Читать книгу The Angel - Carla Neggers - Страница 15

Cambridge, Massachusetts

3:00 p.m., EDT

June 20

Abigail parked her unmarked BPD car on a quiet street off Memorial Drive lined with mature trees and stately homes. Very Cambridge. Victor Sarakis’s house was a traditional Colonial with gray-painted shingles and black shutters. He was relatively wealthy, she’d discovered, and also something of an eccentric.

She turned the engine off and scowled at Bob O’Reilly next to her. He’d jumped into the passenger seat at BPD headquarters a half second before she could hit the locks and take off without him. He was getting on her nerves, but wasn’t everyone? “Shouldn’t you be pushing papers somewhere?”

He opened his door and glanced over at her. “What did you do, sit there stewing all this time and thinking up that one?”

“No, it just popped out.”

“Good. I’ll pretend it didn’t.”

Abigail didn’t respond. She knew he objected to her coming out to Cambridge. He had good reason. The medical examiner had determined that Victor Sarakis had drowned. There was no indication of foul play, a contributing natural cause or the involvement of alcohol or drugs, illegal or otherwise. A full autopsy report, with the results of more tests, was in the works, but everything still pointed to a bizarre accident. From past death investigations, Abigail knew it was entirely possible they’d never figure out the exact sequence of events that had led to Sarakis’s death.

Bob had already made clear he didn’t care what the exact sequence of events was. He wanted Abigail to focus on clear-cut homicide cases. She didn’t report to him, but he’d been charged with improving BPD’s percentage of solved versus unsolved homicide cases after a withering series of pieces in the media and figured that gave him license to get in anyone’s and everyone’s face, including hers.

Abigail had hoped to get to Cambridge and back without Bob ever knowing, but that hadn’t worked out. A middle-aged man in apparent good health drowning in two feet of water was provocative—worth a bit of follow-up, at least in her judgment. Bob was free to disagree, provided he stayed out of her way.

She got out of the car, shutting her door with more force than was necessary. It was hot—too hot for June. Tomorrow it’d rain, and then she’d be griping about that. Given her mood, she had to admit that Owen had picked the perfect time for a quick trip to Fast Rescue’s Austin headquarters.

She went around the front of the car to the sidewalk. Tom Yarborough, her partner for the past six months, shared Bob’s opinion of the Sarakis drowning but hadn’t made a stink when she’d said she wanted to head out here on her own.

Bob motioned for her to go ahead of him up Sarakis’s front walk. “It’s your investigation,” he said.

Ignoring his sarcasm, Abigail took in her surroundings. The brick walkway was chipped. The front door needed a fresh coat of its dark green paint. The iron railing was loose on the steps. She had no cause to look into Sarakis’s finances yet, but she wondered if eccentricity explained the run-down condition of his place. Everything sagged or was in need of scraping, paint, a good carpenter. A termite inspection wouldn’t hurt, either.

She took note of the full attic, one-story sunroom and attached two-car garage. “What do you think, Bob—five, six bedrooms?”

“At least, except they won’t all be bedrooms. No wife, no kids. Retired at fifty. He’ll have a library, a game room, a dead-animal room—you know, to display stuffed birds and deer heads.”

“Think he was a hunter?”

“Didn’t have to be.”

From her years working with Bob, Abigail knew he wasn’t being literal. He was sizing up Victor Sarakis as a moderately wealthy, eccentric loner who probably had serious amateur interests—ones that probably didn’t include gardening, she thought as she noted the dandelions, crabgrass and bare spots that dominated the small front lawn. His was definitely the ugly duckling house on the street.

She rang the doorbell, the faint sound of a ding inside the house telling her it worked.

“Tomorrow’s the summer solstice,” Bob said next to her, as if that explained an unusual death in the Boston Public Garden.

Abigail glanced back at him. “Don’t start that again. The summer solstice is a happy time. Lots of sun, flowers, bonfires, dancing.”

“Too much daylight, people go nuts. They can’t take it. Brings out the worst in them.”

She had no idea if he was serious.

“I know what’s eating me,” he said simply. “The summer solstice, and my crazy niece chasing fairies in Ireland. You, though. What’s going on with you?”

“What’s going on is that I’m trying to do my job, and you’re here interfering.”

“That’s not what’s going on. You’re used to me interfering. You know you don’t have to be here. You’re letting a straightforward death investigation consume you.”

“What was Sarakis doing that close to the water? It must have been raining when he ended up in the lagoon.” She knew she’d said lagoon instead of pond just to get on Bob’s nerves. He deserved it. “You’d think he’d have stuck to the walks and gotten to shelter as fast as possible.”

“Maybe he was feeding the pigeons.”

Just as she reached for the bell again, the door opened. A trim man with close-cropped graying hair stood on the threshold, looking tired, grim. He wore neatly pressed slacks and a loose-fitting silky sweater. From his expression, Abigail guessed he already knew who they were, but she showed him her badge and introduced herself and Bob.

“I’m Jay Augustine, Victor’s brother-in-law.” He stood back, opening the door wider. “Please, come in.”

“I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Augustine,” Abigail said.

“Thank you.” He waited for her and Bob to enter the foyer, then shut the door. “Why don’t we talk in the sunroom—”

“That’d be fine,” Abigail said.

He led them down a center hall. From what she could see, the interior of the house was immaculate and tastefully decorated, a decided contrast to the ratty exterior. They went through an elegant dining room into a small, adjoining room with windows on three sides and French doors that opened onto a brick terrace. Abigail noticed Bob was paying attention, taking in every detail—habit from years on the job, she thought, if not any real interest in her case.

Jay Augustine stood in the middle of the sunroom as if he didn’t know what else to do with himself. “Victor spent a great deal of time in here. It’s the only casual room in the house. He—” Augustine’s voice cracked, and he paused, clearing his throat. “Every room in the house is crammed with his various collections. Except this one. Funnily enough, he spent most of his time in here.”

“What did he collect?” Abigail asked.

“My brother-in-law had many interests and the time and money to indulge them. He went all over the world. My wife and I are dealers in fine art and antiques, but Victor bought most of the pieces you see here on his travels. He lived a full life, Detective Browning. That’s at least some consolation.”

Abigail didn’t respond.

“Well.” Augustine took in a breath. “You’re homicide detectives, aren’t you?”

She nodded. “It’s routine to conduct an investigation when—”

“When a man trips and falls in the Boston Public Garden?”

She noted the slightest edge to his tone. “Where do you and your wife live, Mr. Augustine?”

“We have a home in Newton. Our showroom is in Boston, on Clarendon Street.”

“When did you last see your brother-in-law?”

“I stopped by two weeks ago. Charlotte—that’s my wife—was with me, but I can’t speak for her. She may have seen Victor since then. They were close, but they didn’t live in each other’s pockets.”

Bob walked over to the French doors and looked out at the terrace, as run-down as the front of the house. “Where’s Mrs. Augustine now?” he asked.

“In Boston at our showroom,” Jay said. “It’s quiet there. Most of our business is done by appointment. She’s having a difficult time. Victor was such a vital presence in our lives. I actually met Charlotte through him. We’ve only been married two years… I’d located an Italian Renaissance tapestry Victor had been looking for. He was different, as you can see for yourselves, but he was a good man.”

“Where were you the night your brother-in-law died?” Abigail asked.

“In New York on business. Charlotte was at home.” He swallowed visibly, then nodded to the terrace. “Victor had been talking about hiring a yard service and getting repairs done on the house. He’d had complaints from neighbors. He wasn’t angry. He was aware that he was oblivious to things like peeling paint, chipped shutters and weeds. He just didn’t care, provided the house was keeping out the elements and his collections were protected.”

Bob started to pace, a sign he was getting impatient. Abigail moved back toward the dining room, noticed a knee-high wooden elephant, ornate silver, an array of Asian masks, a huge, colorfully painted bowl in the middle of the table. She’d never been one for a lot of antiques and collectibles around her.

“My wife and I are busy, Detective,” Jay Augustine said behind her. “We had no warning—we’re dealing with our shock as best we can. I could take the time to show you around, but I don’t see what point it would serve.”

At that point, neither did Abigail. Augustine ducked past her, and she and Bob followed him back out to the hall.

“What do you and your wife do now?” Bob asked.

Jay seemed surprised by the question. “Now? Oh, you mean with this house and Victor’s collections. He left a will, thank heaven. Charlotte is meeting with the attorney tomorrow.”

Bob bent over slightly and peered at a parade of statues of giraffes on a console. “Guess he collected giraffes, huh? Is your wife his sole next of kin?”

“Yes. Victor never married.”

“Did he keep good records of what he owned?”

“Not particularly.”

“He have anything a museum might want?”

Augustine inhaled through his nose, as if to rein in his impatience. “Potentially a considerable amount of what Victor collected would interest a museum—and Charlotte and me, too, if that’s what you’re going to ask next.”

Bob didn’t respond. Abigail knew he didn’t care if he was getting on Augustine’s nerves. “Did your brother-in-law spell out what he wanted done with his collections?”

“He left those decisions to my wife. To be quite frank, I’m saddened but not surprised that Victor died the way he did. He was very absentminded. He often lost track of where he was and what he was doing. You’re wasting your time, Detective Browning. I’m sure the citizens of Boston have more urgent things for you to do than to investigate an accidental drowning.”

“Again, I’m sorry for your loss,” she said.

“No, you’re not,” he snapped, walking briskly up the hall.

As they came to the foyer, Abigail noticed that the pocket doors to a room on her right had popped open a few inches. Just inside was a bronze statue with horns, bulging eyes and a forked tongue.

It was a five-foot-tall statue of the devil.

“Mind if we take a peek in here?” she asked mildly.

Jay regarded her impassively. “As you wish, Detective.”

Using two fingers, Bob slid open the pocket doors and gave a low whistle as he and Abigail entered the wood-paneled room. The devil statue was frightening, but it wasn’t alone. The walls and the furnishings—large oak library-style tables, smaller side tables, open and glass-fronted bookcases—were jam-packed with items that all appeared to involve, in some way, the devil.

“Ol’ Scratch lives,” Bob said.

“Victor was a gifted amateur scholar and independent thinker,” Jay Augustine said, not defensively.

Abigail noted a stack of books on a small table that all appeared to be about hell, damnation, devils or evil. “Where did he get this stuff?” she asked.

“Various places,” Jay said. “Victor was obsessive once he sunk his teeth into something. About three years go he developed an interest in evil, hell and the devil. He considered it no more unusual than someone else’s interest in goblins and trolls.”

“I like flowers myself,” Abigail said.

“Not everything in here is an original.” Jay nodded toward a disturbing painting on the front wall of naked men suffering in a fiery hell. “That Bosch, for instance, is a copy. You know Bosch, don’t you?”

“I don’t,” Bob said blandly.

“Hieronymus Bosch was a Dutch painter in the Middle Ages known for his vivid depictions of hell and damnation. He had a fervent belief in the fundamental evil of man. In his world—depicted brilliantly in his work—man was redeemable only by faith in God.”

“Doesn’t look as if anyone got redeemed in this painting,” Abigail said.

“It’s called Hell. Appropriate, don’t you think? It’s one in a series of four paintings Bosch did in the late fifteenth century. The others are Ascent of the Blessed, Terrestrial Paradise and The Fall of the Damned.”

“Sounds as if you know something about this collection yourself,” Abigail said.

Augustine shrugged. “Charlotte and I saw the originals on a trip to Italy last summer. We helped Victor find a painter to do this copy.”

This obviously struck a nerve with Bob. “What for?”

“He wanted it.”

Bob moved closer to the painting. “Kind of looks like Mordor in the Lord of the Rings movies, doesn’t it? I haven’t read the books. My daughters have—I got through The Hobbit, and that was it for me.”

By habit and conviction, Abigail knew, he never used the names of any of his three daughters—Fiona, Madeleine and Jayne. At nineteen, Fiona was the eldest and more or less on her own, but Madeleine and Jayne were just fourteen and eleven. They lived with their mother in Lexington, close enough to visit their father regularly. They were good kids and got along with him, not always an easy task.