Murders & Acquisitions

by Haughton Murphy

  “We may have to move fast on this,” Flemming Andersen said, when McDonnell had finished. “But we certainly should explore just what options we have before we make a decision.”

  “Exactly so,” McDonnell said. “Can I make a suggestion? I think you, Mr. Andersen, Casper Robbins and your Treasurer, Joe Faxton, should sit down with us after this meeting and decide who we want to approach and on what basis. There are about three banks who can put together syndicates for these loans in a hurry and without a lot of nit-picking. One is Mr. Knight’s bank, First Fiduciary.”

  “I’m pleased to hear that,” Knight said. “Or are you really saying my bank’s a pushover?”

  “No, no, not at all,” McDonnell replied. “I just meant your people are practical and businesslike.”

  “Thank you,” the banker said.

  “I think Vince has a good idea,” Flemming Andersen said. “Some of us have some homework to do and all of us have some careful thinking to do. I suggest we recess till tomorrow morning, when I hope we’ll have enough information to consider a self-tender. Besides, I know all the out-of-towners and vacationers will be delighted to spend as much time here as possible, in our beautiful late-August weather.”

  The AFC Board reconvened the next morning at nine o’clock. Frederick Stacey took the directors through the mathematics required to thwart Gruen. He agreed that purchasing roughly three percent of AFC’s stock would do it, assuming all the inside holders stood firm. But he recommended that the tender offer be for ten percent of the outstanding Common. He said he thought sufficient stock could be bought in at forty-five dollars per share—though this would have to be raised if Gruen upped the ante. For safety’s sake, he told the directors to assume a fifty-five-dollar-per-share price for planning purposes.

  McDonnell and Stacey then reported on their quick canvass of the financial markets made on AFC’s behalf. Using McDonnell’s fifty-five-dollar figure, a total of up to $440 million would be required to purchase eight million shares. Casper Robbins interrupted to say that $40 million of AFC’s available cash could be used, so that the Company would be looking to borrow no more than $400 million.

  “As we expected,” McDonnell said, “there won’t be any problem in raising the money. First Fiduciary came through nicely. They will be happy to form a group and to make the loan unsecured. The only problem is that their pricing is not quite as good as Second Interstate’s. But Second Interstate will only do the loan secured.

  “Obviously there’s a lot that’s still up in the air. But we have three live bidding groups—First Fiduciary, Second Interstate and Renwick Trust. Darryl Gillson has done a little summary of the three proposals for you, and Jeanne Lowell has done a chart showing the terms of comparable deals done recently with other companies. We’ll pass these out to you now.”

  While the group began studying the handouts from the Hughes representatives, Mrs. Vaughan began questioning the investment bankers.

  “I think we’re getting a little bit ahead of ourselves,” she began. “Have we really decided that a buyback, or self-tender, or whatever you call it, is the way to defend the Company? What do you all think?” she said to the bankers.

  “It’s really not our call, Mrs. Vaughan,” John Foster Hilliard said. “But we think the self-tender approach is viable if you want to do it.”

  “Do the rest of you agree?” she pressed. “Mr. Halleck, how about you? What do you think?”

  Frost, who often had difficulty with names, was impressed that Mrs. Vaughan remembered the yuppie banker’s name, since he had been totally silent and had attracted attention only when his beeper had accidentally gone off the day before.

  “We’ve kicked it around pretty well, ma’am, within the time constraints we’re operating under,” Halleck (today wearing a pink shirt with white collar and cuffs) replied. “It’s doable and I think you should go right ahead like gangbusters.”

  Marlene Vaughan hesitated—perhaps absorbing the volley of clichés directed her way—and then proceeded to quiz the other Hughes personnel, one by one and by name. All agreed with Halleck.

  “Have we heard anything more from Gruen?” Senator Greene asked.

  “Not a word,” Flemming Andersen said. “But I don’t expect to, unless we don’t get back to him by noon.”

  “Jesus, I didn’t realize what time it was,” Laurance Andersen interrupted. It was the first thing he had said in the two days of meetings. “I’m afraid I’ve got to run. Got to get the noon flight to Los Angeles. But, Dad, you have my proxy. Tell Gruen to go to hell, as we agreed yesterday. And I’m in favor of the self-tender. I’ll call you from L.A.” The younger Andersen stuffed his papers in his briefcase and left hurriedly.

  “Well, at least someone has spoken up,” the Chairman said. “What about the rest of you? What do you think?”

  A few minutes’ additional discussion followed, most of it irrelevant. Then the Board unanimously agreed in principle, if Gruen should make a tender offer, that AFC should make a counteroffer at up to fifty-five dollars a share for ten percent of the Company’s stock. (Harry Knight, whose bank might profit handsomely from loans made to finance the buyback, asked that the minutes show that he did not vote.)

  “Very well,” Flemming Andersen said, his voice telegraphing his satisfaction with the result. “Unless anyone objects, I’m going to call Jeffrey Gruen right now and tell him we’re not prepared to approve his offer. Then I’m going to sit down with Casper, Joe Faxton and our banking friends and get us the best deal we can for the money we would need for a self-tender. Okay? Motion to adjourn?”

  The meeting broke up quickly. Flemming Andersen was in an exuberant mood as he left the room. “That bloody little bastard’s going to have a fight on his hands,” he said to Reuben. “You want to stay around for this bankers’ talk?”

  “No, I don’t think you need me. But Marvin and Ernest will stay,” Frost answered.

  “Then I’ll say good-bye for now,” Andersen said. “Thanks for all your help, Reuben. Get some rest, ’cause I want you around when things get interesting.”

  OLD BONES

  8

  Things “got interesting” that very night. Sitting quietly at home, Reuben Frost got a call from a nearly incoherent Sally Andersen in Greenwich. Flemming Andersen had been found dead, floating in the outdoor whirlpool bath adjoining the swimming pool on the Andersen estate.

  “What was it, a heart attack?” Frost asked his distressed caller.

  “I don’t know, Reuben,” the woman replied, between sobs. “I don’t know what to think.”

  “Had he been swimming?”

  “Oh no. He was fully dressed. I found him in that thing, floating on his stomach. I found him, Reuben. I found him dead, floating in the steaming water.”

  Frost tried without any success to calm Sally Andersen by long distance. Having determined with difficulty that she was not alone, that Sorella and her husband were with her, and that the police had arrived, Frost told her that he was coming up. “It’s seven o’clock now. I’ll be there by eight-thirty,” he said.

  Frost was shaken by the call. The death of Flemming Andersen would have been shocking enough, but the circumstances his widow described were not exactly the equivalent of dying peacefully in bed in silk pajamas.

  Within minutes Frost had called a car from the radio taxi service used by his office, written a hasty note of explanation to Cynthia (who was off at a fund-raising cocktail party he had refused to attend) and gone outside to wait for the car.

  On the way to Connecticut, Frost tried to picture the scene in his mind. Recalling earlier visits, he remembered that the swimming pool was in a grove of trees, well removed from the house of the senior Andersens on one side and the homes of Sorella and Nate Perkins and of Laurance Andersen on the other.

  Frost now recalled with sadness his last visit to the Andersens, the summer before. Flemming had been especially proud of the new whirlpool that had been installed beside the swimming pool that spring.
He had refused to call it a “hot tub” or a “spa”—the terms favored by the local salesman of such things—and had more or less decreed that it was a “whirlpool.”

  “It makes you feel twenty years younger,” he had explained to Frost. “I use it every day when I’m here. I’m telling you, it’s great for old bones.”

  At Flemming’s urging, Frost had tried the new toy and, indeed, had found it to his liking. The hot jets of water coming out of the lining of the round enclosure were unquestionably invigorating.

  As his car approached the fenced-in Andersen complex, Frost found himself hoping that his old friend had died of natural causes. But he realized that being found fully clothed and face down in the whirlpool did not exactly point in that direction.

  A young policeman stopped the New York taxi at the gate but allowed it to proceed inside once Frost had identified himself. He was told that Mrs. Andersen was in the library of the main house, so he headed there directly. The sight of him sent Sally Andersen off into a flood of tears. Frost rushed to her, embraced her and tried to soothe her by patting her back. Sorella and her husband, who looked as if he wanted to fade into the wallpaper, stood nearby.

  Although time had passed, Sally was still as incoherent as she had been on the telephone. Finally, in despair, he motioned to Sorella and the two went out into the hallway.

  “Any new developments?” Frost asked.

  “He was murdered, Reuben! Murdered!” Sorella Perkins answered angrily.

  “How do you know that?”

  “The police. He had a bad bruise on his neck, so it looks like someone knocked him out and then pushed him into that damnable whirlpool. And the heat was on in the thing full blast, so he could have scalded to death.” The woman’s self-control gave way and she, too, dissolved into tears. Then, recovering, she told Frost that there had been a note.

  “Note? What do you mean?” he asked.

  “An anonymous note. They found it under a rock on the terrace by the pool.”

  “Where is it?” Frost asked.

  “The police have it.”

  “Well, what did it say?” Frost pressed, impatient.

  “You’ll have to see it for yourself. It’s too unbelievable—the work of a madman,” Sorella said.

  “Where are the police?” Frost asked.

  “Out by the pool,” she answered.

  “I want to talk to them,” Frost said. “I’ll be back just as soon as I can.”

  The normally tranquil area around the Andersens’ pool was aswarm with police busily and noisily carrying out the procedures incident to an investigation of suspected foul play. Spotlights had been thrown up into the darkness, giving the swimming pool terrace an artificial midday brightness. A police photographer was taking pictures of the whirlpool from all angles, and another technician was meticulously scraping the slate terrace surrounding it.

  When Frost reached the pool area, he was disconcerted to see the spare, limp body of his late friend spread out on a green plastic sheet. The cadaver was still dressed in pants and shirtsleeves, although the shirt had been ripped down, presumably the better to examine the bruise on Andersen’s neck, visible even to Frost looking at the corpse from several feet away.

  He was also disturbed at seeing the plum-purple color of Andersen’s face. If that face had been alabaster, or bright red, or even yellow, Frost felt he would not have been shocked. But he was not prepared for purple.

  A large, ruddy-faced man in a dark suit seemed to be in charge of the surreal pageant. Frost introduced himself, discovering that the master of the revels was Arthur Castagno, detective sergeant with the Greenwich police. The detective seemed puzzled as to who Frost was, so the lawyer tried to explain.

  “I’m a friend of Mr. and Mrs. Andersen,” Frost said. “And also their lawyer.” Frost had wanted to be more precise and say “one of their lawyers” but had decided in time to edit his statement for maximum effect.

  “I see,” Castagno replied. “We’ve got a real live mess here, as you’ve probably figured out.”

  “That seems a fair statement.”

  “It looks like some psycho did Mr. Andersen in,” the detective said.

  “Why do you say it was a psycho?”

  “The note. Mrs. Andersen tell you about the note?”

  “No, but her daughter did. She didn’t tell me what was in it.”

  “Come here,” Castagno said, motioning Frost over to a squad car. “Take a look at this.” Castagno showed him a single sheet of what seemed to be normal office typewriting paper, now sheathed in an envelope of transparent polyethylene. Written on the paper in black ink, in block capital letters, was this message:

  SUGGESTION BOX x x SUPERBOWL SOUPS ARE GOOD FOR YOU x x HOW ABOUT A NEW FLAVOR CALLED FLEMMING FRIKASEE? JUST MAKE FLEMMING’S OLD BONES THE PRINCIPLE INGREDIENT AND YOU GOT IT x x LOVE x x x

  “Where did you find this?” Frost asked.

  “Right over there. About ten feet from the hot tub. Folded up under a piece of rock,” Castagno answered.

  “Who found it?”

  “One of the police officers.”

  “Who found the body, by the way?” Frost asked.

  “Mrs. Andersen. Didn’t she tell you?”

  “Oh yes, I guess she did.”

  “She said she came down for a swim a little after six, and found her husband floating here then.”

  “But she didn’t see the note?”

  “Apparently not. I gather she started screaming and her daughter, Susan, Sissie …”

  “Sorella …”

  “Her daughter Sorella came out from her house and then they called us.”

  “What about her husband?”

  “Husband? He’s the one that’s dead,” Castagno said.

  “No, no, Sorella’s husband. Nathaniel Perkins.”

  “I dunno. All I know’s that he was here when we got here.”

  “And your man found this crazy note?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did anybody see someone around? Did anybody hear anything?”

  “We haven’t really pressed ’em yet. They said not, but I want to run them through everything step by step once they’ve calmed down a little.”

  “You got any ideas?”

  “None,” Castagno said. “But that certainly’s a psycho’s note.”

  “Let me see it again,” Frost said. “I want to make sure of the wording.”

  Castagno passed him the plastic folder and Frost carefully read the note through once more, then handed the folder back to Castagno.

  “How did he die?” Frost asked.

  “The medical examiner can’t be sure until he does an autopsy, but it looks like somebody hit the old man, probably knocking him out, and pushed him into the spa, where he drowned.”

  “No chance of it being an accident?”

  “Nobody here thinks so.”

  “I’m going back to see Mrs. Andersen,” Frost said. “I’d appreciate it if you’d keep me posted on developments. Here’s my card. I usually can be reached at the number I added there.” Frost handed the detective one of his Chase & Ward business cards, but with his home telephone inked in on it.

  By the time Frost returned to the library in the main house, Casper Robbins had arrived. A butler offered Frost a drink and, noting that all the others were drinking, he accepted gratefully.

  “Sally, I know you’ll have to tell your story at least a hundred times to the police,” Frost said, “but I’d like to hear your direct account of what happened.”

  “It’s all so weird, Reuben. I went down for a swim about six o’clock, as I often do.…” She was unable to go on, but Frost was persistent, though patient, and made her recount her painful story.

  “Had you been here all day?” Frost asked.

  “Yes, I had. I’d been here since we got back from the Adirondacks on Sunday.”

  “What about Flemming? When did he arrive?”

  “I’m not sure, but I think around five. I was nappin
g, but heard a car pull up and then drive away. I assumed it was a Company car dropping Flemming off. But I didn’t get up and go downstairs.”

  “So you didn’t speak to your husband before he died?”

  “No,” the widow replied, controlling herself with difficulty.

  “And before you went down to the pool, did you hear anything? Any shouting? Quarreling? Anything unusual?”

  “Nothing. I had no idea anything was wrong until I found Flemming’s body floating in the whirlpool.”

  “How about you, Sorella?” Frost asked. “Did you hear anything?”

  “Not a thing. I had been for a swim, actually, about four,” she answered.

  “And did you see anyone around then?”

  “No. I swam for about thirty minutes and I remember thinking at the time how deliciously quiet it was. The first hint of trouble was when I heard Mother screaming.”

  “And that was about six?”

  “Almost six precisely.”

  “Nate? How about you?”

  The bearded writer seemed nervous about being questioned, but then, Frost thought, he was nervous about almost everything.

  “I was napping, too,” he said. “I finished off some writing up in the attic and then came down to our bedroom. It was just before Sorella went to swim. I must have gone out like a light, because I don’t remember another thing until Sorella woke me up to tell me that her mother was screaming for help.”

  “And none of you saw the note?” Frost asked.

  His three listeners all answered that they had not.

  “It was the police who found it?”

  “Yes.”

  “As far as you know, who else was here at five or six o’clock or thereabouts?”