The Sandler Inquiry Read online

  The Sandler Inquiry

  Noel Hynd

  Noel Hynd

  The Sandler Inquiry

  Chapter 1

  Who'd want to burn him out? Destroy his records? His office?

  His livelihood?

  Thomas Daniels considered the hundreds of enemies his father must have made. He wondered whom he knew who liked to play with fire.

  "This was a good professional torching" said Corrigan, a lieutenant from the New York City Fire Department.

  "High-intensity, quick-spreading fire. Would have taken the whole building if the custodian here hadn't found it." Corrigan pointed to the filing room. The air was gray with the vestiges of smoke, and the law offices were permeated with the sweet smell of ashes and water.

  Thomas Daniels's eyes smarted. He was looking at the charred remnants of the old wooden files.

  "No one was here when it started," Corrigan continued. "That's the usual. A good arsonist uses a fuse."

  "An electricity fuse?" asked Jacobus, the janitor, in slightly accented English.

  Corrigan shook his head no.

  "A timing fuse. A candle, a wire, a clock, even a cigarette sometimes.

  Anything that will burn down slowly and not ignite whatever chemical, papers, or rags are being used until the torch man is gone" He glanced around. It was a few minutes past four A.M. "If the fire had done the whole building we'd never have known where the flash point was. Here we know where the blaze started. So we'll go through the debris in the filing room, inch by inch. We'll find a fuse mechanism in there. Bank on it. I'll show you something else Corrigan led Jacobus and Daniels through the two adjoining rooms. He pointed to places and showed them how the flames appeared to have traveled in a path from the flash point.

  "See?" he said.

  "Tracks. Tracks made by trailers that our firebug left. If we hadn't broke in on the fire early, we wouldn't have these, neither."

  The trailers, Corrigan explained, had been some highly flammable substance-chemically treated rags, paper, or plastic-which had been left by the arsonist to be triggered by the fuse. When the fuse had burned down, the traders had been sparked. And a rapidly spreading blaze had shot in every direction. The intense flames consuming the traders had left the tracks.

  Thomas Daniels, though working up a dislike for Lieut. Corrigan, knew he was listening to an expert. But the questions which kept recurring to Thomas were ones Corrigan couldn't answer.

  Who? And why? A premeditated fire made no sense.

  "A pyromaniac?"

  The lieutenant seemed amused.

  "No. Too neat a trick for a pyro.

  Pyros are sloppy. They leave so much evidence you'd think they was trying to get caught." Corrigan shook his head.

  "Nope. This was set by somebody who wanted all the tracks covered but wanted the whole area destroyed. Usually that points to one thing."

  "What's that?" asked Thomas Daniels.

  "Something else was involved. Another crime. Sometimes you dig in the rubble of a fire like this and come up with a grilled cadaver. Get it?

  No stiff here, though. That means something else.

  Burglary, maybe. Anything of value kept in the office?"

  Thomas shook his head.

  "No art? jewels? TVs, typewriters? Nothin' like that?"

  "Nothing' Corrigan shrugged and used a thick forearm to wipe grime and sweat from his forehead.

  "Then there's something else that the detectives are going to suggest"

  "What's that?"

  "Insurance. A failed business somebody wanted torched to cash in on a policy."

  Thomas visibly bristled.

  Corrigan pursed his lips.

  "Not necessarily you. Maybe the guy upstairs. Or downstairs. The fire spreads and you all go up in the same puff, making it that much harder to figure who lit the fuse' ' Corrigan turned to the janitor.

  "By the way howd you find the fire so fast? Doing your nighttime rounds?"

  Jacobus considered it, thinking back over the events of the early morning.

  "I vas mopping," he finally declared, trying to sound as American as possible, "and I smelled smoke" Shassad and Hearn stepped from the unmarked car and held their shields aloft to Officer Renfrow and a second uniformed patrolman. Renfrow recognized them anyway. The flash of red lights from the blue-and-white New York City police cars was reflected off the wet sidewalk and windows.

  "Looks like he resisted' Renfrow suggested.

  The homicide detectives looked down. The body was covered by a police blanket.

  "That's a heavy finance charge for not coughing up a wallet,"

  Shassad said. He looked at the trail of blood on the sidewalk, leading from the body and running along several yards of pavement to the doorway of number 246. The blood on East Seventy-third Street was already partially diluted by the rain.

  "Want a look?" Renfrow asked.

  "Why the hell not?"

  Shassad reached down himself and pulled back the blanket. It was heavy and soggy from the rain. He gagged slightly, though he'd seen hundreds of equally repulsive scenes.

  "Jesus' ' The dead man's face was chalk white. Below the neck, on the right side, was an obscene gaping wound, a huge bloody hole carved into the flesh just below the jawbone. A blade, perhaps of butcher-knife dimensions, had slashed upward into the victim's throat, tearing and ripping everything in its path and cutting into the mouth. The front of the man's suit, coat, and shirt was scarlet of varying shades.

  Shassad mumbled,

  "Can't a guy even step out of the house after dark?"

  "No identification said Renfrow.

  "Just some change and keys' ' Hearn looked up as Shassad put the blanket back in place, affording the dead some privacy. "No wallet?" he asked.

  "All gone," said Renfrow.

  They looked to the end of the block where an ambulance was turning the corner and approaching silently, its white headlights and red top lights glaring. The only sounds other than subdued voices were occasional raspy bursts from police radios.

  Renfrow's partner waited for it to pass and then crossed the street, coming toward them.

  "You from Homicide?" he asked Shassad and Hearn collectively.

  "We're not from the garbage men softball team' "It's your lucky night."

  "Yeah?"

  The young patrolman turned and pointed across the street to a small frightened woman standing in a doorway, wrapped in an old overcoat and clutching one hand in the other.

  "You got a witness'" he said.

  "Hell," muttered Shassad,

  "I was going to slip the Medical Examiner a few bucks and have him mark it 'natural causes' ' The young patrolman watched Shassad as the detective walked across the street to Minnie Yankovich.

  Minnie was a bent-over little woman with gray hair, a suspicious wrinkled face, and a prominent aquiline nose. She was also an occasional insomniac, given to sitting up all night watching the streets. Mrs. Yankovich had seen everything. She had been sitting in her window for an hour in the darkened bedroom. One of the cats was on her lap. She'd seen two men, apparently waiting for something or someone. They had, in fact, seemed ordinary enough as she described them for Aram Shassad.

  Shassad went back up to the woman's apartment with her and, still somewhat shaky, she insisted on brewing them both a cup of tea as they spoke. Routinely and accurately, and without contradicting herself at any time, she was able to describe what she'd seen.

  The two men had been standing on the block for thirty minutes before attacking their victim. One had stayed in a shadow near 246 East 73rd Street. The other twice walked to the corner of Third Avenue, where there was a telephone booth. But both men were near 246 when the door opened and a young man stepped out. />
  "I thought he was what they were waiting for," Minnie Yankovich said as Shassad sipped tea from an antique blue-porcelain cup. The apartment was small and faded, but comfortable and warm.

  "They went toward him right away. I thought they knew him." She scowled and shuddered slightly.

  "But they turned out to be robbers, officer.

  They surrounded him, one to each side. They talked. Then they shoved him and he tried to run back into the building."

  "But you couldn't hear anything?" he asked.

  "No" "Or see their faces?"

  She shook her head.

  "The next thing I saw was a knife. It was big. Like a butcher's." She nodded.

  "What happened next?"

  The victim struggled, said Minnie. He fought and clutched his wounds as the two slashed at him. The man went down onto the sidewalk. The last thing Minnie saw, before she moved to her telephone and called the police, was one of the pair leaning over the fallen body.

  "That's when they took his wallet," she said.

  "From his inside pocket" "I see " "He should have just given them his money." She frowned.

  "Money isn't worth such.

  "Some people feel otherwise' he said gently.

  "It's unfortunate' "And they didn't look bad, either," she said hopelessly.

  "Excuse me?"

  She set aside her cup.

  "They weren't badly dressed at all. Nice raincoats. And white" She laughed sourly. "I guess thaes unusual, Mr. Shadash. White muggers." 't He took his notes carefully and was still writing when she added her postscript.

  "Officer, I don't mean to complain.

  He looked up.

  "Something simply must be done. You tell your commander. It took your policemen seven minutes to drive here' She shook her head contemptuously, indicating that this would'd never do.

  "It wasn't like this when La Guardia was mayor."

  Shassad crossed Seventy-third again. The rain continued. He approached Hearn, who saw him and spoke first.

  "What'd the old lady say? Any help?"

  "Some' he said. He looked toward the body. A night unit from the Mehical Examiner's office was there to make official what everyone already knew. The anonymous man on the sidewalk was dead. Shassad and Hearn watched the body being placed in a police van.

  "Looks like a standard cash-and-carry street job," said Hearn.

  "No?"

  Shassad surveyed the doorway of 246 and the shadows in which the killers had lurked for half an hour. Then he looked toward Second Avenue, though he was partially blinded by vehicle lights.

  "I wonder, Patty. We got to think about this."

  By Six A.M. Corrigan was gone. Two city fire detectives had arrived. A uniformed police officer had cordoned off sections of the fifth floor. Ropes and signs reading "CRIME SCENE" separated the Zenger and Daniels offices from the rest of the building.

  The managements of the offices on the floors above and below were asked to give their employees the day off, pending an assessment of any structural damage.

  By seven thirty a few maintenance workers began arriving. They were perplexed and intrigued by the investigatory activity on the fifth floor. just before eight o'clock Thomas Daniels was allowed into a neighboring office by Jacobus. He borrowed a telephone and began calling his two associates.

  Gerald Derham, a friend of many years who'd been a year behind Thomas in law school, lived in Mamaroneck with his wife and year-old daughter.

  He had already left for work.

  The other attorney, Sam Leverman, lived in the city.

  "Why didn't you call me sooner? I've been up since five" Leverman sighed. As was often his habit when faced with despairing news, he changed the subject completely.

  "See the Times yet this morning?"

  "Are you kidding? All I've seen is smoke and ashes' ' "Your beautiful friend Andrea has an article in section two, page one. A woman with brains. That's like a fine watch that actually tells the correct time.

  Good article. How did she know about-?"

  "I haven't seen her all week," Thomas answered.

  "I'll see you when you get here" Thomas next telephoned a secretary and two clerical employees, telling them what had happened and advising them not to come in for at least that day. They asked if they'd be paid. Thomas assured them they would, though when he hung up he wast quite sure how. There simply wasn't much money. And, given the suspicious nature of the fire, the insurance company could be counted on to delay payment indefinitely.

  For a moment Thomas stood up from the borrowed desk and stared out the window, watching people coming to work in the steady January drizzle.

  He wondered what it would be like to be in another line of work. Such as? He didn't know. He was aware of someone at the door.

  "Mr. Daniels?" It was Jacobus.

  "Yes?"

  "The detectives want you. I think they found something."

  "Paraffin" said Frank Bianco, a dark, heavy-set Fire Department detective. 'and celluloid. An old technique" but reliable" The fire investigator stood at an impromptu work area that he'd established on a damaged desk in Thomas's office. On the desk he'd spread a clean drape. On the drape, beside a cardboard container of coffee, he'd spread various items which had been found in the debris of the filing room. Another detective, Jack Shoenbaum, had photographed the area extensively and was still sifting through the wet rubble.

  In the ashes of the filing room, Schoenbaum had found seven separate puddles of molten paraffin, blackened by fire but easily recognizable.

  "Seven paraffin candles, strategically set,fwhere they'd pick up crosscurrents of air," explained Bianco.

  "The perpetrator used the candles as his timers. Once he'd lit them he had about an hour before they burned down' Thomas looked at the amorphous black substances. He felt a slight tremble of fear looking at the instruments of the knowledgeable but faceless man who had intentionally burned him out.

  Thomas examined one of those paraffin deposits, then wiped his fingers on a towel.

  "See this?" asked Bianco, holding up a four-inch black strip with his rubber surgical gloves. The strip looked like a negative from a roll of film. Thomas held up his hand to examine it, but Bianco pulled it away.

  "Don't touch! I want it treated for fingerprints.

  Know what it is?"

  Thomas shook his head.

  "Any reason why it would be near your files?"

  "None that I know of," said Thomas.

  "One of the burning tables collapsed on this strip. That pinned it to the floor and protected it while the other side of the table burned.

  Several long strips like this were used as trailers. Celluloid.

  It ignites immediately and can spread a blaze through an entire room in seconds. Perfect trailer," said Bianco with grudging admiration.

  "I'll tell you one thing, Mr. Daniels. Whoever torched you sure knew what he was doing. He wasn't a virgin."

  "Super," grumbled Daniels after a few seconds. He looked at Bianco carefully.

  "Based on what you've seen here, do you have any chance of catching him?"

  "Oh, there's a chance," said Bianco slowly.

  "I suppose that a snowball has some chance in hell, too." Bianco shook his head.

  "This guy didn't exactly leave much to start with," he said.

  "Unless you've got some idea who might have done it."

  "None," said Thomas.

  "None at all."

  By eleven A.M. the arson detectives had completed their work.

  Soon afterward a thin, gaunt man named Marvin Jupiter arrived.

  Jupiter was an investigator for National Fire Underwriters of Hartford.

  Jupiter spent an hour walking around, rubbing his chin, sniffling, taking notes, and not speaking. Thomas knew already that the next suit he'd be filing would be against his own insurance company.

  During the afternoon Daniels, Leverman, and Derham attempted to begin a cleanup operation. Quickly, they realized that
theirs was more a salvage operation. What the fire hadn't destroyed, smoke, water, and ashes had rendered unusable. The firm was" indefinitely at least, out of business.

  By seven thirty that evening, Thomas Daniels was unlocking the door to his apartment. He opened it and was immediately aware that someone was there.

  Andrea.

  She'd let herself in. Sitting in the living room, leafing through an afternoon newspaper, she'd been waiting for him. She stood there, radiant as ever. He tried to speak but couldn't. The day had been like a death in the family.

  "I know all about it," she said.

  "I know how you must feel' She kissed him gently.

  He shrugged, then embraced her.

  "I'm not letting it defeat me," he said.

  "Worse things could happen. I'll get by some way."

  "Thought we'd have some dinner," she said.

  "I'm sure you can use it' "We'll go out," he said. He motioned toward the kitchen.

  "I don't think there's anything here."

  "I brought everything we'll need for the evening," she said.

  "Everything, She held her arms around him just below the shoulders and nipped playfully at his ear.

  "I'm not leaving till tomorrow morning" she said.

  "I've got a couple of days off." She gave him a mischievious smile, her brown eyes alive with intrigue.

  He smiled for the first time. He released her and she disappeared into the kitchen. Thomas reclined on the living-room sofa, closing his eyes, trying to erase the images of his burned-out office listened to Andrea rattling something in the kitchen. She could be so considerate when she wanted to be, so gloriously feminine, loving.

  And then she'd go sleep with someone else. He cared not to think of that right now. For the time, at least, he was to be treated to her good side. She had read him perfectly. He hadn't wanted to be alone and now he wouldn't be.

  He glanced at the coffee table. On top of the clutter was that afternoon's New York Post. She had left it there.

  He was about to open it when an item at the bottom of the front page caught his eye. The headline of the story was suddenly shouting out at him, staring him in the face.

  VICTORIA SANDLER DEAD AT EIGHTY