Manslaughter (Stanley Hastings Mystery, #15) Page 13

  I had no idea.

  I asked myself, if I were the police, what would I do? Unfortunately, arrest Jenny Balfour came instantly to mind.

  I checked out the living room. Besides the couch and bookcase in the newspaper photo, Mr. Grackle had a TV, a desk, and a file cabinet. The desk had a computer on it, and the TV had a VCR attached. The file cabinet stood alone. I wondered if the police had searched it. If so, I wondered if they’d taken anything. More to the point, I wondered if there was anything to take.

  Inside the file cabinet were files. I suppose that was to be expected. I examined them and discovered that Mr. Grackle had been a meticulous man. The file folders were all carefully labeled and dated. The dates ranged from April 1988, through March 1999. That seemed strange. Why would an orderly man such as Mr. Grackle suddenly stop labeling his files? Could it be that March of 1999 was when he fell in with bad company that led him to his eventual demise? Or had the police simply removed all the more recent files? No, the file cabinet was rather full. There didn’t appear to be anything missing. So, had he run out of space and moved on to another file cabinet? There didn’t seem to be one in the room. Perhaps in the closet, the bedroom, the—

  It didn’t take the ace detective too long to make the connection between the file cabinet and the computer that sat on the desk next to it. Aha! Mr. Grackle’s more recent records would be computerized. Excellent. No fumbling through files. I had merely to bring them up on the screen.

  Unfortunately, Mr. Grackle’s computer was an Apple, and our computer is a non-Apple—I believe that’s the correct technical term for it, though there may be another. Anyway, I am virtually a computer illiterate, even on a machine I know. On a machine I don’t know, I am a menace. I can wipe out whole banks of data faster than you can say Control, Alt, Delete. I can freeze systems, crash programs, and destroy more gigabytes than most machines have.

  When that happens to me at home, I go get Alice, and she does something magical to the computer and it works again. Alice is as versed in the computer as I am unversed. She speaks its language, including languages the layman never hears, reads, or even suspects are there. I swear, the screens she calls up on the computer don’t exist in real life. They are some demonic concoction of her own, dreamed up for the sole purpose of bewildering me and making me feel like a schnook.

  Alice is good at making me feel like a schnook. She is even more adept at wriggling out of the responsibility for making me feel like a schnook, and proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is I, myself, who is making me feel like a schnook.

  Be that as it may, whenever I get in trouble on the computer, feeling like a schnook is the price I always pay for calling Alice. Or, as Alice so aptly points out, feeling like a schnook is how I feel before I call Alice.

  Anyway, looking at Philip T. Grackle’s Apple computer, I felt like a schnook.

  I called Alice.

  30.

  “MY GOD, IT’S JUST LIKE in the movies.”

  “Alice—”

  “They really draw the outline on the floor.”

  “Did you think that was made up for TV?”

  “And the fingerprint powder. Are the prints still there?”

  “I think they lift them.”

  “Does that remove them entirely, or are the prints still in place?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Some criminologist.”

  “They dust the prints with powder. The powder assumes the contours of the print. They cover the print with tape. The powder adheres to the tape. The impression of the print is lifted.”

  “And does the print itself remain?”

  “I don’t know.”

  This was not good. Alice was making me feel like a schnook, and we hadn’t got to the computer yet.

  “So where’s the murder weapon?” Alice demanded.

  “The police have it.”

  “Well, that’s not very sporting, is it?”

  I looked at Alice in exasperation. Her eyes were twinkling.

  “I’m glad you’re having a good time, Alice. I’m still on the hook for suppressing evidence and conspiring to conceal a crime.”

  “Oh, bullshit,” Alice said. “You think Richard Rosenberg couldn’t talk your way out of that? Hell, I could argue the case, and I’m not even a lawyer.”

  I was sure she could. The thought of Alice pitted against Richard was a scary prospect.

  “Okay,” I said. “How about a young girl’s life is at stake?”

  “Would this be the young girl with the nice tits?”

  “What’s your point?”

  “Would you expend so much energy saving a flat-chested girl?”

  “Alice, investigating this crime was your idea.”

  “Well, if you’re going to hold me to everything I say.”

  I gulped at that and she said, “So, let’s have a look at this computer.”

  Alice sat down at the desk, switched the sucker on. No sooner had it warmed up when she began clicking the mouse and typing in commands. Images flashed on and off the screen so quickly it was impossible to discern what they were. Within minutes she had settled on a screen that looked surprisingly like a word-processing directory, at which point she jammed a disk into the computer, highlighted the entire screen, and pressed some more buttons.

  The machine made a series of buzzing, ringing, and clunking noises. Had we been in Vegas, coins would have spewed out. After a minute or so of this, the computer returned to relative calm. Alice popped out the disk, stuck it in her purse.

  “There,” she said. “The guy uses Microsoft Word. I downloaded all his files. You can study them at your leisure.”

  “We don’t have an Apple.”

  “I’ll rent you a PowerBook. Was there anything else?”

  “I don’t know. Was there anything else in the computer?”

  “I can tell you the guy’s favorite porn sites.”

  “Why, did he have ’em bookmarked?”

  “No, but I can tell where he’s been.”

  “You know what sites the computer visits?”

  “Yeah. Why? You don’t want me checking ours?”

  “No. I’m just utterly amazed.”

  “I don’t see why. Anyway, if that’s all, I should be going. No sense both of us winding up in jail.”

  I didn’t point out to Alice that not ten minutes ago she had been arguing that I wasn’t going to jail. I just let her leave and turned my attention back to my task.

  Okay, assuming what I wanted wasn’t on the computer disk in Alice’s purse, where was it? Since I didn’t know what I was looking for, I had no idea.

  I tried the bedroom. Philip T. Grackle had a king-sized bed, with nightstands on either side. The one on the right held a lamp, a clock radio, and a copy of Penthouse. It seemed unlikely the magazine held the key to the gentleman’s death, but still, as a seasoned detective, I wasn’t about to overlook anything, so I gave it a hasty perusal.

  The other bedside table held a reading lamp, but nothing to read. I moved on to the bureau, which contained clothes. A promising-looking closet also contained clothes. Promising-looking shoe boxes turned out to contain shoes. A suitcase was empty, as was a briefcase. There was nothing under the mattress, nothing under the bed.

  I went in the kitchen. From mystery novels, I knew flour and sugar canisters were prime hiding places. I searched them, found flour and sugar. Considered baking a cake. Rejected the idea. There was nothing in the cupboards, nothing in the oven, nothing under the sink. If there were diamonds frozen in the ice cubes in Mr. Grackle’s ice cube tray, he could keep ’em. Enough was enough.

  I went back in the living room and tried the file cabinet again. The files were old, but so what? Balfour’s manslaughter conviction was old. Of course, it was also nonexistent.

  I pawed through the files. They contained exactly what the labels said. The records of a small, independent investment business carried on by the late Mr. Grackle, apparently working out of his own apa
rtment—there were no receipts for office space, and the expense for office space claimed on Mr. Balfour’s meticulous tax returns appeared to be a percentage of his rent.

  There was no record of a Mr. Balfour in any of Mr. Grackle’s client folders, filed alphabetically, or in any of his business records, filed chronologically. As far as Mr. Grackle was concerned, unless he was on the computer disk Alice had, Mr. Balfour did not exist.

  After a good half hour making sure every file was exactly what it said, that one labeled Trowbridge didn’t turn out to be a code for some nefarious activity or other, I abandoned the file cabinet and moved on toward the desk. I did so with weary resignation. A quick perusal of the desk had shown one drawer to contain pencils, pens, paper clips, pushpins, page savers, paper, and various other stationery supplies not necessarily beginning with P. The other drawer contained instruction manuals for various equipment in the apartment. (If you’re thinking I should have followed the one for the Apple computer instead of calling Alice, I would like to point out that it was two hundred and sixty four pages long, and probably had a prerequisite of at least two semesters of Introduction to Computer Manuals 101.)

  Anyway, I leafed through the instruction manuals somewhat dispiritedly, having struck out everywhere. There was one for the VCR, one for the TV, one for the clock radio in the bedroom, one for the microwave, one for the toaster oven, one for the file cabinet—

  The file cabinet?

  Excuse me.

  You open the drawer. You close the drawer. File folders hang from both sides. Granted, you have to buy the right size, but that was just a measurement. An instruction manual seemed like overkill.

  Grackle’s file, according to the instruction manual, was the RV925*. The meaning of the asterisk was not readily explained.

  I opened the manual.

  On page 1, under the heading OPENING THE SECURITY RECESS FILE, were the following instructions:

  1. Pull bottom drawer open until it will go no further.

  2. Push front of bottom drawer down to tilt back of bottom drawer up, releasing catch.

  3. Remove bottom drawer.

  4. Grab spring rods on interior sides of file cabinet (see diagram A).

  5. Pull rods, releasing catches.

  6. Tilt hinged bottom up, revealing recessed compartment.

  I put the instruction manuals back in the drawer, being careful to leave the one for the file cabinet buried in the middle.

  I knelt down, pulled the bottom drawer of the file cabinet out until it stopped, pushed down on the front, tipping the back up, removed the drawer from the cabinet, and set it on the floor. Right inside were the little spring bolts in the diagram. I reached in, pulled them, and raised the false bottom.

  Inside was an accordion file folder. I took it out and put it on the floor.

  There was something underneath. Something green and white. I reached in, pulled out a packet of bills. They were hundreds. I riffled through them. There appeared to be about fifty in the packet. A cool five grand.

  The bottom of the cabinet was lined with packets. I pulled them out, stacked them on the floor.

  All were hundreds.

  All were in packets of fifty.

  There were fifty-four packets.

  A quick calculation showed the late Mr. Grackle had died in possession of two hundred and seventy grand.

  I put the money back exactly where I’d found it, then turned my attention to the accordion file folder. I raised the flap, pulled it open.

  Inside were several manila envelopes.

  The one on top looked suspiciously like the one Jenny Balfour had been carrying when she pasted MacAullif.

  It wasn’t. Unless Jenny Balfour had been about to blackmail her father with Philip T. Grackle’s latest tax return. According to the return, Philip T. Grackle was the self-employed, sole proprietor of Skyhook Investments, a small business apparently operating out of his apartment. The address was certainly the same.

  The only difference was the name.

  According to his tax records, Philip T. Grackle wasn’t Philip T. Grackle, but a Mr. Paul Henry Starling.

  I wondered if the police were aware of that.

  I shoved the tax return back in the envelope, tried the next. I could tell just picking it up it contained papers of various sizes. I dumped them out on the floor.

  It was quite an array. And it confirmed the fact that Philip T. Grackle was Paul Henry Starling, or at least pretended to be. There was a Social Security card, credit cards, and a driver’s license, all in Starling’s name. The picture on the license was of the same man whose picture was in the paper, the late Mr. Grackle.

  There was also a birth certificate for Paul Henry Starling, and a marriage license taken out in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, by Mr. Starling and a Miss Felicia Grant. The marriage license was ten years old. It had apparently been used, since divorce papers had also been filed by Miss Grant. There was no final decree.

  That started a train of thought. I examined the file folders in the drawer on the floor beside me. Pulled out one for 1997, checked the letterhead. Sure enough, Skyhook Investors listed an address in Philadelphia. And the papers were signed by Mr. Starling.

  I was on to something, but I wasn’t sure what. Was it possible Mr. Grackle/Starling had been killed by a vindictive ex-wife?

  I picked up the next envelope, undid the clasp, and pulled out the contents.

  It was a number of eight-by-ten photos. They showed a woman in varying stages of undress. That is, varying from G-string and push-up bra to absolutely nothing. In some pictures the woman was spreading her legs, in others her posterior. In a couple of pictures, a naked man was present, doing the sort of things naked men tend to do in the presence of naked women.

  I had never seen the naked man before in my life.

  The naked woman was Jenny Balfour’s mother.

  Jackpot.

  I was beginning to sweat. This was not what I was looking for. Or, rather, it was what I was looking for, but not what I’d been hoping to find. Not that I had any allegiance to Jenny Balfour’s mother, but still. If ever there was a motive for murder, this was it. And Mrs. Balfour had been there that night, just before her daughter. Who had gone in and out of the apartment as if Mr. Grackle hadn’t had much to say.

  No wonder Mom was such a bundle of nerves.

  No wonder she had thrown me out the front door.

  No wonder she was still so limber.

  Stop it.

  Naughty.

  I shoved the pictures back in the envelope and reached for the next one.

  From outside the window came a squeal of brakes.

  In New York City, that’s no big deal. You hear brakes squeal, horns honk, sirens wail all the time, and it never has anything to do with you. As a New Yorker you get so used to it, you don’t even hear it anymore.

  This one I heard. Maybe because the magnitude of where I was and what I’d found had raised my paranoia level to the nth degree. Anyway, I tuned right in. That squeal of brakes was for me.

  I jumped up, raced to the window.

  The police car double-parked below was still rocking from having slammed to a sudden stop.

  The burly figure of Sergeant Thurman was climbing out.

  I raced to the desk, dug the instruction manual out of the drawer, and stuck it in the accordion file folder.

  I raced into the bedroom, flung up the window, and hurled the file folder down into the side alley.

  I raced back to the file cabinet, slammed the false bottom, and replaced the drawer.

  I raced to the kitchen, snatched the phone off the wall and punched in the number.

  “Rosenberg and Stone,” Wendy/Janet said.

  “It’s an emergency! Get me Richard!”

  She didn’t argue, but she put me on hold, which was almost worse. Time was a paradox: It seemed an eternity before Richard came on the line, but those same seconds brought Thurman into the building like lightning.

  Richard was
at his peevish best. “Yes?”

  “Take this down. Felicia Grant Starling, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She’s the widow of Paul Henry Starling, alias Philip T. Grackle.”

  “Well, bully for her,” Richard said. “Stanley, is there a point to this?”

  I could hear Sergeant Thurman thundering down the hall.

  “Felicia Grant Starling!” I cried desperately. “Got it, Richard?”

  “I got it,” Richard snarled ominously. “What about her?”

  “She’s your client,” I said, and slammed down the receiver as Sergeant Thurman crashed through the door.

  31.

  THE ADA WAS HAVING none of it. Bert Kinsey, a no-nonsense prosecutor, knew a blow job when he saw one. He just didn’t know what to do about it. As a criminal prosecutor, he’d never had to deal with Richard Rosenberg before. But he’d probably heard stories. And he clearly wasn’t happy.

  “Mr. Rosenberg, your client was apprehended in the crime scene.”

  “Apprehended?” Richard said. “Now, there’s a word. Apprehended. Is that how we wish away police brutality and false arrest?”

  “Nothing false about it. Or perhaps your client failed to see the crime scene ribbon.”

  “Was I talking about that?” Richard said. “How can we have a discussion if you’re gonna change the subject? I was talking about the way in which my client was apprehended. If you would like to inspect that crime scene, I believe you can find an indentation where he was slammed up against the wall.”

  “Here again, the words crime scene, which you concede we are talking about—”

  “Concede? Whoa! I don’t believe I made a concession.”

  “You referred to the crime scene.”

  “So did you. Was that a concession?”

  “I’m referring to the fact your client was there.”

  “I’m referring to the fact my client was physically abused there. If that’s a concession, I’ll eat it.”

  “The point is, your client was at a crime scene where he had no right to be.”

  “Can we have a stenographer taking this down?”

  “What?”

  “If you’re going to make statements of fact that are in error, I would like to have them taken down. Otherwise, how can I call you into account?”