Open and Shut - By David Rosenfelt Page 0,20
it. He can't remember anything. He was too drunk.”
“Andy, read the transcript. This is not exactly a major whodunit.”
“It reads like a frame-up to me.”
She laughs derisively. “You're amazing,” is what she says, but what she means is that I am an asshole.
“Thank you, but enough about me. What do we know about the victim?”
Laurie recites the facts that I already know. Denise McGregor worked as a reporter for a local newspaper, the Newark Star-Ledger. No information was ever turned up to show that she had any enemies, anyone who would have had reason to kill her. According to testimony, she had been dating Edward Markham for about three months, and she was out with him on the night of her death. This reminds me of the picture I found in the attic, so I take it out of a drawer and show it to Laurie.
“Isn't that Victor Markham?”
“I have no idea what Victor Markham looks like,” she says. But then she points at the man standing next to him in the picture. “But I think I recognize him.”
He doesn't look at all familiar to me, and Laurie tells me that she thinks it's Frank Brownfield, a real estate developer who has built ugly malls all over the New York metropolitan area. Laurie has a friend who works for him, and she had met Brownfield about a year ago. All this does is add to the puzzle; my father never mentioned knowing Brownfield either.
Laurie turns the picture over and reads the date, June 14, 1965, off the back.
“Now, that's weird.”
“What?” I ask.
She digs a piece of paper out of her purse and confirms her recollection. “The cashier check your father got for the two million. It was deposited on June 17, 1965.”
Less than a week after my father posed for a picture with the future Who's Who of American industry, all of whom he never admitted knowing, he received two million dollars, which he never admitted having. If these two facts aren't related, then we're talking serious coincidence here.
Laurie asks if she should check further, but I've got to get my priorities straight. I tell her I need her working full-time on the Miller case, and we agree she'll find Hinton, Willie's lawyer, to get his notes and impressions from the first trial. Meanwhile, I'm going to kill one witness with two stones and have a chat with Victor Markham.
MY GUESSIS THAT VICTOR MARKHAM NEVER GETS LOST on the way to work. First of all, he no doubt gets into the back seat of a car and says to the chauffeur, “Take me to my office.” But if by some chance he were left to fend for himself, he would just have to look up. There, towering over the office buildings in Paramus, are the huge words “Markham Plaza” emblazoned across the top.
If he got to the underground parking lot and was somehow still unsure that he had reached the right place, he would be reassured as he took a ticket from the machine. A computer-generated female voice would say to him, “Welcome to Markham Plaza. Please take a ticket. Have a good day.”
“Thank you, I will,” I reply graciously when the machine welcomes me. I think that perhaps this particular computer-generated female might have a crush on me, but when I pull into the lot I hear her welcoming the guy in the next car just as warmly. Women.
I take the elevator up to the lobby, which is large enough for the Knicks to play their home games. I enter another elevator, and this time a computer-generated male voice addresses me. “Welcome to Markham Plaza. Please press the floor of your choice.”
“Will do,” I say. “By the way, there's a gal in the parking lot you might like. Short, a little metallic-looking, but a good personality.”
Unfortunately, a couple is getting on the elevator behind me, and they hear my conversation.
I smile lamely at them. “The elevator talks.” Heh, heh.
They don't respond, and we have an uncomfortable ride up, especially for them. They're the ones trapped in an elevator with a lunatic.
The reception area outside Victor's office is nothing short of spectacular. I'm pondering the cost of the paintings on the walls, when I realize that I could probably afford them. I've got to get used to the concept; I am the most nouveau of all the nouveau riche in the country.
Victor's secretary, Eleanor, appears to have a permanent scowl on her face. Clearly her job is to protect Victor,