Yom Kippur Murder (23 page)

“And killed him in anger. It’s possible. It sure gives us a motive. And she and I went through his apartment together the other day, looking for a missing possible weapon. She said she couldn’t see anything missing. If she used it and took it, she sure wouldn’t want to identify it.”

“Why would he have told her?” Arnold asked.

“Oh, I don’t know, Arnold. I don’t know why anyone does anything anymore.”

“Sounds like you’ve had a bad day.”

“I have. Maybe I’ll tell you about it sometime.”

“So here we are, sitting on a nice piece of information.”

“I’ll go see her tomorrow.”

“Are you nuts? If she did it to Nathan, she could do it to you.”

“I’ll tell her you told me. She’ll know I’m not the only one who knows.”

“You’d better watch yourself, Chrissie.”

“I’ll watch,” I said, thinking I was starting to sound like an elderly New Yorker.

I still had the keys to Mrs. Paterno’s apartment. She had not asked for them, and I had decided to keep them in case something happened that might make them evidence in the case. If I told Franciotti I had had them and given them back, they wouldn’t be of much use. But I had promised myself I would not use them to enter her apartment.

She wasn’t home, and I hoped I wouldn’t have to wait all day. If she was delivering sketches somewhere downtown, she might not be back for hours.

I went to see Gallagher and told him that things looked good for a move. He was delighted. Finally I asked him something that had been on my mind for a long time.

“Are you and Mrs. Paterno friendly?”

“Friendly? With that dragon?”

I stifled a smile. “But she gave you her key.”

“She had to give it to someone. And I think she wanted the key to Herskovitz’s.”

“Why?”

He smiled slyly. “Oh, he’s got a little more in the bank than me. That counts with Paterno.”

“OK, Ian. We’ll keep this conversation to ourselves.”

“And who would I be tellin’? Do the walls have ears?”

I went back up to six—I was developing real muscles in my calves—but Paterno was still out. I went downstairs and waited in the lobby. About ten minutes later she walked in with a bag of groceries.

“Can I help you with those?” I asked. “I’ve been waiting to talk to you.”

“I can help myself, thank you.” She headed for the door to the stairs, and I followed.

We went up to six, Mrs. Paterno lugging the groceries, I holding my flashlight to light her way, something that I think annoyed her.

When we got to her apartment, I went in with her and
waited while she put away what she had bought. When she was finished, I said, “May I take you to lunch today?”

“I can take myself to lunch, but it’s too early.”

I had thought it might be safer talking to her in a public place, but her living room would have to do.

“Mrs. Paterno,” I said when we were more or less comfortable, “Arnold Gold called me yesterday. He’s seen Nathan’s will.”

If it frightened her, she showed nothing.

“Nathan left everything to his children.”

I tensed, but my news fell like a wet rag.

“There was no mention of you at all in the will.”

“Is that what you came to tell me?”

“I thought somebody should,” I said, starting to feel silly.

“I don’t know why. I wasn’t a member of his family.”

“I thought …” I was really pushing it now. I had hoped he’d make some provisions for you. You were friends for so long.”

“He did.”

“He did?”

“Yes. Is that something I must now discuss with the police? After thirty years of keeping everything quiet and discreet, must we now hang everything out to dry, as they say?”

“No, of course not.” I stood up to go. It was too early in the day to feel weary, but this was getting me down. “Just between us, Mrs. Paterno,” I said, grasping at straws, “how did Nathan provide for you?”

“He gave me a certificate of deposit for a large sum of money. I argued with him for years about it. I have my work, I have something from my ex-husband.” It was the first time she had ever mentioned him to me. “I will have Social Security when I choose to take it, and I am not an extravagant person. But he insisted, and finally he just gave it to me.”

“When was this?”

“A month or so ago. I don’t remember exactly.”

“Would you mind—I’d like very much to see it. I don’t care how much it’s for. You can cover up the amount.”

“It’s in my box.”

“In the bank?”

“Yes.”

“Could we—we have no one, Mrs. Paterno. The case against Ramirez is falling apart. I don’t know where to look next. If Nathan was killed over the book, we just don’t know who could have done it. People are killed over money every day. Maybe, somehow …”

She gave me a hard look, then got up and put her coat on. I had no idea what I was looking for at that point, just that this was a new piece of information, and I had to follow up on it.

We walked over to Broadway and then up to her bank. I waited while she got her box, opened it, removed the certificate, and put the box back. She came over to where I was standing and handed it to me.

All it was, was an ordinary passbook. The conditions were typed on the inside cover, the owners’ names, the interest rate, the term. The joint owners were Nathan Herskovitz and Amelia Paterno. The amount was seventy-five thousand dollars. No interest was noted, but the certificate was only four or five weeks old. The certificate had been taken out on September 6. Then it occurred to me. Interest was usually paid at the end of each quarter.

“Shouldn’t you have had the interest credited at the end of September?” I asked.

“There isn’t any interest. It’s sent to him.”

“Of course,” I said, feeling stupid. “That’s what he lived on.”

“That’s what we all live on.”

“And now the checks will be sent to you. Have you notified them that he’s—passed away?”

“I never thought of it. The money means nothing to me.”

“Why don’t you do it now?” I said gently. “It is yours.”

She seemed to consider it. “It’s another bank,” she said.

“I’ll walk over with you.”

Nathan’s bank was the other side of Seventy-ninth Street. On the way down I persuaded her to have lunch. She ate
sparingly, a salad and black coffee. When we were done, I grabbed the check and ignored her protests.

We found a young, attractive black officer named Mrs. Dickson at Nathan’s bank who was free to help us. She told Mrs. Paterno what proof she would need to have the certificate transferred to her name alone, or to her name and that of her daughter, which was what she wanted.

“Excuse me,” I said. “I’m helping out the Herskovitz family since Mr. Herskovitz’s death. I understand there are tax complications when someone dies.” I knew a little about this because I had inherited all of my aunt Meg’s “estate” earlier in the year. “I assume this is money that used to be Mr. Herskovitz’s and now will be Mrs. Paterno’s.”

“Yes,” she said.

“Mr. Herskovitz took this certificate out in September. Can you tell me where the money came from?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, did he write you a check for it or roll over an old certificate?”

She frowned. “I’m not sure …”

“Please,” I said ingenuously. “It’s so important.”

In books the detective always has a source he can call at banks and insurance companies and places of employment to get the kind of information you and I aren’t privy to. It’s true I had Jack in the police department and Arnold to help me with legal matters, but that’s hardly enough. I just asked and crossed my fingers that she would accommodate me.

“I’ll have to check the computer,” she said, and I held my breath.

I guess everyone has a computer nowadays. She turned toward her screen and pressed keys while we waited. There was a lot of keying.

Finally she said, “He rolled over a certificate of the same amount.”

“In his name?”

“In his and a Mitchell Herskovitz’s.”

“To whom did the checks go?” I asked.

“To Nathan Herskovitz. He’s the first name on the certificate.”

“So you wouldn’t have notified Mitchell when the certificate was rolled over in a different name.”

“Oh no. This kind of thing happens every day. We only deal with the first person named.”

“I see.”

Mrs. Paterno got up to go.

“Well, thank you very much,” I said.

“But we would have told him about the checking,” Mrs. Dickson said.

“What checking?”

She looked back at her screen. “When Mr. Nathan took out the last certificate, we were giving free checking for CDs over fifty thousand dollars. Both Mr. Nathan and Mr. Mitchell got it. When the names changed, Mrs. Paterno here got free checking, and we notified Mr. Mitchell that he would have to start paying for his.”

“When would Mitchell have been notified?” I asked, my heart starting to pound uncomfortably.

“About the middle of September. It takes a little time to do the paperwork.”

“Let’s go,” I said to Mrs. Paterno. I thanked Mrs. Dickson and Mrs. Paterno, and I left the bank.

“Do you think …?” she said as we went out to Broadway.

“I don’t know what to think.”

“I forgot to tell you, I think I know what killed him. I think I know what’s missing.”

“You do?”

“I went back yesterday by myself and looked around.”

“Show me,” I said.

“It’s gone,” Mrs. Paterno said.

We were standing in Nathan’s living room, in front of the mantelpiece over the boarded-up fireplace. She was right. It was gone. Whenever I had gone to visit Nathan, whenever we sat in the living room, I was conscious of the ticking of the marble clock. It wasn’t the absence of Nathan that had made the apartment so quiet; it was the absence of the clock.

“It was very heavy,” Mrs. Paterno said. “I think he found it in an antique store a long time ago and had it fixed up. He said it reminded him of one his parents had when he was a boy.”

He had told me something quite similar once.

“It’s funny we both missed it,” she said.

“It wasn’t meant to be missed. Someone moved the other things on the mantel, so there wouldn’t be a gap. It looks as if it was never there.”

“But you couldn’t just carry it out under your arm. It was too big and too heavy.”

“You could carry it out if you had a suitcase with you, if you were on your way to the airport to fly home.”

She stared at me with her dark eyes. “What should we do?”

“I have some phone calls to make. I don’t want to use this phone.”

“Come upstairs.”

I felt a little uneasy. I had no credit anywhere. I was four months out of a convent where I earned in the high two figures each month—and gave some of it to charity.

“The calls may be expensive,” I said hesitantly. “I don’t have a credit card to charge them to.”

She looked at me witheringly. “I am not Mr. Gallagher,” she said. “I want to find out who killed Nathan as much as you do.”

We went upstairs and I called St. Stephen’s. Grace was on bells, and we made a little small talk before I asked her my question.

“Do you have the name of that travel agent that we always use at St. Stephen’s?”

“Yes, it’s Emily at Round the World. Do you want her number?”

“Please.”

I wrote it down, sent my regards to everyone, and hung up. Then I dialed Round the World and asked for Emily.

“Emily,” I said when she came on the line, “this is Chris Bennett. I used to be at St. Stephen’s. I was Sister Edward Frances.”

“Sister Edward,” she said cordially. “I didn’t know you’d left.”

“A few months ago. Emily, I have to ask you a favor.” I explained the situation. When she heard it was a murder, there was nothing she wouldn’t do for me. “I have to find out whether a man named Mitchell Herskovitz flew from New York to Atlanta on September twenty-ninth, late afternoon or evening, or September thirtieth in the morning. Can you do that?”

“I sure can. I’ll make like I’m his travel agent. You know, I call a special number that’s only for agents. Right away that gives me access that you can’t get.”

“Great. And while you’re at it, it might be helpful if I knew where he came from when he flew into New York.”

“Easy once I find out if he was booked New York to Atlanta. It may take me some time, Sister—uh—”

“Chris.”

“Chris, of course. I have a lot of airlines and a lot of flights to check, and I’ve got to leave early today. Can I call you tomorrow morning?”

“I’ll wait at home for your call.” I gave her my number, and we hung up.

“Do you think he came up here to kill his father?” Mrs. Paterno asked.

“No, I don’t. I think he probably never knew that Nathan had him listed on certificates. My aunt listed me on some of hers, and I didn’t know it till she died and I found them in the safe-deposit box. But he knew about that one because of the free checking. When he heard from the bank that the checking was no longer free, he thought Nathan was taking the money away from him, or something like that. Maybe he thought he was being completely disinherited. He may have had a business trip to New York and decided to ask his father what happened.”

“And they had a fight.”

I shook my head. “It wasn’t a fight. It was really something very tragic.”

I left her and drove home, arriving before four. I felt sick and worried and discouraged. I called Sergeant Franciotti, but he was off. He would be in tomorrow.

Then I called Jack.

“Hi, how’s things?” he asked when he got on the phone.

“I need your help,” I said.

“What’s wrong? You sound terrible.”

“Jack, if I discover evidence pointing to a possible murderer, do I tell his lawyer or do I tell the police? There’s a house that has to be searched, and somebody has to get a warrant. Would the lawyer see to that?”

“What happened?” he said, his manner all official.

“I can’t tell you now. I’ll tell you tomorrow. I’m just afraid that—I want to tell Arnold, but I don’t want to compromise him. He’s the attorney for my suspect.”

He didn’t answer right away. Somehow I knew he wouldn’t go after Arnold this time. “I’ll ask my law professor tonight. I’ll have an answer for you when I get home. Is ten too late to call?”