Due Diligence (21 page)

I headed off briskly in the direction he had pointed me, the Walgreens bag in one hand while I pretended to use the other hand for guidance. I turned right at the end of the aisle. When I got beyond his line of sight, I started running toward the escalator.

That's when I spotted him—the guy who had stalked me through the mall yesterday. He was over in the shirt section, dressed in a navy blue sweatshirt, faded jeans, and Reeboks. His red hair was hidden beneath a Detroit Tigers baseball cap. I saw his gaze shift momentarily toward the men's furnishings section. I looked, too. Standing by a rack of ties was the same burly black man I had seen at the Walgreens.

I took the down escalator two steps at a time, not bothering to look back. The south exit was directly ahead. The clock above the revolving doors showed 9:07 p.m. As I pushed through the doors I had a horrible thought:
What if the cab isn't there
?

But it was, thank God. Parked along the curb over to the left, the engine idling. I ran to it and hopped in back.

“Go!” I told the driver.

“Where to?”

“Just get us out of here,” I yelled, panting. “Hurry.”

As he pulled away, I turned to look out the back window just as the two men came bursting through the revolving doors. I slid down out of view, my pulse hammering furiously.

Chapter Twenty-one

I waited for a response. “Well?” I finally asked.

“Someone's trying to cover up some bad shit,” Flo said.

“That's what I think,” I said. I had called her long distance from my room at the Airport Hilton to explain my predicament.

“You think the coverup goes all the way back to the seventies?” Flo asked.

“Everything seems to point that way, including what Bruce told David Marcus. David must have misheard him. I don't think Bruce wanted to see a lawyer about ‘statutory limits.' I think he wanted to see a lawyer about the ‘statute of limitations.' He wanted to know whether a crime from back then was still considered a crime.”

“So what's the crime?”

“I don't know, but I'm getting close, Flo. I know I'm getting close. Think the
Trib
will be interested?”

“Interested? Good God, Rachel. Does the wild bear shit in the woods? An exclusive with the possibility of an Armstrong connection is going to give every one of these editors a huge hard-on. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if my bureau chief starts dry humping the water cooler.”

“Perfect. What's the
Trib
's Federal Express account number?”

“Hang on.” A moment later she read it to me. “What are you sending me?”

“Original evidence.”

“Of what?”

“It's that sheet of paper with the four columns of names and the private watermark. The one Bruce gave to David. Whatever it shows, it's clearly significant. There's a Fed Ex mailbox in the hotel lobby. You'll have it tomorrow. Put it somewhere safe, Flo.”

“Will do. How do I contact you?”

“You can call me here tonight.” I gave her the phone number. “Ask for Elizabeth Bennett.”

She chuckled. “A wonderful novel.”

“I'm her tonight.”

“Check out of there tomorrow,” she said.

“I plan to. I'll find somewhere else for tomorrow night.”

“Good. If they've done all that you think they've done over the past month, you can't take any chances. You've got to keep moving.”

“I know,” I said. “But it also means I've got to close the loop on this soon. I'm running out of time.”

“I'll join you tomorrow. How can I help tonight?”

“Can you get your hands on a St. Louis telephone directory from the seventies?”

“Sure. If we don't have one here, they'll have one in Chicago. What do you need?”

“There are two names at the top of these lists I'm sending you. One is Beth Shalom.”

“A synagogue?”

“Maybe. The other is Labadie Gardens.” I spelled Labadie for her. “I couldn't find a listing for either in my telephone book, but I didn't know that the list was created sometime in the 1970s. Since Armstrong Bioproducts was a St. Louis company, the odds are that Beth Shalom and Labadie Gardens are St. Louis names.”

“I'll get on it now. I'll call you back if I find anything.”

“Thanks, Flo.”

“You be careful, Rachel.”

***

Ninety minutes later, I turned off the hair dryer and studied myself in the bathroom mirror.

“Well,” I said with a smile, “we'll finally get to see whether they really do have more fun.”

Gone were my shoulder-length natural brown curls, replaced by short blond hair, straightened with help from the hair dryer. I turned to check out the sides and back. It wasn't bad for a home cut. A little punky, but that was good. It increased the contrast with the old me, which meant it improved the disguise. I put on the pair of glasses from Walgreens and looked at my reflection, full face and both side profiles.

Interesting
.

A few minutes later, I was back in the bedroom sorting through the outfits that Benny and my sister had packed for me when the phone rang. I straightened up and stared at it. Only one person was supposed to know the number. I moved quickly to the door and peered through the spy hole. No one out there. I went back to the nightstand and lifted the receiver.

“Hello?” I said warily.

“Greetings, Miss Bennett,” said Flo. “It's me.”

“Thank God,” I said with relief.

“I'm flying to St. Louis late tomorrow afternoon. I just got the green light from my bureau chief.”

“Is he okay?”

“Believe it or not, he used to be the editor of the Tempo section. I was worried he might turn out to be some weird hybrid of Sydney Omarr and Ann Landers, but he's pretty cool, and he's got brass balls. If this thing leads where it seems to be headed, Rachel, we're going to need a bureau chief with brass balls.”

“When's your plane get in?”

“Around seven-thirty.”

I mulled it over. “Stay at the Hyatt at Union Station. And rent a car. Check in. I'll come by around nine.”

“Good. You'll stay with me.”

“Maybe,” I said.

“Definitely,” she ordered. “Two is better than one.”

It sounded appealing. It would be good to have company on this case. “Flo, if you leave before my package reaches you tomorrow, be sure to have someone looking out for a Federal Express package from St. Louis.”

“I will. Speaking of St. Louis, I found an old phone book. 1977.”

“And?”

“Bingo.”

“Tell me.”

“Nursing homes.”

“Really? Both?”

“Yep. Beth Shalom was on Union Boulevard. Labadie Gardens was on Labadie.”

I let the information sink in. “So the names on the lists must be residents of the nursing homes.”

“All dead by now, no doubt.”

“Probably,” I conceded.

“We need to find someone who'll talk.”

“That's a place where I need your help,” I said.

“Good. Go ahead.”

“I have four possible sources. I need you to locate three of them. The printer told me he dealt with two people at Armstrong Bioproducts. One was Lee Fowler, the chief financial officer. He's the one I've found. There's a listing for him in the phone book, and I'm going to try to contact him tomorrow. The other guy was the director of research back then. His name is Dr. Peter Todorovich.” I spelled the last name. “He's probably the best source. Problem is, he's not listed in the phone book. I have two other possibilities. Their names appear in the company's 1979 annual report. One is Gerald R. Tuck, vice president of marketing. The other is the vice president of operations. His name is, I swear, Ronald McDonald. Neither one is listed in the phone book. The way people in business move around, the odds are that each is now working for another company outside St. Louis.”

“I'll find them, Rachel.”

“Thanks.”

There were three separate locks on the hotel door, and I made sure all were locked before I got ready for bed. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I thought again of poor Benny. He'd really come through for me tonight, and he was probably worried sick. I wanted to reassure him, but I didn't want to risk calling him at home: if they had tapped my home phone, his was the next logical one to tap. I dialed his office number. I got his answering machine at the office and waited for the beep:

“It's me,” I said. “I'm okay.”

I paused, trying to think of what else I could tell him. But as I did, another image flashed into my mind: a pair of intruders, each wearing rubber gloves, each holding a flashlight, listening to my message in Benny's darkened office. Maybe they were standing there right now, staring at each other over an open file drawer, waiting for me to continue talking.

“Sorry I couldn't say good-bye,” I said, “but my plane was late. I'll be out of town for a few days. I'll call you when I get back.” I paused. “I'll miss you, Benny.”

I replaced the receiver and turned off the lamp.

Chapter Twenty-two

My first stop the next morning was the down-town offices of the United Way of Greater St. Louis. I traveled there by a sufficiently roundabout route to confirm that I wasn't being tailed. I started with a hotel van to the airport. I walked quickly through the main terminal, drawing plenty of stares on the way. Benny had certainly made an interesting selection of outfits for me. Today I was wearing one of the ensembles my sister takes on her annual trip to Las Vegas: a gold turtleneck, a red leather miniskirt, sheer black pantyhose, and black pumps. With my new blond hairdo and sunglasses, the one person I definitely did not resemble was Rachel Gold, attorney at law.

The young taxi driver at the airport seemed to concur. From his rearview-mirror gape as I slid into the backseat, I got the sense that, if asked, he could have guessed that I was a member of an even more ancient profession. I had him take me on a circuitous route from the airport through several side streets in University City and then up Hanley Road to the Interco Tower in Clayton. Every block or so I would turn to look out the rear window. No car seemed to be following us.

I got out at the Interco Corporate Tower, walked through the building to the other side, and flagged another cab at the Holiday Inn across the street. Once again Ann's outfit was a distraction. This driver, a swarthy man with a thick black mustache, grinned and leered at me throughout the drive. I was tempted to take his name and file a complaint, but I didn't feel like digging out a pen and pencil to write it down, and without that I'd never be able to remember either his first or last name, both of which were at least ten letters long and seemed to consist entirely of consonants and chemical symbols from the table of elements. Instead, I ignored him on the ride and paid exactly what the meter showed when we reached my destination downtown.

As I entered the United Way office on Olive, I reviewed my cover story, which was fairly straightforward. I was Liza Bennett of Los Angeles. I was born in St. Louis but moved to L.A. with my family when I was five. This was my first trip back, and my mother had asked me to try to track down two people. One was her Aunt Betty, who used to be at a nursing home called Beth Shalom. The other was Lucille Evers, a black woman who had helped raise my mother and whose last known residence was at Labadie Gardens.

I assumed that the United Way had provided funds to the two nursing homes, and thus would have someone who knew what had happened to them. I was wrong and right. Both Beth Shalom and Labadie Gardens were private and operated for profit; as such, neither had received any money from the United Way. However, someone at the United Way knew what had happened to both. Her name was Sarah Jennings and she was in charge of the older adult services division. She was a sturdy, heavyset black woman in her early sixties.

“Many years ago,” Sarah Jennings said with a sad shake of her head, “Labadie Gardens was owned by one of the north side Baptist churches. Either First Baptist or Mt. Zion. It was a fine, respectable home. But back in about 1977 a man named Lombardy bought it. James Lombardy.” She gave an angry snort. “He was a bad man. Squeezed every last penny out of those poor old black folks while running that place right into the ground. Lord have mercy.”

“What happened?”

“In 1980, just around the time the state was about to step in, he showed up one morning and closed the place down. Just like that. Honey, it was a sorrowful spectacle—all those old people kicked out of there, some with no place to go. The bastard just closed it down and left town.”

“Where did the residents go?”

“All over town. We helped get them placed in the other homes.” She shook her head at the memory. “My goodness, it was a mess. Right in the middle of it all, the place burned down.”

“Was anyone killed?”

“No, praise the Lord. But all the records were destroyed. We didn't have medical records on most of those folks. Some of those poor darlings couldn't even remember their own names, or who their children were. Oh, it was just a pitiful situation.”

I scratched Labadie Gardens off my list. With the records gone, there was no way to trace a thing.

Sarah Jennings had slightly better news on Beth Shalom.

“Old Mordecai Jacobs,” she said with a big grin.

“Who's that?”

“One of the most unforgettable characters I ever met.” She leaned back in her chair with a chuckle. “He started off in the rag business, I think. Made a lot of money at it, too. He was a regular character, honey. A real live P. T. Barnum. You ever hear of the Gutmann Cavern?”

“Related to the old brewery?”

She nodded. “Mordecai bought that old property, and all them caves underneath. He turned those caves into a regular tourist attraction.”

“Really?”

“My heavens, child. The Gutmann Cavern Tour? Ask your momma. It was a big deal back in the early sixties.”

“What happened?”

“Oh, the usual. The Highway Department purchased the land for part of an expansion. They knocked down Mordecai's building and closed off the cave.” She fondly shook her head at the memory. “But it was sure something while it lasted,”

“How was Mordecai Jacobs connected with Beth Shalom?”

“He sort of adopted it back in about 1970 or 1971.”

“What do you mean by ‘adopted'?”

She smiled. “He became its sugar daddy. It was a Jewish nursing home. One of those real orthodox ones—kept kosher, all that stuff. Problem was, it was run by a couple of orthodox rabbis from the old country.” She chuckled. “Those rabbis didn't know a balance sheet from a ballerina. The creditors put Beth Shalom in receivership, but Mordecai came to the rescue. He bought it and kept pumping money into that place until he found out he had lung cancer.”

“When was that?”

“Oh”—she frowned, trying to remember—“about 1984 or 1985, I think. When Mordecai found out he was dying, he put all his affairs in order.”

“What did he do with Beth Shalom?”

“He contacted the Jewish Federation and arranged to have Beth Shalom merged into the Jewish Center for the Aged.”

“How long did that take?”

“Oh, not long. Maybe six months. By then Beth Shalom was in a dangerous neighborhood and the families were afraid to visit the residents. So once the deal was done, the residents were transferred out of there pretty quickly. Before he died, Mordecai donated the building to the neighborhood. It's a community center, now.”

“Were the records transferred to the Jewish Center for the Aged?” I asked.

Sara Jennings shrugged. “You'd have to ask them, honey. I don't know.”

***

The Jewish Center for the Aged, known for short as the JCA, is out in the western suburbs. But because I was still paranoid about being followed, the first leg of my journey was east. I took the Metro Link over the Mississippi River, caught a cab back across the river and out west to the County Courts building in Clayton. I walked into the building and through metal detectors, took the elevator up to the top level, worked my way around to the back entrance, and flagged a cab, which took me west to the JCA.

The director of the JCA was a pudgy balding man named Mark Levine. He couldn't have been more friendly or less informed. He also couldn't have been more distracted. That was largely my fault. Judging from his slack-jawed expression and a suddenly distended vein in his right temple, the distraction was due to my punky blond hairdo, Ann's red leather miniskirt, and the low-slung chair across from his desk—a treacherous combination that made it impossible to find a comfortable sitting position that didn't, in the process, remind Levine of the Sharon Stone police interrogation scene in
Basic Instinct
.

Eventually, with the help of a strategically placed briefcase, I found a PG-13 position on the chair, and Levine's throbbing vein receded. Wiping some spittle from the corner of his mouth, he explained apologetically that he was new to the job and to St. Louis, having moved here just three months ago from a similar position in Cleveland. As a result, he was even less familiar with Beth Shalom than me.

“Liza—may I call you Liza?” he asked with a furtive peek toward the area covered by my briefcase.

I stared at his face until his eyes returned to mine. Embarrassed, he looked down at the appointment calendar on his desk.

“Certainly,” I answered, aiming for a friendly but firm tone.

“I have a lunch meeting that I can't get out of.” He checked his watch. “As soon as I get back, I'll have my assistant start digging through those records to see what we can find out. Call me around three. I should have something by then.” He hesitated, this time his eyes glancing down to my chest and then back up again. “Perhaps we can get together after work and I can show you what I have, uh, or what I found.”

There was, of course, a gold band on the ring finger of his left hand. I thanked him and, ignoring his last suggestion, told him I would call around three.

I got as far as the parking lot when I realized I didn't have a car. Turning back to call myself a cab, I was surprised to see Mark Levine burst out the front door.

“Oh, good,” he said, panting, “I thought you'd already left.”

“That was fast,” I said with an expectant smile.

He laughed and shook his head. “No, no. I won't get to that until after lunch. But in the meantime, I thought you might want to talk to Matilda Jackson.”

“Who is she?”

“One of our finest nurses,” Mark said. “But more important for you, Matilda used to work at Beth Shalom.”

“Really?”

“That's what my secretary just told me. She said that when Beth Shalom merged into the JCA, three of the nurses came over. Matilda is the last one still here.”

“Would she be willing to talk to me?”

“I don't see why not. She's on her lunch break now. Come on back. I'll introduce you before I leave.”

***

Matilda Jackson leaned back in her chair and smiled at the memory.

“Oh, Mr. Mordecai Jacobs was a fine figure of a man,” she said. “Carried a pearl-handled cane and wore rattlesnake cowboy boots.” She stared at me solemnly, as if bearing witness. “He knew Dr. King, praise God. That's the truth. Mr. Mordecai Jacobs went to Washington in 1963 to march with Dr. King. He carried a picture of the march in his wallet. He showed it to me on many an occasion.” She gave me a proud look. “Mordecai hired me, you know. I was the first black nurse to ever work at Beth Shalom. Mordecai hired me in 1972 and told me that I had an equal opportunity to excel. I believed the man, and the man was true to his word, praise God. In 1981, he promoted me to the position of head nurse.” She smiled again, her eyes far away. “Oh, yes. Mr. Mordecai Jacobs was a fine figure of a man.”

“Is his family still in St. Louis?” I asked, taking notes.

“I believe Mrs. Jacobs is still alive, bless her soul. They never had any children, though.”

“Do you remember her first name?”

“I most certainly do. Clara. Mrs. Clara Jacobs.”

I jotted down the name and looked up at her. “I have a list, Mrs. Jackson, and it appears to include residents of Beth Shalom.” I handed her a copy. “I wonder if you recognize any of the names in those first two columns.”

She put on her reading glasses and studied the document. “Oh, yes,” she said with a smile. “Mrs. Caplan, Mrs. Friedman. Oh, Mrs. Gutterman, what a darling she was. And Shirley Lieberman, my, my. She used to love to play poker.” As her eyes moved down the list, she cooed and chuckled at her memories of the people.

“Were they all women?” I asked.

She looked down both columns. “I can't say they all were. There was a Mr. Mittelman and a Mr. Schecter, but their wives were there, too. Oh, and Wexler—that must be Rabbi Wexler. What a sweetheart he was. But wait a minute, his wife was there, too. Lenore Wexler.” Her happy expression shifted to sorrow. “Oh, poor Mrs. Wexler. She was one of them.”

“One of who?”

“Oh, it was that terrible summer.”

“What terrible summer?”

She shook her head sadly and heaved a sigh. “When they all died.”

I felt a shiver down my spine. “Tell me about it,” I said quietly.

“It was so tragic.” She sighed. “The first two died on Friday around sundown.” She paused. “Are you Jewish, honey?”

I nodded.

“Well, then you know that the Jewish sabbath starts at sundown on Friday. Beth Shalom was strictly orthodox, which meant that we couldn't transport these two bodies to the funeral home until Sunday. That was a real problem, because it was so hot and humid that weekend. We had to move the bodies to the coolest place in the building.” She shook her head at the memory.

“Where was that?” I asked.

“The barber shop. It was on the basement level and there were two window air conditioners. We moved the first two bodies down there on Friday night. There were two barber chairs, and that's where we put them, each covered with a sheet.”

I waited silently, caught up in the tale.

“Later that night, the third one died. Another woman. We moved her down there, too. There were no empty barber chairs left, so we sat her up on one of the three waiting chairs. The fourth died the next morning, and then the fifth died Saturday night. Five deaths over one Sabbath.” She raised her eyebrows and sighed heavily. “When the men from the funeral home arrived on Sunday afternoon, there was a corpse on every single chair in that barber shop. I'll tell you, honey, it's a sight my eyes will never forget.”

The eerie image of the shrouded barbershop quintet held us both rapt. After a moment, I asked, “What did they die of?”

She squinted, trying to remember. “I don't recall the exact cause. There were respiratory problems, circulatory problems, muscle problems. It just sort of swept through the home. Several others came down with the disease that week. Some of them died, others recovered. I swear, I have never had a week like that in my life.”