Next of Kin

by James Tucker

  “Ben? Ben Brook?”

  It was the security guard, who’d walked around the front desk and approached him.

  Ben said, “Yes?”

  “I have a call for you over at the desk.”

  Ben nervously followed the security guard, who went behind the desk, picked up a telephone, and handed it across to him.

  Ben held the phone up to his ear. “Hello?”

  “Hi, Ben. It’s Mei.”

  His voice brightened. “Hi, Mei.”

  “Everything all right at school?”

  “Yes. Will you be here soon?”

  “Something’s come up, Ben. I’m stuck at work. So Buddy’s sending his partner—you remember Detective Vidas, don’t you?—to pick you up.”

  Ben sighed and said, “Okay.”

  “You’ll be safe with Vidas, Ben. He carries a gun just like Buddy.”

  For a moment Ben was quiet. Then he said, “When will I see you?”

  Her voice was cheerful. “I’m going to have a quick meeting at work, and then I’ll go right home. Vidas will drop you off as soon as I get there, and then we can have a snack and maybe decide whether Buddy will let us take a walk in the park. So I’ll see you in an hour or so, all right?”

  “All right.”

  “Don’t worry about anything.”

  “I won’t.”

  The line went dead. Ben listened to it for a few seconds longer before handing it across the desk to the security guard. He returned to the window on Twenty-Eighth Street. And soon he saw a black Ford Fusion pull into the loading zone along the curb in front of the school. The driver’s door opened and Detective Vidas, tall and thin and with a pale face, climbed out. Ben watched Vidas look right and left as he closed the driver’s door, walked the few steps to the building, and pulled open one of the school’s glass doors.

  Ben left the window and walked over to meet the detective.

  Vidas saw him and smiled warmly. “Ben, how are you?”

  Ben instantly felt better. He wished Mei could pick him up but knew he was safer with Vidas. He said, “Pretty well.”

  “Good! Buddy asked me to give you the special police-car ride home today. Ready to go?”

  “Ready,” Ben said, and followed Vidas out onto the sidewalk.

  Before getting into the Ford, Vidas gripped Ben’s shoulder and said, “Hang on, Ben.”

  Ben looked up at the detective’s face. They were standing just outside the school doors. He saw Vidas scanning the street and the sidewalks, Vidas’s right hand up near his chest so he could grab his gun if necessary. Ben said, “Are we safe?”

  Slowly Vidas nodded. “Yeah, we’re good. Let’s get in the car. Quick.”

  Chapter Eighty-Six

  “Mei?”

  It was Anta Safar calling out from behind her.

  Mei turned in her desk chair to face the assistant director. She forced herself to smile. Antagonizing Ms. Safar would only bring more trouble.

  Anta Safar was dressed in her black coat with the shawl collar and a black scarf. She was carrying her usual black quilted Chanel handbag and walking briskly toward Mei. “I need to run, Mei, but I’m sure you can handle the meeting. I’m sure Mr. Brook will be along shortly.”

  Mei couldn’t maintain the smile, even though she knew Ward’s bodyguard would keep Dietrich Brook out of the gallery.

  Anta Safar passed her and said, “Treat him well, Mei. It would mean a fortune for all of us if they used our gallery to sell his paintings.”

  Mei said, “Sure, that’s just fine.”

  And then Anta Safar was gone. A few minutes later the gallery doors swung open again. But it wasn’t Anta Safar returning for something she’d forgotten, it was Dietrich Brook.

  He stepped into the gallery, stood very still, and glared at Mei.

  Chapter Eighty-Seven

  Buddy parked in front of the Polish Institute for Holocaust Studies. He grabbed the manila envelope containing the bills of sale Carl Brook had sent him, got out, and looked up at the old Gothic-style building in limestone with an ornate slate roof and narrow but tall windows. Then he turned and saw the campus of the Horace Mann prep school. A single flag flew at half-mast, drooping and still on the windless day. Buddy remembered now that John Brook and Ariel Brook had attended the school until their deaths yesterday. He watched as students left the campus after their last classes of the day, some with sorrowful expressions, some red-faced and weeping, none with smiles.

  Hearing a large but quiet engine approaching, Buddy turned to see Ward’s silver Range Rover drive up behind the Charger, Brick in the driver’s seat.

  As soon as the car stopped, Ward jumped out. He wore a dark suit under a light-gray overcoat with a black velvet collar. Buddy’s practiced eye noticed a bulge under Ward’s left arm and an irregular metallic shape at his right ankle. He didn’t know if Ward had a license to carry these weapons, but he wouldn’t object.

  Buddy didn’t greet Ward or shake his hand, just nodded toward the double front doors of the institute and walked inside, Ward following.

  They passed through a vestibule and into a cavernous hall with a multivaulted ceiling like that of an old church. There were no security measures. In the middle of the hall was a low wooden reception desk with a middle-aged woman in an ivory-colored blouse and a periwinkle cardigan sitting behind it.

  The woman smiled at them. “Good afternoon, and welcome to the Polish Institute for Holocaust Studies. May I help you?”

  Buddy recognized her voice. “Thank you, ma’am,” he said, and held up his opened badge wallet. “I’m Detective Lock with the NYPD. My associate and I are here to meet with Dr. Kosmatka.”

  The receptionist nodded and stood. “As I mentioned on the phone yesterday, Dr. Kosmatka is somewhat frail and has asked me to show you to his office.”

  She led them down the length of the hallway to a single honey-colored door at one end. The door had no window or name on it. After she’d knocked twice, they heard a muffled response. She opened the door and stood aside. “Dr. Kosmatka,” she said, “the detectives are here to see you.”

  “Come in, please,” came a low voice.

  Buddy entered a large office with high ceilings. It was filled with books on shelves and piles of books on a large table and on the floor. To his left stood a metal filing cabinet with drawers five feet wide, to his right a large oak desk. Behind the desk sat an overweight man well over eighty years old who had thick white hair neatly parted. Dr. Kosmatka’s skin was dark and mottled with age spots, and he held an unlit cigarette in one hand. He wore a wrinkled blue shirt and didn’t stand up from behind the desk. He just stared at Buddy.

  Buddy introduced himself and Ward, not bothering to badge the old man or explain Ward’s status.

  Dr. Kosmatka nodded but didn’t ask them to sit down. Ward removed his overcoat, as if he meant to stay a while.

  Buddy began to doubt this meeting would lead anywhere, but he’d see it through. He said, “Dr. Kosmatka, in the early 1940s in Berlin, some wealthy Jewish men and women sold extremely valuable paintings to Gerhardt Brook, an industrialist cozy with the Nazis. The paintings were sold under duress, probably for far less than they were worth. Gerhardt Brook’s grandchildren inherited the paintings. But in the past few days nearly all the Brook family has been murdered.”

  Dr. Kosmatka’s expression was inscrutable. He moved the unlit cigarette to the other hand.

  Unsure if the old man was hearing him, Buddy spoke more slowly and louder. He said, “I believe the killer might be a descendant of one of the Jews who sold the paintings and were sent to Auschwitz. While there, some might have worked as slave labor for Gerhardt Brook’s company. But some of those prisoners survived the war. And some may be living in America.”

  Dr. Kosmatka’s voice rumbled, “I can’t help you.”

  Buddy didn’t move. He wasn’t going to give up. Not when he’d come this far.

  Dr. Kosmatka’s eyebrows rose. He coughed once and said, “I can’t help
you, not without more.”

  Buddy opened the manila envelope with the bills of sale. He removed the three having sellers who had family that survived Auschwitz, and placed them in front of the old man.

  Dr. Kosmatka picked up a pair of half-moon metal reading glasses and bent over to read the three bills of sale. He studied them for several minutes.

  Buddy related how for these three families, the trail had gone dry upon the camp’s liberation.

  Dr. Kosmatka didn’t look up at him, but said, “I was there.”

  Buddy was quiet.

  Dr. Kosmatka unbuttoned his left shirt cuff and pulled up his sleeve.

  Buddy saw a tattoo on the old man’s forearm. He made out an A followed by five numbers.

  Dr. Kosmatka said, “I was there that cold day in January. I met the Red Army soldiers. They gave me kasha, a porridge. Three years later I get to America.” He refastened his shirt cuff.

  Buddy nodded. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He took off his overcoat and draped it over the chair behind him, but he remained standing.

  Dr. Kosmatka peered over his reading glasses at Buddy. He said, “Famous paintings, yes?”

  Buddy nodded. “And one in particular, a Caravaggio of Bacchus, was stolen yesterday from the scene of a multiple homicide.”

  Dr. Kosmatka gave no response for a moment. Then he said, “Famous sellers, yes?”

  “Are they?” Ward asked.

  Buddy said, “I don’t recognize them.”

  Dr. Kosmatka said, “Famous names before the war that ended those names, you understand? Prominent families. But it’s unlikely any of them survived, as people this grand would have used their influence to make connections outside Poland after 1945.”

  Buddy asked, “Would you help us?”

  Dr. Kosmatka stuck the unlit cigarette in his mouth. He put his hands on the armrests of his chair and with great effort, stood up. He shuffled around the desk and over to the metal filing cabinet with the unusually wide drawers. Bending over to peer at the labels of the drawers, he grunted and then straightened up. He pulled open one of the large drawers and looked into it.

  Buddy turned and moved a step closer to Kosmatka. He could see the drawers contained thousands of papers of various sizes, many of them quite large. The papers were of different quality, some brown and flaking with age, some newer and a crisp white. Drawn on the papers—by hand or by computer—were family trees.

  Dr. Kosmatka lifted several large sheets of paper, some as wide as a fully opened newspaper, and carried them a few paces to the book-filled table. He stopped near the table and looked at Buddy and Ward.

  Ward hurried over and cleared the table of books, setting them off to the side on the floor.

  A scrap of paper fell from one of the larger pieces, drifting like a leaf onto the floor.

  Ward picked it up.

  Dr. Kosmatka grunted his thanks as he laid the large yellowed papers on the table.

  Ward fit the scrap into the correct area of the family tree as if he were doing a jigsaw puzzle.

  Dr. Kosmatka picked through several other metal drawers, and pulled out more large papers with drawings of family trees as well as other official-looking documents marked by embossed stamps in black, blue, and red.

  Buddy said, “Are you seeing something—something that will help us?”

  Dr. Kosmatka ignored him.

  Hurry, for Christ’s sake! Buddy thought. He knew he was being unreasonable, but he wanted to squeeze the old man until he gave up the answer—if there was an answer.

  Dr. Kosmatka took the cigarette from his mouth and bent over the table. He studied an extensive family tree before turning the top paper over to the side of the table.

  He studied the second sheet and the family trees drawn across it. He turned that paper over to the side and studied a third.

  And then a fourth.

  A fifth.

  A sixth.

  Buddy felt like he was going to jump out of his skin. He began pacing to the side of the old man.

  Dr. Kosmatka turned toward Buddy.

  Buddy stopped pacing.

  Dr. Kosmatka said, “You’re searching for the wrong names.”

  Buddy’s spirits dropped. “The wrong names?”

  Dr. Kosmatka nodded.

  Ward asked, “What do you mean?”

  Dr. Kosmatka turned to Ward and said, “This is my life, see? I study the families who suffered. Sometimes, an entire month on a single family. So I’ve learned how the survivors adapted so they could live. After the war it was difficult time, you understand. And relatives of the sellers listed on the bills of sale—they changed their names by marriage, by other means. And who could blame them? They were German Jews and they wanted to become Polish Catholics.”

  Buddy sensed that in the next few minutes, he’d either solve the murders or be lost forever. His stomach tightened and his breath came in short bursts. His hands turned rigid. He stepped closer to the old man. “Can you help us find the new names—the right names?”

  Dr. Kosmatka returned his gaze. After a moment he nodded. “Yes, I can help you. I have the right names.”

  Chapter Eighty-Eight

  Mei walked gingerly toward Dietrich Brook. She recalled Buddy telling her that Dietrich Brook’s eyes were dead. Now those eyes watched her as if they were made of synthetic material. They showed no emotion or expression. They weren’t cold, the way some people’s eyes were described. They were dead.

  Mei looked into those eyes and found herself unable to speak or move. This was the man, she thought, who’d twice tried to kill her and Ben. And he had her alone in the gallery. There were security cameras, but they didn’t give her much comfort. She knew Dietrich Brook could do anything he wanted, including making the camera footage go missing.

  Brook had dressed all in black, just like the figure that had climbed into the bedroom at Ward’s house where she was sleeping. Five feet from her, he folded his arms across his chest. He was much taller than she, thin and muscular and hard looking, with a body like a blade. She saw a red mark that looked like blood on the back of his right hand. His voice, when he spoke, was precise and uninflected. “We need to make a deal,” he said flatly.

  Mei swallowed and tried to relax, but she was calculating how long it would take her to run to her desk at the far side of the gallery, pick up her desk phone, and dial 911. Eight seconds? Twelve seconds? She’d never reach the phone. Dietrich Brook would grab her and take her into one of the conference rooms behind the main gallery, rooms invisible to the street. And if he got her there, she wouldn’t survive. He’d have more blood on his hands, and it would be hers.

  Her only hope, she decided, would be to remain out here, in the main gallery where passersby on the street could see through the large windows into the brightly lit gallery. She must remain here, delay, and pretend to make a deal, as he’d suggested.

  She said, “You’re considering selling artwork through Porter Gallery?”

  “Yes,” Dietrich Brook replied. “I’m considering it. If things work out.”

  Mei nodded. “Porter Gallery has long been a leader in the Old Master, Renaissance, and European paintings markets. To be sure we obtain the highest prices for our clients, we also have branches in London, Dubai, and Hong Kong. And we place the work in the best collections, public and private.”

  Dietrich Brook said, “Why don’t we find a more private place to meet?”

  “No,” Mei said abruptly, dropping the veneer of professionalism. “We’ll meet right here and nowhere else.”

  Dietrich Brook lifted his chin and looked down his nose at her. Very slowly he said, “Who do you think you are?”

  Mei remained silent.

  He continued, “You think you can take my nephew from his family? I won’t allow such a thing. Not at all, Miss Adams.”

  He turned so quickly that Mei took a step back. But instead of moving toward her, he moved away, in the direction of the street. There, he pushed ope
n the door, allowing a younger man with a messenger bag over one shoulder to enter the gallery. Dietrich Brook then locked the door.

  The young man had a shaved head and wore jeans and strange shoes that looked like they might clip into bicycle pedals. He walked right up to Mei.

  Utterly confused, she took a step back.

  “Mei Adams?” asked the young man.

  “Yes?”

  The young man thrust an envelope into her hands and said, “You’ve been served.”

  She looked at the envelope. “I don’t understand.”

  He sidled next to her, held up his mobile phone, and took a photograph of them as she held the envelope.

  Stunned by this surreal turn of events, she didn’t move or even look at the phone camera.

  Without another word the young man returned to the gallery door, turned the lock, and exited out onto the sidewalk.

  Dietrich Brook again locked the door and returned across the polished concrete floors toward her. His face and eyes had no expression.

  Mei held up the envelope. “What is it?” she asked, unable to keep anger and fear out of her voice.

  Dietrich Brook said, “A lawsuit. Actually, a motion for an emergency custody hearing in which I’m asking a judge to return Ben to us within three days.”

  “Three days!” Mei blurted. “That’s impossible.”

  Dietrich Brook smiled for the first time, his thin lips barely parting. “I assure you, Miss Adams, it’s quite possible. In fact I expect to prevail over you and your bottom-feeding boyfriend. What judge in the city would award custody of a boy not to his family but to a childless woman? What judge—”

  “Ray Sawyer is Ben’s legal guardian,” Mei interrupted. “He’d never agree to give you custody. Not after what you’ve done. If Ben goes to live with you, he’s as good as dead.”

  Dietrich Brook said, “Ray Sawyer is a senile old man who can’t function since his wife died. He’ll be no problem.”