Death Of A Dream Maker (39 page)

“My, but that big old hat came in handy,” she mused,
then stopped with a sudden thought. “Oh, dear, Theodore. We won't
be paying less in taxes. All that money. I'd completely forgotten
about that money.”

The money. T.S. had tried hard to ignore it. The
recommendations from Sterling and Sterling had arrived yesterday.
The document was more than fifty pages long. His head swam with
qualifiers and technical clauses. He yearned for the days of a good
piggy bank.

“I was happy before I got that money,” T.S. said.
“And I'll be happy long after it's gone. I really don't deserve it.
I didn't do a damn thing to earn it. And”—he took a deep breath—“I
can't say that I really want it.”

Auntie Lil examined him shrewdly. “Are you just
saying that because you know I feel the same way?”

“No.” He was emphatic. “I hate it. I hate all the
phony smiles I get from my old friends at Sterling and Sterling. I
hate the greedy glint I saw in all those Rosenbloom eyes. What if
we turn out like that? Jealously guarding our dollars and always
wanting more. I don't want it. You can have mine.” He set his
coffee cup down with a clink. Already, he felt freer. “Besides, I
can sponge off Lilah,” he joked.

“I don't want it either,” Auntie Lil said. “That was
never why I loved Max.” She was silent for a moment, thinking of
what Max might want. “We'll keep it in trust,” she said. “Make it
the Max Rosenbloom Foundation. We'll fund lots of projects that his
relatives would really hate. Unwed mothers. Ghetto children going
to ritzy camps. Fashion-design scholarships for the inner-city
poor.”

“New Porsches for the auto-impaired?” T.S.
suggested.

“Ballet scholarships for people with two left
feet?”

“But first, we take out a little for your retirement
fund,” T.S. insisted. “Just to be safe. I know what you have. It
can't hurt to have a little bit more. And you and Herbert can go
see Singapore together with some extra money, too. All that talk of
his youth must have him pining to see the old home shores.”

“Who says I'm ever going to retire?” Auntie Lil
replied, a twinkle in her eye.

It reminded T.S. of an important problem. “There is
one thing I'd like to do with some of the money before we tie it up
in a foundation. It has to do with Hiram Tate, that old guard at
Max Rose Fashions.” Auntie Lil nodded. She knew what was coming
next. “He has no pension, his wife is sick, and he's about to drop
dead from the strain of working,” T.S. explained.

“Okay,” she agreed. “We'll shower him with bucks.
Anything else?”

T.S. thought hard. “We could always hire you a maid,”
he suggested.

“Never, Theodore,” she said firmly.

He shrugged. “Let's give ourselves a few days to
think it over. We ought to pay Casey a whopping bonus for helping
out. And Grady deserves one hell of a tip.”

“Enjoy it while it lasts, Mr. Rockefeller,” Auntie
Lil warned, reaching for the second half of her bagel. She smiled.
“Now that we're soon to be poor again, I feel my appetite
returning. But I do think I'll be head of the foundation. I need a
title. You can assist me.”

“Who better?” T.S. agreed. He looked down at the
newspapers. “Are you disappointed that this news overshadowed
ours?” He pointed toward a photo of Joseph Galvano in handcuffs,
his coat hunched up over his face. “Look at him. He's hiding his
face like the cheap hoodlum that he is.”

Auntie Lil sighed. “It's not so much the publicity I
wanted. It was the missing pieces. You'd think Lieutenant
Abromowitz would have called us by now.”

His phone call came a few hours later, after T.S. and
Auntie Lil had settled in chairs in front of the picture window to
speculate about the case.

“It's for you,” T.S. said, handing his aunt the
telephone. “I think you deserve to hear it first.”

“You aren't going to like what I have to say,” the
lieutenant warned.

“What's to like in this whole mess?” she replied.

“It's taken a few days to sort it out, pick up the
nephew, and bring in the widow. We had to question the mother and
find other witnesses.”

“Well?” Auntie Lil asked. “Are you locking her
up?”

Abromowitz knew whom she meant. “I told you that you
weren't going to like it,” he reminded her. “She's testifying in
exchange for immunity.”

“She lured that young man to his death,” came Auntie
Lil's sharp rebuke. “Davy would never have gotten in Max's car with
his brother. Sabrina was involved.”

There was a long sigh at the other end of the line.
“I know that, Miss Hubbert. But without her, we have nothing to
make it stick. Jake would walk free without her testimony. Besides,
no jury would convict her. She's a great cryer. Had half the
precinct on her side before she was done.”

“Tell me the whole story,” Auntie Lil demanded. “I
want to know who in that family was involved.”

“As near as we can tell, Jake did help kill Max
accidentally,” Lieutenant Abromowitz explained. “The bomb in the
car was meant for Davy. When the plan backfired, Jake realized that
Davy would have to be killed another way. Why? For one thing, Davy
was threatening to go to the police and expose Jake's role in the
bomb. For another, it turns out Jake had been downstairs the time
Max visited his father to tell him about the will. He overheard Max
tell Abe about changing his will, especially the part about Davy
getting half. He didn't realize Max was talking about a trust. Jake
thought Davy was going to walk away from Max's death with at least
thirty-three million in cash and he knew that if Davy died, his
parents would likely get the bucks. He figured that was as good as
having the money in his own pocket. His father was dying and he had
his mother pretty much under his control.”

“Did Abby help kill Davy?” Auntie Lil asked.

“No. But when Davy's body turned up in the bottom of
the grave, she had a good idea who had killed him. So she kept
quiet. She was determined to protect Jake. Considered him her only
remaining son.”

“And what is Seth?” Auntie Lil asked. “Chopped
liver?”

“Lucky, if you ask me,” Abromowitz answered. “Any
decent person would be proud to be kicked out of that family.
Anyway, after Davy and Jake argued at their parents' house the
night Max died, Davy apparently called Sabrina. He said he had
urgent news about Max's death and that he'd be over as soon as he
took care of some business.”

“He was trying to keep Frankie Five Alarm off his
back?”

“Yes. He knew the bomb had been meant for him, and he
wanted to let Frankie know that he'd be coming into some big money
soon. He'd be able to pay him back from what he inherited from
Max.”

Auntie Lil sighed. “So even Max's favorite nephew had
a streak of selfishness.”

“As wide as the Mississippi,” Abromowitz told her.
“By the time Davy got around to calling Sabrina back, Jake had been
to see her first. The two of them had been playing around, it
appears—with each other, I mean—but for different reasons. I think
Jake really thought he was in love with that black widow spider. He
seems a bit incredulous that she's yapping about him to anyone who
will listen.”

“While Sabrina was just hedging her bets in case Max
left her widowed one day without enough money to live in the style
to which she had become accustomed?”

“I guess you know her pretty well.” Abromowitz
stopped for a second and Auntie Lil could hear the rattle of papers
over the wire. “Here things get hazy. Someone—and Sabrina isn't
saying who, but it's a pretty safe bet that it was her—agreed to
pick up Davy in Manhattan. He'd borrowed the bookkeeper's car to go
see his parents, since his had been blown to bits in the blast. He
was returning it that night to Joyce Carruthers. She confirms he
was there. Says she cooperated with Davy in his frauds over the
past year because she thought that Thomas Brody didn't like her.
She was afraid of losing her job, and Davy had said he'd protect
her and take care of her financially in return.”

“How involved was she?” Auntie Lil asked.

“She was reporting on both Davy and Max to Galvano.
At first, because she was trying to protect Max, believe it or not.
Galvano promised to quit putting pressure on Max if she would keep
him informed. Later, she developed a thing for Galvano. Helped Davy
engineer the fake V.J. Productions account on his instructions as a
way of repaying Davy's gambling debts. It worked for a while. Until
Brody caught on. Joyce was also the one who arranged for your name
to be put on the faked corporate papers. Galvano's idea. Someone in
the family lawyer’s office tipped him early that you were
inheriting. It was a perfect solution—he could explain away the
payments to V.J. Productions by shifting the blame to you and
possibly screw up your inheritance at the same time. You were an
unknown quantity, and he wanted you out of the picture. Fast.”

“What about Rebecca giving me the keys? Was it his
idea?”

“No. She really did want you to investigate and tip
her off first if a family member was involved.” Abromowitz paused.
“I think her feelings were hurt when her brother's will came out
and it was obvious how much you had meant to Max. A lot more than
she had, it seemed. She didn't have much of a life of her own, I
understand. Accusing you was an act of anger. There's nothing we
can prosecute her for, if that's what you're thinking.”

“I have no desire to punish Rebecca,” Auntie Lil
said. “Abe is going to need her in the months ahead. But what about
the hundred thousand Davy borrowed from Galvano for the fake
investment-bank study? What was that all about?”

Abromowitz laughed. “Sorry, I know it's not funny.
But Davy conned Galvano into lending him the money so he could pay
Frankie Five Alarm back the first time he borrowed from him.
Galvano was livid about it when he found out, according to
O'Conner's informant. It's one reason he tried to ice Frankie.”

“Davy could have been in the clear after that, but he
couldn't stop gambling, could he?” Auntie Lil said.

“Not in a million years,” Abromowitz replied. “He
kept borrowing more from Frankie and losing it all.”

“Karen Rosenbloom claimed someone was manipulating
her client accounts,” Auntie Lil remembered. “Money was missing.
Who was it?”

“You got me,” Abromowitz admitted. “Take your pick.
Either Jake was trying to squeeze her out of the company in a power
play or Davy was trying to cover some debts. Does it really
matter?”

“Probably not to Karen,” Auntie Lil admitted. “Either
way, she was betrayed by her own brother.”

“I wouldn’t worry too much about Karen Rosenbloom,”
Abromowitz said. “Brody's hired her a lawyer and is making a lot of
noise about protecting her. She's not going to be either poor or
lonely in the years ahead.”

“Good,” said Auntie Lil. “There's enough loneliness
coming out of this mess.” She still didn't know how Davy had died,
however, and returned to the subject. “What happened after
Sabrina—I mean the unknown person—went to pick up Davy from Joyce
Carruthers's house the night Max was murdered?” she asked. “But
first let me make a guess: this unnamed person picked Davy up in
Max's own car. Right? I wondered what had happened to it.”

“Wonder no more. We found the burned-out shell of an
old Audi in a deserted parking lot out at Jones Beach. We figure it
got dumped there the night before the funeral.”

“So Davy was killed in the car?” Auntie Lil said.
“And stored in it until they figured out what to do with him?”

“Probably. He took three bullets to the back of his
head. Sabrina swears she wasn't there when it happened and claims
Jake only told her about it later. But that lady is lying through
her expensively capped teeth. All that business at the grave— her
falling in and being distraught with grief over Davy's death? Think
about it—this is one smart cookie. She already knew Davy was dead,
but came up with a perfect way to distract people from suspecting
her. By acting like she'd been having an affair with Davy and was
in love with him, she threw people off the track. Who'd suspect her
of having helped to kill him after that display? God, if she had
harnessed all that acting ability twenty years ago, she'd have a
closetful of Oscars by now.”

“Was she having an affair with Davy?” Auntie Lil
asked.

“Nope. Davy wouldn't take the bait.”

“So why were they meeting in a motel on Long
Island?”

“Just one of life's little ironies,” Abromowitz
explained. “The widow seems more upset over that little incident
than anything else. It seems that Davy acted like he was ready to
take the step, to, uh—”

“Sleep with her,” Auntie Lil suggested grimly.

“Exactly. But once he got her alone, he made a pitch
for money instead. The lovely Mrs. Rosenbloom was incensed and
threw him out of the room. Leaving Davy hanging out to dry with the
loan sharks.”

“You think Sabrina actually helped kill Davy?” Auntie
Lil asked. “You're positive?”

“Yeah,” Abromowitz said. “Much as I hate to admit
that we're going to let a murderer walk. The way I figure it is
that Sabrina picked up Davy from the bookkeeper's house in Max's
Audi. Jake was hiding in the backseat, listening to Davy tell
Sabrina what a slimeball he was and how Jake had killed her
husband. Once they were on a quiet road—or hell, maybe even the
middle of the Long Island Expressway—Jake popped up and shot Davy
in the back of the head. Knowing the widow, I doubt she even
swerved when it happened.”

The thought made Auntie Lil queasy. “Like Cain and
Abel,” she said.

“Pretty able, all right,” Abromowitz agreed. “Sabrina
claims Jake did it all, but two people had to be involved. The body
was stored in the Audi for twenty-four hours and then it was dumped
in the bottom of Max's waiting grave. Which would have been a
perfect hiding place if rain hadn't turned the grave into a mud
slide.”