by Howard Engel
“Sid has a point,” Pia put in. Even Ruth was nodding agreement. I sipped my coffee then replaced the cup on the saucer with a racket that sounded like a gunshot.
“Look, this might be as good a time as any to tell you that my involvement with this case is over,” I said. Debbie exchanged a look with her former husband. “I was brought into this by Rabbi Meltzer and Saul Tepperman. They had some idea that I could do something on behalf of the Jewish community. While there was a chance that Larry was alive somewhere, there was a chance that he might be persuaded to return the money he took and make good on his obligations. Now that we know that he can’t do that, there’s no way I can help Mr. Tepperman, the rabbi or the community. So, I’m bowing out. Since I guess I’ve bothered all of you most, I thought I should let you know in person. That’s all. End of speech. And if you need a tenth man for the minyan, I’m here.” I picked up my coffee and nearly choked taking a badly gauged swig. Sid pounded my back and I came back to life.
“I don’t get you, Cooperman,” Sid Geller said, as he took a seat beside his sister-in-law on the couch. “Just when the case has taken a big turn, you drop it. Why?”
“Well, in the first place, this is a case for the cops. I keep telling everybody that most cases are, but luckily some of them don’t believe me. As far as this one goes, the cops are now putting all available men on it. It’s no longer a matter of waiting for Larry to make a move down in Florida or try using a credit card in Paris. The cops have his passport and the name he planned to use in his new life. From that they can move on quickly. They’ll have the murderer before you know it.”
“That’s reassuring,” said Debbie, lighting up one of her menthol cigarettes and accepting a light from Pia’s familiar lighter. “But how long will all this take? You have no idea what this has done to all our lives. To think of it dragging on much longer, well …”
“I shouldn’t think it will take them a lot longer. I was talking with Staff Sergeant Savas earlier today, and he said that they are trying to locate an office somewhere here in town where Larry did the paperwork for his …” I didn’t know how to end the sentence with so many of his relations looking on, so I went back and ended it with “paperwork” and left it at that. “When they get there they’ll go over it with a microscope. If there’s a shred of evidence, they’ll find it. I was on a case a year ago where the husband I was trying to locate was found just by discovering information on the redial memory of his girlfriend’s telephone. You know, one of those cheap, made-in-Taiwan jobs. It shouldn’t take more than a day or so for them to find the hideaway, and then it will be very fast work to close the noose on the guilty party.” I’d ended with more of a dramatic flourish than I’d meant to, but I could see that all of the Geller relatives and friends were paying attention.
“What else have the police found out, Mr. C? You seem to be the first to hear what’s going on.” Pia Morley was smiling at me, but it wasn’t quite as friendly as I remembered her smile the last time we’d met.
“Well, it’s true,” I said. “They have told me a few things that the reporters at the Beacon don’t know about yet.”
“Sid, why don’t you get us all a drink. You know where the liquor is. There’s ice in the fridge under the bar.” Sid got up and moved past his former wife and current mistress to the dining-room, where the tinkling of crystal and the ping of ice-cubes could soon be heard. In the meantime, we waited. After what seemed long enough for a jury to make up its mind, Sid returned with drinks on a tray.
“I brought rye. Debbie’s out of Scotch,” Sid said.
“Idiot. You don’t know where to look for it, that’s all.” She got up and went into the kitchen.
“Rye’s fine with me,” Ruth said, trying out a smile.
“Sure,” said Pia, “just as long as it stings.” She collected a glass for Sid and herself. I took one of the remaining two glasses.
With the exception of Debbie, we were all sitting down again, watching the ice-cubes melt in our drinks. In a few minutes, conversation started up again. It was about Ruth’s kids in Toronto. She’d had a call from them, but hadn’t told them about the death of their father yet. Sid suggested that there was no need to rush to be first with the bad news. Soon Debbie could be heard in the dining-room. “Anyone for Scotch?” she called. “I had to go down to the rec room to find it.” There were no takers apart from herself. She appeared carrying her drink in a glass that matched the crystal of the orphan on the tray. “Now tell us,” she said, “if you haven’t told everybody already.” She settled herself back in her chair, leaning towards the rest of us in the group. She seemed like a fellow-conspirator waiting to hear the rest of the plot. The others, except for Ruth, were just as bad.
“Are you sure you want to hear this?” I asked. “It may not come out the way you expect. It may only raise more issues than it settles.”
“We want to know what’s been going on,” Sid said. “If you think you know so much, we want to hear it.”
“Well, I don’t quite know where to begin. I guess I’ll begin with Larry. His was the first of the murders. From the papers you know that he had been defrauding many of his clients over a long period of time. He had been illegally converting assets over to himself and … well, I won’t go into it. He further converted over two million dollars worth of these assets into commercial diamonds. What this tells us is at least two things: he wasn’t, as some lawyers are, temporarily embarrassed for funds and dipping into the trust accounts as a short-term stopgap. It was part of a carefully worked out plan. That leads up to the other item: he was intending to leave town, using the diamonds to finance his departure and subsequent settling down somewhere in a brand new life under a brand new name.
“We don’t know where he planned to end up, but his route went through Paris. We have a ticket confirmed on a flight from Toronto on the night he disappeared. The name on the ticket matches the name on the new passport he was carrying at the time of his death.”
I could feel that I had the audience, and I wished that I had lines as good as Steve Tulk had in Twelfth Night, but all I had were a handful of facts and a lot of conjecture. I took a sip of rye and put the glass down on the coffee-table harder than I intended. “From the plane ticket and a few other things we know that Larry was planning to leave town with somebody. Plane tickets were bought in the name of Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Gosnold. We know that the woman appeared to be ready to run away with Larry. She may have encouraged, even masterminded, the whole scam. Larry’s legal friends all agree that when they first knew him, Larry was very serious about the law. It was only fairly recently that his attitude changed. Blame that on the lady. From what we know about her, she could be capable of anything. We don’t have a picture of her yet, but I’ve learned a few things about her. She double-crossed Larry. They arranged to meet at the Bolduc site where they’re building a new fire hall. Larry had used the construction shack there to hide his suitcase with the diamonds in it. It was on the way out of town. The perfect rendezvous.
“Only Larry didn’t expect that his partner had figured out that half of the diamonds was too big a fraction to lose. She pretended that everything was going as arranged until she slipped a knife between his ribs and dumped his body into a frame where footings for the fire hall were about to be poured the next day.
“What she didn’t figure on was the fact that the murder was seen by a down-and-outer by the name of Wally Moore. He was hiding in a nest he’d built safe from the wind and weather. Wally Moore was her next victim. Simply because he’d been foolish enough to try to get in touch with the wife of the victim. He was only trying to help out: the paper said that Larry was missing; he knew that he’d been murdered. Further, he knew where the body was. He went to see Mrs. Geller. Mrs. Geller gave him fifty dollars to keep quiet about it until she had a chance to hear the whole story. They arranged to meet in Montecello Park, where she knifed him too.”
“That’s a goddamned lie!” It was Ruth Geller. She was on her f
eet, her eyes wide with anger. “I told you it wasn’t me. I told you, but you won’t believe the truth!” She had walked to the centre of the room, with her eyes fixed on me. “You hateful, spiteful man, I despise you!” Sid got up and tried to put an arm on Ruth’s shoulder, but she brushed it off. “Why do you allow this man in your house, Debbie?” Ruth asked. “I really thought you had more sense.”
“In the circumstances, Mr. Cooperman …” Debbie never got to finish what she started to say. Ruth was now walking towards Pia.
“You were the one he meant, weren’t you? You were the double-dealer he was talking about.”
“Ruth! Sit down!” Sid pulled at her, but she wouldn’t budge.
“You killed all of them, didn’t you? You took my sister’s husband and killed his brothers. It was you. I don’t care what they do to you, I just don’t want to have to look at you. Will you please get out of here?” She slapped Pia in the face. It wasn’t a very good slap, but Pia’s face went quite red except at the place where the blow had landed. Sid had a grip on Ruth now, and led her sobbing back to her place on the couch. Near perfect silence. If I was bluffing my way forward, trying to provoke some accusation of confessions, I wasn’t doing bad. I only hoped that nobody called my bluff before I’d guessed the cards everybody else was holding.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Shock waves from the slap that Ruth landed on Pia lingered in the living-room like a bad smell. Pia quietly excused herself and went upstairs, where in a moment I could hear water running. In a moment she returned, having splashed water on her face and rubbed it a little too hard with one of Debbie’s luxurious towels. To her I guess we looked like a tableau vivant from some old play, or a grouping by Nathan Geller, for there we stood very much the way she’d left us: Debbie looking daggers at me for hurting Ruth, who was sobbing on Sid’s shoulder. I didn’t know whether I was still under sentence to leave the house or whether Ruth’s more recent accusation meant that the action had stepped over my body to more important things. I decided that I wasn’t going to leave the house unless my unwanted presence came up again. I had a seat front and centre, the curtains were opening on the last act, and I’d be damned if I’d willingly leave my seat for a smoke in the lobby.
Pia went directly to Sid. She touched him lightly on the back and said in a low, artificial voice: “I think we should go, Sid.” Sid nodded, and patted his sister-in-law on the shoulders. He slowly pulled her body away from his, pausing when he had her at arm’s length to see if
Ruth was going to be able to stand on her own.
“There, there,” he said. “There, there.”
“For what it’s worth,” Pia Morley said in a steady voice, “I want you all to know that in spite of being the crazy broad you have known all these years, I am not, on top of it all, a murderer. I don’t run away with other people’s husbands, even though I plead guilty to being a bitch in countless other ways. Debbie knows I didn’t take Sid away from her, and Ruth, you should try to remember that I’m very happy with Sid. Why would I want to run away with Larry? And if I ran away with him, why didn’t I leave town?” Ruth looked at her sister, who tried to catch my eye. I was watching Sid, who was twitching inside his suit. “Sid isn’t some kind of human pinball,” Pia said. “He does what he wants to do, like the rest of us when we can. God knows I’ve got a checkered past, Ruth, but why would I want to … I’m sorry, why would I run away with Larry?” She was speaking in a measured voice that only slightly resembled her normally exaggerated style of speaking. She rationed her breath to make sure she had enough to say all of the things she’d put together since leaving the room.
“What about this?” Ruth asked, holding up the photograph of Larry with his hands over Pia’s eyes. Pia took the snapshot from her and looked at it, then smiled. She handed it back again.
“That was at the party here last fall. Remember, Debbie, I got tanked on white wine and about six men walked me around the block. Damn it, I can’t help it when somebody puts their hands on me. It’s been happening all my life. Nathan used to say I was a very tactile broad.” Right then Pia was looking more than just tactilely interesting.
“Then where were you on the day that Larry disappeared?”
“How should I know? I haven’t been out of town since my trip to my gynaecologist in Toronto. If you want to check, his name is Walter Shankman in the Medical Arts Building, damn it. Sid, why am I defending myself, when I haven’t done anything?” Sid didn’t answer, he simply pressed the rounded shoulder of his sister-in-law, to which he was still attached. Pia saw that Rush was still holding the photograph in an accusatory way. “Look,” Pia said, “a half-wit could see he was clowning. Ruth? Ruth, can’t you understand? I wasn’t in love with your husband. His brother absorbs all my attention. Benny, can’t you see that?”
I was glad to get some status back, and nodded earnestly. “I believe you, Pia,” I said, “and maybe Ruth is beginning to. Tell us, Ruth, where did you get the idea that Pia was fooling around with Larry?” Ruth raised her eyes, looking a little wilted and damp.
“It just looked that way. I don’t know. I know he wasn’t spending his idle hours at our house. So I thought … And then when Debbie showed me the picture … Well, I guess I just jumped at the idea. It was something, after all. And I’d been living with nothing.” She looked at Pia. “I’m sorry, Pia, but you don’t know what I’ve been going through.”
At that moment the door-chime sounded like a summons in a minor key. Ruth looked up, and Debbie went to the door. When she returned she had Pete Staziak with her. He was looking awkward and large the way he always did in public. He reintroduced himself to the group and apologized for coming without calling first. “There has been a development which we feel you should know about.” Pete used the word “feel” a lot when he must have meant “think” or something with sharper edges. “We have located Larry Geller’s satellite office. And I’d like permission to bring over a witness to meet you. As a matter of fact, I’m expecting a call from him here.” He glanced over at Debbie and added, “If you don’t mind.” Debbie shrugged her indifference.
“Since you’re on duty, Sergeant, I suppose I can’t offer you a drink?” Debbie said, almost coquettishly.
“You can offer, and I appreciate your offer, but you’re right, I’m on the job. Unlike my colleague from the private sector here, we have our standing orders about drinking on duty. But thank-you just the same. Frankly, on a hot night like this, I could use a cold beer the same as anybody.”
The phone rang at that moment, and it came so quickly on Pete’s heels that the two events seemed to have happened together. Debbie caught the phone in the kitchen and came back to announce that it was for Staff Sergeant Staziak. Sid muttered something about Pete being well organized as Staziak bowed out of the living-room and out of sight. While he was gone, the doorbell rang its version of the Westminster chimes again, and Rabbi Meltzer and Mr. Tepperman came into the vestibule without waiting for the door to be answered. “Rabbi Meltzer! Oh, it’s good of you to come. How are you, Saul?” said Debbie, the perfect surprised hostess.
“We thought,” Saul Tepperman said, clearing his throat, “that we’d just drop around for a minute to pay our respects. I had an idea you’d all be over here for the minyan anyway.” He went over to Ruth and shook her by the hand and brushed a kiss on her passing cheek. Debbie made a round of introductions, and repeated them again when Pete rejoined us from the kitchen. Saul hadn’t met him before and clasped his hand warmly in a manner that seemed to say I hope we never have to do this again. Both Saul and the rabbi seemed curious about Sid’s live-in friend. They looked at her as though they thought they might catch a glimpse of walking, breathing, palpitating evil on the hoof just by being in the same room with Pia Morley. They were both of them smiling with a brightness that made their teeth look like dentures.
“Benny here,” Debbie said, with a sweep of her arm to let the uninitiated know whom she was talking about, “was just giving us a revie
w of his findings over the past two weeks.”
“It only seems that long. I came into this exactly a week ago.”
“Benny has been a great help to us on this case,” Pete said. It was Pete the friend talking, putting in a good word for me with my people. I felt like the owner of a restaurant who had been mistaken for a waiter and given a tip. But he was right, I had been a big help to Niagara Regional, and now that Pete had said it that way, nobody would ever believe it. Pete was a clever son of bitch.
Debbie tried to make people comfortable. Sid brought in chairs from the dining-room, like we were about to hear a lieder recital. Pia tried to catch up with the drinks. Debbie shouted that there was lots of ice in the fridge under the bar. I held on to my coffee. It was cold by now but I was sure there wouldn’t be fresh for some time to come.
Just when we were all settled, the door-chime sounded again. Sid went, and returned looking annoyed and at me. “There’s a guy at the door asking for you, Cooperman. He looks like a rummy of some kind. Should I get rid of him?”
“That will be Victor Kogan. He’s the witness that Pete Staziak was talking about. He’s the man who just phoned.” I got up and brought a reluctant Kogan into the room and made a stab at the introductions all over again. As a matter of fact, I was getting good at it. Kogan acted like he was at his favourite intersection. He greeted Sid like they were regular acquaintances. Pete smiled, so there was nothing the women could do. Why is it that a guy like Kogan seems to undermine the structure of our society? He doesn’t say you can never sell another raffle ticket on a car again, he doesn’t preach that our values are up the chimney. But Ruth, Pia and Debbie behaved as though he had just climbed off the soap box.
“I done like you told me, Mr. Cooperman, Kogan said, sitting down on an expanse of light-coloured chintz between two of the women. “I phoned as soon as I could afterwards.”
