Lethal Legacy (10 page)

“And the tenants pay rent to—?” I asked.

“Not to me, Ms. Cooper. I don’t go around
collecting with a tin cup on the first of the month. There’s a management
company, of course.”

“Of course,” Mike said, taking Minerva’s part, as
though the questions I was asking made no sense. “What’s that called?”

“Mad Hatter Realty.”

“Alice in Wonderland?” Mike asked, laughing.

“Don’t laugh. My grandfather, Jasper the Second,
was mad. Eccentric is what the rich like to call it, but mad is what he was. My
father named one of the companies for him.”

“So you did have a special relationship with Tina
Barr, then?” I asked. “It’s not just a coincidence that she lived in your
apartment.”

“Tina worked for my father for a period of time.”

“Doing what?”

“He’s a collector, Ms. Cooper. Rare books. It’s an
inherited trait in the male line of Hunts,” Minerva said, talking directly to
me for the first time. I thought she was finally giving up her flippant
attitude. But she went on. “For generations they’ve all seemed to love the same
things—rare books, expensive wine, and cheap women.”

“And Barr?”

“She was cataloging the collection. My father’s an
old man, Mike. He’s close to ninety, and quite incapacitated now. Changed his
will more often than I change my shoes. I just made sure she had a place to
live while she was working for him.”

“Did he fire her?”

“He’s not in a condition to fire anyone. Tina
quit—that’s what Papa’s secretary told me.”

Minerva Hunt removed her BlackBerry from her
pocketbook and dialed a number, pressing the digits with her long nails.
Someone picked up on the first ring. “Carmine? Are you in front of the police
station? I’ll be down in a minute.”

“Where did Barr go?”

“Why don’t you check with our management office?
Perhaps she left forwarding information.”

Hunt was pulling on her short leather gloves—a
fashion statement or a sign that she was through with us for the night, not
protection against the mild weather.

“You have all my numbers,” she said. “I expect
we’ll talk tomorrow.”

“Were you looking for anything in particular in
that basement apartment?” Mercer asked as she readied herself to leave.
“Anything you sent Karla Vastasi to retrieve?”

Minerva Hunt backed up a step or two. “I thought I
told you why she was there.”

“Just cleaning up, I think you said. Nothing of
value you might be interested in?” Mercer said, talking as he walked into
Peterson’s office, mimicking Hunt’s motion with a pair of latex gloves that he
put on as she talked.

“I assume Ms. Barr took whatever belonged to her.
The apartment was sublet to her furnished. We keep a few of our properties
available for help who need temporary lodging. I wanted to make certain that
none of the belongings was disturbed. You’ll allow me to do that later in the
week, I’m sure.”

Mercer emerged with an object in the palm of his
large hand. It was a small book that appeared to be covered with precious
jewels.

Minerva Hunt’s eyes widened. Her calfskin-covered
fingers reached out toward it.

“You know what this is?” he asked.

“It once belonged to my family,” she said, glaring
at him while she kept her arm outstretched, in expectation that he’d turn it
over. “Where did you get it?”

“The ME found it after you and Alex left the
kitchen. It was on the floor, under Karla’s body, tucked inside the jacket of
her suit.”

I could see dark stains on the surface of the gems
that must have been Karla Vastasi’s blood.

“I want the book, Detective. Do you know how much
it’s worth?” There was nothing playful about Minerva Hunt’s attitude.

“Your hand’s going to atrophy hanging out there
like that,” Mercer said. “Right now, it’s evidence in a murder case.”

“What is it?” Mike asked.

“The Bay Psalm Book,” Hunt said, looking at all of
us with disdain for our obvious ignorance. “This was the first book printed in
North America, in 1640. Open it carefully, Detective. It will have my
grandfather’s name inside. ‘
Ex Libris,
Jasper Hunt Jr.’”

Mercer didn’t move.

“There weren’t a dozen copies that have survived
over the centuries, gentlemen. Jasper’s wife had one bound this way when their
first son was born. My grandfather treasured it,” she said. “Kept it by his
bedside every night until shortly before he died. It’s part of the Hunt
Collection at the New York Public Library now.”

Mike crossed his arms and whistled. “Guess I ought
to renew my library card. Never saw anything close in my bookmobile.”

“It hasn’t been out of that building in almost
forty years. Look at it, will you?”

Mercer placed his pinky on the lower corner of the
book and gently lifted the cover.

Minerva Hunt stared at the bookplate and sneered.

EX LIBRIS TALBOT HUNT
was written on the cream-colored label, decorated with a heraldic
coat-of-arms poised above a globe.

“From the library of Talbot Hunt, my ass,” Minerva
said, shaking a finger at Mercer.

“Is Talbot related to you?”

“He’s my brother, Mike. He’s the kind of man who
would kill for a book like this.”

EIGHT

“You believe Carmine Rizzali’s got a gig like
that?” Mike asked. “His own PI firm, doing security details for the rich and
famous. Driving Miss Minerva, maybe even stopping in for dessert. Twenty years
on the job, the guy couldn’t find a Jamaican on Jamaica Boulevard.”

Mike, Mercer, and I had walked Minerva Hunt out of
the squad building and turned her over to the ex-cop who guarded her. We drove
down Second Avenue for a midnight supper at Primola, one of our favorite
restaurants in the East Sixties, not far from my home.

Giuliano, the owner of the upscale eatery, bought
us a round of drinks as we waited for Adolfo, the maître d’, to take our order
before the kitchen closed.

“Carmine looks like he’s enjoying the ride as much
as Ms. Hunt,” Mercer said. “What did you get out of Battaglia, Alex?”

“Don’t you remember, Mercer? I give, Battaglia
gets. I called to tell him what happened, so he wants me in his office first
thing in the morning.”

“Was he surprised?”

“Seemed to be when I told him about the murder.
Asked for all the details.”

“Did he react when he heard Minerva Hunt’s name?”

“Didn’t skip a beat.” I swirled the ice cubes
around in the golden brown scotch before taking a long sip.

“Signorina,”
Adolfo
said, “the chef will do anything you’d like.”

“Just some soup.”

Murder had never been known to have an impact on
Mike Chapman’s appetite. “Let me start with pasta. Rigatoni—then throw whatever’s
left in the kitchen on top of it. Chicken parmigiana after that. And back up my
vodka before Fenton falls asleep,” Mike said, pointing at the bartender.
“Mercer?”

“Soup and a salad. That’s it for me.” He tasted
his favorite red wine. “You think it’s a coincidence that Karla Vastasi was
dressed just like her boss?”

“It’s possible,” Mike said, gnawing on a
breadstick.

“Minerva Hunt sucked you in completely,” I said.
“The way you were playing with her, I felt like a third wheel.”

“Sometimes you are, Coop. I was just trying to
keep her loose till we sort out the facts.”

“Any looser and she’d have been on your lap. I’m
with you, Mercer. The bit with the clothes is too much of a fluke to be
unplanned.”

“Karla was dressed for success,” Mike said. “Just
happened to be Minerva’s hand-me-downs.”

“The same exact shoes—flat grosgrain bow and brass
hardware on the front. It’s a classic style, and the ones Karla was wearing
weren’t even scuffed,” I said. “That black suit isn’t the least bit outdated.
I’ll bet it’s exactly the same one that Minerva had on.”

“So we need to find out whether she bought that
monogrammed tote herself,” Mercer said. “If it wasn’t a gift like she claimed,
I’m thinking Karla was the canary in the coal mine, sent there to see if it was
safe before Minvera went in herself.”

Mercer and I were on the same page. Maybe Hunt was
supposed to meet someone in Tina Barr’s apartment earlier in the day. Maybe
there was a dangerous purpose to the rendezvous, and she had sent her unwitting
servant inside to keep the appointment.

“Very hot plate, Alessandra,” Adolfo said, setting
the soup bowl in front of me.

“I suppose we’ll find out if that little bejeweled
book is very hot, too,” Mike said. “Maybe it’s stolen and someone was trying to
scam Minerva, tempt her to buy it back. I think I see a date with a librarian
in my future.”

“Battaglia will be our matchmaker for that,” I
said. There would be no overture to a major New York institution before he
greased the wheels at the very highest levels. No point any of us going in
through the back door when he could command the attention of the top dogs.

“Well, whoever committed the murder didn’t exactly
come to the scene armed. Someone can make a good case that it wasn’t
premeditated,” Mike said. “Never seen a garden ornament as a murder weapon
before.”

“An armillary sphere.”

“It wasn’t a spear, Coop. Didn’t you see it? Her
head was cratered by that big brass-and-iron thing, weighs a ton.”

“Sphere. I didn’t say
spear.
Probably a
Hunt antique,” I said. “They were used centuries ago by astronomers, before
telescopes.”

Mike’s cell phone vibrated on the table. He looked
at the caller ID on the display and answered with a mouthful of pasta. “Excuse
me, Mom. We’re just having our supper. No, no, no. I can’t talk about it now,
’cause I don’t want you to have any bad dreams. I’ll call you tomorrow. Yeah,
I’ll say hello for you. Just tell me the question, okay?”

His widowed mother lived in a small condo in Bay
Ridge, next door to one of his three sisters. Mike’s father, Brian, had been a
legend in the NYPD—honored for his bravery on countless occasions, and
enormously proud that his only son had shown such academic promise. He retired
from the department while Mike was at Fordham, but died of a massive coronary
two days after handing in his gun and shield. No one who knew Brian and how
much his son admired him was surprised when Mike enrolled in the academy the
day he got his college diploma.

“’Night, Ma. Talk to you tomorrow,” Mike said,
putting down the phone. “The Final Jeopardy category is ‘Steel Wheels,’ got
it?”

“Now, when did you have time to set this up?”
Mercer said, laughing.

“I called her when we were in front of Barr’s
house. I figured we might be outside there for hours. Didn’t want to miss my
chance to make a score off Blondie. Pony up the money.”

Mike’s fondness for trivia was the other habit
that rarely took a back seat to homicide. He liked to bet on the last
Jeopardy!
question of the night and found a way to be in front of the television whether
in the squad room, the morgue, or a neighborhood pub.

“I’m glad you showed a little respect for Karla
Vastasi tonight,” I said, smiling at him. “I was touched by your restraint when
we were in the kitchen, even though it was showtime.”

“I like it when I please you, kid, but in all
honesty, I didn’t see a TV there, did you?”

“Twenty bucks for the winning question,” Mercer
said.

“I’m in,” I said.

“Double or nothing.”

“Well, damn, man. Seems to me you’ve heard the
answer. And your enthusiasm suggests you’ve already got a good guess tucked
away. So I’m holding at twenty,” Mercer said.

“Picture your boyfriend Trebek reading the answer,
Coop. ‘Steel Wheels’ it is. Fastest speed at which New York City subway trains
are designed to run.”

I held up my empty glass to signal to Fenton that
I wanted a refill while I stalled. “What is…?”