Three-Day Town

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



Reacting 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.”

Once again, I did not get the smile I’d hoped for.

“That thing my grandmother sent. Did she include a note?”

“I didn’t notice,” I said. “Not after I saw what it was.”

“But what was it?” Buntrock asked again.

“Well… it was rather intricate and—Oh wait! I can show you.” I set the camera to display, and when I found a close-up that Dwight had taken, I zoomed in and handed it to him.

Both were too sophisticated to make the obvious lewd remarks, and Buntrock’s brow furrowed as he concentrated. “God! What a racist bit of obscenity. The hooked noses. The exaggerated lips. And yet it reminds me of—Oh, Lord! Could this be one of those Streichert maquettes?”

“A what?” Sigrid and I both asked.

“There was an article in the Smithsonian magazine last month on Al Streichert and his early works. Did you see it?”

I shook my head. I’d never heard of an Al Streichert, but Sigrid was nodding slowly. “I didn’t read the article, but someone mentioned it.”

“Who’s Al Streichert?” I asked.

“Albrecht Streichert. Sculptor. Worked mostly in stainless steel.”

I rummaged through old memories of the one art history course I had taken in college. “Like Henry Moore?”

Buntrock nodded. “Only less abstract and not quite as famous. He left Germany in the mid-thirties, but not before he’d bought into all that Aryan garbage about the need for racial cleansing. Once he got to New York, though, and saw how thoroughly integral to the artistic culture Jews and blacks were, he was so conflicted—at least that’s what he later said in his autobiography—that he made a few small bronzes like this thing for his own pathetic amusement.”

He handed the camera to Sigrid, who frowned as she studied it closely. “How on earth did my grandmother come by something so odious?”

“I don’t suppose she was part of the New York art scene in her youth?”

“Not that I’m aware of. Mother might know. On the other hand, Grandmother’s taste in art has always been American landscapes like the Hudson River School.”

I peered into the camera when she handed it back to me. “If he made a bunch of these—”

“But he didn’t,” said Buntrock. “And he never showed them to anyone except like-minded bigots. That’s what makes this so curious. We know about them solely by hearsay and a single photograph which was taken by one of those friends. According to the Smithsonian article, he only made three or four, and he melted those down and donated the bronze to the war effort when he fell in love and married his wife. She was Jewish and he was utterly devoted to her. According to the granddaughter—she’s the one who gave the interview—he never got over being ashamed of that part of his past.”

“Maybe this one’s not by him after all,” I suggested.

“I don’t suppose you checked to see if it was signed?” asked Buntrock.

“Sorry.”

Sigrid was still puzzled. “I wonder why Grandmother sent this to Mother. Why didn’t she just destroy it if she read the article?”

Buntrock shrugged. “Would you destroy a Henry Moore?”

Before she could answer, the front door opened and a man and a younger woman entered. I didn’t need to be told that they were homicide detectives.