“Yes, dear.” Mark put away his guitar. Hilary gathered up the remains of their picnic. She’d never really wanted to hit him.
They strolled through the gardens, admiring the flowering trees. The fish glinted in their pools like unexpressed emotions. Hilary told Mark about her family; he told her about his. Each of his parents had called him upon learning of Nathan’s murder, each had left him to deal with it. His independence had been hard won, Hilary told herself. As for hers—somewhere in the back of her mind she heard the ping! of breaking nets.
When the shadows lengthened, Mark drove Hilary back to her condo. “I’ll come by tomorrow after work,” she told him. “Preston wanted me to help with the drawings. And I have to see if I can look Jenny in the face.”
“She has to look at you,” Mark returned. “But she has other things to worry about. So do we.” He pecked Hilary’s cheek, saw her in the door, and left. Starting over again? she queried his departing back. Mark had told her he loved her. Whether he meant it, or whether he had merely been activating a male defense mechanism, she couldn’t say. She wanted nothing more than to love him, if she could, if he’d let her, if, if….
Hilary knitted and read and watched television the rest of the evening, finishing up with the nightly news and a report on the latest Osborne murder. No news was emphatically not good news. Here Mark and I are playing games, she thought, and Nathan’s dead.
That night she dreamed she was sketching Osborne House. But the cupolas and porches kept changing. She erased and erased again, until the paper ripped beneath her pencil. Still the house flowed noiselessly toward her, until she was drowning in its shadows. She awoke, heart hammering, when her alarm rang. She’d never been so grateful for a Monday.
And yet her usual pleasure at walking into the Lloyd was spoiled. Her sanctuary had been violated, Nathan dragged ruthlessly from it. Hilary peeked in the door of his office to see the papers and books arranged in tidy alien stacks, the bear and penguin mug sitting scrubbed and forlorn to one side. Zapata and Yeager’s work, no doubt; they’d probably spent Sunday afternoon inspecting every piece of paper in the room.
Bradshaw’s secretary looked into the hall. “Hilary? The Director wants to see you.”
Hilary smoothed her hair and straightened her blouse. The secretary waved her into the plush inner sanctum, where Wesley Bradshaw’s bulky form loomed by the window. Dolores Coburg sat on the corner of his desk, resplendent in a crimson Lagerfeld suit, her legs crossed and one foot twitching back and forth like the tail of a cat. Her welcoming smile was just the right blend of warmth and sympathy. “Good morning, Hilary. Is your father feeling better?”
“Ah, yes, he’s much better, thank you.” Hilary wondered just what grape on Dolores’s vine had squeezed out a seed about Everett’s illness.
“This is quite a shock,” said Bradshaw. “We’ll be doing some scrambling until I can hire a new curator. Now that the Regensfeld artifacts are catalogued, we’ll put you to work on the ethnographic material.”
“Are the artifacts catalogued?” Hilary asked.
Bradshaw turned around. Dolores’s foot stopped swinging. Her porcelain complexion cracked in the subtle pattern that ceramics experts called crazing. “Weren’t you working on the artifacts?”
“Yes, but I wasn’t done when I left Wednesday afternoon. Nathan was awfully busy—I don’t know whether he finished them himself.” The room was silent. Bradshaw’s colorless eyes didn’t blink. Dolores’s blue ones did. Hilary felt as though she’d been called on the carpet—literally—but had no idea why. “The police said Mr. Vasarian was here Friday night. He might’ve finished cataloguing the artifacts, but technically that wasn’t his job. And they still have to be packed.”
“Well then,” Dolores told her, “you go and get out the artifacts, and I’ll ask Nicholas about the catalogue—he’s around here somewhere—and we’ll have everything shipshape in no time.”
“Hilary, check over the catalog very carefully. Make sure everything’s correct,” said Bradshaw. And, to Dolores, “She’s not very experienced, but I’ll keep an eye on her. Don’t worry.”
Dolores looked vaguely offended. “If Nathan trusted Hilary to deal with the artifacts, Wes, who am I to dispute her competence?” Abashed, Bradshaw turned back to the window. Dolores made quick shooing gestures at Hilary. “That little policewoman, Zapata, she’s going to bring the ivory figure by this morning. You can deal with her, too.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Hilary muttered, and fled into the hallway. Catching her breath, she asked herself, If Dolores is on my side, why does she make me so nervous? Perhaps the second Mrs. Coburg was still on Jenny’s side, too, but her perfectly manicured demeanor revealed nothing.
Hilary started briskly off, exchanged smiles with Leslie in the security room, and found the conservation labs unchanged from last week when she’d left so abruptly. June had uncovered a few more inches of her painting, revealing draperies as yet unattached to a body, human or otherwise.
Checking out the box of artifacts from the strongroom took only a moment, calling up the computer files another. Hilary was pulling on clean cotton gloves when Leslie opened the door and ushered in Zapata, who was carrying the wooden crate beneath her arm like Nemesis on moving day.
I haven’t done anything, Hilary reminded herself. Even Mark and Jenny haven’t done anything actionable. “Good morning, Detective.”
“Good morning, Hilary. I hope I’m not interrupting you.”
“I hadn’t started yet, Rosalind.”
Zapata set the box on the workbench and pried up the top. “Here it is. We checked it for fingerprints and extraneous material, but I assure you we didn’t damage it.”
“Did you find anything?” Hilary reached out and gently lifted the Christ from its foam bed. It was heavy, smooth, and cool. The detailing of the tiny face was impeccable, conveying an expression both grave and joyous.
“The only fingerprints were those of Nathan and Jenny, and a set from someone not in our files, Pamela or Arthur, maybe. A bit of lint clinging to it matched the lint in Nathan’s jacket pocket; a bit of foam, this in the box. On the outside of the box was some pink yarn from the sweater.”
“Anything else?” Hilary spread out some tissue and laid the figure on it. She stretched upward to get a small ultraviolet light.
“From Nathan’s body, you mean?” Zapata considered a moment, her judicial manner conducting a quick competency hearing. But Hilary’s alibi was sound. “Two dyed red hairs were on his shirt. Sharon Ward’s, probably, although her mother wouldn’t let her give us a sample to test.”
“How did the Coburgs take the news about Jenny and the figurine?”
“The Snow Queen—Dolores—looked like she smelled something bad but was too well bred to mention it. The others acted suitably shocked and indignant. Sharon was adamant that we not let this get into the papers, and I have to agree. Arthur’s trial in 1975 should’ve had a change of venue after all the publicity. Now the media circus could go exponential. We’d have to try the case in Timbuktu.”
Assuming there was a case to try, Hilary thought with a glance at Zapata’s partly disgusted, partly resigned expression. The detective’s olive skin didn’t show the dark circles under her eyes nearly as starkly as Hilary’s pale complexion did, but the circles were there. She could play good cop all she wanted, but Hilary couldn’t tell her any more than she already had. “Did you find anything in Nathan’s office?”
“A mash note from Sharon. Boxes holding the papers from Arthur’s desk at Osborne, although not the portfolio of Jack the Ripper material or the letter from Felicia. Your catalogue. Other museum stuff.”
“Oh.” Hilary switched on the light. In its ultraviolet glow the ivory Christ shone a deep rich yellow, like a buttercup in the sunshine.
“That means it’s old?” asked Zapata.
“Sure does. New ivory looks lavender. I’d have to pare off a bit for a dating test, but there’s no reason to do that. This figure�
�s identical to the one on the Cross in the 1923 inventory—oddly enough, I was looking at a photograph of it Friday night.” Hilary switched off the ultraviolet light. The figure still glowed from within. “Walrus ivory, like the Cross. Harder to work, but takes detail better. A beautiful piece, not only in workmanship but in connotation.”
Zapata gazed critically at the artifact, admitting nothing, and reached into her purse. “Here’s a photo of the back of that sweater. I can’t imagine what it has to do with anything, but that’s half an investigation, finding out what’s evidence and what isn’t.”
“I have that problem, too.” Hilary took the photograph. Her fingertip moved from several lumpy patches in the design to rows of stitches stretched diagonally across a stockinette background. “Bobble stitch and moss stitch. Ripple stitch, zigzag stitch, some kind of lozenge. I don’t know what those squiggles are called. Whoever did this might have been teaching herself some new stitches. It’s sure not the work of an amateur.”
Zapata logged it all in. “If anything else occurs to you, let me know. I’m going by Osborne now, to give Mark back his Swiss Army knife.”
“No bloodstains?” Hilary asked, more flippantly than she should have.
“Not a one,” said Zapata, half smiling. “Sign this receipt for the figurine, please.”
Hilary signed. Zapata marched away. The lab seemed oddly quiet now, not the busy quiet of the scriptorium, but the eerie quiet of concealed thoughts and bated breaths. June wasn’t listening to her radio, probably filled to breaking with news of Nathan’s death.
Just because she’d been cheated of her haven didn’t mean she couldn’t do her work. Hilary put the figure back in its box. A quick check of the computer files showed her that someone had indeed completed the catalogue. One last run-through, then, and she could start packing.
The first piece she drew from the box was the ivory bishop. Carved of narwhal or walrus, she hadn’t been sure. But as heavy as the figure…. No. It wasn’t as heavy as the figure. It wasn’t as heavy as it had been last week. Too much on her mind, she chided herself. She’d have to focus more closely. She picked up a magnifying glass. Yes, there was the minuscule crack in the bishop’s pointed mitre. There was the faint stain between the hand and the staff it held. And yet the figure’s face was different, no longer no-nonsense stolid but benign, looking almost Buddha-like.
Hilary laid the piece down and closed her eyes. Subjective impressions are important, she told herself, but let don’t them get away from you.
She turned the boxwood misericord around and around beneath the bright light until the shadows of its intricate carvings left afterimages behind her eyes. Size, texture, dowel holes, the repaired figure, the prayer scratched on the back. Everything was there, and nothing was quite the same.
The blood drained from Hilary’s face and hands, leaving them frost-cold. She pulled out the Giotto painting. Yellow varnish, gilded halos, the crack in the panel. But this artifact felt sturdy, not at all as though it would break in two in her hands. The expressions on the painted faces were bland, drained of emotion, somehow cartoonish.
Through the magnifying glass she studied the silver and copper gilt reliquary. The corrosion lingering in the interstices of the filigree and behind the demonic figures wasn’t quite the same color, and seemed more even, somehow, as though painted on instead of appearing naturally with age.
The Irish brooch was lovely, sparkling gold, shining red and blue enamel. Almost perfect enamel, like plastic. Too shiny. Too light, strangely unassertive against her skin.
Hilary pulled out the last artifact, the Bible cover. The spinels gleamed. John the Baptist raised his hand over Jesus’s head. The figures had been rather stiff to begin with, she told herself. Peering closely, she read the Greek letters around the edge of the cover. The inscription was complete, as tidy as if the letters had been printed into the gold. She remembered them as being slightly uneven, hand-engraved. Her fingertips had thrilled to that passage, like a blind person discovering Braille. Now they felt nothing.
Hilary arranged the artifacts in a row and considered them. She was hearing a symphony rendered note by correct note by a student workshop, when she was used to listening to a passionate performance by the New York Philharmonic. The difference was subtle, almost subliminal, but undeniable. Since she’d packed the artifacts away last Wednesday someone had substituted fakes for the originals. Beautiful fakes, superb reproductions, expensive works of art in themselves. But new, not old, not haloed with antiquity and devotion. These items were dull and dry. Next to the ancient ivory figure of Christ, they were mockery.
Her palms were so damp, despite their being cold, that her gloves stuck to her hands. Chemical and dating tests, she thought. X-rays. Infra-red photography. But no. She didn’t dare manhandle such precious objects. And tests were equivocal at best—like her own intuitions. God, she thought. Who am I to jump to conclusions? I’m only an assistant curator…. That was just the point. Whoever had made the substitution had counted on her inexperience. She’d either notice nothing, or she’d lack the courage of her convictions. But courage had nothing to do with this overwhelming certainty.
Behind Hilary the door opened and shut. June said, “Good morning, Mr. Vasarian.”
“Good morning,” came the cultured accents.
Hilary’s body slumped like soft-serve ice cream, her perceptions dripping. Vasarian had been here alone Friday night. Had he brought in the fakes? Where were the real artifacts? And what about Nathan…. Dear God, she thought, I’ve just found a motive for his murder!
Footsteps paused at her back. She envisioned Bela Lugosi, eyeteeth bared, ready to plunge them into her neck. She could throw herself protectively over the artifacts or she could thrust them indignantly into Vasarian’s face. With tremendous effort she did neither.
“Good morning, Miss Chase,” said Vasarian.
She tried to read his expression. Affable courtesy. Intelligent query. He wasn’t even looking at the artifacts. Her mouth was so dry she could hardly speak. “Did you finish the catalogue?”
“Nathan was so busy, he asked me to help. I hope you don’t mind?”
“You’re the expert.”
“Dolores asked me to drop by and see how you were getting on. Can I help in any way? Packing, whatever?”
“No, thank you. I can manage.”
“Very well then. There’s no need to rush. I’ll be staying on here longer than I’d originally intended.” His eyes fixed on the box holding the figure. An ember glowed in their charred depths, lust more complex than that of the flesh.
Hilary wondered if he would have taken either the figure or the Cross if he’d gotten to them in secret, or whether he would have tried to blackmail Jenny into handing them over to him. And then he would have collected his fees from Dolores and Regensfeld both. Nothing personal, all in a day’s work.
“Thank you for looking in,” she said, and turned back to the table. He’d think she was rude, but that was better than fainting in his arms.
The door opened and shut. Hilary took off her gloves and rested her clammy forehead on her hands, counting each breath, swallowing until her mouth was moist again. What is this? she asked herself. Some kind of test to see how many traumas it takes to drive a person into gibbering idiocy?
The row of fakes sat snickering like hostile witnesses. The same wrappings, Hilary saw. The same penciled notes. The same box. But the artifacts were different. She had the courage of her convictions, but that courage only encompassed so much. Who would believe her wild stories of fakes and substitutions? Bradshaw? He was a straw man. Any of the Coburgs? They might be working with Vasarian. Zapata? She would demand proof, proof that Hilary didn’t dare provide.
Jenny? Oh God, Jenny. Her interest in the relics was far from academic. She might well have the courage—or foolhardiness—to charge, guns blazing, banners flying. Maybe charging was what got Nathan murdered. Maybe cooperation had signed his death warrant. Maybe it was simply his
existence, the threat of his knowledge, that had killed him.
I exist, Hilary told herself. I know. She’d never realized just how little room to maneuver there was between a rock and a hard place.
Numbly, she turned to the computer and printed a copy of the catalogue. That was innocuous enough. No one would suspect her of gathering evidence. A printout wasn’t evidence.
The clatter of the printer echoed harshly from the walls around her, but not as harshly as the cold, bony fingertips of fear pinched her spine.
Chapter Fifteen
Supposedly work was therapeutic. Mark stepped down into the carriage-house trench and knelt, and genuflected before a pile of what had once been garden tools but was now a pile of blackened pick-up sticks.
All the students had appeared this Monday morning, even though they worked with frequent curious and wary glances at the house and at the procession of people coming and going from it. Amy and a couple of other girls kept looking at Mark and Jenny and giggling.
Jenny’s cool dignity helped her to ignore the students’ innuendo. Her dignity wasn’t quite so cool when she spoke to Mark. When he’d come by Osborne yesterday to get his van, he’d found Jenny clearing a horizontal layer across the carriage house foundations while Graymalkin played among the oak leaves.
“Are you all right?” he’d asked.
Jenny’s smile had been lopsided with irony, highlighted by the charcoal smudges on her face. “Just. Are you?”
“I’m not sure. I’m on my way to Hilary’s now, to try and make up.”
“Tell her she’s welcome to shy a brick at me.”
“Hilary? No way.”
What Hilary had done was elicit a declaration of love from him. A Freudian slip, probably; he wasn’t going to analyze it. Her withdrawal Saturday had been frightening, but her Sunday forthrightness had been oddly comforting—none of these guess-what’s-bothering-me games that most women played. If women would just separate sex and love, they wouldn’t cause so many problems.
But then, Mark thought, he’d learned a long time ago that there was no such thing as free sex. He’d known Friday night that what he was doing, no matter how compelling, would hurt Hilary if she found out. Damned rotten luck that she did find out. Committing hara-kiri with his Swiss Army knife wouldn’t help. It was Nathan who’d been eviscerated.
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