Kurtz and Barent Mystery Series: Books 1-3, page 77
“So what? Anybody could have made them.”
“Really? Are you saying that Mr. Donaldson made the calls?”
Conley, evidently realizing that he was saying no such thing, frowned at the phone bill. “I am not obligated to speculate about who might have made these phone calls or the subject of any conversations that may have taken place. Speculation, as you well know, is not admissible in court.”
Barent smiled at him. “Marty Burnett says that Mrs. Donaldson called him. He was very specific about that. He said that she offered him five million dollars to kill Regina Cole.”
Allison, sitting in her chair, sniffed in disdain. Conley gave her a worried look.
“He said that the money was to be payable on the death of Eleanor Herbert. He said that Mrs. Donaldson was expecting to inherit nearly a hundred million dollars at that time. Do you want to know why Mrs. Donaldson was willing to pay five million dollars to have Regina Cole killed?”
Conley looked at his client and frowned. “No,” he said. “I have no interest whatsoever in anything Mr. Burnett has to say. Mr. Burnett is under arrest for the murder of Jerome Herbert. His testimony could hardly be regarded as credible.”
Barent ignored him. “He said that Eleanor Herbert’s will divides everything she has among her nieces and nephews. The will reads exactly that way, except that she exempts her nephew Ronnie, figuring he’s a priest and the Catholic Church has enough money. Aside from that, she didn’t specify which nieces and nephews. Eleanor Herbert loves children, you see, and she’s devoted to her family. She didn’t want to play favorites, and maybe she suspected all along that a few distaff members might turn up, knowing what the men in her family were like. Anyway, if any of these nieces or nephews would happen to die before Eleanor Herbert, then their share of the estate is to be divided equally among their natural heirs. Lena Nye was, we think, the daughter of Joseph P. Herbert, Junior, which made her Eleanor Herbert’s niece. Her only living descendant was Regina Cole, which would have entitled her to a third of Eleanor Herbert’s estate once the old lady passed away. Interesting, no?”
Despite himself, Conley did look interested. He glanced at his client and frowned very slightly. “Marty Burnett told you this?”
“He did, and Eleanor Herbert confirms it, the part about the will, anyway.”
“Conjecture,” Conley stated. “Mr. Burnett is trying to put the blame on a convenient suspect. Why Allison? Why not Garrison? Or even Jerome? They would have had a similar motive.”
“They might have, but only if they knew what was in the will. Eleanor Herbert is attached to her family, you see. When she went to have a will drawn up, she gave the business to Gordon Donaldson, which should have made it confidential on old Gordon’s part but, hey, people tell their wives all sorts of things.”
Garrison Herbert claimed to know nothing of the contents of his aunt’s will, though he could have been lying. Barent didn’t think so. Garrison had been as down as any man Barent had ever seen. “My whole life,” Garrison had said. “Do you know what that’s like? My whole life, living a lie, pretending to be a wealthy man, to have power and influence and respect, and the whole time, we were puppets, dancing a little jig at the end of a string.” He raised a sad face to Barent. “But I was making it come true. My father had no interest in the business. Why should he? It wasn’t his business. He was paid to keep his mouth shut and go through the motions, but I love the business. I really love it. I decided way back in the beginning that I was going to become what I appeared to be, and I had almost made it. I’m good at what I do. I’m very good. Under me, Herbert Development has become almost a legitimate corporation. Why take all that money, do nothing with it and ship it off to the Bahamas? I use it to build things. I make a profit. The owners appreciate that. I’m well paid. You could even say I’m rich.”
“But not wealthy, influential and powerful,” Barent said.
Garrison shook his head tiredly. “No, I’m not wealthy, influential or powerful. I have a nice house and a nice car and a nice pension and a couple of million in the bank. I could have made a better deal with a different company—a much better deal. Do you know what Michael Eisner makes? Paul Allen? Sumner Redstone? Real top executives? Hell, I eat lunch with those guys. They’ve got nothing on me. Nothing. But I couldn’t leave. Burnett would have killed me. The fact is, I’m a hostage. I’ve been selected to pay for the sins of my grandfather and Jerry, if he lived, would have had to pay after me. That’s why he drank so much. Jerry was the crown prince, the heir-apparent to nothing.”
Garrison gave a resigned shrug. “I always knew Eleanor had the real money in the family but what will that do for me? It’s not money that I care about. The money is just a way of keeping score. It’s what you can do with the money that counts. No matter how much money I inherit, I’ll still be stuck in Herbert Development, a bug on a pin.”
Barent felt sorry for Garrison Herbert, which wouldn’t save him from going to jail.
Nor, Barent thought with satisfaction, his sister.
“If that was all we had,” Barent said to Conley, “you might be right. It’s his word against hers, and Marty Burnett is not looking too credible, right now.” Barent smiled thinly, a look that Betty always said made him look like a shark. “But there’s also this.” Barent pulled a small plastic box out of his pocket and placed it on the table next to Conley.
Conley looked down at the box but made no move to pick it up. “What is this?” he asked.
“It’s a tape,” Barent said.
For the first time, Allison stirred in her seat. She looked at Barent and frowned.
“A tape,” Conley said.
“Yep. Burnett never conducted important business on the phone. He met Allison for lunch on four separate occasions. You can hide a tape recorder in a pocket.” Barent chuckled. “Four conversations, four tapes. We have all the evidence we need.”
Allison opened her mouth to say something but before she could speak, Conley held up a hand. “Unless you can play us these mythical tapes, this conversation is going nowhere.”
Barent nodded. “I can play them,” he said. And he did.
After that, it was easy. Conley, listening to Allison’s voice calmly offering five million dollars for the murder of Regina Cole, appeared to visibly wilt. Allison remained impassive. When the tape was finished, she sighed. “Well, I guess that’s that.”
“Shut up, Allison,” Conley said. “Don’t make it worse.”
“Shut up yourself.” Allison looked at him coldly. Then she looked at Barent with eyes that almost glowed. “Do you know what it was like, growing up a Herbert, knowing that we used to be people that counted for something, people who commanded influence and respect, knowing that we were living a lie? When Gordon married me, he thought he was marrying wealth. Stupid me, I didn’t enlighten him.” Allison shrugged. “Gordon is not a very good lawyer. He’s a handsome man. He’s charming, good in bed, a good father, but he doesn’t make a lot of money.
“And who the hell was Regina Cole, anyway? The great-granddaughter of a playboy and a whore. What did she ever do to deserve a hundred million dollars? That money belongs to the Herberts—the real Herberts, the ones who suffered for it. Regina Cole,” Allison said with dignity, “didn’t pay her dues.”
Chapter 38
But who was Herbert Development?
“You know who they are,” Kurtz said. “The mob. Mickey Nolan, guys like that.”
“The mob.” Barent looked at him pityingly. “The mob is a million different people in a thousand different cities and towns. Cocaine and prostitution and loan sharking are the merest tip of the iceberg. The mob is also illicit arms shipments to Syria and Iran. The mob is campaign contributions slipped into politicians’ back pockets. The mob is hotels and banks and foundries and internet development companies. Mickey Nolan is just a crook. The guys at the bottom of this have had sixty years to keep their hands clean. Their grandfathers might have been crooks. Now they’re institutions.” Barent shrugged.
Institutions. Dead is dead, either way. Kurtz hoped that Jerome Herbert, wherever he was, appreciated the difference.
Barent, however, did not seem worried. “Thankfully,” he said, “racketeering is not my job. Let the feds worry about Herbert Development.”
A reasonable attitude for a man in Barent’s position, Kurtz thought. The criminal enterprise that was Herbert Development was somebody else’s problem. Good luck to them.
But help in the case against Herbert Development came in an unexpected form. The next evening, Kurtz’ phone rang. It was Barent. “Eleanor Herbert would like to see us again,” he said. “You up for it?”
“This is getting a little tedious. Why doesn’t she ever come to see you?”
“Because she’s rich, and because she’s old. You want us to haul her in?”
“No,” Kurtz said.
“Then be here in an hour.”
“Right,” Kurtz said, and hung up the phone.
“Again?” Lenore asked.
Kurtz shrugged. “I’ll try not to be too late.”
Lenore smiled knowingly, shook her head and kissed him.
An hour later, Kurtz walked into Barent’s office. Harry Moran was sitting in his accustomed chair. A middle-aged man wearing a blue suit with a vest sat in the chair opposite. He had black, curly hair and a disapproving expression on his face.
“Richard Kurtz,” Barent said. “John Haines. Mr. Haines is an attorney with the Justice Department.”
John Haines frowned at Kurtz. “I don’t see why we’re bringing along somebody who has no official relationship to the case.”
Barent looked at Kurtz and rolled his eyes. “Because we feel like it, that’s why.”
Haines sniffed.
A few minutes later they were on their way. Moran drove, with Barent next to him on the front seat. Haines and Kurtz sat in the back. The drive was awkward. Haines avoided looking at Kurtz. He seemed preoccupied, evidently the officious sort. Kurtz laid his head back against the seat and closed his eyes. He had almost succeeded in falling asleep by the time the car pulled to a halt at the front door of the Herbert estate. Kurtz yawned and followed the others out. It was dark and misty, a cloudy evening turning into a murky night. Kurtz thought it would probably rain. Very appropriate, he thought. He felt like Holmes running over the moors, pursuing the hound of the Baskervilles.
Eleanor and Vincent Herbert were both sitting in the drawing room when little group walked in. Vincent appeared despondent. His cheeks were sunken. He stared at the carpet and barely acknowledged their presence. Eleanor sat in a chair next to a fire, glass of sherry at her side, looking much as she had the other night, somber and grim. “Thank you for coming,” she said. She glanced at Haines. “You are from the Justice Department?”
“Yes,” Haines said.
“Good. My brother has something to tell you.”
Despite her words, Vincent did not look ready to tell them. For nearly a minute, he continued to stare into space. Finally, Eleanor cleared her throat, at which Vincent blinked his eyes, gave a shrug and looked up at them. “I might as well,” he said. “It’s going to come out now anyway. After sixty years, I have nothing left to hide.”
He sighed and his head sank down once again to his chest. “Your suppositions regarding Claire Reisberg were incorrect,” he said. “I didn’t kill her.” A flicker of a smile crossed his lips. “But I did know her. I knew her quite well.
“The Van Gelden Institute was a convalescent home for the very wealthy. My father, in fact, helped to fund the place. It was, of course, not the only such establishment. There were at that time, and today there still are, perhaps a dozen similar institutions scattered throughout the country. The Betty Ford Clinic is one. The Institute for Living in Hartford is another. But Van Gelden was unique both in his attention to detail and in the range of services that he provided. If your Uncle Albert couldn’t keep his hands off little boys, why the Van Gelden Institute was just the place for his recovery. If your grandmother passed out drunk by the middle of the afternoon, then Van Gelden could offer you help. If your eldest son had a liking for a snort of cocaine or two, then Van Gelden had a bed for him. All very proper and discreet. All very expensive.”
Herbert smiled at them. “The rich are used to their comforts. The windows at the Institute had bars on them but the rooms were bright and airy. The food was the best that money could buy and there was wine with every meal, for those patients, at least, for whom wine would not interact poorly with their medication. The Institute had a swimming pool and a tennis court and even a nine hole golf course. The Institute catered to every one of their clients’ needs. All of their needs, properly, privately and discreetly.” He stopped and raised an eyebrow.
“Don’t tell me,” Barent said.
Herbert chuckled morosely. “Officially, Claire Reisberg was a nurse at the Van Gelden Institute but she never attended a nursing school and the nature of her responsibilities had nothing to do with nursing, unless your definition of the word is very broad, indeed. She and Veronica Nye were originally dancers at a speakeasy in New York, a business venture of my father’s and one of his associates, a Mister Owney Madden.” Vincent stopped and looked at them. “You’ve heard of Owney Madden?”
“We’ve heard of him,” said Barent.
Vincent nodded. “Neither Claire Reisberg nor Veronica Nye were very talented dancers. But it served Owney Madden’s purpose to have pretty girls on his payroll. The two women were more rivals than friends. My brother, at various times, was involved with both of them, separately and occasionally, together. My brother could afford his little pleasures, you see.
“Claire Reisberg was introduced to Van Gelden by my brother. Van Gelden found her qualifications acceptable and he offered her employment. She was beautiful and totally uninhibited and would do anything for money. She, along with a small coterie of similarly minded young ladies, serviced the needs of the male clientele, and for all I know, the female as well.” Herbert hung his head and sighed.
Kurtz, who could not imagine where all this was leading but who was fascinated by the journey, waited patiently for Herbert to go on. Finally, the old man sighed again and said, “Harold Van Gelden was a remarkable man, an entrepreneur in the truest sense. He was totally unscrupulous but he gave good value for his money. Van Gelden was a legitimate psychotherapist, though his methods were unorthodox even for his own time and would be considered outright malpractice today. My brother was not his only patient in this family. Nor was my sister.”
Herbert looked at Eleanor, who met his eyes with cool dispassion. Herbert said, “Van Gelden had a unique theory regarding the nature of psychiatric illness. He claimed a remarkable success rate.”
Kurtz spoke up for the first time. “Deprivation therapy,” he said.
“You’ve heard of it.” Herbert smiled without warmth. “I shouldn’t be surprised. Yes, deprivation therapy. Aversion therapy might be a better term. I understand that there was such a therapy, many years ago. It shared many characteristics with Van Gelden’s. I don’t know which therapy came first.” He shrugged. “Not that it matters. But there was a positive side to the therapy as well as a negative, a reward as well as a punishment.”
“Claire Reisberg,” Kurtz said. Barent looked at him questioningly, then he seemed to understand. He nodded.
“Yes,” Vincent Herbert said. “Claire Reisberg was the reward. Can you imagine what it meant for a young man of that era to be uninterested in women?” Herbert looked at each of them gravely. Nobody said a word. Moran frowned down at the carpet. Haines looked embarrassed. “Homosexuality is hardly accepted even today as a viable lifestyle but in that day and age it was regarded as bestial and unnatural. You could be deprived of your civil rights for harboring such feelings and confined to jail for acting upon them. I unfortunately, did harbor such feelings, though I only rarely acted upon them. I realized when I was only a very young boy that I had no desire for women, not for their bodies, at any rate. The thought of carnal intercourse with a woman, quite frankly, disgusted me. I experimented a few times with like-minded boys at school but I found the results unsatisfactory. I could not understand my feelings. I despised my urges and I came to despise myself.
“And so Harold Van Gelden and his psychological theories. Picture the scenario: I am in the arms of a Hercules, rutting, ecstatic, almost swooning with lust. Van Gelden pushes the plunger on a syringe of insulin and I find myself growing dizzy, then violently nauseous. I find my lust transformed almost instantly into an urge to throw up on my Hercules’ hairy chest. For a moment, I black out. Perhaps I suffer a seizure. I find these experiences, on the whole, to be unpleasant. I begin to associate the Hercules with, uh, what is the term? Negative sensory impulses? Either way, I lose consciousness, and when I wake up, there is Claire Reisberg, naked by my side, soothing me, caressing me. She brings me back to life, you see. Once or twice, I even had an orgasm.”
Herbert looked at them all. He raised an eyebrow. “Do you understand what I’m saying? It would be too much to say that the experience made me desire women instead of men. It did, however, make any sort of sexual activity seem not worth the risk. I became, for a time, impotent, which my poor father must have regarded as a step in the right direction. In later years, I married, and though my wife and I never had what I would regard as a ‘normal’ relationship, I was at least able to satisfy my marital duties. My wife eventually sought consolation in a series of affairs. I did not blame her for them.
“Van Gelden regarded me as a qualified success. Claire Reisberg, on the other hand, came to see me as an avenue to easy riches. God knows what she must have been thinking. She was a prostitute, but I suppose that ordinary prostitution, while it might have led to a scandal for someone in my social position, could at least have been dismissed with the easy notion that ‘boys-will-be-boys.’ I was something else.” Herbert grinned again without amusement. “She came to see my father and threatened blackmail. My father was not impressed. He ordered the servants to confine her to an upstairs bedroom and called Van Gelden. Van Gelden came at once. He was shocked by his employee’s behavior. He was mortified. He begged the opportunity to make amends. My father granted his wish. Van Gelden and my father went upstairs together and Van Gelden strangled her. It was as simple as that. They brought me along to witness, of course. It was a part of my therapy.” He gave them a cold smile and fell silent.
