Three-Day Town (5 page)

“Knott,” I said, holding out my hand. “Deborah Knott. And you must be Sigrid Harald.”

“Sigrid Harald?” There was almost a reverent tone in the voice of a nearby man who had turned around eagerly upon hearing her name. He had a shaved head and wore yellow-rimmed trifocals. “
The
Sigrid Harald? I’m Charles Rathmann. I’ve been dying to interview you about Oscar Nauman’s last—”

Her gray eyes immediately turned to chips of ice.

“No,” she said before the man could complete his sentence.

The chilly finality of her tone, coupled with the glares he was getting from the storklike man she’d called Elliott, left Rathmann red-faced and defensive. Even the top of his head turned red.

“I do assure you, Ms. Harald—”

“Not now, Rathmann,” the first man said. His tone was mild, but Rathmann must have heard something more, for he muttered a truculent apology to Ms. Harald and melted back into the crowd.

“Elliott Buntrock,” the man said, offering me a firm handshake, “and I gather from your drawl that you’re not from around here.”

I smiled but didn’t answer, because I didn’t know what their relationship was. Kate had told me that Mrs. Lattimore’s granddaughter, a homicide detective with the NYPD, had inherited the large estate of one of the leading artists of the twentieth century. I could imagine just how many Rathmanns must be buzzing around her like a swarm of mosquitoes. Was Buntrock another bloodsucker or a flyswatter?

“Thanks, Elliott.” Her half smile reached her eyes and melted those chips of ice.

Flyswatter, then.

“Actually, I’m glad you’re here,” she said. “This is Judge Knott, a friend of my grandmother, who seems to have sent my mother a very odd piece of art. Would you take a look at it?”

“Sure. When?”

“Now?” She looked at me. “I’m sorry to take you away from the party, but—”

“No problem,” I assured her.

Easier said than done for three people to move through that crush of people. Near the doorway, Dwight was in animated conversation with two men—one an African-American, the other of Asian descent—and he brightened when he saw me. “Deb’rah! Look who’s here! This is my old friend Josh Cho.”

“From John Jay College?” I asked, taking the hand of the short, slender man whose military posture and immediate appraisal of me would have ID’d him as former Army Intelligence even if I hadn’t known.

He nodded, but his words were lost beneath all the talk and laughter going on around us. I did make out that the second man was with the New York Police Department and that both of them had worked as consultants on an abortive police drama that was to have starred Luna. When I introduced Elliott Buntrock and Sigrid Harald to Dwight, the second man said, “I’ve had the pleasure of working with Lieutenant Harald before.”

She smiled at the tall black officer with what was clearly genuine pleasure. “Sergeant Vaughn. You still with the Six-Four over in Brooklyn?”

He nodded. “But it’s lieutenant now, ma’am.”

“Congratulations.”

“I heard you took early retirement?”

“A premature rumor,” she said as she gave me an inquiring look that reminded me that she was not here to socialize.

I explained to Dwight that we were going over to the apartment to get Mrs. Lattimore’s package. He grinned and said he’d see me when I got back.

We murmured the usual pleasantries to the others and eventually worked our way out into the hall, past the coat racks and the open doorway, where the party seemed to have spilled into the other apartment. The hall was blocked by people waiting for the elevator, and we had to step back as more partygoers arrived.

I had my keys in hand as we edged past the revelers toward Kate’s apartment. Once there, though, I was surprised to see that the door was ajar. In my hurry to get back to the party with the camera, I hadn’t thought to check that it was firmly latched.

Out in the kitchen, surprise was soon followed by dismay. “I left it right here on this counter,” I told the other two. “And a pair of gold earrings, too.”

The countertop was now bare except for the box and the wrappings that had swaddled that bronze sculpture.

I hurried into the master bedroom and was relieved to see no sign that the drawers had been opened and rifled. The little silk travel bag with the rest of my jewelry still lay atop the dresser, exposing the gold-and-blue-enamel bracelet I’d brought with me. A posthumous gift sent down through the years from my mother, its value to me was above rubies.

“Anything else missing?” Lieutenant Harald asked.

“My laptop?”

I darted into the dining room, shivering at the thought of all the lost data. Happily, it was still there on the table.

An instant later, I realized I was shivering as much from cold as from dismay.

“Where’s that draft coming from?” I wondered aloud.

We followed the icy air into the dimly lit living room, where one of the French doors was ajar. Elliott Buntrock crossed the room in long strides and tried to close it.

“Something’s caught in the hinge,” he said and pulled the door toward him to see what it was.

A shoe.

With a foot in it.

Connected to the leg of someone slumped against the railing of the icy marble balcony.

CHAPTER

4

It is useless to discuss [it], whether in brass or iron or gold, as either an ornament or an excrescence.

—
The New New York
, 1909

R
eacting automatically, Sigrid Harald warned us not to touch anything. She stooped over the figure and pressed her fingers against a pressure point on his ankle before moving onto the balcony to check the side of his neck.

“No pulse,” she said.

Rain had saturated his hair and run down the side of his face, and when her fingers came away, they were not only wet but tinged with blood. Buntrock handed her his clean handkerchief. She wiped her hand dry, then pulled out her cell phone.

When someone answered on the other end, she said, “Hentz? Lieutenant Harald. I didn’t realize you were on call tonight.”

She described the situation and gave him the address. “Lieutenant Vaughn of the Six-Four is here, but we need extra uniforms immediately. There’s a big party on this floor so there should be possible witnesses to whoever entered this apartment. I want everyone detained till we get all their names.”

While she talked, Elliott Buntrock wandered over to look at the signatures of several paintings grouped on a wall.

Dwight and I had not used this room except to check out the balcony when we first arrived, and I hadn’t paid much attention to the furnishings. A little wooden cat—Mexican?—painted in lavender, turquoise, and pink stripes sat on a table beneath the pictures beside two small, brightly enameled cloisonné pillboxes. The pointed face had blue eyes, a knowing grin, and yellow whiskers and it was utterly charming. I was surprised that I hadn’t noticed it before. Such whimsicality didn’t really go with either the pillboxes or the rest of the apartment, which had been stripped of Kate’s personality and replaced by what I presumed was her tenant’s more conservative taste in décor. The more I thought about it, the more certain I became that there had been several of those boxes and that the cat hadn’t been there earlier.

“Would you mind getting Lieutenant Vaughn?” Harald asked me. “And maybe your husband, too. He’s a sworn law officer, isn’t he?”

I nodded and hurried toward the door.

“Try not to let any of the others know,” she called after me.

Moments later, Dwight and Vaughn were following me back into the apartment. Josh Cho had tagged along, too. I hadn’t been able to keep him from hearing and I figured it didn’t matter. Anyone who teaches at John Jay would surely be professional enough to help, not hinder.

I hadn’t tried to see the dead man’s face, but Dwight took one look and said, “It’s the building’s super. Phil Something.”

“Phil Lundigren,” I reminded him. “He told us he and his wife live on the ground floor.” I was still feeling guilty about the open door. “Maybe he’s the one who left the door open.”

Dwight frowned. “The door was open?”

I nodded. “Remember when I came back for our camera? I thought I closed it, but when we got here just now it was standing open a crack.”

“Which opens it up to everyone out there in the hall,” Lieutenant Harald told Jarvis Vaughn. “So if you would?”

She didn’t have to say more. He immediately headed for the door. “I’ll tell the elevator operator not to take anyone else down.”

“What about stairs?” Dwight asked her.

“Yes, please.”

“There’s bound to be a service elevator, too,” said Josh Cho, trailing after the other two. “I’ll go secure it.”

When it was just the three of us again, Lieutenant Harald questioned me more closely as to our interaction with the building’s dead super, then asked, “How much time elapsed between your coming back for the camera and when we discovered the body?”

“About eighty-five or ninety minutes tops,” I told her. “We came out into the hall around nine. The hall was jammed with people, and when I saw some guys from the Steffingtons—”

“The
who
?” she asked.

“Not the Who,” I said. “The Steffingtons.”

Buntrock grinned. “Who’s on first?”

She frowned at him. “Not a game, Elliott.”

“Sorry. The Steffingtons are a bubblegum rock group, not Daltrey and Townshend.”

“My nieces like them,” I said defensively.

“And being a good aunt?” he asked.

“Exactly.”

Harald was unamused. “The time?”

“Not more than eight or ten minutes past nine,” I said meekly.

“And the hall was crowded?”

I nodded.

“Can you describe anyone in particular when you came back for the camera?”

“Not really. I was more intent on getting past them. And besides, the elevator kept bringing up more people. I do remember a woman in a hot pink tank top and white jeans, and there was a man with a blue Mohawk, but dye his Mohawk red and put her in something that didn’t scream tripleD cup and I couldn’t give you an honest ID. I’m afraid I’m a typical eyewitness—blind in one eye, didn’t see out the other.” I was hoping to foster a little collegiality. After all, we were fellow officers of the court, weren’t we? She didn’t smile. “Anyhow, we both know how inaccurate such accounts are unless the witness knows the person.”

She gave a curt nod and wanted to see specifically where I had left my earrings. “Is anything else missing or disturbed?”

“I can’t be sure. We only arrived last night, but I’m fairly certain that painted cat wasn’t there and that there were more of those little boxes.” I realized anew how chilly the apartment was now and moved over to the radiator, which was hot to the touch but ineffectual with the French door opened so wide.

“Can’t we at least close the door?” I asked. “His foot’s barely blocking it and surely it won’t matter if we nudge it over a couple of inches.” I offered her my camera. “You can even take pictures if you’re worried about disturbing a crime scene.”

She pushed the door to until it was in the same position as we’d found it, but an inch-wide crack remained. At least the icy rain wasn’t coming from that direction.

“Sorry,” she said, not sounding sorry at all as she pulled on leather gloves from the deep pockets of the parka she was wearing. Even her friend was wearing at least two layers, while I had only my red cashmere sweater.

Resigned, I said, “Then you won’t mind if I get my coat.”

She followed me back into the bedroom. “In the closet?”

I nodded and she used her gloved hand to carefully turn the knob on the closet door.

Dismayed, I said, “You’re not going to have your people dust for prints in here, are you? Do you know how hard that stuff is to clean up? Worse than cigarette ashes.”

She eyed my exposed jewelry and conceded that it would probably be pointless.

Once I was zipped into my own parka, I could satisfy my curiosity about Mrs. Lattimore’s by-the-book granddaughter. Other than her changeable gray eyes and her height, I couldn’t see much family resemblance. Even in sickness and old age, Jane Lattimore retained remnants of great beauty, and this woman was striking without being beautiful as the world usually defines it. Thin nose and high cheekbones, yes, but her neck was a little too long, her mouth too wide, her chin too strong. She certainly had the Lattimore reserve in spades, although it seemed tinged by sadness. Or maybe that was only my imagination, because Kate had told me how that artist had died in a car crash a few short months after they became lovers. If there was any chemistry between her and this Buntrock, I couldn’t see it. Not on her part, anyhow.

On his?

Hard to say. Certainly he seemed very much attuned to her restless pacing as we waited for the troops to arrive. “Rathmann?” he asked.

She gave an impatient twitch of her thin shoulders. “I should be used to the Rathmanns by now.”

“I was sorry to hear about your loss,” I said inanely even though her lover’s death must have happened at least two or three years ago. Her face froze and I instantly wished I could take back the words.

Buntrock cocked his bony head like an intelligent bird on the alert and rescued me. “About that object that’s missing…”

As if grateful to change the subject, she said, “Yes, my grandmother gave it to Judge Knott and—”

“Oh please,” I interrupted. “Call me Deborah. We may not be kissing cousins, but we
are
kin. Somewhere back in the family tree.”

Diverted, Elliott Buntrock said, “What’s a kissing cousin?”

For the first time since finding Phil Lundigren’s body, I laughed. “All cousins are blood kin, but a kissing cousin is one closely enough related that you automatically hug and kiss going or coming.”

A slightly horrified look crossed the other woman’s face, and when she visibly drew back, I almost laughed again. “Don’t worry, Sigrid. I’m not going to hug you.”