Death Of A Dream Maker (32 page)

“I think that she does have a right to know certain
things, given that her life has been endangered by this whole
situation,” Brody told Abromowitz tactfully.

The lieutenant groaned and struggled to his feet. “I
can't stop you from talking among yourselves. But I can't stay
around and listen, either. I'm just too tired. I'll be in touch.
Believe me, I'll be in touch.”

He lumbered wearily out the door, wondering how in
the world he would ever untangle this mess. He knew someone was
guilty, but had no idea who. He sighed. The information on Galvano
had been news to him. The feds had told him very little about that
aspect of their investigation, claiming that it might compromise an
ongoing case of theirs. Of course, he was expected to apprise them
of every development in his case, no matter how small. He'd even
phoned in news of Auntie Lil's attack tonight. But did they
reciprocate? Of course not. Until Auntie Lil described her
conversation with Galvano, Abromowitz had been largely guessing
about the mobster's involvement with Max Rose Fashions. How did the
feds expect him to solve two murders with half the information?
Thank God,
he thought privately,
for that old dame in
there. I need her this time around. Not that I would ever tell her.
No way. I'd rather give up doughnuts than let her know.

Lieutenant Abromowitz was well out the lobby door by
the time Casey rejoined everyone in the living room. To his
chagrin, T.S. noticed that Casey had appropriated his terry-cloth
bathrobe and had wound one of his favorite yellow towels around her
head. If she leaked blood on it, he'd never get the stain out.

“I have my bandage on,” Casey protested, reading his
glare correctly.

T.S. sighed. He did not take to this female invasion
of his abode very well.

“What other information have you given the
lieutenant?” Auntie Lil asked Brody. She had moved beside him on
the sofa and was giving him the full force of her attention,
leaning forward and resting a hand on his knee. She crowded Brody
so closely that it seemed to him to be physically impossible not to
share his information with her.

“Max was with me right before he died,” Brody
explained. He shifted his body away and attempted to reclaim
control of the conversation. “We'd been discussing the improving
financials, but despite that good news, Max was not happy. Davy had
apparently lost another bundle down in Atlantic City and wanted Max
to bail him out for the umpteenth time. Max questioned the wisdom
of keeping Davy around the firm's money. He already knew he'd had
something to do with the V.J. Productions fraud, but at the time no
one was quite sure what. They had a fight about it, but Davy was
admitting nothing. I suspected it all led back to Davy and
counseled Max to cut Davy off from access to funds immediately. He
couldn't bring himself to agree. To top it off, Max's wife had
wrecked her car the day before and was driving his. Max loved his
old Audi. He was afraid that Sabrina would wreck it, too, and a
little put out that he was the one having to take the train back
and forth from the city until her car was fixed. But he wouldn’t
hear of using a car service or driver. He said limousines were
ostentatious. Jake rushed in with some damn-fool little question
toward the end of our conversation and Max waved him away. After
Jake left, Max just seemed to snap. ‘I’m not changing my mind,’ he
told me, and I had absolutely no idea what Max was talking about.
Then he returned to his office, and the next thing I know, there
was an explosion half a block away. And it was Max. He died
instantly.”

“When did the employees learn of his death?” Auntie
Lil asked, her voice fainter than usual at the remainder of how Max
had died.

“Almost at once. One of our salesmen had seen Max go
into the garage and ran back to check with the attendant. After
that, the rumor just swept through the floors. Next day, of course,
a memo went around in the afternoon confirming that Max had died
and letting all the employees know about the funeral
arrangements.”

“Did it say where he was being buried?” Auntie Lil
asked.

Brody nodded. “Sure. A lot of the employees had
worked for him for decades. They would want to pay their respects.
We even closed down the shop the day of the service. Quite a few
attended. I, uh, saw you there.” He tactfully did not mention
Auntie Lil's discovery of Davy's body, or the rabbi and widow's
slide down into the open grave.

“When did you notice that Davy was missing?” T.S.
asked.

“We didn't,” Brody explained. “None of the family
came in the day after Max died. I assumed they were making funeral
arrangements and dealing with their grief. Besides, it was not your
typical workday. The police were in asking questions of everyone.
After Davy was found dead, that got even worse. We were shut down,
in effect, for days.”

Under Auntie Lil’s questioning, Brody turned his
attention to the management of Max Rose Fashions. He recapped some
of what he'd told T.S. earlier in that long day, including the fact
that Karen had worked at Max Rose but left abruptly a few months
after he got there. He was surprised to hear Seth's contention that
someone had been setting Karen up for fraud by creating problems
with her accounts, but promised to look into it.

“I wouldn't have recommended Jake as a successor to
Max,” Brody said in response to a question by Auntie Lil. “And Max
would have asked my opinion. We got along well. Despite what the
family thought, I think Jake suspected that Max would not name him
president once he retired. Jake was almost desperate to convince
his uncle that he was competent. It was pathetic and it bothered
Max greatly.”

Brody stared down at the area rug. “I knew how Max
felt,” he said. “The disappointment at not having anyone to leave
his company to. Every man wants an heir to carry on the dream. I
see that a lot when I go into companies that need help and it
always gets to me. Men spend their lives turning their dreams into
reality. Then they look around and there's no one to share the
dream.” He smiled bitterly. “I know how he felt. My own son is...”
He paused. “Difficult. Unemployable. Schizophrenic, actually.
Hospitalized much of the time.”

So much for the theory about Brody wanting to build
his own family dynasty, T.S. thought.

Brody stood up. “You people are tired. I know I am.
And I'd better be at my desk bright and early tomorrow. Some
Rosenbloom is bound to have turned up by then, and they'll be
screaming about the mess on the cutting-room floor.” Brody smiled,
but the creases around his bright eyes hung heavily and his face
shone with a gray pallor. He said his good-byes and abruptly left
them.

“When he runs out of steam, he really runs out of
steam,” T.S. remarked.

“That's what happens when people go through life full
speed ahead,” Auntie Lil said. “But I think he's a good man. Don't
you?”

T.S. hoped that she was right. He led Auntie Lil to
the spare bedroom and gave Casey the pillow and blankets she'd need
for a night on the couch.

He was looking forward to a hot shower before bed and
so had no other choice but to approach the mess in his bathroom
stoically. Panty hose and underwear hung to dry on his towel rods;
assorted tubes of cosmetics marched across his bathroom countertop.
How did women fit so much makeup on so little skin? No matter, at
least he'd be alone in the shower.

Even meeting Casey's newly washed dress hanging in
the center of his shower stall did not deter him. He merely pushed
it to one side and let the scalding jets of water wash the smell of
Scotch and weariness from his skin.
Someone had tried to hurt
his beloved Auntie Lil tonight,
he reminded himself. And he
intended to find out exactly who it had been.

T.S. rose early, hoping to grab a few minutes of
blessed quiet before Auntie Lil and Casey woke up. He was an
orderly man and his morning routine was sacred: wake up, cuddle
with the cats, shave in his bathrobe, brush his teeth, make coffee
from freshly ground beans, prepare half of a toasted onion bagel
with a tablespoon of cream cheese, squeeze eight ounces of fresh
orange juice, and then sit down to a leisurely
breakfast-and-newspaper session. He became grumpy whenever his
regimen was interrupted. Consequently, he was extraordinarily
grumpy that morning. For starters, Brenda and Eddie had deserted
him for someone else's bed, and he had missed their morning purring
acutely. Secondly, he stumbled into Casey's rear end when he
entered his bathroom and nearly knocked his head on a towel rack.
She was on her hands and knees—in his good bathrobe—examining two
small swinging doors inset in his bathroom closet door.

“
What are these?” she asked
through a mouthful of food. T.S. realized with horror that she had
set her morning bagel down on his gleaming countertop. What looked
to be half a pack of cream cheese was smeared over his Italian
marble. She had not even bothered with a plate. There was even a
smidgen of cream cheese dangling from her head bandage. A trail of
light brown drops across his clean tile floor led to an overflowing
mug of coffee by her side.

How was it even possible to be so disheveled that
early in the morning? He shuddered and clenched his teeth. “Those
are cat doors,” he replied stiffly.

“Cat doors?” She poked one open with her finger.
“I'll be damned. This leads to a special kitty-litter compartment?
Talk about clean.” Casey opened the larger closet door and peered
inside. “Rows of air freshener on special shelves surrounding the
pan?” She turned and stared at T.S. “You make that guy in
The
Odd Couple
look like a slob.”

“Could I have my bathroom back?” T.S. demanded.

“Sorry.” She collected her breakfast and marched
dramatically from the room, leaving a trail of crumbs and coffee
droplets behind her.

Women. They frightened him, with the exception of
Lilah. When was she coming home anyway and when would this infernal
disruption of his life come to an end?

At least Casey made decent coffee. T.S. sat with her
at his dining room table, staring out at the winding line of cars
that marked York Avenue during morning rush hour. He loved to watch
the world hurrying to work while he sat at home, retired. He was
grateful that Casey seemed more interested in eating his entire
week's worth of groceries than she was in conversation.

The doorbell jolted him from his reverie. It could
only be Herbert—Mahmoud would have called up to clear anyone else.
But it was barely nine o'clock and Herbert knew quite well that
only an earthquake was likely to raise Auntie Lil before the ten
o'clock hour.

Herbert was toting a large laundry bag of Auntie
Lil's neatly folded clothes. “It is impossible to anticipate her
mood,” he explained. “Thus I have brought everything that I could
find. I will let her choose.” He dropped the bag in the middle of
T.S.'s spartan living room, where it loomed up like a small
mountain amid the clean, uncluttered lines of his modern decor.

“What brings you out so early?” T.S. asked him
glumly. He was being invaded, piece by persistent piece. Soon all
of New York would move in with him.

“I could not wait any longer. I wanted to see for
myself that Lillian was well.” Herbert sat at the dining room table
and nodded at Casey. “I also wanted to discuss the case. I was
pondering its mysteries early this morning while performing my
mental exercises. There is much that disturbs me.”

“Murder is always disturbing,” T.S. said.

“No. It is more than that. The universe assigns a
balance to all things. Even to murder. Sometimes we cannot see that
balance until a long time after the fact. But if you look at these
two murders together, there is no balance. One was quite
efficient—a bomb in the car. Over in seconds. The other was messy
and surely a difficult task: dragging a man into an open grave on a
rainy night. I cannot make them fit. I believe that we may be
looking at two separate events entirely—and if we continue to
consider them together, we may be doomed to fail.”

“What do you mean?” T.S. asked, his curiosity
aroused.

“I mean that we must take a new look at each murder,
separately, as well as the events before and after the killings.
Let us see what we can deduce from each small event. It may be
possible to then eliminate suspects from each murder. If we end up
with people in common for both deaths, then perhaps we have our
murderer. If not, let us consider two separate killers. If we
combine them from the beginning, however, we will surely muddy the
stew.”

Muddy the stew? T.S. let it pass. Herbert's metaphors
were off, but his deductive reasoning was sound.

A commotion in the hallway distracted them. Auntie
Lil had been lured out of bed by the sounds of their voices and was
busy scuffling with the cats for hall space. “Theodore, get these
things off me,” she demanded sleepily. “It's too early for one to
be expected to show affection for another living creature.” At nine
o'clock in the morning, Auntie Lil believed it too early for
anything, except downing as many cups of coffee as she could.

T.S. retrieved Brenda and Eddie and shooed them into
the dining room, where they promptly curled themselves around
Casey's ankles and fell asleep. He knew then where the two furry
little traitors had spent the night.

“What am I missing?” Auntie Lil asked, heading for
the coffee machine. T.S. watched her closely, disturbed by her pale
coloring. She also moved slowly, which was unlike her, and stiffly.
He suspected her back hurt. He was used to pink apple cheeks and a
robust bearing. Her uncharacterisic frailty frightened him.
Eighty-four was really quite old.

When Herbert explained his theory to Auntie Lil, she
was instantly alert. “Of course,” she said. “You are absolutely
right. This is what we must do today.” She began to outline her
ideas for a new plan until T.S. broke in.