Lethal Legacy

by Linda Fairstein

  “The photographs were inside the book?” I asked.

  “There was a pocket sewn into the back of the book. That’s where the photos were. We could take them out and look at them, spread them out on the living room floor,” she said. “In fact, that’s what got Edith in trouble with Mother.”

  Jane Eliot shuffled down the hallway of the hospital, continuing to talk to us.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “The book wasn’t a problem. We’d all read the story dozens of times. But those photographs? My goodness. Must have been weeks after Edith’s birthday, Mother happened upon the picture of that child dressed as a beggar maid, with her bare shoulders-you know the one I mean?”

  “Yes, Miss Eliot. It’s a very famous image.”

  “Well, it convinced my mother that Dodgson was a pedophile. She wouldn’t have us looking at a little girl displaying herself that way.”

  “Alex was just telling me that story about him,” Mercer said. “I’d never heard it before.”

  “What did your mother do?” I asked.

  “That was the last we saw of the book, until she lay on her deathbed. She forbade Edith to have it, which created its own stir at the time. Then Mother asked one of the curators in the children’s collection to do some research about Dodgson. What she learned was that Alice Liddell’s mother had a big falling out with him. Tore up all the correspondence that he’d had with Alice. That inflamed my mother even more.”

  Mercer tried to frame a question. “Because she thought he’d been…?”

  “Inappropriate, sir. That’s as explicit as we got in those days,” Eliot said. “It seems Mrs. Liddell found every letter the man sent to her daughter-mind you, she was only eleven or twelve at the time, and he was a grown man-and she ripped them to shreds. That’s a fact. And then, when Dodgson died, he left thirteen volumes of diaries. A record of his entire life. But someone in his family was worried enough about the contents to destroy the four years-every page of them-that detailed his friendship with Alice.”

  “So your mother confiscated the book,” I said.

  “First thing she did. Poor Edith-the girl had a tantrum over that. I can still hear her screams. The next thing was, my mother had it in her head to go after the trustee who’d given my sister the book. She found some letters he’d written to Edith after the day he met her, telling her how proud he was of her school grades.”

  “How did he know about them?” Mercer asked.

  “Some of the trustees-the nice ones-used to ask us questions like that when they came to see Father, or on the holidays. Harmless enough. What books did we like? What subjects were we studying? We were the library’s little family, you see. But Edith kept the notes this man had sent her, offering to take her out in his automobile-nobody had cars in those days-show her parts of the city she hadn’t seen. He didn’t have a daughter, he said. Just a boy. Said he wanted to be her friend.”

  “I can understand why that upset your mother,” I said. “Edith was only twelve at the time, right?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Just like Alice Liddell. So Mother went on a rampage. I was there the afternoon she came home and told Edith that she had walked all the way up Fifth Avenue to his mansion, the day after a terrible snowstorm. Knocked on the door and demanded to see the man. She wanted to give him back his book. Can you imagine her taking on such a rich and powerful person as a trustee of the New York Public Library?” Eliot asked, proud of her mother’s spirit. “She came back and told Edith there’d be no more presents from him, and no more visits.”

  “Miss Eliot,” I said, trying not to get ahead of myself. “Do you know the man’s name? The trustee who gave Edith the book?”

  Her slippers scuffed along the linoleum floor.

  “Of course I do,” she said. “It was Jasper Hunt. Jasper Hunt. Edith said he called himself the Mad Hatter. Oh, she was very peeved at Mother for ruining her fun.”

  Jasper Hunt Jr., the eccentric owner of the rarest map in the world.

  “Did Edith ever tell you what she meant by her ‘fun’?” I asked.

  “Not what you’re thinking, Alex. No, no. Mr. Hunt never did anything improper, Edith assured me of that. But Mother’s concern was with his intentions. And for Edith, it seemed like she’d been deprived of a great adventure, a chance to be treated like a grown-up. In hindsight, I’d say Mother nipped something in the bud.”

  “And the book-how did you come to have the book?”

  “Mr. Hunt was very patient with my mother. He brought her inside, had her served tea and pastries, and removed the photographs that had offended her. He told her that she must keep the book. That one day it would be worth a lot of money and she couldn’t deprive Edith of that.”

  “So your mother returned home with the book?” Mercer asked.

  “Yes, but she had made such a fuss about the whole thing that she never admitted it to us. Not till just before she died. She’d kept it on a shelf in her linen closet all those years. Finally told Edith to take it and have it appraised.”

  “But you said Edith didn’t want it.”

  “She was stubborn, my sister,” Jane Eliot said. “She felt it had spoiled her birthday. Didn’t want anything to do with it. The whole episode had embarrassed her with the staff and all that. You know how girls that age are.”

  “I sure do,” I said. “Did you ever show the book to a dealer?”

  “A couple of years ago, after Edith passed on, I called someone at the library. I wouldn’t know how to find a reputable dealer. The president’s assistant gave me the name of a man who worked closely with them, she said. I’ve forgotten it at this point. Anyway,” Jane Eliot said, “by the time I got around to contacting him, my letter was answered by the FBI. They told me the fellow was in jail. Now, that was quite a shock, since it was the library folks who had recommended him to me.”

  “It must have been Eddy Forbes,” I said.

  “Forbes. That could have been the name.”

  “Did you describe the book to him in your letter?”

  “Yes. That was the point of speaking with him, wasn’t it? I had left several phone messages, too. After that,” Jane Eliot said, “it just didn’t seem worth bothering, if even the dealers turned out to be thieves. I really wasn’t interested in its dollar value. I don’t want for anything, and my relatives have plenty of other rare books. It wasn’t mine, after all.”

  “So you have it still?”

  “I did, until just a few months ago,” Jane Eliot said, stopping in her tracks. “I gave it back.”

  “Back?” I asked. “To the library?”

  “No, no. I did my genealogy, dear. Easy to do with folks as well known as the Hunts. It turns out that old Mr. Hunt had one son, just as he had told my mother. Jasper Hunt the Third, who’s even older than I am. I wasn’t about to give anything to him.”

  She squeezed my hand and smiled again.

  “But I learned there’s also a granddaughter. A woman named Minerva. So I wrote her a note. I told her about the book, about our family’s connection to the library,” the old woman said, pointing toward the door of her room and directing us toward it. “I left out my mother’s suspicions about Minerva’s grandfather, of course.”

  “Did she return your correspondence?”

  “She didn’t seem the least bit interested at first. I didn’t get a reply for several weeks. Then I wrote again. My writing isn’t too neat, because of my vision. Of course, I can’t see the detail on the pages of that old book very well anymore, but I tried to describe how beautiful it was. I told her about the map that the Mad Hatter had tucked in that pocket in the back, with the photographs.”

  Mercer jumped in before I could open my mouth. “There was a map?”

  “When my mother was dying and she told Edith and me about the book, she said that Mr. Hunt had insisted she keep the map. The very first day we had opened the book, we saw the map, of course. George spread it out on the floor at once, but it wasn‘t nearly so interesting to us as the pho
tographs.”

  “But why was there a map?” he asked.

  “Do you remember that Alice -the one in Wonderland-went to a tea party?”

  “Sure, the Mad Hatter and the March Hare were there,” I said. “But what did the map have to do with the tea party?”

  Jane Eliot slowly started to move again. “Let me think what Mother said. It was a big old map, folded up several times, as I recall. It was a picture of the island of Ceylon. Mr. Hunt said that’s where the tea came from. The tea for the party.”

  Jasper Hunt certainly lived up to his reputation for eccentricity.

  “He told Mother to leave the map right where it was. That it would increase the value of the book, in the end. He said he wanted to make up for alarming her, to do right by Edith,” Jane Eliot said. “So Mother saw no harm in keeping it. Like Jasper told her, he loved the library, too, and knew that we did. She had her piece of the Hunt legacy.”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  “Is that how your mother referred to Jasper Hunt’s gift?” I asked.

  “At the end of her life, when she talked about him.”

  “Were those her words, or his?”

  “I don’t have any idea,” Jane Eliot said.

  “Did you finally get Minerva Hunt’s attention?” Mercer asked, helping to lower the woman into her chair.

  “She couldn’t have been more gracious. Came all the way downtown to visit me. She really seemed so pleased that I had thought of her. Brought me a beautiful plant.”

  “And left with the book?” Mercer asked.

  As Mike liked to say, that’s why the rich were rich. Minerva Hunt exchanged a potted plant for a rare book and a piece of one of the most valuable puzzles in the world.

  “Oh, yes. Such a sentimental lady. She seemed almost in tears about it. Turned the pages of the book, kept stroking the map, too, though she never took it out to open it up.”

  “What did Minerva talk to you about, Miss Eliot?” I asked. “Did she speak about her grandfather?”

  “I talked mostly. About the library and such. She asked some questions.”

  “Like what?”

  “She was very curious about the other books we’d gotten as kids. Were any of them quite as big as this one? But they weren’t,” Eliot said, scratching her head as she recalled the conversation. “She wanted to know if I’d told anyone else about Edith’s gift. That’s what she was most interested in.”

  “And have you?” Mercer asked.

  “Certainly, but years ago. No one’s listened to me in ages. There was a time, after Jasper Hunt was gone, and my mother, too, that I made a few speeches at the library, to the trustees. They always seemed to enjoy stories of what we did there as kids. It kind of brought the great institution to life.”

  “Did you mention the map?” he said.

  “No. It never really made an impression on me as a child, Mercer. I saw it so briefly, and now I can’t really see at all. At those meetings, I described how we lived, the significance of the books that were given to us, particular books-like Alice in Wonderland-that sort of thing.”

  “Did that satisfy Minerva?” I asked.

  “A touch of sibling rivalry, I guess,” Jane Eliot said with a chuckle. “She was more concerned about whether her brother knew about the map. I can’t pull up his name at the moment, but she wanted to be very sure I hadn’t sent a letter to him before she’d responded to me.”

  “You hadn’t?”

  “No, no. Young people would call it sexist, but I thought that lovely book should go to a girl. I was hoping maybe Minerva had children, but she told me she doesn’t.”

  “In your correspondence with Eddy Forbes, Miss Eliot,” Mercer said, “did you mention the map that was inside your copy of Alice in Wonderland?”

  “I certainly did. I remembered what Jasper Hunt had told Mother about its value.”

  “And you’ve never heard from Forbes himself?”

  “Thank goodness, no. And the FBI wasn’t interested at all. They only wanted to know if I’d done any other business with Forbes. They didn’t even come to see me.”

  There was no reason for the feds, at that time, to have thought there was any significance to Jane Eliot’s attempt to reach Eddy Forbes.

  “Was there anything else Minerva mentioned?”

  “No, Alex. Not that I can think of. She hugged me quite warmly before she left. I figured I’d made a new friend. She seemed so concerned about my health, too. Just lovely.”

  “But you haven’t heard from her since?”

  “Actually, I haven’t. It sounds as though you think my old copy of Alice had something to do with this attack on me. Am I right?”

  “We’ll let you know as soon as we figure it out, Miss Eliot. I promise you that,” I said. “Can we do anything to make you more comfortable here before we leave?”

  “Take me with you,” she said, chuckling again.

  “You’ll go home in grand style when you’re released. The sergeant will get you there in a blue and white chariot. We’ll have your place all straightened up.”

  I knew she’d be shocked to see her home turned upside down, and to know there was fingerprint powder on most of her furniture. Someone from Witness Aid would be on top of helping with her homecoming.

  Pridgen walked us to the elevator as Mercer speed-dialed Lieutenant Peterson. “Loo? Don’t worry-I’ve got Alex covered for the day. She’s going to be with me. This Jane Eliot push-in is definitely a piece of our case-Tina Barr and Karla Vastasi. You need a uniformed cop posted at her hospital door, 24/7, in case this creep decides to come back at her.”

  Mercer listened to Peterson’s reply and gave me a thumbs-up.

  “And I’m about to call Chapman. Seems his heartthrob, Minerva Hunt, has been keeping secrets from him. Looks like she’s lied to us from the start. I think it’s time to round her up and hold her fancy pedicured toes to the fire.”

  THIRTY-SIX

  “So everybody’s keeping secrets from me, huh?” Mike said, combing his fingers through his hair. “First Minerva Hunt and then you. All of a sudden I find out you’re so worried about my temper, you won’t even call me when one of the Griggs takes you for a ride. Do you honestly think I’d do something stupid to compromise Kayesha Avon’s case after eight long years?”

  The three of us were standing in front of Tina Barr’s building. Mike had been on his way to the apartment when Mercer reached him as we left the hospital room.

  “I apologize,” I said. “It just seemed smarter at the time to let someone else in the squad handle last night’s episode.”

  “It would have seemed smarter to me at the time not to get in the frigging cab with Anton Griggs. He’s got a rap sheet longer than the Holland Tunnel.”

  “You didn’t mention that when you testified at the hearing.”

  “Don’t give me attitude, Coop. Anton doesn’t bother with his birth name too often. He’s got a different alias for just about every arrest. Most of the collars are in Jersey, so I missed it first time around, okay?”

  “What’s the plan, Mike?” Mercer asked, ever the peacemaker. “I told Alex not to call you. Let her be.”

  “Falling on your sword for her again, huh? Do it too often and there’ll be permanent puncture wounds in your heart,” Mike said, tapping his fingers on his chest. “Don’t say anything, Blondie. It’s only a joke.”

  I felt a pang of guilt and looked away.

  “Bea Dutton is on the subway, on her way to meet me here. She wants to show me the historical footprint of these buildings.”

  While we waited, Mercer told Mike the details of our interview with Jane Eliot.

  He had barely finished the story when Mike pulled out his cell phone.

  “Slow it down,” Mercer said. “Who are you calling?”

  “Carmine Rizzali. If I find that useless thug who she pays to protect her, we’ll know where Minerva Hunt is.”

  I could see Bea walking from Lexington Avenue, waving as she saw us standing on t
he steps of the brownstone.

  Mike slapped the phone shut. “Doesn’t even go to voice mail. Guess he’s catching on,” he said. “Yo, Bea. What have you got for me?”

  “Can we go inside, so I can spread out my maps?”

  “Sure,” Mike said, leading us down to the basement apartment-the scene of Tina’s assault and Karla’s murder. Crime scene tape was still draped across the doorway, but Mike had brought a key with him.

  When we reached the kitchen table, Bea unzipped her bag. “What do you know about these buildings?” she asked.

  “Only that there’s lousy karma in this basement lately.”

  “It didn’t start out that way,” she said. “You know something about the Hunts, I take it?”

  “Nothing good,” Mike said. “Educate me.”

  “Jasper Hunt and John Jacob Astor became partners in the real estate business. What Manhattan properties Astor didn’t buy, Hunt did.”

  Bea Dutton spread out one of her maps on the table.

  “Here’s where we’re standing,” she said, pointing at East Ninety-third Street on a copy of a fairly primitive map of the city. “This row of brownstones was built in 1885. Pretty swell digs at the time.”

  Mike squinted and looked at the writing. “Now, how can you tell when it was built?”

  “I did the vertical search for you,” Bea said, knowing she had captured Mike’s interest. “The 1884 maps don’t show any of the structures. The next year, here they are.”

  “Why were these maps created annually?”

  “Did you ever hear of the Great Fire of 1835?”

  Mercer and I were shaking our heads, but Mike answered, “Yes. It destroyed hundreds of buildings in lower Manhattan.”

  “That’s right,” Bea said. “Everything that was in today’s Wall Street area. These are called Sanborn maps, made by a company right after that fire. They were done for insurance purposes, for claims. Sanborn had the idea for these very detailed maps, showing every structure on the island. Can you see?”

  Her finger pointed from building to building as she talked. “The brick buildings, like these, were colored in pink. Things built for industrial use were green. And down the block a bit, you see the yellow ones? Those represent wood frame houses-more likely to burn, less likely to get a good insurance rate.”