Ukulele of Death, page 9
Before he listed all of them I figured I’d cull the herd a bit. ‘Do any of them collect stringed instruments of all kinds? I know the guy I’m looking for has at least one guitar and a harp that Harpo Marx probably didn’t play in a movie.’ That assumed, of course, that the woman I knew as Evelyn Bannister had told me anything at all that was true, which was a long shot at best.
‘Oh. OK. That eliminates a lot of this list.’ Foster was probably staring at a phone or computer screen. ‘Give me a minute.’
‘Take two,’ I said.
He took me literally. ‘Oh, it won’t take that long.’ You’d think with a musician you could riff, but no.
I thought it was best to stay silent. Sure enough, after about twenty seconds Foster let out a breath. ‘I have three names for you,’ he said.
‘What are they?’
‘The first is probably not who you’re looking for because her name is Listrata Gingold and she’s a ninety-year-old woman living in Pisa.’
‘I agree. That’s probably not my man.’ I couldn’t help it.
Foster likely blinked, trying to figure out if this human was indeed being sincere. But trouper that he was he pressed on. ‘The second is a man from Syosset, New York named Augustus Bennett. I’ve dealt with August a couple of times and he’s really a little obsessed with whatever instrument he’s tracking at a particular time. I once helped him find a stand-up double bass that had been used in Josephine Baker’s touring band and he flew all the way to Tanzania to obtain it. August is a serious collector.’
Would he have killed for the right instrument? It was a legitimate question, but one that I was certain Foster couldn’t answer definitively. I didn’t ask it. ‘Who’s the third person?’ I said instead.
‘A man named Robert Van Houten,’ he answered. ‘I’ve never dealt with him myself, but from what I can read and things I’ve heard from other luthiers, he doesn’t even play an instrument. He just collects them as investments. He’s based in Seattle, but he has agents everywhere. If he decides an instrument is worth his attention, you can bet it’ll end up in his hands.’
‘Sounds like a pretty wealthy guy,’ I said. Had he amassed his fortune on Wall Street?
‘He is,’ Foster assured me. ‘From what I can tell he put some money into Starbucks even before it was a publicly traded company and he’s gotten very rich as the company has grown. I gather it was just an impulse; he knew the owners and asked if they needed a little extra cash. Before you know it, he’s got millions.’
‘If not billions,’ I said more or less to myself.
‘I wouldn’t be surprised,’ Foster said. ‘But you never know.’ You have to be careful what you say to serious people.
‘Thank you for all your help,’ I told him, but he still wasn’t about to let me off the hook. Or off the phone.
‘Why are you looking for this man?’ he asked. People are always somewhat curious about it when a private investigator calls them with questions. They want to be able to tell their spouses, their friends, and possibly the local TV news what a huge part they played in the capture of a serial killer, of which there are far fewer than movies and TV shows would like you to believe.
‘His daughter asked me to find him,’ I said, and as far as I was aware that was true, although I still had no idea who Evelyn Bannister really was. And I doubted Melinda Cantone would confirm the identity of the birth father even if I had the correct name to suggest. And even if there was a Melinda Cantone.
‘Well, good luck to her,’ Foster said.
‘You have no idea,’ I told him.
FOURTEEN
I checked out Listrata Gingold just because I like to be thorough and she would be the easiest to eliminate from my search. Not only was she definitely not Evelyn Bannister’s father, she was also at this moment completely dead, and not as a result of foul play. She had died of congestive heart failure in Florence, Italy at the age of ninety-two.
Augustus Bennett proved more elusive. He had indeed lived in Syosset for thirty years but had then moved away five years ago and left no forwarding address that the internet could provide. There was no point calling his former neighbors (who could be identified on the right kind of map available when you know where to look) because the one relative I did find, a sister named Sylvia who lived in Sherman Oaks, California, said she hadn’t heard from her brother in more than ten years. She said he never really made ‘human connections.’ OK. I might have interviewed Bennett’s cat but I’ve had very little success trying that tactic. Contrary to what some might believe, I am not a witch.
It was weird that there didn’t appear to be any record of Bennett after he left Syosset (assuming he left: Maybe he was there in a different house). People generally want to be at least a little traceable so friends and family can locate them. In the social media age it’s practically unheard of for a person to have no footprint whatsoever. It led me to wonder if Bennett had done that intentionally, and if so what he was trying to conceal from the rest of humanity. Maybe it was his inability to make human connections.
Since he appeared to be a dead end for the time being (there’s always another way to search) I decided to shift my focus to Robert Van Houten. He wasn’t trying at all to be anonymous on the internet so it was considerably easier to put together a profile of the man.
Van Houten had not simply invested in Starbucks when it was a local coffee company in Seattle, as Foster had suggested. He was a venture capitalist who had started at the age of fifteen and had a knack for finding companies about to become huge and getting just a tiny piece of them, which eventually became worth huge amounts of money. Besides the coffee business he’d bought himself a little slice of Microsoft back in his youth and had taken an interest in an alternative transportation company called Lyft (presumably because Uber sounded too German or something). So Van Houten was a very well-heeled individual.
In short, he was filthy rich.
Still he acted as a man of the people. Van Houten had open office days in a storefront in Seattle where aspiring investors could come by and gather the wisdom of the oracle, as it were. He also had a phone number that was easily findable on the web, although admittedly it did not go directly to Van Houten’s own personal cell phone. It rang through to one of his seven assistants, who would answer personally, listen to your pitch, and determine if the Great Man should be next on your call list or you on his. Or, as I imagined happened often, neither.
I called the number to see what I could get and was immediately received by someone who identified himself as Steve. The simplest Google search told me he was most likely Stephen Ackridge, Van Houten’s third most senior assistant. Not bad for a first try; this guy really was trying to appear to be trying to be transparent.
I told Steve I was a private investigator, which did not seem to worry him at all, and he asked what sort of matter I was inquiring about. ‘Actually, I’m interested in Mr Van Houten’s collection of rare stringed instruments,’ I said. ‘In particular, if he owns or is looking for any unusual specimens of ukuleles.’
You’d expect that to take at least a second to sink in, if for no reason other than that ukulele is a funny word, but Steve didn’t miss a beat. ‘I don’t believe Mr Van Houten is in the market for any ukuleles, but I can certainly inquire with him and get back to you, Ms Stein,’ he said. ‘Can you give me any details?’
‘I’d prefer to speak to Mr Van Houten directly, if possible,’ I told him. ‘It’s not that I don’t trust you, but I find it’s better to hear the person’s tone of voice and how he chooses to answer when I ask the question.’ What the hell; if Van Houten was going to be transparent, I could be blunt. It’s almost the same thing.
This time Steve did take a moment to consider. ‘I’m not sure if that’s going to be possible, but I will pass the request along,’ he answered. ‘In any case, is this number the one to call back? Or would you prefer an email?’ I told him to go ahead and call my cell, which I’d used to contact him, since he already had the number. Apparently that whole thing about hearing the person’s actual voice hadn’t really landed for Steve. It happens.
I hung up with Steve and sat back. It was the first time in a while I’d had a moment to wonder where the hell my brother was, so I picked up my phone and texted him: Where the hell are you? Brothers and sisters have unique ways of saying how much they love and respect each other.
There was no answer and I didn’t have anyone left to call about Evelyn’s ukulele or her dad. And I realized at that moment that I was more interested in her murder than either of those things. That was a problem, since there was an ongoing police investigation to which I had no access. My only friend on the NYPD was Mankiewicz, who might have been inching his way out of the Friend Zone, but wasn’t getting out of his own precinct and therefore didn’t have any inside information on the case.
I do have a friend at the medical examiner’s office named Karl, but the odds that he was working on Evelyn’s case – or that he could tell me anything other than that she’d been bludgeoned to death with a brass candlestick – were not great.
My phone buzzed and – huzzah! – there was a text from Ken.
Be back for supper.
Good lord was that man eloquent. He probably even expected me to cook. I’d show him and order in Chinese food. That would … not teach him a thing, but I’d be damned if I was cooking. Besides, that was six hours from now. I might even change my mind and order in from the barbecue place.
I did not need a charge but I found myself getting weary. Not finding out things takes a good deal out of me. Having no good ideas I decided to call Detective Miller, the lead cop on Evelyn Bannister’s murder. He wouldn’t tell me anything, but asking him would kill a few minutes.
It took a couple of explanations before I got on the phone with Miller himself. Obviously Midtown North was a larger precinct than the one where Mankiewicz and Bendix worked, and that meant more layers of administration between the public (me) and the detective (Miller). But when I mentioned my private investigator’s license and the fact that Miller had questioned me at the scene of the Bannister murder, I managed to get through to the man in all his cop glory.
‘You think of something else that can help?’ Miller’s telephone manners were impeccable. You’d think he’d start with ‘hello’ or something but no, the man was all business, and business meant me helping him. To protect and to serve.
‘I don’t have anything new,’ I answered in what I hoped was a friendly tone. ‘I was wondering what you’ve determined from the crime scene. I have Ms Bannister’s family asking me for updates and I don’t know what to tell them.’
You know how they always say lawyers shouldn’t ask a question in court when they don’t know the answer? It’s basically the same for a private investigator hoping to get more information out of a cop. Technically I hadn’t asked Miller a question, but I had nonetheless fallen into that very trap.
‘That’s funny,’ he said. From the sound of his voice I didn’t think he considered it the least bit humorous. ‘I haven’t been able to find one living relative and I’m pretty sure Evelyn Bannister wasn’t even the victim’s real name, so maybe you can enlighten me as to how you have her relatives on your back. And while you’re at it, tell me their names, addresses and phone numbers.’
Miller, alas, wasn’t a stupid cop. He had called me out on my lie and I had no Plan B other than to own up. ‘OK, you got me, detective. I don’t have any relatives of the victim getting on my case and no, I don’t know what her real name was, either. It looks like all the information she gave me when she hired me was false.’
‘Then you don’t have a client,’ Miller said. ‘Why are you calling me about this? Why haven’t you moved on to the next case?’ It was a fair question and I wished I had a really good answer. Saying that it didn’t feel right probably wasn’t the way to go, but it was the closest to honest I could have gotten.
I exhaled, probably in Miller’s ear. ‘I took her money,’ I said. ‘Whatever her name was, she had a valid bank account at Chase and the check cleared. So I’m looking into it because that’s what I’ve been paid to do.’
‘She knew she was going to be murdered and hired you to solve it?’ Again, Detective Miller was employing sarcasm (which they issue to you at the New York City Police Academy when you become an officer) to point out that I was behaving like an emotional woman and not the tough New York cop he believed himself to be. I bet he would cry like a baby at a cute puppy video on YouTube.
‘No, she hired me to find her birth father, but seeing how I have no idea who she was it seems unlikely I’m going to track him down.’ If I wasn’t going to get any new information out of Miller he would have to serve as the vent through which I would relieve my frustration with this case and the fact that my stupid brother had stormed out of the office and refused to tell me where he was.
‘That’s not my problem,’ Miller said. He was right, but that didn’t help.
‘Come on, detective,’ I countered. ‘You’ve been there before. A case has taken a bite out of you and you need to see it through to the end. That’s where I am. And anything that helps me get there would be sincerely appreciated. I can’t be any clearer than that.’
Cops like nothing better than sounding world-weary and Miller was clearly a practiced user. ‘You do realize that I have no obligation whatsoever to tell you anything, and that whatever is in the report, which is public record, is all you’re entitled to know. Right?’
I don’t know why but I felt encouraged by his patronizing me. ‘Right.’
‘OK. I’m not going to give you a quiz on investigation to prove you know what you’re doing.’
‘Big of you,’ I said. Probably shouldn’t have, but a girl has to stand up for herself, and I stand taller than almost all other girls.
Miller ignored my lack of gratitude. ‘Here’s what I can tell you without damaging the investigation, which is something I’m never going to do no matter how bad you feel about yourself.’
‘Detective …’
‘Just listen. The ME’s report came back.’
Big news. ‘I’m going to go out on a limb and say she was hit on the head with a great big brass candlestick and that caused enough trauma to her skull and her brain that she died, not to mention the loss of blood. What else is new?’
You could hear the smug smile in Miller’s voice. Or at least I could. ‘What else is new is that the blow to the head didn’t kill Ms Whoever She Was. It knocked her out and caused some bleeding but she probably would have survived.’
That was weird. ‘So what did kill her?’ I asked.
‘The amount of strychnine that had been injected into her body, probably in her neck,’ Miller said. ‘Likely took fifteen to twenty minutes for her to die because she couldn’t breathe.’
FIFTEEN
I walked home.
That’s what I do when I need to think. Trying to navigate the subway system takes too much energy and too much brain power, while walking (particularly when you are fairly immune to the people shoving their way through Manhattan streets) leaves me bandwidth to work out problems.
Strychnine? Where could you find strychnine? If memory served it was often used as a pesticide, so maybe you could buy it at a Home Depot or use it if you worked for a pest-control company or … if you were a building super and you had frequent calls from your tenants about bugs eating your plants on the terrace or something. What was the name of the super at Evelyn Bannister’s building? Gus? I’d have to go talk to him.
Tomorrow. I’d talk to Gus tomorrow. I was walking in the wrong direction right now and wanted to talk to Ken. I was sufficiently charged but even then I could get fatigued like anybody else. I do sleep at night, even after a plug-in.
My phone buzzed in my pocket and the ID showed MANK. I wasn’t going to RICH yet in my contacts. He’d have to show me a lot more than one plate of primavera for that.
Still, I had asked him to do some more research and he was calling so I picked up the call. You kiss a guy a few times and he calls you the next day? For some girls, that’s a keeper all by itself. I was convincing myself to be a little bit more hard to get. If I was going to get got at all.
‘What’s up, Mank?’ I said. I wanted him to know we were on a professional call here and that was what I was going to call him.
But he was even more professional than I was it seemed. ‘I’ve been shipped a package that was addressed to you,’ he said. ‘I’d appreciate it if you’d come to take it off my hands.’
OK, that was weird. ‘What’s in the package?’ I asked.
‘The package is your brother,’ he said. ‘The cops in Englewood, New Jersey just drove him over and dropped him on my feet.’
My stomach clenched. Was Ken dead? Mank didn’t sound that alarmed. ‘What were the Englewood police doing with my brother?’ I asked.
‘Denying me my right to assembly!’ I could hear Ken somewhere near Mank’s desk. So he was clearly alive, and I rolled my eyes because he was being Ken.
‘They were deciding whether to arrest him for trespass and disturbing the peace,’ Mank said. ‘Apparently he was crashing a funeral.’
‘Don’t tell me,’ I said.
‘Yup. Dr Mansoor.’
I hung up the call and changed direction to get to the precinct and go sign out my idiot brother. But I took my time. Let Ken think I hadn’t been worried about him and feeling, just for a moment, terrified at the prospect of him dying. I’d walk all the way there (which was admittedly only about ten minutes out of my way but I was making a statement). Let Mank put up with my brother’s antics for a while and see how he liked it.
I called the office and got Igavda, as I should. I asked her if there had been any messages or visitors during the day. She said an older woman had come by, didn’t want to say what her case was about and didn’t leave a name. I wondered if Evelyn Bannister’s birth mother had somehow heard about her death. I told Igavda to call me if the woman came back and not to let her leave. I was pretty sure Igavda understood what I told her. It’s not always easy to know with Igavda.
