Читать книгу Murder 101 - Faye Kellerman, Faye Kellerman - Страница 11

Williamsburg still teemed with black hats, but now the area was divided between the Chasids with their Borsalinos and the fur-trimmed shtreimels versus the hipsters wearing fedoras, derbies, newsboys, and porkpies. Both groups wore full beards, and even the dress wasn’t that dissimilar. There were synagogues, kosher marts, and religious bookstores and dress shops. But the neighborhood also boasted hip bars and restaurants. Even the kosher crowd was getting into the act with establishments serving more exotic things like oxtail soup and grilled chicken hearts.

Sammy Lazarus, and his wife, Rachel, lived a few blocks away from the action in a tiny apartment with their sixteen-month-old daughter, Lily. She was Rina’s first blood grandchild and the Deckers’ first granddaughter. The little girl had a mop of curly blond hair, bright blue eyes, and a perpetual sunny disposition. As soon as they walked into the living room, Lily began running around in circles, flapping her hands in sheer joy. “Yay, yay, Nana, Boppa, Nana, Boppa, yay, yay, Nana Boppa, yay.”

Decker hadn’t had a greeting like that since: well, his memory didn’t go back that far. But it was nice to be wanted. Rachel invited them in with her wide, white smile. Over her clothes, she wore a butterfly print apron that was dusted with flour and her blond curls were pulled back into a “messy” bun. She gave both of them a big hug. “Someone is very excited.” The toddler was running amok. “Can I get you guys something?”

“I’m fine.” Rina gave Rachel a kiss on her cheek then tried to corral Lily. “Well, hello, gorgeous. Does Nana get a kiss?”

The toddler stopped in her tracks, backed up, and planted a wet one on Rina’s lips. Rina picked her up and smothered her cheek with kisses. “Who does Nana love?”

“Lily.” It came out “Weewee.” She reached out her hands to Decker. “Boppa.”

Decker took her from Rina and tossed her in the air until the child was spasmodic with laughter. When his arms felt as if they were falling off, Decker lowered her to the floor. “How about a break, Miss El?” But she was already running in circles again.

“It’s been too cold to go to the park. I think she’s a little cooped up. The sun’s out. Maybe I’ll try to take her today.”

“I’ll take her if you’re busy,” Rina offered.

“If you wouldn’t mind, that would be helpful.” Rachel had taken the time to set up a little spread on their dinette table. She spotted Decker looking at it. “Just a little nibble in case you were hungry.”

“Thanks, honey. I’ll take some coffee.” Rina looked at her watch. It was a little after nine and too early to go out in the cold. Lily had brought out her box of blocks, meaning that they had other vistas to conquer before the park. Rina sat down on the floor, opened the lid, and dumped out the box. “How about if I make a tower and you can knock it down.”

The little girl responded with something approximating “knock it down.” Decker made a cup of coffee for Rina and one for himself. Then he took a minichocolate Danish and popped it in his mouth. He turned to Rachel. “How’s the residency coming along?”

“One more year.” She paused. “I love my profession but sometimes it’s hard seeing sick children, especially now that I have Lily.” Her eyes watered and she quickly blinked. “How’s your new job?”

“It’s slower paced, but it’s better than retirement.”

“Do you miss the LAPD?”

“Not when I’m only three hours away from all the people I love. Moving was a great decision.” He hoped he had sounded convincing. The truth? It was hard to regroup. “Today I’m actually here for work. Nothing crucial so we decided to mix it with a little pleasure.”

“That’s great. We’re always so happy to see you. What kind of work are you doing here?”

“Mostly talking to some people. Actually, I’ve got to be in Manhattan at ten. How long do you think it would take me to get to Columbus Circle?”

“Around a half hour more or less,” Rachel said. “What are you looking into if I can ask?”

“An art theft.”

“Sounds very intriguing.”

“Most intriguing thing I’ve done in six months.” He looked at Lily and Rina.

Rachel said, “I don’t know which one is having more fun.”

“My vote’s with Rina.”

“It’s so nice having both of you on the East Coast. Sammy is so happy.” Again, Rachel teared up. “So we’re all going out for dinner tonight?”

“That’s the plan.”

“It’s ten of us, right?”

“Gabe is out of town and his girlfriend’s working, so it’s only eight.”

“That’s right. You’re staying at Gabe’s apartment.”

“We are.”

“Can we come, too?” Rachel smiled. “I’m kidding … sort of. Sometimes this place is very small. I’ll make the rez for dinner. How long are two you staying in the city?”

“Just overnight. Then we’re off to Philadelphia.”

“Give my love to Cindy and Koby. Wow, the twins must be, like, four?”

“Almost four and finally out of diapers, which is good. They’re so tall and big that Cindy was running out of disposable options.”

“Maybe the next time we can all get together.”

Decker said, “That would be great although I’m not sure I could handle all that energy in one room.”

Rina spoke up from the floor. “This comment is from a man who has handled hundreds of homicides?”

“My cases involved a different type of energy. Besides, not one homicide victim has ever given me lip.” He fished out his car keys. “I’ll pick you up in about two, three hours?”

“That should be perfect. Lily will be napping by then anyway.” Rina looked at Rachel for confirmation.

The young woman shrugged. “In a perfect world, that would be a yes.”

It took a half hour to reach the apartment building and then another fifteen minutes to find a parking space. When Decker finally nabbed a spot, it was eight blocks away from the Sobels’ address and required him to back the car into a snowdrift that exploded onto his rear bumper. His blood must have thickened. It was cold but not nearly as cold as up north. He didn’t even bother with gloves. Decker had gotten used to the fresh snow crunching under his boots, slow going but pristine. The Manhattan sidewalks were awash in a thin, salty sludge that was often slippery. The current skies were dove gray and while not gloomy, there wasn’t a hint of sunshine anywhere.

Melanie and Rick Sobel resided in a complex between Broadway and Amsterdam. The lobby was small and spare with a black, granite floor and mahogany-paneled walls. A doorman let him in. Another uniformed man who sat behind a desk rang up the Sobel unit. Once given permission to enter, Decker rode the elevator to floor 24 out of 40.

He stepped out of the lift and into an anteroom with two doors. The one on his left was closed, but the one on his right was wide open. He knocked anyway and a female voice told him to come inside. He closed the door behind him and waited in an entry hall. From his vantage point, he could peek into a white space that defined the living room. Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows were rooftops and then Central Park, which, in wintertime, was a quilt of snow and brown. On sunny days, the space would be flooded with light and heat. Unfortunately it was steely outside and the cold had seeped through the glass.

Melanie showed up a minute later, dressed in a white tank top and a white short skirt. She held out her hand to shake Decker’s, and then she rubbed her arms. “It’s freezing in here.”

“It’s a little frosty.”

“I’ve been holed up in the back. It’s boiling back there. Absolutely no temperature regulation in the apartment. The boiler doesn’t do anything for the living room and it turns the den into a steam bath. I’ve complained and complained, but I think that’s just the nature of prewar apartments. They just didn’t have the HVAC. Let’s go into the den. I can always open a window if it gets too hot.” She turned and Decker followed.

It was a magnificent walnut-paneled room adorned with carved beams and crown molding. The bookshelves were filled with more knickknacks than books: lots of framed pictures along with lots of models of exotic cars—Ferraris, Maseratis, Bugattis, Porsches, Mercedes, a Delahaye, a Voisin, a Pierce Arrow, and a dozen other makes he didn’t recognize. The furniture was heavy wood and the seating was leather. And, as Melanie predicted, it was warm. Within minutes, Decker was dabbing his forehead. He removed his parka.

“Can I take that from you?” Without waiting for an answer, Melanie called out to Katrina. A uniformed maid came in, took Decker’s coat, and left. Then Melanie cranked open a window and immediately Decker felt a welcome shot of cold air. She pointed to a couch and both of them sat down.

“Are you warm or cold?”

Decker nodded. “I’m comfortable, thank you.”

“Then you’re a first. No one is comfortable in this place. I would have loved to be able to regulate the temperature, but Rick refused to even consider anything postwar. He had to have his prewar co-op. I admit in general the resale is better—unless you’re at 15 CPW or something—but c’mon, how many more sweltering nights do I have to put up with just to have bragging rights?”

She bent down to pick up something imaginary on the floor and gave him a full view of her cleavage. She was wearing sandals on her feet. Her face was skin stretched over pronounced cheeks, a big forehead, and a sizable chin. She had artificial lips that were puffed out like a sausage. Her complexion was just short of leathery: probably from hours in a tanning bed.

“I don’t know how I can possibly help you. I don’t even know why you’re here. Actually, I do know why you’re here. Max sicced you on me, didn’t he?”

“Your father-in-law gave me a list of people who knew about the Tiffany panels. You’re on the list.”

“Am I the first person you’ve talked to?”

“Third.”

“Who were the two before me?”

“Max and Ken.”

“And I repeat, Max sicced you on me, right? He can’t stand me. The feeling is mutual.”

“What don’t you like about Max?”

“Other than his arrogance, his pompousness, and his bullying, he’s fine.”

Decker took out a notebook and began to take notes. His wont was to sink into the back of the couch. Instead, he chose to be professional, precariously perched on the cushion’s edge, feeling about as balanced as a Cezanne painting. Weird that he should be thinking in art metaphors. “This is the deal, Mrs. Sobel.”

“Melanie, please. Mrs. Sobel is my mother-in-law.”

“Okay, Melanie, let me explain the logic. Detectives always work from the inside out—”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s always the husband who knocks off the wife.”

“I wasn’t thinking about guilt although you’re making a good point. I was thinking those closest to the victims of the crime usually know the most. I started with Ken, now I’m interviewing his children.”

“But there are a zillion people who know about the panels. My father-in-law has two brothers. My husband has cousins. Why start with Ken?”

“First of all, I’ve got your entire family on my list. I started with Ken because he was my first contact. And he seems to be the leader of the family.” Decker waited for her to respond. When she didn’t, he said, “I’m just going down in order. Your husband is working and you were kind enough to let me talk to you at ten in the morning. So here I am.”

She threw up her arms. “I’ve got nothing to hide. Ask away.”

“I’m going to ask some pretty obvious questions, so bear with me. Did you know that the crypt had original Tiffany pieces?”

“Of course. Everyone in the family knows. And probably a lot of people not in the family. Ken is not the model of discretion. And if you’re looking for someone to grill, I would suggest you talk to Max again. It’s like the one thing he wants that he can’t get hold of. I wouldn’t put anything past him.”

Decker tried to keep his face flat. “Really?” She didn’t answer. He said, “I went online and looked at the Stewart and Harrison gallery inventory. The place has things far more valuable than the windows.” She still didn’t answer. “Does Max have any vices I should know about?”

“If you call greed a vice, then yes. With Max, it’s always about having more, more, more. And he accuses me of being a spendthrift.”

“He’s a spendthrift?” No response. “Is he in hock?”

Melanie blushed. “I wouldn’t know about that. I mean he has all this jewelry but do you think his wife ever gets to wear anything … well, maybe she wears it, but she certainly doesn’t own it. I suppose she can borrow it if she wants.” She looked at Decker. “The point is that everything that Max and his family own is in that store. I mean he and my sister-in-law own this tiny, tiny duplex where they couldn’t even entertain a gnat. C’mon already. Just sell a couple of lamps and get something decent. Not something where the kitchen has a view of an air shaft. See what I’m getting at?”

“Not exactly.” Decker looked up. “Maybe you should explain it to me.”

“The gallery belongs to Max’s father and his uncle, Joe. Max is nothing more than a glorified salesman. I think it eats at his kishkas.”

“So he doesn’t own anything in the gallery? Is that what you’re saying?”

“I don’t know what he owns or what he doesn’t own. All I’m saying is he always wants more.”

“So you’re thinking that maybe he stole the windows so he could resell them and get some of his own money?”

“I’m not saying that.”

“So what are you saying?”

“I don’t know what I’m saying. You’re twisting my words.”

“I’m not trying to do that, Melanie. Do you think Max was involved with the theft?”

She turned bright red. “Not really.” She sat up. “But if he’s telling you that I was involved, he’s crazy.”

“Why would he think you’re involved?”

“C’mon, I know what he told you.”

“What did he tell me?” Decker prompted.

“Lemme see how I can phrase this so it comes out right.” She stood up and began to pace. “Ken is a great guy, but tight with a buck, a quality that he passed on to my husband. I never ever buy things we can’t afford, but if I can afford it, I don’t see why I shouldn’t buy it. I mean, why do you work a million hours a week and earn all this money if you’re just going to have it molder in stocks and bonds. I realize that it’s Rick’s business, but he does have a family and why should our children do without when we can plainly do with.”

She stopped pacing.

“Anyway, this is all very beside the point. I don’t know anything about the theft. It’s not like it’s been preying on my mind. To tell you the truth, Tiffany isn’t my style. I am all about sleek and modern. This one room is my compromise to Rick. I mean where would I even put the windows? Although I suppose if I did steal them, I wouldn’t hang them out in the open. That would be pretty stupid.”

Decker nodded.

“Anything else? I’ve got a nail appointment.”

“Can you think of anyone in the family with money problems?”

“No … none of my business. I just wish they’d keep their noses out of my business.”

“Anyone in the family who has an addiction—drugs, gambling, sex, bad business? Or bad business deals?”

“Ken’s extended family is large: lots of cousins and second cousins. I’m sure there must be a couple with problems. Who doesn’t have a family without problems?”

“But nothing jumps into your head?”

She thought about it earnestly. “No … not really. But Rick and I try to mind our own business. We’re both way too busy to worry about other people. If other people don’t have a life, that’s not my problem. Are we almost done?”

“Just a few routine questions that I’m asking everyone on the list. When was the last time you were in Greenbury?”

“The funeral in the summer when Ken’s cousin died. We came in and left the same day. We were with everyone else.”

“So you haven’t been to Greenbury or the crypt since then?”

“No. I’ve got better things to do than to schlep up to a musty old crypt in the middle of nowhere.”

“Besides Max, who do you think might have wanted to steal the panels?”

She looked aghast. “I didn’t say Max stole them.”

“So who do you think did it?”

“How would I know?”

“I’m not saying you would know. I’m just asking your opinion.”

She stood up, examining her nails that looked perfectly groomed in contour and color. Then she shrugged. “No idea. All I know is it wasn’t me.”

Two phone messages, three texts, and five missed calls: all from McAdams. The kid either missed his company or had info. Decker dialed his cell. Harvard was peeved.

“What’s the purpose of giving me assignments and telling me to call back when you don’t answer your phone?”

“I was in the middle of an interview. What do you have for me?”

“Since I outrank you, what do you have for me?”

Decker smiled. He recapped the interviews.

McAdams said, “She sounds like a nutcase.”

“She’s intense.”

“We should look into her financials.”

“Great idea except we have no legit reason to pull paper on her. Now it’s your turn.”

“Well, it seems that grave robbing and stealing from cemeteries are time-old traditions. I found quite a few cases of people stealing from cemeteries. The items usually taken are for personal use, things like urns, planters, gravestone decorations, and statues. The thieves usually live close to the graves and were caught with the items displayed in their houses or yards. Then there are the practical thieves who lift things like lawn mowers or weed whackers or shovels for their own gardening purposes.”

“Okay. What about valuable items?”

“I don’t know how relevant it is to our case because it’s old, but I’ll tell it to you anyway. A very well-known art dealer named Alastair Duncan was caught selling a stolen Tiffany window to a guy in Japan. It was looted from a local cemetery by a guy named Anthony Casamassima who used to work as a caretaker there.”

“Where’s there?”

“Salem Fields, New York. It’s a massive cemetery on the Brooklyn/Queens border. And it has a lot of Jewish mausoleums because a lot of the families used to belong to Congregation Emanu-El in Manhattan, which used the cemetery to buy plots for its membership. That’s the synagogue I told you about with a Tiffany window.”

“Where is it?”

“On Fifth Avenue in the Sixties. It’s open to the public and from what I saw online, pretty damn ornate. You might want to take a look at it. The Met has some gigantic Tiffany works if you want to get a feel for the art. It’s right off the Temple of Dendur.”

“The what?”

“A re-creation of an Egyptian temple built by some Roman official. It’s a little touristy but a nice space.”

“As long as I’m here, I’ll try to take it in. What happened to this Duncan guy?”

“Twenty-seven months in prison and $220,000 in restitution. I don’t know how much time he actually did and how much of the fine he paid, but he’s still considered an active authority on art deco. My guess is it’s highly unlikely that Duncan had anything to do with our itty-bitty theft.”

“Don’t say that to Ken Sobel. When did that theft take place?”

“In the 1990s. Duncan was sentenced in 2012, I believe.”

“What about this Casamassima guy?”

“He appears to be a thief of convenience. Like I said, the cemetery was in the neighborhood. I don’t think it’s likely that he’d travel upstate to steal. And even less likely that he’d bother replacing the stolen windows with fakes. Plus since the original case was solved and they were exposed, all eyes are on both of them.”

“Sometimes old habits are hard to break. How was the case solved?”

“I don’t know the ins and outs of the investigation but I do know that an FBI informant posed as a hired thief. Graveyard thefts are relatively common. Now if you want to go into actual art thefts, there are lots to choose from: mostly items taken from museums and homes. They also dwarf in size and scope our cemetery break-in.”

“Give me an example.”

“Let me pull up my notes.” Shuffling over the line. “Okay. Here goes. The most famous art theft in this area was paintings stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.”

“Is that the one where they still have the empty picture frames hanging on the walls?”

“I’m impressed, Old Man. How’d you know that?”

“It’s called reading the paper. I also remember getting the notice over the lines when I was in LAPD. When did the Gardner theft take place?”

“That was also in the nineties. Thieves posed as police and tied up the guards and walked away with hundreds of millions of dollars of artwork: a Manet, a Vermeer, several works by Degas, and Rembrandt’s only known seascape. I don’t see this having any connection with our case.”

“I agree with you. Anything else that’s vaguely similar … a theft from an odd place?”

“I did find one theft that was more our scale. And it’s still unsolved. But it’s also very old.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“Hold on … okay … here we go. It took place twenty-five years ago in Marylebone, Rhode Island, about an hour away from Greenbury. Four mosaics were taken from the iconography of St. Stephen’s, a Russian Orthodox church. The mosaics were fashioned after the ones at the Church of San Vitale in Ravenna, Italy. Would you like to know about Ravenna, Italy?”

“First I’d like to know what an iconography is.”

“Oh, sure … you know that most churches are laid out like crosses.”

“Yeah, the transept, nave, and apse … I do crossword puzzles.”

“Okay. On the transept wall—that’s the wall that forms the shorter end of the cross—leading up to the nave where the priest leads the service, there are often images of the saints or the Madonna or Jesus. It can be statues, gold work, bas-relief, oil paintings, and in this case, they were mosaics. Would you like to hear about Ravenna now?”

“Sure.”

“Let me get my notes … here we go. Around 400 Common Era, there were essentially two parts to the Roman Empire—a western Rome that was under siege by the Ostrogoths and an eastern Rome that still had its territories in eastern Europe and the Levant. Justinian along with his general Belisarius recaptured and reunited a large part of the Roman Empire. But Justinian was also a religious autocrat and that resulted in a schism with the pope in Rome. So Justinian’s solution was to move the capital of the western Roman Empire to Ravenna, Italy. The city was influenced more by Venice—then a city-state—than by Rome. Venice, in turn, was way more influenced by Byzantine Christianity than Roman Christianity because Venice did its primary trade down the Adriatic to Greece and Turkey.

“At Ravenna, inside the Church of St. Vitale, there are these incredible mosaics done in Byzantine style, influenced by the masterpieces in the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, which he rebuilt as well. The tile work in Ravenna was commissioned by Justinian and his coruling wife, Theodora. Their faces are on the models in the mosaics and she is featured almost as much as Justinian was. And—point of information—neither one of the Roman rulers ever lived in Ravenna as its capital.

“There’s a point to all this rambling. A lot of art nouveau was influenced by the incredible tile work of this period. So it’s not uncommon that tile workers in the Greek Orthodox or Russian Orthodox churches at the turn of the twentieth century would model their works with Ravenna or Hagia Sophia in mind, only they’d throw in an art nouveau riff. These particular mosaic icons were the work of a Russian artisan named Nikolai Petroshkovich who had worked on all the Romanovs’ palaces—Peterhof, the Catherine Palace, the Hermitage—doing restorations. He immigrated to New York in 1910 when he saw which way the winds of discontent were blowing. The icono-graphy in the church was considered a prime example of art nouveau mosaic work done in the Byzantine style. And it was a major heartbreak to the church when it was stolen.”

A long pause.

McAdams said, “I’m done unless you want to know more history about Justinian and Theodora.”

“No, I’m fine for now. I’m just thinking …” A long pause. “We are interested in this case because … it took place around the same geographical area and a break-in involved a theft from an unusual place—a church and a graveyard—not a museum or the home of an art collector.”

“And they both involve art nouveau items.”

“Right … that’s good, McAdams. And the church case was never solved?”

“I haven’t found it on the Internet. I’ll delve a little further. What are you thinking?”

“It could be someone local who’s paying for stolen art. But if the cases are related, it’s someone who has been collecting for personal use over many years. We’re not talking museum thefts, we’re talking thefts that would go under the radar. Someone who started stealing in his twenties through forties and would now be between his fifties and seventies.”

“And still active.”

“Someone with champagne taste on a beer budget. Like an art historian, a curator, or maybe a professor.” Decker paused. “Maybe an art history prof at Littleton because it’s an art college. But first I have to rule out the family. And that will take a while.”

“Take all the time you want. Nothing is happening here.”

“McAdams, could you find out who the detectives were on the case? If they had a few local suspects in mind, they can tell us what roads to travel.”

“Well, whatever roads they traveled were bad ones because the case wasn’t solved. Besides, I didn’t find anything about the detectives on the Internet.”

“That’s why you need to call up Marylebone and get the names. Then I’ll call up the old-timers and pump them for info. I can relate better than you.”

“That’s for sure. You know if these guys are still alive, they must be like eighty.”

“Haven’t you heard, McAdams? Eighty is the new sixty.”