.

  "Victoria had a brother. Arthur Sandler. Born in 1899."

  "That's right' he said. He began to wonder where this might lead and whether or not it would be worthwhile to be led. He studied her.

  The English accent was more noticeable now. She was well spoken Educated. Her clothing conservative, yet flattering to her lithe figure. A navy-blue suit hemmed below the knee. A light-blue print blouse and a carefully knotted pale-blue scarf The camel'shair coat was now across her lap as she sat with her ankles slightly crossed.

  "How mu
ch do you know about Arthur Sandler?" she asked.

  "Not an awful lot. It was my father and Mr. Zenger who knew him personally. Before his death, that is. 1954, wasn't it?"

  "No," she said.

  "It wasn't' "Wasn't what?" '1954. The newspapers said that he was a murder victim. Some sort of street execution."

  "That's right" -"That's not right. He was alive past 1954. Well past 1954." She spoke calmly and methodically.

  He leaned back in the chair. He folded his arms and looked at her in a new light. He wondered if she might not be better served at Bellevue than his office.

  "How do you know?" he asked.

  "It's a long story."

  "I'm sure it is' "I'm prepared to tell it if you're willing to listen."

  He made no comment. He only looked at her, trying to assess her grip on reality.

  "He wasn't killed in 1954. I don't know who was, but it wasn't he."

  "You've seen him since?"

  "At his 'death' in 1954" she said.

  "And then again in 1964 "Uh huh," he said.

  "That's very nice. Did you come here to warn me?"

  She looked up from her lap into his eyes. Her blue eyes, formerly soft and warm, were now sharp and intense, wide with emotion, almost with fear.

  "I'm not a crazy lady," she said.

  "I didn't come here to be patronized." She paused.

  "Arthur Sandler was my father."

  He considered the assertion for only a second.

  "I see. Was he married to your mother?"

  "Of course. During the war."

  "War?"

  "World War Two."

  "Arthur Sandler was never married" he said.

  "And when he died in 1954 it was established legally that he had no children, legitimate or otherwise. His estate went in its entirety to Victoria, who-" She tossed a folded paper from her purse onto his desk.