The Bar Mitzvah Murder Read online

  “Then call him. He can meet you down at the station house.”

  Helfer looked at both of us. Then he almost smiled. “Officer,” he began in a calmer voice.

  “Lieutenant,” Jack corrected him. “Lieutenant John Brooks.”

  “I’m sorry; no insult intended. Lieutenant, I’m sure we can work something out here. What exactly do you want from me?”

  “We need information on the Double Eagle charity.”

  “Hey, if that’s all this is about, why didn’t you say so? My books are open to the public. Would you like to see them now?”

  “I’d like to take them with me. You’ll be given a receipt.”

  “It’s too extensive, sir. I have file cabinets.”

  “We can carry the files.”

  “Please come into my office.”

  We followed him into a beautiful large room with a fine desk, a thick carpet, and an exercise machine near the window. He had a single file cabinet, which he opened to show Jack the contents. There really weren’t a lot of file folders in each drawer. Each of us carried one drawerful out, and Jack gave Helfer a receipt.

  “Where is your list of contributors?” Jack asked.

  “It’s under ‘C.’ ”

  “I’ll be in touch.”

  “We’re going to lose him,” I said when Jack and I had finally gotten into our car.

  “I have nothing on him, Chris. There are circumstantial indications that he’s involved in Gabe’s death, but nothing I can consider evidence.”

  “He ran when he saw the detectives.”

  “He panicked. Lots of people do. It doesn’t mean they’re guilty.”

  “We’ll never see him again,” I said. “He’ll be gone in the morning.”

  “I don’t think so. He’s got to stick around for that check from Gabe’s estate. It’s seven figures. It’s what he’s been waiting for.”

  I waited a moment before saying what was on my mind. “The purpose of this evening was for me to talk to Gary Helfer. I ended up a minority of one with two detectives and a lieutenant. I didn’t get a single word in.”

  “You’re annoyed.”

  “I guess I am. I was a tagalong at a police show. And it was a disaster.”

  “I couldn’t let you go alone.”

  “I shouldn’t have gone at all. None of us should. We’ve tipped our hand. Both Helfer and Judy Silverman know we’re suspicious of the charity.”

  “They can’t move without that check, Chris.”

  I had said my piece.

  “Let me tell you what Marnie found in her safe,” I said when Jack and I were home and I had cooled off. I told him quickly. It needed no embellishments.

  He whistled when he heard it. “And you figured someone she knew left them.”

  “Eventually I decided that this Gary Helfer was being looked at for another crime and he didn’t want the diamonds in his possession.”

  “I will check that out tomorrow. You think Marnie knows he left the diamonds?”

  “I think she realized it after she showed them to me. That’s why she called and said she didn’t think it was worth my working on it anymore.”

  “Let me ask you something. Do you think Gabe really wanted to give Helfer’s charity a few million bucks?”

  “I think Gabe was too smart to do that. I just can’t figure out how Helfer got Gabe to put that in his will.”

  “Well, let’s sleep on it. And let’s hope we come up with something in those files, although I’m afraid we won’t. If Helfer and Gabe’s daughter are involved in a swindle that included homicide, they’re probably running that charity as clean as new snow.”

  “They’re taking money off the top, Jack. That’s how he can afford that apartment and all the expensive furnishings.”

  “And the expensive companion.”

  I smiled. “How do you think I’d look in a silk outfit like hers?”

  “Intimidating. I’d be afraid to touch.”

  “OK. Then I won’t get one.”

  “Good thing. I’d need at least a captain’s salary for that.”

  First thing in the morning I drove to Marnie’s house without calling first. The housekeeper recognized me when she answered the door and thought a moment before calling Marnie. When Marnie saw me, she stopped cold.

  “I only have a minute,” she said.

  It was a much less inviting greeting than the last time I had been here. “That’s all I need, Marnie. Your brother is Gary Helfer.”

  She froze. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “He left the diamonds and the note in your safe.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Think about it, Marnie. Think about what that means. He may have ordered Gabe’s murder.”

  Her eyes brimmed with tears. “My brother wouldn’t do that. My brother is a good person. He’s had some problems, but he’s gotten over them.”

  “I’m sure you love him very much.”

  The tears began to fall. “Our parents died when I was in my teens. He took care of me. There wasn’t always enough money, but he managed. I owe him my life.”

  “I understand, Marnie. But your husband’s life was just as valuable and your husband loved you.”

  “I know.” It was a whisper.

  “I think you know what you have to do.”

  “I can’t. I’m sorry. Please go.”

  As I left the house, two policemen got out of a car and walked up to the front door. One of them was carrying a search warrant.

  29

  When I got home there was a message on the machine: “Ms. Bennett, this is Elaine, Attorney Singer’s secretary. Please call me when you get back.”

  I called immediately.

  “Ms. Bennett, good morning. Mr. Singer and I were talking yesterday and I reminded him that we had a break-in about two months ago.”

  “Was anything taken?”

  “A few dollars of petty cash in my drawer and my typewriter. I don’t know why anyone would steal a typewriter nowadays.”

  “It does seem odd,” I agreed.

  “We reported it to the police and they tried to lift prints, but it looked like a professional job.”

  “And that’s all they took?” I said, trying to see where this was going.

  “There was one peculiar thing. I don’t know if it has anything to do with the break-in. I always pull the plug on the printer before I go home. Something happened once and now I do that every night. When I came in the next morning and went to plug it in, the plug was already in the strip. Oh, just a minute. Mr. Singer wants me.”

  A moment later she had connected the three of us in a conference call. Harold Singer gave me his take on the burglary.

  “It was small-time,” he said. “They did it for beer money. These things happen in Manhattan. Thank heaven nothing was destroyed and they didn’t trash the office.”

  I asked him if he could take a look at his copy of Gabe’s will. “Elaine told me someone had plugged in her printer. I’m wondering whether that means something.”

  “Elaine, can you find Gabriel Gross’s will?” he said.

  “One moment.”

  As we waited, I could hear him tapping a pen on his desk. Maybe this was it, I thought. Maybe this was the thing that could link everything.

  “OK, here it is.”

  “Would you turn every page and see if they all look the same?”

  “OK.”

  I waited, hoping he would find something.

  “They look the same to me.”

  “Are the pages initialed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would you check the initials?” Again I waited. I needed something. I didn’t want a killer to go free.

  “Well,” he said, “there’s one page where the initial could be slightly different. Not much. Maybe I’m just looking too hard. It almost looks as though it was done with a different pen, a slightly thicker point.”

  “What’s on that page, Mr. Singer?”
>
  “Part of the list of charities he was endowing.”

  “Mr. Singer,” now my heart had picked up its beat, “is Double Eagle on that page?”

  “Yes. Here it is. Near the top.”

  “How easy would it be for someone to produce a page of the will using your computer?”

  “Very easy,” Elaine said. “Just use my word-processing software, which is what I use most of the time, and print it out using the same font.”

  “So someone could change one item or line or several lines and print it out and you would never know the difference?”

  “Well, it has to be initialed.”

  “And if the same pen wasn’t around?”

  “I see what you’re saying.” It was the lawyer now. “It’s easy to copy an initial, isn’t it? And if you used a different pen, it might be a little thicker or thinner or darker or lighter.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I see your point,” he said. “Someone may have added a listing. They’d probably have to subtract one to make it fit, and without my original notes I can’t tell you if anything is missing. Or if anything has been added. But it’s a good theory, and it may be what happened. Still, I have to tell you I have a 501.3(C) for them. They’re a legitimate tax-exempt charity.”

  Legitimate, I thought, meant only that the government hadn’t dug deep enough. “Tell me, Mr. Singer, when do you anticipate sending the checks for the bequests?”

  “They went out today,” Elaine said.

  “Today?”

  “The mailman came about ten this morning and I gave him the outgoing mail. All the checks were there.”

  “So there’s a good chance they’ll be delivered in Manhattan tomorrow morning.”

  “I would hope so. And you know, someone called from Double Eagle last week to ask when the checks were coming.”

  “Ms. Bennett.” It was the lawyer’s voice. “Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll put a stop on the Double Eagle check and I’ll notify the charity that an irregularity has come up. You’ve raised some uncomfortable questions. But I have to warn you, if you don’t come up with something definitive in forty-eight hours, I’ll have to issue another check.”

  I got the point.

  When I got off the phone, much as I didn’t want to make the trip again, I drove back to Marnie’s house. Elsie had been enlisted to take care of Eddie, so I had the time.

  “Chris,” she said when I came in. “Did you call the police to come here?”

  “No, I didn’t. There’s an investigation into Gabe’s death and I expect one of the detectives did that.”

  “You told them about the diamonds.”

  “Last night. I kept it a secret until then. But last night I couldn’t keep it a secret anymore.”

  “They took them, the diamonds. I don’t know whose they are or what they’re worth, but I guess they’re not mine anymore.”

  I didn’t comment. “Marnie, did your brother ever meet Gabe’s daughter?”

  “Funny you ask. They did. How did you know?”

  “Just a thought. How long ago was it?”

  “It was just after we were married, about three years ago. We gave a party and invited a lot of people, friends of mine to meet Gabe, friends of his to meet me. Judy came and my brother came. I knew she didn’t like me. I’m a lot younger than her mother and she always had it in her head that Gabe cheated on her mother with me. She never came again when we invited her, and she and Gabe had no real relationship.

  “But that night I remember seeing her talking to Gary. They talked a lot. I was surprised. I hadn’t thought about that for a long time.”

  “Marnie, did Gabe keep a file on the information he gave Harold Singer for his will?”

  “I’m sure he must have. He was a very organized person. I suppose you want to see it.”

  “Please.”

  She took me into her husband’s study, a small, pleasant room with a lovely view of the grounds behind the house. The file cabinets were built in and she looked in several places before pulling out a folder.

  I sat in a chair, not wanting to use Gabe’s desk, and opened the file. There was a draft of the will with a number of things crossed out and other lines and phrases inserted. He had certainly worked on this document himself. Behind it were pages of handwritten notes and scraps of paper with phrases, questions, and dates.

  I looked through the draft of the will first. There were no charities listed, just an almost empty page where he had written: “Bequests to Charities.” But the list was spelled out in his own handwriting. I read through it twice, running my finger down the pages as Harold Singer had done when I saw him in his office. There was no Double Eagle.

  “What is it you’re looking for?” Marnie asked. “You’ve seen the will.”

  “There’s a discrepancy,” I said. “May I take this folder with me?”

  “I suppose if I don’t give it to you, you’ll have the police come and take it.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Take it. What difference does it make anymore? I can assure you my brother isn’t mentioned anywhere in Gabe’s will.”

  “I know that,” I said.

  “Then what’s the point?”

  “I’ll explain it to you, but not today.”

  “I think I don’t even want to know.”

  I let it be.

  30

  I waited till Eddie was off to bed to tell Jack. I had the folder with Gabe’s notes on my lap and my copy of the executed will.

  “There’s no Double Eagle in the notes,” he said.

  “Right. And if you look at the notes, here’s a charity that’s missing from the final will.”

  “So your theory is Helfer and Judy deleted one charity at the bottom of the page and inserted Double Eagle alphabetically near the top.”

  “That’s exactly what I think.”

  “It’s a good theory. How do the diamonds fit in?”

  “The diamonds were an afterthought. They’re a payoff to him or something like that, and he was afraid that wherever he hid them, they’d be found. But they wouldn’t be found in his brother-in-law’s safe. So when he went to substitute this page of the will, he left the diamonds there, expecting to retrieve them later. Helfer and Marnie are very close. He knew she would never believe he was involved in killing Gabe and even if she did, she wouldn’t be able to turn him in.”

  “Sounds good to me. Now how do you connect Helfer and the daughter?”

  “They met at a party. Marnie told me about it. It was soon after she and Gabe got married. They must have recognized each other as kindred spirits. He saw a way to make money; she saw a way to hurt her father. I expect they hatched the plan soon after.”

  “That’s some story.”

  “And the checks to the charities went out at ten this morning. They may be delivered tomorrow. We really have to move.”

  “OK. Let’s draw up a plan.”

  The plan was simple. We would pick up Helfer when he came for his mail. Elaine had said at the end of my conversation with her and the lawyer that the recipients had been notified that the checks had been sent. Helfer wasn’t going to let that check sit on the floor of his office any longer than he had to. He wanted it turned into cash as soon as possible. If Judy showed up with him, and I assumed she would if he had told her the check was coming, we would have her, too. In the meantime, Jack had an old mug shot photo of Helfer from a previous arrest faxed to Joshua Davidson in Jerusalem. They would make a photo array and show it to the men in custody for identification. With the time difference, we would have an answer before the start of our workday tomorrow.

  In fact, we had the answer before Jack left for work. Joshua called us at home. One of the men refused to say anything; the other identified Helfer as the person who had commissioned the kidnapping. He still refused to admit he had anything to do with Gabe’s homicide, but we had an ID. I was almost jumping for joy.

  “That’s good,” Jack said when he got off the phon
e. “And Joshua and Rachel send you their best regards. I think you made a hit with both of them.”

  “So did they with me.”

  We went into the city in two cars so I could get back after the arrest. And I wanted to see Eddie off to school. After today, I hoped, I would have time to take a break and spend some time where my heart was, with my family.

  I actually found a place to park on the street and I met Jack where he was parked, down the block from the entrance to the Double Eagle office building, if you could call it that. Two detectives I hadn’t seen before were there, too, and the cops in the sector car had made their check of the building, one of them remaining out back to be certain no one made a dash that way.

  The mailman showed up a few minutes after I arrived and went inside. I knew he would be in the building awhile, as the doors to the offices all had mail slots. I was right. It took him more than ten minutes to come back outside.

  The cops were well hidden, including Jack, who was one door away from the entrance. I sat in my car watching the sidewalk for Helfer. He must have had a good idea when the mail arrived, because he showed up just as the mailman was leaving. I assumed he had been waiting down the block. As he passed my car at a good pace, I got out and followed him.

  Jack emerged from his doorway as I got there, and we walked toward the door Helfer had disappeared through. I wondered if he already had a plane ticket to some wonderful place where he hoped to spend the next many years. He would have to make a stop at a bank, I thought, unless he had an account somewhere else that the check would go into. Neither Judy Silverman nor the apparent girlfriend from the other night was anywhere to be seen.

  I waited nervously near Jack, wondering if Helfer would go out the back way when he came down. The detectives were on the far side of the doorway. I know it didn’t take all that long, but it seemed to. Finally, Gary Helfer walked out to the street, his head down as he looked over his mail.

  “Don’t move, police,” one of the detectives said.

  Helfer was as surprised as anyone I have ever seen. “What?” he said.

  “You’re under arrest for the murder of Gabriel Gross in Israel and for fraud in the state of New York.”

  “I don’t understand, Officer,” he said, clutching his mail and looking at the shield thrust in his face by the detective. I could see him on the verge of running, his legs tense and starting to lean away from the detective, but he must have changed his mind.