The Apostrophe Thief

by Barbara Paul

  “Out of the question,” Murtaugh snapped. “It’s our jurisdiction.” He listened a moment. “That doesn’t make any difference. She’s on loan to us, she called in the murder, it’s her case.”

  Marian sank down on a chair; she was the “she” he was talking about.

  “Yes, I know—we’ve all got a manpower problem. But the investigation stays at Midtown South, whether you pull her back or not,” Murtaugh was saying. “If she goes back to the Ninth, I’ll put a gag order on her. The Nordstrom case stays here. It’s still a jurisdictional matter.” He listened some more. “You do that.” He slammed down the receiver.

  “DiFalco?” Marian asked.

  Murtaugh was fuming. “He wants me to transfer the Nordstrom case to the Ninth Precinct and you along with it. He’s threatening to go over my head.”

  “Can he do that?”

  “I don’t know—what kind of connections does he have?”

  Marian thought back. “I know he has a pipeline to the Chief of Patrol’s Office. Maybe to the Chief of Detectives as well.”

  “Hell!” Murtaugh brooded a moment. “He might be able to pull it off, but it’ll take him a while. Can you wrap it up in forty-eight hours?”

  “I don’t see how. I don’t have a suspect.”

  Murtaugh swore. “DiFalco seemed sure you’d nail the killer … what’s it to him? Credit for the bust?”

  “Exactly. It’s a glamour case—Broadway stars and like that. The way he thinks, he probably feels he has a right to the case, what with Gloria Sanchez in on it as well as me.”

  The captain looked at her oddly. “Those are precisely the words he used—’I have a right to the Nordstrom case,’ he said. ‘My detectives, my case.’ He doesn’t really believe that, does he?”

  Wordlessly, Marian nodded her head.

  Murtaugh sat down at his desk. “I’m beginning to see why you don’t want to go back to the Ninth. I don’t know how big a stink DiFalco can raise, but we can’t cross that bridge ’til we come to it. So, fill me in. What have you got?”

  “It looks as if it’s the Bernhardt jacket,” she said. She pulled out the photocopy of the receipt Gene Ramsay had given her. “Could we fax this to the French Sûreté, get them to check its authenticity? Gene Ramsay paid twenty-two thou for the jacket.”

  “That much?” Murtaugh took the receipt. “Nothing else valued that high, right?”

  Marian summarized what she’d learned and ended by asking if she could borrow Perlmutter the next day. “I need somebody to show photos of everyone connected with The Apostrophe Thief to the doormen at Nordstrom’s building, especially the one who was on duty Tuesday night.”

  “I’ll put him on it tomorrow. What else?”

  “Mitchell Tobin’s the only one to admit to knowing Nordstrom, but he says it was only one encounter eight or nine years ago.”

  “Did you believe him?”

  “Yes, I believed him, about Nordstrom. I’m more concerned about that missing computer of his … a loose end there’s no way to tie up. I’m going to talk to the wardrobe mistress and the stage manager tonight, see if they can tell me anything.”

  “What about your connection, uh, Augie? Have you checked with him?”

  “He doesn’t know anything, Captain. I think I’d have better luck with the Zingones.”

  “Zingones—ah, the biblical brothers and … Janet, is it? But they’re dealers. You don’t think the killer’d be stupid enough to peddle the things he took from Nordstrom’s apartment, do you?”

  Marian slumped in her chair. “No, I don’t. But I’m running out of leads, and I am in a position to put a little pressure on the Zingones. Receiving stolen goods. If any of the Nordstrom stuff is moved, the Zingones would know about it.”

  “All right, but it sounds like a long shot.” He paused. “Change of subject. Lieutenant Overbrook’s coming back next week.”

  “Ah! That’s good. Full time?”

  “Not at first. We’ll see how it goes. But you know he’ll be here only a matter of weeks before he retires.” He looked her straight in the eye. “And you did take the Lieutenants Exam.”

  Marian’s stomach knotted. “Captain, I—”

  “I checked the eligibility list. You’re right at the top.”

  “I was right at the top last time, too,” she muttered.

  Murtaugh raised an eyebrow. “So now you’re sulking because you were passed over?” He sounded amused. “Oh, of course—that’s never happened to anyone else. But it isn’t all DiFalco, then.”

  “I never said it was,” Marian answered, a little too defensively.

  “Under the circumstances, I imagine you’re right to resign,” Murtaugh went on blandly. “Obviously you’ll be satisfied with nothing less than perfection in a job, and I rather doubt you’ll find that in police work.”

  “Damn it, Captain, don’t patronize me! It took me a long time to reach the point of deciding to quit, and … and …”

  “And now that you’ve made up your mind, you don’t want to have to unmake it? Reconsideration is a sign of weakness?” He dropped his needling tone and said earnestly, “You’ve been going after Ernie Nordstrom’s killer like a cop, not like some deadbeat just counting the minutes until she’s out of here. You’re a cop, Larch. You’d be miserable doing anything else.” He paused. “Just thought I’d mention it.”

  Marian threw up her arms. “Just thought you’d mention it?”

  He laughed. “Yes, well, let’s put that on hold for now. I want to change directions on you again. I’m going to drop by the Broadhurst myself tonight. Will you be there before or after the performance?”

  “Both. I like the play. Are you going to tell them one of them is a murderer?”

  “Certainly. They have a right to know, if they haven’t already figured it out. And something helpful might come out of it. I’ll wait until they finish their performance and then make an announcement.”

  “Alibis?”

  “Right after the announcement. I know you could handle it alone, Sergeant, but I haven’t met any of those people and I want to get a feel for the place.” Murtaugh shifted his weight. “If you don’t have anything else, go home. It’s going to be a long night.”

  “Right,” said Marian, and got out as fast as she could. She stopped at a deli for take-out; she’d have time to shower and change and still get to the theater well before curtain time. But even while wavering between artichokes and linguine salad, she couldn’t get Murtaugh out of her head. The way he’d dangled the lieutenancy in front of her—making her think about it! Murtaugh didn’t decide who got promotions, but his recommendation would carry a lot of weight with Personnel. And what about the man himself? Marian didn’t know another captain in the entire NYPD who’d want a woman as his lieutenant.

  I can’t think about this now.

  At home, the message light on her answering machine was blinking. It was Gloria Sanchez: Call me immediately.

  Marian tapped out her home number. “Gloria? What’s up?”

  The other woman took a deep breath. “Are you ready for this? Foley’s been suspended. Pending an investigation.”

  Marian gasped. Her old partner, the worst cop she’d ever known. She’d pleaded with Captain DiFalco to take Foley off the streets, and now … “What’d he do?”

  “Oh, he fucked up regally. A gorilla named Jimmy Ybarra was beating on his family so bad that one of the kids called the police. Foley was told to investigate, but he didn’t even bother going to the home. He just got Ybarra on the phone and asked if he was abusing his family. The guy said he wasn’t, natch—and Foley wrote in his report that he’d found no evidence of domestic violence.”

  Marian could see what was coming. “Who?”

  “The wife. She’s in the hospital now with a broken back. She may die.”

  Marian closed her eyes and gritted her teeth. A broken back. May die. That woman should have been safe if Foley had done his job. “And DiFalco had to wait until something lik
e this happened before he’d suspend him.”

  “That’s not all,” Gloria said. “With Foley on suspension and you cozying up with Captain Murtaugh, DiFalco’s short two detectives. Marian, he’s going to pull you back.”

  “I know—he’s already made his first move. But it’s not me he wants, it’s the Nordstrom murder. Since you and I both worked on it, he’s claiming it for his own.”

  “But that’s stupid! It’s not a Ninth Precinct case.”

  “That’s what Murtaugh is saying. But DiFalco’s threatening to go over his head.”

  “Oh shit. How hard will Murtaugh fight to keep it?”

  Marian thought a moment. “Hard, I think. He doesn’t like being strong-armed.”

  “So, what are you going to do?”

  Marian was silent for a long while, and then said, “Gloria, I haven’t the faintest idea.”

  14

  Leo Gunn was using his mechanical hand to flip through the pages of his newly marked script. When he looked up and saw Marian, he sighed. “I was wondering how long it’d take you to get around to me.”

  Knowing a gift when she saw one, Marian simply said, “You want to save me some time and tell me straight out?”

  “There’s not all that much to tell,” he said. “I barely knew him. I never did business with him, if business was what it was. I didn’t even know where he lived.”

  “Few people did. Where’d you meet him?”

  “In a bar—on West Forty-seventh, I think. My roommate introduced him. He thought he was an antiques dealer.” Gunn smiled sourly. “I kind of felt sorry for the guy.”

  “Why’s that?”

  Gunn made a huhn sound. “Because he was fifty years old and still starstruck. He sat there at the bar wheezing away, telling us he had this star’s dressing gown and that star’s make-up kit. He was like a kid, bragging about his treasures.”

  “What did he want from you?”

  “Can’t you guess? He wanted an ‘arrangement’—I’d steal stuff from the shows I was working, he’d sell it and split the profits.” The stage manager closed his script. “When I told Ernie I’d been in this business too long to start going in for petty theft now, his face just crumbled. I thought he was going to cry. Excuse me a minute.”

  He broke off to tell one of the stage electricians to check a spotlight he thought was slipping its brace. When he came back, Marian asked, “When did all this happen, Mr. Gunn?”

  “Oh, three, four years ago. I was working a fake Shakespearean musical called Alarums and Excursions that was loaded with glitzy props and special stage effects. Ernie was just itching to get his hands on the stuff.”

  “Did you tell anybody you’d been approached?”

  “Yeah, I warned the director and the producer. The show didn’t run long, and the props were all sold off quickly or destroyed. I don’t know if Ernie ever got anything or not.”

  “Did you ever see Nordstrom after that time in the bar?”

  “Oh sure. Every time I’d open a new show, there’d be Ernie, asking if I’d changed my mind.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “Months ago. Before rehearsals for The Apostrophe Thief even started.” The stage manager rubbed his chin. “That’s right, he didn’t come around this time. I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “Didn’t you suspect him after the burglary?”

  “He’s about the last one I would suspect.” Gunn paused, gathering his thoughts. “Sergeant, I don’t quite know how to explain it, but Ernie Nordstrom was a mild man. Don’t get me wrong—there was a generous helping of sleaze in his nature. But he wasn’t aggressive and fearless in his pursuit of collectibles. He dearly loved every piece of memorabilia that passed through his hands, and he honestly didn’t see anything wrong in working a shady deal now and then if it brought him some new trophy. The collection was everything … all else was secondary.”

  “Yet he did manage a rather aggressive burglary,” Marian pointed out.

  “Yes, that’s just it! That whole thing is so untypical. Mounting a full-scale assault on a theater? Why, he must have been scared to death! That just wasn’t Ernie’s style. You know what I think? I think somebody else was behind it. Ernie would never have thought it up on his own. That’s what I think.”

  “And I think you’re right. Any idea who it might be?”

  Gunn wouldn’t venture a guess. “But whoever he is, he took advantage of Ernie’s obsession to get him to do his dirty work. And then he killed him.” He shook his head. “Ernie wasn’t dangerous. He was just doing the best he could. He didn’t deserve to die like that.”

  Marian was silent; those were the first kind words she’d heard spoken about Ernie Nordstrom, and they were spoken by a man who hadn’t even liked him much. She reached into her bag and pulled out a list of the missing items. “Tell me what’s the most valuable thing there.”

  He read the list. “Sarah Bernhardt’s jacket, I’d say.”

  “And the next most valuable?”

  “The computer. Neither of the other costumes would have cost as much as a notebook, and Ian’s old shaving mug wasn’t worth anything.”

  “Ernie Nordstrom was killed for one of the items on that list.”

  “No shit. One of these five? Well, it’s got to be the jacket. I’d say you need to look for a collector or another dealer, Sergeant.”

  That was beginning to seem the only logical assumption. She thanked Leo Gunn and headed for the costume room; she still had forty-five minutes before the curtain.

  Her interview took less than five. The wardrobe mistress was a plump, fortyish woman named Anne-Marie St. John, which she insisted was pronounced Sinjun even though her accent was as Bronx as Augie Silver’s. She was using a blow-dryer to fluff up a fake fur coat.

  “Is that Frieda Armstrong’s new coat?” Marian asked.

  “It is. It’s identical to the first one, but Frieda keeps saying it’s inferior. Bitch, bitch, bitch.”

  “About that first one. Could that by any chance have been a real fur?”

  The woman laughed, raucously. “Are you kidding? The day Gene Ramsay shells out for real fur is the day I play Juliet opposite Kenneth Branagh. No, I bought that coat myself, and I handled it every night. It was as fake as they come. Here, look for yourself—this one’s just like it.”

  Marian read the label, which conscientiously listed all the synthetics that went into creating “a fur experience”; it was fake, all right. “Okay, what about the white dress Xandria Priest wears? Anything special about that?”

  “Whaddaya mean, special?”

  “Was it especially valuable?”

  “Naw. Four, five hundred dollars is all. I gave you a list of what everything cost, back on the night we were cleaned out.”

  “I know. I’m just trying to find out if there’s any reason someone would want that coat or Xandria’s dress especially. Would they have more value to a collector than, say, this dress?” She pointed to one at random hanging on a rack.

  “Not that I can see,” Anne-Marie St. John said. “’Course, with collectors you’re never really sure what’s going on. They’re all crazy, you know.”

  Just then a young man stuck his head through the door. “Elsie, Xandria’s got a ripped hem she wants you to fix.”

  “Be right there.” The young man left and the wardrobe mistress shot an embarrassed look at Marian. “‘Elsie’ is just a pet name they have for me here.”

  “Oh.” Marian followed her out and watched her head toward the dressing rooms. Once the other woman was out of sight, Marian stopped by the stage manager’s desk. “What’s Anne-Marie St. John’s real name?”

  Leo Gunn grinned. “Elsie Greenbaum.”

  What she’d thought. Marian’s watch told her she still had a little time, so she crossed to the other side of the stage where the dressing rooms were. She knocked on Kelly’s door and said, “It’s me.”

  “Come in come in come in!”

  Kelly was in
costume and in the process of putting on her make-up. On her dressing table was half a glass of white wine. Kelly waved a hand toward an ice bucket and said, “Help yourself. John brought it.”

  Marian poured herself some wine and sat down. “What’s this line from? ‘It’s better to be stolen from than to have to steal.’”

  “The Red Shoes,” Kelly said promptly. “The ballet director says it to the young composer, early in the film. Why?”

  “Oh, Frieda Armstrong said that to me earlier today, and I thought it sounded like direct quotation.” She took a sip from her glass. “This is good wine. John Reddick brought it? Is he here tonight?”

  “He’s around somewhere. Giving Xandria a good talking-to, I hope.”

  “You still having trouble with her?”

  “Bleaghh. The best acting I do is in those scenes where I’m supposed to show how much I love my sister.”

  “Why don’t you try upstaging her?”

  “That’s for amateurs.” Kelly stopped what she was doing and turned to face her friend. “Are you just going to go on sitting there making chitchat? For crying out loud, Marian, tell me what’s going on! Why was this Ernie Whatsisname killed? What’s it got to do with us?”

  Marian sighed. “My boss is going to make an announcement here later this evening. Ernie Nordstrom’s killer is right here at the Broadhurst. He put Nordstrom up to the burglary—there was something among the loot that he wanted.” She went on to explain about the five missing items, and how it looked as if the one the killer wanted was the Bernhardt jacket.

  Kelly’s eyes were big and round. “My jacket? A man was killed for my jacket?”

  “Gene Ramsay paid twenty-two thousand for it. To a hardcore collector, it’d be a real prize. Kelly, who here collects theater memorabilia? Do you know?”

  “Oh boy. Oh boy.”

  “Kelly … who?”

  “Only one that I know of. Oh boy.”

  “Dammit, who?”

  “John.”

  Whew. Marian thought about that a while. “Have you seen his collection?”

  “Yes. He’s given over a whole room in his apartment to his theater stuff. Marian, John’s the only one I know about. There could be others.”