Death Benefits (27 page)

Chapter Twenty-seven

It was 10 a.m. Monday morning and I was still waiting to see Dr. Jacob Bernstein, the dermatologist. According to Stoddard Anderson's personal calendar, Dr. Bernstein had been the last physician Anderson saw before his death. I had come to Dr. Bernstein's office because Albert Weidemeir would not be retrieving the mystery envelope from his safe deposit box until noon. This had seemed a good time to wrap up this loose end.

I was in the reception area of Dermatology Consultants, absently leafing through a tattered issue of
People
magazine. I'd been there since eight-thirty, and my rage had been building steadily ever since. Bernstein hadn't returned my call on Friday. He hadn't returned my call on Saturday. He hadn't returned my call on Sunday. And now he'd let me cool my heels in his reception area for an hour and a half.

By the time the nurse finally opened the door to the inner sanctum and said, “Miss Gold?” the Dr. Jacob Bernstein of my imagination had become a white-coated Hermann Goering.

The real Bernstein was anything but. He was short, chubby, and bald, with a gray walrus mustache and sad brown eyes. He stood to shake my hand when the nurse showed me into his small, book-crammed office, and he profusely apologized for not returning my calls.

“I was at my nephew's bar mitzvah in Cleveland, Miss Gold. He's my younger brother's only son. I was there from Thursday until late last night. I'm very sorry I didn't call you. One of the other doctors was on call for all emergencies. I only returned calls from patients I was worried about.”

It sounded plausible. “How was the bar mitzvah?” I asked.

“Beautiful. Thank you for asking.” He removed a pipe from the pipe rack on his desk. “Do you mind if I smoke?”

I shook my head. “I like the smell.”

“I know you've been waiting out there for a long time. There was nothing I could do. When you arrived I had a patient in every examination room—a basal carcinoma in Room A, a terrible outbreak of herpes zoster in B, and inflamed acne in C.”

He paused to tamp the tobacco into the pipe bowl. After he got it lit, he looked up, his face surrounded by smoke. “How can I help you?” he asked, waving away the smoke.

“Tell me about Stoddard Anderson.”

Bernstein sighed. “Such a sad ending.”

“He saw you a week before he died.”

Bernstein leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest.

“His appointment with you is in his personal calendar,” I explained. “Doctor, I represent his widow. Here,” I said as I fished the retention letter out of my briefcase.

As he read it, I explained the nature of my representation of Dottie Anderson.

“There are two issues,” I said. “First, did he intend to kill himself when he took out the policy less than five months ago? And second, was he sane at the time he killed himself? As far as I can tell, you're the last physician to see him before he died. You may be the best witness as to his mental condition.”

Bernstein frowned as he puffed on his pipe. “I'm a little reluctant to talk about these matters, Miss Gold. I don't mean to be difficult, but I have always tried to honor the privacy expectations of my patients. After all, Mr. Anderson was a patient of mine.”

I had already anticipated this concern—indeed, I'd thought of it yesterday as Benny and I drove down to the Abbott & Windsor offices after my meeting with Albert Weidemeir. I'd had Benny research the scope of the physician-patient privilege while I had my encounter with Reed St. Germain.

I explained to Dr. Bernstein that the privilege in Missouri belonged to the patient, not the doctor. Even if Stoddard Anderson's privilege had somehow survived his death, it could be waived by his heirs, his representatives, or any beneficiary under his life insurance policy.

He was still uneasy, but I persisted.

“He took out the insurance policy about four months ago,” I said. “Was he a patient of yours back then?”

Bernstein shook his head. “I saw him only once. About a week before his death.”

“Why did he come to you?”

“Mr. Anderson had a severe case of seborrheic dermatitis.”

“Which is what?”

“Dandruff.”

“Did you treat it?”

“I prescribed some medication.”

“Anything else?”

Bernstein puffed on his pipe, staring at me with his sad eyes. “I drew a blood sample. I sent it to a laboratory for testing.”

“Why?”

“I must tell you, Miss Gold, I'm most uncomfortable discussing this matter. Mr. Anderson swore me to secrecy.”

“Doctor, Mr. Anderson is dead. Nothing can hurt him now. His widow is alive. She is the sole beneficiary of his life insurance policy. The reason he decided to kill himself could have a direct bearing on how much money she receives. Now, he came to you with a bad case of dandruff. Why did you take a blood—” I leaned back in my chair. “Is bad dandruff a symptom of AIDS?”

Bernstein nodded. “Occasionally it is. A severe case of seborrheic dermatitis, especially in one who has never previously had such a problem, can be a sign of AIDS. I explained that to Mr. Anderson. I attempted to ask him about his personal life, but he refused to answer any of my questions. He agreed only to let me send the blood sample to the laboratory.”

“And did you?”

Bernstein nodded sadly.

“When did you get the results?”

“It took a week.”

“Did you call him?”

“He called me. He'd call every morning.”

“You talked to him on the day he disappeared, didn't you?”

Bernstein nodded.

“Did you tell him over the telephone?”

Bernstein sighed. “I asked him to come to my office to discuss it. He refused. He wanted to hear it over the phone. ‘Do I have AIDS?' he asked.”

“And what did you tell him?”

Bernstein's eyes were moist. “When I told him he moaned. Like a wounded animal. I begged him to come see me. He said he needed a few days alone. He made me promise I wouldn't tell a soul.” Bernstein pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and daubed the corner of one eye. “I never dreamed he would kill himself.”

***

It was quarter to eleven when I walked out of Dermatology Consultants. My meeting with Albert Weidemeir was still almost two hours away. I had enough time to drop by the hospital to check on Dottie Anderson and then swing by Washington University to pick up Benny from his interviews at the law school.

I had been to the hospital each day, and each day her status had been unchanged. But today the news was dramatically better. According to the doctor, Dottie had come out of her coma late last night, around two in the morning. She was asleep when I arrived, and still under medication, but her doctor was confident she would fully recover. I was ecstatic.

As I sat by her bedside while she slept, I thought about the last days in the life of her husband. Ironically, AIDS would have destroyed Remy Panzer's power over him. Up until then, Panzer could blackmail Anderson with the threat of exposing his homosexuality and pederasty. For someone of Stoddard Anderson's generation and in his position—especially someone who had publicly cast himself in the role of the archconservative Republican gay basher—exposure would be devastating. But more was at risk than simply being humiliated before his peers. Anderson had to know that disclosure of his appetite for young boys would lead, at best, to social exile and, at worst, to jail. And nothing could be worse or more dangerous than being a convicted child molester in a state penitentiary.

But when Anderson learned he had AIDS, the threat of exposure must have given way to the certainty of exposure. Far more powerful men of his generation with far more at stake—men such as Roy Cohn and Rock Hudson—had died exposed, and Anderson surely must have realized that he would as well, if he
allowed
himself to die of AIDS.

With Panzer's hold over him destroyed, Anderson would have taken steps necessary to keep Montezuma's Executor out of Panzer's grasp. He surely must have detested Panzer by then. Once he had completed the task of hiding the Executor, he killed himself. Even his manner of suicide—bleeding to death under a shower—was probably an attempt to hide his disease. He must have hoped that by the time someone discovered his body most of the blood would have drained out, leaving too little to test for AIDS.

The various drafts of the suicide note, along with Albert Weidemeir's last meeting with him (the meeting where Anderson said the plans had changed), suggested that Anderson's first plan had been to leave a message that would lead someone—the police? Dottie's attorney?—to Albert Weidemeir, who would then presumably lead them to the hiding place. That must have been the origins of the note entitled “Equation for ME” But then Anderson may have worried that the wrong person could figure out the message, that the wrong person could lean on Albert Weidemeir, that the wrong person could find the Executor. So he changed his plan and tore up the note. Instead, he instructed Weidemeir to lay low for a full year and then turn the information over to Dottie's lawyer.

I thought again of the last line of the suicide note: “a dying man's last request.” And now the mystery of the phrase “dying man” was solved. He had chosen his words carefully.

I checked my watch. It was time to go. I leaned over and kissed Dottie softly on the forehead. Next stop: Albert Weidemeir.

Chapter Twenty-eight

Two hours later, Benny and I were parked in the shade in a secluded spot behind the zoo in Forest Park. Blueprints of the River Des Peres sewer system were spread on the front seat between us.

The rendezvous with Albert Weidemeir had gone smoothly. His bank let us use a private room in the safe deposit area. He read through his witness statement three times, asked a few questions about two of the phrases, and then signed it. That statement would be exhibit number one for my meeting tomorrow afternoon with the insurance claims adjuster.

After he signed his witness statement, I waited in the room while he visited his safe deposit box. A few minutes later he returned, holding the thick manila envelope away from his body as if it might bite. He dropped it on the table in front of me, pulled a pair of sunglasses out of his suit pocket as he turned, and left without a word.

Putting the envelope and the witness statement in my briefcase, I walked out of the bank and got into my car, where Benny was the getaway driver. I waited to open the envelope until we had parked in a secluded spot in Forest Park.

The envelope contained three things:

1. A two-page letter to Dottie's attorney in Anderson's handwriting. The letter consisted primarily of instructions for locating and then selling what Anderson called “an unusual but extraordinarily valuable piece of Aztec craftsmanship.” The letter warned of the importance of maintaining confidentiality, hinted at possible legal problems with regard to the manner in which the object entered the U.S., and advised that it be offered for sale directly to a Mexican museum (rather than to a U.S. collector or through Customs). He signed the letter and dated it June 21, which was the day before he killed himself.

2. A small key. (According to the letter, the key was for the lockbox in which he had placed Montezuma's Executor.)

3. Blueprints and maps of the River Des Peres sewer system.

Benny and I studied the maps, trying to get our bearings. Across the top of the Section D blueprint Anderson had scrawled the following message:

Six archways in from the end of Section D. Look inside the archway.

According to the blueprints, each of the twin tunnels of Section D was twenty-nine feet wide and, at its apex, twenty-eight feet high. One tunnel carried raw sewage and the other carried storm water. The floors of the two tunnels were slightly concave, which meant that when there wasn't storm water running through the system you could probably walk down the storm tunnel along one of the walls and not get wet. At least that's what I hoped as I glanced wistfully at my new Nike Airs.

“These tunnels are solid poured concrete,” Benny said. “Unless he schlepped a jackhammer in there with him, how the hell did he chisel out enough to hide that thing?”

“You're asking me?”

“What's he mean by ‘six archways in'?”

“Probably these things,” I said, pointing to the bottom of the page of blueprints, which had a series of cross-sections and side profiles of the twin tunnels. The tunnels shared a common center wall that was three feet thick. According to the blueprints, there were passageways cut into the common wall at regular intervals, apparently to allow access from one tunnel to the other. The blueprints stated that there was a passageway cut into the wall every one hundred yards down the entire length of the twin tunnels.

“So the Executor is in the roof of the sixth one,” Benny said. “That means it's six hundred yards down those tunnels, about a third of a mile.”

I nodded. “The exchange point is obvious,” I said.

“Where?”

“I'll show you. Let's go.”

***

Ten minutes later we were cruising slowly across the bridge over the dry channel of the River Des Peres at Macklind Avenue. Macklind Avenue crosses the River Des Peres channel about four hundred feet downriver from the huge tunnel openings. I stopped my car in the middle of the short bridge over the river channel.

There were three tunnel openings—a smaller one on the right, a large one in the center, and another large one on the left. They were set in a huge cement wall. Just over the tunnel openings, etched in block letters in the wall, was the legend DES PERES DRAINAGE WORKS 1928.

“Hard to believe, huh?” Benny said as we stared upriver toward the tunnel openings.

“I know,” I said. “I keep trying to conjure up the image of Stoddard Anderson walking into one of them.”

“So where's the water?”

The River Des Peres channel was dry.

“I don't know.”

When there was water in the River Des Peres, it would pour out of the tunnels into the open channel, which ran below street level like a huge ditch. The riverbed was concrete—cracked in places, with big chunks missing. The embankment on either side of the riverbed was pitched at a forty-five-degree angle.

I opened the blueprints and found where we were. According to the blueprints, the smaller tunnel on the right was a feeder line that brought storm water in from the local area. The identical large tunnel openings in the center and on the left marked the end of the double-arch tunnels of Section D.

I studied the blueprints. The twin tunnels headed north, burrowing under Oakland Avenue west of St. Louis University High School, and then under Forest Park, curving west until, just under Union Boulevard at the edge of the Park, Section D connected into Section E, which extended west along the edge of Forest Park under Lindell Boulevard and beyond any concern of Benny or mine.

“You're right,” Benny said. “That's the perfect spot. Right down there in front of the tunnel openings. Hell, you could hide a hundred sharpshooters in all that jungle up there.”

I nodded in agreement. The tunnel openings were set in a wide cement wall, like a dam in a river. The wall rose up to street level. Above it was a dense growth of trees and bushes and other vegetation.

“Good spots along the riverbanks, too,” I said.

Up at street level, lining the banks of the river on both sides were factories and warehouses, with train tracks running along the north bank—plenty of places to put Ferd Fingersh's SWAT team. The overpass we were on was another good spot.

“I guess Anderson got down over there,” I said, pointing to a concrete stairway to the left of the tunnels. The stairs went down from street level to the riverbed.

At the entrance to the left tunnel was a pile of junk—a mangled shopping cart, branches, pipes, and other trash, presumably washed through the tunnels by storm water.

“So where's the damn water?” Benny asked.

“Let's go see,” I said, pulling the car over to the side of the road on the south side of the bridge.

There was a white gravel pathway along the top of the riverbank that led all the way to the tunnel wall. Benny and I got out of the car and walked along the path until we were almost even with the tunnel openings down below.

“There,” I said, pointing. “It looks like it goes in there.”

There were huge steel grates set in the cement floors about ten yards inside the tunnel openings. From where we stood you could just make out the water in the center tunnel flowing down through the grates.

“So there's another part of the river underground?” Benny asked.

“It looks that way.” I studied the blueprints. “The sewage line goes down there. The riverbed handles the storm water, I guess.”

“Un-fucking real.”

I turned to Benny. “What?”

“Stoddard Anderson. The guy was un-fucking real. Think about him. Running around in the sewer system of St. Louis with a bucket of cement and an ancient golden dildo. Let me tell you something, Rachel, Stoddard Anderson was one funky managing partner.”

I turned at the sound of a train horn. A freight train was crossing a trestle over the river channel way off in the distance, about a half mile further downriver from the overpass we were on.

“Look,” I said, pointing downriver. On the left side of the riverbank about one hundred yards away was a vehicle ramp leading down to the concrete riverbed. “Ferd could have a couple cars waiting off in the distance down there.”

“It's a good spot,” Benny agreed. “Let's set it up.”

“For tonight?” I asked.

“Definitely. Ferd has all his troops ready to do it tonight. And I'm getting
shpielkes
. Now that we know where it is, the longer we wait the higher the risk. What if Panzer is having you tailed? Or what if he's questioning Weidemeir? And don't forget that fucking Tezca and his goon squad. Set it up for late tonight. That'll give us enough time to go in there and find that damn thing.”

***

My first call was to Rafe Salazar. I made the call on the portable phone, the antenna sticking out of the car window.

“I found a spot for our party tonight,” I said, mindful of Ferd's warning that we were talking on an open line.

Although I was vague about the nature of the party, I was very specific about the location. He said it sounded perfect, but that he would drive by with Ferd to make sure. He told me to leave the area and wait for his call.

“Do you think I can tell our friend about the party now?” I asked. “I can call him later with the location. Since he may need some time to get ready, I want to let him know as soon as possible that the party's going to be tonight.”

“Good idea. Call him now. Tell him the party's tonight. Tell him you'll call him later with the location.”

“What time should I tell him to come to the party?”

“Well, it's a surprise party. We want to make sure everyone else is there first. How about eleven o'clock?”

“Sounds perfect.”

“I'll call you within an hour, Rachel.”

Next I called Remy Panzer. For this call I used a pay phone.

“This is Rachel. I found it.”

“Wonderful, wonderful. Where is it?”

“Safe. I'll deliver it tonight. At exactly eleven o'clock. I'll call you later to tell you where.”

There was a pause. “Why the intrigue?” he finally said.

“You were the one who told me Customs was still snooping around. From what I can determine, there could still be serious legal problems. What if they have your gallery staked out?”

“What did you have in mind for our rendezvous?”

“I'm not sure yet. I want our exchange to be in a safe, open place. I'll call you later with the location.”

“Very well. I shall, of course, have your fee with me.”

“In cash.”

“Certainly.”

“Now here are a few more things, Remy.” I took him through the various instructions Ferd Fingersh and Bernie DeWitt had covered with me—the clothing he had to wear (white or beige, nothing loose-fitting, turtleneck or T-shirt, no jacket or sweater), the type of carrying case for the money, etc. etc.

“And what about you, Rachel? How will I know you won't be planning to rip me off and keep the Executor?”

“I'll be alone. When I pick the location, I'll make sure that from where you'll be standing tonight you'll be able to see I'm alone.”

“As for the clothing, Rachel, I should think the same dress code should apply for you, too.”

“Agreed. I'll call you again with the location.”

Rafe called an hour later. He called on the portable phone.

“Perfect,” he said. “You'll need to make sure our guest doesn't get too close, though. I'd tell him to wait in the center of the riverbed, no closer than one hundred feet from the opening.”

“That's what I'll tell him.”

“Good.” Then his voice softened. “You call me after you talk to him. Okay?”

“Sure.”

“You'll be pleased to know that my client agreed to your fee.”

“That's nice. I have one more request for your client.”

“Tell me what it is.”

“When your client finally puts that thing on display, I want there to be a little plaque on the display case that gratefully acknowledges it as the gift of my client. That poor woman deserves at least that much out of it.”

“I'd be honored to convey that request, Rachel. I'm sure they will agree to it. Meanwhile, call our guest of honor and then call me back.”

Remy Panzer's line was busy, and then he was out. I didn't get through to him until close to four o'clock.

I told him where the meeting spot was to be.

“Fine,” he said. “Now, here are my two rules. First, you must be alone. Rest assured that I will be there well in advance of our eleven o'clock meeting. If I see or if I hear anything suspicious, I'll leave. And if I do leave, I will have nothing further to do with you. Ever. I will assume you have betrayed me, and I shall act accordingly. Second, I shall be at the meeting spot precisely at eleven. You chose the place, you chose the time. I choose to wait there no longer than five minutes. If you are not there by then, I will leave, and I shall be extraordinarily reluctant to schedule any further meeting with you. Understand?”

“Understood.”

My final call was to Rafe. I told him Panzer's additional conditions.

“Those shouldn't be a problem,” Rafe said. “I'll let Ferd know. We'll call you back immediately if there's a problem. If you don't hear from me, it's a go.”

“Okay.”

There was a pause. “How do you feel?” Rafe asked softly.

I took a deep breath and exhaled. “This is one course I forgot to take in law school.”

He chuckled. “You'll be able to teach the course after tonight.”

“I guess so.”

“Listen to me.”

“I'm listening.”

“Don't take any risks tonight, Rachel. It's not worth it.”

“Okay.”

“I mean it.”

“I know you do.”

Another pause. “I'll be there,” he said.

“I know that.”

“I'll have that champagne on ice back in my room.”

I smiled. “Good. ‘Cause when this is over, I'm going to be one thirsty cowgirl.”