The Sandler Inquiry Read online

  Last Living Member of Millionaire Family Found Dead in Mansion The story recounted the final years of Victoria Sandler, a woman who, though one of the wealthiest in America, had spent the last three decades going quietly but spectacularly insane.

  She'd lived alone, since the 1954 death of her brother, Arthur Sandler, who'd been three years younger than she, and the departure of the final servant in 1955. The family mansion, originally fashioned after a French chateau of the 1870s, had acquired grates on the windows, an iron fence and gate in front, and a twenty-foot high concrete fence in back to protect a rear patio. The fencing included electrified barbed wire all around. Victoria lived within.

  The once elegant but fading mansion, the symbol of the family, was now a fortress in a tough, changing city Victoria, the article continued, wore heavy galoshes without shoes in all weather. Thick, black woolen stockings and the same ragged, frayed dress was her outfit day after day. There were seven marble-and-zinc bathtubs in the mansion, but for twenty-five years Victoria Sandler had remained a stranger to all seven. Matters of personal hygiene were, to phrase it kindly, questionable. Victoria suffered from-among other things-aquaphobia, and touched water only when absolutely necessary.

  "Dollars and doggies," as she termed it, were her only two passions.

  She liked crisp one-dollar bills and would take nothing else from local merchants. She gave them to her brother, she explained; he had use for them. Local merchants kept stacks of crisp money just for Victoria, despite the fact that Arthur Sandler, who she said was receiving the money, had been dead for years.

  And then there were the dogs.

  Since the 1930s, Victoria had had a succession of canines, mostly poodles, and each named Andy The dog would be fed steak in the morning and walked for at least an hour each afternoon. The walk" would be in the courtyard behind the mansion-with the. dog in a baby perambulator.

  As each Andy passed away, Victoria would commission a walnut casket to be built. Then, it was said, when the current Andy died, he would be entombed on a velvet pillow somewhere within the mansion. No outsider ever saw exactly where. And former servants were notoriously lacking in memory.

  Victoria Sandler was a woman who had rejected reality as ardently as reality had rejected her. Estate management by Thomas's father, William Ward Daniels, until his death in early 1975, had kept her afloat financially and out of asylums. Since his passing, the estate had drifted aimlessly.

  Thomas devoured the story, not speaking again until he'd read every word. He grimaced with suspicion. An infirm old woman had died. Seven paraffin candles had been strategically left in his office. No connection, of course.

  Andrea stepped out of the kitchen. My God, Thomas noticed, even now she turned him on.

  "Tom. I hate to add to your worries," she said.

  "Feel free."

  "Did you know there was a murder in front of your building last night?"

  He put down the Post.

  "No."

  "Between three thirty and four o'clock," she said, drying her hands on a dish towel.

  "A mugging." She cocked her head inquisitively.

  "Wasn't that about the time you were leaving?"

  He thought for a moment.

  "Yes. It was' He considered it and shrugged.

  "Strange. I didn't see or hear anything" She seemed to consider it for a moment, letting the subject hang heavily in the air. Then she moved over to him and sat down beside him.

  She kissed him on the cheek, more affection than he'd received during several of the last weeks in their fading relationship.

  "Tom?"

  "What?"

  "Do me a favor."

  He answered with silence.

  "No matter what happens between us" she said, 'if this… this arson, thing develops into anything good He sighed.

  "You can have the damned story- If that's what you're worried about, you've got it" Andrea smiled. It was the smile he liked.

  "Promise?"

  "Promise."

  She kissed him again with slightly more passion.

  Chapter 2

  The crimson maple leaf was barely visible through the driving white snowflakes. Leslie McAdam trudged through the deep accumulation of snow packed on the sidewalks. She paid little attention to the Canadian flag on the pole across the street. The flag's red borders and red leaf were discernible now as she was closer to them. But she chose to walk with her head down, not seeing the flag, back to the comfort of her small apartment.

  The city of Montreal was being blanketed again by a heavy, freezing snow. Standard weather for January. Eight fresh inches.

  That on top of the half foot they'd received four days earlier, which in turn had landed on top of a foot already fallen. All the auto routes of Quebec were closed, again, as were the airports. Whiteness was everywhere. Snow coated the buildings of McGill University, the giant illuminated cross which overlooked the city from the hills of Westmount, the stone statue ofjacques Cartier which dominated the old square which bore his name, and the ancient little church of Notre Dame de Bonsecours in the old town close by the gray frozen Saint Lawrence.

  The snow was impartial and resolute, yet Montrealers had learned to shrug and live with it. The Metro always ran. And beneath the icy streets, "there were underground cafes, shopping centers, and a type of urban camaraderie among the natives, a sense of having defeated the elements above.

  Leslie turned a corner, was blasted again by a ripping snowy wind, and then walked up the steps to the wooden row house where she lived. just a few blocks from the McGill campus. Behind her rumbled a massive, hulking snowplow, scraping out the street, flashing red, blue, and green lights and equipped with everything except a tail gunner.

  Leslie's second winter at McGill. One more" plus a thesis, and she'd have her doctorate.

  Once inside the house she shook the snow off her head and coat.

  The warmth of the house was soothing. Thank God for Canadian oil, she thought. Much more dependable than the wood and coal used back in southwestern England near Exeter, where she'd been born and raised. At least Canada would never be frozen into submission by a cartel of greedy sheiks.

  She pulled a wool scarf from around her throat and lower face.

  She shook the snow from it and pulled a wool hat from her head, letting her brown hair fall to her shoulders. She clomped up the wooden stairs to her second-floor apartment, leaving wet tracks from her heavy boots on the worn carpeting in the stairway.

  Five minutes later she was alone in her warm cozy apartment.

  Her wet outer clothes were drying above an old bathroom. tub.

  India tea was brewing in the small kitchen and a Mozart piano concerto was playing softly on a KLH system. She listened to the music as she made herself comfortable. On the walls of the apartment were numerous pastel-shaded prints, mostly nineteenth- and twentieth-century European impressionists.

  She wasn't a bad artist herself. Had her past and childhood not been a factor, she might have been torn between pursuing either an academic career or a career as a painter. She had her father's gifted hands, she told herself. Gifted at creation, gifted in destruction.

  She shuddered at the thought of him. The source of her greatest joy, the creation of art on a blank canvas, was also the root of her deepest fear. She could never exhibit her work, at least not under current conditions. She'd had several invitations to stage private showings.

  But why bother? Her own name would turn into a death sentence.

  She walked to the bedroom. The classical music from the next room was faint but still audible. She stood for a moment before the large bedroom window. The snow outside was still falling beautifully and lay untouched on the quiet street. It was illuminated by the soft light of the streetlamp.

  She sighed. Snow. And she'd have to travel, anyway.

  From a closet she withdrew a single suitcase. Within twenty-four hours she'd be gone, missing the last two weeks of the semester. Her professors, she hoped, wo
uld understand. If she fared well she'd be back within a few weeks, able then to see her thesis through to its conclusion.

  But meanwhile, there was unfinished family business. Victoria Sandler was dead.

  Leslie began to pack.

  Chapter 3

  Why did a man take off his wedding ring and slip it into his jacket? If there were two reasons, neither Shassad nor Hearn could think of the second one. No matter. The presence of the ring and its location in the victim's pocket indicated that there had been at least one extra woman in his life. Within the band was engraved: K.FM. R. -6-12-72.

  The report from the Medical Examiner arrived at the Nineteenth Precinct toward three that afternoon. Shassad was the first to glance through it. The report confirmed what he and Hearn had already surmised. The Seventy-third Street victim had had sexual intercourse less than an hour before he'd been transformed from a live man into a butchered corpse.

  "The penis" said Shassad philosophically as he handed the report 'nd's tragic flaw. If this guy had kept his prick in to Hearn, 'is his pants, or at least home where it belonged, he'd probably be alive today."

  "Probably," mumbled Hearn, reading the report.

  "So' said Shassad aloud and ruminatively, 'he's screwing around till three in the morning. Then he gets up, gets dressed, goes down to the street, and meets a reception committee." Shassad paused.

  "Why did he leave? Is he going to come sneaking home at an hour like that?"

  "Maybe he's divorced," offered Hearn.

  "If he's divorced why does he carry the ring at all?"

  "Habit?" shrugged Hearn.

  "Habits are for nuns. I say he was still married Neither man was satisfied. But it was essential that they toss ideas back and forth like tennis balls, keeping it up until something made sense. Knowing each other so well for so many years, they'd refined this Socratic method of crime detection to a fine art.

  "Why is he leaving at three A.M.?" mused Hearn, leaning back in his chair.

  "Maybe his girl friend's husband arrived home unexpectedly."

  "Or," said Shassad, a man familiar with the delights of the flesh, maybe he didn't pay for the entire night." I They held that thought for a moment. It was three twenty, almost twelve hours exactly after the slaying. Their telephone rang.

  At Bradford, Mehr amp; Company, an investment firm at 440 Madison Avenue, one of the junior account executives had not appeared that morning for work. At first, since the man came in from the suburbs, his office believed him snarled in the trains which, with luck, bring commuters in and out of the city each morning. But when Mark Ryder had not yet appeared by noon, a secretary called his home.

  His wife answered the telephone and was immediately alarmed.

  No, she said, her husband had not been home last night, either.

  She explained that he'd called her late the previous afternoon and maintained that he'd be having a late business conference and then had stacks of paper work to catch up on. So, he'd explained to her, he'd chosen to stay overnight in Manhattan at his university club.

  Did she mind terribly?

  One call to the club indicated that he'd never registered there.

  One glance around the office revealed that he'd never arrived for work on the morning of the twentieth, not even a fast in and out.

  So one hour later, at one o'clock, the Missing Persons section of the New York City Police Department was notified. They were given a description of the man by a very, very upset wife named Kyle.

  The call went through the proper channels, through hospital lists, through precinct reports, and through the city morgue. Eventually lab assistant Gary Dedmarsh, whom on prior cases Shassad had dealt with, thought the description sounded familiar.

  Dedmarsh checked the recentarrivals, then telephoned the Fourth Detective Zone headquarters to learn who was assigned to the case.

  Several more minutes passed. Then at three twenty, Dedmar h, a gangly pale twenty-two-year-old, telephoned Shassad and Hearn's desk.

  Mr. Shay-sod?" Dedmarsh asked, pronouncing it as if it were the infield turf where the New York Mets play.

  "Guess what I got in the freezer. A gorgeous red-haired teenage prostitute. Came in last night. Strangled. Not a mark on her."

  Shassad already knew Gary. A 'weird kid" as Shassad termed him.

  "What's the real reason you're calling, Gary?" Shassad asked with impatience. Gary sounded particularly gleeful today and would whistle faint tunes when he wasn't speaking.

  "A missing person named Mark Ryder," Dedmarsh said.

  "He sounds like the guy you sent me last night" Shassad considered the initials within the gold band. He listened to the Missing Persons description as Dedmarsh falteringly read it over the telephone.

  "Indeed, it does " Shassad said. The Seventy-third Street corpse had reassumed its real name.

  Thomas Daniels sat in the lone cleared area in the charred ruins of his offices. The entire suite stank of smoke and obviously would for weeks to come. Ashes and soot were everywhere; much of the carpeting was still wet. The arson investigation was going nowhere.

  What Thomas had left was a free desk, telephone service which had been restored, and a vivid memory of a day six years earlier, the day he'd joined his father's firm. Age twenty-seven, an iconoclastic young lawyer with an affinity for civil-liberties cases.

  His father's son? It would hardly have seemed so at first. The father, the arch conservative criminal attorney, and the son, a hard eyed idealist, had had to come to an understanding before they'd join each other. The younger Daniels could handle as many freedom-of-speech or civil-rights cases as he'd handle of tax law or divorce. The son would defend none of the racketeers or white-collar frauds whom the father seemed not only to relish, but also acquit with astonishing frequency.

  "Tom," William Ward Daniels would often postulate while his son was in the midst of a civil-liberties case, "sometimes I think there's too much freedom in this country."

  "How can you say that?" the son would implore, taking the bait.

  "How, in light of the people you defend?"

  "Ah," the old man would opine, throwing back his curly head of graying hair, 'all my clients are innocent. Check the court records" Thomas reached to the restored telephone. He dialed Andrea's number at work.

  It was Tuesday evening, seven thirty, but she would be at her desk in the New York Times building, retyping a feature article not due until Wednesday, the copy spread neatly on her desk.

  "Andrea Parker," she answered.

  "Want a story you can't print yet?"

  "Sure," she said.

  "Give it to me in confidence tonight, read it in the Times tomorrow."

  "This is serious" he said.

  "Can you tell me over the telephone?"

  "I know why my offices got torched," he said simply.

  "I think I know what they were after."

  "Who are 'they'?"

  "I can show you everything. It's a story."

  "Now?"

  "If you're interested "I am" she said.

  "Twenty minutes?"

  "Twenty minutes" She hung up, straightened the copy on her desk and locked it into the desk's bottom drawer. She left the Times building, walked out onto Forty-fourth Street, found a yellow cab which had just discharged theatergoers and arrived at 457 Park Avenue South fifteen minutes later.

  Thomas was waiting in the locked lobby. Jacobus, the night custodian, unlocked the plate-glass doors, admitted her without speaking, then cautiously relocked the doors. Jacobus remained in the lobby watching their elevator, making sure that the young Daniels kid and the girl went to the right floor. Jacobus was even-natured: He trusted no one at any time.

  Thomas led Andrea through the front doors of his offices. It was her second look at the destruction.

  Do I still need hip boots to walk through here?" she asked.

  "Just a clothespin for that reporter's nose of yours. Itll be months before the next tenants get the stench out of here" "Next
tenants?" she asked.

  It was too late to retract his words. He stammered slightly.

  "It's not-ah-what I called you down here for," he explained slowly, 'but, yes, I'm giving thought to closing the offices. For good."

  They arrived at his cleared working area. It was adjacent to the filing room, the flash point of the blaze.

  " Quitting law?" she asked.

  "Is that what you're talking about "I guess it is" he said without emotion, his hands in his pockets.

  "I don't understand people who quit things' she said flatly.

  "I know you don't. But you show me the @temative. My two associate attorneys need work at a steady salary. They've already contacted other firms. Take a look around here." He held his hand aloft, indicating the scene of ruin.

  "Damned little that can be salvaged. And the insurance company isn't going to pay. I've got to drag them kicking and screaming into court.

  That'll be my big case for the year."

  "What did you bring me down here for?" she asked.

  "To give you a pep talk on why you should stay in law?"

  He sat down on the rim of his desk and looked at her.

  "No," he answered.

  "That's just what I don't want. The proper circumstances have been presented for making an exit. It's time for me to get out."

  "Ridiculous. Quit your only livelihood?"

  "My only livelihood?" he scoffed.

  "My only livelihood has been killing me all my life' He stared at her.

  "Christ" he said, 'if your father had been the great Willaim Ward Daniels and if you'd been shoved along in his footsteps, you'd have been a lawyer, too, by now. But that doesn't mean your old man's shoes would have fit you, either."

  Andrea looked at him, half with contempt, half with understanding as she thought of her own father, who had worked for United Press.

  "And you'd hate it, too," he said, "just as I do. You would have been seduced along the way with the summer jobs in law firms, the clerking for important judges, the tricky legalese draft deferments, and the silver-platter offer to join the firm that bore your name.

  Ah, yes. My ordained future. But no one knew I wasn't going to be brilliant like the old man. And no one knew that once he was gone the clients wouldn't flock to me' Thomas paused. In the mind's eye of the son, William Ward Daniels stood in the center of a silenced courtroom, a somber expression on his craggy face, his hands thrust into jacket pockets, his graying head lowered and gazing absently at the floor. He would seem to be contemplating the process of justice, all eyes on him the virtuoso. Then the trained voice would rise and fall as the large, square-shouldered, fastidiously dressed attorney launched into defense arguments that could draw tears from a jury -of granite blocks.