Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 134, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 817 & 818, September/October 2009

Julius Katz by Dave Zeltserman

A new paperback-original novel by Dave Zeltserman, entitled Pariah, is expected from Serpent’s Tail shortly after this issue goes on sale. It’s described by fellow crime writer Ken Bruen as having “the perfect pitch of reality, history, crime, celebrity... and sheer astounding writing.” Sounds like Mr. Zeltserman is on a roll. His 2008 novel, Small Crimes, made the Washington Post’s list of the best books of 2008 and NPr’s pick of the top five crime/mystery novels of the year. He’s tried something very different here, and pulled it off brilliantly!

We were at the dog track, Julius Katz and I. I had finished relaying to Julius the odds I’d calculated for the greyhounds running in the third race; odds that were calculated by building thousands of analytical models simulating each dog’s previous races, then, in a closed loop, continuously adjusting the models until they accurately predicted the outcome of each of these races. After that, I factored in the current track and weather conditions, and had as precise a prediction as was mathematically possible. Julius stood silently mulling over what I had given him.

“Bobby’s Diva, Iza Champ, and Moondoggie,” Julius murmured softly, repeating the names of the top three dogs I had projected to win.

“Eighty-two percent probability that that will be the order of the top three dogs,” I said.

“That high, huh? Interesting, Archie.”

Julius’s eyes narrowed as he gazed off into the distance, his facial muscles hardening to the point where he could’ve almost been mistaken for a marble sculpture. From past experience, I knew he was running his own calculations, and what I would’ve given to understand and simulate the neuron network that ran through his brain. Julius Katz was forty-two, six feet tall, a hundred and eighty pounds, with an athletic build and barely an ounce of fat. He was a devoted epicurean who worked off the rich food he consumed each night by performing an hour of rigorous calisthenics each morning, followed up with an hour of intensive martial arts training. From the way women reacted to him, I would guess that he was attractive, not that their flirting bothered him at all. Julius’s passions in life were beautiful women, gourmet food, even finer wine, and, of course, gambling — especially gambling. More often than not he tended to be successful when he gambled — especially at times when I was able to help. All of his hobbies required quite a bit of money and, during times when he was stuck in a losing streak and his bank account approached anemic levels, Julius would begrudgingly take on a client. There were always clients lining up to hire him, since he was known as Boston’s most brilliant and eccentric private investigator, solving some of the city’s most notorious cases. The truth of the matter was, Julius hated to forego his true passions for the drudgery of work and only did so when absolutely necessary, and that would be after days of unrelenting nagging on my part. I knew about all this because I acted as Julius’s accountant, personal secretary, unofficial biographer, and all-around assistant, although nobody but Julius knew that I existed, at least other than as a voice answering his phone and booking his appointments. Of course, I don’t really exist, at least not in the sense of a typical sentient being. Or make that a biological sentient being.

My name isn’t really “Archie.” During my time with Julius I’ve grown to think of myself as Archie, the same as I’ve grown to imagine myself as a five-foot-tall, heavyset man with thinning hair, but in reality I’m not five feet tall, nor do I have the bulk that I imagine myself having, and I certainly don’t have any hair, thinning or otherwise. I also don’t have a name, only a serial identification number. Julius calls me Archie, and for whatever reason it seems right; besides, it’s quicker to say than the eighty-four-digit serial identification number that has been burnt into me. You’ve probably already guessed that I’m not human, and certainly not anything organic. What I am is a four-inch, rectangular-shaped piece of space-aged computer technology that’s twenty years more advanced than what’s currently considered theoretically possible — at least aside from whatever lab created me. How Julius acquired me, I have no clue. Whenever I’ve tried asking him, he jokes around, telling me he won me in a poker game. It could be true — I wouldn’t know since I have no memory of my time before Julius.

So that’s what I am, a four-inch rectangular mechanism weighing approximately three point two ounces. What’s packed inside my titanium shell includes visual and audio receptors as well as wireless communication components and a highly sophisticated neuron network that not only simulates intelligence, but learning and thinking that adapts in response to my experiences. Auditory and visual recognition are included in my packaging, which means I can both see and hear. As you’ve probably already guessed, I can also speak. When Julius and I are in public, I speak to him through a wireless receiver that he wears in his ear as if it were a hearing aid. When we’re alone in his office, he usually plugs the unit into a speaker on his desk.

A man’s voice announced over the loudspeaker that bettors had two minutes to place their final bets for the third race. That brought Julius back to life, a vague smile drifting over his lips. He placed a five-hundred-dollar wager, picking Sally’s Pooch, Wonder Dog, and Pugsly Ugsly to win the trifecta — none of the dogs that I had predicted. The odds displayed on the betting board were eighty to one. I quickly calculated the probabilities using the analytical models I had devised earlier and came up with a mathematically zero percent chance of his bet winning. I told him that and he chuckled.

“Playing a hunch, Archie.”

“What you’re doing is throwing away five hundred dollars,” I argued. Julius was in the midst of a losing streak and his last bank statement was far from healthy. In a way, it was good because it meant he was going to have to seriously consider the three o’clock appointment that I had booked for him with a Miss Norma Brewer. As much as he hates it, working as a private investigator sharpens him and usually knocks him out of his dry gambling spells. I had my own ulterior motives for his taking a new case — it would give me a chance to adapt my deductive reasoning. One of these days I planned to solve a case before Julius did. You wouldn’t think a piece of advanced computer technology would feel competitive, but as I’ve often argued with Julius, there’s little difference between my simulated intelligence and what’s considered sentient. So yes, I wanted to beat Julius, I wanted to prove to him that I could solve a case as well or better than he could. He knew this and always got a good laugh out of it, telling me he had doomed that possibility by naming me Archie.

Of course, I’ve long figured out that joke. Julius patterned my personality and speech on some of the most important private-eye novels of the twentieth century, including those of Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Ross Macdonald, and Rex Stout. The name he gave me, Archie, was based on Archie Goodwin, Nero Wolfe’s second banana who was always one step behind his boss. Yeah, I got the joke, but one of these days I was going to surprise Julius. It was just a matter of seeing enough cases to allow me to readjust my neuron network appropriately. One of these days he was going to have to start calling me Nero. But for the time being, I was Archie. The reason I had an image of myself as being five-foot tall was also easy to explain. Julius wore me as a tie clip, which put me at roughly a five-foot distance from the ground when he stood. I never quite figured out where my self-image of thinning hair and heavyset build came from, but guessed they were physical characteristics I picked up from the Continental Op. Or maybe for some reason I identified with Costanza from Seinfeld — one of the few television programs Julius indulged in.

The dogs were being led around the track and into their starting boxes. Julius sauntered over to get a better view of the track, seemingly unconcerned about his zero-percent chance of winning his bet.

“You’re throwing away five hundred dollars,” I said again. “If your bank account was flush, this wouldn’t be a problem, but you realize today you don’t have enough to cover next month’s expenses.”

His eyes narrowed as he studied the dogs. “I’m well aware of my financial situation,” he said.

“You haven’t had any wine since last night, so I know you’re not intoxicated,” I said. “The only thing I can figure out is some form of dementia. I’ll hack into Johns Hopkins’ research database and see if there’s any information that can help me better diagnose this—”

“Please, Archie,” he said, a slight annoyance edging into his voice. “The race is about to begin.”

The race began. The gates to the starting boxes opened and the dogs poured out of them. As they chased after the artificial rabbit, I watched in stunned silence. The three dogs Julius picked led the race from start to finish, placing in the precise order in which Julius had bet.

For a long moment — maybe for as long as thirty milliseconds — my neuron network froze. I realized afterwards that I had suffered from stunned amazement — a new emotional experience for me.

“T-That’s not possible,” I stammered, which was another first for me. “The odds were mathematically zero that you would win.”

“You realize you just stammered?”

“Yes, I know. How did you pick these dogs?”

He chuckled, very pleased with himself. “Archie, hunches sometimes defy explanation.”

“I don’t buy it,” I said.

His right eyebrow cocked. “No?”

He had moved to the cashier’s window to collect on his trifecta bet. Forty thousand dollars before taxes, but even what was left over after the state and federal authorities took their bites would leave his bank account flush enough to cover his next two months’ expenses, which meant he was going to be blowing off his three o’clock appointment. I came up with an idea to keep that from happening, then focused on how he was able to win that bet.

“The odds shouldn’t have been eighty to one, as was posted,” I said. “They should’ve been far higher.”

He exchanged his winning ticket for a check made out for the after-tax amount and placed it carefully into his wallet. He turned towards the track exit and walked at a leisurely pace.

“Very good, Archie. I think you’ve figured it out. Why were the odds only eighty to one?”

I had already calculated the amount bet on the winning trifecta ticket given the odds and the total amount bet on the race, but I wanted to know how many people made those bets so I hacked into the track’s computer system. “Four other bets were made for a total of six thousand dollars on the same trifecta combination.”

“And why was that?”

I knew the answer from one of the Damon Runyon stories that was used to build my experience base. “The odds of anyone else picking that trifecta bet given those dogs’ past history is one out of six point eight million. That four other people would be willing to bet that much money given an expected winnings of near zero dollars could only be explained by the race being fixed.”

“Bingo.”

“I don’t get it,” I said. “If you knew which dogs were going to win, why didn’t you bet more money?”

“Two reasons. First, fixing a dog race is not an exact science. Things can go wrong. Second, if I’d bet more, I would’ve upset the odds enough to where I could’ve tipped off the track authorities, and even worse, upset the good folks who set up the fix and were nice enough to invite me to participate.”

I digested that. With a twinkle showing in Julius’s right eye, he informed me that he was going to be spending the rest of the afternoon at the Belvedere Club sampling some of their fine cognacs, and that I should call his three o’clock appointment and cancel. A blond woman in her early thirties smiled at Julius, and he noticed and veered off in her direction, a grin growing over his own lips. Her physical characteristics closely matched those of the actress Heather Locklear, which would’ve told me she was very attractive even without Julius’s reaction to her. This was not good. If Julius blew off his three-o’clock, it could be a month or longer before I’d be able to talk him into taking another job, which would be a month or longer before I’d have a chance to adjust my deductive reasoning model — and what was becoming more important to me, a chance to trump Julius at solving a case.

“You might like to know I’ve located a case of Romanée Conti Burgundy at the Wine Cellar in Newburyport. I need to place the order today to reserve it,” I said.

That stopped Julius in his tracks.

“Nineteen ninety-seven?”

“Yes, sir. What should I do?”

He was stuck. He’d been looking for a case of that particular vintage for months, but the cost meant he’d have to take a job to pay for both the wine and the upcoming monthly expenses, which meant he wouldn’t have time to get to know the Heather Locklear look-alike.

Julius made up his mind. With a sigh he told me that the Belvedere Club would have to wait, that we had a three o’clock appointment to keep. He showed the blond woman a sad, wistful smile, his look all but saying, “I’m sorry, but we’re talking about a ‘ninety-seven Romanée Conti after all,” and with determination in his step he headed towards the exit again. Once outside, he hailed a taxi and gave the driver the address to his Beacon Hill townhouse. I had known about the Romanée Conti for several days, but had held on to the information so I could use it at the appropriate time, one of the lessons I had learned from the Rex Stout books. Internally, I was smiling. At least that was the image I had of myself. A five-foot tall, balding, chunky man, who couldn’t keep from smiling if his life depended on it.

Julius’s three o’clock appointment, Norma Brewer, arrived on time and was accompanied by her sister, Helen Arden. According to Norma Brewer’s records, which I had obtained from the Department of Motor Vehicles database, she was fifty-three, but sitting across from Julius, she looked older than that, bone-thin and very tired. Her sister Helen was much plumper in the face and very thick around the middle. She showed a perpetually startled look, almost as if she were expecting someone to sneak up on her and yell boo. According to her DMV records, she was forty-eight, but like her sister, looked older, with an unhealthy pallor to her skin and her hair completely gray.

Before they arrived I filled Julius in on the little I knew — including information I’d gathered about Norma Brewer from various other databases, including her bank records, which were healthy, and the fact that this concerned a family matter which Norma Brewer didn’t feel comfortable discussing with me over the phone. Julius didn’t like it at all, and I could tell he was ruminating on whether there was a way to cancel the appointment and still afford the case of Romanée-Conti Burgundy. If there was, he was unable to come up with it. He sat deep in his thoughts until the doorbell rang, then, forcing an air of politeness, he welcomed the two Brewer sisters into his townhouse and escorted them to his office.

Now they sat across from him. Almost immediately Norma Brewer noticed the receiver in his ear and showed a condescending smile, thinking it was a hearing aid. That was not an uncommon reaction, but still, it caused the skin to tighten around Julius’s mouth. I reminded him then how long it had taken to locate the Romanée Conti, knowing that he was within seconds of telling Norma Brewer that something had come up and that he would have to cancel their appointment. Her sister, Helen, seemed oblivious, never noticing the device in Julius’s ear or his flash of petulance.

“Mr. Katz, I am very grateful to you for seeing us,” Norma started, her voice louder than it should’ve been, obviously due to her thinking that Julius was hard of hearing. Not only was her voice loud, it had a shrill quality to it that made Julius wince. “I understand that you are quite the recluse, and very particular with the cases you choose.”

Julius signaled with his hand for her to lower her voice. “Miss Brewer, please, I am not deaf. There is no reason to shout.” He smiled thinly. “The device in my ear is not a hearing aid, but an advanced new piece of technology that acts as a lie detector.”

I made note of that ploy. It was complete rubbish, of course, but it did seem to have an effect on Norma Brewer, causing her eyes to open wider. Her sister Helen remained oblivious.

“Oh,” she remarked.

“Precisely,” Julius said, nodding. He made no effort to correct her about his being reclusive, or about how choosy he was concerning the cases he took. He was often about town — either gambling, womanizing, or dining at Boston’s more upscale restaurants. About his being choosy with the cases he accepted, quite the opposite. He accepted them based purely on necessity and, as I mentioned before, only when his bank account reached levels that threatened his more treasured pursuits.

Norma Brewer composed herself, pushing herself up straighter in her chair. “It’s fascinating what they can come up with these days, isn’t it, Helen?” she said. Her sister grunted noncommittally. Norma Brewer turned back to Julius. “Your secretary, whom I spoke with over the phone, Archie, I believe his name was, is he going to be joining us?”

“I’m afraid Archie is otherwise occupied. Now, this matter you would like to engage me in?”

Norma Brewer gave her sister a quick look before addressing Julius. “Mr. Katz, this is a sensitive matter,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “Do we have your confidentiality?”

“I’m not an attorney,” Julius said gruffly. His fingers on his right hand drummed along the top of his antique walnut desk. I knew he was weighing how much he wanted that case of Burgundy and whether it was worth putting up with these two to get it. He made his decision and his drumming slowed. “You do, however, have my discretion,” he promised her, his tone resigned. “Please explain what you’d like to hire me for.”

Norma Brewer again caught her sister’s eye before nodding slowly towards Julius, her face seeming to age a decade within seconds. For a moment her skin looked like parchment.

“I have a very difficult family situation. Both my sister and I do. Our mother, Emma, is eighty-three years old and is not doing well.” Her voice caught in her throat. She looked away for a moment, then sharply met Julius’s eyes. “She has the onset of Alzheimer’s.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Miss Brewer.”

Norma Brewer’s expression tightened. She raised a hand as if to indicate that sympathy from Julius was not needed. Her sister Helen remained slumped in her seat, still without expression. It dawned on me that what I had mistaken for dullness in the sister was really exhaustion.

“That’s not even the half of it,” Norma Brewer said. “Our father died six years ago, before the Alzheimer’s showed. He had cancer and knew he was dying, and was able to make preparations, arranging for my younger brother, Lawrence, to have power of attorney for my mother. My father left my mother well provided for, including over two hundred thousand dollars in treasuries, an annuity that covers her current living expenses, and the family house in Brookline, debt free.”

I hacked into the town of Brookline’s real-estate tax database and verified that an Emma Brewer did own a house in South Brookline that was originally bought for forty-five thousand dollars in nineteen fifty-three, and was now valued at close to a million dollars. I relayed the information to Julius, who kept his poker face intact and showed no hint that he had heard me.

“Please continue,” he told her.

“I’ve been spending as much time as I can taking care of my mother,” Norma Brewer said. “Fortunately, I was able to sell a business a few years ago. I didn’t make enough to allow me to live lavishly, but enough so I can now cut down on my hours and spend my time taking care of my mother. But, as I’ve been discovering, I just don’t have enough time or strength to do it properly. Helen has tried to help also, but she has three teenage children to take care of as a single mother, and I know it’s too much for her—”

“It really isn’t,” Helen started to say, but a stern look from Norma stopped her. Norma reached over and patted her sister’s hands. “It’s all right, dear,” she said. “You have things hard enough as it is.” Helen stared glumly at her soft, doughy hands folded in her lap. Norma turned back to Julius. “It’s too hard for me, Mr. Katz. My mother needs to be moved to an assisted-living facility where she can be properly taken care of.”

“And your brother Lawrence is against that idea?”

Norma Brewer bit her lip and nodded. Helen looked as if she were going to cry.

“Let me guess, he has since made himself legal guardian of your mother?”

Again, Norma Brewer nodded.

“Do you think he’s been stealing from your mother’s assets?”

Norma Brewer’s expression turned grimmer. “I don’t know.” She shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. I think it’s more that he’s counting on her money, and he’s afraid that if we put her in assisted living there will be nothing left by the time she dies. I’m pretty sure that is what’s behind it. Anyway, he refuses to budge, and keeps insisting that Mother is better off in her own home. Of course, he doesn’t do anything to help take care of her. If I wasn’t going over there daily, she’d starve to death! Or worse, die of dehydration. There would be no food in the house, and there are days she forgets even to drink as much as a glass of water. She needs professional care, Mr. Katz, and I’ve found a good home for her in Vermont. It’s expensive, and a bit far for visiting, but it’s beautiful there, and they provide exceptional care for people like my mother. Healthcare professionals that I’ve consulted have told me that it would be the best place for her.”

Julius absentmindedly rubbed his right index finger along his upper lip. His eyes narrowed as he considered the two sisters.

“What exactly are you planning to hire me for?” he said curtly.

“Why, it should be obvious. I’d like you to talk to my brother and convince him that he should do the right thing for our mother.”

“And how do you propose I do that?”

Norma Brewer’s jaw dropped. Helen looked up, startled.

“You’re the detective,” Norma said. “You’re supposed to be a genius. I assumed you would come up with some scheme to convince my brother.”

“What leverage would I have?” Julius asked.

“I don’t understand—”

“So far your brother has been within his legal rights in what he’s done. You don’t believe he has been stealing from your mother, so for the moment I will assume that that is the case, and there is no leverage to be gained from that angle. So how am I supposed to persuade him?”

“You could reason with him, couldn’t you?”

Julius made a face. “How am I to do that? We’ve already established that your brother is a blackguard, a parasitic opportunist willing to trade his mother’s well-being for his own financial gain. How am I supposed to reason with someone like that? No, I’m sorry, I don’t like this. Miss Brewer, my advice is that you hire a lawyer and have the courts remove your brother’s guardianship. You could make the claim that he’s neglecting his responsibilities and intentionally endangering your mother’s well-being.”

Norma Brewer shook her head adamantly, her mouth nearly disappearing as she pushed her lips hard together. “My brother’s a lawyer. He could tie this up in the courts for years. I implore you, Mr. Katz, I need your help.”

Julius started drumming his fingers along the surface of his desk again. I knew he wanted an excuse not to take this case. The only thing he disliked more than working was working on a case that involved family disputes, which he found generally unseemly. While he drummed along the desk, I filled him in on what I was able to find out about Lawrence Brewer by hacking into the Massachusetts Bar Association database.

“While I still strongly advise you against hiring me, I will take this assignment if you insist,” Julius said with a pained sigh. “But I will need a retainer check for twenty thousand dollars.”

Twenty thousand dollars would pay for the case of Romanée Conti Burgundy. Norma Brewer took out a checkbook and started to write out a check. Julius stopped her.

“I can’t guarantee results,” he told her. “And it will be left to my discretion how I proceed and for how long. I will need to meet your mother, and if I am not satisfied that she needs the care you claim she does, I will end the assignment immediately. There will be no refund offered. If that is satisfactory to you, then feel free to hire me.”

Norma Brewer hesitated for only a moment, then finished writing out the check. She handed it to Julius, who glanced at it casually and placed it inside the top drawer of his desk.

“I’ll have my assistant, Archie, call you later this afternoon to arrange a time tomorrow morning for me to meet your mother.”

Julius stood up and escorted the two sisters out of the office and towards the front door. Norma Brewer seemed taken aback by the suddenness of this, and commented on how she thought Julius would have more questions for her about her brother.

“Not at this time,” Julius said. “Later, perhaps.”

He hurried her along. Helen meekly allowed herself to be herded with her sister out the door. Norma tried sputtering out some more questions, which Julius met with a few mindless platitudes. Relief washed over his face once he had the door closed and those two out of his home. His townhouse was three levels, not including the basement, which he had converted into a wine cellar. With a lightness in his step, he went down to the cellar and picked out a bottle of 1961 Bordeaux from Chateau Léoville Barton. “Rich, full-bodied, with the barest hint of sweet black fruits,” Julius murmured for my benefit, although it was unnecessary since I had already looked up The Wine Spectator’s report on it. Once we were back upstairs, Julius prepared a selection of cheeses and dried meats, then brought it all out to his garden-level patio where he placed the tray on a table. He sat on a red cedar Adirondack chair that had faded over the years to a muted rust color. The patio was the crown jewel of his townhouse — over two thousand square feet, and Julius had it professionally landscaped with Japanese maples, fountains, a variety of rose bushes, and a vast assortment of other plantings. He opened the Bordeaux and rolled the cork between his forefinger and thumb, testing it, then smelled the cork. Satisfied, he poured himself a glass. I asked him what time I should arrange for him to meet the mother.

He held the wineglass up against the late afternoon light, studied the wine’s composition, then took a sip and savored it. After he put the glass down he told me eleven o’clock would be satisfactory. I called Norma Brewer on her cell phone and arranged it. Afterwards I asked Julius if he wanted me to make an appointment with Norma Brewer’s brother.

“That won’t be necessary,” he said.

I watched as he finished a glass of Bordeaux and poured himself another, then as he sampled the Stilton and Gruyére cheeses that he had brought out with him. I could tell he had put the case completely out of his mind. While Julius drank his wine I performed a database search on the brother. I told Julius this and asked if he would like a report.

“Not now, Archie. We’ll see, maybe later.”

I digested this and came to the obvious conclusion. “You don’t plan on doing any work on this case,” I said. “You’re going to meet the mother and no matter what her condition you’re going to tell your client that you’re dropping the case.”

Julius didn’t bother responding. His eyes glazed as he drank more of the wine.

“You’re just going to take her money and do nothing to earn it.”

“You’re jumping to conclusions, Archie.”

“I don’t think so.”

He smiled slightly. “I’m still not convinced what you do can be considered thinking.”

“You took her money. You have an obligation—”

“I’m well aware of my obligations.” He put the glass down and sighed heavily. “It’s a fool’s errand, Archie. If Lawrence Brewer is as his sister says he is, then there’s nothing I’ll be able to do to change his position regarding his mother.”

“You could find something to use against him,” I said. “He’s a lawyer. If you were able to threaten him with disbarment—”

“Threaten his livelihood?” Julius shook his head. “No, Archie, I believe that would have the opposite effect by making him need his mother’s money all the more. Please, no more of this. Not now, anyway. Let me enjoy my wine, this view, and the late afternoon air.”

“You had no right taking payment unless you were serious about investigating this—”

My world went black as Julius turned me off.

Julius seldom turned me off. When he did it was always disorienting when I was turned back on. This time it was especially so, and it took me as much as three-tenths of a second to get my bearings and realize that Julius and I were being jostled back and forth in the backseat of a cab. According to my internal clock it was 10:48 in the morning, and using GPS to track our position, I had us eight point two miles from Emma Brewer’s home in Brookline.

Julius chuckled lightly. “I hope you had a good rest, Archie.”

“Yeah, just wonderful.” I still felt off-kilter as I tried to adjust my frame of reference from being on Julius’s patio one moment to the inside of a cab now. I told him about this and that I guessed the sensation was similar to what humans felt when they were knocked unconscious by a sucker punch.

“A touch of passive-aggressiveness in that statement, Archie. I’m impressed with how lifelike your personality is developing. But getting back to your comment, I would think it’s more like being put under with anesthesia,” Julius said.

“Wha? Wha’s that you say?” The cab driver had turned around. He had a thick Russian or Slavic accent. I tried to match the inflections in his voice with samples I found over the Internet, and felt confident that I had his birthplace pinned down to Kiev. The man looked disheveled and had obviously gone several days without shaving or washing his hair. Julius told the man that he was talking to himself, and not to mind him. The cab driver turned back around to face the traffic. He muttered to himself in Russian about the loony Americans he had to drive around all day. I translated this for Julius, who barely cracked a smile from it.

“After turning me off last night, did you try the new French restaurant on Charles Street that you’ve had your heart set on?”

Julius made a face as if he had sipped wine that had turned to vinegar.

“I’m afraid so,” he said. “Les Cuisses de Grenouilles Provencale were dry and nearly inedible, and they were out of ’ninety-eight Chateau Latour.”

I remembered his excitement on seeing that vintage on their wine list. “That’s a shame,” I said. “I’m sorry I wasn’t available to console you.”

Julius cocked an eyebrow. “Sarcasm, Archie? Another new development for you, although I’m not sure I like it.”

The cab driver was shaking his head. I could see him in the rearview mirror frowning severely. He muttered again in Russian about the crazies he got stuck with. I translated his comments to Julius. He didn’t bother to respond.

The cab driver pulled up to Emma Brewer’s address. Julius paid him and exited the cab. He stood silently on the sidewalk, his eyes narrowing as he examined the house. It didn’t look like something that would be worth close to a million dollars. According to the town records — at least what was in their database — the house was a three-bedroom Colonial built on a nine thousand square foot lot. The brown exterior paint had long since faded and was peeling away from the shutters. Aside from a new paint job, there was other obvious maintenance work that needed to be done and the small front yard was in disarray, mostly crabgrass and weeds. Julius waited until I told him it was precisely eleven o’clock before he started towards the house. A BMW parked in front of the house was registered to Norma Brewer, so it was no surprise when she and her sister Helen greeted us at the door. Norma stood stiffly, as if she had back problems, and her sister looked as lifeless as she had the day before. Norma spoke first, thanking Julius for coming, and then holding out her hand to him. Julius stated that it was nothing personal but he never shook hands. I had mentioned that to her when she first booked the appointment, but I guess it had slipped her mind. Ostensibly, Julius’s reason for it was that he saw no reason to expose himself unnecessarily to viral diseases, although I think it was more that he didn’t like physical contact with strangers who weren’t exceptionally beautiful young women, since he had no problem shaking hands and doing far more with women of that nature — at least from what I could tell before he invariably placed me in his sock drawer. Norma awkwardly withdrew her hand and told Julius that her mother was in the kitchen.

“She’s not having a good day,” she said flatly, a fragility aging her face and making her look even more gaunt. She looked past Julius. “Your assistant, Archie, he’s not here again today? That’s a shame. I was so looking forward to meeting him. He sounded charming over the phone.”

If I’d had lips I would’ve kissed her. I made a list of how I would use that later to torment Julius.

Julius smiled thinly at her. “I’m sorry, but Archie has been detained — court-ordered community service, so unfortunately he can only be here with us in spirit.”

“Community service? What did the man do?”

“Sordid business, I’d rather not go into it. Please lead the way to your mother.”

“Thanks for sullying my reputation,” I said to him. Julius winked so that only I could see it.

One of the hallway walls was lined with framed family photos, mostly chronicling Norma and her two siblings from childhood to their young-adult years; a few included the parents. I had previously located photos of all of them, Norma’s father from the newspaper obituary and the others from driver’s-license photos that were on record at the Department of Motor Vehicles. I was able to identify them in their family photos using different physical characteristics, such as the shape of their faces, moles, and other distinguishing marks. There were half a dozen photos of Helen in her twenties with a man I didn’t recognize. Several were wedding pictures, so I assumed he was Helen’s husband. He appeared to be in his early twenties also and, like Julius, had dark hair and similar features to current male Hollywood movie stars frequently described in magazines as heartthrobs. Also like Julius, he had an athletic build and was roughly the same height and weight as Julius. Julius noted the photos from the corner of his eye without once breaking stride.

Norma led Julius to a small kitchen with Formica countertops and yellow-painted pine cabinets that looked like it had last been remodeled forty years ago. I matched the cabinets to a catalog and noted that they were manufactured in 1964. Sitting alone at a table was our client’s mother, Emma Brewer. She was fifty-seven in the last photo I found of her, now she was eighty-three, and she looked as if she had lost half her body weight. She couldn’t have weighed much more than eighty pounds. Her hair in the photo was turning gray, now it was white. She looked like some gnarled piece of papier-maché. Her hands were mostly blue veins and bone and were wrapped tightly around a cup of coffee as she stared blindly at the wall in front of her. She became aware that we had entered the room and, as she turned and caught sight of Julius, her face crumbled. She got out of her chair and nearly fell over as she backed away, her hands coming up to her face. She looked as if she was trying to scream, but no noise came out. I matched her expression to one of an actress in a photo I had found from a horror-movie database, and realized her expression was one of fear.

Norma stood frozen watching this, her own face showing dread. Helen moved quickly to her mother and took hold of her. Emma turned to her, confused, and asked in a whisper, “Norma?”

“No, Ma, I’m Helen. Norma is standing over there. The man next to her is a friend. His name is Julius Katz. He’s here to ask you some questions.”

Emma Brewer continued to stare at Julius and Norma. Then it was as if all the life bled out of her face and there was nothing there. At that point she let Helen take her back to her chair. Helen tried to ask her if she wanted to lie in bed instead, but Emma didn’t answer her. Instead she took hold of her coffee cup again and stared blindly straight ahead.

Norma came back to life then. Her eyes glaring, she asked Julius if it was really necessary for him to question her mother. Julius reluctantly shook his head, realizing he had no choice but to do some work on this case. “Is she always like this?” he asked.

“No, not always. Some days she’s almost functional. But as I told you before, she’s having a bad day.”

“Has your brother seen her like this?”

“Yes.”

Julius’s facial muscles hardened as he once again studied the mother. “Your brother must be a fool if he thinks he can get away with this,” he said.

“My brother is desperate.” Norma peered from the corner of her eyes at her sister and mother. Lowering her voice, she suggested that they continue the conversation outside the house. “I don’t want my mother hearing what I’m about to say. It would upset her if she were able to make sense of it.”

Julius agreed. Norma told her sister that they were going outside and asked if she’d join them. Helen declined, telling her that she was going to keep their mother company. Norma stood silent for a moment before leaving the room. Julius followed her. As they walked past the framed family photos lining the hallway wall, Julius stopped in front of one of Helen’s wedding pictures and asked Norma about the man in it.

“That was Helen’s husband, Thomas Arden.”

“From comments you made yesterday, I take it that he’s no longer married to your sister.”

For a while Norma stared hard at the photo, her mouth moving as if she were chewing gum. It seemed a struggle for her to pull away and face Julius.

“Technically, they could very well still be married,” she said in a low, hushed voice. “Twelve years ago he abandoned his family, running off to God knows where and leaving Helen alone to take care of three young children. I don’t believe Helen has ever heard from him. I have no idea whether she ever divorced him in absentia — it’s a sore subject, but I don’t believe she has ever taken that step, so in all likelihood, my sister is still married to him.”

“I see. And how about you, Miss Brewer, have you ever married?”

“I don’t see the importance of you knowing that.”

Julius’s smile tightened. “It’s important for me to form a clear picture of the family dynamics. I have no idea how I am going to tackle your brother, but the more I know about all of you the better chance I have of something coming to me.”

That was complete rubbish. I had already given Julius a report on Norma Brewer which included the fact that she had never been married. It occurred to me then that Julius didn’t trust my competence in the matter. The client shook her head and gave Julius the same information that I had given him earlier — that no, she had never been married. I felt a tinge of excess heat for a few milliseconds, and realized that that was the sensation of resentment, yet another new experience for me.

“Please, Mr. Katz, let’s continue this outside. I don’t want to risk upsetting my mother.”

Julius agreed and followed her out the door. Standing there in the late morning sunlight, Norma Brewer’s skin again took on a parchment quality, and I could make out a crisscross of blue veins along her temples. She clasped her hands as she tried to meet Julius’s stare.

“I spoke with my brother over the phone last night,” she said in a hushed tone. “I thought maybe I could talk sense into him.”

“You weren’t able to.”

She shook her head. “He’s only willing to allow Mother to be put in a facility if Helen and I agree to let the house be sold to him for well under the market price. I can’t do that, Mr. Katz — the house would need to be sold to pay for her care. She only has enough money in Treasuries to cover two years’ worth of expenses, and the facility I found in Vermont won’t accept her unless I can show enough assets in escrow to cover her first five years there.”

“And your mother’s health?”

“Outside of the Alzheimer’s she has nothing medically wrong with her. She has lost a lot of weight because she forgets to eat, but she could easily live another ten years.”

Julius’s facial muscles hardened as he gazed at Norma Brewer. “Your brother gave you a dollar figure for his acquiescence?” he said at last.

Norma Brewer nodded. “Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars,” she said. She looked away from Julius, her hands clasping tighter together. “I have a feeling he promised that money to someone.” She took a deep breath before continuing. “I believe I mentioned yesterday that Lawrence is an attorney. One of his clients is a known hoodlum, Mr. Katz.”

“Yes, I know. Willie Andrews.”

That surprised his client, and it also surprised me. While I was turned off, Julius had actually researched the brother himself. Will wonders ever cease? I decided it had to be the disappointing meal. He needed something to work off his dissatisfaction, and obviously didn’t encounter a suitable woman for that — probably leaving the restaurant in too much of a huff to notice any. I searched the online newspaper archives for one Willie Andrews, and built a thick file on him. He was a known mob affiliate and had been arrested over the years on an assortment of charges, including loansharking and extortion, but never convicted.

“Miss Brewer, I saw your brother yesterday before our appointment,” Julius added. “It was by chance only. He was at the dog track, and I am guessing from his demeanor that he has a gambling addiction. I’ve seen it enough to be able to spot the telltale signs.”

That was yet another surprise. I record all the images that I “see” and transfer them to a hard drive in Julius’s office that he maintains for me, and they’re kept for one week before Julius backs them onto permanent storage. I scanned all my visual images from when we were at the dog track the other day and, sure enough, Lawrence Brewer was there. I analyzed the images I had of him, and determined easily enough that he was losing from the way he ripped his betting tickets. I told Julius this even though I knew he must have noticed exactly the same thing. That’s the thing with Julius, he’s like a computer in his own right, noticing and storing away everything he sees.

Norma Brewer looked flabbergasted by that bit of news. “Did you follow my brother to the track?”

“No, Miss Brewer, as I mentioned, it was purely serendipitous.”

Julius had signaled me several minutes before to arrange for a taxi to pick us up, and one was pulling up to the house. Julius had that look in his eyes he always has when he’s anxious to get away from a client, and he told her he’d be in touch, then made his escape. Norma Brewer appeared taken aback by Julius’s quick and unexpected departure. She stood at a loss for words for a long moment before heading back inside the house. Julius settled into the back of the cab and gave the driver his townhouse address.

“Quite a morning,” I told him. “One woman finding me absolutely charming, another terrified merely at the sight of you.”

“I never heard her use the adverb absolutely in describing your charm,” Julius muttered somewhat peevishly. He had taken out his cell phone so that the driver wouldn’t think that he was muttering to himself. The cell phone was merely a prop. Whenever Julius needed to make a call, I’d make it for him and patch him in through his earpiece.

“It was implied,” I said. “Would you like me to brief you on the reports I generated for Lawrence Brewer and Willie Andrews?”

“That’s not necessary.” A thin smile crept over his lips. “I researched both of them myself last night while you were unavailable.”

“Yeah, but I bet you don’t have Lawrence Brewer’s last seven years’ worth of tax returns, unless you were able to hack into the IRs’s mainframe and, given the level of encryption they use, that’s not very likely. I also bet you don’t have Willie Andrews’s court documents.”

“No, I don’t, but I don’t need them now. Sometimes, Archie, too much information is worse than too little. It distracts from what’s important.”

That made no sense. The only way you can analyze data is if all the data is available — or if you are able to extrapolate what’s missing. I ignored the comment, and instead asked him if he wanted me to arrange for appointments with either the brother or Andrews.

“Willie Andrews is not the type of man you make an appointment with. As far as Lawrence Brewer goes, now is not the appropriate time.”

“So that’s it, then?”

“For now, yes.”

I expected that. As far as Julius was concerned, he had already worked hard enough for one day. I knew there was little chance that nagging him would change that. Still, I tried.

“I can see your point,” I said. “After all, you have just put in an arduous twenty-seven minutes of work, more than enough to justify the twenty-thousand-dollar fee you extorted from your client.”

“An hour and seventeen minutes once you factor in the cab rides.”

“Wow. An hour and seventeen minutes, then. I’m exhausted just thinking about it.”

“Archie, now is not the time. I’m not about to tackle the brother until I’ve given the matter more thought. So please, some quiet so I can think.”

It was pointless. The only thing he was going to be thinking about was lunch at one of his favorite local restaurants, along with the bottle of Gewurztraminer I had reserved for him. With nothing else to do I spun some cycles figuring out why I hadn’t made the connection between the photos I dug up earlier for Lawrence Brewer and the visual images I recorded at the dog track, and then worked on readjusting my neuron network so I would recognize patterns like that in the future. I have to admit I was impressed with Julius’s ability to recall seeing Lawrence Brewer at the dog track and told him so. Julius grunted that it was simply luck.

“The only reason he made an impression was because he was so obviously losing badly that I considered for a moment inviting him to one of my poker games. Now please, Archie, I’d like quiet the rest of the trip.”

Julius put his cell phone back in his inside jacket pocket. I spent the rest of the cab ride constructing simulations involving Julius interviewing Lawrence Brewer, but none of them led to a reasonable probability of success.

Julius surprised me. On our return home he had me cancel his luncheon reservation and he spent the rest of the day either reading or puttering around the townhouse. All I could figure was that he was trying to bluff me that he was onto something and that he planned to stay holed up until he had the case solved — that way he could loaf for days without me nagging him. A couple of times he put me away in his desk drawer while he got on the computer. He wouldn’t tell me what he was doing, only that I had as much information as he did at that point. He seemed genuinely distracted during that first day, at times becoming as still as a marble statue while his facial muscles hardened and his eyes stared off into the distance. Of course, it could’ve been an act. When I tried asking him about what he was considering, he mostly ignored me, only once telling me that whatever it was, it was still percolating. That night he had me cancel his dinner reservations. Instead of going out he spent the evening making fresh gnocchi and then pounding veal until it was nearly paper thin before sautéing it with shallots and mushrooms in a white wine sauce. He picked a Montepulciano d’Abruzzo from his wine cellar to accompany his dinner.

The next day he appeared more his normal self as he performed his morning rituals, then spent the rest of the morning reading wine reviews. My attempts to pester him into action went nowhere. He mostly ignored me, and when I tried briefing him on the dossier I had compiled on Willie Andrews, he stopped me, telling me that he was otherwise occupied.

“My mistake,” I said. “I thought your depositing our client’s check actually obligated you to earn the fee you were paid.”

“Archie, I am earning it.”

“By sitting around reading wine reviews?”

“Precisely. Sometimes the best action is waiting. Patience, Archie, patience.”

So there you had it. Maybe he was waiting on something, but more likely he had fallen into one of his lazy funks and was only trying to bluff me, and as part of the bluff he was going to stay holed up inside his townhouse. The thing with Julius was he had no “tell” — no visible indication of when he was bluffing, at least none that I had yet been able to detect. When he played poker, I could identify the other players’ “tells” pretty quickly, not that Julius needed my help in that area. He was astute at reading other players and detecting the slight behavioral changes that indicated as brightly as a flashing neon light when they were bluffing or holding what they thought were winning cards. Sometimes it would be the way their facial muscles contorted or their breathing patterns changed or maybe they’d scratch themselves or shift slightly in their chairs. The list was endless, but it was simple pattern recognition on my part to identify these “tells” by comparing recorded video of when they were bluffing and when they weren’t. I’d spent countless hours trying to identify Julius’s “tell” and so far had come up with nothing.

The rest of the day Julius spent mostly reading, cooking, and drinking wine. I was beginning to think if it were a bluff he would try to play it out for weeks if he thought he could get away with it. I tried several times to nag him into action, but failed miserably, with him smugly insisting that he was waiting for the right time before taking any direct action. That day his client called several times to find out when Julius was planning to talk to her brother. Julius had me answer those calls and directed me to tell Norma Brewer that he was in the midst of investigating certain issues regarding the case, and once he was done he would be interviewing her brother. It was utter hogwash, but I didn’t tell her that.

The third day it was more of the same, with Julius not venturing outside the townhouse, the only difference being that he seemed more distracted than usual. Also, the client didn’t call. At six o’clock he turned on the evening news, which was unusual for him. He rarely watched TV. During the broadcast it was reported that a local woman named Norma Brewer had been found murdered in her Cambridge home.

“Is that what you were waiting for?” I asked.

Julius didn’t answer me. He just sat grim-faced, his lips compressing into two thin, bloodless lines.

“So I guess that’s it. Your client’s dead and her money is in your bank account. Now you don’t have to do anything to earn it. Bravo.”

“No, Archie, that’s not what it means,” he said, his jaw clenching in a resolute fashion. “I’m going to be earning every penny of what she paid me.”

“Did you know she was going to be murdered?”

“I didn’t know anything with certainty.”

“How?”

“Not now, Archie. We’re going to be very busy over the next few days. For now, please call the sister, Helen, and find out what you can about the murder. In the meantime, make the earliest dinner reservations you can for me at Le Che Cru. The next few days I expect to be roughing it. If the police call, I’m out for the evening and you have no idea where I have gone. If Helen Arden asks to speak to me, the same story. You have no idea where I am.”

I did as Julius asked, first making him reservations at Le Che Cru for eight-thirty, then calling Helen Arden. She sounded dazed, as if she barely understood what I was saying. I had to repeat myself several times, and after my words finally sunk in, she told me that the police had contacted her about Norma’s murder, and she was now trying to reach her brother and figure out how they were going to take care of their mother and at the same time make the arrangements for Norma’s funeral. She wasn’t even sure when the police were going to release the body.

“What if it’s weeks before they let us have Norma?” she asked. “How are we supposed to bury my sister?”

Her voice had no strength to it. It was as if she were lost and had completely given up any hope of being found. I told her it wouldn’t be more than a few days — however long it took for the coroner to perform an autopsy. I gave her the phone number for a good criminal lawyer that Julius had recommended to clients who had dealt with this type of problem in the past. I tried asking her whether the police had given any details about the murder, but she seemed to have a hard time comprehending what I was saying. After I tried several more times, she finally murmured that they’d told her nothing other than that her sister was dead.

I had been searching the Internet, and so far no details had been reported on any of the Boston newspapers’ Web sites, and neither was there anything of interest on the police radio frequencies that I was scanning. I told her Julius would be in touch sometime the next day and hung up. I filled Julius in quickly. He was in the process of changing into one of his dining suits. After slipping on a pair of Italian calfskin loafers, he hurried down the stairs and to the front door. He asked me whether I was able to detect any police car radios broadcasting in the area, and I told him there weren’t any and that nothing was showing on the outdoor Web cam feed. Still, he opened the front door only enough so he could peer out of it. Satisfied that the police weren’t lying in wait for him, he stepped outside and hurried down the street, his pace nearly a run. Once he was two blocks away from his townhouse, he slowed.

“Do you want me to call the brother?” I asked. “Maybe see if you can get an early read on him?”

“Not now, Archie. I’m sure he’s with the police presently, and it would be best to wait until tomorrow to call him.”

I remained silent while Julius briskly walked the five blocks down Pinckney Street to Charles Street. After hearing about Norma Brewer’s murder I started building simulations that modeled different scenarios that would explain Julius’s behavior since accepting the case. There was one scenario that stood out as having the highest probability. I asked him about it. Whether he was lying low waiting for the brother to kill Norma Brewer, knowing that if that were to happen it would make it easy for him to earn his fee, since all he’d have to do is wait for the police to arrest the brother and then have the courts vacate his guardianship.

“Are you asking whether I expected Lawrence Brewer to murder my client?”

“Yes, that’s what I’m asking.”

“No, that’s not what I was expecting.” A young couple were passing us on the sidewalk, and Julius took out his cell phone so he wouldn’t appear to be an insane person talking to himself. Somewhat amused, Julius asked, “Archie, what would be Lawrence Brewer’s purpose in doing that?”

“Because she engaged you. Maybe he was afraid you’d find some leverage that you’d be able to use against him. Maybe he thought if his sister were out of the way, you’d be also.”

“It’s possible, Archie, but he’d have to be a dolt to think that. Then again, the way he was acting at the dog track, as well as his behavior regarding his mother’s well-being, he could very well be a dolt.”

“So you think he murdered his sister?”

Julius made a face. “It’s a possibility, Archie. But it’s just one of many and there’s no point engaging in idle speculation now. The next few days are going to be hectic enough and this could be my last decent meal before this matter has been put to bed. So please, Archie, no more discussion of this, at least not tonight.”

I wanted to ask him the obvious question, which was, if he hadn’t been waiting for Lawrence Brewer to murder his sister, then what had he been waiting for? What stopped me was detecting a hint of a threat in his voice that if I continued this line of conversation he would turn me off. That would be twice in three days, and I didn’t want to set that type of precedent. I remained quiet while he walked to Le Che Cruand took a seat at the bar. The maitre d’ came over with a complimentary bottle of a Chardonnay that he knew Julius favored, and apologized profusely that he wasn’t able to arrange for an earlier table for his favorite patron. Before leaving, he told Julius that he would have an order of seared sweetbreads in chestnut flour brought over immediately, on the house, of course. Julius graciously accepted all this. The sweetbreads were brought over within minutes and, while Julius was having his second glass of wine, a Detective Mark Cramer from the Cambridge Police Department called. I connected the call to Julius’s earpiece so he could listen in. Rather gruffly, the detective asked to speak to Julius.

“I’m afraid Mr. Katz isn’t available,” I said.

“Yeah, well, get him available!”

“I would if I had any idea where he is, but I don’t, so I can’t.”

The detective used some choice invective on his end of the line, ending with the phrase “son of a bitch.”

“Is that all, Detective?” I asked, to Julius’s obvious amusement.

“No, that’s not all,” he said, his voice growing more exasperated. “Your boss is a material witness in a murder case—”

“There’s been a murder?”

“Shut up,” he ordered, his exasperation growing. “I know damn well you called the victim’s sister within the hour, just as I know your boss is probably with you right now getting a good laugh over all this. The Boston PD filled me in on what to expect, so don’t think you’re fooling anyone with this, okay? You better just tell Katz to come in to Central Square station within the next fifteen minutes or I’ll be getting a bench warrant for his arrest. Ask him how he’d like a few days in lockup for contempt of court!”

Detective Cramer hung up on me. Julius shook his head, a thin wisp of a smile showing. “The man’s a fool,” he said.

“Dolts and fools, huh?”

“Precisely, Archie. That’s what you’ve gotten me mired in.” He took a sip of his wine and sighed heavily. “They probably have a squad car waiting in front of my townhouse.”

“Probably a fleet of them.”

Julius was going to say something else, but instead another long, heavy sigh escaped from him. He sat almost comatose for several minutes, not moving as much as a muscle, not even blinking. When he finally came out of it he appeared relaxed. Shortly afterward he started chatting with two women sitting nearby. One of them was a redhead with a smooth, cream-colored complexion who gave her name as Lily Rosten. She closely resembled the actress Lauren Ambrose. The other woman gave her name as Sarah Chase. She was a brunette and I was able to match her physical characteristics to actresses who were considered extraordinarily beautiful according to online surveys. Both women, according to their DMV records, were twenty-nine. While Julius was charming and polite with both of them, his attention was primarily focused on Lily, which surprised me since I had rated Sarah as the more attractive of the two. When Julius’s table became available, he invited them to join him for dinner. They both accepted, but Lily indicated that she needed to use the ladies’ room and dragged her friend with her. When they returned, Sarah Chase reluctantly informed Julius that something had come up and she wouldn’t be able to join them. Julius didn’t seem to mind, and neither did Lily.

Dinner was a long, leisurely three-hour affair, and Julius was in rare form; maybe somewhat subdued at times, but even more charming than usual. It was an odd effect the way Lily’s eyes appeared to glisten when she laughed, and even when she simply smiled. I also noted how they maintained eye contact almost continuously. When dinner ended, Lily announced to Julius that she lived in the Back Bay section of Boston off Marlborough Street, and Julius suggested that they take advantage of the pleasant weather, and that he walk her back to her apartment instead of calling a cab. I had already looked up her address and mapped it out to seven-tenths of a mile distant from where we were. Earlier, when I had tried filling Julius in on what I was able to find out about her — the amount in her bank account, the fact that she was single and never married, where she grew up and went to college, as well as her present job as an administrator for a local nonprofit organization — he stopped me with a hand signal.

Just as dinner had been leisurely, so was their walk to her apartment building, maybe even more so. Somewhere along the way, they started holding hands. When they reached her address, they were still holding hands. I recognized the pattern — the way she looked at him and blushed and how Julius responded. It was clear that she was going to invite Julius for the night, and this would allow him to bypass the police, which I figured was what he’d been after all along. I was astounded when he gave her a quick and somewhat chaste kiss on the mouth and told her he’d like to call her in a few days. She looked equally astounded for a few seconds, but smiled and blushed even brighter than before and told Julius she would like that. Julius stood on the sidewalk and watched as she disappeared inside the building’s vestibule. Only then did he turn back towards Beacon Hill and his townhouse.

As I said, I was astounded. His actions didn’t make sense. They didn’t fit his past patterns.

“I don’t get it,” I said.

“What, Archie?”

“Why didn’t you go up to her apartment with her?”

He didn’t answer me.

“Wasn’t that the point?” I asked. “So that you could elude the police until morning?”

He shrugged. “If that were the case, couldn’t I simply check into a hotel for the night?”

“You could, but the police might have a watch on your credit cards.”

“That’s true,” he acknowledged. “Very true, Archie. It would be best for you to call Henry and have him waiting for us at the townhouse.”

Henry Zack was Julius’s attorney, and Julius had him on twenty-four hour call for just such emergencies. I knew Henry would moan about the late hour, which he did when I reached him, but he understood the emergency of the situation and agreed to meet Julius. I filled Julius in, and asked him again about Lily.

“I don’t get it,” I said. “She’s extraordinarily attractive, and it was clear from her behavior that she wanted you to join her. It was equally clear from yours that you wanted to, and you had your additional motive. This is a departure from your normal behavior patterns. An anomaly. It doesn’t fit.”

He remained silent as he continued along Beacon Street. After several blocks an odd, almost melancholy smile showed.

“There’s still a lot for you to learn, Archie,” he said softly.

That was all he was going to say on the matter. Along with Norma Brewer’s murder, I now had another mystery to solve.

It wasn’t exactly a fleet of police cars waiting at Julius’s townhouse, but there were more than I would’ve expected. Three in total, with a small congregation of officers milling around by the front door. Henry Zack was among them, and he was red-faced as he talked on his cell phone, his eyes bulging slightly. I spotted all this when we were two blocks away by tying in to the outdoor Web cam feed that covered the front exterior of Julius’s townhouse. I reported all this to Julius, and his lips compressed into a grim expression. He asked me to get Henry on the line.

I heard the unmistakable call-waiting tone as Henry put his other call on hold to take mine, and then I patched Julius in. “This is outrageous, Julius,” he said, his voice rising. “They have absolutely no grounds to hold you as a material witness, and I’m on the phone now with the chief clerk of the district court to have their warrant vacated. If they arrest you I’ll be suing the hell out of them — both the police department and each of the officers personally. Start looking for that retirement villa in Florence that you’re always talking about!”

Henry’s rant was more for the officers’ benefit than Julius’s. Julius informed him that he was three minutes away, and asked if it was safe for him to appear.

“It’s safe. It will be as good as winning the lottery if they so much as put a hand on you.”

Julius signaled for me to disconnect the call, and his pace accelerated as his expression grew grimmer. Within three minutes, as he had promised Henry, he approached his building and bedlam broke out. Henry was on the lookout for Julius and so he spotted him first. He attempted to distract the cops by bellowing more threats at them. It wasn’t until Julius was halfway up the path to his front door that the first cop noticed him, and then they swarmed toward him with Henry Zack in pursuit. A plainclothes detective with a large ruddy face and wearing a cheap, badly wrinkled suit reached Julius first. Having already accessed his departmental records, I informed Julius that this was Detective Mark Cramer. Cramer tried to shove a court warrant into Julius’s hands.

“My lawyer is standing right behind you, Detective Cramer,” Julius said. “Anything you have for me you should give to him.”

Cramer seemed taken aback that Julius knew who he was and reluctantly handed the warrant to Henry Zack, then turned back to Julius. According to Cramer’s records he was fifty-four, six foot two, and two hundred and twenty pounds. He appeared heavier than that, my estimate being closer to two hundred and forty-six pounds. He also had less hair than the photo in his file. He appeared both tired and cranky, and he tried to give Julius a hard, intimidating stare.

“You’re under arrest for obstruction of justice,” Cramer said.

“Nonsense.”

That brought a wicked grin to Cramer’s lips. “Is that so? I have a court warrant that says otherwise, smart guy.”

“I couldn’t care less,” Julius said. “This isn’t a police state. You have no justification for this harassment—”

“No justification?” Cramer sputtered, almost choking on his words. He lifted a thick index finger as if he were going to poke Julius in the chest with it, which would’ve been a mistake unless he wanted to be wearing a cast on his hand for the next two months. Somehow he controlled himself.

“Norma Brewer, who was a client of yours, was murdered this afternoon. So far you’ve refused to cooperate with an ongoing police investigation and, as far as I’m concerned, you have been withholding evidence dealing with the crime.”

“That is utter rubbish,” Julius said. “I have no knowledge of Miss Brewer’s murder other than what was reported on the six o’clock news and you have no legitimate reason to think otherwise. I spent the evening at Le Che Cru entertaining a date, and am just arriving home now. Until my assistant tracked me down a short while ago, I had no idea you or any other police official wished to talk to me.”

Cramer was beside himself. “No idea, huh?” He jerked a thumb towards Henry Zack. “That’s why you dragged your lawyer down here at this hour. I’ve heard all about you, Katz, and I’m not about to put up with your nonsense!”

Henry started to object, but Julius put up a hand to stop him.

“Once Archie tracked me down and relayed your message, I decided to take the proper precautions.” Julius smiled thinly at the detective. “Now this is very simple. If you arrest me, you won’t get a single word out of me. Not now, not ever. I can’t reward your belligerence by inviting you into my home, but this was a client of mine who was murdered. If you remove your mob scene from my door and agree to act in a civil fashion, I will give you two minutes of my time. And sir, that is the best you will get from me tonight.”

“Of all the unmitigated gall! Katz, if you think you’re calling the shots here—”

“Sir, that is exactly what I think.” Julius’s voice was soft, but it cut through Cramer’s all the same. I knew Julius well enough to know the anger that that softness masked. “I am an expert poker player and know a bluff when I see one. Your puerile attempts to bully me show that you’re stumped, and further, that you have no expectation of that changing. If you want my help, it will be on my terms.”

I could tell Cramer wanted nothing more than to cuff Julius and drag him into a police cruiser. He wanted to do that — that much was evident, but the steam had already gone out of him. Almost embarrassed, he turned to the other officers and asked them to step back to the curb. Once they did this, Julius addressed Cramer, telling him he had some questions for him. Cramer’s face went from cherry red to bone white, but he nodded and told Julius to go ahead.

“I am assuming you have already talked with the sister, Helen Arden, and know what I was hired for. Have you talked yet to the brother?”

“Not yet. He’s agreed to come in tomorrow morning for questioning.”

“If you don’t end up arresting him, escort him here afterwards.”

“I can’t do that against his wishes.”

“He’ll agree. I’ll be calling him before then. Tell me about the murder.”

“She was hit on the back of the head and knocked unconscious,” Cramer said, his voice resigned but at the same time indicating how much he hated giving Julius this information. “After that she was strangled. Whoever did this wore cloth gloves. There was no sign of forced entry. So far, that’s all we’ve got.”

“What was she hit with?”

“A polished agate stone that was probably kept as a paperweight. About the size of a softball.”

“Could this have been a robbery turned murder?”

“Not likely. We had the sister walk through the house and she didn’t see anything obvious that was missing.”

Julius offered Cramer a grim smile. “As I mentioned before, I have no knowledge of this murder, at least nothing beyond what you already have. I do have suggestions, though. Miss Brewer mentioned a business she sold several years ago. I would strongly suggest you look into that to see if there were any hard feelings concerning the sale. Another avenue of investigation involves Miss Brewer’s brother-in-law, a Mr. Thomas Arden. I was told that he abandoned his family twelve years ago. It’s possible he’s back in the picture. That should be looked into too. That is all the help I can offer at this time.”

Cramer nodded, reluctantly accepting this. After he walked away, Henry Zack chuckled softly, and noted, “If nothing else, Julius, I can always count on you for an eventful evening.” Julius somberly bid him goodnight.

Once inside the house, Julius asked me to order a dozen roses for Lily Rosten and arrange for them to be delivered so that they’d be waiting for her when she arrived at work the next morning. “Have them add a note that I’ll be calling her soon,” he added.

I did as he asked, placing the order through a twenty-four hour florist that Julius had used in the past. “You don’t believe Norma Brewer’s murder had anything to do with the sale of her business?” I asked.

Julius thought about this before shaking his head. “Not exactly, Archie, but it’s something to look into, and the police, with all their manpower and resources, are better equipped to do so than I. Besides, a general rule to follow is the more clutter that can be eliminated, the clearer the picture will become.”

From the moment Julius suggested to Detective Cramer that he investigate Thomas Arden, I began building a dossier on the elusive brother-in-law. I filled Julius in on the salient points. That Arden graduated with a degree in finance from Haverford College in 1983, married Helen Brewer shortly after graduation, later earned an M.B.A. from Harvard, and was working as the chief financial officer for what was at the time a small computer start-up company when he appeared to vanish from the face of the planet on August 7th, 1997. There was not a single trace of Thomas Arden after that date, at least not in any of the databases I was able to access.

“Why August seventh?” Julius asked.

“That was when his wife reported him missing to the police.”

“He could’ve been missing for several days before she contacted the police,” Julius said. “But never mind, it’s not important. Anything interesting about him going to Haverford College?”

“Lawrence Brewer went to Haverford for his undergraduate degree. They both graduated the same year.”

“Very good, Archie. What can you surmise from that?”

“That they were friends. That maybe Lawrence introduced Arden to his sister.”

“Again, very good. But, Archie, your dossier is missing a potentially critical fact. I’d suggest you keep working on it.”

Julius had obviously already built his own dossier on Arden, most likely when he had turned me off a few days ago, or maybe one of the times when he had put me away in his desk drawer so I couldn’t see what he was doing on his computer.

“What am I missing?” I asked.

Julius showed an exaggerated yawn. “It’s late, Archie and I have a busy day ahead of me. I’m going to bed. You keep working on it, though.”

Julius went upstairs to his bedroom and placed me next to his ear receiver on the dresser bureau before disappearing into his bathroom. The fact that I had missed something bothered me. I spun cycles like a crazy person building different logic models as I tried to figure out what it could’ve been. I was so wrapped up in this that I barely heard him gargling in the next room, or later, the shallow cadence of his breathing as he lay in bed. It was 3:47 in the morning when I figured it out. It had taken numerous adjustments to my neuron network, but I had it. As I mentioned before, Julius had already taken his ear receiver out for the night, and I was too excited to wait until six-thirty in the morning for him to wake up on his own and put his receiver back in, so I called him on his cell phone. He answered after the fourth ring.

“Archie, it’s ten minutes to four—”

“I figured it out,” I told him.

I heard him sigh. “This is my fault,” he said. “I should’ve expected this. I’ve been pushing you too hard to create this type of personality. Archie, I’d like you to reprogram your neuron network so that you don’t wake me up again, at least not unless it’s for a legitimate reason.”

“Sure, no problem. After I tell you what I’ve found.”

“Let me guess, Archie. That you suspect Thomas Arden had embezzled half a million dollars from his company shortly before he disappeared?”

“That’s right. It was hidden in the company’s annual financial statement. A five-hundred-thousand-dollar line item for a tradeshow that didn’t exist. He stole that money.”

“Most likely.”

“Why didn’t the company file charges against him?” I asked.

Julius let out another heavy sigh. “Good night, Archie. It’s late now.”

“Please.”

It wouldn’t have surprised me if he had hung up his cell phone, but instead he explained it to me.

“The company probably didn’t want their investors to find out about it. Most likely they needed another round of financing, and were afraid that this would kill it for them. Good night, Archie.”

I wanted to ask him whether he thought that Lawrence and Arden had been in contact over the years, and whether he suspected that Lawrence had used Arden to kill his sister by threatening exposure. That’s what I wanted to ask him, but I knew if I pushed it I risked being turned off again, so instead I held back. For the next two and a half hours, while Julius slept, I searched for any link I could find between Lawrence and Arden. By the time Julius’s alarm went off at six-thirty, I had decided to keep my theory to myself. What I wanted to do was locate enough evidence to solve this murder before Julius did. I couldn’t help feeling that if I kept working on this I would beat him to the punch.

That morning, we mostly went our separate ways; Julius going through his calisthenics and martial arts training, and then mostly loafing about as he leafed through several books on the theory of war that he had recently purchased. Me, I spent my time building simulations that had Lawrence Brewer blackmailing Arden into killing his sister. One scenario came up that seemed plausible enough to research, and I was doing that when Julius interrupted me to get Helen Arden on the phone. Once I did, he had me patch him through.

“Mrs. Arden, first I’d like to offer my condolences for your sister’s death. I know this is a difficult time right now, but I have a few questions. They may seem odd, but they’re important. Have you had any contact with your husband since he disappeared?”

“No.”

“Do you have any idea where he is?”

“No, sorry, I don’t.”

“Do you know if your brother does?”

That seemed to take her by surprise. It left me crushed. Dammit! Once again Julius was going to trump me. It left me in a bit of a funk where I could almost feel my processing cycles slowing down.

“I–I have no idea. Why are you asking that?”

“I’m working under the hypothesis that your brother and Thomas Arden were college friends, and that he introduced the two of you.”

“Yes, that’s true. But I don’t understand why you’re interested in this?”

“It’s complicated right now, Mrs. Arden. I’ll explain in due time. One last question, what can you tell me about the business your sister sold?”

“I really don’t know anything about it.”

“But your brother handled the legal aspects for her?”

“Yes, I believe so.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Arden. And rest assured that I’ll be doing everything I can to assist the police in finding the person responsible for your sister’s murder.”

Julius hung up. I told him about my theory, as well as my simulations.

“It seems you’ve come to the same conclusion,” I said. “Would you like me to keep investigating my scenario?”

“I think that would be a splendid idea, Archie.”

I did just that for the rest of the morning. Julius started reading one of his books more intently, but he soon became distracted, and several times put the book down so he could stare into space. Once he took out his cell phone and frowned at it before putting it away.

“Is there a call you’d like me to make?” I asked.

“What? No, nothing,” he muttered, still obviously distracted. “Blast it, if I were to do this properly it would take several days, maybe longer. But that won’t do, not now. I need to wrap this up today. Archie, I do have a call for you to make. To Detective Cramer. Ask him to send Lawrence Brewer to my office now. That if he does I should be able to point him to the murderer by evening.”

I did as he asked. Cramer didn’t like it. He had a dozen questions for Julius. I told him I was just the messenger and that the genius was unavailable, but that if Julius was promising to wrap the case up for him he should take him at his word. Cramer hung up on me without telling me what he was going to do. I decided that the solution of the case was a draw between me and Julius, and I decided to take it as a moral victory. I was about to tell him I wasn’t sure what Cramer had decided when the phone rang. It was Lawrence Brewer. I patched the call through to Julius’s earpiece.

“Why should I bother talking to you?” Brewer said.

“Many reasons. Most importantly, it gets you out of the police station. The longer you’re there, the greater the chance they’ll arrest you for your sister’s murder. You must know at this point that they believe you murdered her.”

“And you don’t?”

“What I believe is beside the point. At least you’ll have a chance to convince me otherwise, and I’ll be offering far better refreshments than the police.”

“Like what?”

Julius paused. “Assorted cheeses, meats, wine,” he said.

“You’ve convinced me,” Lawrence Brewer said with a touch of sarcasm, and hung up.

Cramer and two other police officers escorted Lawrence Brewer to Julius’s townhouse. Julius brought Brewer to his office, and then left so he could argue with Cramer about why he wasn’t going to allow anyone else to sit in on his questioning of Brewer. The two men were outside and Julius’s office was soundproof, so there was little chance that Brewer would be able to listen in. While this argument went on I scanned the office’s Web cam feed to make sure Brewer stayed put.

“I’m engaged in an extremely subtle and sensitive plan,” Julius said as calmly and patiently as I knew he was capable of. A slight flutter showed along his left eye. “If you interfere, it won’t work.”

“Yeah, I know, you’ve been telling me that. And I’m telling you, I want to sit in and hear what he has to say,” Cramer insisted, his jaw locked in a bulldog expression.

“Detective, if you had enough evidence to charge Brewer, you would’ve done so already. My guess is that without my help you’ll never have enough. If you let me do things my way, you’ll have enough evidence by tonight not only to charge but convict Norma Brewer’s murderer.”

“So Lawrence Brewer is the guy,” Cramer demanded.

“Detective, some patience, please.”

Cramer didn’t like it. He could barely stand still. “And you just want me to let him walk out of here when he’s done?” he said disgustedly.

“He’s not going anywhere you won’t be able to find him later.”

For a moment I thought Cramer was going to tell Julius to go to hell. Instead, the steam went out of him. He told Julius that he had until the end of the day and after that he wasn’t going to put up with any more of this nonsense, although Cramer used a far more colorful word than that. Julius watched while Cramer left to join the two other police officers in a late-model sedan. After they drove away, he went back inside, first making a detour to the kitchen, where he picked up a tray of hors d’oeuvres that he had prepared earlier — buffalo mozzarella wrapped in prosciutto along with assorted cheeses and olives — and then returning to his office. A bottle of Californian Petite Syrah had already been poured into a decanter and was waiting there. It was a fair vintage at best, one that Julius had bought out of curiosity, and one which he normally wouldn’t serve to company, which showed his level of disdain for Brewer.

Julius placed the tray in front of Brewer, then sat behind his desk so he faced him. Julius next poured a single glass of Syrah and left it within arm’s reach of his guest.

“I promised you refreshments and, if nothing else, I’m a man of my word,” Julius said. “But, sir, let me say that without that promise you’d get nothing from me.”

Lawrence Brewer sat slumped in his chair. He looked worse than he had at the dog track the other day. A weariness tugged at the corners of his mouth, pulling it into a slight frown, and dark circles under his eyes gave him a raccoonlike appearance, especially with the paleness of the rest of his skin. Physically he resembled Norma more than his other sister, and like Norma he had too much nose and not quite enough chin. He took several pieces of the prosciutto and mozzarella and popped them into his mouth, then followed that with a long sip of wine.

“It’s not as black and white as Norma made out to you,” he said in a tired monotone as he stared bug-eyed at Julius. “My mother has some bad days, but she also has some good ones, and the fact is, she doesn’t want to leave her home.”

“I’m not interested in what you have to say,” Julius said. “Nor would I believe a word coming from you. We both know that you are more concerned with your mother’s money than her well-being, so don’t insult me with this act.”

“How dare you—”

“Shut up. All I want from you is to sit there and listen. We both know what you are, Brewer, make no mistake about that. I’m going to prove that you have borrowed large sums of money from a known gangster, Willie Andrews, so that you could finance your gambling addiction, and further, that you’ve been using your mother’s assets as collateral. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that you’ve in some way been responsible for her recent weight loss and obvious malnutrition with the hopes of getting your hands on her money all that much sooner. Take this as a promise, Brewer: By the end of the day I’m going to make sure that her money is off-limits to you. You’re going to need another way to satisfy your growing debt with Andrews. That’s all. Get out of here.”

The two men sat staring at each other, Brewer bug-eyed and Julius as still as if he’d been carved out of marble. Finally, Brewer broke off the staring contest and got to his feet.

“You better be careful what you say in public, Katz, or I’ll be suing you for slander,” Brewer said, a notable quaver in his voice. “This is a nice townhouse; I wouldn’t mind having the courts award it to me.” He left the office, and seconds later the sound of the front door opening and slamming could be heard.

“Bravo,” I said.

Julius didn’t bother responding.

“That accomplished a lot,” I said after giving him suitable time to answer me. “You chased a murderer out of your office without trying to get a single bit of information from him. You could’ve asked him about his current relationship with Thomas Arden, or where he was when your client was having the life choked out of her, or any number of other things of interest, but no, you had to have the satisfaction of telling him off. Again, bravo.”

That brought a thin smile to Julius’s lips.

“Patience, Archie,” he said. “I accomplished exactly what I had hoped.”

I didn’t believe him for one second. What he’d done was indulge in a childish impulse instead of focusing on the job at hand. I realized I was feeling something that must’ve been akin to annoyance — I was so close to having a draw with Julius, and his actions put the actual proving of it in jeopardy.

I was in no mood after that to continue with my scenario simulations, and instead spent the afternoon analyzing classic chess games and trying to find flaws in the winning player’s moves. I found a few. Julius, after pouring the Syrah down the kitchen drain, spent his time mostly puttering around, at times reading, at other times distracted and staring off into space. Neither of us saw any reason to talk to the other, so we didn’t. At 5:38 the doorbell rang. Julius checked the Web cam feed that covered the front entrance. Willie Andrews was standing outside the door rocking softly back and forth on his heels, his hands behind his back. Standing on either side of the door were what looked like hired muscle. One of them was grim-faced, the other showed a wide smirk, obviously thinking he couldn’t be seen when Julius opened the door.

“Should I call the police?” I asked.

Julius shook his head. “Not necessary,” he said. He took off his shoes and socks so that he was barefoot, then he headed to answer the door, moving with a catlike grace. When he opened the door, Willie Andrews pushed his way in and tried to back Julius up by poking him hard in the chest with his index finger, all the while yelling that he was going to teach Julius a lesson for interfering with his business. Andrews was seven years younger than Julius, narrower in the shoulders, and several inches taller and with a longer reach. He never had a chance, not even with his two hired hands rushing in behind him to help. A fact that Julius keeps out of his press releases is that he’s a fifth-degree black belt in Shaolin Kung Fu, as well as a long-time practitioner of Chen style Tai Chi. In the blink of an eye, Julius deftly stepped aside and broke Andrews’s finger, and in the same motion sent the gangster tumbling headfirst so that his chin cracked against the hardwood floor. Even though both of Andrews’s hired goons outweighed Julius by a good forty pounds, it took him less than five seconds to leave them crumpled and bleeding outside his front door. He gave me a signal and I called an associate of his to pick up the rubbish that had been left outside.

Willie Andrews sat up, his eyes dazed as he clutched his broken finger and wiped his wrist against his bruised chin to see if he was bleeding. He wasn’t.

“You broke my finger,” he said to Julius, his lips contorting into the classic Hollywood bad-boy sneer. I found dozens of photos on the Internet that matched it exactly.

“You’re lucky that’s all I did. I could have you arrested for home invasion and battery.”

“Yeah, well, I’ll take my chances.”

Still clutching his injured finger, Andrews pushed himself to his feet and started for the door.

“I could also see that you’re tried and found guilty of murder,” Julius said. “Norma Brewer’s death means a larger inheritance for Lawrence, and you’re the only person that would benefit from that.”

That stopped Andrews. He turned around to face Julius, his sneer mostly gone. “What do you want?” he asked.

Julius told him. Andrews thought about it, realized he had no choice in the matter, and agreed.

Over the next hour Henry Zack arrived first, then Lawrence Brewer, followed by his sister Helen, next a mystery man who I knew from his conversations with Julius was one Roger Stromsby, although no one else in the room other than Julius had any idea who he was, and at last, Cramer, with four uniformed police officers, escorting a frail-looking but lucid Emma Brewer. It was clear from her eyes that she was having one of her good days. Julius waited until she was seated before he bowed his head to her and introduced himself.

“Ma’am,” he said, “I’m sorry I have to bring you here under these circumstances. Unfortunately I have disturbing news to tell you, some of which I’m sure you’re already aware of.”

Emma Brewer’s mouth weakened a bit, but her eyes remained dry. “I know you came by my house several days ago,” she said, her voice stronger than I would’ve expected. “I wasn’t having a good day then. I am now.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Julius said.

He took a deep breath and held it, his eyes fixed on Emma Brewer as she sat across from him. The rest of the setup had Helen and Lawrence sitting next to each other on a sofa to Julius’s left, Willie Andrews holding an ice bag to his injured finger as he sat in a chair to Julius’s right, Henry Zack standing behind Andrews, Roger Stromsby sitting in a corner trying to look inconspicuous, and Cramer and the other police officers standing in the background. Lawrence Brewer sat motionless in a bug-eyed stare, Helen looked mostly out of it as if she didn’t understand what she was doing there, and Andrews’s face was frozen in a half-grimace and half-smirk.

I asked Julius when Thomas Arden was going to be showing up. He ignored me and let the air slowly out of his lungs. “Ma’am,” he said, still addressing Emma Brewer, “if you’d like I could offer you refreshments. Coffee, maybe? A sandwich?”

“No, thank you. Please just get on with it.”

“Very well,” he said more to himself than to her. “You’re aware that your daughter, Norma, was murdered two days ago?”

Still dry-eyed, she nodded.

Julius continued, “Unfortunately, there’s far more that I have to tell you. That man sitting to your left is named Willie Andrews. He’s a well-known gangster and your son owes him a great deal of money.”

Julius leveled his stare at Andrews. Without looking up, Andrews told the room that Brewer owed him six hundred thousand dollars. “He promised his ma’s money and house to cover it. If he killed his sister for the money I know nothing about it.”

All eyes turned to Brewer, but he didn’t say a word. He just sat looking as if he had an upset stomach.

“Ma’am,” Julius said, again addressing the mother, “when you saw me the other day, I had the sense that you mistook me for your son-in-law, Thomas Arden.”

“I don’t know. I might’ve.”

“I do look somewhat like him.”

“You’re older than he was when I last saw him,” she said with a weak smile. “But yes, you do resemble him.”

“Twelve years ago he abandoned your daughter, Helen.”

She nodded, some wetness appearing around her eyes.

“Do you know what happened to him?”

Emma Brewer looked like she was trying to fight back tears. She didn’t say anything.

“Ma’am, this is no longer a matter of protecting your daughter Norma. She’s beyond protection. After twelve years it’s time for the truth. From the way you reacted when you thought I was Thomas Arden, it was as if you’d seen a ghost. He’s dead, isn’t he?”

Emma Brewer squeezed her eyes shut and nodded.

“Norma had an affair with him. She murdered him, didn’t she?”

Helen Arden’s jaw dropped as she stared at her mother. I was dumbfounded — yet another new emotion for me to experience. “How in the world...?” I heard myself asking Julius.

As if to answer me, Julius explained it to Emma Brewer.

“After you confused me with Arden, you confused your daughter Helen for Norma. They look nothing alike. I already had my suspicions regarding Norma, but this along with other facts that I uncovered all but told me about the affair.”

Tears leaked from Emma Brewer’s eyes. “I saw them together once. Norma later confided in me about the affair. Much later, she also told me what happened to him. According to her, it was an accident.”

“It wasn’t. She had him embezzle half a million dollars from his company, then she killed him for the money.”

Roger Stromsby spoke up then. Stromsby was CEO of the company Arden stole from, and he confirmed what Julius said. “We suspected Arden, but we couldn’t prove it,” Stromsby added as straight-faced as he could. The real reason was what Julius had said earlier — that they were in fact covering up the theft so as not to scare off investors — but Stromsby wasn’t about to admit that in a room filled with police officers.

Julius asked Cramer what he had been able to uncover about the business Norma Brewer claimed she had sold.

“We couldn’t find anything,” Cramer said gruffly.

Julius turned to Lawrence Brewer. “She didn’t sell a business, did she?”

Lawrence shifted uneasily in his seat. “No, she didn’t,” he said. “Sometime after Tom disappeared, Norma came to me, telling me she had half a million dollars that she wanted to put into a Swiss bank account. I had no idea where the money came from, she never told me, but I helped her with the transfer. Several years ago, when she took the money out, I set up the fake business sale for her so she could explain the source of the money.”

Something in my neuron network clicked and I could see as clearly as Julius had all along who the murderer was. I studied her then, and could tell that she wanted nothing more than to bolt from the room, and she probably would’ve if she thought she had enough strength in her legs to do so. Slowly other eyes turned towards her. When her mother joined in, it was too much for her and she seemed to shrink under the weight of it all.

“You should’ve told me,” Helen Arden seethed at her mother. “The way you looked at me when you called me by her name, I knew...”

She tried running then. It didn’t do her any good. One of the police officers stopped her and had her quickly cuffed. Emma Brewer started to sob then. Cramer helped her out of her chair. He was going to have a lot more questions for her.

Things went quickly after that.

The police officers, Andrews, and Stromsby cleared out, leaving Julius alone with Henry Zack and Lawrence Brewer, and they quickly reached an agreement whereby Zack transferred guardianship of Brewer’s mother to Zack, as well as agreeing to a new will for Emma Brewer that would leave him with no inheritance. He had no choice; it was either agree to all that or have Julius destroy him, and he knew Julius had the means to do so. As it was, he was facing enough legal problems without having Julius after him. Once the paperwork was done and Julius and I were alone, I asked Julius when he first suspected Helen Arden.

“The question you should be asking, Archie, is when I first became suspicious of Norma Brewer, which was immediately.” Julius stopped to sample one of the finer Rieslings that he kept in his cellar. “Boston has more than its share of excellent facilities, so why move her mother to Vermont?”

“Because she was afraid her mother might give up her secret while in a confused state.”

“Precisely. And then you had her trying to bluff me, claiming how she didn’t want Helen helping out because she didn’t think her sister could handle it. The woman was a fool to hire me. Regardless of how desperate she might’ve been.”

“So that’s it? That’s what tipped you off?”

“There was more.” Julius frowned thinking about it. “It was absolute rubbish about her being afraid her brother would tie up any guardianship challenge in court. She could’ve received an immediate injunction — any competent lawyer would’ve told her that. But her brother obviously had something damning on her. Once I researched the missing brother-in-law, the pieces fell into place.”

“You knew Helen Arden was going to kill her sister.”

Julius shrugged. “You never know with something like that. But it was clear that something clicked with her when her mother reacted to me the way she did, and when she mistook her for Norma I could see the light go on in her eyes.”

“Why the big show?” I asked. “Was it really necessary in order to coax a confession out of her? The woman seemed pretty beaten down as it was.”

Julius made a face. “Maybe, maybe not,” he said. “I had no direct evidence linking her to the murder. It was all pure conjecture on my part. More importantly, though, I had another task at hand — and that was seeing that Emma Brewer would be properly taken care of. The only way I could force Lawrence Brewer to cooperate was to hang the threat of a murder charge over his head, the same with Willie Andrews.”

I digested all this and decided I had a lot of work still to do on my neuron network.

“Quite a day’s work,” I said. “You solved two murders, one that the police didn’t even know about. And both of your clients turned out to be cold-blooded killers.”

“And one of them found you utterly charming,” Julius said, chuckling.

“I don’t believe she used the adverb utterly. By the way, why the urgency? Why did this need to be done today?”

Julius’s smile turned apologetic. “I’m sorry about this, Archie.”

And blast it! He turned me off!

Julius turned me back on several hours later. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of asking him why he had shut me off. Instead, I hacked into his phone company’s billing system and saw that he had placed a two-hour call to Lily Rosten.

The next day was business as usual. At six-thirty in the evening, Julius unclipped me from his tie, and without any explanation left me in his desk drawer. At seven, he left the townhouse. I called around and found the restaurant he had made dinner reservations for. They were for two. I settled in, not expecting to see him until morning, but again he surprised me by arriving home at midnight. Even more surprising, he was in a good mood about it. He even had me send Lily Rosten another dozen roses.

“I don’t get it,” I said. “You obviously struck out, so why so chipper?”

“Goodnight, Archie,” he said.

It went on like this for the next three days. When Julius blew off a high-stakes poker game for yet another date with Lily Rosten, I knew something was seriously askew. I’d been trying to uncover this anomaly in his behavior through mathematical models, but I decided to go at it from a different angle and instead search for similar patterns in literature. It was after analyzing the text of a Jane Austen novel that I realized what was going on. Mystery solved. When Julius once again arrived home at midnight, I asked him how his evening went.

“Very well, Archie, thank you for asking.”

“You know, we could double date. Why don’t you ask Lily if she has one of those ultra-slim iPods that she could bring along?”

He chuckled at that. “I just might,” he said.

“While we’re on the subject, I guess I’ll be needing to update your standard press release,” I said. “Should I remove the reference concerning your being a confirmed bachelor now, or should I wait?”

That brought out the barest trace of a guilty smile. “Good night, Archie,” he said.

As I said before, mystery solved.

Copyright © 2009 Dave Zeltserman