“He didn’t do it,” Schwartz said.
“Didn’t do what?” Trevor asked, “Kill his father or himself?”
“Either one,” Schwartz said.
“Can you prove it?” Trevor asked.
“Not at the moment,” Schwartz admitted.
“Then the case is still closed,” Trevor said. “But when you can prove otherwise, there’s no statute of limitations on murder.”
***
Schwartz excused himself and locked himself into his study for another comedy film festival. Apparently, he did some of his best thinking while applying pressure to his bottom lip with Martin and Lewis on the boob tube for background noise. Mia retired to the garage, and Beverly went to select Schwartz the best beer to go with My Friend Irma. This left me to see Trevor off, and we had yet to broach the ugly topic of Foyer’s review. Trevor hadn’t mentioned it, so I decided to pull off the Band-Aid quickly, and I mentioned it for him. “Did you see that review of your show in the paper yesterday?”
“Yeah, I meant to mention that.” I thought he might. I know if I’d been stabbed-in-the-back like he must have thought I’d backstabbed him, I’d have wanted to have a little discussion about it my own self. “Are you the fellow journalist mentioned as having set the article up?”
I was feeling sick with guilt. It wouldn’t matter how noble my intentions were. It had gone badly for the Blues Whailers. “Yes,” I admitted, “I invited the reviewer to come to the show.”
“You said you might be able to pull some strings, but I didn’t think you’d actually do it.”
“I told him that I’d see to it that my boss at the magazine would see his work.” What the hell? The cat was out now; I might as well spill some beans to feed him.
“That’s great. The kids are tickled. Thanks.” I reran the words trying to decipher the sarcasm. Problem was I couldn’t detect any to decipher. He was actually pleased.
“You’re happy with the review?” I asked.
“Sure, it’ll look great on the kids’ web page. Foyer loved them.”
“But he hated you,” I said.
“He did?” Trevor asked.
“He practically called you competent at best.”
“There are worse things to be called than competent; incompetent for example.”
“You guys are better than he gave you credit for. He was unnecessarily harsh. You’ll never get anywhere with reviews like that following you around.”
“Get anywhere?” Trevor said. “Who said we want to get anywhere? We just do it for fun. We’re all cops and a cop’s wife. Music is a hobby. Now the kids’ band, that’s a different story. We want to see them succeed. That review was just what the doctor ordered.”
“Okay,” I said, “but I think you're passing up a gold-mine. You guys could be the next big thing,”
“The next big thing in what?” Trevor started. “Amateur-blues cop-bands? That’s like being the next big thing in misspelled words or rotary dial phones. What good is a fad that nobody wants? You can’t even really call it a fad. We enjoy what we do. If a few others enjoy it too, that’s great. If nobody else gives a damn, it doesn’t matter, because we do.”
“That’s sweet,” I said, “but don’t you want to be appreciated for what you do?”
“I am appreciated for what I do,” he said, “by the people who count: my son, my bosses, and apparently you.” My face felt warm as it flushed. “Thanks for trying to help.”
“My pleasure, Ishmael,” I said. “In a way, it’s kind of a relief to know that you aren’t the obsessive type.”
“You’ve got your Moby Dick references mixed up,” he said. “That was Ahab. If I’m Ishmael, then I’m just happy to survive when the boat goes down.”
Chapter 22
I had prepared to go up to my room to pack when Schwartz came out of his study about half way through The Caddy, which is about three eighths more of The Caddy than I could have taken. He announced that it would be necessary to find the girl that I had seen speaking with Matthew in the red sports car at the funeral home, so I could not yet leave. He needed me. He suggested that a good starting place would be the insurance agency where Matthew worked. Within a few minutes, we were in an olive green 1973 Maserati Bora headed for the Pittsburgh offices of Lighthouse Life and Casualty’s claims adjusters’ division.
The rain had stopped, and the hot July sun had dried the collected pools of precip to inconsequential puddles. We spent forty-five minutes cruising the parking garage looking for the car I’d seen that afternoon, but (though some were quite flashy) none of the cars exactly fit the bill. Schwartz kept asking me for particulars on the car, but he may as well have been asking me for particulars on a specific breed of beetle. When I see one, I recognize it as a beetle; beyond that, an Amazonian Cockroach is pretty much the same to me as a Japanese Ladybug.
Eventually we decided to head into the offices to make some inquiries. Schwartz was fairly well known to the local insurance big-wigs; having saved more than a few of them from having to make some payoffs. Yet, that notwithstanding, he felt it prudent that we not go in asking directly about the girl in the red car. With no notion of why the young woman was meeting surreptitiously with Matthew, it might be wiser to go in with a more circumspect approach.
At the front desk, Schwartz introduced himself using his own name, and then he introduced me as Miss Joan Watson, a client of his. He explained that we had some particular questions about insurance regulations concerning my case, and that we would like to speak with the chief claims adjuster about possibly working for me as a professional witness should my case come to trial. We were asked to be seated, and soon we were greeted by one Mr. Carlton Fitzhugh, a balding, crimped little man with cold palms and the nervous habit of chewing on his lower lip.
“Fitzhugh?” Schwartz said. “Fitzhugh? It seems to me that I’ve heard that name before.”
“You’ve probably heard it in connection with that terrible joke about the gay Irish couple. Patrick Fitzhugh and Hugh Fitzpatrick.”
Schwartz blurted out an unsympathetic chortle, and quickly said, “No. No, I don’t think so. Besides, when I heard that one, there was no mention of Fitzhugh. It was Patrick Fitzgerald and Gerald Fitzpatrick. No, I distinctly remember it as a name in connection with this office. I think perhaps Matthew Hanson mentioned you.”
“That’s entirely possible,” Fitzhugh said directing us to his desk in the large partitioned office. “He worked directly under me. Well not under me literally. Hmm, it seems we’ve got a theme going here.” He grinned and snorted. “So you knew Matthew Hanson?”
“Professionally, yes,” Schwartz said. “I was investigating his father’s murder.”
“Did you suspect him?” Fitzhugh asked. “When the police phoned this morning, I was shocked. He just didn’t seem the type. But you wanted to ask about another case, isn’t that right?”
“Yes,” Schwartz said. “My client here, Miss Watson. She’d like to engage your services as a professional witness. It may not ever be necessary, but should her case come to trial; the services of a professional insurance claims adjuster may be required.”
“What is the case?” Fitzhugh asked.
“Well, in the event that the case can be resolved without the courts, we would need to keep as much of the particulars to ourselves as possible, so I can only draw you a broad picture.”
“That would be fine,” Fitzhugh said. “What can you tell me? Of course, you understand that I may be hampered in what I can do at this time given the limited specifics.”
“Certainly,” Schwartz said. “Suppose there’s this family that has taken a large insurance policy on their mother with an insurance company other than yours, and all of the children are named as equal beneficiaries. Are you with me so far?”
“It’s standard so far, though from what I’ve heard I don’t think you want an expert in claims adjusting, but continue.”
“All right, now suppose that this family has been unable
to keep up payments on the policy, and it is about to lapse completely. Even the grace period is about to expire. If one of these children was to murder the mother, and be caught and found guilty; would the other children be able to collect on the policy without difficulty, or would the insurance company contest the payout of the policy?”
“You’ve definitely got the wrong department,” Fitzhugh said. “You need the legal department.”
“Oh,” Schwartz said sounding disheartened. “That’s too bad. I was hoping to work with you. Mr. Hanson spoke so highly of you. Well, if we have to speak with legal, perhaps we can speak with that young woman Mr. Hanson was so keen on. What was her name? I’m terrible with names. Names and faces. I can never remember anything about them. But give me a car, and I can tell you anything. Oh, wait. That’s right; he did tell me something about her car. He said she drove a sporty red car. He said she was young and pretty and blonde, and that she drove a red sports car. Is there anyone in your legal department that fits that description?”
Fitzhugh thought for a long moment, continually shaking his head. “Nnno, no, not in our legal department. Not that I can think of. Mary!” he called across the office to a woman at a computer monitor displaying a spreadsheet. “Mary, do we have anybody working in legal that drives a red sports car? A girl that was friends with Matt Hanson?”
Mary shook her head and shouted back, “No, not in legal. But do you remember Penny Prince that used to work here. She and Matt were pretty friendly, and she drove a red sports car.”
“No, that’s not what I’m asking. Thanks anyway.” He turned to Schwartz and said, “I’ll send you up to talk with Milt Hiram. He’s done a lot of legal consultancy work on behalf of the company in cases like yours.”
“Do you have his card?” Schwartz asked. “I’ll have to call him later.”
We were given the card at the front desk, and Schwartz asked the young woman behind the escritoire for a job application. “It’s for my sister,” Schwartz said. “She’s a whiz on a computer, and from what I saw in that office, she’d love the people who work here. Besides, a friend of hers from business school told her this was a great place to work. She doesn’t work here anymore herself though. Maybe you remember her. Her name is Penny Prince. Pretty girl, drives a red…”
“I remember her all right,” the woman said. “But if your sister really wants this job, she’d do better not to drop that particular name in her job interview.”
“Why?” Schwartz said leaning forward in his best conspiratorial gossipy posture. “What happened?”
“Let’s just say that employees who leave for warmer climes while taking a big corporate client with them don’t make the best references. If your sister really wants to use Miss Prince as a reference, she might want to apply at New World Life instead.”
***
We ate our boxed lunch/dinner of ground pork salad sandwiches as we drove to the New World Life offices in McKees Rocks. I took the opportunity to have Schwartz fill in some gaps for me. It seems that Mr. Hanson senior’s life insurance rate had become an unconscionable burden for him. His medical bills had become all that, in fact, more than he could afford; and since all of his children were gainfully employed and didn’t technically need that insurance money, and since his funeral expenses had been pre-paid, he saw no reason to continue paying the almost $7000 quarterly premiums. He had stopped paying the invoices several months before, and the policy was set to expire completely at midnight on the day after he died. Had he died of natural causes, or had he been killed by a party not associated with the policy, the insurer, New World Life, would have been obligated to pay the full benefit. However, should one of the beneficiaries cause Mr. Hanson’s death, there would be a necessary inquiry to determine if the other beneficiaries might also be involved. If there existed evidence that they had it might have been sufficient cause to withhold the death benefit altogether.
As things now stood, it was nearly certain that the five surviving Hanson offspring would split the entire pay-out equally, since the police had all but officially declared the case closed with Matthew Hanson’s supposed deathbed confession synching it that he alone had been responsible for his father’s death. However, for reasons that he was presently unwilling to share with me, Schwartz was not at all satisfied that Matthew had killed either his father or himself. “Is it because of that speech that he made to Coneely where he claimed not to believe there could ever be a reason for a person to give up on their own life?” I asked. “Because all we have is Coneely’s word that he ever said that; and even if he did, it might have been a smoke-screen.”
“True,” Schwartz said. “But no, that’s not all that I base my contentions upon. Partly, it has to do with the note itself and how it was worded. Also, I base it on the fact that there is no explanation of where Matthew Hanson got the Chlordane. I believe I know where the Chlordane came from, and if my supposition is correct, then Matthew Hanson is all but eliminated as a possible actor.”
“Where do you think it came from?” I asked.
“No,” Schwartz said. “I’m not willing to divulge that at this time. I need more.”
“…And you think this Miss Prince can supply the more?”
“Possibly,” he said. “Some of it.”
We arrived at our destination about an hour before closing time, and we began to look for the red sports car. We’d driven around the by-now-dry New World Life parking lot for about three minutes when I’d spotted the car. “There,” I said, “parked under that big birch. That’s the car I saw.”
Schwartz looked unbelievingly at the car. “That car?” he said. “The red one by the tree?”
“Yes,” I said. “That’s the one.”
“That car?” Schwartz said.
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s what I described. It’s a red sports car.”
“It’s more than that,” Schwartz said. “It’s a 1955 550 RS Porsche Spyder.”
“Okay.” I said. “What of it.”
“Have you ever heard of an actor named James Dean?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Lived fast, died young, three movies, that James Dean?”
“Yes,” Schwartz said. “He was driving a car exactly like this one when he crashed and died near Salinas California. Except his was silver.”
“All righty,” I said. “So what of it?”
“And you didn’t recognize this at all?”
“I told you, I don’t know very much about cars.”
“Didn’t you even recognize the logo on the grill?”
“No,” I said.
“Or spot the fact that it has California plates?”
“Look,” I said, “we found the car, okay. That’s what I know. Now are we going in to find the girl who owns it, or aren’t we.”
“No,” Schwartz said. “We’re going to wait for her here, and then we’re going to follow her home. I don’t want the people who employ her to know that there may be a situation. Not until I know what her role in all of this is, if she even has a role in it. It could all be a coincidence her working for the insurance company that covered Mr. Hanson.”
As we waited for the mystery blonde, Schwartz told me more than I’d ever want to know about James Dean’s car, the Little Bastard. “There were only ever ninety cars like it made. After Dean crashed and died, his car was bought by a collector. Some of the cars parts were put in other cars, and each of those cars was eventually involved in a fatal or near fatal accident. Most of the times that Dean’s car was moved somebody was seriously injured in the move. At one point, a garage housing the car burned to the ground, and all of the cars therein were destroyed except for Dean’s Little Bastard. Finally, in 1960, the car — at least the body and frame — was loaned out for a safety exhibition and was stolen. It hasn’t been seen since.”
“And you think that this is that car?” I asked.
“Of course not,” Schwartz said. “As I said, that car was silver. It would be sacrilege to paint it red.”
&
nbsp; “So you think it might be one of the other ninety.”
“Possibly, but those are all worth nearly half a million dollars apiece. Why should somebody who could afford a $500,000 car work as a paper pusher for an insurance company? No, most likely, it’s a kit car, but if it is then it’s a very good one.”
He sat staring at the car, either intent on spotting the woman who owned it, or fantasizing himself driving it at break-neck speeds along the winding Salinas Valley highways along the California coast. I couldn’t tell you which.
Chapter 23
At a few minutes to five, Schwartz asked me if I had remembered to bring along my cell phone. I rolled my eyes, told him that I had and asked him what he wanted it for this time.
“Call directory assistance and ask for the address for Penny or Penelope Prince. If we lose her, I’ll need to know where to find her.”
I placed the call and got an address in Crafton. When I’d hung up, I asked Schwartz a question that had been bothering me for a while. “Why won’t you just buy your own cell phone?” I asked.
“I have my reasons,” he said. I pressed and he said, “Because I don’t want to be a party to exacerbating the phone number depletion.” He sighed in agitated accession, and continued. “I made my fortune in the communications industry. As a young man in the Balkans, I managed to funnel some money into AT&T, and through underground channels I judiciously parlayed that into quite a nice sum in American dollars. After I finally got here in the early nineties, I moved most of my money into Microsoft, but I kept a nice chunk in other electronic media. Then the big boon came in pagers and fax machines and even cell phones. I had money in all of them, and I became rich beyond my wildest hopes. However, I foresaw a problem. I knew that under the existing system, several large metropolitan areas would soon run out of available exchanges and phone numbers. The communications commissions were set to discuss the situation, so I sent along my recommendation. They ignored it, and went with the system of adding new area codes to the markets as they become glutted or saturated. I felt this was unfair to the consumers, and I immediately sold all of my communications stock and have refused to own any of the apparatus ever since — except for a regular telephone, which I see as indispensable. I’ve never even had a separate line for my Internet connection. I have dsl now, but for a few years, my modem connection was simply my regular phone line. Oh, there she is.”