Chapter Fifteen
CASSIDY
“Thanks so much for meeting with us, Kershaw.”
I liked the look of Detective Lance Kershaw the moment I met him.
He was an older guy with thinning, gray hair and a ready smile.
Though he looked very much like Peter Falk’s Columbo character with sloppy clothing, coffee stains on his dress shirt, and a tie that was askew from being tugged on too many times, his eyes were intelligent, missing nothing.
“Like I told you on the phone, I have a murder to solve, and you two may just hold the key to that.”
“How so?” Mike asked.
“Come on back to my office and I’ll fill you in on my case. When I’m finished, I think we might just solve your case as well.”
I was intrigued. We followed him back to a private office, something exceedingly rare in any police precinct since most of us detectives were relegated to sharing desk space with all the other detectives and uniformed officers.
As soon as I walked in, I could tell that Kershaw and his partner got special consideration because they’d been around a long time.
The office had two desks piled high with case folders and one whole wall lined with filing cabinets.
I could only speculate on what they housed, but if they were old case files, they’d most likely solved hundreds of cases over the years.
Other walls were peppered with framed pictures of the detectives, together and alone, some with different captains and past mayors, presenting them with awards and plaques.
They told a story of two fine detectives dating back even longer than the thirty years Mike had been on the job.
Some of them had to be decades old judging by their youth in older photos.
Their private space because of jobs well done was highly deserved.
“Have a seat,” Kershaw said.
We took seats in front of his desk. He pulled out the police sketches from Patsy and Napoleon I’d faxed over as soon as we’d finished up with them this morning. “These are decent likenesses,” he said, “those FBI guys have some incredible recall, don’t they?”
I nodded as something occurred to me as I watched him stare at the sketches he’d laid out on the desk. “If you say so, Kershaw.” There was something about the way he examined the photos. “Do they look familiar to you?”
He glanced up at me then over at Mike. “You’re kidding, right?” The trace of a smile played at the corners of his mouth.
I pursed my lips, and Mike shrugged. “They don’t look familiar to me.” He glanced back at Kershaw, and I did too.
“I don’t recognize them either. I take it you do?”
He merely shrugged. “Not very familiar with Italian mobsters, I gather.”
“What?” I couldn’t hide the surprise in my question.
Kershaw smirked and sat back, spinning his desk chair around, and standing up to walk over to one of the filing cabinets.
He pulled out a drawer and extracted a folder.
He flipped pages until he found what he was looking for, pulling out three mugshots and sliding them across the table to us. We both bent over to look.
Staring back at me were two men who closely matched the men Weston Chaudry said chased him, along with a third photo who looked very much like Chaudry himself.
The eyes were different—somehow much colder—and something else I couldn’t put my finger on, but he could have been Chaudry’s brother, if he had one.
Mike and I had done background on him and knew he was an only child.
I picked up the mugshots and read their vitals.
They also matched Chaudry’s description of the men down to a tee.
Their height and weight came remarkably close to how he’d described them the night we’d interviewed him at Father Gilmartin’s residence.
I slid the photos closer to Mike who’d also come to the same assumption, if I was reading his expression correctly.
He read the names of the smaller guys out loud.
“Vinnie ‘The Screw’ Vitelli and Bennie ‘The Hand’ Marino.” Mike snorted then turned to smirk at me. “They sound like the names of mob guys right out of some Martin Scorsese film.”
“That’s because they are,” Kershaw said, waving a hand at the mugshots. “Not the Martin Scorsese part…the mob guys part.”
My jaw dropped open as I stared at him. “You’re serious? I thought you were fucking with us.”
“Nope. Those two are low-level mob guys and the big one is a mob enforcer, Kyle Newman.” Kershaw sat back in his creaky desk chair and folded his hands over his belly as he looked back at us.
“Newman is a stone-cold killer and the other two do general extortion work for the Italian mob at the downtown jewelry mart on Sixth and Hill. I believe that’s where your ‘robbery’ took place.
” He made air quotes around the word robbery.
My gaze sharpened as I sat forward. “You don’t think Eli Goldfarb was robbed?”
“Well, to be honest, Cass, we don’t think he was robbed either,” Mike said.
I turned to look at him. “No, that’s because we think he stole his own jewels and then reported the theft to us because he wanted to blame it on his father-in-law.”
Kershaw cleared his throat, and we both turned toward him. “I don’t think that’s what happened. In fact, I’m almost 100 percent sure it didn’t.”
I sat forward, eager to hear what he thought. “What do you think happened, Kershaw?”
“I think Eli Goldfarb paid these men to kill his father-in-law, Abraham Feldman, my murder victim. Maybe he paid them with the diamonds, maybe he kept part of them for a rainy day, but I’m sure Goldfarb hired those three to kill Feldman.”
“They were business partners. What motive could Goldfarb have for killing Feldman?” Mike asked.
Kershaw sat forward and opened the folder again.
He pulled out a piece of paper and slid it across the desk.
I looked down at it. A divorce filing. “Feldman’s daughter, Sarah Goldfarb, filed for divorce from her husband, Eli, last year but the divorce was never finalized due to a disagreement over the division of assets. ”
“What assets?” Mike said, still staring at the divorce filing in front of us.
Kershaw pulled out another paper and slid it across the desk.
It was a continuation of the divorce filing.
He tapped the first paragraph. “Eli Goldfarb agreed to give Sarah the house, a very expensive car, and half the money in their joint bank accounts. However, he refused to give her half of his business interest in the jewelry store he owned with Abraham Feldman.”
“So, the partners—Abraham Feldman and Eli Goldfarb—each owned half the business and all its contents, and she wanted half of her husband’s interest in the store.” When he nodded, I went on. “And I’m guessing he also refused to give Sarah his half of the money in the business bank accounts?”
Kershaw nodded. “Well, half of his half of the money.”
“Really?”
He nodded. “That about sums it up.”
“So, you think Eli Goldfarb hired these guys to kill Abraham Feldman so he could take his half of the business for what? Revenge toward his wife?” I asked.
Kershaw nodded. “Well, revenge for her greediness and let’s face it, his own greediness.
” He pulled out another bunch of papers held together with a staple.
“That’s an agreement both men signed giving each other their half of the business should either of them pass away.
They bought a substantial life insurance policy on each other as well, which is typical between business partners.
By killing her father, he gets 100 percent of the business and hurts her to boot. ”
“What a bastard.” I leafed through the business agreement between the two men, noting that they’d both signed it over a decade ago.
I felt embarrassed that Mike and I hadn’t dug any of this up on Goldfarb while investigating the robbery even though I knew we’d be forced to subpoena most of this anyway.
The divorce filing was public record, but the division of assets and the fact that Goldfarb and his wife were still haggling about the business interest wouldn’t be made public until the divorce was finalized.
We hadn’t gotten further than finding out she truly hadn’t returned from Israel.
The other documents like the business agreement could only be obtained from the attorney who’d prepared them, which was indeed a very tricky business for a detective.
Then again, Kershaw probably had sources not only at the county courthouse, but many other places that Mike and I didn’t.
Kershaw nodded. “Eli Goldfarb is a total bastard, I agree.”
“Did you reach her for an interview?” Mike asked.
Kershaw shook his head. “No, her housekeeper says she’s in Israel.”
Mike nodded. “I think that’s true. We had a friend at the FBI run her passport and as far as we can tell, she’s still out of the country. Her passport hasn’t been swiped back in, so she probably fled as soon as she realized what her husband did to her father, if what you say is true.”
“I suspect you’re right,” Kershaw said, shaking his head. “When she found out what happened, she left in fear for her life.”
I picked up the pictures of the three mobsters again. “I don’t get one thing.”
“What’s that?” Kershaw asked.
“Well, if the mob is extorting the business owners down in the jewelry mart, how is it that Eli Goldfarb hired them to kill his father-in-law? Wouldn’t he be a victim of extortion just like all the other business owners down there?”
Kershaw smirked. “What better recommendation for a hitman could Goldfarb get, than choosing men he knows threaten to kill people if they don’t pay them money?
My guess is he figured out a plan to get total control of his business and hired men he knew he could count on to get the job of killing Feldman done.
In his mind, he probably figured if arrested by you two—provided you didn’t decide to pin the robbery on his father-in-law—he could point to an extortion ring operating at the jewelry mart and put the blame on them. ”