Barry Friedman - Dead End (2 page)

Investigation
by Stark County Sheriff Office personnel has so far turned up few clues.
Ballistics tests on the bullets recovered from Gibson’s body have not matched
those from other recent shootings in the area. The only fingerprints found in
the murder vehicle were those of the victim. Authorities declined to comment on
additional laboratory studies that were reported to be in progress.

Deputy
Sheriff Karen Vandergrift revealed that Gibson had left his office in the
Sterling Building, 3990 4th St. here, at about 6:30 p.m.. Tuesday, April 7,
after phoning his wife Harriet that he was on his way home. Since his usual
route passed by the West Tuscarawas ramp to I-77, Vandergrift said, “We are
working on the assumption that he picked up a hitchhiker near the ramp. The
assailant appears to have forced the victim at gunpoint to drive south on the
interstate. There is evidence that Mr. Gibson tried to take control by
maneuvering the car at high speed. The assailant apparently subdued him by
striking him on the head, fracturing his skull. While Mr. Gibson lay
unconscious, the assailant seems to have driven the car to the spot where the
murder and robbery occurred.”

Vandergrift
said that K-9 Corps dogs had traced the killer’s tracks from the station wagon.
Several potentially important pieces of evidence were found, but the sheriff’s
spokesperson would not elaborate. She said the killer probably walked back to
State Route 20 and hitchhiked along that road. Since a hitchhiker on the
interstate would be picked up by highway patrol, it was less likely that the
interstate would be used as the escape route. A plea was issued for information
from any witnesses who may have driven by the area during the evening of
Tuesday, April 7.

Henry
Gibson is survived by his widow the former Harriet Remington…”

ONE MONTH LATER. Al Maharos watched with distaste
as Frank Fiala licked the fingertips of his left hand while he held the
steering wheel with the other.

“Trouble with this shit,” said Fiala, “it gets everything
sticky.”

Maharos gave him a look of contempt. “’This
shit,’ you crude bastard, is baklava, a delicacy in the civilized world.
Anybody else would die for it. You just passed it.”

“Passed what?”

“The building where we’re going. It’s 433,
right?”

Fiala jammed on the brakes and made a U-turn,
narrowly missing a truck. The truck driver yelled something and Fiala gave him
the finger as he pulled in to a loading zone marked No Parking. He flipped down
the sun visor with the PD seal.

Fiala squeezed his five-eight, two-twenty body
out from behind the wheel. His bushy black hair came down to within an inch of
eyebrows so thick that they almost hid his eyes. His nose had been
fist-flattened against his face a dozen times during his forty-three years. As
he got out of the car, he yanked both trouser legs down from where they had
crept up on his thick thighs.

Another warm day, warmer than usual even for May.
Maharos thought about leaving his hat in the car, but even after all these
years he felt self-conscious about his baldness. He wiped the sweat from the
liner and from his head and put the hat back on. At least the black hat didn’t
show sweat stains.

On the building directory they found the listing:
Bost, Frankel and Horner, Attorneys-at-Law…Suite 507.

In the elevator Fiala said, “Is that all he did,
work comp?”

“Yeah.”

“Who’d want to kill a work comp lawyer?”

Maharos said everybody.

The receptionist looked from one to the other as
they walked into the waiting room. “Can I help you?”

Maharos flipped open his shield case. “I’m
Youngstown PD homicide detective Al Maharos. This is my partner, Frank Fiala.
We need to get some information on Mr. Horner.”

“Let me call Mr. Bost. He’s the senior partner. I
think he’s been expecting you. Have a seat.”

They stood while she talked into the phone. When
she hung up she said, “He’ll be right out.”

Harrison Bost looked to be in his late sixties.
Dark-framed glasses, suspended from the earpieces by a black cord, bounced on
his chest as he approached the two detectives. He extended his hand and
introduced himself.

“Come into my office.” He shook his head as he
led them to a spacious, panel-walled room at the end of the corridor. “I can’t
tell you what a shock this is. George Horner was like a son to me. I paid his
law school tuition. Such a bright young man. What a waste!” He sat behind a
large, polished mahogany desk and waved to a pair of leather-covered easy
chairs. “Do you have any idea who killed him?”

“No,” Maharos said. “We’ve just started the
investigation, We’re trying to find out as much as we can.”

“Have you talked to Sally yet?”

“The wife?”

Bost nodded.

“No, we plan to question her next.”

Bost said, “You know, she called me last night to
see if I knew where George was. I figured he had been working late, he often
did. This morning your office called to tell me what had happened. Then I went
right over to see Sally. The poor girl was absolutely devastated, of course.
The doctor came, gave her a shot to quiet her down.”

Maharos said, “Yeah. We heard that she had been
heavily sedated. That’s why we waited to talk to her.”

“Can you tell me what you’ve learned so far?”

“Well, as I said, we’ve just started to
investigate. All I can tell you is that Mr. Horner was found shot dead in his
car. The car was parked on a dirt road near Portage Lakes, a short way off
I-77. Some kids who were hiking in the area saw the body in the car. We just
came from the scene.”

Maharos left it at that. His job was to get
information. He wasn’t giving any more than the bare facts, although he knew
that technicians from the mobile crime lab had gone over the scene for clues.
With the help of the K-9 Corps, they had found what they believed were the
killer’s footprints. Casts had been made and sent to the lab to identify the
type of footwear and to estimate the size and weight of the wearer. The techs
had taken the car in and were dusting it for fingerprints, vacuuming it for
fibers.

Bost said, “Have you any idea when he was
killed?”

“The medical examiner estimates it happened
between six and 10 last night.”

Bost spread his hands. “What would you like me to
tell you?”

“How long had Mr. Horner been with your law
firm?”

“Since he got out of law school—what’s that—six
years now? He specialized in workers’ compensation law, you know. One of the
best—maybe the best in this part of the state.”

“When did you last see him?”

Bost thought for a moment. “Yesterday morning
around ten, before he left the office for an arbitration hearing.”

Fiala took notes in a spiral notebook. In his lap
he had a minirecorder to tape the conversation. “That’d be Thursday, May
seventh, right?”

Bost gave him a cold-fish stare. “If that was
yesterday’s date, the answer is yes.”

Fiala glanced at Maharos sidelong, without
raising his head from the notebook in which he’d been writing, then slowly looked
up at Bost. He spoke softly. “I hope we’re not having no attitude problem here.
You do want to help us find whoever killed your partner, don’t you?”

Bost raised his eyebrows. “What? Why naturally.
Of course.”

“Just wanted to make sure.”

Bost scratched his chin and a little smile crept
into the corners of his mouth. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—. You’ll have to
forgive me, officers. This thing has upset me more than I can tell you.”

Fiala said, “Sure. You were saying“

“Yes. I saw George yesterday before he went to a
hearing.”

Maharos said, “Did he actually go to the
hearing?”

“Oh, yes. I know he did.”

Bost explained that an urgent call, concerning
another matter, had come in for Horner while he was at the Arbitration Center.
His secretary had called Horner out of the hearing to give him the message.

Maharos said, “Do you know who called?”

“Oh, I’m sure it had nothing to do with
George’s—.” He appeared unable to bring himself to say “death.” Bost stopped
for a moment before continuing. “The call came from the office of the
Industrial Commission, in Columbus, about another case he’d been handling.”

After learning of Horner’s death, Bost had spoken
to the arbitration referee in an effort to trace the victim’s movements.
According to the referee, after the usual preliminaries, the hearing had begun
at around eleven, with the participants breaking for lunch at twelve-thirty.

Maharos asked, “Do you know where Horner had
lunch and with whom?”

“I don’t know for sure, but the attorneys who
attend these hearings usually eat at the Oak Tavern, it’s on—.”

Maharos nodded, “I know the place.”

“I’m almost certain he ate with the man he
represented. It’s his usual practice with an out-of-town client like this one.”

At one-thirty Horner had returned to the hearing,
which had. ended at four o’clock. Then he’d come back to the office to finish
some paperwork. “I was busy when he returned and I left the office for the day
before he did, so I actually saw George for the last time yesterday morning.
I—I just can’t believe I’ll never see him again.” Bost’s voice broke and he
shook out a large handkerchief and blew his nose.

Maharos said, “I know this is hard for you, Mr. Bost,
but—.”

The lawyer waved his hand. “No, no. Don’t mind
me. “

“Who is the last person who had contact with
him?”

“Nancy, I believe. His secretary.”

The phone on Bost’s desk buzzed. He spoke into it
briefly and glanced at his watch. When he hung up, Maharos said, “I’m sure you
have many things to do and I don’t want to keep you. But if we stand any chance
of finding out who did this, we’ve got to do it before the trail gets cold.”

Bost waved a hand, “Detective, nothing is more
important to me now than helping you find the person who killed George Horner.”

“Okay. There are a couple of questions I have to
ask you, then we’ll call it quits, for now.”

Bost leaned forward, waiting.

“There’s another member of your firm, isn’t
there?”

“Yes. Irving Frankel. He’s on vacation in Italy.
I’ve tried to reach him, but he’s between cities.”

“How did he get along with Mr. Horner?”

“They were very close. Irv is a few years older
than George but they were like brothers.”

“This may sound indelicate, Mr. Bost, but I’ve
got to ask. Do you know if Mr. Horner was having—how shall I put it?”

“Did George have a woman on the side?”

Maharos nodded.

“Emphatically no! He and Sally were happily
married with four beautiful children. I don’t know a more devoted husband and
father.”

Maharos knew plenty of guys, each a devoted
husband and father who’d been making it with some other guy’s devoted wife and
mother. He said, “Of course.”

Fiala said, “Did he have any unhappy customers?
Maybe some nut who might have been piss— didn’t like the way he represented
him?”

Bost turned his palms up. “Look, in this business
the clients are never happy. You get them five thousand, they complain they
should have gotten twenty-five. George, like all of us, has had clients saying
they were going to sue for malpractice. Few of them actually do. But threats
against his life? I don’t know of any. You can check with Nancy, but I’m sure
George would have told me if he had gotten even one.”

Maharos said, “We’d like to look around Mr.
Horner’s office.”

“Certainly. Nancy will help you with anything
you’d like to see.” He led them down the hall.

George Horner’s office stood at the other end of
the corridor, close to the waiting room. From the size and location of the
office, it was clear that Horner’d been the junior member of the firm. His
secretary shared an office, a wallboard-partitioned section in an adjacent
room, with two typists.

Nancy, a petite brunette with a good figure, and
in her early thirties, slouched with her elbows on the desk, smoke curling from
a cigarette that dangled between two nicotine-stained fingers. The woman was
probably quite attractive, Maharos thought, when her eyes weren’t swollen and
red. A half-empty Kleenex box stood on a corner of the secretary’s desk. She
snuffed out the cigarette in an ashtray overflowing with butts, waved away the
smoke that clouded the room, and stood up. She extended her right hand to
Maharos when Bost introduced them. He glanced at her other hand, saw no wedding
band.

Bost said, “And now, if you’ll excuse me. If you
need me for anything—anything—I’ll be in my office.” He turned to Nancy. “The
detectives would like to look around George’s office. Let them do anything and
see anything they’d like.”

 
Maharos
wondered if Nancy also called her boss by his first name. He said,

“My sympathies, Miss— I’m sorry, I don’t know
your last name.”

She forced a smile. “It’s Mrs. Taylor. Call me
Nancy, everyone does.”

Mrs. plus naked fourth finger left hand. Maharos
said, “We’d like the name and address of the client Mr. Horner represented at
the arbitration yesterday. We’ll have to question him.”

Nancy took a file folder from her desktop. “I’ve
got it right here.” Fiala copied the information into his notebook.

“Could we see your boss’s appointment book,
please?”

She handed it to Maharos, he leafed through
several pages. The only notation for May 7 read, “Lawton arbitration hearing.”
A large X through the rest of the page probably meant that Horner had expected
the hearing to last most of the day. The pages for May 5 and 6 listed a few
names. Nancy explained that these were office appointments for clients who had
been in to discuss their cases. Fiala asked her to photocopy the pages from May
1 to May 8, as well as the papers in the Lawton folder.

While the secretary ran the copy machine, Fiala
followed Maharos into Horner’s small office. A gray steel table-type desk with
a single top drawer took up most of the space. Three chairs against the wall
faced the desk. A picture frame on the desk held a photograph of a seated,
smiling, light-haired woman who appeared to be in her thirties. On one side of
her stood two girls, one about eight years old, the other maybe six. On the
other side posed a solemn-faced boy who looked to be about four. On her lap the
woman held a boy about two years of age.

A low two-drawer file case sat alongside the
desk. Fiala tried the handle, found the case locked.