Steve Martini - Undue Influence

‘What’s more, the agent said they never heard of George or Kathy Merlow. The sales listing was signed by some swag from the RTC, part of the excess real estate the agency picked up when they were shutting down the thrifts,’ he says.

According to Harry, this property, the Merlows’ house, has languished on their rolls of unsold assets for some time.

‘How did the Merlows come to live there?’

‘Your guess,’ he says. ‘The realtor thinks it was probably rented out. He says that’s not uncommon. Public agencies often do it, he says, while trying to sell property they hold. It defrays expenses.’

‘Where do we go from here?’ I ask him.

‘I got a call in to the RTC,’ says Harry. ‘Left a message on their voice mail. They’ll probably call us back in the next life,’ he tells me.

In the meantime Harry is driving me to the old downtown post office, the place where, according to neighbors, Kathy Merlow worked.

‘This employment is past tense,’ he says. Harry’s talked to a supervisor. ‘They haven’t seen her in almost a month,’ he says. ‘Not a word. She just didn’t show up for work one day, and hasn’t been back since.’

‘Let me guess. Right after Melanie Vega was murdered?’

‘Next day,’ says Harry.

Kathy Merlow vanished like a ghost.

I’m not sure what we hope to find at the post office, but Harry thinks it might be worth nosing around. He’s made an appointment.

‘What about George Merlow?’ I ask.

‘If he worked, it was out of the house. Neighbors said they never saw him leave. Once in a blue moon,’ says Harry. ‘Like the guy was a recluse.’

‘That house,’ I say. ‘Pretty expensive digs for a guy without a job and a wife who works at the post office.’

‘Maybe he clipped coupons,’ says Harry. ‘Big stock portfolio.’

‘And his wife needed to work at the post office? It doesn’t make sense.’

‘Maybe with the government for a landlord the rent wasn’t much,’ says Harry. ‘You don’t expect ’em to charge fair rental value?’ Harry sneers at the mere thought of a rational act by a government agency. A lot of maybes, but no answers that make any sense.

We pull up and park in front of a meter at the curb. Harry pumps three quarters and watches as the dial barely budges. He hits me for some change. I give him two more.

‘We’ll have to work fast,’ he says.

We’re up the stairs, through the heavy bronze doors.

The old post office is one of those structures built during the time of the WPA, when only the government had money and wage scales were on a par with the pay for the pyramids. Dark, with dated artistic touches, more marble than a mausoleum, it is now a tomb for the unknown bureaucrats who toil here.

We take the elevator to the second floor. Harry’s reading from a scrap of paper, a note with the man’s name and room number. He finds the number, 224, a door with a translucent window, lots of chicken wire in glass, and a transom over the top of the door that looks like it’s been stuck open since the forties. It’s too dark to tell if they’ve painted the corridor since then, but my guess would be no from the state of the dingy walls.

Harry opens the door and we go inside. The room is immense, and mostly empty. There are two metal government desks, one of which is vacant. At the other sits a thin black man, pencil mustache, maybe in his early fifties. Short-cropped graying hair. He looks up at us.

‘Looking for Mr. Goldbloom,’ says Harry.

‘You found him.’ The guy gets up and Harry introduces us.

‘Oh, yes. You called. Lawyers,’ he says, ‘about some case.’

Harry gives the guy his card and plucks one from a holder on the man’s desk, government issue recycled stock, the gray cast of cardboard: ‘Cyril Goldbloom, Postal Inspector.’

Leave it to Harry to find a cop.

‘What’s this about?’ he says.

Harry refreshes his recollection, their telephone conversation.

‘Oh, yeah. You called this morning. Something about a criminal case. Looking for one of our people. A personnel matter,’ he says. Relief on Mr. Goldbloom’s face. He’s found the right pigeonhole for our problem. He sits back at his desk and motions for us to join him. I take a chair on the other side of the desk. Harry opts to put one cheek on the empty desk across the way and watch from there.

Goldbloom opens a top drawer and pulls out a form, more small print than the Bible.

‘Employee’s name?’ he says.

We’re going to do this by the numbers. Harry looks at me. I can tell he is thinking profanities.

‘Kathy Merlow,’ I say.

‘That’s right. I remember,’ he says. He writes her name in the block at the top of the page.

Now he’s writing Harry’s name, address, and phone number from the business card, putting it in a little box on the form.

‘Purpose of the inquiry?’ he says.

I look at Harry, shrug my shoulders. ‘Legal investigation,’ I tell him.

‘Your relationship to the employee?’ He looks at me, then to Harry.

‘Strangers,’ I tell him.

‘Emm.’ There doesn’t seem to be a little box labeled ‘strangers.’ He labors over this for several seconds, then finally scribbles a note at the bottom of the form.

He has a dozen more questions, most of them inane. Then he looks up. Task done.

‘We’ll file this,’ he says. ‘As I explained when you called’ — he’s looking at Harry — ‘Mrs. Merlow no longer works here. We’ll check her personnel file to see if there’s any information that we’re free to disclose.’

‘Can we look at the file?’ says Harry.

‘No. No. Personal and confidential,’ he says. ‘Federal law. There could be all kinds of stuff in there.’

That’s what Harry’s hoping for.

‘What can you tell us?’ I say.

‘That’s about it,’ he says.

‘What position did she hold? You oughta be able to tell us that,’ says Harry.

He makes a face, thinking, like maybe what he’s considering is against his better judgment, giving information to citizens. Then he reaches for one of the lower drawers of his desk and pulls out a series of typed sheets, stapled together in the upper left-hand corner. This is an impromptu phone directory of some kind, what is given to employees to find each other. He flips through some pages.

‘Here it is. Kathy Merlow. Customer Relations,’ he says.

‘What’s that?’

‘Customer complaints. That kind of thing.’

‘Did she transfer in from another post office?’

‘That I don’t know.’

‘She was only in town a short while.’

‘Wouldn’t know.’

‘She worked in this building?’

‘Uh-huh. Downstairs,’ he says. ‘Now that’s about all I can tell you.’

‘How long before we get a reply?’ says Harry. ‘To your form. Maybe a forwarding address for Mrs. Merlow?’

Goldbloom makes a face. ‘Could take a while. Has to go over to the main branch. Postmaster will have to review it. Personnel Department,’ he says.

‘So we could die of old age?’ says Harry.

Goldbloom laughs. Staring all day at four dingy walls, his humor threshold is low.

Harry’s getting hot. ‘If we were the cops you’d show us her personnel file today, wouldn’t you?’

‘That’d be a different matter,’ says Goldbloom. ‘An official investigation,’ he says.

‘Would a subpoena do any good?’ I ask him.

‘Oh, sure. Then we’d be free to show you the file.’ He smiles at us. ‘One of the exemptions in the law, a court order,’ he says. ‘I’d like to help, but my hands are tied,’ he says. Dark eyebrows arching.

‘Sure,’ says Harry.

We say goodbye and head out.

We’re halfway to the elevator. ‘We get a subpoena,’ I tell Harry.