Kurtz and Barent Mystery Series: Books 1-3, page 7
Barent leaned back in his chair, emptied his coffee cup and smiled. “No real evidence to tie Herman Delgado to the murder—though I think it’s fairly safe to say he was the one who robbed Sharon Lee’s apartment— just enough to make me look at the possibilities. For instance, it’s possible that Herman Delgado knew something about Sharon Lee’s murder. It’s possible he was killed to keep him quiet. It’s possible that he knew her apartment would be empty because he was the one who killed her—or he knew who killed her.”
“Anything’s possible,” Kurtz said. “It’s possible he knew she was killed because he read about it in the newspaper.”
The corner of Barent’s mouth twitched. “True,” he said. “Sad but true.”
“Why tell me?” Kurtz asked.
“Why, indeed?” Barent shrugged. “If Bill Mose didn’t do it, then who did? You think maybe you could fit the bill?”
Kurtz pursed his lips and stared curiously at Barent’s face. Barent was about fifty-five. He was short for a cop, barely five nine, but he had kept in shape. He had thinning black hair with a bald spot on top and gray eyes behind wire rim glasses. The eyes were looking at him keenly. “Gee, Detective,” Kurtz said. “Why don’t you go fuck yourself?”
Barent smiled thinly and almost laughed. “I could speculate about possible motives—Sharon Lee and you were romantically involved; perhaps there was jealousy, or resentment.” Barent tipped his head to the side, peered into his empty coffee cup. “I have no real reason to think you did it. I have no reason to think you didn’t.”
“Well, I’m not going to give you one,” Kurtz said.
“Could you re-fill this for me, Harry?” Barent handed Moran his cup. Moran poured it full from a pot in the corner of the room and brought it back. “Motive is the question,” Barent said. “Was it just some punk looking for a cheap score?” Barent held a hand up and rocked it from side to side. “Unlikely. There are easier places to find someone to rob than a hospital in the middle of the night. And this business with Mose. Assuming of course that it wasn’t Mose who killed her—about which I am still uncertain—the way he was set up shows a lot of cool nerve. It also implies an inside job, because the average crook on the street who’s com- mitting murder would not have hesitated to kill a witness who stumbled on what he was doing. The murderer must have been able to recognize that this guy would never be able to identify him, was in fact a human being with about three functioning brain cells.
“And who killed Delgado? You might say that people in Herman’s line of business get killed all the time, and you’d be right. But the timing is certainly curious.”
Kurtz frowned at him, still angry but unable to think of anything constructive. “I think I’ll take that cup of coffee you offered me,” he said finally.
“How do you like it?” Moran asked.
“Cream. Two sugars.”
Moran grunted, went over to the pot and poured Kurtz a cup. Kurtz sipped it. The coffee was good. No reason it wouldn’t be good. Policemen, like physicians, spend a lot of time working at night. They probably consumed gallons of the stuff.
Kurtz felt off balance and vaguely unreal. He hated the feeling. Control, he thought. Kurtz had spent years dealing with an environment that defied absolute control, but one that he at least understood. He was no longer used to feeling so out of his depth and he resented it. Barent sat there while he drank, looking at him with a sad expression on his craggy face.
“So you think someone in the hospital did it,” Kurtz finally said.
“I think someone in the hospital had something to do with it. I doubt they were working alone.”
“Why not?”
Barent smiled his sad smile. “Who killed Herman Delgado?”
“Oh,” said Kurtz. “Right.”
Barent shrugged. “You’re a smart guy, Doc. It takes a lot of brains to get through medical school, learn to do the things that you do. Most crooks are stupid, but in any line of work you’ll find that some people are more successful than others and the really successful crooks are not stupid at all.” He stared down into his coffee, shook his head sadly and sighed. “One more thing,” Barent asked. “Did Sharon Lee ride horses?”
Kurtz looked at him sharply. “She rode all the time. They kept three horses on the estate. When she was a kid, she used to dream about going to the Olympics.”
Barent wrote something down in his notebook, then looked up at Kurtz. “So much for dreams. I wish I could make something profound out of that but I can’t. The only thing I can do is try to catch the people who killed her. Somebody had something to gain by Sharon Lee’s death. Now who could that somebody be?”
Chapter 9
Kathy Roselli’s father was a professor of Sociology at Stanford. Her mother taught Anthropology. Kathy had grown up in an environment where diversity of thought was supposed to be cherished (so long as it was politically correct thought) and where money was considered to be crass (though it was a constant source of irritation that the academic life paid so poorly). Other cultures—even the most brutally repressive—were accorded endless tolerance and respect but members of one’s own culture who happened to think differently from themselves were assumed to be misguided.
Kathy, Kurtz knew, had enough insight into herself to realize that this outlook was, at heart, parochial and contradictory. “I think it was Woody Allen who said, ‘Intellectuals are like the Mafia; they only kill their own.’” She had said this to him once while discussing her parents. Kathy liked to think that she had outgrown the dogmas of her youth. Kurtz sometimes had his doubts.
“How do I look?” she asked.
“You look beautiful,” he said. “Stop worrying.”
She sniffed. “These women spend half their time at the tanning salon and the other half getting their hair done.”
“Very few of them start out with your natural advantages.”
“Nice of you to say so.” She examined her face in a hand mirror, searching for imperfections. There were none.
“I like your dress,” he said. The dress was dark blue, slit up the side of one leg and cut low in front. Kathy’s hair, usually hanging down her back in a dark cloud, was pinned up in a chignon. He held her coat for her and she slipped her arms in. While she was doing so, he kissed the back of her neck. Her breath caught and he felt her shoulders tremble.
“We could stay in tonight,” he suggested.
“What would the doctors think?” she chided. “Not to mention their assorted wives and concubines.”
“We could leave early.”
“Why would we want to leave early? I’m sure the conversation will be fascinating: gall bladders and esophagogastrectomies, limited partnerships and closed end mutual funds. What could be better than that?” She gave her hair a last little pat, then turned around, gave Kurtz a grudging smile and reached up to straighten his tie, which he tolerated in silence.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s not be late.”
They said very little in the cab. A thin flurry of snowflakes drifted out of the sky and the wipers slapped at them lazily as they settled on the windshield. Kurtz stared without seeing at the lights and the snow and mulled over his conversation the other night with Barent. “Herman was twenty: the leading edge of the youthful underworld. These kids, they band together into gangs when they’re twelve, thirteen, fourteen, sometimes even younger. By the time they’re grown up, they’ve got ambitions. Herman served six months for armed robbery when he was seventeen. He was in and out a total of maybe a year after that on a variety of charges: assault, possession of marijuana, burglary. It’s possible that this involves his old gang. It’s equally possible that Herman was working alone or took up with another organization. We should know more in a few days. We’ll keep you informed,” he said.
“I’m not a cop,” Kurtz said. “Why are you bothering?”
Barent smiled at him and blinked his eyes innocently. “It’s possible that you may be able to help us.”
Kurtz stared at him, the skin on the back of his neck suddenly prickling.
“It seems likely that the solution to the murder of Sharon Lee, and possibly Herman Delgado as well, can be found in Easton Medical Center. You already have some knowledge of police procedure. Believe me, we wouldn’t ask you to do anything dangerous. Maybe gather a little information.”
“Oh,” Kurtz said. “Really.”
Barent again gave him his humorless smile. Kurtz said nothing. “Like I said,” Barent repeated, “we’ll let you know.”
Kurtz felt for a moment like an ice cold wire was penetrating his brain. He shivered. “Can I leave now?” he asked.
“Sure.” Barent glanced at his watch. It was close to ten at night. “I’ll have one of the boys drive you home.”
That had been two nights ago.
The first drops of rain began to drizzle down and the cabbie turned up the speed on his wipers. Kathy sat next to Kurtz with a dreamy smile on her face.
Kathy’s Ph.D. thesis was almost completed, something to do with the relationship between T.S. Eliot and J.R.R. Tolkien. The two men had been part of a literary group at Oxford that called themselves the “Inklings.” When he was younger, Kurtz had not been much of a reader. He would much rather be on a trout stream or hiding in a duck blind with a thermos of hot coffee and a shotgun, but when he got to college, an inspired instructor in a required Philosophy course and another in Introductory Literature had grudgingly changed Kurtz’ mind. Maybe his time in the Army had a little to do with it, seeing other people and other places, hearing other languages. Maybe it was simply growing up. Whatever it was, Kurtz had read both Eliot and Tolkien and he thought the association improbable, though he refrained from mentioning this opinion to Kathy.
The cab turned down Central Park South and stopped at a building near 56th Street. An elderly black man in a green uniform opened the door and they walked into a mirrored lobby with a red carpet leading across a marble floor to the elevators. The elevator let them out on the Fifteenth Floor.
The door opened to their knock and Phil Longo stood there wearing a tuxedo and holding a bottle of champagne. A pointed party hat with a crepe paper tassel dangling from the tip perched on top of his head. Longo had a big smile on his face. His eyes were bloodshot. “Happy New Year,” he said. “Come on in.”
Longo was tall, red haired and well built. Even drunk, he looked good. Longo always looked good. Kurtz wondered sometimes how he did it. His clothes were always straight, his expression attentive, even now through an alcohol haze. It was as if the liquor only affected the surface of his brain. The real Longo was immune to it, somewhere deep inside his head. Longo could spend ten hours in the O.R. on a miserable case and come out looking eager for a brisk round of golf.
“Kathy Roselli,” Kurtz said. “Phil Longo.”
“Pleased to meet you.” Longo said. He blinked happily at Kathy’s chest. Kathy gave him a smile and swept past him into the room.
The apartment was enormous, the furnishings varied and expensive. A Queen Anne desk sat in one corner of the foyer and a display case high- lighted a collection of American redware. Longo’s wife, Kurtz remembered, collected antiques. Or was that his former wife?
“Nice place,” Kathy remarked.
Kurtz nodded. “Phil is an orthopod. Orthopods do well.”
“Better than general surgeons?”
Kurtz didn’t even have to think about that one. “Absolutely,” he said.
“You doctors have quite a hierarchy, don’t you? Who’s number one? The dermatologists?”
“If you’re talking only about money, probably heart surgeons, or maybe plastic surgeons. Orthopedists, neurosurgeons and ophthalmologists are pretty close. Dermatologists do make a lot but not nearly as much as the surgical sub-specialists. On the other hand, you don’t get called out in the middle of the night for acne or psoriasis, so if you’re factoring in life style, dermatologists would have to be pretty close to the top.”
Kathy frowned at the display case. “It’s good to see that virtue is rewarded,” she said. “Let’s get a drink.”
They sipped champagne and mingled. Most of the crowd were doctors, mostly male, along with their wives or girlfriends. And the conversation did tend to center around medicine and money. Also vacations. Everyone, it seemed, was just coming back from someplace or about to go someplace else.
“How well do you know Longo?” Kathy whispered to him.
“Pretty well. Bill Werth and I have gone fishing with him a few times and we’ve had some beers after work. I always thought he was a nice guy. He does a lot of charity work. He’ll probably hit me up for a donation to Settlement House before the evening is over. His wife is on the Board. Why?”
“Just wondering. How about the rest of them? Do you know them all?”
“Most of them. Not all.”
A tray of hors d’oeuvres swept past and Kurtz grabbed a mushroom stuffed with crabmeat and a shrimp coated with barbecue sauce and popped them in his mouth. Kathy chose an endive leaf with a slice of goat cheese in the middle and nibbled on it.
A woman who appeared to be in her early thirties came up to them. She had dark blonde hair piled high on the top of her head. Her nose was straight, her skin perfect. She was small, not more than five two, but her figure was softly rounded, with a tiny waist and swelling breasts. “Hello,” she said, and held out a tiny hand. “I’m Sylvia Longo.”
The hand was hot. What was that movie, the one with Kathleen Turner? Body Heat. The character’s passionate nature was supposed to be reflected in her temperature. Sylvia Longo even looked like Kathleen Turner.
“This is Kathy Roselli,” Kurtz said, “and I’m Richard Kurtz.”
Sylvia Longo looked Kurtz up and down with a wide smile. She seemed to like what she was seeing. “Phil has told me all about you,” she said. After the initial perfunctory handshake, she ignored Kathy.
“He has? Nothing truthful, I hope.”
“He says that you’re a wild man from the hills of West Virginia, rustic, true to life and unspoiled.”
Kurtz nodded and sipped his champagne, wondering if he should be annoyed, also wondering if it was true. “And I thought the tuxedo hid the real me.”
Sylvia Longo’s eyes fixed on his face and Kurtz felt suddenly as if she could see right through his clothes. “It’s amazing,” she said. “We can talk about emancipation and equality all we want, but every woman I know dreams about being swept off her feet by some handsome, uncivilized savage.”
“Really?” Kurtz blinked his eyes, and felt as if an electrical connection had suddenly been snapped. He turned to Kathy. “Is that why you like me?”
Kathy shook her head. “She said handsome.”
Sylvia Longo’s eyes flicked once to Kathy’s face, then back to Kurtz. She grinned. “Well,” she said, “enjoy yourself.” And she walked off.
“Antiques?” Kathy said.
“Maybe it was the first wife.”
They wandered through the crowd. A string quartet played quiet music in the corner of the room. A steady stream of waiters offered assorted hors d’oevres to the guests and a table near the kitchen was piled with opened bottles of Veuve Cliquot Grande Dame.
“Hi, Richard,” Bill Werth said.
Standing next to Werth was a tall, fat man with a round, red face, who held out his hand. “How ya doing? I’m John Stills, O.B.- G.Y.N.”
Kurtz shook his hand.
“You’re Kurtz, aren’t you?”
“I used to be,” Kurtz said, “but now I’m Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind. Just a joke.”
Stills wrinkled his brow and peered at Kurtz. “What do you think about this thing with Sharon Lee?” he said after a moment. “Pretty strange, huh?”
Kurtz examined Still’s fat, innocently smiling face and reluctantly decided against strangling him. “Yup,” he agreed. “Pretty strange.”
“I did a lot of cases with her. Good surgeon, you know? Sort of a grouch but she knew her way around a uterus.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“Great party, isn’t it?” said Stills.
“You bet.”
Werth tried to suppress his grin and failed, and Kurtz gave him a sour look. “Where’s Dina?” Kurtz asked him.
“She’s around somewhere,” Werth said. “I haven’t seen her in a little while.”
“She’s in the bedroom with my wife,” Stills said, “examining a Ming vase.”
“We’re going to have to leave soon,” Werth said. “The babysitter has to be home by 11:30.”
“Too bad.” Stills smiled widely and blew an alcohol laden breath at Werth, who silently gagged. “We’ll just be getting started by then.”
“I,” Kathy announced, “need more champagne.”
“I’ll join you,” Kurtz said. Behind them, Werth made a helpless gesture in Still’s direction and then rolled his eyes to the ceiling. Kurtz smiled at him blandly over his shoulder.
“A charming man,” Kathy remarked, “rustic, true to life and unspoiled.”
Kurtz gave her a wounded look and silently drank his champagne.
“You want to go to Vegas?” Jim Farkas peered blearily at Kurtz, glanced with drunken interest at Kathy.
“Las Vegas? When?” Kurtz asked.
“I’m getting together a little trip. Middle of March. We’ll stay at the Mirage, maybe Bellagio. Longo’s going, so is Stills.”
“I’ll think about it.”
Farkas turned to Kathy. “I’m Jim Farkas,” he said. “You like him?”
“Sometimes.”
“He’s a cheap bastard,” Farkas said with a crooked smile. “You should drop him, get together with a guy who’ll treat you right.”
