Blindman's Bluff (36 page)
Authors: Faye Kellerman
Decker turned to the kid. “Don’t interrupt when I’m interviewing. It distracts me.”
“Just trying to move things along.”
“Tyler, this is probably nothing, so it’s no big deal. But if you have a chance to investigate a real crime, you can’t rush it along. You’ll miss things. You’ve got to slow down.”
“Touchy, touchy.”
“I’m trying to teach. . .forget it.”
Before McAdams could respond, Pellman came back with the bolt cutters and handed them to Decker. “You want to see the crypt and the lock?”
“That would be helpful.”
Slowly Pellman brought them over to the Bergman crypt, an enormous rectangular stone vault with a dome ceiling. Each of the four outside walls hosted a leaded glass window that would have lit up the interior had it been daylight. There were five stone steps down led to a padlocked concrete door. No foul odors seemed to emanate from the ground, but it was so cold that everything was frozen solid including dead matter. Decker looked at the bolt cutters and looked at the thin shank of the padlock. This was something that teens would use on their school lockers. With a little muscle, he should be able to get off a clean cut through the u-shaped metal.
Decker said, “Can I try your key just to make sure?”
“Sure.”
Decker inserted the Schlegg into the key slot. He could move it a millimeter to the left and right. The insides didn’t appear to be frozen, just that the key didn’t work the lock. He handed it back to Pellman. Then he handed the cutters to McAdams. “Go ahead, Harvard.”
“Me?”
“Yeah, take a whack at it.”
McAdams threw dagger eyes, but he secured the blades of the cutter around the U-shaped metal. “Okay.” He took a deep breath. “Okay.” He pressed down hard and the lock slipped under the blades. McAdams swore.
“If you don’t get it on three, I’ll do it,” Decker told him.
“Chill, Old Man. I’ll get it, I’ll get it.”
Number three was the charm. The kid used all his muscle, the blades cut through the shank, and the lock snapped off. “Piece of cake.” When McAdams started to go in, Decker held him back.
“How about if we pick up the lock from the floor and stow it in the paper evidence bag. Just perhaps there is a crime scene involved and maybe the lock has a fingerprint. And as luck would have it, I just happen to have a few bags in my pocket.” Decker handed him a small paper bag. “Or would you prefer that I pick it up, boss?”
McAdams swore, but he bent down and picked it up with his gloved hand.
Decker said, “Place it in the bag. Then you write your name, the date, the time and the location.”
McAdams did as told then gave the bag back to Decker. “Only because your wife fed me tonight.”
Decker took out a flash light and a magnifying glass. He peered through the lens and studied the door. “No pry marks.” He pushed the door open and swept the beam across the crypt. There were a number of horizontal marble headstones in the ground, but no bodies that weren't six feet under. Decker counted the marble tombstones. At current, the crypt was hosting ten graves with room for more. Decker handed McAdams an extra flashlight. “In case you didn’t bring one. Keep it.” He turned to Pellman. “Could I borrow your light? It’s stronger than mine.”
“You betcha.” The watchman handed him his battery pack.
“Thanks.” Decker crossed over the threshold and stepped inside. The temperature wasn’t as cold as he thought it would be. Thick walls kept out the sunlight and heat but they also kept out the extreme cold. Decker swept the beam around to get the lay of the land.
The space was as big as his current living room, around two hundred square feet, and beautifully adorned. There were carved molding on the ceiling and jeweled stripes of iridescent colored glass tiles inset into the walls. Each gravestone was marked by the inhabitant inside — name, beloved husband/wife father/mother, grandfather/grandmother/date of birth/date of death. Nothing unusual except that the headstones of the matriarch and the patriarch were inset with tile work - two different pastoral scenes elegantly laid out in tiny pieces of glass mosaic. He squatted down to study the artwork. McAdams kneeled next to him. Decker whispered, “Doesn’t matter now, but for the record, don’t kneel. It might mess up something. You want as little contact with the ground as possible.”
McAdams squatted. “Not only am I a solid chunk of ice, I’m gonna be sore.”
Decker ignored him. “Nice tile work, no?”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s more than okay. Somebody put money into these headstones.” Decker stood up and inched the light up and across the walls until he reached the windows. They stood about ten feet above the floor. Hanging just under the dome in the upper four windows were stained glass panels. Decker didn’t notice them when he first came in because it was dark. He illuminated each panel with his flashlight, letting the beam rest on for a minute or so before moving onto the next one. They probably sparkled beautifully in the daylight. He turned to McAdams. “What do you think?”
“What do you mean?”
“Look at the stained glass windows. Tell me what you think?”
The kid illuminated the glass. “Not my thing, but these are pretty nice.”
“Look at the scenes.”
“They’re all different.”
“It’s the four seasons,” Decker said. “See that one’s winter, that’s spring, and summer and autumn.” He regarded the kid. “I think they were commissioned, not just bought at a local craft fair.” He turned to Pellman. “Have those stained glass windows always been inside the crypt?”
“For as long as I’ve been here, they’ve been hanging on the walls.”
“So they’re old pieces.”
“At least thirty years.”
Decker turned to the kid. “What do you think?”
McAdams shone his light on the four panels. “Like I said, it isn’t my thing.” A pause. “My mother has some Tiffany lamps. I’m not saying they are Tiffany. I’m just saying it looks like good quality.”
“Agreed,” Decker said.
“You do know that the company made a ton of stained glass windows for religious purposes.”
“Go on.”
“Just that the studio made a lot of devotional items for churches and synagogues. Do you know Manhattan at all?”
“Not too well.”
“There’s a famous synagogue on Fifth avenue in the sixties. It has an original Tiffany. As does the Portuguese Synagogue on the west side.”
“Courtesy of your ex-Jewish girlfriend?”
“You have a honed mind, Old Man. The studio also made windows for wealthy people’s mausoleums. So if they were real, I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“Could you tell if those are Tiffany or not?”
“Not at this distance. Even up close, I couldn’t tell real from fake. I mean you could look for a signature, but that can be forged. It happened all the time.”
Decker turned to Pellman. “Do you have a ladder?”
“Not on me, but I can get you a ladder.”
“Thank you. That would help.”
“Be right back.”
After he left, McAdams said, “Why in the world are you climbing up there? Are you that bored with the job?”
“Harvard, it always helps to get up close and personal. I’ll do the climbing, you just hold the ladder.” The two men didn’t speak. McAdams was fidgety. Decker said, “You okay?”
“Kinda creepy in here.”
“Yeah, cemeteries are a little spooky.” Decker paused. “Not this place, though. Someone took the time to make it pretty.”
Pellman came back with the ladder. “Here you go.”
Decker handed him his big, bulky battery pack flashlight and took his smaller light. He started climbing toward the windows. “Guys, shine the lights on the window, okay? I want to see them up-close.”
The two men focused the light on the “autumn” stained-glass window. It was about 14 by 20 in size and was hanging from two chains that were hooked into the ceiling.
“Is there a signature,” McAdams shouted.
“What kind of signature should I look for?”
“Tiffany Studios. . .something like that.”
Decker was face to face with the artwork. He shone his light through the colored glass. He wasn’t an expert, but it looked pretty good to his eye. It took him a few seconds to find the signature: Tiffany Studio. New York.
“Do you think it’s real?” McAdams asked from below.
“No idea.”
McAdams said, “There must be someone in one of the colleges that could authenticate it.”
“Right,” Decker said. “Good thinking.”
“Yeah, yeah.” McAdams rubbed his shoulders. “Are we just about done?”
“In a minute.” Decker continued to study the work: each cut piece of glass, each thread of metal that held the glass into place. All the metal, including the frame, was dark bronze in color but with a hint of dark green peeking through. He knew from watching those antique shows that the patina — the way the metal aged over time - was important in authentication and to his eye, the metal work between the glass pieces and frame had plenty of patina. So did the chain from which the panels hung.
All of the links had plenty of patina except for the two metal loops soldered to the frame and attached to the hanging chains. Those two loops were darker than the frame and looked flat when compared to the rest of the metal. Decker saw a raised chip of what he thought was a metal shard poking up, but when he touched it, dark paint flicked off and fell onto the back of his hand. Carefully, he climbed down the ladder and folded it up. “Uh, with the family’s permission, I’d like to get an art expert down here to look at all four windows.”
Pellman said, “Why?”
McAdams said, “What did you find?”
“I’m not sure, but I’d like someone to take a closer look.”
Pellman shuffled his feet. “I suppose I can call up the family.” He hemmed. “Maybe it would sound better if it came from the police.”
“I’d be happy to call them up and tell them my thoughts.” Even in the dark shadows, Decker could tell that Pellman was relieved. The watchman gave Decker Ken Sobel’s telephone number. “Do you have something to secure the door with?”
“No, not on me.”
“I don’t suppose there’s a hardware store open at this time of night?”
Pellman said, “Just call up Glenn Dutch. I’m sure he has something around his house. If not he’ll open the store for you.”
McAdams said, “Dutch’s hardware is on Gable Street.”
“That’s the one and only.”
“Do you have the number?” Decker said.
“I don’t have it, but Roy might have it. Roy’s a friend of Glenn’s and I have Roy’s number.”
“Could you get Glenn’s number from Roy, then?”
“Surely, I can.” He checked his contact list on his phone. “I must have it at home. . .Roy’s number. I’ll call up my wife and she can get me Roy’s number who can get you Glenn’s number.”
“That sounds like a plan.”
“Hold on.” Pellman walked a few feet away to make his calls.
McAdams said, “You want to tell me what you found or are you going to make me play twenty questions?”
Decker said, “I found paint.”
“Paint?”
“Paint flicked off on one of the loops soldered onto the frame. It was painted to make the solder joints look old. And, come to think of it, whoever put those loops on the frames did a sloppy job of soldering. Now it could have been a recent repair. I’m just saying it wasn’t in keeping with the original work.”
McAdams said, “What did the glass look like? The individual pieces, I mean.”
“The glass was beautiful. . .really iridescent.”
“Did you find any cracks?”
Decker regarded him in the shadows. “Interesting you should ask. I remember thinking that the glass was in really good shape. Why?”
“This may not be true for window panels, but my mom always said that the lamps have been around for a while. It’s nearly impossible to find something in pristine shape — without any cracks - that hasn’t been forged.”
“Good to know,” Decker said. “On the other hand, the panels have been hanging in the same place for over a hundred years they’re real.” A pause. “On the third hand, the works are hanging in a non-controlled environment. With all the weather fluctuations, you might expect a few cracks. On the fourth hand, I only looked at one panel so maybe the others have cracks.”
“So that’s the way you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Figure out cases. . .you just keep talking to yourself until you hit on something.”
“Sure, I talk to myself if no one else is around. When I was head of the detective’s division, I used to talk my other detectives. We’d bounce stuff off each other and we were right more than wrong.”
“You know, I am standing right here, freezing my ass off. So as long as I’m around, you could bounce shit off me.”
“McAdams, I’ve been trying to bounce shit off you for the last six months and all I’ve had to show for it was a face full of crap. S’right. I know I’m a terrific detective. If you want to learn, I’ll be happy to share what I know. And, if there’s something that I don’t know but you do know, well, that’s fine with me also. A great detective starts by being a great listener.”
FAYE KELLERMAN
is the author of twenty-six novels, including nineteen
New York Times
bestselling mysteries that feature the husband-and-wife team of Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus. She has also penned two bestselling short novels with her husband,
New York Times
bestselling author Jonathan Kellerman, and recently has teamed up with her daughter Aliza to cowrite a teen novel titled
Prism
. She lives in Los Angeles, California, and Santa Fe, New Mexico.
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