Three-Day Town

by Margaret Maron

  “She said she was just a little tired, ma’am, but I’m sure she’ll be awake soon.”

  “Tell her I’ll call back this afternoon after church.” Her grandmother might be past ninety, but she had an iron will and Sigrid doubted that a little tiredness would keep her from Sunday morning services.

  Moments later, she was speaking to a desk sergeant at a nearby precinct house who promised that he would have a car meet her at the corner of the closest uptown street.

  At the office, Sam Hentz gave a tight smile when he saw her and held out his hand to the others, who groaned and handed over their dollar bills.

  Sigrid seldom bantered with them, but their chagrined looks amused her and she paused to push back the hood of her white parka and unwrap the fleecy turquoise scarf that had protected her face from the worst of the icy wind sweeping off the Hudson when she made her way to West Street earlier.

  “What?” she said. “You thought a little snow would keep me home?”

  “Some of the drifts are three feet high in places,” said Urbanska.

  “So how did you get in?” Sigrid asked.

  The younger woman grinned. “Snowshoes. My brother sent me an old pair of his as a joke last year when we got those four inches, and I mushed over to my regular subway stop.”

  “Very resourceful,” Sigrid said dryly.

  If Hentz occasionally reminded her of a Doberman pinscher, Dinah Urbanska was a golden retriever—just as friendly, just as eager to please, if no longer quite as clumsy as when she first joined the department and they had all learned to keep coffee cups, laptops, and stray chairs out of her path. The sounds of broken glass or a “Jesus Christ, Urbanska!” followed by a string of curses as detectives rescued a pile of now-muddled case files from the floor were less frequent these days, but there were times when a crash from the squad room would penetrate Sigrid’s office and make her wonder yet again why Hentz, who normally kept himself slightly aloof from the others, had appointed himself her mentor. Under his tutelage, though, the klutzy young woman had become a good detective.

  Sigrid hung her outerwear on a coat tree in her office, then came back into the squad room for a cup of coffee and the morning briefing.

  Yesterday’s rain and snow had caused a dip in the usual Saturday night violence. A brawl outside a popular club had sent two men to the emergency room, another had been stabbed at a poker game, and an old woman was badly clubbed because she would not give her son money, but Phil Lundigren was their only homicide. Citywide, his was the first of the year. Last year, less than five hundred cases had been documented and the homicide rate kept dropping. Murder by gunshot still led the statistics, with blunt instruments a distant third. If they could shut off the trafficking of illegal guns from other states, the number of murders could be cut by half. In the meantime, the city’s controversial stop-and-frisk program did seem to be finding fewer and fewer guns.

  Turning to their case, she learned that Hentz had already briefed them so that they were up to speed and ready to get the wheels moving.

  “Any word from the ME yet?” Sigrid asked.

  “Not yet,” said Hentz.

  “What about Mrs. Lundigren?”

  “Still under sedation,” Urbanska reported. “Yanitelli stopped by on his way in to work and got her prints.”

  She set her own coffee cup on the edge of her desk and flipped open her notebook. Hentz reached over and moved the cup away from her hands before she could forget it was there and send it flying.

  “The doctor on duty’s going to give her a mental evaluation this morning. He said we could probably question her after lunch, and if that goes okay they might release her this afternoon and let her go home.”

  Sigrid turned to Hentz. “She told us she had no relatives. What about him?”

  “None that the elevator man knew about. Want me to get a search warrant for the apartment? See if there’s anything there to point us toward his killer?”

  She nodded.

  With an urban detective’s disdain for someone who drawled like a hick, Hentz asked, “What about the stuff that was stolen from Sheriff Mayberry and his wife?”

  “Major Bryant and Judge Knott?” Sigrid remembered that Kate had once said that her brother-in-law was former Army Intelligence, but why spoil it for Hentz? “It would appear that the only things taken from that apartment were an earring and a small bronze sculpture that my grandmother had sent up with them.”

  That statement hung in the air for an awkward moment. Only Urbanska was artless enough to look up from her notes and say, “Your grandmother, ma’am?”

  “Judge Knott is distantly related to her.” Her tone did not invite further exploration of that relationship.

  “What’s this sculpture thing look like?” asked one of the detectives.

  “I’ve only seen pictures, but it seems to be several small male figures crammed into a roughly cylindrical shape about the size of a tall beer can.” Her slender fingers sketched the size and shape.

  “Solid bronze?” Hentz asked.

  Sigrid nodded.

  “That much metal would have real heft to it. We didn’t find anything in the apartment that looked as if it had been used to clobber the victim. You think that could be our murder weapon?”

  “Very possibly. I’m told that it could be valuable, so when you’re questioning the people who were at the DiSimone party last night, concentrate first on anyone who might have an art background.”

  While Sam Hentz went off to find a judge who would sign a search warrant for the Lundigren apartment, Sigrid handed out the day’s assignments. In addition to last night’s violence, there were ongoing investigations into a mugging and some burglaries, and an arrest was imminent in a rape case. Detectives Elaine Albee and Jim Lowry were tasked with interviewing Luna DiSimone, who flatly refused to try to come to the station when they called her that morning.

  “She says the snow’s too deep,” Albee reported, wrinkling her pretty nose in scorn.

  “Then you’ll have to go to her,” Sigrid said. “We need a complete list of everyone who was there last night, especially anyone with a knowledge of art.”

  It occurred to her that perhaps Deborah Knott or her husband could email them the pictures on their digital camera, so she went into her office and called Deborah’s number. One ring and a male voice said, “Deborah Knott’s phone.”

  “Elliott?”

  “Sigrid?”

  She glanced at her watch. “You’re out early.”

  “I never left,” he said and explained about his missing overcoat, his shoes, and the sold-out hotel. “The Bryants were kind enough to offer me a room, and I took it. It was after two before we got to bed, though, and I don’t think they’re awake yet, but if you want I can knock on their door and—oh, wait a minute! Hang on, here’s Bryant now.”

  She heard Buntrock explaining, and a moment later Dwight Bryant said, “Lieutenant Harald?”

  “Sorry to bother you, Major, but I saw that your wife has her laptop and I was hoping one of you could send me a picture of that maquette that my grandmother sent up?”

  “Be glad to if Deb’rah brought along the little gizmo that reads the camera card.”

  Sigrid gave him the address, then asked to speak to Buntrock again.

  “Elliott, I’m sorry about last night. I’m told that you expected me to come back up to the sixth floor. I didn’t realize.”

  “No problem,” he said easily. “Miscommunication on my part.”

  “We’re on our way over there in a few minutes. Will you still be there?”

  “If I haven’t totally worn out my welcome here, sure.” She heard an exchange of male voices, then Buntrock said, “Bryant says we’ll keep the coffee hot.”

  Five minutes later, they were looking at a picture of the Al Streichert maquette, the scale easily discernible because of the hands that held it. The picture filled the screen.

  “Holy shit!” said Lowry, and Albee giggled. “Talk about cocks
uckers.”

  As their focus switched from the penises to the caricatured faces, their grins faded and Albee, who was Jewish, took an involuntary step backward as she worked out what it depicted. One of the black detectives said, “This is your grandmother’s?”

  “I haven’t talked to her yet,” Sigrid said. “I don’t know why she had it.”

  He flashed her a cynical look. “She’s Southern, isn’t she?”

  Sigrid’s cool gray eyes met his warm brown ones. “Not all Southerners are racist, Johnson.”

  “If you say so, ma’am.”

  “I do say so.”

  Ray Johnson shrugged and turned back to the screen.

  “Make some printouts,” Sigrid told him as the others went back to work. “It’s disgusting, but it may be valuable and it may also be our murder weapon.”

  Lowry broke the tension by handing her a list of sixty-seven separate names that had been gathered at the murder scene. A touch typist, he had entered the names into the computer, with Albee and Urbanska double-checking to make sure none were left off. He finished sorting them alphabetically and printed out several copies to take over to the apartment building.

  Sigrid pointed to two of the names. “Elliott Buntrock and Charles Rathmann are both tied into the art world and should be able to name any others. Buntrock’s still at the building, but call Rathmann and invite him to come down and help us.”

  She took a copy for herself and told them to leave the handwritten sheets and a printout on Detective Tildon’s desk. Tillie shone at detail work like this and Sigrid planned to turn him loose on the list when he came in the next morning. She was quite sure he would soon have each name cross-referenced five or six different ways so that he could eliminate any guests who had been together all evening and could alibi others.

  By the time Hentz got back with the search warrant, Lowry had signed out a car. Broadway was clear enough for them to make decent time, although the windshield wipers had to labor to push the falling snow aside. While it helped that today was Sunday, which meant fewer vehicles on the streets, the sidewalks were lined with piles of snow so high that with the thickening flakes it was hard see the jaywalking sledders and skiers headed for the park before they stepped out into the street.

  The detectives were two blocks from Luna DiSimone’s apartment building when Sam Hentz’s phone rang. He answered, then murmured, “ME’s office.”

  He listened intently for a moment or two and his face registered total surprise. “What? The hell you say!”

  He hung up the phone, shaking his head in disbelief. “Turns out that the Phil may be short for Phyllis. Lundigren was a woman.”

  CHAPTER

  8

  Possibly the dining room is the most useful room in the whole apartment, aside from the kitchen.

  —The New New York, 1909

  I awoke Sunday morning to silence. No honking horns, no sirens, no pulsing beeps from big trucks backing up. Even without lifting my head from the pillow, I could tell by the quality of light coming from the window that the world was white outside. The bedside clock read 10:40.

  10:40? Even on my days off, I almost never slept past nine anymore. I rolled over to kiss Dwight good morning and found his side of the bed empty. Although the bedroom walls were thick and the door was solid, the smell of coffee and bacon somehow managed to reach my nose.

  I was up and dressed in five minutes and when I walked out, Dwight and Elliott were at the dining table working on a breakfast of Danish pastry, crispy bacon, and scrambled eggs. I was fairly sure that neither eggs nor bacon had been in the refrigerator before we went to bed last night. Both men were dressed, but I saw that Dwight was in his stocking feet.

  I paused in the archway on my way to the kitchen for the biggest coffee mug I could find and fixed my husband with a stern eye. “I’m guessing that those damp boots over there by the door mean you’ve already been to that market again?”

  Dwight nodded sheepishly and Elliott finished ratting him out. “I thought I was the first one up, until he came walking in with a couple of Fairway shopping bags.”

  “Well, we couldn’t offer you stale bagels, could we?”

  They waited till I was back with my coffee to tell me that Sigrid and a team of detectives were on their way over.

  Elliott passed me the bacon and pastries and said, “She wants me to tick off the names of anyone who might have recognized that Streichert maquette, so I’m afraid you’re stuck with me a little longer.”

  “Not a problem,” said Dwight. “The way it’s still coming down out there, I doubt if we’ll be going anywhere today.”

  I suppose I should have been disappointed to come five hundred miles just to get snowbound, but a day spent relaxing with Dwight and reading the Sunday New York Times from front page to last, and relaxing with Dwight, and… well, you get my whim, as my brother Haywood would say.

  Without his jacket on, I got the full effect of Elliott’s blue sweatshirt, which was emblazoned with a pair of silver Yamahas.

  “You ride?” I asked.

  He followed my eyes to his thin chest and looked down to remind himself what he was wearing. “Motorcycles? God, no! My sister sends these things. I ran over her foot with my tricycle when I was in nursery school, and she’s never forgiven me. She still thinks I’m a terrible driver.”

  He asked what we’d planned for the week.

  “We’re just playing it by ear,” Dwight said.

  “And leaving ourselves open to serendipity and suggestions,” I added. “You have one? A suggestion, I mean?”

  “Well, if you like jazz and find yourself down in the Village some evening, there’s an authentic little club I like. It’s just a hole-in-the-wall, but Sam Hentz sits in on piano sometimes.”

  I drew a blank on the name, but Dwight was surprised. “Detective Hentz plays jazz piano?”

  “Put himself through college playing in bars and restaurants. He’s not half bad either. I’ve gone down to hear him a few times.”

  He pulled out his phone, scrolled through till he found the address, and gave it to Dwight. “Take the One train down to Christopher Street, then walk one block north to Tenth. Smalls. You can’t miss it.”

  “Actually, Dwight and I do have one item on our dance card.”

  Dwight raised an eyebrow. “We do?”

  “Someone at the party last night gave me a pair of tickets to the matinee of The Mikado on Wednesday.”

  “You like Gilbert and Sullivan?” Elliott asked.

  I nodded. Dwight made a comme ci, comme ça gesture with his hand.

  “That’s how Sigrid and I got to know each other,” Elliott said. “She was investigating a death at the Breul House—and if you’re interested in some of the worst excesses in nineteenth-century art collecting, you owe yourself a visit. Bad taste preserved in amber, although the house itself has good lines, architecturally speaking. Anyhow, she heard me whistling one of Gilbert and Sullivan’s patter songs and I was hooked as soon as I realized she knew all the words.”

  “Really?” I took the last dab of scrambled eggs from the bowl. “She doesn’t strike me as a person who would like anything so frivolous.”

  “I thought that, too, at first.” He cut a raspberry Danish in half and slid it onto his plate. “On the other hand, Gilbert and Sullivan may be frivolous, but they aren’t stupid.” He licked raspberry jam from his finger. “Remind me to give her that magazine article we found.”

  “Right. I stuck it back in the box.”

  When I went out to the kitchen to start a second pot of coffee, I took out the pages and started to flatten the box so it would fit into the recycle bin easier. Upon disposing of the bubble wrap at the bottom, though, I discovered a small white envelope underneath, an envelope addressed to Anne Harald.

  Sealed, unfortunately.

  (“Not that you would read someone else’s letter if it were unsealed,” my internal preacher said starchily. His pragmatic roommate gave a cynical snort. He has
no illusions about my strength of character when my curiosity’s in full gallop.)

  Elliott regarded the envelope with equal curiosity when I brought it and the magazine pages back to the dining room.

  “Let’s hope Sigrid won’t wait till Anne gets back from New Zealand next month,” he said.

  I topped off his coffee cup and paused to look out the dining room window. Blown by the wind, snowflakes swirled down and around like confetti at a political convention.

  “People were out on skis before,” Dwight said. “Why don’t we buy you some boots and maybe walk over to the park?”

  “Will a shoe store be open on Sunday?”

  “Some guy was selling cheap plastic boots on the sidewalk in front of the market. Right next to a woman selling mittens and scarves. How do you suppose they do it? How did he put his hands on a bunch of boots in the middle of a snowstorm?”

  Elliott nodded in amused agreement. “Street vendors are a breed unto themselves. Two drops into a downpour and you’ll see them hawking umbrellas on every corner. They—”

  He was interrupted by a knock on the door.

  I looked at Dwight. “I thought people had to be buzzed in first.”

  “They’re cops,” he reminded me.

  Of course.

  But when I answered the door, it wasn’t Sigrid and her team. Luna DiSimone stood there looking perfectly adorable in a coral gym suit and a silk hibiscus behind her ear. She held a platter full of assorted canapés and hors d’oeuvres covered by a sheet of plastic wrap. Over her shoulder I saw that she’d left the door to her apartment standing wide open at the other end of the hall.

  “I was hoping you could take some of this food off my hands,” she said. “The party broke up so early, I’ve got tons of the stuff left. Oh, hi, Elliott. Do you know these people?” She laughed at her own question. “Well, of course you do or you wouldn’t be here, would you? Have you seen the snow? Isn’t it just gorgeous? Nicco keeps calling me to bitch about it, but I love snow, don’t you?”

  Without being invited in, yet never questioning her welcome, she walked past me and put the platter on the table. Dwight and Elliott had come to their feet, Elliott unfolding himself one storklike joint at a time as he leaned over to accept her kiss on the cheek.