Vanishing Act

by Seth Margolis

  As alibis for each other they were perfectly complementary, however. And Joe D. believed them. The look in Mona’s eyes when he told her what happened earlier that night was genuine. It wasn’t alarm or sadness or even panic; instead it was a look of confusion, the look of a woman trying to catch up with events while deciphering what effect these events would have on her. It was easy to figure why both would be pleased with Samson’s first “death.” It was less easy to figure why they would scuttle the original plan by murdering Samson, especially when an actual murder would inevitably implicate Mona in the original scam.

  “You realize that when you identify your husband’s body tomorrow you’ll be arrested for fraud.”

  “You’re assuming I will identify my husband tomorrow.”

  “You could deny that it’s George. But I doubt it would do you much good, other than stalling for time. Stuart Arnot will ID him. So will Joanna Freeling and a dozen other people who knew him.”

  “His body was so destroyed, and his face was covered with blood…”

  “Shut up, Mona,” Williams interrupted. “You don’t have to talk to him.”

  Mona looked at Williams, as if she were startled but pleased by his take-charge attitude. There was something else in that brief look: Gratitude at being able to place her fate into the hands of someone else, gratitude so profound it probably felt like love. “That’s right,” she said after a pause. “I don’t need to speak to you. You can leave now, Mr. DiGregorio. Right now.”

  Two decades of assimilation evaporated from her voice, and traces of Mississippi came through like raw wood behind layers of peeling paint. Banishing him from her presence was perhaps the last imperious gesture she’d be allowed for some time, and Joe D. thought she knew it.

  Alison was sleeping when he got home. Joe D. was tempted to wake her, but thought better of it. He wanted to talk things over with her, sort things out. She had a clear, logical mind, and her distance from the case would be valuable. But she had worked late tonight, and had to be up early tomorrow to open the store. He watched her sleeping, and resisted the urge to crawl into bed next to her. She was always so warm when she slept, a dense, reassuring warmth that would go a long way towards soothing his overworked mind. After a while he left the bedroom and got a beer from the refrigerator. He sat down at the dining room table with a pad and pen. He wrote the names of everyone involved in the Samson case, scattering them around the paper: Samson himself, Stuart Arnot, Mona Samson, Joanna Freeling, the Rudolphs—father and son—and Kendall Williams. Then he drew lines between them to show relationships. Each was connected to George Samson by a motive for killing him—either faking his murder or the actual deed. Several were connected to each other by lines of hate or jealousy or revenge or love. When he finished the paper, there was a tangle of lines with Samson at the intersection of all of them.

  Joe D. thought he could figure out how the original “murder” of Samson went down. Mona was involved in that, if only by agreeing to misidentify the corpse. Arnot professed his innocence of the actual murders, and Joe D. believed him, though he’d be implicated for going along with the deception. But neither Mona nor Arnot had a motive for actually murdering Samson earlier this evening. What difference did it make to Mona, after all, if George was or wasn’t dead, as long as everyone, including his executors, believed he was? And Arnot was about to join his lover in paradise with five million dollars. He wasn’t even mentioned in Samson’s will.

  So who, then, had really killed Samson? Unless Joe D. had overlooked an obvious candidate, it came down to three people: Joanna Freeling or one of the Rudolphs. He circled their names on his pad and kept circling them until they stood out from the tangle of lines. He got himself a second beer and stared at the mess on the paper for a few more minutes.

  Then he knew.

  Thirty-Two

  Room 12 in the New York City morgue had a surprisingly pleasant view of Lower Manhattan. Joe D. knew this because he found it easier to stare at the view than at the soon-to-be-opened coffin in the center of the room.

  He didn’t have to be there. When Dinofrio had set this up, he’d told Joe D. that he’d see that the proper people were in attendance. But Joe D. felt that he should be there. Not that he was in any doubt about the outcome. No, he wasn’t feeling any suspense. Only dread at the prospect of the opened coffin.

  A medical examiner was in the room along with an assistant. Both were women, both probably in their thirties, Joe D. thought, both sufficiently attractive and “normal” that Joe D. wondered several times that afternoon what they could possibly be doing in this line of work. He looked for a trace of ghoulishness in their faces, and found only professionalism mixed with some curiosity. Exhumations, after all, were a rarity.

  In one corner was a Detective Rice, the cop who’d handled the original Samson murder. He looked distinctly uncomfortable, and Joe D. guessed it wasn’t only the prospect of seeing a two-week-old body that was causing him to repeatedly hoist his pants up by the belt that hung loosely just below his voluminous gut. By late last night the 20th Precinct had had to admit that they’d erred on the Samson “murder.” The body in the Art Alliance building was almost certainly Samson’s—they had Stuart Arnot’s word on this, and additional identifications would follow. The body buried under Samson’s marker in a cemetery in Westchester had been hastily exhumed this morning, following a lengthy Q-and-A session involving Joe D., Mona Samson, Arnot, and a few lesser characters.

  The coffin, a mahogany affair with brass handles, sufficiently expensive looking to hold the last remains of what had been thought to be a very rich and powerful man, looked none the worse for wear for its two weeks in Westchester’s rocky soil. Someone must have cleaned it up before delivery, Joe D. thought. A little Pledge, a little elbow grease, and it was as good as new. If only the same were true of its contents.

  The ME’s assistant handed out white masks, which she said were to cover both mouths and noses. Joe D. gratefully put his on. “This may be a bit unpleasant,” the ME said, but her voice revealed no trepidation.

  She undid a pair of latches and opened the hood which, disappointingly, didn’t creak a bit. The two physicians leaned over the coffin eagerly. Joe D. and Detective Rice both took an instinctive step backwards.

  “Signs of midterm decomposition,” the ME said. Her assistant reached for a pad and wrote this down, and began scribbling as the ME continued to discourse on the ravages that just two weeks’ time had taken on the corpse.

  “Doctor, if you don’t mind, we’re interested in the identity of the deceased, not his condition.” Rice tried to speak with authority, but this was difficult, given that he couldn’t bring himself to even look in the coffin’s direction. Joe D. detected the first hint of an odor, a stale, earthy smell overlaid with something harsher, sharper, and made an effort to breathe through his mouth.

  “We have to record this information,” she snapped. “City regulations.”

  Mercifully, they were through in just a few minutes. This wasn’t an autopsy, after all. The ME turned to Rice and Joe D., and asked if they wanted to take a look. He saw Rice’s eyes widen in disgust before he steeled himself with a shrug and yet another hoist of his trousers. Both men sidled across the room toward the coffin and peeked around the opened lid. Rice looked for only a moment. “That’s the guy was shot in the cab,” he said, backing off.

  Joe D. forced himself to look a bit longer. The corpse’s flesh seemed to be shrinking around its skull, lending a sharpness to the features, a clarity, even. The skin was the color of an old bruise, with darker patches. Joe D. found himself pointlessly concentrating on the body’s tie, a rich red-and-blue paisley—an easier focus than the corpse itself.

  Could anyone have genuinely mistaken this figure for George Samson? Could Mona Samson? He’d never gotten a good look at Samson when he was alive, but in death there was a certain similarity. Both were large men with features that seemed out of proportion to their faces: Large though well-formed
noses, big almond eyes, full lips. Still, Joe D. recognized the face. Mona must have also.

  He turned to Rice. “Ask Mrs. Samson to come in.”

  A moment later she entered the room. She was wearing a maroon suit that was cinched around what there was of her waist, accentuating her thinness. She was perched atop the tallest pair of high-heeled pumps Joe D. had ever seen; a fall from these shoes could be fatal. She brought a bony hand to her face as soon as she entered. Joe D. grabbed a spare mask from a table and gave it to her. She stared at it a bit, as if wondering whether it complemented her outfit, before putting it on. Detective Rice led her over to the coffin, which she peered into with widened eyes, as if examining a ring in a Carder’s counter. Then she looked up at Joe D. and shook her head.

  “Two weeks ago you thought that was your husband,” Joe D. said. He could feel his breath rebounding off the mask, warming his face.

  “He’s been cleaned up since then. When I saw him he was a mess.”

  “Do you recognize this person?” Detective Rice asked.

  She had backed away from the coffin a few steps. “No.”

  “You might want to take a second look, Mrs. Samson,” Joe D. said.

  “I have never seen this man before in my life,” she said slowly.

  “I think you have. And I think we’ll be able to prove it.”

  Her lower face was covered, but her eyes expressed everything she felt about him, none of which was charitable.

  “Bring in Rudolph now,” Joe D. said. He watched Mona’s reaction. Arthur Rudolph, Junior, had been kept in a separate room from her. Her eyes widened as she looked down at the floor. Now, surely, she knew what was coming.

  Rudolph walked in looking haggard and scruffy. Joe D. handed him a mask, which he quickly put on. He glanced at Mona Samson but didn’t appear to recognize her. Then, unbidden, he walked to the coffin and looked in.

  He didn’t appear to react at first. He stared as if looking at a great work of art or a rare fossil, fascinated but not moved.

  “Your father?” Joe D. asked quietly.

  Rudolph nodded, but showed no inclination to leave his father’s side. Joe D. considered leaving them alone for a few minutes, but Rudolph Senior wasn’t a pretty sight, and it would do Junior no good to spend more time than necessary with him. Joe D. took Rudolph by the elbow and led him past Mona and out of the room. He didn’t resist. In fact, he almost glided along with Joe D. as if his willpower had vanished on seeing his father’s putrefying body.

  Rice joined them a moment later in the corridor. “We’re going to have some questions for you. We’ll find you an office to wait in while we deal with Mrs. Samson.” Rudolph nodded blankly. Only when Mona joined them in the hallway and removed her mask did he react. Joe D. saw his whole body tense up. His face looked disgusted and ferocious at the same time. “Murderer,” he hissed at her. He seemed about to move towards her. Rice placed a restraining hand on his arm. It didn’t seem to take much force to keep him in place.

  For her part, Mona averted her eyes and winced, as if she’d been confronted by a panhandler in front of her Fifth Avenue building. Joe D. decided he was looking forward to interrogating her with Detective Rice. Getting a reaction out of Mona Samson was a challenge he relished.

  “This way, Mrs. Samson,” Rice said. “We have some questions we’d like to ask.”

  Thirty-Three

  They found a small, windowless conference room near the examination room. Mona immediately crossed the room and stood in a far corner. She looked small and trapped, but her face crinkled in distaste when Detective Rice asked her to take a chair, as if the mere sound of his voice offended her.

  “I’ll stand,” she said.

  “Suit yourself,” Rice said, and took a chair. Joe D. remained standing.

  Rice pulled his chair as close to the Formica table as his copious gut would allow, the chair legs scraping along the floor. He pressed the record button on a large tape recorder and then clasped his hands and looked up at Mona. He recited her Miranda rights while she gazed down at him with a combination of scorn and curiosity, as if he were a talking dog. When he was done, she clapped her hands slowly and almost noiselessly. “Well done, Detective. Well done.”

  Joe D. thought he saw Rice grin humbly. “Why don’t you tell us what happened on the night of April twelfth?”

  Mona seemed to recoil from the bluntness of the question. “The night my husband was murdered?” She saw Joe D. give her a look, and corrected herself. “The night I thought he’d been murdered. I’ve been through this with the police already last week.”

  She was remarkably collected for a woman who’d just seen a decomposing corpse only hours after identifying the body of her husband, not to mention the fact that she was up to her neck in a murder conspiracy. Joe D. decided Rice was no match for her, and hoped he was. “Mrs. Samson,” Joe D. began, “you’re in a lot of trouble.”

  A slight but unmistakably arrogant lift of her chin indicated that she would need more detail before she admitted to being in any kind of trouble.

  “At the very least you misidentified the body of Arthur Rudolph last week. I don’t care how beat up he was, you knew Rudolph and you knew it was his body. If you misidentified the body, you had to be in on your husband’s disappearance scam. That scam involved two murders, Rudolph’s and the cabdriver’s. Even if you didn’t pull the trigger…”

  “I didn’t,” she inserted rashly.

  Joe D. knew, then, that he had her. “Who did, then?”

  Another arrogant lift of the chin.

  “Look, you’re as good as convicted for aiding and abetting. You might as well tell us what you know.”

  She stood there for a moment, staring over their heads at some point on the cream-colored wall near the ceiling. Joe D. could see her swaying slightly. She looked pathetic all of a sudden, and he knew she was going to talk.

  “I want a lawyer,” she said with a note of defiance.

  Rice shoved a phone across the conference table in her direction. She took a small leather address book out of her pocketbook and dialed a number. She asked for Leonard Brody and was connected to him instantly; Joe D. guessed her calls were always taken promptly. He heard her tell her attorney where she was and watched her close her eyes impatiently as he doubtless responded to this news. A moment later she hung up and said he’d be there in fifteen minutes.

  “Why don’t you sit down and wait,” Joe D. said. She looked so fragile, he was half afraid she’d keel over.

  “We didn’t want anyone to die,” she said, as if in response. “When George contacted you two weeks ago, he was serious, you know. He had some scheme involving a car crash. He needed your help, though. Or someone’s. I never knew the details. If you’d gone along, maybe none of this would have happened.”

  “There’s no way I’m going to feel responsible for what you and your husband did,” Joe D. said angrily.

  “Of course not,” she said almost sweetly. She was talking as if in a trance, her voice steady but unmodulated. “George was so desperate. He had to get out of his life, you see. He couldn’t stand it any more.”

  “Maybe you want to wait for your lawyer to get here,” Joe D. suggested.

  She shrugged. “It’s too late for that. I guess I knew this was bound to happen. Did you know that George and Stuart Arnot were lovers?”

  She asked this almost matter-of-factly, as if reporting a bit of stale gossip. Joe D. nodded and wished she would express some genuine emotion. He’d know how to respond to that. Rice, in the meantime, was staring at her openmouthed.

  “He was so frantic to get out of our marriage, sometimes I thought he might kill me.” She chuckled silently, her face contorting into a wrinkle-free geography of bumps and bulges. “When he presented me with this scheme, the one involving Arthur Rudolph, I couldn’t resist. It seemed to solve all our problems.”

  She paused, as if relishing the thought.

  “The day of the New York Art Alliance board
meeting I drove up to Westchester to get Arthur Rudolph out of that nursing home. George had hit on the brilliant idea of using Rudolph to replace him. They looked enough alike, and I, the widow, would be identifying the body. I was nervous about how Rudolph would react to seeing me. But we’d been told by the nursing staff that he was disoriented most of the time. George paid the bills for Rudolph, did you know that? I found Rudolph on the front lawn, just sitting there, half comatose if you ask me. He recognized me, though, the wife of his archenemy. I gave him this story about how Samson Stores was looking for a new CEO to replace George, about how the board wanted to interview him for the job. The poor man ate it up. It was his dream come true, the chance to get back in control. It was simple after that to get him into my car. I even convinced him to go back to his room to get his passport and wallet, which George had said he’d need.”

  “Where’d you take him after that?”

  “I stored him at our country place for the rest of the day. At seven I drove him back into town. I parked in a lot on the West Side, and then we got into a cab, as planned, at exactly nine. I told him I’d drop him off wherever he wanted. He said he’d stay with his son.”

  “On Gansevoort Street,” Joe D. interjected. “That’s what the cabbie started to write down. G as in Gansevoort.”

  Mona shrugged at this now unimportant detail. “We picked George up outside the Art Alliance. A block later I got out.”

  “Rudolph couldn’t have been too happy seeing your husband get into the cab with you.”

  “He was almost completely out of it. I’d given him a few drinks in the country, and he kept nodding off as we drove. He was heavily medicated to begin with. I think he was so confused by the time he saw George that he didn’t know what was happening. In any case, I got out just a block after George got in.”