Howard Engel - A City Called July

For the first few minutes, I don’t think anyone but Pia noticed me. Everybody but me got a hug from somebody. Pia was short-changed by Debbie, but she was still holding the tray. It was Sid who first took official notice of me. He didn’t sound unfriendly but his greeting needed more work before it could convince a drama critic. “So, Mr. Cooperman, bad news travels fast. No sooner is my brother found than you turn up. Have you started chasing ambulances in your old age?”

“Mr. Geller,” I tried to say in an even voice, “I’m sorry about your brother.”

“Which one?” He shrugged, which is hard to do with as short a neck as Sid had. “Did you come over here to ask more questions, Mr. Cooperman? Why don’t you let the cops handle this?”

“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.