Lotty brushed them aside. “I am confused about the seal of Joseph the Second?” she hissed at Caudwell. “Or about this chip on Hector’s foot? You can see the line where some Philistine filled in the missing piece. Some person who thought his touch would add value to Pietro’s work. Was that you, doctor? Or your father?”
“Lotty.” Max was at her side, gently prizing the statue from her shaking hands to restore it to its pedestal. “Lotty, this is not the place or the manner to discuss such things.”
Angry tears sparkled in her black eyes. “Are you doubting my word?”
Max shook his head. “I’m not doubting you. But I’m also not supporting you. I’m asking you not to talk about this matter in this way at this gathering.”
“But, Max: either this man or his father is a thief!”
Caudwell strolled up to Lotty and pinched her chin. “You’re working too hard, Dr. Herschel. You have too many things on your mind these days. I think the board would like to see you take a leave of absence for a few weeks, go someplace warm, get yourself relaxed. When you’re this tense, you’re no good to your patients. What do you say, Loewenthal?”
Max didn’t say any of the things he wanted to—that Lotty was insufferable and Caudwell intolerable. He believed Lotty, believed that the piece had been her grandmother’s. She knew too much about it, for one thing. And for another, a lot of artworks belonging to European Jews were now in museums or private collections around the world. It was only the most god-awful coincidence that the Pietro had ended up with Caudwell’s father.
But how dare she raise the matter in the way most likely to alienate everyone present? He couldn’t possibly support her in such a situation. And at the same time, Caudwell’s pinching her chin in that condescending way made him wish he were not chained to a courtesy that would have kept him from knocking the surgeon out even if he’d been ten years younger and ten inches taller.
“I don’t think this is the place or the time to discuss such matters,” he reiterated as calmly as he could. “Why don’t we all cool down and get back together on Monday, eh?”
Lotty gasped involuntarily, then swept from the room without a backward glance.
Max refused to follow her. He was too angry with her to want to see her again that afternoon. When he got ready to leave the party an hour or so later, after a long conversation with Caudwell that taxed his sophisticated urbanity to the utmost, he heard with relief that Lotty was long gone. The tale of her outburst had of course spread through the gathering at something faster than the speed of sound; he wasn’t up to defending her to Martha Gildersleeve who demanded an explanation of him in the elevator going down.
He went home for a solitary evening in his house in Evanston.
Normally such time brought him pleasure, listening to music in his study, lying on the couch with his shoes off, reading history, letting the sounds of the lake wash over him.
Tonight, though, he could get no relief. Fury with Lotty merged into images of horror, the memories of his own disintegrated family, his search through Europe for his mother. He had never found anyone who was quite certain what became of her, although several people told him definitely of his father’s suicide. And stamped over these wisps in his brain was the disturbing picture of Caudwell’s children, their blond heads leaning backward at identical angles as they gleefully chanted, “Grandpa was a thief, Grandpa was a thief,” while Caudwell edged his visitors out of the study.
By morning he would somehow have to reconstruct himself enough to face Lotty, to respond to the inevitable flood of calls from outraged trustees. He’d have to figure out a way of soothing Caudwell’s vanity, bruised more by his children’s behavior than anything Lotty had said. And find a way to keep both important doctors at Beth Israel.
Max rubbed his gray hair. Every week this job brought him less joy and more pain. Maybe it was time to step down, to let the board bring in a young MBA who would turn Beth Israel’s finances around. Lotty would resign then, and it would be an end to the tension between her and Caudwell.
Max fell asleep on the couch. He awoke around five muttering, “By morning, by morning.” His joints were stiff from cold, his eyes sticky with tears he’d shed unknowingly in his sleep.
But in the morning things changed. When Max got to his office he found the place buzzing, not with news of Lotty’s outburst but word that Caudwell had missed his early morning surgery. Work came almost completely to a halt at noon when his children phoned to say they’d found the surgeon strangled in his own study and the Pietro Andromache missing. And on Tuesday, the police arrested Dr. Charlotte Herschel for Lewis Caudwell’s murder.
III
Lotty would not speak to anyone. She was out on two hundred fifty thousand dollars’ bail, the money raised by Max, but she had gone directly to her apartment on Sheffield after two nights in County Jail without stopping to thank him. She would not talk to reporters, she remained silent during all conversations with the police, and she emphatically refused to speak to the private investigator who had been her close friend for many years.
Max, too, stayed behind an impregnable shield of silence. While Lotty went on indefinite leave, turning her practice over to a series of colleagues, Max continued to go to the hospital every day. But he, too, would not speak to reporters: he wouldn’t even say, “No comment.” He talked to the police only after they threatened to lock him up as a material witness, and then every word had to be pried from him as if his mouth were stone and speech Excalibur. For three days V. I. Warshawski left messages which he refused to return.
On Friday, when no word came from the detective, when no reporter popped up from a nearby urinal in the men’s room to try to trick him into speaking, when no more calls came from the state’s attorney, Max felt a measure of relaxation as he drove home. As soon as the trial was over he would resign, retire to London. If he could only keep going until then, everything would be—not all right, but bearable.
He used the remote release for the garage door and eased his car into the small space. As he got out he realized bitterly he’d been too optimistic in thinking he’d be left in peace. He hadn’t seen the woman sitting on the stoop leading from the garage to the kitchen when he drove in, only as she uncoiled herself at his approach.
“I’m glad you’re home—I was beginning to freeze out here.”
“How did you get into the garage, Victoria?”
The detective grinned in a way he usually found engaging.
Now it seemed merely predatory. “Trade secret, Max. I know you don’t want to see me, but I need to talk to you.”
He unlocked the door into the kitchen. “Why not just let yourself into the house if you were cold? If your scruples permit you into the garage, why not into the house?”
She bit her lip in momentary discomfort but said lightly, “I couldn’t manage my picklocks with my fingers this cold.”
The detective followed him into the house. Another tall monster; five foot eight, athletic, light on her feet behind him. Maybe American mothers put growth hormones or steroids in their children’s cornflakes. He’d have to ask Lotty. His mind winced at the thought.
“I’ve talked to the police, of course,” the light alto continued behind him steadily, oblivious to his studied rudeness as he poured himself a cognac, took his shoes off, found his waiting slippers, and padded down the hall to the front door for his mail.
“I understand why they arrested Lotty—Caudwell had been doped with a whole bunch of Xanax and then strangled while he was sleeping it off. And, of course, she was back at the building Sunday night. She won’t say why, but one of the tenants ID’d her as the woman who showed up around ten at the service entrance when he was walking his dog. She won’t say if she talked to Caudwell, if he let her in, if he was still alive.”
Max tried to ignore her clear voice. When that proved impossible he tried to read a journal which had come in the mail.
“And those kids, they’re marvelous, aren’t they?
Like something out of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. They won’t talk to me but they gave a long interview to Murray Ryerson over at the Star.
“After Caudwell’s guests left, they went to a flick at the Chestnut Street Station, had a pizza afterwards, then took themselves dancing on Division Street. So they strolled in around two in the morning—confirmed by the doorman—saw the light on in the old man’s study. But they were feeling no pain and he kind of overreacted—their term—if they were buzzed, so they didn’t stop
in to say goodnight. It was only when they got up around noon and went in that they found him.”
V. I. had followed Max from the front hallway to the door of his study as she spoke. He stood there irresolutely, not wanting his private place desecrated with her insistent, air-hammer speech, and finally went on down the hall to a little-used living room. He sat stiffly on one of the brocade armchairs and looked at her remotely when she perched on the edge of its companion.
“The weak piece in the police story is the statue,” V.I. continued.
She eyed the Persian rug doubtfully and unzipped her boots, sticking them on the bricks in front of the fireplace.
“Everyone who was at the party agrees that Lotty was beside herself. By now the story has spread so far that people who weren’t even in the apartment when she looked at the statue swear they heard her threaten to kill him. But if that’s the case, what happened to the statue?”
Max gave a slight shrug to indicate total lack of interest in the topic.
V.I. plowed on doggedly. “Now some people think she might have given it to a friend or a relation to keep for her until her name is cleared at the trial. And these people think it would be either her Uncle Stefan here in Chicago, her brother Hugo in Montreal, or you. So the Mounties searched Hugo’s place and are keeping an eye on his mail. And the Chicago cops are doing the same for Stefan. And I presume someone got a warrant and went through here, right?”
Max said nothing, but he felt his heart beating faster. Police in his house, searching his things? But wouldn’t they have to get his permission to enter? Or would they? Victoria would know, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask. She waited for a few minutes, but when he still wouldn’t speak, she plunged on. He could see it was becoming an effort for her to talk, but he wouldn’t help her.
“But I don’t agree with those people. Because I know that Lotty is innocent. And that’s why I’m here. Not like a bird of prey, as you think, using your misery for carrion. But to get you to help
me. Lotty won’t speak to me, and if she’s that miserable I won’t force her to. But surely, Max, you won’t sit idly by and let her be railroaded for something she never did.”
Max looked away from her. He was surprised to find himself holding the brandy snifter and set it carefully on a table beside him.
“Max!” Her voice was shot with astonishment. “I don’t believe this. You actually think she killed Caudwell.”
Max flushed a little, but she’d finally stung him into a response. “And you are God who sees all and knows she didn’t?”
“I see more than you do,” V.I. snapped. “I haven’t known Lotty as long as you have, but I know when she’s telling the truth.”
“So you are God.” Max bowed in heavy irony. “You see beyond the facts to the innermost souls of men and women.”
He expected another outburst from the young woman, but she gazed at him steadily without speaking. It was a look sympathetic enough that Max felt embarrassed by his sarcasm and burst out with what was on his mind.
“What else am I to think? She hasn’t said anything, but there’s no doubt that she returned to his apartment Sunday night.”
It was V.I.’s turn for sarcasm. “With a little vial of Xanax that she somehow induced him to swallow? And then strangled him for good measure? Come on, Max, you know Lotty: honesty follows her around like a cloud. If she’d killed Caudwell, she’d say something like, ‘Yes, I bashed the little vermin’s brains in.” Instead she’s not speaking at all.”
Suddenly the detective’s eyes widened with incredulity. “Of course. She thinks you killed Caudwell. You’re doing the only thing you can to protect her—standing mute. And she’s doing the same thing. What an admirable pair of archaic knights.”
“No!” Max said sharply. “It’s not possible. How could she think such a thing? She carried on so wildly that it was embarrassing to be near her. I didn’t want to see her or talk to her. That’s why I’ve felt so terrible. If only I hadn’t been so obstinate, if only I’d called her Sunday night. How could she think
I would kill someone on her behalf when I was so angry with her?”
“Why else isn’t she saying anything to anyone?” Warshawski demanded.
“Shame, maybe,” Max offered. “You didn’t see her on Sunday. I did. That is why I think she killed him, not because some man let her into the building.”
His brown eyes screwed shut at the memory. “I have seen Lotty in the grip of anger many times, more than is pleasant to remember, really. But never, never have I seen her in this kind of—uncontrolled rage. You could not talk to her. It was impossible.”
The detective didn’t respond to that. Instead she said, “Tell me about the statue. I heard a couple of garbled versions from people who were at the party, but I haven’t found anyone yet who was in the study when Caudwell showed it to you. Was it really her grandmother’s, do you think? And how did Caudwell come to have it if it was?”
Max nodded mournfully. “Oh, yes. It was really her family’s, I’m convinced of that. She could not have known in advance about the details, the flaw in the foot, the imperial seal on the bottom. As to how Caudwell got it, I did a little looking into that myself yesterday. His father was with the Army of Occupation in Germany after the war. A surgeon attached to Patton’s staff. Men in such positions had endless opportunities to acquire artworks after the war.”
V.I. shook her head questioningly.
“You must know something of this, Victoria. Well, maybe not. You know the Nazis helped themselves liberally to artwork belonging to Jews everywhere they occupied Europe. And not just to Jews—they plundered Eastern Europe on a grand scale. The best guess is that they stole sixteen million pieces—statues, paintings, altarpieces, tapestries, rare books. The list is beyond reckoning, really.”
The detective gave a little gasp. “Sixteen million! You’re joking.”
“Not a joke, Victoria. I wish it were so, but it is not. The U.S. Army of Occupation took charge of as many works of art as they found in the occupied territories. In theory, they were to find the rightful owners and try to restore them. But in practice few pieces were ever traced, and many of them ended up on the black market.
“You only had to say that such-and-such a piece was worth less than five thousand dollars and you were allowed to buy it. For an officer on Patton’s staff, the opportunities for fabulous acquisitions would have been endless. Caudwell said he had the statue authenticated, but of course he never bothered to establish its provenance. Anyway, how could he?” Max finished bitterly. “Lotty’s family had a deed of gift from the Emperor, but that would have disappeared long since with the dispersal of their possessions.”
“And you really think Lotty would have killed a man just to get this statue back? She couldn’t have expected to keep it. Not if she’d killed someone to get it, I mean.”
“You are so practical, Victoria. You are too analytical, sometimes, to understand why people do what they do. That was not just a statue. True, it is a priceless artwork, but you know Lotty, you know she places no value on such possessions. No, it meant her family to her, her past, her history, everything that the war destroyed forever for her. You must not imagine that because she never discusses such matters that they do not weigh on her.”
V.I. flushed at Max’s accusation. “You should be glad I’m analytical. It convinces me that Lotty is innocent. And whether you believe it or not I’m going to prove it.”
Max lifted h
is shoulders slightly in a manner wholly European. “We each support Lotty according to our lights. I saw that she met her bail, and I will see that she gets expert counsel. I am not convinced that she needs you making her innermost secrets public.”
V.I.’s gray eyes turned dark with a sudden flash of temper. “You’re dead wrong about Lotty. I’m sure the memory of the war is a pain that can never be cured, but Lotty lives in the present,
she works in hope for the future. The past does not obsess and consume her as, perhaps, it does you.”
Max said nothing. His wide mouth turned in on itself in a narrow line. The detective laid a contrite hand on his arm.
“I’m sorry, Max. That was below the belt.”
He forced the ghost of a smile to his mouth.
“Perhaps it’s true. Perhaps it’s why I love these ancient things so much. I wish I could believe you about Lotty. Ask me what you want to know. If you promise to leave as soon as I’ve answered and not to bother me again, I’ll answer your questions.”
IV
Max put in a dutiful appearance at the Michigan Avenue Presbyterian Church Monday afternoon for Lewis Caudwell’s funeral. The surgeon’s former wife came, flanked by her children and her husband’s brother Griffen. Even after three decades in America Max found himself puzzled sometimes by the natives’ behavior: since she and Caudwell were divorced, why had his ex-wife draped herself in black? She was even wearing a veiled hat reminiscent of Queen Victoria.
The children behaved in a moderately subdued fashion, but the girl was wearing a white dress shot with black lightning forks which looked as though it belonged at a disco or a resort. Maybe it was her only dress or her only dress with black in it, Max thought, trying hard to look charitably at the blond Amazon—after all, she had been suddenly and horribly orphaned.
Even though she was a stranger both in the city and the church, Deborah had hired one of the church parlors and managed to find someone to cater coffee and light snacks. Max joined the rest of the congregation there after the service.
A Moment on the Edge:100 Years of Crime Stories by women Page 30
