"What?" I asked, figuring that it is easier to defend myself against words that it is against looks.
"Nothing."
"No. It's something. Out with it."
"Tad, I realize that it is none of my business, but you act like you are trying to kill yourself. You drink too much and your diet is terrible. A cheeseburger with mayonnaise! It wouldn't surprise me if you had donuts for breakfast."
She looked up at me and I think the word 'Guilty' must have appeared on my forehead because she nodded slightly and went back to her salad.
"Well, they were 'cake' donuts," I offered as though that made it a little better.
"And you don't take anything seriously," she continued, scoring points on both sides of my remark. "Just like last night. You nearly got yourself killed and then tried to joke your way out of it."
"Is there a point to all this?" I asked somewhat peevishly.
"I just think somebody would have to be crazy to live the way you do," she observed.
A chill went up my back like a goose had walked across my grave. I didn't mind her complaints about my drinking or my diet. I didn't even mind her accusations that I took silly chances and wasn't serious enough. It was all true. But, something bothered me deeply about being called crazy. All the other faults were faults of my own making, but crazy was something that I had no control over.
Rene Descartes, the guy who is famous for saying 'I think, therefore I am', had difficulty with this same problem. He did not know how to prove that he was not just dreaming of his existence. Any physical sensation he had could also be dreamed. Further, if he was dreaming, there was no way to be sure that the dream wasn't the product of a deranged mind. Maybe he was just a figment in the imagination of a madman. Maybe I'm nothing more than the product of a lunatic's imagination. Worse yet, maybe I'm just the product of my own imagination. Who knows, maybe I am crazy.
Gita reached over and touched my hand. "You've got that faraway look in your eyes again," she began. "I wish I knew where you've gone when you get that look."
"Nowhere, really," I said, coming back to the present moment. "You're right about my habits. I'll try to clean them up. Now let's get back to the Oxenstein case."
Gita pulled out her notepad and I filled her in on what D.J. had told me.
"I think I can get most of her money back," I said, "Now I want to nail the killer."
"Aren't you getting a little too involved in this?" she asked reaching over with her napkin and wiping a glob of mayonnaise off of my lower lip.
"Probably," I agreed. I wanted to explain my new view of life as an Odyssey but with Gita's background of spiritual discipline it would be like explaining earth, air, fire and water to a nuclear physicist. So I just kept it to myself. She looked at me without saying anything. There was no expression at all on her face. But I could feel the growing conversational void that I was supposed to fill with an explanation.
"How do you plan to nail the killer?" she prodded, realizing that no explanation was forthcoming.
"If I can find one of Oxenstein's neighbors who can identify McNulty then I can show that he was involved in some way. Then, we can see if McNulty has an alibi for the night Oxenstein was murdered. My guess is that McNulty thinks he's free and clear and hasn't set up an alibi. Of course the best possible outcome is that we find someone who saw McNulty at Oxenstein's on the night of the murder."
Gita nodded and pushed her salad away. I left half of my cheeseburger on the plate and felt good about exercising my will power. Gita left for the ladies room and I put a handful of French fries in a napkin for the trip over to Oxenstein's apartment.
The apartment building was a large square brick building taking up the whole block. It wrapped around the outside of the block and inside was a courtyard area accessible only through the apartments and two alleys. The alleys were on opposite sides of the building and were protected by padlocked gates. Anybody with an ounce of energy could hop over one of the gates, but it gave an illusion of security. Whoever had killed Oxenstein must have hopped over one of those gates, gotten into his apartment through the sliding glass doors and left again over the gate. Somebody must have seen him.
We started by knocking on the door to the right of Oxenstein's apartment. No answer. We worked our way around the entire building and nobody would answer the door. I was getting discouraged.
"We still have one left." Said Gita. "We haven't tried the apartment to the left of Oxenstein's."
"What's the use?" I said. "In a neighborhood like this nobody will come to the door."
"We have to try it anyway." She said. "You never know until you try."
We knocked on the door and to my great surprise a voice from inside called out "Who is it?"
"Private Investigators." I shouted back. "We'd like to ask you a few questions."
The door opened just a crack with two chain locks across the small opening. Below the chains I could see a single eye peering at us through a pair of drug store reading glasses. I wasn't encouraged that our only possible witness didn't even wear prescription glasses.
"My name is Thaddeus Wentworth and this is my partner Gita Ramana. We work for Intercontinental Detective Agency. Are you Mrs. Esterberry?" I read the name off a faded old card in a holder just under the spy hole.
"Yes I am." She said. "What is it that you want?"
I showed her my identification card and explained that we were investigating the Oxenstein murder. She unlocked the chain bolt and let us in.
Mrs. Esterberry was wearing a very worn pair of orthopedic shoes that looked like mutant catcher's mitts and a flower print housedress. She looked like she was in her early sixties, but that guess was based more on her clothes than her appearance. Her hair may have held a permanent at one time, but since then a random array of hair clips and bobby pins had captured stray wisps. She looked like she might be able to pick up broadcast TV channels from around the globe.
"You have to be careful about who you let in your apartment around here," she proclaimed. "Even though the Lord protects me, he still expects me to do my part."
She offered us chairs and then sat down herself. As she sat the hem of her dress rose a bit exposing stocking that were pulled up over her calves and then left in a rolled up wad.
"The Lord looks after his children you know." She began. "I go to church every Sunday and pray every night. One of these days he's going to help me get out of this place and into somewhere where I can be safe. While I'm here he helps to protect me."
This last line was offered more as a warning than a statement of fact. Mess with this woman and you answer to the Lord.
"I'm glad that you're right with the Lord and everything, Mrs. Esterberry." I began. "But we are here investigating the Oxenstein murder. It would be very helpful if you could tell us anything you know."
"Well," she began. "He was killed on a Tuesday, but I didn't call the police until the next week because I wasn't sure that anyone was killed until the smell from his apartment began to come into my apartment. It was the smell of death and you know it even if you've never smelt it before. When you are an old woman like me you don't want death to get no closer to you than you have to."
"So you called the police?" I asked.
"Yes, I did. That was a bad man who killed Mr. Oxenstein. I hope they make him pay."
"He was a very bad man." I agreed. "Nobody deserved to die the way Mr. Oxenstein did."
"That not what I meant," corrected Mrs. Esterberry. "When he ran out of the apartment, there was a little girl playing in the courtyard. Rather than step around her, he just pushed her down and made her cry."
Gita and I looked at each other savoring this revelation. "Then you saw him." Gita asked.
"Of course I did." Mrs. Esterberry said with a mixture of confidence and triumph.
"Would you recognize him if you saw him again." I pressed.
"Of course." She proclaimed folding her arms across her chest.
I t took out the picture of McNulty and showed it to her. "That's him alright. I could pick him out at the mall at Christmas. He's a bad man and I hope you get him before the Lord does. If he does a little time here maybe it won't go so hard on him when he faces the final judge."
"Mrs. Esterberry, " I continued. "I need to ask just a couple more questions and then we'll be one our way. First, how good is your eyesight."
"There is nothing wrong with my eyesight." She proclaimed. "People think that when you get old you can see or hear anymore. My eyes and ears are just fine."
"What about those glasses," I asked.
"There are reading glasses," she said emphatically as she removed them. "I'm farsighted and have had to use reading glasses ever since I was a little girl. But there is nothing wrong with my eyesight. You see that apartment directly across the courtyard. They are watching The Price is Right."
I could see the apartment and the TV. But I couldn't make out, for the life of me, what show was on. "That's very good Mrs. Esterberry. One last question. Why did you wait a week to call the police. Why didn't you call right away?"
"Young man," she began. "When you live in this neighborhood you get used to gunshots at all times of the day night. Some kids go into empty apartments and draw targets on the plaster walls. If you call the police every time you hear a gunshot, they just ignore you. It wasn't until the smell of death started coming through the wall that I knew something was wrong."
"Thank you Mrs. Esterberry. It would probably be a good idea if you didn't tell anyone else what you just told us."
We left with a feeling of accomplishment and relief and went to Gita's office on K Street where we called Joe Wilson at DCPD.
"I've got your killer Joe. It's a guy named McNulty. Brian Ryan McNulty, I think. He was running a con on Oxenstein and decided to do him in before The Ox Man got wise to it." I gave him all the information that I had obtained so far including the computer records of payments to McNulty and the eyewitness. I even gave him McNulty's address from Oxenstein's database.
"Thanks for your help," said Joe. "We'll take it from here."
I was so pleased with myself that I couldn't stand it. I drove the few blocks over to my office reviewing how I was going to construct the story to get D.J.'s money back. Everything was falling into place beautifully. We could construct scenarios backed up by computer records to explain most of the money. D.J. would certainly owe some back taxes and penalties, but she would be free from jail time because she could claim that it was Gershom's money and he was guilty of non-payment, not her. Conservatively, I estimated that she would walk away with ten million dollars. With a good lawyer or some fumbling on the part of the Feds, she might walk away with twice that much.
I arrived at my office a little late for my office hours and there were a few students eyeing me impatiently as I walked in but I ignored them. All I could think about was how well I had solved this case. Somehow I managed to get through my office hours and class. Then I met Gita at the Brewer's Pub to celebrate.
We sat at my favorite table and I was relishing the moment. I liked the familiar atmosphere. The table was lacquer-coated wood, which made it feel homey. The waitress came over with a genuinely friendly smile and asked if I wanted the usual. I wasn't sure what my 'usual' was, but decided to just go with the moment. Gita ordered a glass of crème sherry. There were enough people in the pub so that it didn't feel lonely. Nor did if feel crowded. In fact, it was just right. I thought about all the times that Gita and I had worked together and what a great team we made. I was feeling mellow and trying hard not to slip into one of those syrupy nostalgic moods.
"Well, it looks like we wrapped up another one," I said as our drinks arrived, "what's on the queue for you?"
"I'm going to Chicago for a few months," she replied, "apparently more con artists are finding their way to the Internet, so I'm going to take a few classes and work with IDA's electronic bunko division."
"Hang on, that's my territory," I said with mock concern.
"No really," she continued. "You protect large entities like corporations or the government from individuals like hackers or money launderers. I protect private citizens from con artists. Those cons used to run their scams face to face or through the mail. Now they do it over the Internet."
"A noble calling indeed," I stated with exaggerated grandeur as I took a gulp of my oatmeal stout. "Well, I hate to see you go, but I guess there's nothing to keep you here."
Something flickered across her face but it was too quick for me to catch. I knew I had missed something and was going to ask what it was. Gita raised her glass to the waitress and turned back to me with a smile that looked like it had been there all along so I decided not to pursue it.
We talked about Gershom and D.J. , and how they turned out to be so different from what we originally thought. I recounted the scene in the bar with the greasy thumbprint on the glass and the sticky floor. With exaggerated dramatics I pretended like my feet were stuck to the floor and then imitated the raspy voice of the waitress saying 'people don't come here for special'. We laughed until we had tears in our eyes.
Ordering another round, we went over the curious aspects of the case and actually managed to laugh about the Bartlett brothers. "If my axe don't kill you, my breath will." I said in a greatly exaggerated hillbilly accent. Again we reeled with laughter.
We congratulated ourselves on outsmarting McNulty and the Feds. Our cases usually didn't end this neatly. Most of the time you were left with a ragged, ambiguous feeling. Some of it worked out and some of it didn't. On the balance you hoped that your involvement in the case yielded more positives than negatives. Sometimes you had to average over several cases. But this case was a clear win.
"Here's to a job well done," she said lifting her glass of sherry.
I smiled and tapped the edge of my glass against hers. Case closed and a job well done. Or so I thought.....