The Bar Mitzvah Murder (20 page)

30

I waited till Eddie was off to bed to tell Jack. I had the folder with Gabe's notes on my lap and my copy of the executed will.

“There's no Double Eagle in the notes,” he said.

“Right. And if you look at the notes, here's a charity that's missing from the final will.”

“So your theory is Helfer and Judy deleted one charity at the bottom of the page and inserted Double Eagle alphabetically near the top.”

“That's exactly what I think.”

“It's a good theory. How do the diamonds fit in?”

“The diamonds were an afterthought. They're a payoff to him or something like that, and he was afraid that wherever he hid them, they'd be found. But they wouldn't be found in his brother-in-law's safe. So when he went to substitute this page of the will, he left the diamonds there, expecting to retrieve them later. Helfer and Marnie are very close. He knew she would never believe he was involved in killing Gabe and even if she did, she wouldn't be able to turn him in.”

“Sounds good to me. Now how do you connect Helfer and the daughter?”

“They met at a party. Marnie told me about it. It was soon after she and Gabe got married. They must have recognized each other as kindred spirits. He saw a way to make money; she saw a way to hurt her father. I expect they hatched the plan soon after.”

“That's some story.”

“And the checks to the charities went out at ten this morning. They may be delivered tomorrow. We really have to move.”

“OK. Let's draw up a plan.”

The plan was simple. We would pick up Helfer when he came for his mail. Elaine had said at the end of my conversation with her and the lawyer that the recipients had been notified that the checks had been sent. Helfer wasn't going to let that check sit on the floor of his office any longer than he had to. He wanted it turned into cash as soon as possible. If Judy showed up with him, and I assumed she would if he had told her the check was coming, we would have her, too. In the meantime, Jack had an old mug shot photo of Helfer from a previous arrest faxed to Joshua Davidson in Jerusalem. They would make a photo array and show it to the men in custody for identification. With the time difference, we would have an answer before the start of our workday tomorrow.

In fact, we had the answer before Jack left for work. Joshua called us at home. One of the men refused to say anything; the other identified Helfer as the person who had commissioned the kidnapping. He still refused to admit he had anything to do with Gabe's homicide, but we had an ID. I was almost jumping for joy.

“That's good,” Jack said when he got off the phone. “And Joshua and Rachel send you their best regards. I think you made a hit with both of them.”

“So did they with me.”

We went into the city in two cars so I could get back after the arrest. And I wanted to see Eddie off to school. After today, I hoped, I would have time to take a break and spend some time where my heart was, with my family.

I actually found a place to park on the street and I met Jack where he was parked, down the block from the entrance to the Double Eagle office building, if you could call it that. Two detectives I hadn't seen before were there, too, and the cops in the sector car had made their check of the building, one of them remaining out back to be certain no one made a dash that way.

The mailman showed up a few minutes after I arrived and went inside. I knew he would be in the building awhile, as the doors to the offices all had mail slots. I was right. It took him more than ten minutes to come back outside.

The cops were well hidden, including Jack, who was one door away from the entrance. I sat in my car watching the sidewalk for Helfer. He must have had a good idea when the mail arrived, because he showed up just as the mailman was leaving. I assumed he had been waiting down the block. As he passed my car at a good pace, I got out and followed him.

Jack emerged from his doorway as I got there, and we walked toward the door Helfer had disappeared through. I wondered if he already had a plane ticket to some wonderful place where he hoped to spend the next many years. He would have to make a stop at a bank, I thought, unless he had an account somewhere else that the check would go into. Neither Judy Silverman nor the apparent girlfriend from the other night was anywhere to be seen.

I waited nervously near Jack, wondering if Helfer would go out the back way when he came down. The detectives were on the far side of the doorway. I know it didn't take all that long, but it seemed to. Finally, Gary Helfer walked out to the street, his head down as he looked over his mail.

“Don't move, police,” one of the detectives said.

Helfer was as surprised as anyone I have ever seen. “What?” he said.

“You're under arrest for the murder of Gabriel Gross in Israel and for fraud in the state of New York.”

“I don't understand, Officer,” he said, clutching his mail and looking at the shield thrust in his face by the detective. I could see him on the verge of running, his legs tense and starting to lean away from the detective, but he must have changed his mind.

The detective cuffed him, taking the mail from his hand over his objections. The group stood on the street just long enough for the detective to recite the litany of the Miranda warnings to Gary Helfer. His grunts were duly noted as “yes” to each part.

Then Jack confronted him. “Where's Judy Silverman?”

“How should I know? I want a lawyer right now!”

“Do it,” Jack said to me, and I took off with the second detective, Kevin McHugh, for Judy's address, which Jack had given me last night.

“What are you talking about?” Judy Silverman asked.

I was in her living room in the apartment she shared with her husband, who wasn't there. Outside the door, Detective McHugh was waiting for trouble or to make an arrest. He had given me an alarm I could squeeze in case I sensed danger. What I wanted was a confession. They'd never get one from Gary Helfer. I had just told Judy that Helfer had picked up the bequest check for Double Eagle. She looked blank.

“Didn't he tell you?” I asked.

It was obvious that he hadn't. “I don't know what check you mean.”

I tried to assess her veracity. “The reason Gary broke into your father's safe. The reason your father was murdered.”

“I don't know why they killed my father. All they were supposed to do was get the key to the house and the combination. Gary was going to steal Marnie's jewels and the cash my father kept in the safe. He kept a lot of cash there. They were supposed to let my father go as soon as Gary got into the safe.”

“Who told you about the cash and jewels?”

“Gary did. He heard it from Marnie after she married my father.”

“And you believed him.”

She stared at me, saying nothing.

“What about the charity?” I asked, not wanting to give away something that she might not know about. “Double Eagle.”

“What about it? Gary started it up. It did a lot of good and he was able to use some of the money to improve his lifestyle.”

“And the will?” I said. Was it possible she didn't know?

“What about the will?”

I think that was when I realized she didn't know what Gary had done. He had let her in on only part of the plan. “Was Gary going to share the proceeds with you?”

She nodded, still looking confused.

“He was arrested about half an hour ago.”

“I see.”

“Did he give you any of the money and jewels?” I knew none had been taken, but it appeared that she didn't.

“Not yet. He was waiting for something, he said, something to come in the mail. I suppose I won't get it now. It doesn't matter. I didn't do it for the money.”

And there was her admission that she had done it, that she was in on it. “What did you do it for?”

“To teach my father a lesson. To make him hurt. He wasn't supposed to die, you know. I'm not a killer.”

“Gary left some diamonds in the safe,” I told her. “What can you tell me about them?”

“Gary's involved in certain businesses that don't pay in cash. He was paid in diamonds for something he did and the diamonds were traced. I think Interpol was involved. He was afraid they'd find them, so he put them in my father's safe. Marnie would never turn him in. At least, that's what he thought.”

“She didn't,” I said. “How did he intend to get them back?”

“Get them out of the safe when he visited her sometime. They're pretty close. He could have done it. If that didn't work, he would ask her for them. He had a story ready. Gary always has a story ready.”

“But then she would know he had ordered the killing of your father.”

“He had a story ready for that, too. Gary is very resourceful. He's a clever man. This was all his idea. I met him at a party and told him what I thought of my father. He picked up on it and called me a week later. He wanted to wait until my father gave Marnie some special jewels and they would be out of the country for some time. This turned out to be the right time.”

It was strange hearing this young woman brag about her good deeds when she had just admitted to being in on a murderous plan with her own father as the victim.

“You worked on this plan for a long time.”

“Since they married. I was very distressed when you found out I was at that hotel. I was there to make sure everything went the way it should. It did, you know. Except that my father died.”

“Who gave your father the drug that knocked him out?”

“One of the men in the ambulance. Then he dashed back and got in so they could drive over and pick my father up.”

“And where did you go when you checked out of the hotel?”

“I flew to Frankfurt. You knew I was going to London— I told you the truth—so I got on the first plane with a free seat that wasn't going there. Then I took a train to Cologne, stayed with a friend from college, and went on to London to meet my husband. We had a lovely time,” she said, smiling.

“I'm sure you must have. Who is Simon Kaplan?”

“Simon? He's a dear old man who's known Gary's family for years. Do you know him?”

“I met him in Jerusalem. I thought he was a friend of your family and he was trying to help solve your father's murder.”

“He's good, isn't he? He didn't know everything that was going on, but he served his purpose.”

“Are the diamonds from him?”

“I really don't know who the diamonds came from. Gary and I didn't tell each other everything. Are we done here? I have an appointment.”

I told her I didn't think she would get to the appointment. Then I opened the door and let Detective McHugh in. He cuffed Judy, read her her rights, and led her downstairs. I took her key and locked the door for her. No use inviting a burglar in.

EPILOGUE

Jack came home one evening with several huge boxes and spent some time setting up the new computer. Eddie glowed. Within days I knew he would soon be the expert in the family, which was fine with me.

The case against Judy Silverman and Gary Helfer was built in two countries. Judy's husband hired one of the well-known criminal lawyers we've all heard about to defend his wife, and I expect she'll get off with a light sentence. But Gary Helfer won't. The second man in Israeli custody eventually identified Helfer also, and he will stand trial in Israel after he stands trial here for fraud. The check made out to Double Eagle was returned to the estate.

I have enjoyed wearing my wonderful beads and the beautiful cross made of silver and Roman glass and have received so many compliments that I wrote the artist a letter. Jack wears his religious medals on his new chain and I notice him fingering it sometimes. It's really beautiful.

Eddie says he wants to go back to Israel with Grandma and Grandpa and put some more of that great mud on him. The pictures are hilarious, a small black figure with eyes and little else. He took it to school and everyone got a good laugh.

Joshua and Rachel Davidson are planning a trip to New York in the new year, and we intend to take them around and show them a piece of our country. We're all very excited at the prospect. I have never had friends from another country before, and I feel my life is better because of it.

Much later the intifada began and then grew worse. We had really hoped to visit Israel again and spend more time touring, but the trouble put a halt to all that. We both hope and pray that the country will see peace very soon.

No one ever found or heard from Simon Kaplan again.

 

 

If you enjoyed this mystery, look for

MURDER IN HELL'S KITCHEN

The debut of a new series by Lee Harris.
Now available from Fawcett Books.

For a preview of

MURDER IN HELL'S KITCHEN,

please read on . . .

FOR SEVEN DAYS the picture had haunted front pages and small screens. In the overcast haze of a fall afternoon in downtown New York was the eerie image of the wheelchair with its small, lifeless occupant alone on the grass. The photograph had become the symbol of the dangers of a city so preoccupied with its own needs and wants that it ignored or overlooked a killing in its midst, that it passed alongside death and never stopped to look even once.

The City Hall Park Murder, as it came to be called, had promised to be the case of a lifetime, the capping of a career, the most fitting of departures. But that was a week ago. Today Jane Bauer's life was upside down and she hadn't thought of the little figure in the wheelchair for at least eight hours. She looked at her watch once again.

“We'll get there,” Det. Martin Hoagland said.

“I know. I just can't help looking.”

He was traveling north on Riverside Drive to avoid the problems on the Henry Hudson Parkway, which ran just west of the drive along the river of the same name. At red lights, he edged forward, then shot across. They drove along the western end of the Twenty-sixth Precinct, the Two-Six, her first assignment out of the Academy. Almost twenty years had passed since she had put on her blues, “the bag” as most cops called it, for the first time and reported there in the center of Harlem. Before graduation, still wearing her cadet grays, she rode for a week as the third person in a radio motor patrol car in the Two-Six so that the sergeant in the car could assess her ability to handle “jobs.” He had been impressed and she had gotten the assignment at the Two-Six on graduation. Her father had beamed with pride; her mother had barely accepted it with tight-lipped apprehension.

They passed the street where she had seen her first dead body in a fifth-floor walk-up during a twelve-by-eight, a midnight-to-eight A.M. shift, early in her career when she was given the crap details. Just stay with it, kid, the veteran cop on the scene had said as she tried to control her trembling and her queasy stomach. Don't leave till the body's picked up, the area secured, and all the paperwork's done. If the smell gets too bad in here, just light a cigar. Then he laughed and wished her a nice tour.

Looking out the window Jane thought that she could relive her entire career by driving the streets of Manhattan. Who would have thought nostalgia was so easy to come by?

“I'll pull into Emergency and wait for you there,” Marty's voice said, piercing her recollections. They were long past the Two-Six now.

“You don't have to wait, Marty. I can take the subway back.”

“I'll wait for you.”

It was the kind of firm reassurance that tended to settle stomachs in times of less distress. Not much would work this afternoon.

She thanked him in her head, her apprehension growing as they approached Columbia Presbyterian, the huge hospital complex just south of the George Washington Bridge overlooking the Hudson River and, on the other side, New Jersey. Marty turned and turned again, pulling in close to the Emergency entrance.

“Go,” he said as the car came to a jerky stop in front of the door at the covered dock, now almost empty of ambulances.

She went.

Her heart was pounding as she made her way through the sick and the bored to the woman with the records. “John Bauer. I'm his daughter.”

“Yes, Ms. Bauer. Your dad's been admitted. You can go up to see him.” She wrote the room number and floor for her on a slip of paper and gave brief but good directions.

Jane ran. Arrows on floors and walls directed her around corners and down halls to the elevators and past frequently visited units. A rainbow of color coding indicated one specialty after another. The elevator took forever to arrive. Then it stopped on every floor. Then she ran again.

Her gun was in her large shoulder bag, which she held tightly to her side as she looked at room numbers. Two more. She slowed, trying to calm herself, not wanting her anxiety to become his.

The door was open and she walked in. A curtained bed stood near the window, and her father, a little pale, rested in the nearer bed.

“Janey,” he said, seeing her, his face lighting up. “You didn't have to come, honey. I'm just fine.”

“You look pretty good,” she said grudgingly, edging up to the bed.

“I'm just fine. I'll be outta here tomorrow.”

“What happened? You forget to take your medicine?”

“Nah. I took it just like you set it up for me, one of these, one of those, one of the other.”

“Then what happened?”

“They gave me too much is what happened. They overmedicated me,” he said, articulating the word carefully. “Doc'll come by; you'll talk to him.”

She sat down hesitantly. “You were taking too much?”

“That's what he said. Gave me palpitations. Made me dizzy. Got my stomach all upset. I thought I ought to come in and they decided to keep me overnight. It's nothing, Janey. Believe me.”

She started breathing again. “You look pretty good.”

“Better'n you look.” He laughed. “Like you've seen a ghost. You shouldn'ta come all this way. I'm fine. Really.”

“Who's your doctor?”

“Swinson, Swenson, something like that.”

“Mind if I go find him?”

“Be my guest. Look at you. You look like you're the one needs a night in the hospital.”

She felt like it. She went down to the nurses' station and asked for the doctor. He was there, writing on a clipboard.

“I'm John Bauer's daughter.”

“Glad to meet you. Dr. Swenson.” He offered a slim, pale hand. “Good thing he came in when he did. We're cutting down his medication. That should do the trick. You're the police officer?”

“I guess he talked about me.”

“Didn't talk about anything else. He's fine, Miss Bauer. Officer. Once we get the medication straight, he'll be fine.”

“He said he was taking just what he was told to take.” She wanted to hear him say it, that they had made a mistake, that it wasn't her father's fault, that they had put her father's life in jeopardy by prescribing the wrong amount of drugs.

“He probably was.” The doctor looked at her directly. He was a thin, bony man with pale gray eyes behind large thick glasses. “Sometimes the medication needs a little fine-tuning. This should do the trick.”

“Thank you.” She went back down the hall to her father's room.

“You get the whole story?” he said. He seemed in a good mood, just missing his usual robust color.

“Confirmed every word you told me. I'll come by in the morning and pick you up.”

“Don't bother, Janey. Madeleine'll come for me. She's got nothin' better to do. You go to work. You got a big case to work on.”

She considered letting it go by. He had been so excited when she was picked for the City Hall Park Murder team. She could tell him another time but he was sharp; he would pick up on the delay and be hurt that she hadn't taken him into her confidence. “I'm off the case, Dad.”

He stared at her, shaking his head as if to push away spiderwebs that had clouded the transmission. “What's that you said?”

“They took me off the case. I just got the word yesterday. A telephone call and I'm on a thirty-day assignment as of this morning. I'm on a steal with a new task force.”

The phrase captured his attention, his eyes widening. “What kinda task force?”

“The mayor wants to clean up old unsolved homicides. We got a lot of briefings today. Tomorrow I'll get to look at a file.”

“That's terrible, Janey. It's a waste. They need you on that City Hall case. Who cares about an old murder that happened in the Dark Ages? Some cases are so old they got whiskers, for cryin' out loud.”

“Too many unsolved homicides, Dad. Someone's got to give them another look. Get the averages up.”

“They know you're pullin' the pin?” He loved cop lingo.

“Probably.”

“You shouldn'ta said anything. You should've kept it to yourself. You'd still be on the case.”

He was probably right. “Don't worry about it. Just rest; get a good night's sleep. Marty's downstairs waiting to drive me home.”

“Thanks for comin', honey.”

She smiled, then bent and kissed his stubbled cheek. He hadn't felt well enough to shave this morning. “I'll call you tomorrow. Take care of yourself.”

“You too, darlin'.”

She had Marty drop her off at the new apartment. It was closer to where he was going anyway, and she felt like seeing it again. She had taken possession only two days ago and had the key with her. It was down in the West Village, south of Fourteenth Street, not far from Abingdon Square. The building was old, what was still called “prewar” more than half a century after that war had ended, with beautiful floors that would be scraped and refinished before she moved in at the end of the month, thick walls that kept sounds within them, fine details in the moldings, and, her greatest joy, a working wood-burning fireplace.

As she got out of his car, she thanked Marty again. It wasn't so much that she entrusted her life to him; it was a long time since either of them had drawn a weapon. It was that when the ordinary miseries of life exploded, he was there. That was what partners were all about.

She turned the key, pushed open the heavy door, and went inside. There was an echo of emptiness as she walked, the smell of fresh paint. It was clean, had just needed the paint and the work on the floor. The kitchen had been updated recently and the appliances were nearly new and actually filled the space as though designed for it. All four burners of the gas stove worked. That would give her a third more firepower than she had in the old place. When she got some money together, she would change the floor, maybe put in some fancy tiles with a little color. She was almost forty-one. It was time to live like a grown-up.

There were two bedrooms, the smaller one perfect for an office or a den or a guest room. Dad would enjoy staying over, helping her hang curtains and pictures. She walked over to the windows, moved them up and down, then locked them.

The master bedroom was exceptionally large, with a closet she would have trouble filling. The apartment was expensive but worth it. The new job would pay just enough more than this one paid to cover what it would cost. It was the kind of job she had occasionally dreamed about, an office of her own with a door that closed, a full-time assistant, an hour every day for lunch, not when you found a minute to stuff a sandwich or a piece of cold pizza in your mouth. That elusive quality called dignity.

She stepped into the bathroom. This was where you sensed the age of the apartment. The floor was a mass of white hexagonal tiles, the door on the medicine chest painted over so many times that it no longer closed. She wrote notes on a pad to leave for the workmen. The mirror was slightly wavy, making her look as though she had just stepped through the glass and hadn't completely re-formed on the other side. She smiled and her mouth smiled back in two sections. Time to go home.

The old apartment was little more than comfortable. In a big old building on Broadway in the West Eighties, it was of a comparable vintage to the “new” one but without its charm. It was simply old, with dripping faucets that were beyond repair, a four-burner stove with only three working burners, a floor that creaked, a stain along one bedroom wall that worsened occasionally. And then there was the elevator. She was glad when it worked.

Jane had continued to live with her parents in the Bronx while she worked at the Two-Six and put away her money. The apartment was a gift to herself when she moved on. Like other new officers, she had been reviewed monthly by her regularly assigned sergeant. She made good progress and a few good arrests, but nothing outstanding—drugs, purse snatches, stolen cars. She wrote tickets for parked cars and moving violations. The Two-Six was an “A” house, a high-crime area. As she became more familiar with the territory, she found it easy to determine where to make quality arrests, the kind that looked good on your personnel record. She began thinking about a career path. Did she want to be a boss or did she want to be a detective? It didn't take her long to realize that it was the gold shield she wanted. The street didn't scare her, and she focused on drug arrests in areas where they affected the lives of the working people. She came to be known as a heads-up cop, respected and liked by most of the people in the precinct. Two and a half years into her career, she applied for a change of assignment.

About six months later, when she was twenty-four, she was transferred to Chinatown, the Fighting Fifth. The station house was a hundred years old and crime was rising in the precinct. There were drugs on the streets, and the Chinese gangs were out of control. In their level of violence, the Chinese gangs made the old Mafia types look like amateurs.

That was when she moved out of her parents' apartment and into this one in Manhattan.

In the living room two cartons were already packed and pushed against the wall, more of a symbolic gesture than a real beginning of the packing job. That would get done, as most of the things in her life got done, in a flurry of work, a twenty-hour day with no time off for anything but coffee and a couple of snacks.

There was only one message on the machine, telling her about Dad. The hospital had been thorough, for which she was grateful, calling and leaving messages at both numbers. She dropped into a chair with her mail and closed her eyes for a minute before starting through the envelopes. There was nothing of importance, and she closed her eyes again.