19

 

 

The New York cops came into our conference room, and we all sat up straighter. Cops have that affect on most of us civilians.

The one we knew as Lt. Jefferies took the lead. His partner stood behind him and eyed us all. He was a tall black man with stooped shoulders and a large belly. He was losing his bristly black hair to male pattern baldness. He was dressed in a coat and tie, tie pulled down from his neck, collar open. But despite his shabby appearance, the black cop had those bright, ever-alert cop eyes, which darted around the room, taking us in one at a time, sizing us up, making educated guesses about who or what we were. I smiled at him.

“OK,” said Jefferies, “Detective Delacroix here is going to conduct interviews with each of you. Nobody in this room is considered to be a suspect in the death of Mr. Wasserman. But we need a little more background about him and how he interacted with his co-workers here at IBS. Even the most insignificant detail might be important, so I urge you to speak freely with the detective. Questions?”

“You think he was killed by someone at IBS?” I asked.

Jefferies turned to look at me.

“Why do you ask?” he said.

“You said you wanted to know about how he interacted with co-workers at IBS,” I said. “Does that mean you think one of us killed him? Jealousy, rage or spite?”

“What is your name?” Jefferies said.

“Hacker,” I said. “Correspondent and host of Hacker’s History segment.”

“Ah,” Jefferies said. “I believe Mr. Oswald mentioned your name. Warned me about you. Along with someone named Bosworth?”

“Yo,” said the Boz, raising his hand. “Guilty as charged.”

“To answer your question, Mr. Hacker,” Jefferies said. “We don’t know who shot Mr. Wasserman. “That’s why we want to speak with all of you. From these conversations, we hope some leads will develop.”

“Got it,” I said. “So I probably don’t need to hire my good pal Al Dershowitz for this interview.”

“I wouldn’t think so,” Jefferies said, “But that is entirely up to you.”

“I’ll wing it,” I said.

“Brave man,” he said, “Detective Delacroix is one of the department’s best interviewers. If you’ve got a deep dark secret, he’ll find out what it is.”

“Oh, crap,” I said. “It’s the jaywalking, isn’t it? I knew when I cut across Amsterdam that someone was watching.”

Jefferies decided that our little repartee had gone quite far enough. He turned at nodded at Delacroix and left the room. The other cop pulled out a chair, sat down, and took a black notebook out of his suit coat pocket and a ballpoint pen from his shirt.

“Who worked with Wasserman the longest?” he asked.

“Probably me,” Van said. “Going on eleven years now.”

They started talking. I got up and went over to the credenza standing on the far wall and grabbed a bottle of water. The Boz came over and did the same.

“You really know Dershowitz?” he asked. “I see him on the news all the time.”

“Naw,” I shook my head. “Just dickin’ with the guy.”

We went back and sat down.

“How about you, Mr. Hacker?” the cop said, turning to look at me. “When did you first meet Mr. Wasserman?”

“Couple of months ago,” I said. “In a meeting room not unlike this one.”

“Impressions?”

“He was a nice dresser,” I said. “Expensive clothes. Looked like good labels. Nothing cheap.”

“That’s true,” Kelsey Jenkins was nodding. “He was always well turned out.”

“OK,” Delacroix said, jotting down notes in his book. “Snappy dresser. What else?”

“He was Ben’s right-hand-man,” I said. “Ben wanted something done, he turned to Arnie to do it.”

“Such as?”

“When I was here that day, he and Oswald were talking about some problem, and Arnie was making notes in his expensive leather notebook. I assumed he was going to do what Oswald wanted.”

“And that was?”

“Oh, I dunno,” I said. “They were talking about a technical issue, a problem that wasn’t getting solved. Oswald said something about replacing the person who seemed at fault, and Arnie wrote that down in his notebook.”

“Who was that?”

“A kid named Digby Allen,” I said. “He’s on the technical crew.”

“I know him,” Jimmy Williams piped in. “Strange little dude, but he knows everything about our equipment.”

“Strange, how?” the cop asked.

“Oh, you know…he’s a little socially awkward, I guess,” Jimmy said. “Kinda nerdy.” He paused. “No, very nerdy. But Jeez, you got something that ain’t working, Digby’ll get it fixed in a hurry.”

“So why did Oswald want to replace him?” Delacroix said.

“Good question,” Jimmy said.

“There had been a problem with a piece of equipment,” I said. “It broke down or didn’t work right about five times. It was Digby’s job to make sure it worked, but the company which provided that equipment hadn’t done anything to fix the problem, and Digby kept getting blamed.”

“I see,” the cop said. “Does this Digby person still work for IBS?”

“Gee, I think so,” Jimmy said. “I saw him in Savannah.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I helped him, umm, deal with the problem and I think it got cleared up.”

“How’d you do that, Hack?” Jimmy was confused.

I smiled. “We called the supplier and told them to fix the problem, or else.”

“Why would they do what you told them?” Jimmy pressed.

“Well, they might have thought they were talking to Ben Oswald,” I said. “There was some talk of things being shoved into someone’s colon.”

Everyone sitting around the table chuckled, except Det. Delacroix.

“You’re a piece of work, Hack, that’s for sure,” Jimmy said, shaking his head.

Delacroix stayed for another thirty minutes or so, asking more questions. He got most of the same kinds of answers: everyone knew Arnie a little, but mostly professionally. And nobody was close to him. He was management. The Man, as Van Collins called him.

The detective finally snapped his notebook shut and stood up.

“Can you tell us anything about the crime?” I asked. “How it happened?”

He shrugged. “It was about five-thirty in the afternoon,” he said. “Mr. Wasserman had just picked up a few things at the grocery store on Broadway and was walking south, in the direction of his apartment. He lived on West 71st, down past West End Avenue. Somebody came up behind him and put a bullet in his head.”

“No witnesses?” I said. “On Broadway in broad daylight?”

“Oh, crap no …we’ve got plenty of people who saw it,” he said. “But nobody could come up with a definitive description. Which is more than a little strange. All we got is that it was a white man, about five-ten, wearing a blue parka or jacket.”

“No security cameras?” I asked.

Delacroix smiled. “That only happens on TV,” he said.

“The grocery store has sidewalk cameras covering the entrance and pointing in both directions, and we saw the victim leaving the store, but he was just out of reach of the video coverage area when the incident occurred. We got nothing on film.”

“Hmm,” I said, “That’s interesting. Where did the shooter go?”

“He walked south about twenty yards, turned the corner on 73rd Street and disappeared,” Delacroix said.

“Maybe it was a ghost,” Kelsey said.

“Be as good a guess as any we’ve got right at the moment,” he said.

“You know we had another incident a few weeks ago,” Van Collins said. “We lost one of our colleagues, Parker Long down in Savannah. During a broadcast.”

“Yeah,” Delacroix said. “Oswald told us about that. And I’ve had a call from someone down in Savannah. Haven’t had time to call him back yet.”

“So you won’t think the two deaths are connected?” I said.

“No indication of any connection at this point,” he said.

He nodded at all of us and left.

“They oughta go talk to Jennifer Long,” Kelsey said. “Find out if it was true that IBS was going to let Parker go. It might be important.”

“Do you know her?” I asked.

Kelsey nodded. “Yup,” she said. She held up her phone. “In fact, I was going to call her while I was here in the city and see if she wanted to get together.”

“She lives in New York?” I said.

“Parker was born in Manhattan,” Van Collins said. “The wife had a good job in the insurance business. Lifelong city people.”

I looked at Kelsey. “Why don’t you call her?” I said. “See if she’s up for some company. We’ll go ask her ourselves.”

“Isn’t that messing with police business?” Kelsey said.

“You heard Delacroix,” I said. “They don’t think there’s a connection between the two deaths. So, no. It would just be a couple of Parker’s old colleagues dropping by to pay our respects.”

“You’re a sneaky one, Hacker,” she said, but she dialed her phone and walked out into the hallway to talk.

“Well, I’m out of here,” Van said. “I guess we’ll see you fellas in Memphis next weekend.”

The others got up and began to leave. I looked at the Boz.

“You heading home?” I said.

“Yeah, the missus wants me back tonight,” he said. “I got a seven o-clock flight back to Abilene.”

As they all cleared out, Kelsey came back in.

“Bingo,” she said, smiling. “I got Jennifer. She’s invited us to tea in an hour.”

“Excellent,” I said. “Let’s go.”