Partners In Crime (6 page)

"Not even when he was younger?''

T.S. thought for a moment, back to his early
years at Sterling & Sterling when he and Robert Cheswick had
been moved along parallel paths, with different destinations
clearly apparent. "A long time ago, I believe he was … well, more
like the other partners. They were all younger then. Sowed some
wild oats."

"You sure it was a long time ago?" The
lieutenant looked up at the clock, then checked his own
wristwatch.

"Yes, I'd call thirty years a long time ago.
When I first got here, Cheswick was still known as a playboy, I
guess. Like every other kid who joins the firm and knows he doesn't
have to worry about making partner. That it's in the bag. Girls
probably fell all over him. He would have been quite a catch. It
might have hurt him if he kept it up. Rumor had it that his father
flew in from Colorado to make sure he got the message. I don't know
the details. Shortly after that, I know he married a lovely woman
and settled down. But I really don't think it's relevant to what
happened today."

"Well, if you don't think it was for money
or love," the lieutenant asked, letting sarcasm creep back into his
voice, "what do you think it was for?"

"I really don't know," T.S. replied. "But I
intend to find out." He hesitated before asking the dreaded
question. "Do you think he was killed by an employee?"

"Let's just say it's possible he knew his
murderer." The lieutenant nodded. "How reliable are your night
guards?"

"Extremely reliable. This is Sterling &
Sterling."

"So if they say that no one entered or left
the building last night without their knowledge, you'd believe
them?"

"Absolutely," T.S. said. "I would certainly
consider the check-out list accurate. They're mostly retired
policemen. They'd understand the importance of the truth."

The lieutenant shrugged. "Unless the truth
would make them look bad." He drummed his fingers impatiently
against the desk. "It's my experience that such lists are useless.
For now I want your personnel files and financial records on the
dead man, all other partners and top executives. We're going to be
taking a close look at securities trading patterns. There's a lot
of big money in insider trading these days. I need them by
tomorrow."

"Tomorrow's Saturday," T.S. protested,
although he had no other plans.

"You think murderers take the weekend off?"
the lieutenant asked in a careful voice as if he were talking to a
particularly slow-witted child. "Detectives don't."

"I'm telling you, you're wasting your time
if you think it's money."

"Don't tell me my job." The lieutenant moved
toward the door and stopped for a final glare. "I only have so many
people and right now something tells me we'll find the answer in
those files." He stomped out, leaving T.S. staring at the door.

As soon as Lieutenant Abromowitz released
him, T.S. fled to the privacy of the rest room. Perhaps cold water
could revive his dignity and relieve the mysterious fright he felt.
Robert Cheswick had looked so old, so very old—all hanging skin and
sharp, protruding bones. Yet, they were not so many years apart in
age.

T.S. felt better after splashing cold water
on his face. For one thing, he did not look any different today
than he had the day before. Retirement was not the instantaneous
sentence of age that others had implied. His German heritage
assured T.S. of wonderful bone structure. His face was still
unarguably firm. Relentlessly rosy skin stretched over wide, flat
cheeks and a determined chin. Why, he was wrinkled only a little
bit around the mouth and eyes and, he would admit it, the jowls.
But only a little. After all, he had retired early, he was barely
fifty-five. Besides which, he was determined not to be vain and his
body had yet to betray him.

It was true that a sturdy disposition and
reliable constitution had bred in him years of carelessness about
his body. He ate and drank what he wished without thought, at least
he had until a few years ago. When he was sick, it never lasted
more than a few days. His was definitely a low-maintenance body. An
extra ten pounds or so around his hips appeared to be the only
price he'd have to pay for his neglect. And that was not so bad as
others that he knew. After all, his back was still straight, his
shoulders erect and his walk still firm and confident. He brushed a
lock of graying hair from his broad forehead, uncovering a new nest
of wrinkles. At least he was not balding. On the contrary, he had a
full head of robust, though graying, hair. Altogether, he felt, he
could still lay claim to the mantle of middle-age.

The door swung open and young Clarkson
entered, his unlined face flushed with the enthusiasm of youth for
life. He looked up with startled, sparkling eyes and jumped to
attention when he saw T.S. It was time for T.S. to move on with his
duties before the child called him "sir" and crumbled his
illusions. T.S. mumbled a greeting and escaped.

His next task was one that required
experience, bearing and great tact. A younger man or woman would
surely flub it. It was time to jumpstart the bureaucratic public
relations machine that Sterling & Sterling reserved for major
deaths. It had last been used when Hobart Cummings finally
succumbed to pneumonia at the age of 106, a fact that seemed to
gamer more public interest than the illustrious career he built
ushering Sterling & Sterling into the modern Wall Street
era.

Robert Cheswick's death was certainly no
threat to the Dow Jones industrial average either, but,
nonetheless, T.S. dutifully pulled the ever-ready obituary from the
files. He had updated them all during his last vacation, using a
battery-operated typewriter that packed neatly in his beach bag.
Some may have thought it macabre that he would sit sipping rum
funnies along the shores of St. Thomas, tapping away at the
obituaries of the partners. But it had given him great satisfaction
at the time—the perfect combination of work and pleasure.

Cheswick's obituary was, in the final
analysis, rather sad. It concerned itself mostly with where he had
come from and not where he had gone. A full paragraph was devoted
to his ancestors, particularly his late father and grandfather.
T.S. reflected on how hard it was to get a break, even in death.
But he had to leave the paragraph in. For it was, after all,
Cheswick's greatest accomplishment—to have carried forth the genes
of a financial dynasty. Unfortunately for the family name, he had
fumbled the ball a bit here as well, failing to produce sons and
fathering instead two horsey-looking young ladies who had the
misfortune to resemble their father instead of their lovely mother.
Which reminded T.S. that he needed to visit Lilah Cheswick and
express his condolences. Her remembered image flooded him with
warmth and triggered die emotions of a younger time. Surprisingly,
it calmed him—his confusion was the assurance of youth he'd been
seeking all morning. But he would not think about Lilah yet, not
with work to do.

He met Lieutenant Abromowitz again outside
of what was now Miss Fullbright's office. The detective stood
thoughtfully in the doorway, gazing blankly at his shoes. He hardly
noticed T.S. when he squeezed past and lumbered off in search of
the elevator in a kind of trance. What possible illumination could
Miss Fullbright have cast on anything? She was perched back on the
window ledge, staring out at the drizzle with great concentration.
T.S. coughed discreetly and she jumped, her automatic smile fading
once she saw it was T.S.

"Oh, it's you," she said, not bothering to
mask her disappointment.

"I've been pulling the file obituary
together. I thought you'd like to see it."

This news agitated her greatly and she
hopped to her feet. "But I wrote one," she said. "It took me all
morning." She handed him five pages of single-spaced typing, with a
great many words underscored and bold-faced.

T.S. scanned it quickly and resisted even a
gentlemanly groan. "Miss Fullbright," he said, holding the
offending document daintily between two fingers. "This is
surprisingly . . . poetic, I would say. Perhaps you missed your
calling."

She simply stared at him, as suspicious as
always. "I feel something like a fool," she finally said. "I didn't
know an obituary had already been written."

"Yes," T.S. said brightly, sweeping an arm
over a discreet oak file cabinet. "Copies of them are all right
here. Every one." He did not like his competency questioned, even
in a roundabout way, and thus could not help adding, "I believe I
noted it in the procedures book that I prepared for you."

She looked at T.S. as if she did not believe
him. "I must have missed it," she said.

"Section Two, pages fifteen and sixteen, if
I'm not mistaken."

"Oh, I'm sure you're not," she answered
archly.

He forged onward. "You only need to update
them when a partner performs some extraordinary deed that should be
noted in the event of his death.''

"As extraordinary as getting stabbed in the
chest?" she asked sweetly.

T.S. gazed at her silently. He had not
realized she had any sort of sense of humor at all. The thought was
encouraging. The humor was not.

"Thank you for reminding
me," he said. "We'll have to deal with that in the official
obituary. But I do suggest that we save your version for use as a
special supplement to
The Sterling
Times,
with proper credit, of course. And
work together on revising the official version here before sending
it out."

But having circled and sniffed the territory
before making a stake to her claim, Miss Fullbright had clearly
made the decision to deal with the living, leaving the dead to T.S.
Hubbert. She tapped her initialed gold Cross pen on her impeccably
polished teeth and stared at T.S. blankly, as if her mind were far
away. T.S. knew this to be a gambit. It was her favorite way of
attempting to gain control—making others wait while she collected
her thoughts.

But T.S. also knew that collecting even all
of Miss Fullbright's thoughts couldn't possibly take very long and
so he was content to wait her out. He settled in and mulled over
possible ways to phrase the violence displayed in the Partners'
Room below in palatable terms for the public. Perhaps, "To their
great regret, the Partners of Sterling & Sterling announce the
untimely death of their esteemed colleague Robert Cheswick." Yes,
that was the way. Make no mention of the stabbing at all.
"Untimely" would have to suffice. Certainly the phrasing fit. Dying
on T.S.'s first day of retirement was nothing but untimely,
although the general public was unlikely to appreciate the
nuance.

"So what do you think, T.S.?" Miss
Fullbright was staring at him brightly.

 
"An excellent idea,"
he answered promptly, wondering what in the world he had just
sanctioned.

"I knew you would agree. I think a team of
three psychologists should do it. We'll install them in the
department and anyone who feels the need to vent his or her
feelings can visit on company time."

Oh, dear. Edgar Hale would pop a cork.
"Perhaps you should suggest employees visit during their lunch
hours, or have the, um, team available before and after working
hours as well," he ventured to say.

''Then no one will go." She became visibly
grumpy when anyone disagreed with her, and at such times had a
tendency to pout. It was not a becoming habit.

"I'm sure an employee in distress will
welcome the opportunity for… ah, relief at any cost. And reach out
for help even after working hours." It was a good thing he was
retiring—the jargon of modern human resource management made him
feel plain silly. Relief. Reaching out for help. Honest to god.
Employees would leap at this chance to goof off, even if they had
to pretend to miss Robert Cheswick to do it.

She grunted in a very noncommittal, though
ladylike, fashion and T.S. decided to escape. He rose and handed
her back her obituary. "This will make a lovely testimonial."

"What?" She stared blankly at her papers.
"Oh, that." She looked up at T.S. "What do you think of Manny?"

"Who?"

"The lieutenant." Her pen clicked against
her teeth at a more rapid pace.

"Abromowitz? He seems, well… confident." It
was the very best he could do. He could hardly tell her he'd found
the loutish lieutenant as dumb as a deaf St. Bernard.

"Yes, isn't he? So confident and… so in
control." She smiled at T.S. brightly and briskly patted her papers
into a neat pile. "It's good to know we're in such competent
hands." She stared back out the window and sighed.

It took him an hour to revise the official
obituary and send it out by messenger to the dailies, along with
eight-by-ten-inch glossies of a younger Robert Cheswick, his horsey
teeth hidden behind tightly pressed liver lips in a true Wall
Street mogul smile. He had barely finished notifying the financial
periodicals by phone when a discreet rapping sounded at his office
door.

"Come in," he called out and Albert the
elevator man stepped timidly through the door, his small burgundy
cap twisting in his shaking hands. He was followed by a stocky man
in his early fifties, resplendent in a gray and burgundy security
guard uniform complemented by his closely cut gray hair.

"Good afternoon, Albert. Mr. O'Hare." T.S.
nodded to both men.

"We've come about the list, Mr. Hubbert,
sir." Albert began in a quavering voice. The man was so nervous
that T.S. found himself tapping his foot in time to Albert's
fearful trembling. Or was it anger?

"The list?" T.S. asked. "Come in. Come in."
They inched further in the door until Timothy O'Hare, a security
guard, finally moved quietly to stand by the window.