Julius Katz Mysteries Read online

  “From the first minute you’ve done nothing but insult and accuse me,” Julius continued. “I should throw you out of here physically, especially after the charade you’ve been participating in, believing that I could be duped by such sophistry.”

  Cramer started to protest with a forced indignation, but Julius shot him a withering look which stalled the detective’s protest to a mere stutter.

  “Please, don’t insult my intelligence any more than you already have. You must’ve already talked to Helen Arden, which is how you knew I’d been hired, and I’m sure you already asked her what the matter was about and there would be no reason for her not to tell you. You couldn’t possibly reach the position of Detective with that level of incompetence, despite the show you’ve put on here tonight. Isn’t that true?”

  Cramer sat confused for a moment, clearly not sure of which of the questions Julius had asked him. Finally, he nodded.

  “Alright,” Cramer admitted. “I wanted to hear your take on it.”

  “No, that’s not it at all. Your coming here and acting the way you have tells me that so far you have no witnesses and no forensic evidence, and that further, you don’t believe you’re going to. It also tells me that you see this murder as a mess and you’re not sure how to proceed. You thought you could come here and bully me into helping you.”

  Cramer started to protest, but Julius raised a finger to stop him.

  “Don’t attempt to argue this. I’m an expert poker player, Cramer, and I can spot a bluff, especially one as clumsy as yours. But this is a client of mine who has been murdered, so as distasteful as I’ve found your tactics so far, I will offer my help as long as you don’t try to strong-arm me again. Have you talked to the brother yet?”

  Cramer had been chewing on all this trying to decide how to play it. Finally, he came to a decision. Somewhat glumly he shook his head.

  “Not yet,” Cramer said. “He’s agreed to come in tomorrow morning for questioning.”

  “If you don’t end up arresting him, escort him here afterwards.”

  “I can’t do that against his wishes.”

  “He’ll agree. I’ll be calling him before then. Was I correct about you having nothing?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Tell me about the murder.”

  Cramer’s eyes moved away from Julius’s and down to his large beefy hands. He sat for a while rubbing his knuckles before his eyes shifted back to meet Julius’s.

  “She was hit on the back of the head and knocked unconscious. After that she was strangled. Whoever did this wore cloth gloves. There was no sign of forced entry. So far, that’s all we’ve got.”

  “What was she hit with?”

  “A polished agate stone that was probably kept as a paperweight. About the size of a softball.”

  “Could this have been a robbery turned murder?”

  “Not likely. We had the sister walk through the house and she didn’t see anything obvious that was missing.”

  Julius’s eyes glazed over and his facial muscles hardened as he processed all this. Cramer and Henry stared at him intently, waiting for him to speak. After several minutes, life flickered back into Julius’s eyes. He offered Cramer a grim smile.

  “This murder may be completely unrelated to the assignment I was hired for. Miss Brewer mentioned a business she sold several years ago. I would strongly suggest you look into that to see if there were any hard feelings concerning the sale. Another avenue of investigation involves Miss Brewer’s brother-in-law, a Mr. Thomas Arden. I was told that he abandoned his family twelve years ago. It’s possible he’s back in the picture. That should be looked into too.”

  Cramer nodded, accepting all this. He pushed himself slowly to his feet and arched his back as if he were stretching. Almost reluctantly, he started to offer Julius his hand. Henry coughed and caught Cramer’s eye, signaling to him that that would not be a good idea. Cramer caught on and pulled his hand back before things got awkward. He told Julius that he would find his way out and that he’d be in touch. I followed the detective’s movement through several webcam feeds that had been set up throughout the townhouse and made sure he left without any detours. Henry sat for awhile as he finished his coffee, then stood up and nodded goodbye.

  “If nothing else, Julius, I can always count on you for an eventful evening,” he said with a soft chuckle. I didn’t bother checking his exit through the webcam feeds. Julius remained in the kitchen drinking coffee.

  We both sat silently until Julius broke the quiet by putting his cup down on the granite countertop and asking me to order a dozen roses for Lily Rosten and arrange for them to be delivered so that they’d be waiting for her when she arrived at work the next morning. “Have them add a note that I’ll be calling her soon,” he added.

  I did as he asked, placing the order through a twenty-four hour florist that Julius had used in the past. “You don’t believe Norma Brewer’s murder had anything to do with the sale of her business?” I asked.

  Julius sat quietly for a moment, then shook his head. “Not exactly, Archie, but it’s something to look into, and the police, with all their manpower and resources, are better equipped to do so than I. Besides, a general rule to follow is the more clutter that can be eliminated, the clearer the picture will become.”

  From the moment Julius suggested to Detective Cramer that he investigate Thomas Arden, I began building a dossier on the elusive brother-in-law. I filled Julius in on the salient points. That Arden graduated with a degree in finance from Haverford College in 1983, married Helen Brewer shortly after graduation, later earned an M.B.A. from Harvard, and was working as the Chief Financial Officer for what was at the time a small computer start-up company when he appeared to vanish from the face of the planet on August 7th, 1997. There was not a single trace of Thomas Arden after that date, at least not in any of the databases I was able to access.

  “Why August 7th?” Julius asked.

  “That was when his wife reported him missing to the police.”

  “He could’ve been missing for several days before she contacted the police,” Julius said. “But never mind, it’s not important. Anything interesting about him going to Haverford College?”

  “Lawrence Brewer went to Haverford for his undergraduate degree. They both graduated the same year.”

  “Very good, Archie. What can you surmise from that?”

  “That they were friends. That maybe Lawrence introduced Arden to his sister.”

  “Again, very good. But, Archie, your dossier is missing a potentially critical fact. I’d suggest you keep working on it.”

  Julius had obviously already built his own dossier on Arden, most likely when he had turned me off a few days ago, or maybe one of the times when he had put me away in his desk drawer so I couldn’t see what he was doing on his computer.

  “What am I missing?” I asked.

  Julius showed an exaggerated yawn. “It’s late, Archie and I have a busy day ahead of me. I’m going to bed. You keep working on it, though.”

  Julius went upstairs to his bedroom and placed me next to his ear receiver on the dresser bureau before disappearing into his bathroom. The fact that I had missed something bothered me. I spun cycles like a crazy person building different logic models as I tried to figure out what it could’ve been. I was so wrapped up in this that I barely heard him gargling in the next room, or later, the shallow cadence of his breathing as he lay in bed. It was three-forty-seven in the morning when I figured it out. It had taken numerous adjustments to my neuron network, but I had it. As I mentioned before, Julius had already taken his ear receiver out for the night, and I was too excited to wait until six-thirty in the morning for him to wake up on his own and put his receiver back in, so I called him on his cell phone. He answered after the fourth ring.

  “Archie, it’s ten minutes to four—”

  “I figured it out,” I told him.

  I heard him sigh. “This is my fault,” he said. “I should’ve expected t
his. I’ve been pushing you too hard to create this type of personality. Archie, I’d like you to reprogram your neuron network so that you don’t wake me up again, at least not unless it’s for a legitimate reason.”

  “Sure, no problem. After I tell you what I’ve found.”

  “Let me guess, Archie. That you suspect Thomas Arden had embezzled half a million dollars from his company shortly before he disappeared?”

  “That’s right. It was hidden in the company’s annual financial statement. A five-hundred- thousand-dollar line item for a tradeshow that didn’t exist. He stole that money.”

  “Most likely.”

  “Why didn’t the company file charges against him?” I asked.

  Julius let out another heavy sigh. “Good night, Archie. It’s late now.”

  “Please.”

  It wouldn’t have surprised me if he had hung up his cell phone, but instead he explained it to me.

  “The company probably didn’t want their investors to find out about it. Most likely they needed another round of financing, and were afraid that this would kill it for them. Good night, Archie.”

  I wanted to ask him whether he thought that Lawrence and Arden had been in contact over the years, and whether he suspected that Lawrence had used Arden to kill his sister by threatening exposure. That’s what I wanted to ask him, but I knew if I pushed it I risked being turned off again, so instead I held back. For the next two and a half hours, while Julius slept, I searched for any link I could between Lawrence and Arden. By the time the alarm went off at six-thirty, I had decided to keep my theory to myself. What I wanted to do was locate enough evidence to solve this murder before Julius did. I couldn’t help feeling that if I kept working on this I would beat him to the punch.

  That morning, we mostly went our separate ways; Julius going through his calisthenics and martial arts training, and then mostly loafing about as he leafed through several books on the theory of war that he had recently purchased. Me, I spent my time building simulations that had Lawrence Brewer blackmailing Arden into killing his sister. One scenario came up that seemed plausible enough to research, and I was doing that when Julius interrupted me to get Helen Arden on the phone. Once I did, he had me patch him through.

  “Mrs. Arden, first I’d like to offer my condolences for your sister’s death. I know this is a difficult time right now, but I have a few questions. They may seem odd, but they’re important. Have you had any contact with your husband since he disappeared?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have any idea where he is?”

  “No, sorry, I don’t.”

  “Do you know if your brother does?”

  That seemed to take her by surprise. It left me crushed. Dammit! Once again Julius was going to trump me. It left me in a bit of a funk where I could almost feel my processing cycles slowing down.

  “I-I have no idea. Why are you asking that?”

  “I’m working under the hypothesis that your brother and Thomas Arden were college friends, and that he introduced the two of you.”

  “Yes, that’s true. But I don’t understand why you’re interested in this?”

  “It’s complicated right now, Mrs. Arden. I’ll explain in due time. One last question, what can you tell me about the business your sister sold?”

  “I really don’t know anything about it.”

  “But your brother handled the legal aspects for her?”

  “Yes, I believe so.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Arden. And rest assured that I’ll be doing everything I can to assist the police in finding the person responsible for your sister’s murder.”

  Julius hung up. I told him about my theory, as well as my simulations that led to a reasonable scenario.

  “It seems you’ve come to the same conclusion,” I said. “Would you like me to keep investigating my scenario?”

  “I think that would be a splendid idea, Archie.”

  I did just that for the rest of the morning. Julius started reading one of his books more intently, but he soon became distracted, and several times put the book down so he could stare into space. Once he took out his cell phone and frowned at it before putting it away.

  “Is there a call you’d like me to make?” I asked.

  “What? No, nothing,” he muttered, still obviously distracted. “Blast it, if I were to do this properly it would take several days, maybe longer. But that won’t do, not now. I need to wrap this up today. Archie, I do have a call for you to make. To Detective Cramer. Ask him to send Lawrence Brewer to my office now. That if he does I should be able to point him to the murderer by evening.”

  I did as he asked. Cramer didn’t like it. He had a dozen questions for Julius. I told him I was just the messenger and that the genius was unavailable, but that if Julius was promising to wrap the case up for him he should take him at his word. Cramer hung up on me without telling me what he was going to do. I decided that the solution to the case was a draw between me and Julius, and I decided to take it as a moral victory. I was about to tell him I wasn’t sure what Cramer had decided when the phone rang. It was Lawrence Brewer. I patched the call through to Julius’s ear piece.

  “Why should I bother talking to you?” Brewer said.

  “Many reasons. Most importantly, it gets you out of the police station. The longer you’re there, the greater the chance they’ll arrest you for your sister’s murder. You must know at this point that they believe you murdered her.”

  “And you don’t?”

  “What I believe is beside the point. At least you’ll have a chance to convince me otherwise, and I’ll be offering far better refreshments than the police.”

  “Like what?”

  Julius paused. “Assorted cheeses, meats, wine,” he said.

  “You’ve convinced me,” Lawrence Brewer said with a touch of sarcasm, and hung up.

  Cramer and two other police officers escorted Lawrence Brewer to Julius’s townhouse. Julius brought Brewer to his office, and then left so he could argue with Cramer about why he wasn’t going to allow anyone else to sit in on his questioning of Brewer. The two men were outside and Julius’s office was soundproof so there was little chance that Brewer was able to listen in. While this argument went on I scanned the office’s webcam feed to make sure Brewer stayed put.

  “I’m engaged in an extremely subtle and sensitive plan,” Julius said as calmly and patiently as I knew he was capable of. A slight flutter showed along his left eye. “If you interfere, it won’t work.”

  “Yeah, I know, you’ve been telling me that. And I’m telling you, I want to sit in and hear what he has to say,” Cramer insisted, his jaw locked in a bulldog expression.

  “Detective, if you had enough evidence to charge Brewer, you would’ve done so already. My guess is that without my help you’ll never have enough. If you let me do things my way, you’ll have enough evidence by tonight not only to charge but convict Norma Brewer’s murderer.”

  “So Lawrence Brewer is the guy,” Cramer demanded.

  “Detective, some patience, please.”

  Cramer didn’t like it. He could barely stand still. “And you just want me to let him walk out of here when he’s done?” he said disgustedly.

  “He’s not going anywhere you won’t be able to find him later.”

  For a moment I thought Cramer was going to tell Julius to go to hell. Instead, the steam went out of him. He told Julius that he had until the end of the day and after that he wasn’t going to put up with any more of this nonsense, although Cramer used a far more colorful word than that. Julius watched while Cramer left to join the two other police officers in a late-model sedan. After they drove away, he went back inside, first making a detour to the kitchen, where he picked up a tray of hors d’oeuvres that he had prepared earlier—buffalo mozzarella wrapped in prosciutto along with assorted cheeses and olives—and then returning to his office. A bottle of Californian Petit Syrah had already been poured into a decanter and was waiting there. It was a
fair vintage at best, one that Julius had bought out of curiosity, and one which he normally wouldn’t serve to company, which showed his level of disdain for Brewer.

  Julius placed the tray in front of Brewer, then sat behind his desk so he faced him. Julius next poured a single glass of Syrah and left it within arm’s reach of his guest.

  “I promised you refreshments and, if nothing else, I’m a man of my word,” Julius said. “But, Sir, let me say that without that promise you’d get nothing from me.”

  Lawrence Brewer sat slumped in his chair. He looked worse than he had at the dog track the other day. A weariness tugged at the corners of his mouth, pulling it into a slight frown, and dark circles under his eyes gave him a raccoon-like appearance, especially with the paleness of the rest of his skin. Physically he resembled Norma more than his other sister, and like Norma he had too much nose and not quite enough chin. He took several pieces of the prosciutto and mozzarella and popped them into his mouth, then followed that with a long sip of wine.

  “It’s not as black and white as Norma made out to you,” he said in a tired monotone as he stared bug-eyed at Julius. “My mother has some bad days, but she also has some good ones, and the fact is, she doesn’t want to leave her home.”

  “I’m not interested in what you have to say,” Julius said. “Nor would I believe a word coming from you. We both know that you are more concerned with your mother’s money than her well-being, so don’t insult me with this act.”

  “How dare you—”

  “Shut up. All I want from you is to sit there and listen. We both know what you are, Brewer, make no mistake about that. I’m going to prove that you have borrowed large sums of money from a known gangster, Willie Andrews, so that you could finance your gambling addiction, and further, that you’ve been using your mother’s assets as collateral. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that you’ve in some way been responsible for her recent weight loss and obvious malnutrition with the hopes of getting your hands on her money all that much sooner. Take this as a promise, Brewer: by the end of the day I’m going to make sure that her money is off-limits to you. You’re going to need another way to satisfy your growing debt with Andrews. That’s all. Get out of here.”