City of War (15 page)

“And then,
camouflaged
with a basket of roses in a town where it’s illegal to sell a bag of peanuts without a storefront, he made not one but two trips into Tacitus to shoot somebody at
random
. My Lord, if this story were a painting, I’d report the dealer to the FBI.”

He was absolutely right.

“Convenience and laziness,” he said. “Afflictions without prejudice. And just as common in cops as anyone else.”

“Was Kim…Dr. York…a good employee?”

“Marvelous. I hired her six years ago to put us on the publishing map with our own journal, and she exceeded all expectations. And the creative flair she brought to our catalogues was the envy of our competitors, though they’d be loathe to admit it.” He paused. “However…”

I waited.

After a long moment, he said, “Unfortunately, I was about to let her go.”

A.A. Abernathy was full of surprises.

“May I ask why?”

“She just wasn’t cut out for museum work. The world of institutional art moves at a glacial pace. Often slower. One might be involved in something of real importance only once in an entire career. Perhaps never. Dr. York was a doer. She wanted to make her mark. Right away. Yesterday, even. Admirable in real life, but impossible here. And intolerably irritating…in a good way, of course.”

I could tell by the affection in his voice that he meant it. I said, “In other words, she would have been perfect had the Getty chosen competition over socialism.”

He looked at me, and a wry smile crossed his face. “I can’t speak to that, because had it occurred, I might not be here.”

I thought about what Abernathy had just said, but it didn’t ring true. “Forgive my bad manners, A.A., but it’s difficult to believe that in these litigious times an institution as high-profile as the Getty would terminate an extremely bright,
highly educated woman on nothing stronger than your opinion that her gut wasn’t in her work.”

He looked at me, then out the window, then took a sip of water. “Personnel matters are supposed to be confidential, but since Dr. York is deceased, I’m going to make an exception.

“She’d become preoccupied with something outside the museum. No, that’s not the right word—obsessed is more like it. After being a model employee, she suddenly began taking days off without permission. A couple of times, an entire week. And when she’d finally show up, she wouldn’t even offer a lame excuse. She’d just say, ‘Sorry,’ and that was it. I tried to get her to talk about it, but she just said she’d do better.”

“Was there any pattern to her absences?”

“Every one began on a Friday. Then she wouldn’t come in until Tuesday, or Wednesday, or whenever. A couple of times I tried calling her at home, but no one answered. You’ll forgive me, but at first, I assumed she was shacking up.”

“But you changed your mind.”

He nodded. “One day accounting called and said they were concerned about excessive personal charges on her corporate American Express card. Employees are encouraged to use the card for personal travel then reimburse the museum, but she’d been using it remarkably often and for very large amounts.”

“Seems like an odd policy.”

“Actually, it’s not. This is a paranoid business, and it allows the watchdogs on the second floor to chart your movements. Dr. York had charged almost fifty thousand dollars in airfare and hotel rooms, and though she had paid off every dime, the red flags had gone up.”

“Where was she going?” I asked.

“Paris and Nice mostly. But she also traveled the former East Bloc too, and, of all places, three or four jaunts to Odessa. Not a place for the faint of heart.”

“What did she say when you confronted her?”

“That it was none of my business. Oh, she was polite, but she made it abundantly clear that she wasn’t going to tell me anything.”

“Had you told her she was being terminated?”

“No, but she knew it. In this business, we work too closely with one another to have many secrets. I even got the sense she was relieved. Like she’d already mentally moved on. It’s a shame we’ll never know what she might have accomplished with all of that energy.”

I finished the last of my water and noticed that in spite of the air-conditioning, I was perspiring again. I didn’t feel any pain yet, but the room was starting to close in.

“Let me shift gears for a moment. Have you ever heard of something called the City of War?”

Abernathy leaned back in his chair, thinking. “I don’t believe so,” he said finally. “Is it important?”

“It might be connected to Kim’s death.”

“I’ll do some checking.”

I wrote my number on one of his notepads, and he gave me a business card.

“My cell is on there, and that’s usually the best way to reach me,” he said.

I stood up to leave, and as we shook hands, I asked if it would be possible to get a look at Kim’s office. He shook his head. “I’m sorry, it’s already been redecorated. I know that seems cold, but once I realized the police weren’t going to be coming around, I wanted to give the staff some closure.”

“What about her computer?”

“Tech security purged the hard drives on both of them—the Getty’s desktop and her personal laptop. Company policy dictated by our insurer. We are a careful and suspicious lot, aren’t we?”

I had to agree. This brave new world is still sorting itself out, but society lost a little something when people stopped jotting things down and sticking them in their pockets. Today, if you want to get a phone number in a bar, instead of
lipstick on a napkin, everybody takes out their BlackBerry. Not the same.

A.A. went on. “All of her personal things I boxed up and sent to her home.”

We reached the stairway, and I felt the dull ache beginning in my chest again, but I had one more question. “Can you tell me what Kim was working on?”

“Yes, she was writing captions for an upcoming exhibit.”

“Something important?”

“A departure for us: Napoleon and the Middle East. A subject that gets very little attention but that is vitally important to understanding the history of preservation.”

“In other words, looting,” I said.

A.A. smiled.

I said, “Since the Louvre was founded on the plunder from his conquests, won’t that be a fairly sensitive subject for the French?”

His eyes twinkled. “Oh, I do hope so.”

13

Veronica Lake and a Son of a Bitch Named Truman

By the time I got to my car, I was really struggling. Between another burst of pain and three more Vicodin, my vision was starting to blur, and I felt detached from reality. Like I was watching myself through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars.

I wanted to go home and climb into bed, but first I wanted to get a look at the things from Kim’s office—even though I had no idea what I was looking for.

Princeton Street was quiet. Two gardeners were packing up to leave a neighboring house, and a plumbing truck sat across the street. Otherwise, nothing. Gary’s pickup was gone, so he must have been able to work in spite of the crutches. I hoped so.

I drove past Kim’s, made a U-turn at the next intersection and parked in front of Gary’s. As I walked up her driveway, I noticed some remnants of police tape on the front porch, but otherwise the place looked normal.

The single-car garage was padlocked. I went around to
the side and found a door that had been painted shut. I put my shoulder into it, and it popped. From the sound, it hadn’t been opened in a long time. Inside was the usual clutter of magazines, paint cans, garden tools and old license plates nailed to the wall. The centerpiece was a tarp, and when I flipped up a corner, I found a red ’63 Corvette. I suspected that at one time it had been Alex Cayne’s pride and joy.

There was a fine layer of dust over everything, so it appeared that Tino and Dante had confined their search to the house. I pulled the door closed behind me and walked into the backyard, where there were three pieces of patio furniture around a Mexican chiminea.

I knelt and looked inside the chiminea. The melted remains of something lay on top of some partially burned briquettes. I fished out the blob. I wasn’t sure, but it could have been a digital picture card.

I stood and dusted off my hands. For the first time, I noticed another structure behind the garage. A greenhouse, situated so that it was not visible from the house. It was about the size of the garage, and one side was engulfed in a wild, thorned creeper that had been allowed to grow unchecked until it had covered more than half the glass. An old wheelbarrow was tilted against the door. I moved it to the side and pulled the door open. It creaked loudly, and a pair of field mice ran out and over my shoes, disappearing into the undergrowth between the greenhouse and the property next door.

I stepped inside but was immediately stopped by wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling cactus. In pots, on shelves, growing out of wooden boxes, hanging from the rafters, jammed into every conceivable space, creating an impenetrable forest of stems and spines. Albuquerque on steroids. I couldn’t even see across the room. I remembered reading that there are two thousand varieties of cactus. It looked like Kim was going for a clean sweep.

“You a realtor?” The voice startled me. I turned and saw an attractive, 20-something woman in a tight black leotard and high heels peering at me through some overgrown birds
of paradise between Kim’s house and the one behind. “If so, I hope you’re gonna set a real high price, ’cause if you get it, you can sell mine next.”

She was smiling broadly and didn’t seem even a little bit suspicious, so I went with it. “Just trying to get an idea,” I said. “How’s the neighborhood?”

“Other than some biker jackass who keeps his motorcycle in his living room and fires it up whenever he gets a snoot full, it might as well be a morgue.”

She suddenly realized what she’d said. “Sorry, that was disrespectful. I really liked Kim. She was an angel.”

“Were you and she friends, Miss…?”

“Laura,” she said, shaking her head, “Laura Kennedy, and no, we didn’t hang. My old man thinks I should be working 24/7 so he can watch soap operas and fart. Kim and I just yammered over the backyard fence, so to speak. But every Christmas, she got all kinds of food baskets at work, and she’d give me some. My old man just loves those Mrs. Beasley’s muffins.”

“Did she have a lot of friends?”

“No, I always wondered about that. Sometimes she’d sit out back and drink a beer with Gary—the guy next door who does her lawn—but I never saw anybody else. I just figured she was a lez.”

She stopped and looked me up and down, lingering for a moment on my bandaged hand. Then she glanced at her watch. “You’re one big, good-looking son of a bitch. What’s your position on sex with married chicks? Especially ones who scream? Afterward, we could talk multiple listings.”

“I’ve got to get home to catch
Days of our Lives
.”

She laughed. “Don’t worry about him. He’s down picking up his unemployment check. After that, he’ll stop for a few beers. We’re good till midnight, minimum.”

“Any other time, but I really do have work to do.”

“Can’t blame a girl for trying. You got a card?”

“Fresh out, but I’ll be by again tomorrow. I’ll drop one off.”

She looked at me and licked her lips seductively. “Don’t knock, just put it under the mat. I’ll call you.”

I changed the subject. “I take it Kim liked cactus.”

“She lived in that greenhouse. Never could figure it out. Not much you can do with a cactus, and not much they need.”

I thought about it. Maybe that was the point. I closed the door and turned to go.

“Don’t forget that card,” Laura said.

Gary had fixed the back door, but he hadn’t put on a new lock. It pushed open. The air was musty inside, like all houses after they’ve been shut up for a while. I contemplated opening some windows but decided against it. I didn’t need an enterprising neighbor who wasn’t as friendly as Ms. Kennedy calling the cops. I wasn’t sure what explanation I could give them that wouldn’t cost me a ride to the station.

I let the water in the sink run until it got cool then put my head under it to get rid of the cobwebs. It seemed to work, and afterward I dried off with a dishtowel. The box containing Kim’s things from the museum was on the kitchen table. I decided to have a look at the rest of the house again before going through it.

The Russian ladies had done a thorough job straightening up. Even the drawers were neatly arranged, which made looking through them easy. I found the usual things. A collection of matchbooks, old photographs, a sewing kit, two unused tickets to a Dodgers game.

Her bookshelves strained under the weight of art histories and photographic studies of artists, some famous, some I’d never heard of. On a shelf near the top was a framed picture of a ruggedly handsome naval officer in dress whites standing beside a beaming, attractive young woman. Commander and Mrs. Alexander Cayne, I presumed. I glanced around for a photograph of Truman York but didn’t see one. It probably didn’t mean anything, but it’s a good idea to never presuppose family dynamics.

Alongside the shelves, I found a large leather art portfolio full of charcoal prints, watercolors and pencil sketches, none signed. I had no idea if any were valuable, but since the back door was still open to anyone who wanted to walk in, I zipped the portfolio closed and slid it behind the bookcase. It wouldn’t slow down a serious thief, but it might deter a casual intruder.

I’d saved Kim’s bedroom for last, and as I systematically went though her things, I was conscious of the smell of her perfume. With the house closed, it was still in the air, and it held a kind of sadness. Taped behind the headboard, I found a Walther .22 with a full clip of ammunition. I put it in my pocket and was once again baffled by the police work. How had the cops missed this? The only answer was that they’d been so focused on the gang angle that their search had been cursory.

All of a sudden, I felt flushed, and I was conscious of the pain welling up in my chest again. I slammed three more Vicodin. I needed some fresh air.