Fare Play (10 page)

He led her back to the office's outside entrance. “Dinner tonight?” he asked. At the reception desk, Mrs. Grainger's head snapped around.

“Not tonight,” Marian said regretfully. “My former partner is taking me to meet his future mother-in-law.”

“Malecki? Ivan Malecki's getting married?”

“Yep.” She hesitated. “I'm going to be his best man.”

His eyebrows rose. “Best …
man
?”

“Holland,” she warned.

He swallowed his laugh and raised both hands, palms outward. He was still standing that way when she left.

14

Marian stopped at a quick-service lunch counter on her way back, but she was only half-finished when her beeper sounded. She used the pay phone on the wall to call in. It was Campos, telling her he'd put a tail on the man suspected of being a fence. He'd waited until lunchtime to disturb her with that bit of nonessential news.

“Shithead,” she said out loud as she sat back down at the counter; the two men on either side studiously ignored her. Marian finished her lunch in a hurry and then set her empty coffee cup down so hard she broke the handle off; the counterman told her she'd have to pay for it. With a long-suffering sigh, Marian paid up and left. The weather outside was so miserable she was glad of the tights under her trousers. The wind blowing in her face was wet and cold, but the next wave of slushy snow was holding off.

Back in her roasting office, Marian yelled for someone to call Maintenance about the heat. She checked her messages; long one from Perlmutter, but no word from O'Toole. Perlmutter's visit to Elmore Zook, Oliver Knowles's lawyer, had resulted in no surprises. Trust funds for housekeeper Ellen Rudolph and secretary Lucas Novak, as Austin Knowles had said. A generous gift to the ASPCA and another to a local animal-rescue group. Everything else went to the son, Austin Knowles. David Unger had an option to buy additional shares of O.K. Toys. Zook had said that Austin Knowles was offering to sell a majority of the shares to Unger, more than the will required him to dispose of. Perlmutter left word that he was going to grab a bite and then come in.

Feeling fidgety, Marian stood up and stretched. The only personal item Oliver Knowles had carried in his billfold was a photo of a cat, and he'd left bequests for two animal-protection organizations. So he liked kitties and he made toys for children. Santa Claus.

Then why did someone arrange his murder? And what threat did he pose to Rosalind Bowman that she should go to such desperate lengths to make herself untraceable? And having done so, why didn't she just go? What was that last “account” she wanted to settle before she left New York? There had to be money involved in this—not the inheritance, that seemed aboveboard. What kind of records did that toy company keep? If Holland could get into the O.K. Toys computers—

Whoa
.

Had she really thought that?
If Holland could get into the O.K. Toys computers
… good god. She'd actually thought of asking him to do one of his illegal snooping jobs? She'd been trying not to think about Holland at all. But it was hard not to think about Holland. It was
very
hard not to think about him. Well, impossible, actually. She'd been doing pretty well at pushing him out of her head for the last month, until the Oliver Knowles killing brought him back into her life. But now he
was
back, oh yes, just as intrusively as ever. The truth was, her encounter with Holland that morning had left her with an unscratched itch and she wasn't in the best of moods.

So when Detective O'Toole came barging in, she almost bit his head off. “
What
?” she roared.

He took a step back. “Report on David Unger and O.K. Toys.”

“I told you to call in.”

“Yeah, Lieutenant, but I got something here you'll want to see.”

Marian counted to ten and sat at her desk. “Show me.” O'Toole placed on O.K. Toys catalog in front of her. “A toy catalog.”

“That's their current catalog. Look at the date. Inside front cover, small print at the bottom.”

She looked where he said. “It's four years old.”

O'Toole was nodding. “Toy companies put out several catalogs each year. They have to, to compete. But O.K. Toys doesn't bother. Don't you find that interesting?”

Marian nodded. “Very interesting. Where's their factory?”

He pulled up a chair and sat down. “They don't have one. Not anymore. They stopped manufacturing a few years ago, David Unger says, and sold the last factory in New Jersey. Now they buy from vendors and resell, catalog sales exclusively. Except that their catalog is four years old.”

“Did Unger say this was their latest printed?”

“I asked for a current catalog and that's what he handed me. Took it off of a stack.”

“Money.”

“Unger says he already owns ten percent of O.K. Toys. Knowles had shown him his will, he says, and that gave him an option to buy another thirty-five percent. But Unger says Austin Knowles, the son, is going to sell him more than that. Enough to make him the majority stockholder.”

“That part's true,” Marian said. “Austin Knowles told me that himself, and Elmore Zook confirmed it this morning. Who's Unger's lawyer?”

O'Toole grinned. “Elmore Zook.”

Just then Perlmutter appeared in the doorway, back from lunch. “Something at O.K. Toys?”

“Fill him in, O'Toole,” Marian said.

Perlmutter took the only other chair as O'Toole repeated what he'd just said. “Interesting,” Perlmutter commented when his partner had finished. “Austin Knowles and David Unger using the same lawyer. You'd think Unger would want separate representation. But if it's a friendly sale and Zook is the business's lawyer, I guess it makes sense.”

“There's something else.” O'Toole scratched the back of his neck. “No toys on display in that office. No pictures of toys on the walls. Whether they're manufacturing or just distributing, they oughta have some toys around. That office coulda been selling jock straps, for all I could tell. Wasn't right.”

Marian pursed her lips. “You have kids, O'Toole?”

“Yeah, two. And we get toy catalogs in the mail all the time. O.K. Toys just doesn't smell right, Lieutenant.”

The man had a gift for recognizing his own kind
, Austin Knowles had said. “Tell me about the two men. Zook and Unger.”

Perlmutter and O'Toole could have been talking about the same man. Courteous, well-spoken, educated, cooperative without volunteering anything. Efficient; spoke straight to the point without wasting time or words. Poised. Relaxed. The only differences between the lawyer and the toy company manager were physical ones. Zook was in his sixties, Unger was about forty; Zook was stout, Unger was not; Zook was partially bald, Unger could do with a haircut, in O'Toole's opinion. And both detectives agreed that what they'd seen had been a façade, a mask worn for talking to the police.

“There may be nothing in that,” Marian pointed out. “Most professional people have a persona they put on when dealing with the public. So, O'Toole, what do you think is going on at O.K. Toys?”

He shrugged. “A money-laundering operation? They've got a good set-up for it. Let me tell you what I did. I called the IRS and told them I thought O.K. Toys was cooking its books.”

“You
what
?” Marian and Perlmutter yelled at the same time.

O'Toole blanched. “I thought we could get the IRS to do some of our work for us—check them out, like.”

“O'Toole, that is the dumbest thing I have heard since … since I don't remember when,” Marian said angrily. “The DA's office has accountants—you don't use the IRS for something like that. You don't
use
the IRS for anything. Once Internal Revenue gets its hooks into those books, we'll
never
get a look at them. You may have just ended this investigation right here.”

The rookie detective looked stricken. “Oh jeez, I didn't think of—”

“No, you didn't think, did you? O'Toole, do you remember standing right here in this office and listening to me tell you not to do
anything
without checking with Perlmutter first? Do you remember that? Do you?”

He gulped. “Yes.”

“You damned well had better remember it from now on. Now you go get on that phone and call the IRS and tell them you made a biiiig mistake, that the toy company is on the up-and-up and there's no need for the IRS to investigate.”

“I talked to three people there.”

“Then call all three of them. Then find out if they talked to anyone else there and call
them
. You don't do anything else with your life until you squash this—do you understand? Now
move
.”

Red-faced, O'Toole hurried out to his desk to start phoning.

Perlmutter cocked an eyebrow at Marian. “Kind of rough on him, weren't you, Lieutenant?”

“I'm always rough on people who don't know how to listen,” she replied shortly. “Come on. Let's go talk to Lucas Novak.”

15

One look at Oliver Knowles's Central Park South apartment told Marian more about the dead man than anything the investigation had turned up so far. The man had had sybaritic tastes … and the wherewithal to indulge them.

“A lot of money in toys, huh?” Perlmutter had murmured when they first went in.

It was the trains that got to Marian. The luxurious furnishings, some of which must be antiques, were impressive in their own right. But the most elaborate train set Marian had ever seen took up two entire rooms in a building standing on some of the highest-priced real estate in the world. Oliver Knowles was not a man to deny himself what he wanted.

Ellen Rudolph, the late-fiftyish or early-sixtyish housekeeper, was having trouble keeping back her tears. “Mr. Knowles loved those trains,” she said as she showed the detectives around. “After he retired, he'd spend hours in there. Always building, changing the layout, trying new switching systems and the like.” She smiled sadly. “Lucas and I learned a lot about trains, living here.”

“Where is Lucas Novak?” Perlmutter wanted to know.

“He said he'd be right back. He had an errand to run.”

“How long have you lived here, Mrs. Rudolph?” Marian asked.

“Call me Mrs. R,” the housekeeper said. “Everyone does. I've been looking after Mr. Knowles for twenty-one years. I came to work for him right after my husband died, and I've been with him ever since. Was with him,” she amended. She took a tissue out of a pocket and blew her nose. “Excuse me. I'm just getting over the flu.”

“That's a long time to work for one man,” Marian said. “What's going to happen to the trains?”

Mrs. R's face took on a pinched, disapproving look. “Austin is going to auction them off. He's going to auction off the entire contents of the apartment. The appraiser is coming tomorrow.” She shook her head. “How can he do that? How can he just auction off his father's things?”

Perlmutter spoke up. “Who's going to take the cat?”

The housekeeper looked blank. “What cat?”

“Mr. Knowles had a photo of a cat in his billfold.”

“Oh, that must be Phineas. White Persian? Phineas died four or five years ago. Mr. Knowles never got another cat.”

Marian said, “May we see the bedroom, Mrs. R?”

“Certainly.” She led the way.

Perlmutter said to Marian, low, “The guy carried a photo of a dead cat but no pictures of his wife or son?”

Knowles's bedroom was solidly masculine in a traditional way—heavy furniture, muted colors, no ruffles or flounces. Marian slid open the door of the large walk-in closet: all men's clothing. “Did Mrs. Knowles have a separate bedroom?”

Mrs. R looked shocked. “Oh, Mrs. Knowles never lived here! Didn't you know, Lieutenant? They'd been separated—oh, it must be thirty years.”

Marian shot a look at Perlmutter, who shrugged. “No, we didn't know. No divorce?”

“No. Mr. Knowles supported her and put Austin through college, but they were never divorced.”

They started back toward the living room. Marian asked, “Did Austin live with his mother?”

The housekeeper said he did. “Austin was just a schoolboy when they separated, and it was hard on him. Still, he was over here a lot. Mrs. Knowles didn't like that.”

“Why not?”

Mrs. R just shook her head. “Some women are so vindictive. She didn't want Austin to have anything to do with his father. Sometimes Austin would be so upset when he came here—after a row with his mother, I mean.” At that moment they heard the door in the apartment entryway open. “There's Lucas now,” the housekeeper said, and went to meet him.

Marian could hear the murmur of their voices from the vicinity of the front door. Mrs. R returned, followed by a middle-aged man whose expensive suit didn't quite hide the fact that he was going to fat. He peered at Perlmutter querulously through rimless spectacles.

Mrs. R said, “Lucas, this is Lieutenant Larch and Detective …?”

“Perlmutter,” he supplied.

Lucas Novak shifted his gaze to Marian. “You're the lieutenant?”

“I'm the lieutenant,” she said neutrally. “Could we sit down? We need to ask you a few things.”

“Of course. But I don't know what I can tell you.”

They found seats, all but Mrs. R who said, “I'll fix some tea. Or would you prefer coffee, Lieutenant?”

“Nothing for me, thanks.” Perlmutter declined as well.

As soon as the housekeeper had left, Novak said, “Do you have a line on the man who shot Oliver?”

“He was a hired killer, Mr. Novak,” Marian said. “We're trying to find out who hired him. And why.”

“Yes, why?” He frowned. “There's no reason. None. He must have killed the wrong man. That's the only explanation.”