Death Of A Dream Maker (31 page)

“Sir?” the old guard asked fearfully, hat bobbing in
his trembling hands.

“What?” Abromowitz barked in irritation. “Can't you
see I'm interrogating?”

“Have you contacted Mr. Rosenbloom yet?” the old man
asked with a gulp.

“Which Mr. Rosenbloom? This place stinks with
them.”

Point of fact, there was only one Mr. Rosenbloom left
involved in the family business. The guard wisely chose not to
point this out. “Jake Rosenbloom,” he explained, his face starting
to crumple. “He'll fire me. I know he will. He'll say it's my fault
and then I'll have no health insurance and we'll lose the house
and...” His voice weakened. “He's been trying to fire me ever since
his uncle died,” he finished miserably. “I don't know what I'll do
if he does.”

“Look, I'll put in a good word for you, okay?”
Abromowitz promised. “If we can ever get in touch with the bastard,
I'll let him know it couldn't possibly be your fault.”

The man nodded gratefully and shuffled away.

“Jesus,” Abromowitz said. “Is this the twentieth
century or what? The guy acts like an indentured servant. Where was
I?” Neither Auntie Lil nor Casey professed to remember, Auntie Lil
because she knew she was in enough trouble and Casey because she
had been kicked sharply on the shin by Auntie Lil.

“You know,” Abromowitz said to Casey, “this escapade
tonight is something that I've come to expect from Miss Hubbert.
But you're a professional. Or say you are. And you led her right
into this trap.”

Casey was indignant. “You try controlling her,” she
spat back at the lieutenant, with a healthy glare toward Auntie
Lil.

T.S. was horrified at the message awaiting him on his
answering machine. He played it twice to make sure that Auntie Lil
was not seriously injured, then fled right back out the door for
his second trip of the day to Max Rose Fashions. He arrived in time
to share an elevator with Thomas Brody. The chief financial officer
was dressed elegantly, his tuxedo immaculately fitted to his big
frame. He had obviously been at an important function and had just
as obviously been imbibing there. He reeked of alcohol and his eyes
were preternaturally bright.

“Looks like this interrupted your evening,” T.S. said
politely. He smelled no better than Brody, of course, after all the
Dewer’s he'd downed at the Swan Dive. Together, they raised the
temperature in the elevator a good ten degrees.

“It was boring anyway,” Brody said. “Your aunt's
okay, I hear. That's good news.”

“Yes. It's the reaction of the police I'm worried
about.” They rode the rest of the way up in grim silence.

“Who are you?” a uniformed cop demanded when they
reached the sample-room floor. Brody identified himself and
introduced T.S. The cop nodded glumly and returned to his doughnut,
sniffing suspiciously at the air as they passed by.

“No wonder this company's in trouble,” Abromowitz
said after Brody had introduced himself. “You can't get in touch
with anyone who knows what's going on.”

“Well, I am the chief financial officer,” Brody
explained stiffly. “And these two people are part owners. In case
you've forgotten.” He gestured to Auntie Lil and T.S.

“Who's Rosalie Benpensata?” Abromowitz demanded.

Brody spread his arms wide in surrender. “I give up.
Who is Rosalie Benpensata?”

“Don't get smart with me.” Abromowitz glowered at
Brody. “She works for you.”

“I assure you she does not.”

“She's an accountant,” Auntie Lil explained. “You
must know who she is.”

Brody shook his head. “We have over a hundred
employees and I don't know them all, but I do know the financial
professsionals. There's no Rosalie Benpensata on staff.” He turned
to Auntie Lil. “What were you doing here at night?”

Abromowitz interrupted. “I suppose you can account
for your whereabouts for every minute of this evening,” he
said.

Brody paused and his face grew red. He waited until
he had returned to his normal color before he spoke. “I can,” he
said calmly. “I was on the dais at a dinner honoring the new mayor.
As a matter of fact, I was seated next to the new chief of
police.”

“Just doing my job,” Abromowitz muttered.

A beefy detective barreled through the fire-exit
doors, breathing heavily.

“Good God, Spencer. Take the elevator next time, will
ya?” Abromowitz commanded when the man arrived at their circle,
huffing for breath. “I can't afford to have anyone else kick off
right now, know what I mean?”

“Rosalie Benpensata's dead,” the beefy detective told
him. “She died twelve years ago. Of cancer. It's all in her file.”
He thrust a thin brown folder at the lieutenant.

Abromowitz ignored it. He was staring at Auntie Lil.
“What was it you were saying about no one else in the world knowing
that you'd once done a favor for Rosalie?” he asked.

“Forget what you think,” Abromowitz commanded. “Just
tell me what you know.”

They were gathered in T.S.'s living room and made a
truly motley crew. Casey and Auntie Lil had refused to be taken to
the emergency room for checkups, both declaring that they would
rather die than be subjected to the waiting and abuse that a visit
to a New York City hospital in the middle of the night typically
entailed. Casey had blood on the front of her yellow dress, and a
large purple bruise was creeping like a stain from beneath her head
bandage. Auntie Lil had a long scratch on one cheek where a metal
hanger had caught her, and her hair stood up in unruly curls. T.S.
was rumpled and reeked of alcohol. Only Thomas Brody looked
composed in his tuxedo.

Abromowitz was the most irritable and disheveled of
them all. He had just been through a very long day and had then
been called back to the scene when the precinct got the call from
Max Rose Fashions. But despite his exhaustion, he had insisted on
accompanying them home to T.S.'s apartment. They had all agreed
that it was safer for Auntie Lil to stay with T.S. for the time
being. After being informed of the attack, Herbert had been
persuaded to stay home and was assigned the task of bringing Auntie
Lil fresh clothes and supplies in the morning.

Once upstairs, Abromowitz had informed them that he
was not leaving until they told him everything they knew about the
Rosenbloom case.

“How do I know you'll use the information well?”
Auntie Lil demanded. “After all, you thought I killed Max. Which
anyone knows is completely ridiculous.”

“Look, for the last time—I never really thought you
killed him,” Abromowitz said. “But I thought you had information I
needed. And I had to satisfy the family. They were calling for your
blood. With good reason. You did have a motive: lots of money. And
physical evidence supported their claims that you'd been snooping.
What was I supposed to do? At the very least I had to bring you in
for questioning.”

T.S. could not tolerate another battle of wills
between Abromowitz and Auntie Lil. He was too tired. He forestalled
a war by dropping to his knees at Auntie Lil's feet. “Aunt Lil,” he
said in as patient a voice as he could muster, “someone tried to
kill you tonight.” He held up a hand to stifle her protests. “No,
don't argue. They weren't trying to scare you. They wanted to kill
you. If Casey hadn't been there, they would have succeeded.”

“We should never, ever have gone there in the first
place,” Casey muttered.

T.S. nodded. “But it's over. And now I want you to
tell Lieutenant Abromowitz everything you've learned about the
Rosenblooms to date. I know I am going to tell him everything. And
so is Casey.” He shot a glance at Casey, who nodded glumly. “That's
the way it's going to be. This has gotten too dangerous. Do what
the man says.”

Abromowitz folded his arms over his ample chest and
nodded sagely throughout T.S.'s speech. This was intensely
aggravating to Auntie Lil, but she agreed to cooperate anyway.

'“Good,” the lieutenant said. “Who wants to go
first?”

Casey did. She intended to get it over with, she
announced, then go take a shower and change into something more
comfortable. This was the first that T.S. had heard about her plans
to stay over at his apartment, but he could not in good conscience
protest. She had sustained a blow to the head. It was not prudent
for her to be alone.

Casey told Abromowitz what she could: that Sabrina
had definitely been cheating on Max Rosenbloom; that she had
visited her favorite motel at least once with Davy, along with most
of the male half of Long Island; that her infidelity could cause
her to lose what little money she'd stood to gain by Max's death;
that Sabrina had lied to her husband both about her age and her
willingness to have children; and that the family had not known
that they had been cut out of Max's will.

“And you don't have a clue as to who attacked you
tonight?” Abromowitz asked when she was through.

Casey touched her forehead and flinched. “I know they
were strong. At least one of them was bigger than me. But they were
kind of slow and indecisive, I guess. Out of shape, too. I'd be
surprised if they were professionals.”

Abromowitz nodded. “Your turn,” he told Auntie
Lil.

Being asked to describe what she knew, but not what
she thought, was torture for Auntie Lil. She outlined what she felt
were the most important facts about the case so far: Abby had
banished Seth and Karen from the family, but Abe wanted to see his
son again, and did see Karen regularly; Joyce Carruthers, the
bookkeeper, was feeding information regularly to Joseph Galvano,
but the mobster had not yet succeeded in infiltrating Max Rose
Fashions; and Joyce had been in love with Max years ago and
resented Auntie Lil. Abromowitz interrupted and told her to stick
to the facts, and Auntie Lil retaliated stiffly by saying that it
was a fact that someone had tried to run her down with a truck, no
matter what Abromowitz and everyone else tried to say; that it was
a fact Abe kept a gun in his bedside table, but she didn't know
what kind; that it was a fact Abe knew the contents of Max's final
will but had told no one else; and that it was a fact Jake had
found out very quickly when Auntie Lil visited Abe and had been
very angry about it. When it became embarrassingly obvious from his
questions that Abromowitz had not been given a rundown by the feds
on Auntie Lil's conversation with Galvano, Auntie Lil also let him
know that Davy's death was costing Galvano a lot of money, so she
doubted he'd had anything to do with it.

“Not bad,” the lieutenant admitted when she was
through. “Nearly all of that was fact.” He paused. “There was no
mention of that long-ago incident in Rosalie Benpensata's employee
file. Are you sure you never told anyone what you did for her?
Whoever called knew about it.”

Auntie Lil nodded emphatically. She was sure she had
never told anyone.

“Would Max have told anyone?” the lieutenant
insisted.

Auntie Lil shook her head. “No. He believed in
keeping things like that very private. Besides, it would have been
embarrassing if it had gotten out. People would think he couldn't
control his company if he couldn't control his own brother.”

“Would Abe have told anyone?” Abromowitz asked.

Auntie Lil shrugged. “I don't know. But whoever
called me up had to have known who Rosalie was.”

Lieutenant Abromowitz stared hard at her. “Anything
else?” he warned sternly.

“Well...” She thought hard. “I really do think I hit
someone when I struck out with those scissors. It may be a deep
cut.” She shivered, remembering the feel of the thick blade sliding
into soft tissue.

“There wasn't much blood on the floor, it was
probably just hers.” Abromowitz nodded toward Casey. “But I'll be
sure to strip-search any suspects anyway,” he promised.

“I did stab someone,” Auntie Lil insisted, offended
by his attitude.

“No one is calling you a wimp,” the lieutenant
agreed. “I'm sure you tried.”

T.S. was angered by his patronizing tone. After all,
they were cooperating. He had no need to be a boor. “If my aunt
says she stabbed someone, she did,” he said stiffly.

“And what can you contribute to our group encounter?”
Abromowitz asked T.S. He knew he was being more unpleasant than the
situation called for, but it rankled him to learn that the feds had
withheld information that could have been of help. This little old
lady and her friends had known, while he had been kept in the
dark.

“If you think this is just a big joke, I'll keep my
information to myself,” T.S. said.

“No. Go on. Maybe I'd better sit down.” The
lieutenant eased his bulk into one of T.S.'s sleek modern chairs
and seemed surprised at its comfort. He sighed deeply and rubbed at
one of his ankles. It had been aching all day. The others were
silent, some of them feeling ashamed at their treatment of
Abromowitz. He did look awfully tired.

“I learned some things that might help,” T.S. told
him. “Jake and Sabrina are leading an attempt to block the
distribution of Max's estate. Also, everyone in the family knew
that Jake was going to eventually head up Max Rose simply because
there was no one else left to do so.”

“Unless the company was sold,” Brody pointed out.

'True. But the family did not seem to know that was
an option,” T.S. said. “I also learned today, from Mr. Brody here,
that the company itself stood to profit a great deal from Max's
death. By three million dollars, to be exact.”

“I know everything that Mr. Brody has to say,”
Abromowitz interrupted. “We don't need to get into that.”

“Well, I don't know everything he has to say,” Auntie
Lil said loudly.

The lieutenant looked grim. “I've talked to him and
that's enough.”

“No, it isn't,” Auntie Lil insisted “It's partly my
company now. I have a right to know.”