Corpus Corpus (18 page)

"That's all very interesting. It gives Simmons a motive, and his being at the dinner provided the opportunity. But what about means? Was Simmons one of those judges who pack guns under their black robes?"

"The only weapon Judge Simmons ever wielded was the blunt instrument known as a gavel."

As the car reached the house, a short, sinewy, suntanned black-haired young man in faded jeans, open shearling jacket, brown cowboy boots, and battered tan western hat ambled over to them from the direction of the stables.

"Good morning, Miss Dane," he said, tipping the hat as she and Bogdanovic left the car. "It's good to see you again."

"I'm sorry it's not a happier occasion."

"I'm glad you're here to take charge. It's been a madhouse. Reporters and cameramen have been showing up all morning." He looked down at his boots. "I can't believe somebody murdered Mr. Janus." The eyes turned up to Bogdanovic. "Were you also a friend of his, sir?"

"This is Sergeant Bogdanovic of the New York City police," Dane said. "He's in charge of the investigation and wants to have a look around Theo's office."

"Pleased to meet you, Sergeant," he said, extending a hand. "I'm Dave Kolker. Help yourself to the house."

"Before we go inside," Bogdanovic said, "I have a couple of questions for you, if I may."

"Of course. Anything I can do to help."

"When was the last time you saw Mr. Janus?"

"Early Saturday evening. He looked in at the stables on his way out to attend a dinner in the city."

"How did he seem to you?"

"He was his usual self, except that he was excited because he was getting an award of some kind." "Did he have any visitors that day?"

"Not that I know of. He was working in his office most of the day."

"Did he ever tell you to keep an eye out for strangers?"

Hooking thumbs into the loops of a wide black belt, Kolker slowly shook his head. "No, sir, he didn't."

"Did you ever see anyone in the vicinity who might have been watching the ranch? Did you ever notice a car driving past this place several times? Or one that might have been parked awhile?"

"People driving by sometimes and stop to look at the horses in the pastures. Once in a while someone will drive up the road to look at the house because they know who it belongs to. One day I had to ask the sheriff's department to send out some deputies because there was a bunch of people down by the gate. They were yelling a lot and carrying signs that accused Mr. Janus of letting a killer go scot-free. But they never got anywhere close to the house."

"Did Mr. Janus express any worries to you about his safety?"

"The only safety worry he ever expressed to me was about the horses," he said, looking toward the stables. "He was concerned that some nut might try to harm them as a way of getting at him. But nothing like that ever happened."

"Were there any threats made against him by phone or mail?"

The big hands became fists on hips. "Plenty of those came in during and after the trial, but Mr. Janus was used to that sort of thing. He's got drawers full of them. He said he was going to publish them someday."

"Who else works at the ranch?"

"There's a housekeeper, Mrs. Fulmer, who comes in twice a week to clean and do the cooking, which she leaves in the fridge."

"Thank you, Mr. Kolker. We won't detain you further. If you have any more problems with the press bothering you, I'm sure the sheriff s department would be happy to send someone out to chase them away. If that doesn't do it, give a call to the district attorney's office. Ask for Arlene Flynn and tell her I said I'd appreciate anything she might do to help out."

"Thanks, Sergeant, but I can handle the press," he said as he strode away. "If I can do anything to help you and Miss Dane, give me a shout. I'll be at the stables."

With a smile as the young man walked away, Bogdanovic said, "Where did Janus find him, Maggie? He looks as if he came right from Central Casting's bronco-buster department."

"Theo actually discovered him at the Fishkill Correctional Facility. He was doing time for armed robbery and working in the prison law library, preparing appeals and writs of habeas corpus for inmates. One of them somehow found its way to Theo's desk and was so impressive that when Dave was up for parole Theo went to bat for him and offered him a job as a paralegal. Then he discovered that Dave's ability to handle horses exceeded his skills as a jailhouse lawyer. The result is a life rescued from the revolving door of crime, prison, parole, and recidivism."

"You've made your point, Maggie," Bogdanovic said as they entered the house. "I was wrong about Janus. He wasn't the tricky Philadelphia lawyer I took him to be. He was a saint."

"He was hardly that, John," she said, leading him toward the office. "He was a decent human being with a law license. And if you dare to make a crack about that being an oxymoron, I'll give you a swift kick in the ass."

Pausing in the doorway of the office and regarding the walls festooned with the artifacts and memorabilia of the career of the man who had been named in honor of the twenty-sixth president of the United States, Bogdanovic let out a low whistle and muttered, "Si monumentum requiris circumspice."

With eyes blinking in astonishment, Dane gasped, " 'If you would see the man's monument look around.' I am impressed, John!"

"By my Latin, or by Janus's monument to himself?"

She stepped into the room as softly as she might enter the tomb of a great man. "Theo did not believe in sticking memories in a drawer. He told me once that there are three things to do with a wall. Leave it empty, hang a single supreme work of art, or cover it with everything meaningful in your life."

"I don't know about walls," he said, advancing across the room, "but I do know that if you want to find what's really important in someone's life, start by looking in the desk drawers, then move on to closets."

As he sat behind the massive desk, she stood before a set of glass-front cabinets containing morocco-bound volumes, each with the name of a Theodore R. Janus case embossed in gold. "These are his collection of openings and closings I told you about."

"Fascinating, I'm sure," he said. "But ancient history."

She opened a case, withdrew a slender volume, and opened it. "Here's the appeal he filed on behalf of Victoria Davis, along with a transcript of his amazing oral argument."

In a triumphant tone Bogdanovic declared, "And here is his appointment book. If you would see the man, look up who he made dates with."

"Happiness for the detective is finding a paper trail," she replied, gently replacing the Davis volume. "What do you hope to find in his date book?"

"I'll know it when I find it."

"Pity the murdered," she said, moving from the glass-front cases to a shelf of books Janus had written. "They are allowed no secrets. Everything about them must be ferreted out and revealed. If the murderer is to be caught, you must first get to know the victim. All the secrets, the dirty linen, lovers, if he cheated on his taxes, all the human things that might point to a motive. Does it ever bother you, John?"

"Looking through a victim's effects? Not really."

"Effects. What we call effects, someone called possessions. A watch, a wallet, clothing. An appointment book."

"According to this one, he hasn't had many clients lately."

"Theo never had a lot of clients. He was highly selective and always pragmatic. His genius was not, as everyone believed, in taking on every seemingly impossible case that came his way and winning them, but in analyzing the likelihood of success before leaping in. He was never the modern Don Quixote tilting at windmills the press made him out to be. If he chose to fight, it was because he was certain he had the weapons that would give him a chance to win. He liked to say that David defeated Goliath not because David was brave, or because he appreciated he was expert with a slingshot, but because he had analyzed the vulnerability of the foreheads of giants to rocks."

"Ah! Here's Mr. Elwell," Bogdanovic said excitedly. "It's a note on his last attempt at seeing Elwell. Quote: I have no hope whatsoever of breaking case without Elwell's cooperation. Time to move on. Have informed all those concerned with it that the matter is closed. Unquote. What do you make of that, Maggie?"

"If he decided to drop the Elwell matter and he'd informed all those concerned with it, I think you have to look elsewhere for a motive."

"But how would you explain Elwell's being murdered after Janus tried to see him?"

With a shrug, she replied, "Coincidence."

"Oh, come on, Maggie," he retorted. "Elwell's being stabbed to death one day after Janus tried to talk to him was coincidence'?''1

"Elwell was killed after Theo's last attempt to visit him," she said as Bogdanovic flipped open the lid of a humidor at the right side of the desk. "It seems to me that if someone had been worried about Elwell talking to Theo, he would have been killed after Theo's first visit."

"Someone might have been afraid that Elwell might change his mind about talking to Janus," Bogdanovic said, fishing out a long black cigar from the humidor. Sniffing it, he grunted, "Strong!"

"Assuming that someone wanted to kill Elwell in order to prevent Elwell from changing his mind," she continued, "and assuming that purpose had been achieved the day after Theo's latest visit, why was it necessary to also kill Theo?"

"To keep Janus from revealing what he learned from Elwell," he answered, replacing the cigar and closing the humidor.

"But Theo had learned nothing," Dane protested.

"The killer didn't know that," he said, looking around the room. "There must be a file on Elwell somewhere in this room."

"With Elwell dead, it wouldn't matter what Theo knew," Dane said. "Without Elwell's testimony there could be no case. Theo recognized that himself. If he felt that it was time to move on, I think we should, too."

"You're probably right, but just to be certain, I'm going to get someone up here to go through Janus's files."

"If it turns out that the Elwell case was not the motive for Theo's murder," Dane said, "where does that leave us?"

"It leaves us smack dab in the middle of the dreaded Paulie Mancuso quagmire. Or have you come up with a logical explanation for the triple coincidence of Paulie's going out the window of that hotel room, a copy of Janus's autobiography on the table next to Mancuso's bed, and Janus's being found shot to death a couple of hours later?"

"I must admit it's a puzzle worthy of the pen of Rex Stout, who seems to have had a fixation on the numeral three."

"Being ignorant on the topic, I wouldn't know."

"I didn't make the connection myself until I read Theo's wonderful Nero Wolfe encyclopedia. There were six collections of short stories with the word three in the tide, one with the word triple, one with triplicate, one trio, and one trinity.''

"Well three cheers for Mr. Stout."

"You ought to have a copy of Theo's book. Yes. I shall drop by Wiggins's bookstore and get you one as a Christmas gift."

"Thank you, but I'm still trying to get through the complete adventures of Sherlock Holmes that Goldstein thrust upon me a few years ago. I find it impossible to get excited about a man who's always running around in a cape and a ridiculous hat in Victorian London, yelling, 'The game's afoot' at Dr. Watson."

"Of course you can't. You're the two-fisted New Yorker, just like Archie Goodwin."

Looking again at Janus's appointment book, Bogdanovic said, 'Janus had some visitors in the past few months. Stamos, Henry,

Pendelton." He gave a little bark of a laugh. "Speaking of people who run around in a cape, here's an odd entry. The Sunday after Janus's last trip to Watertown, he was expecting a visit from our mutual friend Wiggins. He wrote, 'Send Dave in Rolls to pick up Wiggins.' That is very odd indeed."

"What's so odd about Wiggins making an excursion into the country on a Sunday?"

"What is odd about it," he said, closing the book, "is that Wiggins is notorious for hating to leave his store. Suddenly, he's making a trip into the country."

"He probably wanted to go over arrangements for the Black Orchid dinner."

"I've known Wiggins a long time. He would have done that by telephone. If Janus sent his car to bring him here, the visit was Janus's doing. He wanted to see Wiggins about something he didn't want to discuss on the phone, or by dropping in on Wiggins at his bookstore."

"It's an easy matter to clear up. Ask Wiggins."

"I intend to do just that. I'll drop in at his store first thing tomorrow."

"Oh how thoughtless of me," she exclaimed. "I ought to have called him and told him about Theo. Do you think he's found out by now?"

"If he hasn't heard it from the radio or TV, it will be all over the Monday morning papers."

"What a horrible way for him to find out. As his friend, I really should call him, John."

"I appreciate your feelings, Maggie, but I prefer that you not talk to him before I do. He could be a material witness. You are, of course, welcome to come along with me when I talk to him in the morning."

"Very well," she said dejectedly. "It is your case."

"Besides, having been delighted to have been regarded very briefly as a prime suspect in the Griffith case a few years ago, I'm certain Wiggins will be thrilled to find himself smack in the middle of this one. And while you and I are visiting with him to inquire about his singular departure from the city, Leibholz and Reiter will be sifting through the files in this office with the proverbial fine-tooth comb. As the detective's handy guide to how to solve a murder, Latin edition, says, 'Si motivum homicidum requiris circumspice fium.' Now, how about lunch? I happen to know a terrific seafood place overlooking the Hudson River in a delightfully quaint section of Newtown called the Gove."