by James Tucker
“Yeah. I stayed over, went to school the next morning with her.”
Buddy made another note. He said, “Do you know who’d want to kill Bruno, Natalie, Lucy, or William Brook?”
In an instant, John’s face changed. Gone was the confidence, the buoyancy, the hint of defiance, which now were replaced by what appeared to be genuine pain. “Yes, I think so.”
Buddy waited. He hadn’t expected this answer.
John continued: “I mean, how do you tell if someone’s angry or crazy enough to go ballistic? Is there a sign I should’ve noticed? It’s just . . . just bizarre and I feel so badly. So . . .” He suddenly covered his face with his hands and began to sob.
Buddy didn’t move. This is a normal reaction, he reminded himself. Even for an eighteen-year-old boy. Or young man. Buddy felt sympathy, but he was stuck on John’s saying, Yes, I think so.
John wiped tears from his face, looked up, and met Buddy’s eyes.
Buddy nodded once and said, “You have an idea who’d go after your uncle Bruno and his family?”
“Probably not, but . . .” John paused.
Buddy waited.
“I don’t know. No, this probably isn’t anything, but maybe it is.”
Buddy waited.
John again met Buddy’s eyes. “My cousin Lucy had just broken up with some guy she was seeing.”
“His name?”
“She wouldn’t tell me.”
“Someone from her high school?” Buddy suggested. “A friend of her parents’?”
“I don’t know,” John repeated. “I guessed aloud—just like you’re doing now—and she wouldn’t tell me.”
Buddy thought for a moment. He said, “Girls break up with boyfriends all the time. Feelings are hurt but nothing more. Why would this case be different?”
“Because,” John said, “Lucy told me the guy turned crazy on her. Stalked her. Threatened her. Tried to break into their town house.”
Buddy felt himself lean forward. He said, “Was Lucy’s boyfriend violent?”
“Yes.” John nodded. “He hit her in the chest”—John raised his hand and showed the area where a woman’s breasts would be—“and bruised her and maybe broke a rib. She said he’d broken a rib, anyway.”
Buddy made a note and asked, “How do you know this?”
“She showed me.”
Buddy was quiet. He remembered the photographs hanging in the house at Camp Kateri, with the great-looking family wearing not much clothing. He said, “She showed you?”
John looked away, over at the blank television screen. Without meeting Buddy’s eyes, he said, “I don’t know anything else.”
And then he stood and left the den.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Buddy’s mobile vibrated. Alone in the den, he checked the phone’s screen and saw it was Vidas calling.
He stood up and answered, “Yeah?”
“Boss, we’ve got ballistics on the gun fired through the painting in Bruno’s foyer. Some weird shit.”
As Buddy stared out through the large windows at the gray expanse of Central Park far below, he felt a twinge in his stomach. “How’s that?”
“The bullet came from an unusual gun. Antique and expensive. They think it might be a French revolver that’s a hundred fifty years old.”
Buddy considered this information. The killer used hatchets, chemicals, and an ancient pistol. Was he some kind of connoisseur who avoided modern weapons? Some kind of virtuoso? Or were there two killers? He said, “Any way to track the antique gun?”
“The usual places,” Vidas replied. “Gun registries, dealers, auction houses. But you know how touchy those guys have gotten.”
“See if you can find anything,” Buddy told him.
“Will do.”
“And check on the whereabouts of Carl and his family last night. John says they were here in Manhattan, but I want to know if Carl or John could have done Bruno and family or Mei’s apartment.”
“On it.”
Buddy thought more about the weapons used by the killer. He thought about Carl Brook and his brother Dietrich—and about John Brook’s interest in joining a hedge fund.
Vidas said, “Anything else, boss?”
Buddy said, “Walter had a huge company. But maybe when Carl and Dietrich were younger they worked for someone else. Like a brokerage firm or an investment bank. Maybe something in finance. And if they did,” Buddy explained, “they’d have been printed by the SEC.”
Vidas took the next step. “We could compare those prints with whatever we found at the Carlyle.”
Buddy said, “Call the SEC, and get back to me.”
When they’d ended the call, Buddy paced the room for a few minutes. He listened to his shoes on the wood floors. Heard himself breathing. Sensed the momentum growing, the web of evidence being spun.
Chapter Thirty-Four
He brought Carl, Rebecca, and their daughter, Ariel, into the den, and pointedly closed the door on Robert Kahler. He sat down on the other end of the sofa from Carl Brook. Rebecca and Ariel each took one of the ottomans under the television screen. Ariel was slight, with very thin, glossy brown hair. Her fashionable eyeglasses had black frames not much different from her father’s. She removed her glasses and held them in one hand.
He switched on the digital audio recorder and turned to Ariel. “Would you tell me your full name and your age?”
She sat up a little straighter, pleased to be asked the first question. She put on her eyeglasses and said, “My name is Ariel Mila Brook. I’m thirteen years old. Is Ben okay? Is he all right?”
“Yeah,” Buddy told her. “He’s all right.”
“When will I get to see him?”
Rebecca put a hand on her daughter’s leg. “Let the detective ask the questions, Ariel.”
Ariel grew quiet.
Buddy said, “Would you tell me where you were on New Year’s Eve?”
She nodded. “Mostly, I was in the lodge, playing with my cousins. Ping-Pong. Bowling. There’s a bowling alley in the basement.”
“When did you go to bed?”
“Twelve fifteen. I remember looking at my clock to be sure I was awake for the New Year.”
“Do you remember anything unusual from that night?”
She nodded. “Yes.” And then she waited.
Her father cleared his throat. “Tell the detective, Ariel.”
Ariel said, “I smelled vetiver.”
“Vetiver?” Buddy asked. He’d no idea what it was.
“Nobody in our family wears vetiver,” Ariel explained.
Buddy turned to Rebecca with a questioning glance.
Rebecca said, “Vetiver is an ingredient used in perfumes. Ariel is always going into Bergdorf’s with me and testing all the perfumes at the counter. She’s destined to be a perfumier. I don’t know how she can keep them straight, but she knows the difference between Hermès Hiris and Tom Ford’s Costa Azzurra. She’s already being tutored by Olivier Creed. She also goes with Carl to test the men’s cologne.”
Buddy tried to absorb this information. He didn’t know about perfumes but jotted down the name Olivier Creed. He said, “Is vetiver in women’s perfume, or in men’s cologne as well?”
Rebecca said, “It can be in both. It’s not uncommon in expensive versions of either.”
“What is it?” Buddy asked.
Ariel said, “A blend of grass that flowers.”
Buddy leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees. He watched Ariel carefully when he asked, “When did you smell the vetiver?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Where did you smell it?”
“I don’t know.”
Buddy asked, “Did you think it strange that you smelled vetiver when nobody in your family wears it?”
“Maybe.” The girl nodded. “Or maybe someone got new perfume or cologne for Christmas. But I do remember walking around and smelling it and thinking, Someone is wearing something with vetiver in it
.”
“Walking around in your family’s house?”
Ariel shrugged. “I don’t know where it was. It could have been the lodge.”
Buddy said, “Do you know of anyone who might want to hurt your family?”
She thought for a moment and then slowly shook her head. “No.”
Vetiver, he thought, making a note. Maybe that’s what Ben smelled when he was hiding behind the pantry shelving. Maybe Ben could help with his investigation.
Chapter Thirty-Five
“Where were you at midnight on New Year’s Eve?” he asked Carl and Rebecca when Ariel had left.
“In the lodge,” Carl answered. “But first would you tell us when we can see Ben?”
Buddy considered this request, and Ben’s preference not to see any of his family. “Ben’s in police custody,” he said. “We’ll evaluate his needs during the course of our investigation.”
Carl didn’t respond.
Rebecca said, “The sooner we can see him, the better. Even if it’s today. Tonight.”
Buddy knew his face had reddened, his emotions rising against the idea of losing Ben. He couldn’t give up the boy. Not yet. And maybe not to Carl and Rebecca, no matter how genuine their concern seemed, at least until he’d established their innocence in all the crimes. It was Ray Sawyer’s decision, anyway. He said, “Ben will remain in police custody for the time being.” Without pause, he continued, “On New Year’s Eve, how long after midnight did you stay in the lodge?”
“Maybe five minutes.”
“And then you returned to your cabin?”
“Our house, yes.”
“Was everyone on good terms?”
“Good enough.”
“No arguments? Disagreements?”
Rebecca stood and put her hands in the pockets of her wool trousers. She said, “There was an argument, earlier in the evening. Carl and his brothers. And I guess the wives, too.”
“What about?”
Carl removed his eyeglasses, wiped off the lenses with his shirt, and put them on again. He said, “Selling our company to GE. And if we were to sell to GE, each family would receive about six billion dollars in GE stock, which we could sell and reinvest in various things. We’d no longer have most of our net worth tied up in one company. But under Brook Instruments’ governing documents we can’t sell unless all four brothers agree, and we don’t. Or didn’t until this week.”
Buddy didn’t follow the last part. “How do you mean?”
“Well,” Carl said, and studied his hands. “My answer will throw suspicion on my brother Dietrich, and on me. But it’s the truth. We’re the only two brothers alive, and we’re the two who wanted to take the company public.”
“Alton and Bruno opposed the sale?” Buddy asked.
Carl nodded. “Exactly.”
Buddy turned and looked up at Rebecca, who was pacing in front of the blank television screen. He said, “Do you know who’d want to kill any member of the Brook family?”
She stopped. Her expression was strained. “No, I don’t. Of course not.”
He turned toward her husband.
Carl slowly shook his head. “We have people suing us—any large business does—but nothing that would rise to this level.”
Buddy threw in a changeup. “Do you work out a lot?”
Carl drew in his breath, making his chest larger. “Yes, I do CrossFit.”
“What’s CrossFit?”
“Serious fitness. Weight lifting, gymnastics, plyometrics, interval training. Pretty competitive stuff. You interested?”
Buddy didn’t know what some of these things were. And he definitely wasn’t interested, except to the extent it gave Carl the strength to commit murders with a hatchet. He turned the conversation to the past. “You know the history of your grandfather’s money, correct?”
Carl showed no emotion. “Yes.”
“His work for Hitler and the Third Reich. His use of slave labor from Auschwitz. His moving money by suitcase to banks in Zurich.”
Carl’s face remained impassive.
Buddy said, “You know about all of it?”
Carl nodded. “I do. So do my brothers and our wives. Those were the sins of somebody in the first part of the last century. It isn’t logical or appropriate to punish us, or to make us feel guilty, for what my grandfather did.”
“But he took the money.”
“No,” Carl said, his voice suddenly hard-edged. “My grandfather didn’t take the money. He used it to create a legitimate business that now employs more than eight thousand people.”
Buddy stood. He didn’t like the way Rebecca was pacing and glaring down at him. When he stood, he was a foot taller than she was. He said, “Could others think the money is still dirty? Could the grandchildren of those who worked for your grandfather during the Holocaust want revenge? To ruin or destroy your family, as your family—or your ancestor, at least—destroyed theirs?”
Rebecca shook her head vigorously. “That’s impossible.”
Buddy said, “Maybe. Maybe not.”
Carl said, “I agree with my wife. Your idea of a murderous Jew taking revenge for his ancestors working in the camps in the 1940s doesn’t seem credible. I’ve never heard of a Jewish individual or group murdering a businessman’s heirs for using their labor at one of the camps.”
Instead of arguing the point, Buddy said, “Think carefully. Maybe the murders have nothing to do with Brook Instruments or your current business. Can you think of any other reason someone from the distant past—not now but in the 1930s and 1940s—might want to harm your family?”
Carl was quiet for a long while. Then he said, “Yes.”
Buddy stopped moving. He didn’t think he’d heard correctly. “You can think of a reason for murder?”
Carl raised his eyebrows. “Not a good reason, but a reason.”
“Yeah?” Buddy asked. “What is it?”
“Art.”
“What do you mean, art?”
“Paintings,” Carl said. “Paintings worth more than two billion dollars.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Carl Brook led him from the den into a room that functioned as a picture gallery. Robert Kahler and Rebecca followed as Buddy looked at the paintings, the blinds drawn and an opaque louver softening the rays coming through the skylight above. Two oak benches sat in the center of the room, but there was no other furniture.
Buddy said nothing, just went from canvas to canvas. Each was unfamiliar to him. He could determine only that these paintings were old and beautiful and the kind of thing he’d seen on the rare occasions Mei had convinced him to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
“This one”—Rebecca pointed to a medium-sized painting in an ornate frame of dark wood—“is a self-portrait by Rembrandt. It’s worth fourteen to fifteen million dollars.”
Buddy stared at the figure in the painting. A middle-aged man with skin the tone of whole milk, red-rimmed eyes, and a bulbous nose. He tried to understand its value, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t comprehend how any painting could be worth $10 million or more. The entire concept made no sense to him.
Rebecca took a couple of steps. “And this one is a portrait of Neptune by Michelangelo.”
Buddy moved closer to a large disc-shaped canvas that was about three feet wide by five feet high. The painting’s colors were vivid and the figure of the Roman god smoothly and perfectly made. “The Michelangelo?” he asked. “The guy who did the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel?”
For the first time Rebecca smiled. “Yes. That Michelangelo.”
“What’s it worth?”
“More than two hundred million.”
Buddy stared at the painting. He was made uncomfortable by the art and its value, by the opulent condominium. He wanted to be back out on the street, a place he understood and that gave him confidence. But he had more to do before he left. He said, “Hang on a minute, my phone is vibrating.” Stepping away from the Brooks and Kahler, he feigned recei
ving a call on his iPhone. Facing Carl Brook, he pressed the camera icon and tapped the big red button to record video as he raised the phone to his left ear and pretended to answer.
“Yeah.”
He pretended to listen, at the same time turning to his right, slowly. He walked a few steps and turned farther. He said, “That’s right, we’ll have to postpone that investigation. Yeah, caught up in something.” He moved in a tight arc and said, “It’s politics, Andrew. Yeah, we’ll deal with it. Later.” Then, obscuring his phone screen, he smoothly hit the video “Stop” button and slid the phone back into the breast pocket of his suit coat.
He turned to Carl. “Your grandfather bought all these?”
Carl nodded. “Yes, these and others in our place. The balance of his collection is divided between my three brothers.”
“And your brothers’ art is as valuable as yours?”
“Roughly.”
Buddy thought about this fact. He said, “Far as we can tell, nothing has been stolen from any of your family. But why would someone kill because of the art?”
Carl put his hands in the front pockets of his jeans. He said, “The people who sold the paintings to my grandfather needed to sell them. We could argue about whether fair market value was paid—I think it was—but the sales might not have been as voluntary as when Rebecca and I buy over at Sotheby’s. However, in a safe-deposit box we have a bill of sale for each painting, signed by the seller. My grandfather kept the documentation, in case there was any trouble.”
Buddy thought about the bills of sale. He said, “Your grandfather bought from people who were forced to sell?”
“Forced to sell? Possibly. You’ll recall that during the Third Reich, Hitler seized the bank accounts of the Jews, so they needed cash money. My grandfather had lots of it. And so he traded something they needed in return for paintings they couldn’t use. In the concentration camps,” Carl stated, “nobody cared about Rembrandt. A painting wouldn’t buy you anything, especially not your life. It would be taken from you instantly. So before the Jews were rounded up, my grandfather offered money, something useful to them. With money, they might obtain visas or some way out of Germany. How many survived, I’ve no way of knowing. Perhaps some. Perhaps none.”
