Authors: Rex Burns
“We need some more information on Councilman Green, Mr. Ellis.”
“All right—what about him?”
“Why don’t you start by telling us what the trouble was last Wednesday with the zoning permit for the Tremont project.”
Ellis’s eyes beneath the almost transparent paleness of their eyebrows and lashes blinked as he stared at Wager. “How’d you hear about that?”
“We hear about a lot of things. That’s our job. What’s your version of the zoning problem?”
The man looked from Wager to Stubbs and then jerked his head. “Let’s go into the study.”
He led them through the living room, with its towering fireplace whose mossrock dwarfed the furniture, and into a smaller room. Lined with bookshelves, it held a desk with a gilded leather top placed to catch the window light. Ellis sat there, motioning abruptly for Stubbs and Wager to take the leather reading chairs that faced it. Stubbs did; Wager didn’t.
“Damn it, I want to know who’s been telling you stories. I’ve got a right to know my accuser!”
“We’re not accusing anybody, Mr. Ellis. We’re just trying to find out the truth.” Wager’s voice was mild, almost friendly. “Then we’ll make the accusations.”
“I thought you were working on Green’s murder.”
Wager nodded.
“Then I don’t see what the zoning issue has to do with it. I damn well didn’t kill him.”
“Why don’t you just tell us what happened? Maybe it’ll turn out there’s no connection at all with Green’s death.”
“Damn right there’s not!” Ellis looked from Wager to Stubbs. “I heard the Zoning Committee was under pressure to reconsider the Tremont project. Some bunch of neighborhood do-gooders or something wanted to keep that stinking slum over there.”
“The Northeast Denver Action Committee?”
“Yeah—that bunch. Listen: They’re nothing but a bunch of goddamn rabble rousers, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re behind these damned riots. God damned bunch of animals—live like pigs and fight each other like rats.”
“The Action Committee protested the evictions?”
“Hell, they protest anything a white man does! It wasn’t our damned fault the owner wanted to sell his property—we didn’t have a damn thing to do with evicting anybody; the owners did. But we’re sure as hell getting the blame. That project, it gives work to Negroes—if that project wasn’t going up, there’d be fifteen, twenty Negroes back on welfare. Goddamn it, K and E Construction has a good record of minority hiring! We’re not the ones causing all the trouble!”
“Who changed the zoning from residential to business? You or the previous owner?”
The sun-reddened face darkened a bit and Ellis ran his hand through the pale hair on the side of his head. “That parking garage is an improvement for that whole neighborhood.”
“You bought the property because you had a prior guarantee of approval on the zoning change, right?”
“It wasn’t Aaron. Aaron wouldn’t have told you that.”
“I’m not allowed to say who we’ve talked to, Mr. Ellis. It’s a question of immunity from prosecution.”
“Immunity?”
“From prosecution. But I can tell you the person who spoke with us knows the company inside out.”
“I can’t believe it!”
“Mr. Kaunitz had lunch with Green on five June at the Rattlesnake Club. To your knowledge, is that when they arranged for the zoning change on the Tremont property?”
“Aaron—Jesus God. Aaron!”
“Mr. Ellis, do you agree that is when they made the deal?”
“Is that what Aaron told you?”
“I haven’t said that we’ve spoken with Mr. Kaunitz.” Wager smiled. “But you can’t blame a man for looking out for himself first.”
“That son of a bitch!”
“Is that what the deal was? Green guaranteed the zoning change?”
“I don’t know!” Ellis lunged out of his chair and gazed stiffly at something beyond the walls of the study. His lips clenched as he tried for control. “I don’t know what they talked about. I wasn’t there. Aaron takes care of that end of it. He’s supposed to, anyway. I’m just the goddamned builder—he takes care of that end of it and half the time I don’t know what the hell’s going on.” He turned to Wager, hands open and lifted for help. “I’m just the goddamned builder!”
“Tell us what you do know.”
The man sagged into his chair and stared at the leather inlay of his desk. “There were some deals,” he admitted wearily. Then he glanced at Wager. “It’s nothing new—it happens all the time. We didn’t do one damn thing every other builder in the city doesn’t do.”
“Did you give Green money to pass the zoning changes?”
Ellis shrugged. “It’s business. Never have any goddamned progress if you let the goddamned neighborhood people run things—not a damn one of them wants to see anything new at all happen in their precious neighborhood. You try to bring in quality projects, new jobs, build a goddamned city to be proud of, and there’s not a goddamned neighborhood you can name that wants the growth.”
“How much did Green get?”
“Enough. I don’t know exactly—Aaron, that son of a bitch, he took care of it. But it was enough.”
“Cash?”
“Hell yes! You don’t think you write a check for something like that, do you?”
“Who delivered it to Green?”
“You have to ask Aaron—” Ellis looked up suddenly. “Who delivered? Aaron didn’t tell you?” He leaned slowly back in his chair, thick arms straight out to the desk. “Answer me yes or no: Did you talk to Aaron? Yes or no, God damn it!”
“I’m asking the questions, Mr. Ellis.”
“Get out!” He stood and aimed a rigid finger at the door. “I don’t have to talk to you—get the hell out of my house!”
“It’ll help if you cooperate with us.”
“Out!”
1417 Hours
“If we hadn’t left, you think he would have called a cop?” Stubbs rolled his head back against the taut muscles of his neck and tried to stifle a yawn as the car’s air-conditioner struggled against the trapped heat.
Wager headed south on University toward I-25; Kaunitz’s address was just across the city-county line in one of those exclusive residential areas labeled a “village.” Without a warrant, without probable cause for arrest, there were no grounds to sit there and argue with Ellis, and the man had begun making noises about his lawyers before Wager and Stubbs had reached the front door. “He’s probably calling Aaron right now. And then his lawyer.”
“Yeah.” Stubbs shifted on the seat. “But you were good, Gabe—you didn’t say a thing that could be used in court against us.”
“I know that.”
“That bastard really fell for it.”
Wager’s mind was no longer on Ellis. “If Green was on the take for zoning changes, why would he get religion on this one?”
“I don’t know. I hadn’t thought of that.”
Green was killed because someone was jealous or because he was a threat to someone: those were the most likely motives, now. At least two people could have been jealous, but neither Sonja Andersen nor Green’s wife seemed to fit. They both had a kind of resignation that didn’t mark them as murderers of passion, and neither woman was very big. According to forensics, Green, a big man himself, had been half carried rather than dragged to where he was found. Ellis was big enough. And Ellis had something to lose. But why would Green suddenly decide to turn against them? They all had a good thing going.
“Kaunitz ain’t hurting for money, either.” Stubbs gazed at the approaching house. Backed against an abrupt rise in what had been prairie, its flat roofs staggered at different heights and lengths to join a rock outcropping, so that the whole thing looked as if it grew out of the heat-shimmering earth. Here, all the utilities were underground, and despite being within twenty minutes of downtown, the widely spaced houses gave a feeling of the countryside. As they parked and walked up the broad redstone flags the front door opened and Kaunitz stood squinting in the sun, waiting.
“It’s Detective Wager, isn’t it?” He held out a bony hand for Wager to squeeze and raised his eyebrows at Stubbs.
“Detective Stubbs,” said Wager. “You’ve talked to Ellis?”
“He called, of course. Quite upset. Come in.”
Kaunitz’s study, just off the entryway, was a long, low room with a wall of glass overlooking a raised flower bed, and beyond that the distant Rampart Range. To Wager, Ellis would have seemed more at home here, and Kaunitz in the old-fashioned room that Ellis used. But sometimes houses were less expressions of what people were than of what they would like to be, and the modern architecture along with a series of paintings on the wall opposite the window hinted that Kaunitz thought of himself as a discoverer of the latest thing. Wager eyed the paintings; one was a flat-looking picture of mountains, rows of dimly colored peaks set one behind the other and fading into a pale-green sky. He had seen the mountains look like that on certain summer evenings, and he kind of liked that one. The others were wide scrolls of paint like Japanese writing, or blocks of color that looked more like a design for curtains than something to put in a frame and hang on your wall. Wager didn’t like those.
“I understand you did not read the
Miranda
warning to John.”
“That’s right.”
“Then of course anything he told you is inadmissible in court.” Kaunitz folded himself into a chair made up of cloth and angled wire and nodded to a pair of similar chairs. “Your methods were very harsh—they upset John quite a bit.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Yes, of course you are. They did make John say things he perhaps should not have without legal advice.”
“That’s right.”
Kaunitz waited for something else, perhaps a
Miranda
warning of his own. “You can’t expect me to incriminate myself.”
“Any investigation of bribery won’t come from me, Mr. Kaunitz. That’s a federal crime—the FBI will handle it.” He added, “If it comes to that.”
The man’s long fingers made a little tent under his narrow nose and he rested his lips against them a moment. “If?”
“What Green did while he was alive is important only for what it tells me about his murder.”
“And you think his death might be related to …” A graceful flap of his fingers finished the sentence.
“Maybe. I don’t have enough information yet to say either way.”
Again, the prayerlike gesture. “That means you suspect me or John. That’s ludicrous.”
“Maybe it is. But then maybe it went something like this: You got the Tremont property cheap the same way you got the Montclair school building—because the owners had been told by Green that they couldn’t get a zoning change. Then once they sold to you, he put the change through and the property doubled or tripled in value. But then Green wanted more. Especially after the Northeast Denver Action Committee started the fuss about the evictions on Tremont. A fuss that could cost Green his reelection. And you didn’t want to give him more.”
Kaunitz’s crossed leg swung steadily in slow rhythm as Wager spoke. Then the leg stopped. “You’re very good at your work, aren’t you? Certainly, that makes a good hypothesis. It does indeed. But it’s not what actually happened.”
Wager didn’t need Kaunitz’s approval for the job he did. “A hypothesis is all I’ve got until you tell me what did happen. Why was Ellis upset about the Tremont property on the day Green was killed?”
“I have not been warned of my rights, I am not admitting to any wrongdoing in my dealings with Green or anyone else, and I will not talk to two of you together.”
Wager glanced at Stubbs, who looked surprised and stood quickly. “You want me out?”
“You may use this door.” Kaunitz pointed to the one in the glass wall. “The path leads around to the front.”
They waited until Stubbs was out of sight beyond the hot tumult of reds and blues.
“John told me what you said to him—obviously, you’ve been talking to someone in the office.”
Wager ignored the hint. “Was it at that lunch on the fifth? Is that when you arranged things with Green?”
“No. As a matter of fact, I never did ‘arrange things’ with the man. He was very particular about denying any hint of impropriety. Not, of course, that I or the corporation would be involved in improprieties.”
“Right. What was that meeting about?”
“Zoning questions, yes. But routine and perfectly honest issues that had nothing to do at all with either the Tremont or Montclair projects. The corporation’s thinking of developing land in the Montbello neighborhood for the expansion of Stapleton Airport. There’s a strong sentiment among the City Council members to restrict commercial development when the airport expands—they don’t want it to become entirely commercial, as the area is now around the existing airport.”
And zoning restrictions would keep that from happening. “So you made an offer?”
“Not at all. I explained the increased tax advantage to the city of allowing limited development. It’s my hope that a compromise can be reached between those who want absolutely no development and those who want absolutely no restrictions.” A long finger tapped emphasis. “Believe it or not, many developers do understand and are sensitive to neighborhood wishes—we realize that as a very practical matter. That vague thing called ‘quality of life’ is a valuable commodity. But growth will come; that’s a given. The question is, What kind of growth?”
“That’s what you were telling Green?”
“Essentially, yes. That, and getting an idea of the committee’s schedule for the next few months.” He explained, “We need a calendar to prepare proposals and present them; a well-thought-out plan doesn’t just appear overnight.”
“And you mentioned nothing to Green about what his cut would be?”
“Never. We never spoke of that in any way at all.”
“You just gave him what you thought his help was worth? A little present between friends?”
Kaunitz’s crossed legs tightened slightly and for the first time he shifted his eyes away from Wager’s. “I am admitting nothing, you understand.” He looked up. “I will deny we ever spoke of this if I must.”
“Mr. Kaunitz, if I want your ass, I can use the Grand Jury to nail it—either you’d testify with immunity or go to jail for contempt. So why don’t you just cut the crap and tell me the truth.”