William Kosman Fiction

  "The Thirty Percent Solution"  Chapter Thirty Two        There was a slight drizzle in the air, just small droplets lightly falling over the rolling hills covered with tailored lawns and pebbled paths of the Trinity Cemetery. The temperature was neither warm nor cool, throwing the attendees at Theodore Merritt’s entombment into doubt: raincoat, umbrella or nothing.        On the graveled parking area, Gloria Merritt and Steve Bucknell had locked their rented car, but then three steps away, they decided that they should take their raincoats, just to be safe. So they returned to their Hertz rental and opened the trunk. Inside were their coats, along with their suitcases, that they had safely stowed for their flight to Paris.        Bucknell removed the two raincoats, handed one to Gloria Merritt, and then slammed the trunk closed with a bang and then a click. Steve slipped on his raincoat, and then turned and examined...

  "The Thirty Percent Solution"  Chapter Thirty One        The ring of his phone was persistent, and out of desperation Special Agent Vince DuBois finally answered it.         He heard the voice of Police Detective Rafael Jimenez:  “How long would it take you to get to 99 East 52nd Street, The Grill, in the old Seagram Building?”        “Where are you?” DuBois shot back.        “In my temp office in the 17th Precinct, on 51st Street,” Jimenez said with a tone of annoyance. “Why you pretentious . . . .”       “Well, Raf, my answer: I’m in my office, in the Javits Building, in Tribeca, way downtown, but I’ll get there as fast as you do,” DuBois said with a laugh. Then he pulled Agent Warren Owens off a case he had just started and told him he had two minutes to get the black Tahoe to the driveway and ready to depart.        Agent Owens slapped the Cherry l...

  "The Thirty Percent Solution"  Chapter Thirty        Special Agent Vince DuBois was in a jam. He knew that he had to tell his friend and law-enforcement colleague Detective Rafael Jimenez about an important development. Sure, DuBois knew he could simply pick up his phone and drop the news on him, and then the deed would be done. But is that what you do to a friend? A friend should share important news in person, to be at Raf’s side to explain, comfort and consider what action to take.        DuBois decided to do the right thing, which would involve getting from his office in FBI New York headquarters in the Javits building way downtown in Tribeca all the way up to the NYPD’s 17th Precinct on 51st Street in Midtown.        DuBois ordered a vehicle, and the trip took less than fifteen minutes. DuBois found Jimenez in the precinct’s glass enclosure, which had become the police detective’s unofficial office.  ...

  "The Thirty Percent Solution"  Chapter Twenty Nine        Detective Sergeant Wendell Barnes knew the dangers of following your gut. You’re supposed to be coldly calculating when you’re conducting an investigation. But he also knew that sometimes – just sometimes – your intuition is your best friend, especially if your intuition is based on more than thirty years of investigating criminal cases.        For the last two days, Barnes had been thinking about something that stuck in his craw: Grant Stauffer, general counsel for Winshire Associates. Barnes thought back to the interrogation of Gordon Hope. Barnes and Capt. Jimenez had been focusing on Gordon Hope, he was the person of interest and now the defendant. But Stauffer remained in the back of Barnes’ mind. Stauffer spoke only a few times. But, when he spoke, he seemed to be hiding something.        While the NYPD team was canvassing the area for the restaurant wh...

  "The Thirty Percent Solution"  Chapter Twenty Eight        Bill Voldman felt his impatience grow. The flight from San Francisco to New York was already a half hour late, and there was no explanation from United Air. And there was no information at the Information desk nor from the agents at the United Air check-in counters one floor down in the United Terminal at JFK.        Bill was standing near the railing in front of the sliding doors where the arriving passengers come out to greet their mates, their families or friends, or the assigned drivers with their signs carrying the names of important business travelers.        His eyes wandered over the terminal – the airy expanses that swept high above the floor with light flooding in from huge forms of glass, the modern shapes of white and gray that shouted “We are modern, we are dependable, we take care of you, ” the gleaming floors with arrows to tell you where to g...

  "The Thirty Percent Solution"  Chapter Twenty Seven        Ten o’clock in the morning was early for Ermira and her three roommates. Most of the time they lived free and happy lives, except when they had to entertain consultants from Winshire Associates, and that was when they had to use their feminine wiles to wiggle out of encounters too close for comfort.        On this morning, it was not yet ten, and all of the roommates were in the kitchen of their Bed-Stuy apartment – except for Tereza, who recently started going out earlier and earlier to buy the newspapers.        A few minutes after 10 o’clock, Tereza rushed into the apartment, breathing hard, showing her roommates the front page of The New York Times. “Shikoni! Shikoni! Look! Look at the front page! That’s Gordy. Oh Zoti im! What could he do? It says he was arrested. Oh my God!”       “Read it! Read it! Tell us!” Ermira shouted.   ...

  "The Thirty Percent Solution"  Chapter Twenty Six        Grant Stauffer was forced to take a cab from his office on 53rd Street to travel just the few blocks to the NYPD’s 17th Precinct on 51st Street simply because, embarrassingly, his short legs would not carry him fast enough to be on time.        But it turned out that Manhattan could always surprise. Moving vans were clogging cross streets, and Stauffer arrived at the last minute. At the precinct, Stauffer had to sign in and explain his purpose to the duty sergeant, who was a Hispanic who had a hard time understanding Stauffer’s elegant speech style.        “Look, I’m in a hurry,” Stauffer explained. “I’m here for a prisoner, G. Gordon Hope. He’s going to be arraigned, and I have to be there. I’m his attorney.”         Stauffer was just about to raise his voice, when another officer walked up to the counter. “Oh, you’re here for Gordy,”...