The CBS Murders Page 4

  They found something else in that closet that surprised them and gave them pause. There were dozens of lesbian magazines and books, lavishly and explicitly illustrated and obviously well and often thumbed through.

  Everything in that closet, like everything scattered around that small, cluttered apartment, was intensely private, not meant for prying eyes, left as it was because Barbera had not thought when she had closed the door behind her hours before on her way to work that anyone would invade her privacy, that someone would learn the secrets that were meant for no one else. But the dead, especially those who have met violent death, have lost the right of privacy, have no secrets. Their lives, the public and the hidden, are open to the lens of the police microscope, and every corner of their existence is searched minutely. The search, of course, is not one for some vicarious titillation; it is in the hope that behind those now-open doors may lurk the reasons for that sudden death, the clues that will lead to the unraveling of the mystery, the knowledge of what happened and why. So all that Margaret Barbera left behind, confident that it was hers and hers alone, now belonged to the public, the representatives of the public trying to solve her murder, if, indeed, she had been murdered. In the days and weeks to come, in search after search through her possessions and her life, images would form in the minds of those who had not known her while she lived, and in those pictures might loom at least some of the reasons for her violent end.

  But that initial search turned up just a little, just enough so that Barbera, if she was found, could be identified and somebody close to her notified. Then Patterson and Fisher locked the apartment and left. They would return if they had to and go through those belongings carefully and slowly. But not this time. Before the night was out, they would be back again, and in the days that followed, they would be in and out of that apartment often.

  At about five-thirty that morning, April 13, Manuel Infante, an aspiring abstract artist who supported himself as a bartender, got to his apartment in lower Manhattan after a long night of pouring drinks. He was ready for bed, but his German shepherd demanded a walk first. Infante gave in to the dog’s demands, took him on that stroll through the dark of lower Broadway. At the entrance to Franklin Alley, between Franklin and White Street, the dog began tugging at the leash. Infante gave it its head, followed the dog into the alley, where it began sniffing at a heap off to one side. “I thought it was garbage,” he said. “I went over to stop him. That’s when I noticed the body. At first I thought it was a bum sleeping. When I got close, it didn’t look like she was wearing dirty clothes. They looked expensive. Then I touched the body with my finger and I realized she was dead.”

  A few minutes later, in Midtown North, Lieutenant Dick Gallagher heard the news that the body of an unidentified woman had been found in the alley. He had a hunch. He called down to the local precinct. “The body you just found,” he said, “is she wearing shoes?” The woman, he was told, was shoeless. “Don’t do a thing,” he said. “I’ll be right there.”

  Gallagher sped through the dark streets before dawn, holding the shoes that had been found near Barbera’s purse on the pier. At the alley, he bent and tried the shoes on the body. “They were,” he says, “a perfect fit.”

  So Margaret Barbera had been found. She was dead. There was a bullet from a .22-caliber automatic in her head.

  Just after nine that morning of April 13, New York City’s chief of detectives, James Sullivan, called the head of the New York office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We had a murder last night, he said, four of them, in fact. The high FBI official had heard. We have a story, Sullivan said, that one of the victims may have been a witness in one of your investigations. Is there any truth to that story? The FBI official said he would check and get back to Sullivan.

  Later that morning, FBI supervisor Don Richards and Special Agent Bob Paquette walked into the detectives’ squad room of Manhattan North.

  6

  Late on the night of April 12, Donald Nash made a phone call. He rang the unlisted number of the Manhattan office of attorney Henry Oestericher. The office was closed by then, but an answering machine logged the call. It was urgent that Nash speak to Oestericher. He would contact him again in the morning.

  Late that night, though, Oestericher did receive a call, at his home. The caller was Forty-seventh Street jewelry manufacturer Irwin Margolies, and he was calling from his home in Westchester County.

  “Henry,” Margolies said, “did you hear the news?”

  “I heard,” Oestericher said.

  “Oy vey,” Margolies said and hung up.

  PART TWO

  FRAUD

  7

  Irwin Margolies was a man desperately reaching for the gold ring on life’s merry-go-round. There were some along West Forty-seventh Street in Manhattan, where he owned his own jewelry manufacturing business, and in the Westchester County suburb of Greenburgh (the unincorporated portion in which he lived had the post-office address of Scarsdale and hence seemed to share the outward semblance of wealth and exclusivity of this neighbor to the east), where he owned a sprawling home worth more than $200,000, who were sure he must have grasped it. After all, he had that business which, he told people, was not only very successful but also growing more so by the day. He owned that home. He dressed well and so did his wife, Madeleine, and their two sons, Steven and Douglas. He traveled the high road. He gave the impression of wealth and success.

  Irwin Margolies liked to tell business friends that there were only two things that were worth anything—gold and diamonds, particularly diamonds. In a world of ever-shifting and changing values, they were what a man could depend on. Through the ages, all over the world, in the most primitive as well as the most advanced societies, people had yearned for them with a palpable ache, had stopped at nothing to get them. They had been the motives for crimes of every imaginable kind, they had been the reason for explorations, had been behind wars and the subjugation of nations. That wouldn’t change. Tastes might change. Currencies might fluctuate wildly, worth a fortune one day and good only to paper walls the next. Civilizations might crumble and vanish. But the unquenchable thirst for diamonds and gold would always remain. Their value would only increase. And so, when a man possessed them, he had position, he had respect, he had power, he had safety, he had all he needed, and nothing could touch him.

  This Irwin Margolies devoutly believed. The trouble was, his dream of riches, of hordes of diamonds and gold, remained only a dream, always just out of reach despite his outward pose. He had made a comfortable living as a jewelry salesman, but far from the fortune he craved. And so he thought perhaps if he started his own business, his luck would change. In 1974, he founded Candor Diamond Corporation, though at first it was only a shell, and it would be another four years before it began actual operations. And when it did, true, it dealt in items made of gold and encrusted with diamonds, but the gold was a mere wash across the surface of baser metals, and the diamonds that studded the rings, earrings, bracelets, broaches, necklaces, and the rest were far from top quality. And the output of Candor Diamond did not find its way into the windows and showcases of Tiffany and Cartier but rather into Army and Air Force PX’s and such chain stores as Caldor and Ohrbach’s and Alexander’s, and sold not for thousands but for less than a hundred dollars.

  By 1980, then in his midforties, a tall, obese man with thinning black hair, a thick black moustache, and small, cold eyes concealed behind thick spectacles, Margolies was just barely staying afloat, though he never abandoned the posture of affluence. The value of his Westchester home was strictly on paper. He had bought it long before, when prices were low, and had watched its worth spiral during the real-estate boom of the 1970s. In the new real-estate market of the early 1980s, he could never have afforded another even close to matching it and, besides, had he sold it, most of the money would have gone to pay off heavy first and second mortgages, in excess of $190,000, taken out partly to help finance the business. For, despite his claims,
Candor Diamond was anything but a smashing success. It never had more than a half-dozen employees. Its sales fluctuated within a narrow range of $500,000 to $1 million a year, with minuscule profits. And Irwin and Madeleine Margolies, who worked together to try to make a go of the company, he as president, she as vice-president and secretary, never took home even $30,000 a year.

  But Margolies was not a man to abandon dreams. He was forever searching for ways to take possession of the gold ring, and he didn’t care whether the ways were ethical or patently illegal or somewhere just along the narrow line separating the two. As long as the scheme had a seeming viability that would trap the gullible, friend or stranger, Margolies was all for it.

  For instance: In 1973, a year before the founding of Candor Diamond, Margolies embarked on another venture in manufacturing and wholesaling relatively inexpensive jewelry of original design. He and an old friend, Joseph Ingber, set up a company they called Monarch Designs. Ingber put up all the cash. Margolies put up his design ideas, his salesmanship, and $35,000 in promissory notes.

  It all looked very good to Ingber. He trusted his partner, was confident in his abilities both as a designer and a salesman, and as an executive who would run the firm. And his confidence grew when he got a look at a sample line Margolies created. Ingber was sure it had enormous potential, and the $50,000 it had cost to produce that sample seemed as nothing if the jewelry touched a receptive chord with retailers and the public. That was supposed to be Margolies’s next step, to take those samples around to jewelers, department stores, and other potential outlets and convince them they could make a fortune handling them.

  But before any retailers had placed an order, before any had even gotten a glimpse of the Margolies creations, Ingber fell ill and was hospitalized with meningitis. While he was recovering, he heard that his partner, Margolies, and the sample case containing the $50,000 worth of jewelry had vanished. Enraged, Ingber called the Manhattan district attorney’s office and his insurance company and told them his partner was a crook who had made away with the company’s gems. The district attorney found Margolies. Margolies ingenuously and with certain outrage protested his innocence. Of course he had the sample case, he said. How else could he interest potential customers in the Monarch designs without it? If his partner, Ingber, had so little trust in him, then he would, of course, return the case to him and that would be that.

  The case, however, did not appear at Monarch’s offices, and neither did Margolies. As long as he was in the hospital, there was little else Ingber could do. But once he was cured, released from the hospital, and back at work, Ingber set out to find and confront his partner. Initially he had no success. Margolies was just not to be found anywhere. Then, one afternoon, he and one of his employees spotted the missing Margolies in a midtown Manhattan garage, waiting for an attendant to bring down his car. In one hand was the missing sample case. Ingber and his employee moved toward Margolies, faced him, and demanded the return of the case. Margolies took one look at them and raced from the garage and down the street. But a man of his bulk is neither agile nor fast, and before he had gone half a block, the two men in pursuit had caught up with him and had him pinned against a building wall. Margolies handed over the sample case and strode away as fast as he could.

  But Ingber was not through with him. There still was the matter of Margolies’s $35,000 promissory notes. Ingber was not going to let Margolies off the hook. He demanded payment. Margolies resisted. Monarch Designs was dead and, he claimed, he had little money, and, besides, the collapse of the business was really Ingber’s fault for not trusting him. Ingber persisted. And then his phone began to ring, late at night, early in the morning, at odd hours. The caller was Margolies, and the words he spoke and the tone he used put inordinate fear into Ingber. Nothing, certainly not $35,000, was worth what Margolies was putting him through. And so when Margolies offered $1,200 as settlement for the notes, Ingber promptly accepted the offer.

  For instance: A few months after the conclusion of the Monarch Designs affair, Margolies came up with another get-rich-quick scheme. He dropped in on an old acquaintance, Fred Modell, owner of Modell Jewelry, Inc. Margolies had, he said, just had a stroke of great fortune. He had taken over the jewelry concession at JGE Stores, then a very prosperous retail chain. As a result, he was calling on friends in the business with the idea that they might like to have him sell their products, on consignment. Modell, who, like so many others in those days, thought Margolies an upright and successful man of great promise, took to the idea and handed over $100,000 of Modell jewelry.

  It was not long before Modell had reason to regret his trust. The agreement he had with Margolies provided that Margolies would regularly provide Modell with information on sales as well as payment for the items that were sold. But the reports just didn’t arrive, and after a few months Modell told Margolies that the jewelry would have to be returned.

  Margolies put up no argument. In fact, he told Modell, his concession with JGE was just not working out as well as he had hoped, and he was actually in the process of taking back the merchandise from the ten JGE outlets. Once he had the gems, they would be stored in his office on Fifth Avenue at Forty-seventh Street and then returned to Modell and others who had entrusted their products to him.

  Modell waited. The jewelry never showed up. He called Margolies. Margolies apologized for the delay and set a date when he would return the gems to Modell. Came the day, and the jewels did not appear. What arrived was a sorrowful phone call from Margolies. A terrible thing had happened. During the previous night, someone had broken into his office and looted the safe. What could Margolies do? It was one of those things. Perhaps the best thing would be for Modell to put in a claim with his insurance company. Modell not only did that, but he also called the cops. What he learned gave him pause. They were not conducting an active investigation of the reported burglary. Why? Modell asked. Because, he was told, their initial investigation had revealed no sign of damage to the Margolies office, no sign of forced entry into the safe—no sign, in fact, of a theft of any kind.

  But Margolies insisted that there had been a burglary, that his safe had been broken into, and that Modell’s goods had been stolen. With Margolies stonewalling that way, Modell had little choice but to take a small settlement from his insurance company, swallow the heavy loss on the $100,000 in merchandise, and vow never to do business with Irwin Margolies again.

  For instance: Margolies did not forget his success with the Modell scam, and when the opportunity arose to play it again, he did not hesitate. It was six years later, on December 15, 1980. Candor was in operation then, a going concern, if not going very far or very fast. About four-thirty that morning, the burglar alarm in Candor’s offices on West Forty-seventh Street went off in the headquarters of Jeweler’s Protective Service, which was charged with protecting Candor’s premises as well as those of scores of other operations in the diamond center. Jeweler’s Protective might have the job of safeguarding the property, but Margolies had neglected to supply the agency with a key, so there was no way to get inside and find out if, indeed, something was wrong. The only alternative was to call the Margolies home in Westchester and tell them there might be some trouble at the office. Madeleine Margolies took the call. She sounded still half asleep. When she heard the news, she said there was nothing she or her husband could do about it at that hour. When they got to the office in the morning, they would check and get back to the agency.

  In midmorning, Irwin Margolies called Jeweler’s Protective. He was furious. He had been robbed, he raged. Somebody had broken into Candor Diamond through a rear window, which, somehow, had been left unlocked. That somebody had cracked the two safes in the manufacturing area and made away with diamonds, gold, and other valuables worth about $200,000.

  To Jeweler’s Protective, the whole thing emitted a foul stench. Nobody in the diamond business is so careless as to forget to lock the windows when the workday ends. Nobody in the diamond business ignores a s
ummons about a possible burglary, no matter the hour. Nobody in the diamond business stores the valuables in the small safes in the work areas at the end of the day; they are used strictly in the daytime by workers making the jewelry. Come evening, everything is removed to larger and more secure safes in other parts of the office.

  But Irwin Margolies shouted that he had been robbed and that his losses were staggering. He reported the burglary to the police, who investigated briefly but could find nothing to convince them that a crime had actually occurred. He reported the burglary to his insurance agent and said he wanted to file a claim for his $200,000 loss. The agent, Arthur Schwartz of Schwartz Hirtenstein and Company, who handles the insurance for many companies in the diamond center, was sympathetic. He told Margolies to put together an inventory of what had been stolen so that a proper claim could be filed, and then the insurance company would make good the loss. Somehow or other, Margolies just never got around to furnishing that inventory, despite a number of calls from Schwartz, and a short time later, he told the insurance agent that he had decided to take his loss in silence and was withdrawing his insurance claim. Schwartz was not a little surprised. He found it hard to remember another occasion when a client failed to follow through and pursue collection on his insurance when he had suffered a major burglary.

  Margaret Barbera, the controller and keeper of the books of Candor Diamond and who by then had become a trusted employee of Margolies, would later offer an explanation. Margolies, she said, had come to her one day and told her of his plan to pretend that there had been a burglary and thus collect the $200,000 in insurance. What he wanted was her cooperation. She should prepare the inventory of fictitious items that he would say had been stolen and so satisfy the insurance company. She refused, Barbera claimed, and as a result, Margolies pulled back.