“He can do this?”
“He’s doing it. He stole only from remote areas with few resources. Documents are easy for a man in his position to manufacture. My reputation is good, but pitted against his?” She shook her head.
Ms. Moore said, “Ah. Then you confided in Dana. Who watches your back.”
“I never intended for her to do anything. But she”—Sophie took a moment to swallow—“she refused to let me ruin myself. She said she would make him her private crusade. She would stop him, protect me, and I could continue my work. She’s very… strong. And clever! So I agreed.”
Ms. Moore considered her. “And then she was poisoned.”
“God, yes.”
Eisner said, “But this type of radiation only comes from—”
“Nuclear plants. Yeah, I read Dana’s research. And right before she died, Dana named Fremont. I thought she was saying that somebody from there poisoned her. She told me to make sure you knew that. Still protecting me.”
Ms. Moore frowned. “So her murder had nothing to do with your stolen antiquities?”
“I didn’t—I still don’t see how it could! But either way, I had to do something. So this afternoon I went to Fremont. And I saw him!”
Ms. Moore’s eyes narrowed. “Who? The thief? At Fremont? Who is this person? Who killed Dana Fallon?”
Sophie clutched her head. “Me! My selfishness. I never thought about her being in danger, I thought only about myself! The only person in the world who loved me, and I killed her!”
Ms. Moore leaned across the table and grabbed her hands. “Cut the melodrama. You didn’t kill her! Who is the thief?”
Sophie shook her head. “You wouldn’t believe me. Besides, it makes no sense.” She looked at Ms. Moore. “Because I just killed him. And he’s not dead.”
Ms. Moore threw up her hands, then stood and began to pace. “You killed him?”
Eisner demanded, “What happened?”
“I got inside Fremont. Dana was right, it’s way too easy. And I saw him in the employees’ cafeteria. He saw me too. I got out fast, but he chased me. In a big dark Mercedes sedan, I couldn’t tell what color it was. So shiny it half-blinded me. He tried to ram me. I pulled off the road. He handled his car badly, all that snow. He crashed. He crawled out of his car, though, and—he damn near shot me in the head! I panicked. I ran him down.”
Eisner goggled. “Deliberately?”
“Twice.”
Ms. Moore stopped her pacing and stared. “Twice?” And after a pause: “Twice? What’s his name?”
“Victor Rubinski, director of—”
Ms. Moore interrupted: “Director of the Jones-Formen Foundation. That gatekeeper institution for scientific grants.” She whirled to face Eisner. “The fourth guy at Fallon’s dinner.”
Eisner flipped open his cell phone. “Where was this car crash?”
Sophie thought, then described the last green sign she’d passed before stopping. “I don’t know much about Long Island, sorry.”
He made two calls. Ms. Moore went into her kitchen. Sophie sat huddled miserably on the couch, sunk in thought. In fifteen minutes, Eisner’s cell phone rang. Ms. Moore returned from the kitchen, the aroma of hot coffee following her. Eisner listened, then sighed. “Thanks.” He glanced at Sophie. “Some crackups due to weather, but no Mercedes of any type. You’re sure about the make?”
Sophie nodded.
He shook his head. “No car or body found, Georgie. But Rubinski does own a Mercedes S600 Metallic Capri Blue sedan. That’s shiny dark blue, if you drop the sales pitch.”
Ms. Moore frowned, then let out a sound, half laugh, half exasperation. “Well, she did say he wasn’t dead. Give me a minute to dress.”
Eisner eyed Sophie. Ms. Moore said, “Let her come. I’d like to hear what he says when he sees her.”
In twenty minutes they were pushing the doorbell at an elegant Murray Hill townhouse owned by Victor Rubinski.
When a man opened his door, before he could speak, Sophie let out a muffled squeal. Eisner elbowed her. “Victor Rubinski?”
Rubinski paused to wrap his maroon bathrobe tighter and cinch the belt. He was a long-faced man with thinning brown hair, in his late fifties, lean except for a small paunch, a few inches shorter than Sophie. “Yes?”
“Eisner, Homeland Security. I’m sure you remember U.S. Attorney Moore. A few minutes of your time.” Rubinski hesitated, but Eisner swept him aside with a heavy arm, and made room for the two women to enter. He stepped in and closed the door.
They stood in a long, darkly paneled hallway, crowded together. Rubinski made no move to invite them in any farther. “Ah. Hello, Sophie. Surprised to see you here. Hah, you’ve combed your hair. I am surprised!” His drawled words revealed a faint European accent. He looked up at Eisner with a pained smile. “And you’re here because?”
“Your car, Mr. Rubinski.”
“My car?”
“Where is it?”
Rubinski’s eyebrows lifted. “I suppose… in the garage. Where I left it last Friday, after I drove home from Washington.”
“Where’s this garage?” asked Eisner.
“Oh, come now. Around the corner, on… on Thirty-sixth. What’s the fuss?”
“We’d like to see it,” said Eisner.
Rubinski made an exasperated noise. “Get a warrant. Isn’t that the drill?”
Eisner sighed. “Don’t need one, Rubinski. Nobody seems to remember that.”
Rubinski darted forward, as if intending to shoulder through them to get to the front door.
As he rushed past Sophie, she sidestepped and blocked the door. She blurted, “You can’t just arrest him! He tortured Dana! Think what she suffered!” Ms. Moore touched her on the shoulder, but Sophie wrenched away.
Rubinski snarled, “Hah! This woman’s a known criminal. To accuse me—”
Suddenly a gun appeared in Sophie’s hand. She slammed Rubinski against the wall and dug the muzzle deep into the soft spot beneath his ear. He gaped, mouth opening and closing like a fish drowning in air, but made no sound.
She wiped tears from her cheek with her shoulder. With her thumb she drew back the hammer. “You monster! You think I’d let them tuck you away in some cell? Pay for what you did with jail time? No death penalty in New York.”
Eisner and Moore, startled, separated, and moved deeper into the hallway.
Rubinski suddenly recovered his voice. “I told you she’s a criminal! You, Homeland, grab her! Do something!” He tried to jerk away, but she had him pinned too well with her body.
Eisner didn’t move, but gestured at the gun. “You good with that?”
Rubinski snapped, “Of course she is, you cretin.”
Ms. Moore sighed. “Deserts and jungles, Ed. I believe him.” She said softly to Sophie, “Do you think shooting him will hurt him enough? Could anything hurt him enough to pay for Dana’s suffering?”
Sophie didn’t answer, but glanced uncertainly at Ms. Moore.
Rubinski, in a burst of new energy, struggled hard, but Sophie stiffened her hold. She hesitated, then shoved the gun harder against his neck. “Where’s your brother or cousin?” she suddenly demanded. “In the trunk of your Mercedes?”
Rubinski’s mouth opened halfway and stayed there.
Sophie continued: “Where’s the car? Not in any heated garage, not with a body in it.”
Eisner said, “In it?”
“Has to be. Too cold to dig a hole. And this happened—what. Two hours ago? Now that I think of it, the guy I hit crawled out of the passenger side. I never saw a second person, but it was so dark. Took me a while to get up the nerve to check that he was—and I couldn’t find him! Rubinski could’ve pulled the body into the car. I looked all around, but never inside the car. I never thought of a second person. Hard to total a Mercedes. I bet he drove it away, hid it in Long Island somewhere near a train station.”
Eisner nodded. “I can buy that.”
Rubinski snapped, “Why wo
uld I be at Fremont!”
“Fremont, Rubinski?” Eisner asked with interest. “Who mentioned Fremont?”
“What relative? And how did you guess?” Ms. Moore stared at Sophie.
“No guess. People are my subject.” Sophie smiled bitterly. “I’m a trained observer of physiognomy. If I was fooled, the resemblance had to be close, probably a brother. A cousin, at most. Victor’s standing here, so I must’ve killed his relative.”
Eisner said, “We knew he had a brother, didn’t know he worked at Fremont.”
Rubinski said, “He didn’t. Consultant. And only a half-brother. Hardly a real sibling.” Then Rubinski grinned. “Fortuitous, don’t you think? Dana Fallon got the public all roused, leading Fremont to hire poor Jerry to patch up some engineering carelessness.” He added sullenly, “Greedy piece of shit, charged me a fortune for that bit of isotope. Then elbowed in on my… business.” He gestured at Sophie. “Still. She murdered him! She confessed it right in front of you!”
Ms. Moore considered this. She eyed Sophie, who kept her attention steadily on Rubinski. “You flew in at JFK yesterday from Panama, right?”
Sophie frowned. “Yes.”
“Not Dana’s gun?”
“No.”
“So, you, ah, found it… where?”
“In the road. It fell out of his half-brother’s hand after he shot at me.”
“Ed, arrest Rubinski. Attempted murder will do to start. We’ll sort out the details and the, ah, twice, in the morning. Please, carefully, relieve Sophie of Mr. Rubinski’s, or his brother’s, weapon.”
She smiled at Sophie. “We might manage to rescue a few fingerprints.”
Sophie hesitated, a worried frown on her face as she replaced the hammer. “Check the bullets. When people load, those are the fingerprints they usually forget to wipe off.”
Rubinski gasped.
Eisner said, amused, “I’ve, uh, heard that.”
“Honey, trust Ed. Come with me. Let’s get you warm.”
Sophie took the pen from her pocket, inserted it into the trigger guard, and handed both revolver and pen to Eisner.
GOING UNDER
BY LINDA FAIRSTEIN
I had dreamed about getting the gold shield ever since I was a kid. My grandfather’s detective badge—gleaming yellow metal framing cobalt-blue enamel—had attracted and intrigued me for as long as I could remember. I had obeyed my parents’ demand that I finish college, but four days after graduation I joined the rookie class at the New York Police Department’s academy, to become a cop.
Promotion from the uniformed ranks to the detective bureau can be a long and hard-fought battle. Some officers seem content to walk a beat for their entire careers, while others take daring risks and perform heroic acts to merit the shift to plainclothes investigations. You can’t sit for any exams to get the job the way you can for administrative posts. And I had no one looking out for me down at Headquarters to push me along the way.
There was nothing I wouldn’t do, I had vowed to myself the morning I came on the job, to earn that shield.
____
“ARE YOU OUT of your mind? You think I’m gonna volunteer to let some guy molest me when I’m not even conscious?” I looked across the table at Mike Chapman, who was chewing the last bite of his cheeseburger as the waitress slipped the check under his plate.
“Chief of detectives asked for you personally.”
“He doesn’t have a clue who I am, does he?” At the time, I had been working in uniform for two years, assigned to a patrol car on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
“Not really. But when I told him you’d been moaning all over the station house about your abscessed wisdom tooth, he smiled for the first time in half a year.”
I pushed away from the table. A week of evening shifts, 4:00 p.m. to midnight, had exhausted me completely and drained me of my normal good humor. I had spent most of this tour handling a domestic dispute in a high-rise on Riverside Drive, trying to determine which of the two intoxicated combatants had wielded the first broomstick. The last thing I needed to find when I got back to the command on West 82nd Street was Chapman, who waited for me while I showered and changed into jeans and a sweater. We had walked to a bar on the corner of Amsterdam Avenue, where I nursed a drink while he made me the offer he knew I couldn’t refuse.
“What’s the deal, exactly?” I asked.
“Lieutenant Borelli says the chief has promised a promotion to whoever agrees to go undercover on this one. Two weeks from today, you could be a third-grade detective. You wouldn’t pass up a shot at that,would you?”
Chapman worked in the detective squad at the same precinct. He knew I was hungry to get out of uniform and start doing real investigative work, but he also knew that my chances of doing that any time soon—barring some serendipitous arrest of a notorious serial killer—were slim or none.
“I’ve got principles, Mike. I just can’t see myself saying yes to letting some pervert—”
“No problem, pal,” he answered, paying our tab at the bar. “I respect you for that. Sandy Denman’s been begging me for the case, anyway. She’ll be thrilled you don’t want to step up to the plate on this one.”
“What time tomorrow does Borelli want to see me?” I hated Sandy Denman. She’d been on the job only half as long as I had, but Denman had grabbed the commissioner’s attention by talking two jumpers in a suicide pact down off the Brooklyn Bridge. One week before that, she had interrupted a robbery in progress at the back door of City Hall, an hour before the mayor’s scheduled press conference on the latest figures confirming reduced crime rates in the Big Apple. I’d be damned if I would let Sandy get the shield before I did. “And exactly what do I have to let this dentist do to me, anyway?”
____
THREE DAYS LATER, on Tuesday morning, I sat in the reception area of the office of Melvin Trichner, DDS, filling out his patient information form using my real name, Samantha Atwell. When I completed the paperwork, I was ushered into one of the rooms at the end of a long corridor and invited to sit back in his reclining chair and relax.
“This is an awfully thick book, young lady,” Trichner said, grinning at me through his bonded, bleached teeth, as he lifted Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imaginationfrom my lap and placed it on the counter behind him. “Do you like the macabre?”
Somehow, I had thought the heavy tome would hold my short denim skirt in place throughout the examination, but I didn’t protest when Trichner removed it and leaned in to inspect my mouth. “I love thrillers,” I answered, before he spread my jaws, hooked his little round mirror on my tender gum, and peered at the lower left quadrant, which had been throbbing madly all week.
My hands gripped the arms of the chair as he poked around at the impacted tooth, and I tried to distract myself by staring at the garish assortment of neon-colored flowers and tropical birds which decorated his Hawaiian-style shirt.
“Yes, that baby has got to come out,” Trichner announced, rolling away from me on his four-wheeled stool. “How’s Thursday morning?” He picked up my chart and studied it to make sure I had answered all the questions about current medications and physical history.
“I’m terrified about the pain,” I murmured to him in my whiniest voice.
“I’ll give you some pills to hold you over these couple of days.”
“Not that pain. I mean, I’m worried about how much it will hurt when you pull my tooth.”
Back came a flash of the phony smile, as he clasped his hands on top of mine and rubbed them together several times. “I’m absolutely painless. Some Valium before the Novocain,” Trichner offered, “and you’ll have nothing but pleasant dreams. Have you got a friend who can take you home afterward? You’ll be a bit woozy for a few hours.”
“Yeah,” I said. “My boyfriend can do that.”
“Great. You just dream about him while I put you under. I promise, it’ll be an erotic experience.”
____
“BINGO. THAT’S JUST
the language he used to describe what would happen to each of the other victims. This is a ‘go.’” Chapman was pumped as he drove me back to the station house from the dental office on Central Park West and 81st Street.
While Borelli and his men plotted the technical procedures for the video surveillance that would monitor our encounter, I sat in the squad room reading the case reports on the first three complaints.
Victim number one was a student at Barnard College when she had visited Trichner eighteen months earlier. She had awakened from the anesthesia in his office after an extraction, certain that he had been kissing and caressing her. She went straight back to her dorm and told her roommate, who brought the young woman downtown to make a police report. Like most professionals, Trichner benefited from people’s perception that they are unlikely to be criminals. Instead of arresting the dentist, Detective Conrad Sully had asked him if he could think of any reason for his patient’s bizarre recollection.
“Of course I can,” Trichner said, calmly handing the veteran investigator a brochure that described the sedative he had used. “If you read this, you’ll see it cautions that the drug is hallucinogenic. What that means is that sexual fantasies are a frequent side effect when we use it.”
Sully took the pamphlet back to his office, called the student to tell her that she had imagined the entire experience, and closed the case out by writing the word “Unfounded” at the end of his report.
When the second witness showed up in the same squad room eight months later, the lieutenant referred her complaint to his expert, Detective Sully. This time he didn’t even have to leave his desk. The nineteen-year-old hairdresser, who reported that she woke up with her clothing in disarray and a faint memory of being fondled and kissed, read the literature herself before Sully replaced it in his case folder. She left the precinct believing that she had falsely accused poor Dr. Trichner because of her drug-induced intoxication. Sully’s brain was sometimes thicker than his brogue.
Mystery Writers of America Presents the Prosecution Rests Page 37
