The Apostrophe Thief (17 page)

Murtaugh looked up from the desk. “That nails it, then. Nordstrom's our Broadhurst thief, assisted by Vasquez and …?”

“Kevin Kirby,” Marian supplied, “neither of whom killed him.”

“You're sure of that?”

“The man from the ME's office estimated he'd been dead about two hours, so that rules out Vasquez. And I don't think Kirby even knew where Nordstrom lived.”

“Pick him up tomorrow for questioning. You have his address?”

“Yes.”

Gloria came back from the bedroom. “Nothing in the bureau except clothes and personal items. He used only half the closet for clothes—the rest is stacked up with
Playbills
. He even has
Playbills
under the cot. What's in the boxes?”

“Haven't looked yet,” Marian said. “Captain, did you find any kind of inventory list or such? All those cartons have some sort of code number marked on them.”

He handed her a small loose-leaf notebook. “Take a quick look for any other Broadhurst items.”

“Well, that television on the desk may be one of them. Let's see, here.” She flipped through the pages until she spotted something familiar. “Ah … ‘framed, autographed picture of Geraldine Page'—yes, that's from the Broadhurst. Code PFA.BT94.”

Gloria helped her locate the right carton. When they opened it, they found it filled with signed photographs in frames, each one carefully wrapped in a foam rubber sheet. The Geraldine Page photo was on top.

“My god, will you look at this?” Gloria said, unwrapping some of the others. “Ethel Waters. That goes back a ways.”

“Mikhail Baryshnikov,” Marian murmured. “And Clifford Odets.”

“Who?”

“Playwright,” Captain Murtaugh interposed. “All right, I've seen enough for now. Let's get out of here before we all freeze. Sergeant, I'll want you to come back tomorrow and check exactly how much of the Broadhurst loot is here. You can finish going through the desk as well.” He turned to Gloria. “Detective Sanchez, you did good work tonight, and I'll make sure Captain DiFalco knows it. You helped us out when we needed you, and we—”

“I know,” Gloria interrupted with a yawn. “You couldn't have done it without me. Thank you, Captain. You tell that to DiFalco
on paper
instead of over the phone and we'll call it even.”

He gave her a tired smile. “Consider it done.”

After five hours' shut-eye, Marian drove to Hastings Street and rousted Kevin Kirby out of a deep sleep. He was a slow waker, and was dressed and handcuffed before he started to get worried. At Midtown South, Marian and Murtaugh had a go at both Kirby and Vasquez; a detective named Sergeant Campos, just back from picking up a prisoner in Miami, acted as interpreter for the latter. The story they told was the same.

Ernie Nordstrom had recruited them for what he claimed was an inside job. He knew what time the cleaning crew showed up in the morning and how long they'd have to go through the dressing rooms before the stage doorkeeper was due to arrive—the information provided by Nordstrom's contact inside the Broadhurst. That was all Kevin Kirby knew, except that he'd tucked away Kelly Ingram's hairbrush as a souvenir. Vasquez added that the contact's cut was to be one specific item Ernie was to take. What item? Vasquez didn't know. Who was the contact? Ernie never said.

Kirby had been scared witless when he learned Nordstrom had been murdered. Marian believed his reaction; she didn't think he was that good an actor. But he had an alibi for the night before, he said; he'd been rehearsing a part in a new Off-Off-Off-Broadway play—well, New Jersey, actually. But they'd been doing an early run-through in the writer-director's apartment in Chelsea and didn't stop until nearly two in the morning; then four of them had gone out for something to eat. Murtaugh gave Perlmutter the job of checking out the alibi.

“So have we got a motive?” Murtaugh asked Marian later in his office. “An insider at the Broadhurst wants something that's kept backstage. He wants it so badly that he lines up Ernie Nordstrom to do a sweep of theater ‘collectibles'—a variety of thefts to hide one particular one. Then say Nordstrom holds out on him. The contact tries to get whatever it is away from Nordstrom and ends up killing him. Is that how you read it?”

“Just about,” Marian agreed.

“Is ‘Nordstrom' his real name? See if you can find out. The doorman knew him as Mr. Norris. When are you going back to his apartment?”

“Right now. And the first thing I'm going to look for is Xandria Priest's diary.”

Murtaugh pressed his lips together, eyeing Marian carefully. “Larch, you're not going to quit on me in mid-investigation, are you?”

Her eyebrows went up. “I wouldn't dream of it.”

“You've given up the idea of resigning, then?”

“No, but not until this case is wrapped up. I told you that yesterday, Captain. True, it's turned out to be a bit more than I bargained for, but it's
my
case … it is my case, isn't it? You're not giving it to someone else?”

He smiled. “I wouldn't dream of it,” he said, echoing her. “No, your assurance that you're going to stick is enough for me.”

“Well, you've got that,” Marian said emphatically. “Now, I'd better be moving.”

He waved her out.

Marian left the car and walked down to Thirty-fourth to catch a crosstown bus. At Second Avenue she transferred to a downtown bus for the short ride to the block where Ernie Nordstrom's building was located. A different doorman was on duty; he too referred to the dead man as Mr. Norris when she asked. Upstairs, a uniformed officer stood by Nordstrom's door; crime scenes were guarded for twenty-four hours. Marian identified herself and was let into the apartment.

She looked through Nordstrom's inventory book and located the code number for Xandria Priest's diary, praying the dead man hadn't already disposed of it. She found it in a box containing letters and postcards written by celebrities; there was even a bank card with Greta Garbo's signature on it. Marian opened the diary and began to read.

After the first three or four pages, she started skimming. Compliments! Page after page of compliments! Xandria's “diary” was nothing but a record of the day-by-day compliments that had been paid to her. Occasionally there'd be the plaintive entry, “Nobody said anything nice today.” But there was some sort of entry for every day of the year. It took a certain amount of discipline to keep a diary at all, but
this
…! It was as if the compliments would evaporate unless they were written down quickly. Young Xandria needed a
lot
of reinforcement.

Marian cleared a place on the top of Ernie Nordstrom's desk and put the diary there. Then she began a systematic check of her list of items stolen from the Broadhurst. It took a long time; she worked right through lunch, ignoring her growling stomach as she opened boxes and rummaged through them. Nordstrom's inventory record had lines drawn through two entries, those for a vase and for Kelly Ingram's sneakers; Marian assumed that meant the items had been sold. Kelly would be amused to learn her old sneakers had some value after all. Or maybe not; it depended on how funny Kelly thought foot fetishism was.

Aside from those two items Nordstrom had disposed of, Marian found six others missing. Three costumes: the much-missed Sarah Bernhardt jacket, a gown worn by Xandria Priest, and an imitation fur coat worn by a woman named Frieda Armstrong, who played Kelly's and Xandria's mother in
The Apostrophe Thief
. Also: Kelly's hairbrush, Ian Cavanaugh's shaving mug, and the notebook computer belonging to Mitchell Tobin.

Tobin—he was the one who'd had all the electronic gadgets in his dressing room. Kevin Kirby had pinched Kelly's hairbrush, so that brought the list of missing items down to five. Marian was sorry Cavanaugh's shaving mug was gone; he wanted it back so very much. But everything else was there: all the scripts, the rest of the costumes, the few props that had been taken, the two paintings, the personal items—even Kelly's hand lotion was there.

Three costumes. A shaving mug. A notebook computer. Ernie Nordstrom had been killed for one of them.

That part of her job finished, Marian sat down at the desk to see what she could learn about the murdered man. No personal letters, no checkbooks, no income tax papers. She found an assortment of money order stubs, bundled together with rubber bands. Nordstrom had paid his rent and utility bills that way—the unavoidable bills. But you didn't need to give a social security number when buying money orders, the way you did when opening a bank account. No telephone bills, because there was no telephone.

Marian found a lease made out to Eddie Norris. So was that his real name? “Eddie Norris” sounded more like a made-up name than “Ernie Nordstrom” did, though; “Norris” was probably for the purpose of renting the apartment. That way he could use his own name for all his dealing without worrying someone would track him down. And Nordstrom had had an elaborate burglar alarm system installed in the apartment. Perhaps all dealers did, just being
precautious
, as Luke Zingone would say.

But the alarm had been off and the door open last night. Vasquez swore that was the way he'd found them. So Nordstrom had let the killer in, not suspecting anything.

The bottom drawer of the desk turned out to be a built-in safe; Marian made a note to request a police locksmith. There hadn't been much loose cash in the apartment, a couple of hundred dollars. And Nordstrom didn't seem to care for banks much. It could be his whole stash was right there in the desk safe.

The only other thing Marian found of interest was a small book of addresses and phone numbers. All dealers and collectors, most likely; the Zingones were listed there. There was no “Norris” or “Nordstrom” listing—did that mean he had no family? Since the dead man was so wary about putting his name on legal documents, he probably hadn't made a will. But if Nordstrom or Norris had died intestate and indeed had no living relatives, then the City of New York had just become the legal owner of an impressive collection of show biz memorabilia.

With a sigh Marian dropped the address book in her handbag; everyone listed there would have to be contacted. She might as well go back to Midtown South and get started.

At the end of the day Marian went home no closer to an answer than she'd been before she began her marathon telephoning session. Every number in Ernie Nordstrom's book was that of a dealer or collector, everyone with whom he did business or with whom he might do business in the future. No friends. No relatives. No number for the Broadhurst Theatre or for any of the cast or crew of
The Apostrophe Thief
. Whoever had set up the backstage burglary, he was as faceless as ever.

Marian had called Kelly after her Wednesday matinee to let her know what had happened. When she finally got her friend calmed down enough to listen, she asked her to break the news to Ian Cavanaugh that his shaving mug was not part of the recovered loot. Marian said she'd probably be coming in to the theater tomorrow or the next day.

Perlmutter had reported that Kevin Kirby's alibi checked out. And the police locksmith had gotten Nordstrom's safe open, to find it filled with cash. Ninety-one thousand dollars, squirreled away by a man who lived in a cramped, claustrophobic apartment that was little more than a high-rise warehouse. Nothing else was in the safe.

Ernie Nordstrom had been a man with an obsession, an obsession so great it had blotted out everything else from his life. Nothing at all mattered to him except Elizabeth Taylor's eyeliner, or Katherine Cornell's monogrammed handkerchief, or a restaurant menu Anthony Hopkins had autographed. Nordstrom didn't mind breaking the law if it netted him a few more treasures to trade/sell/keep. Someone with
The Apostrophe Thief
had known of that obsession and used it to get what he wanted. And he'd paid Nordstrom off by killing him.

It was dark by the time Marian got home. She parked in her usual place, a delivery zone belonging to a printing company that closed promptly at 5:00, and walked toward her building. Parked directly in front of the entrance was a black Jaguar; the door opened and Holland got out.

“You worked today,” he said flatly. “That means you didn't find your man last night.”

“I found him,” she answered in an equally flat tone. “I found him dead. He'd been strangled.”

There was a pause, and then he came up to her, his eyes like ice. “Why didn't you call me?”

“What?”

“You walk in on a murder and you don't bother to tell me about it? You should have called me.”

“Why? I didn't get home until after four, and there wasn't anything you—”

“
You should have called me
.”

Marian was puzzled; it wasn't like Holland to play the protective male, and she didn't think that was what he was doing now. “Explain it to me,” she said quietly.

“I would have hoped,” he said stiffly, “that you'd want me to know when something significant happened in your life. Yesterday you were an inch away from resigning. Today you're out looking for a murderer, still carrying that badge and doing your usual job. That's a big turnaround, isn't it?”

“Holland—”

“Not that I expect us to
report in
to each other,” he went on coldly, “but I had presumed a connection existed between us. I was wrong, I now see. If you wish to exclude me from your life, I would appreciate your telling me so right now.”

Oh lord, he was feeling she'd turned her back on him. And she
had
remembered to call Kelly. “I would have told you in time,” she said. “I just hadn't gotten to it yet. Look, can we go get something to eat? I missed lunch and if I don't get something in my stomach soon I'm going to keel over. I'll tell you all about it over dinner.”