Thirty minutes later, Detective Heat stepped off the Guilford’s elevator on six and strode the hall to where Raley stood with a uniform outside the open door to the Starr apartment. The door frame bore a crime scene posting and the requisite yellow tape. Stacked on the luxurious hallway carpet by the door were plastic snap-?lid tubs labeled “Forensics.”
Raley nodded hello and held up the police line tape for her. She ducked under and entered the apartment. “Holy shit,” said Nikki, turning a circle in the middle of the living room. She craned her neck upward to the take in the full height of the cathedral ceiling, believing what she was seeing, yet stunned at the sight. The walls were stripped bare, and all that was left were the nails and mountings.
That living room had been Matthew Starr’s self-?proclaimed Versailles. And even if it hadn’t been an actual palace, as a single room it most certainly qualified as a museum chamber with its two stories of wall space graced by some valuable, if not cohesively collected, works of art. “Amazing what happens to the size of a room when you strip everything off the walls.”
Rook stepped over beside her. “I know. It looks bigger.”
“Really?” she said. “I was going to say smaller.”
He flicked his eyebrows. “Guess size is a matter of personal experience.”
She shot Rook a furtive cool-?it look and turned her back on him. When she did, Nikki was certain she caught a fast glance darting between Raley and Ochoa. Well, she thought she was certain, anyway.
She made a forceful show of getting down to business. “Ochoa. We’re absolutely sure Kimberly Starr and her son weren’t here when this went down?” The detective needed to know if a kidnapping was rolled into this.
“Daytime doorman said she left yesterday morning with the kid.” He flipped back through his spiral pad. “Here it is. Doorman got a call to help her out with a rolling suitcase. That was about ten A.M. Her son was with her.”
“Did she say where they were going?”
“He hailed her a cab to Grand Central. From there, he didn’t know.”
“Raley, I know we have her cell phone number. Dig it out and see if she picks up. And go easy when you break the news, she’s had a hell of a week.”
“On it,” said Raley, who then head-?nodded to the pair of detectives on the balcony. “Just to be clear, are we working this, or is Burglary?”
“Heaven forbid, but we may actually have to cooperate. Sure it’s a twenty-?one, but we can’t rule it out as part of our homicide investigation. Not yet, anyway.” Especially with the discovery of the Jane Doe from the surveillance tape and the ring at her death scene likely belonging to Pochenko, even a rookie’s cop sense would tie it all together. What remained was to uncover how. “I expect you to play nice with them. Just don’t give away our secret handshake, OK?”
The pair from Burglary, Detectives Gunther and Francis, were cooperative but didn’t have much information to share. There were clear signs of forced entry; they used power tools, obviously battery-?operated, to compromise the front door of the apartment. “Beyond, that,” said Detective Gunther, “it’s all pretty much neatsy tidy. Maybe the lab rats will pick up something.”
“Something’s not lining up for me,” Nikki said. “Moving this haul would take time and manpower. Blackout or not, somebody had to see or hear something.”
“Agreed,” said Gunther. “I had a thought we should split off now and knock on a few doors, find out if anyone heard anything go bump in the night.”
Heat nodded. “Good thought.”
“Is there anything else missing?” asked Rook. Nikki liked his question. Not only was it smart, but she felt relieved he had dropped the seventh-?grade innuendos.
“Still checking,” said Francis. “Obviously we’ll know more when the resident, Mrs. Starr, gives it a once-?over, but so far, it appears to be just the art.”
Then Ochoa did what they all kept doing, looking at the blank walls. “Man, how much did they say this collection was worth?”
Nikki answered, “Fifty to sixty mil, give or take.”
“Looks definitely more like take,” said Rook.