Into the Lion's Den

by Linda Fairstein

  “Will that bring back your smile, Dev?”

  “It’s a great idea, Miss Shorey,” I said, giving her my best grin. A fiblet, to be certain, but I couldn’t spoil her generous gesture. “A really great idea.”

  16

  “Help me figure a way out of Miss Shorey’s field trip,” I said to Liza, stuffing the permission slip into my pocket. “My mother will assume I put her up to this.”

  “You’ll think of something, Dev. You always seem to.”

  It was a very long walk from East End Avenue, where the Ditchley School had been situated since its founding nearly a century ago, to the Fifth Avenue apartment that had been my grandmother’s home since her marriage to Henry Atwell when she was twenty-eight years old.

  “Tell me more about your grandmother,” Liza said.

  “Everybody should have a Lulu in her life. I know you don’t have either of your grandmothers alive, so I’m happy to share her with you,” I said. “What do you want to know?”

  “Well, her story, I guess.”

  “Lulu’s family were Boston Peabodys. You’d need a family tree with more limbs than you could count to trace them back to their roots. Her grandfather worked with the great American industrialist Andrew Carnegie. That’s what created the family fortune, and also inspired the kind of philanthropy that she believes in.”

  “I don’t know about Andrew Carnegie,” Liza said.

  “He was a totally self-made immigrant who worked his way to the top in the steel business. Billions of dollars, most of which he tried to give away before he died. Carnegie gave away enough money to build more than two thousand public libraries all across America.”

  “That’s amazing. And Henry Atwell, what was his fortune?”

  “He didn’t have one. Lulu was looking for two qualities in a prospective husband: brilliance and a sense of humor. Hit the mark on both.

  “She was a child of the sixties, Liza. She rallied for the Equal Rights Amendment, she protested against the war in Vietnam, and she marched from Selma to Montgomery for the Voting Rights Movement. That’s where she met my grandfather.”

  “Bloody Sunday?” Liza asked, referring to the dreadful day in 1965 when Alabama state troopers attacked the unarmed marchers.

  “No. That’s the day that caused her to join the second and third marches. Henry was a journalist covering all of them. He actually won a Pulitzer Prize for his articles. His father was a shoemaker in a small Midwestern mill town, but Grandpa Henry won a full scholarship to Yale. He used to tell me he fell in love with Lulu when he picked her up off the ground that day—he’d never laid eyes on her before—after she was hit with tear gas in Montgomery. He’d laugh and say that the moment he met her was the only time he’d ever see her cry,” I said. “That was true until the day she got the news my father had been killed.”

  Liza had no response. I hadn’t meant to be dramatic, but that story was the truth.

  “She sounds tough.”

  “It’s in her genes, she says. Both her parents were activists, too, and interested in good works. They never let her be a debutante,” I said. “They insisted she have purpose in her life and that she stand for something.”

  “That’s so interesting,” Liza said.

  “Then there’s her education at Vassar. It was a women’s college when Lulu went there. She says that’s what made her such an independent spirit.”

  “Was Vassar still a women’s college when your mother attended?”

  “No. It went coed in the 1970s. Sort of funny because my mom claims that she gained most of her independent thinking at Vassar, too. Going head-to-head with so many smart guys, as well as other women.”

  “But if they’re so much alike, Dev, why don’t they get along?”

  We were crossing Park Avenue on our trek to the heart of the fanciest residential part of Manhattan. We were stuck between lights on the median, and I couldn’t avoid the conversation.

  “It’s all about my father, Liza,” I said. “Everything important in my life seems to be about him.”

  “I’m so sorry, Dev.”

  “Don’t be sorry. It’s nobody’s fault.” Nobody except the person who killed him, is how I looked at it. “He was born a year after Lulu and Grandpa Henry Atwell married.”

  “Devlin. So your father was Devlin Atwell,” Liza said, as though a light had suddenly switched on in her brain. “But you’re Devlin Quick.”

  “That’s a major part of the problem right there,” I said, scooting across the avenue to beat a trio of oncoming cabs. “My mother was very stubborn, especially since I was born after my father’s death. She figured it would just be the two of us, on our own. The two of us making our own way in the world. She wanted me to be a Quick, just like she was. She insisted that I carry her name.”

  Liza had no comment.

  “She also refused my grandmother’s offer to have us both move in with her and raise me there.”

  “But why?”

  “You’re about to see why. Because Lulu lives in a Fifth Avenue penthouse that looks like an annex of Buckingham Palace. She’s got a housekeeper and a chef and a butler. My mother wanted none of that for me. I’m her child, and I would always be known as her child, since I didn’t have a father. So she decided I might as well have her name and live the life she was living.”

  “And your grandparents resented that,” Liza said.

  “Yeah. My mom says they didn’t understand just how deep her grief went, and that she wanted to figure out her own way to cope with it. They underestimated her strength. I know they meant well, but it was apparently quite a scene at the time.”

  “She won’t take money from your grandmother, either?” Liza said, craning her neck to look up at the grand entrance to Lulu’s building.

  “How do you do, Miss Quick?” the doorman said to me. His uniform was as well-tailored as a designer suit. “Shall I announce you?”

  “Please do, thanks,” I said, then continued to answer Liza. “I think my father’s inheritance is in a trust for me. My mother refuses to discuss that. She and I live entirely on her salary. She was insistent on that, too. The only exception is that Lulu pays my tuition at the Ditch, ’cause my mother agrees it’s the best school in the city.”

  “That looks like a Van Gogh,” Liza said, studying the large painting on the wall of the lobby as we waited for the elevator.

  “You even know a lot about art, Liza. That’s cool,” I said. “It’s actually a real Van Gogh.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “Nope. Lulu ran out of wall space upstairs, but she wasn’t quite ready to give it over to the museum yet,” I said. “She’s really something.”

  The door opened and the white-gloved elevator man welcomed us on and pressed the PH button that would take us up to the top floor. “Good to see you, Miss Quick. You’ll be making your grandmother’s day, won’t you now?”

  “That all depends on whether I remember my manners, I think.”

  “Well, the entire building staff will know about it if you don’t, young lady. You’re the apple of her eye.”

  “Then I’ll be on my best behavior, just for you,” I said, turning back to my friend. “By the way, Liza, I know you’ve got a really intense streak of curiosity, which I appreciate. But do not go asking Lulu if she has a boyfriend, like you do everyone else.”

  I never expected Lulu to be standing on the landing when the elevator doors opened. It was usually the housekeeper who let me in.

  “Why is that, Devlin?” Lulu asked as I stepped toward her. “Would it shock you to think I have a suitor at this age?”

  She practically smothered me in an embrace. I hugged her back, then reached up and kissed her cheek.

  “Not at all, Lulu. It’s just that the last guy dropped dead on you at the Metropolitan Opera House in the middle of the second act of Othello,” I said. “Take a breather, why don’t you?”

  “Gentlemen keep me engaged in the world, my darling. That one had a weak const
itution, sad to say. A Wagnerian opera might kill a man, but I didn’t think this one could. Now, make your proper introductions.”

  I presented Liza to my grandmother, a plump woman about two inches taller than I was. Lulu had deep blue eyes, hair that was as white as new-fallen snow, and skin that never wrinkled as she aged.

  “Delighted to meet you, Liza,” my grandmother said. “Devlin tells me you’re from Argentina. I’ve been there many times throughout my life, greeted with great hospitality, so I want you to feel very much at home while you’re in this country.”

  Lulu took off chattering in Spanish—she spoke French and Italian, too—although the only thing I was able to understand was her admiration as a young girl for Eva Perón because of her struggle for women’s suffrage.

  She and Liza were walking into the living room, with its breathtaking views of Central Park. Liza was as happy as I’d seen her since the day we’d met as she responded to all of Lulu’s questions.

  “I understand I’m to feed you girls,” she said, ringing a small silver bell on the end table next to her sofa. “Let’s see if lunch is ready. Then perhaps Devlin will tell me what prompted this visit.”

  I flopped down on the oversized chintz cushion of the sofa. My feet almost reached the floor, which meant that I had grown a bit in the last month. “I’ve got no agenda, Lu. I wanted Liza to meet the world’s greatest granny. Simple as that.”

  “What do you take me for, Devlin? I know I can have the cook whip up a wicked PB&J sandwich for you on a moment’s notice, my dear, but you’ve got way too many things to do on a beautiful summer afternoon to drop by just to humor me.”

  “I’m starving to death,” I said. “Why don’t you feed us first?”

  The cook, Bridey, appeared in the archway in response to the bell call. “Welcome home, Devlin,” she said, blowing me a kiss. “Luncheon is served, Mrs. Atwell.”

  “I always know when you’re in desperate need of an ally or a partner in crime, Devlin Quick,” Lulu said, patting me on the head as she led the way into the dining room. “I must teach you to be more subtle in your approach, dear. As it is, I can tell when you’ve got something up your sleeve. You might as well let your secret out of hiding.”

  17

  “What are you girls working on in summer school?” my grandmother asked. “I’m told the Ditchley has a very ambitious program.”

  Bridey had set a small round table for us against the window in the dining room, also fronting Central Park, but far more intimate than the long banquet table that held twenty-four of us at Thanksgiving and Christmas, when my relatives came to town.

  I let Liza describe the courses she was taking while I tried to think of the best approach to enlisting Lulu in our crime-solving caper.

  “Thank you,” I said to Bridey as she set a bowl of soup in front of me.

  “What’s our starter?” Lulu asked.

  “It’s a cold avocado soup, ma’am. Devlin’s favorite. And I’ve added some cucumbers and cherry tomatoes for color.”

  “Very kind of you, indeed,” my grandmother said. “And on very short notice. Do go on, Liza.”

  I loved Bridey’s soup but was still what Lulu referred to as a finicky eater. I tried to fish out the annoying cucumber slices, spearing them with my fork as though it were a pike, while Liza engaged her in conversation, but she caught me out of the corner of her eye.

  “Your mother’s right about one thing, Devlin. Your table manners would have people think you were raised in a barnyard.”

  “Sorry, Lu.”

  “Eat the food in front of you; don’t play with it. It looks like you’re growing some muscles on that slim frame.”

  “You know I need that for my swimming. I’ve got practice at nine o’clock on Saturday morning. Would you like to come watch?”

  “I’d adore that, Devlin. You know I would,” Lulu said, turning to Liza, who had perfect manners to match the perfect posture as she raised the soup spoon to her mouth. Looking at her made me sit up straighter without even thinking about it.

  “My grandmother was on her swim team, too,” I said to Liza. “All through high school and even at Vassar. Isn’t that fun? It’s one of the reasons I enjoy racing. I try to imagine that Lulu’s in the next lane and I’m determined to beat her. I wish I could time travel back and dive in together with her to see who would win.”

  “Yes,” Lulu said, “we’re both champions at the Australian crawl. Not any longer for me, of course, but I love to root for Devlin. She’s got a better turn off the wall than I ever did, but my crawl stroke was so much cleaner than hers. You need to keep working on that, dear, don’t you?”

  “It’s called freestyle now, Lu,” I said. “No one calls it the crawl anymore.”

  “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose, my dear. Do you speak French, Liza?”

  “I do a bit. ‘The more things change, the more they stay the same,’ isn’t that the translation?”

  “Good for you,” Lulu said. “You see, Devlin? You really need to start taking foreign languages. It so increases your reach, now that the world is shrinking. Besides, darling, I know the stroke is called freestyle now. It’s just that I crawled for so long that some habits are hard to change.”

  She asked Liza about her athletic ability and the two discussed soccer, while I continued to noodle through the best approach to her.

  “It’s good for everyone to have a sport, girls,” Lulu said. “The exercise, the competition, the sportsmanship and camaraderie with your teammates. All valuable assets. Builds character for you.”

  “So you’ll come on Saturday to watch me?”

  “Another time, Devlin. I’d so like to do it, but I’m going to stay with friends in East Hampton this weekend. Will that be a terrible disappointment to you?”

  I got up from my seat and wrapped my arms around my grandmother from behind as Bridey cleared the soup dish and replaced it with my sandwich. “You could never disappoint me, Lu. You’re the only guardian angel I’ve got. You’re the best.”

  “I can see we’re getting closer to the real reason for your visit, darling.” Lulu cut me off like a stroke of the guillotine. “Spare me the flattery, Devlin, and tell me what has you stumped.”

  I had taken my first bite of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, wickedly good, as she was quick to say, because she used a divine jelly preserve she had shipped to her twice a year from the South of France. The peanut butter was stuck to the top of my mouth like glue. I couldn’t speak. At home, I could have scooped it out with my finger, and my mother would have simply shaken her head, but finger scooping was forbidden on Lulu’s territory. I motioned to Liza to begin.

  “I witnessed a theft, Mrs. Atwell,” she said. “I saw a man cut a page out of a valuable book at the New York Public Library.”

  “Heavens!” my grandmother said, clutching one hand to her breast. She, of course, had cut her sandwich into half-inch squares and was eating bite-size pieces in a thoroughly adult way so that there was no accumulated mass to stick to her palate. I had so much yet to learn about life.

  Liza went on with her narrative. I watched Lulu’s face while Liza talked. She was the first adult to whom we’d told the story who found it thoroughly credible and completely outrageous.

  “What’s the commissioner of police doing about this crime?” she asked me. “What does she say?”

  I hadn’t expected that question. I had no intention of setting my mother against my grandmother.

  “She’s taking it seriously, Lulu,” I said, treading water cautiously. “My mother has a few things on her plate that appear to be more urgent, like terrorists and murderers and all that. I can’t blame her a bit.”

  “Has she put Dick Tracy in charge of the investigation?” she said, smirking at me.

  “His name is Sam Cody, Lulu. I know you know that. And yes, he’s been helpful, too.” I think my grandmother was jealous of the time that Sam spent with my mother, and the closeness of their relationship.<
br />
  “Then what can you possibly need from me?”

  “Nobody on this planet knows libraries as well as you do, Lu. I’d like you to help us think of a way to catch this—I mean to help the police catch this man,” I said. “He may even have accomplices. Have you ever heard of a map thief before?”

  Louella Atwell nodded her head but was slow to answer. “I have. Certainly I have.”

  “Where?”

  “In the very same room where Liza witnessed this terrible act. More than a decade ago, a man was caught who’d gone to all the great research libraries up and down the East Coast. Caught at Yale University, finally. But he left his mark here in New York, too.”

  “Well, there’s another thing you ought to know, Lulu,” I said. “We followed him from the library—”

  “You did what?”

  “She means that before we turned the matter over to the NYPD, Mrs. Atwell,” Liza said, “we followed the man to Grand Central Terminal and saw him get on a train that—”

  I had to jump in at this moment. Point of pride, I guess, because of Lulu’s connection to Vassar College. “A train that was headed for Poughkeepsie. So I’m sorry that you’re upset about us following the man but—”

  “Upset? I’m not the least bit upset, Devlin. Done with aplomb, I would say quite heartily.”

  “I don’t know that word,” Liza said. “‘Aplomb.’”

  I smiled at Lulu while I answered Liza. “Sort of means self-confidence, with assurance. My grandmother’s not criticizing what we did, like everyone else has. She’s paying us a compliment.”

  Lulu dabbed at her mouth with her cloth napkin. “Moxie, young ladies. I like that you’ve got moxie.”

  “There’s more, Lu,” I said, barely able to contain my enthusiasm. “We believe the thief may have something to do with Vassar.”

  “Really? How did you reach that conclusion?”

  “There was something online about an exhibition in the college library, and a cocktail reception that was held there two weeks ago. President Hill hosted the party and there were rare maps by Mercator and Ortelius on display.”