“Thank you, Mrs. Arden. And rest assured that I’ll be doing everything I can to assist the police in finding the person responsible for your sister’s murder.”
Julius hung up. I told him about my theory, as well as my simulations.
“It seems you’ve come to the same conclusion,” I said. “Would you like me to keep investigating my scenario?”
“I think that would be a splendid idea, Archie.”
I did just that for the rest of the morning. Julius started reading one of his books more intently, but he soon became distracted, and several times put the book down so he could stare into space. Once he took out his cell phone and frowned at it before putting it away.
“Is there a call you’d like me to make?” I asked.
“What? No, nothing,” he muttered, still obviously distracted. “Blast it, if I were to do this properly it would take several days, maybe longer. But that won’t do, not now. I need to wrap this up today. Archie, I do have a call for you to make. To Detective Cramer. Ask him to send Lawrence Brewer to my office now. That if he does I should be able to point him to the murderer by evening.”
I did as he asked. Cramer didn’t like it. He had a dozen questions for Julius. I told him I was just the messenger and that the genius was unavailable, but that if Julius was promising to wrap the case up for him he should take him at his word. Cramer hung up on me without telling me what he was going to do. I decided that the solution of the case was a draw between me and Julius, and I decided to take it as a moral victory. I was about to tell him I wasn’t sure what Cramer had decided when the phone rang. It was Lawrence Brewer. I patched the call through to Julius’s earpiece.
“Why should I bother talking to you?” Brewer said.
“Many reasons. Most importantly, it gets you out of the police station. The longer you’re there, the greater the chance they’ll arrest you for your sister’s murder. You must know at this point that they believe you murdered her.”
“And you don’t?”
“What I believe is beside the point. At least you’ll have a chance to convince me otherwise, and I’ll be offering far better refreshments than the police.”
“Like what?”
Julius paused. “Assorted cheeses, meats, wine,” he said.
“You’ve convinced me,” Lawrence Brewer said with a touch of sarcasm, and hung up.
Cramer and two other police officers escorted Lawrence Brewer to Julius’s townhouse. Julius brought Brewer to his office, and then left so he could argue with Cramer about why he wasn’t going to allow anyone else to sit in on his questioning of Brewer. The two men were outside and Julius’s office was soundproof, so there was little chance that Brewer would be able to listen in. While this argument went on I scanned the office’s Web cam feed to make sure Brewer stayed put.
“I’m engaged in an extremely subtle and sensitive plan,” Julius said as calmly and patiently as I knew he was capable of. A slight flutter showed along his left eye. “If you interfere, it won’t work.”
“Yeah, I know, you’ve been telling me that. And I’m telling you, I want to sit in and hear what he has to say,” Cramer insisted, his jaw locked in a bulldog expression.
“Detective, if you had enough evidence to charge Brewer, you would’ve done so already. My guess is that without my help you’ll never have enough. If you let me do things my way, you’ll have enough evidence by tonight not only to charge but convict Norma Brewer’s murderer.”
“So Lawrence Brewer is the guy,” Cramer demanded.
“Detective, some patience, please.”
Cramer didn’t like it. He could barely stand still. “And you just want me to let him walk out of here when he’s done?” he said disgustedly.
“He’s not going anywhere you won’t be able to find him later.”
For a moment I thought Cramer was going to tell Julius to go to hell. Instead, the steam went out of him. He told Julius that he had until the end of the day and after that he wasn’t going to put up with any more of this nonsense, although Cramer used a far more colorful word than that. Julius watched while Cramer left to join the two other police officers in a late-model sedan. After they drove away, he went back inside, first making a detour to the kitchen, where he picked up a tray of hors d’oeuvres that he had prepared earlier — buffalo mozzarella wrapped in prosciutto along with assorted cheeses and olives — and then returning to his office. A bottle of Californian Petite Syrah had already been poured into a decanter and was waiting there. It was a fair vintage at best, one that Julius had bought out of curiosity, and one which he normally wouldn’t serve to company, which showed his level of disdain for Brewer.
Julius placed the tray in front of Brewer, then sat behind his desk so he faced him. Julius next poured a single glass of Syrah and left it within arm’s reach of his guest.
“I promised you refreshments and, if nothing else, I’m a man of my word,” Julius said. “But, sir, let me say that without that promise you’d get nothing from me.”
Lawrence Brewer sat slumped in his chair. He looked worse than he had at the dog track the other day. A weariness tugged at the corners of his mouth, pulling it into a slight frown, and dark circles under his eyes gave him a raccoonlike appearance, especially with the paleness of the rest of his skin. Physically he resembled Norma more than his other sister, and like Norma he had too much nose and not quite enough chin. He took several pieces of the prosciutto and mozzarella and popped them into his mouth, then followed that with a long sip of wine.
“It’s not as black and white as Norma made out to you,” he said in a tired monotone as he stared bug-eyed at Julius. “My mother has some bad days, but she also has some good ones, and the fact is, she doesn’t want to leave her home.”
“I’m not interested in what you have to say,” Julius said. “Nor would I believe a word coming from you. We both know that you are more concerned with your mother’s money than her well-being, so don’t insult me with this act.”
“How dare you—”
“Shut up. All I want from you is to sit there and listen. We both know what you are, Brewer, make no mistake about that. I’m going to prove that you have borrowed large sums of money from a known gangster, Willie Andrews, so that you could finance your gambling addiction, and further, that you’ve been using your mother’s assets as collateral. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that you’ve in some way been responsible for her recent weight loss and obvious malnutrition with the hopes of getting your hands on her money all that much sooner. Take this as a promise, Brewer: By the end of the day I’m going to make sure that her money is off-limits to you. You’re going to need another way to satisfy your growing debt with Andrews. That’s all. Get out of here.”
The two men sat staring at each other, Brewer bug-eyed and Julius as still as if he’d been carved out of marble. Finally, Brewer broke off the staring contest and got to his feet.
“You better be careful what you say in public, Katz, or I’ll be suing you for slander,” Brewer said, a notable quaver in his voice. “This is a nice townhouse; I wouldn’t mind having the courts award it to me.” He left the office, and seconds later the sound of the front door opening and slamming could be heard.
“Bravo,” I said.
Julius didn’t bother responding.
“That accomplished a lot,” I said after giving him suitable time to answer me. “You chased a murderer out of your office without trying to get a single bit of information from him. You could’ve asked him about his current relationship with Thomas Arden, or where he was when your client was having the life choked out of her, or any number of other things of interest, but no, you had to have the satisfaction of telling him off. Again, bravo.”