by R. G. Belsky
But then she put her lawyer face back on, the same way she did in the courtroom.
“I don’t have to talk to you at all,” Emily Lehrman said, walking away from me and out of the building.
CHAPTER 36
“THERE HAS TO be some reason Emily Lehrman was on that list that we’re all missing,” I told Janet. “Same with the other names on it. The connection is there somewhere, we just have to find it. And find out if someone—or maybe all of the people on that list—are hiding something from us.”
“Logical,” Janet said.
“That means I need to go back and ask some hard questions to Scott Manning, the NYPD detective I was—and still am, truth be told—hoping to have some kind of a personal relationship with.”
“Tricky.”
“And then I need to do the same with Brendan Kaiser, the man who’s worth about a jillion dollars and also happens to own the television station that I work for.”
“Even trickier.”
I’d called Janet after the encounter with Emily Lehrman to ask her advice about Lehrman and a lot of other stuff I didn’t have answers for. It turned out that she was in another courtroom nearby and agreed to meet me after that case was over. Now we were sitting on a park bench near Foley Square talking about it all. Actually, I was doing most of the talking. I pointed that out to her.
“It sure would be nice if you could give me more than one- or two-word answers, Janet,” I said. “This isn’t Twitter, you know. There’s no limit on the amount of characters you can use.”
“What do you want me to tell you?”
“What did any of these people do to make them wind up on that list next to Grace Mancuso’s body? Who murdered Mancuso? Why was she killed? What could the homeless Dora Gayle possibly have to do with any of it? Or Bill Atwood, for that matter? Answers to all—or any—of these questions would work for me.”
“Look, Clare, I deal in facts in my job just like you do. But sometimes, when all the facts aren’t available, I have to put together a likely scenario of events and why I think they happened. That’s what you need to do here.
“Let’s take the cop first. Scott Manning. How would he have ever come in contact with Mancuso? Well, maybe he arrested her for something. And then one thing led to another and—well, I know you don’t want to hear this—they had some kind of romantic relationship. That seems to be par for the course with Mancuso. She slept around a lot. Why not with Manning, the cop?
“Then there’s Brendan Kaiser, your boss. Same scenario here. Kaiser had a whole lot of business interests which could have put him in contact with Revson. Maybe he was sleeping with her too. I understand he’s got a wife and kids and big house. But maybe he’s tempted by Mancuso and he winds up in bed with her.
“And, last but not least, Lehrman. Why does she not even want to talk to you about Mancuso? Like I said, she’s a strange lady. Very high profile in her public persona, but totally secret about her personal life.”
“You think the motive for Mancuso’s murder will turn out to be about something personal?”
Janet shrugged. “Who knows? I mean, it’s hard to dismiss the timing of the Revson scandal. Mancuso gets murdered when she’s right in the middle of all that—cheating people and sending others to jail by ratting them out for the same things she’d been doing. That’s a pretty good motive too. Any indication any of these people on the list ever had anything to do with her at Revson or with the scandal?”
“Duh, I never thought of that,” I said sarcastically. “Of course, I went through them all. Checked and re-checked, looking for any possible connection to any of the names from the list. But there was nothing.”
“Maybe her murder was about love then. Or what about maybe some combination of love and money? Someone she stole money from and also had some kind of sexual relationship with. It could have been the people on that list. And someone—God knows who or why—left that note behind as a clue for everyone to follow.”
“But what about Dora Gayle?” I pointed out. “She had no money and she sure as hell didn’t have a romantic relationship with Mancuso.”
“Dora Gayle doesn’t seem to fit into either category,” Janet admitted.
“And even Atwood, who had a romantic relationship of some kind with Mancuso, didn’t have anything to do with her company’s finances. The only money connection between him and Mancuso seems to be her demands for blackmail. Damn, every angle I try leads nowhere.”
Janet sighed. “I don’t understand why you’re even still working on this. Everyone else—the police, the rest of the media, the public—have pretty much forgotten about it and moved on. Even your own boss probably doesn’t care anymore. But you won’t let go. You’re like a dog with a bone that won’t give it up no matter what. No matter how many times everyone tries to get you to change your mind. My God, Clare, you are the most stubborn person in the world. Do you disagree with that?”
“I prefer determined.”
Janet stared at me.
“Dedicated journalist?”
More staring.
“Okay, I am stubborn,” I said.
Janet said she had to get back to her office. I needed to get back to mine too in time for the afternoon news conference. But I still wanted an answer from her.
“Will you see if you can find out anything more for me about Emily Lehrman, Janet?” I asked as we walked toward the subway.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t have time to do your work for you.”
“Okay, I understand.”
“Good.”
“Just get back to me as soon as you can with whatever you find out.”
CHAPTER 37
I DECIDED TO confront Manning before I tried Brendan Kaiser. The way I figured it, if things went badly—and the people from the list got mad at me for asking them all these questions—it would be a lot easier for me to find a new potential love interest than a new job. As you can see, I had this all pretty well thought out.
My plan also called for me to be totally professional about it with Manning. Which meant I didn’t want to call him at home. No matter how this turned out, the last thing I wanted was an awkward conversation with his wife if she answered. Of course, calling him at home wasn’t really an option anyway because he had never given me his home phone. Or his personal cell number. The only way I knew how to reach him was through the precinct where he worked.
Manning was sitting at a small desk in the corner of the squad room, away from the other detectives, when I walked in. He seemed to be working at something. But, when I got closer, I saw that he was just filling in blanks on a crossword puzzle from the Times that morning.
“What are you doing here?” he asked when he saw me. Not like he was upset about it, just surprised.
“It’s professional,” I said.
“Well, if you’re looking for a cop, better talk to one of the other guys in this squad room. I’m on the bench. Suspended. Removed from active duty. This is how I spend my time instead,” he said, looking down at the crossword puzzle on his desk. “Sometimes, just to switch things up a bit, I do the Jumble Words in the Daily News too.”
“I was hoping your suspension might be ended by now.”
“Oh, it’s worse. Before, I was on what they called limited duty. But then the political pressure began building in the department with all sorts of groups up in arms about police brutality and profiling of minorities and all the damn rest of it. So they needed to make an example of somebody. That’s me. I’m completely deskbound now. I still get paid, but they won’t let me do anything at all.”
I felt badly about that. My instincts told me Manning was a good cop at heart, despite whatever he might have or might not have done to back up his dead partner. But that wasn’t why I was here.
“I want to ask you some more questions about Grace Mancuso,” I said.
“Go ask the detectives in homicide who are actually working on that case.”
&nb
sp; “I did. They don’t have any new leads. And I don’t think they’re looking very hard for any either after all this time.”
Manning shrugged. “That’s the way it is with murder cases. Especially big, high-profile ones. They never go off the books. But, after a while, they slip down the ladder in priority to the more recent cases. There’s a lot of murders in this town.”
“It’s still a priority for me. I’m trying to do another big story about it for the station. I’m looking for answers.”
“Why come to me?”
“Your name was found on that list next to Grace Mancuso’s body.”
“Like I told you before, I have no idea why. No one ever figured out a reason for that list either.”
“That’s why I’m trying to find out now.”
I told Manning I wanted him to go through everything about himself for me again. His career on the force. His personal life. And anything else he could think of to tell me. I said there had to be a clue in that somehow, which connected him and the others on the list to the murder case. I said I was going to keep digging until I found out what that was.
I did not tell him that I hoped he’d eventually leave his wife again; or that I wished now I’d taken him up on his offer to come back to my apartment for sex that first night; or that I was fantasizing right now about jumping his bones. Like I said, I was totally professional this time.
He talked about it all again. His past and his present career on the force. His troubled marriage. His estrangement from his son, which he felt was in large part because of his police work. Coming to New York as a young man with the dream of being a rock star, then abandoning that for a job on the NYPD once he got married. Even repeating the story about the “hey, ho, let’s go” expression he always said to himself whenever he went into any tense or dangerous situation, which had come from his old band mate while they were watching the Mets win the World Series a long time ago. None of it meant anything to him or to me in terms of what was happening now.
“What are you going to do next?” he asked when we were finished.
“Go back and do this with the other people on the list. My boss, Brendan Kaiser. And Emily Lehrman, if she’ll even talk to me again. Someone has to have some sort of connection with the Mancuso death. That’s the only thing that makes sense for what’s happening here.”
Manning nodded. Then he hit me with a question that floored me.
“Need some help?”
“With what?”
“Your story. I’m a pretty good investigator, you know. I’ve solved a few murder cases in my time. But I don’t get to solve many murders or any other kinds of crimes these days. To tell you the truth, this thing has been bothering me ever since it started, the same as you. I don’t like the idea of my name being dragged into this by someone. I want to know who did it and why. Maybe I could work with you.”
“What would the NYPD think about that?”
“Well, they just want me out of their sight right now. They don’t even care if I show up for work here or not. But I do anyway. Out of habit, I guess. Old habits die hard. At least this way I’d be doing something useful with my time. And who knows, we might even find out some useful information. What do you say?”
I hesitated before answering.
“You could turn out to be a suspect in the Grace Mancuso murder,” I finally pointed out.
“Do you really think I had anything to do with that?”
“No, I don’t.”
He smiled.
“It would have to be on a totally professional basis,” I said
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“And you’d be willing to spend your time investigating this case with me?”
“What else do I have to do?” he said, looking down at the crossword puzzle in front of him. “I’m looking for answers to this case. Just like you. I’m a helluva homicide detective, Carlson. And, from everything I’ve seen and heard, you’re a helluva journalist. Together I’d say we could make a pretty good team on this. What do you say?”
A pretty good team.
Me and Manning.
I liked the sound of that.
“Hey, ho, let’s go,” I told him.
CHAPTER 38
“WHY ARE YOU doing this story again?” Brendan Kaiser wanted to know.
“Look, Mr. Kaiser, you asked me when this started to cover the story personally. That you wanted me to put my journalistic reputation as a top reporter—my Pulitzer Prize–winning background—on the line to come up with the answers to why your name was on that list found next to Grace Mancuso’s body. And the answers to who killed her and why. I didn’t do that. I made some mistakes, but so did everyone else along the way. Now no one seems to want to talk about the Grace Mancuso story anymore. I do. I’m not giving up. I still want to know why your name—and those others too—were dragged into this. Don’t you?”
It was a nice little speech, and I’d spent a good deal of time rehearsing it before I’d come to see Kaiser again. Not that I probably needed to rehearse it. Playing the dedicated journalist searching for truth was a role that came easy for me because I really believed in it. I just wasn’t sure how dedicated Kaiser was to finding out the truth anymore.
I had another little follow-up speech ready to go about how if I had to quit Channel 10 to pursue this story elsewhere, I was prepared to do that. Except I wasn’t sure I wanted to go down that road. At least, not yet.
As it turned out, I didn’t have to make the decision.
“Okay,” Kaiser said when I was finished talking.
“Okay, what?”
“I’ll help you in any way I can.”
“Really?”
“Just tell me what you need from me.”
“Wow!”
“You’re surprised?”
“I just assumed that most media moguls wouldn’t want to open up a Pandora’s Box of a story like this again that drags them into a murder investigation—they’d want it to quietly go away.”
“How many media moguls have you known in your life, Ms. Carlson?”
“Uh, you’re the first.”
“I guess you were misinformed.” He smiled.
I told him the same things I’d said to Manning. That I wanted Kaiser to go through everything he could about the details of his past and his career in the hopes that something there might be a clue to his involvement with that list. I said there had to be a connection between the five names on the list, and the only way I knew to find it was to go through every bit of information about all five lives looking for the link between them all.
“Why are you so interested in me talking about my past?” Kaiser asked. “What could my past life have to do with any of this?”
“Because the only connection we have so far between any of the people on the list—Bill Atwood and Dora Gayle—happened a long time ago while they were both in college. Maybe there’s something in your past too that could link you to other names on the list. Something that could help us make some sort of sense out of the meaning of the list. So just tell me everything about yourself.”
“Everything?”
“I want to hear about the entire life of Brendan Kaiser.”
“What exactly is it you’re looking for?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea.”
I figured there were two ways this could go. Brendan Kaiser could fake it and talk superficially about his life without revealing too much. Or he could open up completely to me about everything—his entire life, his feelings, his emotions—all of it in a search for answers. I think he started out trying to do the first option but wound up doing the second.
He talked about growing up in New York City during the eighties just like a lot of other kids back then—smoking pot, watching MTV, and partying a lot. His brother, Charles, was the heir apparent to take over his father’s business one day—but Brendan had no interest in that. He wanted to travel, he wanted to enjoy life, and—most of all, he said to me�
��“I didn’t want to be like my father.”
“I had absolutely no interest in growing up to be Charles Kaiser’s heir,” he recalled. “I just wanted to be Brendan Kaiser.”
Charles Jr. was clearly the favorite son as the anointed successor to his father, while Brendan was an embarrassment to him.
“‘What’s wrong with you, Brendan?’ my father would say to me,” Kaiser told me now. “‘Your brother graduated magna cum laude. Your brother is already working for me in the company. Your brother has goals and ideas and a plan for his life. Why can’t you be more like Charles? He’s got a plan for his life all figured out. You don’t have the slightest idea.’”
But then one day his brother, Charles Jr., was gone, killed in a drowning accident near the family’s summer house on Long Island.
“I was in Europe when it happened,” Kaiser said. “Traveling around the world and really enjoying myself. But, of course, I had to go back home when my brother died so unexpectedly. My father was devastated. Not only over the loss of a son, but even more—I always believed—because he’d lost his heir for the business he cared about so much. Now someone else would have to take Charles’ place. And I—with all my faults and weaknesses—was the only choice he had for the role. But I still didn’t want that kind of a life for myself, still didn’t want to wind up like my father. So I told him no, I wasn’t going to work for him. I started partying hard instead in New York City—partly because it was fun and partly, I suppose, because I knew it pissed my old man off. But then he died suddenly of a heart attack. I was the only person left to take over the business for the family. I told myself that I’d just do it temporarily—until we could get someone else to put in charge—but I wound up staying in the job myself.”
He then went through the years afterward—the explosive growth of the Kaiser empire as he acquired more and more properties; the dramatic expansion into TV, movies, books, the Internet, and all sorts of social media that went far beyond anything Kaiser’s own father could have ever envisioned.
