Corpus Christmas (28 page)

“We saw one of Oscar Nauman’s paintings,” said Elaine Albee, with a wary glance at Sigrid. She wondered how the lieutenant
would react if they told her that Thorvaldsen had tried to pump them about her. “It was very colorful.”

“Did you happen to remember why you were there?” Sigrid asked coldly.

Eberstadt virtuously produced Thorvaldsen’s typed and signed statement. “He had a stenographer come up to his suite and went
through the whole evening again, but it doesn’t add doodly to what he told you Thursday night.”

He read from Thorvaldsen’s statement, “‘Dr. Shambley implied that it could be to my benefit if I met with him again that night
at the Erich Breul House. I assumed he meant to offer me the private opportunity to add something choice to my art collection.
As I have occasionally bought works of art under similar circumstances, this did not strike me as an unusual request. I cannot
say positively that this is what he meant. I saw no such piece of art that night, nor did I see Dr. Shambley. I went in through
the unlocked front door, waited in the library for approximately one hour, and left at midnight without seeing or speaking
to anyone.”

Sigrid had listened silently with her elbows and forearms folded flatly on the desk.

“When we first got there,” said Albee, “we talked with Thorvaldsen’s secretary, a Miss Kristensen. She gave us the name of
a security guard who was on outside duty Wednesday night, Leon Washington. She says Washington saw Thorvaldsen enter his office
building around ten-thirty and then leave again about fifteen minutes later.”

“Convenient,” Sigrid said.

Elaine Albee shrugged. “Who knows? We stopped by his place on our way back here and woke him up. He wasn’t happy about telling
us, but he says he’d stashed a coffee thermos in an empty warehouse across the street and was taking an unauthorized coffee
break—”

“Coffee, my ass,” Eberstadt interjected. “—so he saw Thorvaldsen but Thorvaldsen didn’t see him. And yeah, he may be lying,
but he seemed too worried about the possibility of losing his job to be acting.”

Matt Eberstadt nodded. “He said Miss Kristensen promised she wouldn’t let it get back to Thorvaldsen and that’s all he really
seemed to care about.”

Bernie Peters sighed. “If the guard’s telling the truth, that definitely puts Thorvaldsen out.”

“Whether or not he’s lying, it’s still hard to put Thorvaldsen there.” Sigrid leaned back in her chair with her left knee
braced against the edge of the desk. “Francesca Leeds said she left him between ten and ten-fifteen; Evans and Grant said
they found Shambley’s body between ten-fifteen and ten-thirty. Even if he had the full half hour to get back there, from the
restaurant four blocks away, get inside, kill Shambley and then leave by the basement door, it’d be awfully tight.”

“And why would he hang around there for another hour and a half?” asked Elaine Albee.

“Looking for the picture Shambley promised him?” Lowry guessed.

“With Grant and Evans running all over the place?”

“Up and down the
back
stairs,” Lowry reminded her. “They never said they were in the main rooms.”

Despite Lowry’s reservations, the others were willing to strike the Danish ship owner from their dwindling list.

“Reinicke, Munson, Kohn, Beardsley, and Peake,” said Lowry. “I move to strike Reinicke, too. I can’t see him tying the dog
up somewhere while he goes in and bops Shambley over the head just because the guy sneered at his taste in art. He didn’t
seem to be that thin-skinned.”

Sigrid listened with only half an ear as they bounced theories off each other. “That’s probably all it really was,” she told
them.

“Ma’am?” said Eberstadt. “What Lowry said about a bop over the head. A simple whack with a weighted cane that happened to
be handy. One blow, not a shower of them. If Shambley’s skull had been half as thick as his skin, he might not have suffered
anything other than a simple concussion.”

“Unpremeditated,” mused Albee. “He was at the party for less than an hour,” Sigrid said “but in those few minutes, he insulted
Reinicke and Thorvaldsen and half threatened Kohn and Peake with public disgrace. He didn’t seem to care what he said; but
at a party, of course, he could get away with it. Although,” she added, “Thorvaldsen almost threw a punch at him.”

“So,” Peters said, “if he mouthed off to the wrong person—”

“Bop!” Lowry grinned. “If we eliminate Reinicke,” said Sigrid, “I could see Benjamin Peake or Hester Kohn flying off the handle.
And even Mrs. Beardsley or Jacob Munson might be pushed. But why then and there?”

They didn’t see her point. “Look,” she said. “Assume that Shambley says something that so enrages or scares the killer that
he or she grabs up the cane and starts after him. At that point, Shambley’s already passed through the door under the main
staircase and started down the basement stairs when the blow lands on his head. Why? His study was in the attic. Elliott Buntrock
went through the paintings stored down there and he’s certain that none of them are worth much more than the canvas they’re
painted on. So why was Shambley going to the basement?”

“Oh, crap!” said Albee. “You don’t think it’s simple B and E, do you? That he left the door open for Thorvaldsen and a burglar
came in? In that case, he could have been trying to get help.”

“Great,” Peters groaned. “So instead of four suspects, you just widened the field to half a million.”

“I don’t know.” Eberstadt shook his head. “I’ve got a gut feeling about those two kids down there—Rick Evans and Pascal Grant.
You sure that janitor’s not stringing you along with that innocent look, Lainey?”

“And what about that empty glove case in Shambley’s briefcase?” asked Lowry. “That’s got to mean something, doesn’t it?”

In a half-empty coffee shop on Fourth Avenue, Pascal Grant savored a forkful of fruitcake and drank from his glass of milk
as be listened to Rick Evans talk about Louisiana.

“You’d love it out there in the country, Pasc. No subways or drug pushers every ten feet, no crowds of people hassling you
all the time. We could go camping and fishing back in the swamps.”

“Yeah, but Rick—” He carefully speared two green cherries and a piece of citron with his fork and ate them one by one.

Christmas carols drifted down from a speaker high on the wall overhead.

“Is it money? You don’t need much in Louisiana,” Rick said earnestly.

“Yeah, but you’ll be taking pictures. What’ll I do?”

“You’ll help me. Or you can do what you do here. In my town, people are always griping because they can’t find anybody to
do chores or odd jobs. You can be a gardener. Work outdoors all day long if that’s what you want.”

“I’d like that,” Pascal said, smiling at Rick across the scarred Formica table.

“Great!” said Rick. “Then you’ll come with me next Saturday? The day after Christmas?”

Pascal’s smile faded and his fork explored a raisin. “Mrs. Beardsley won’t like it.”

“Mrs. Beardsley doesn’t own you, Pasc. You own yourself just like I own myself.”

“But you’re not a dummy,” Pascal blurted, his blue eyes miserable. “People may not like me in your town. Your mother won’t
like me.”

“Sure she will. And you’ll like her. I called her last night and told her all about you and she said I could bring anybody
home I wanted to. And besides, as soon as we’re earning enough money, we could move into a place of our own. Maybe even out
in the middle of nowhere where nobody’ll bother us and you can play your jazz tapes as loud as you want.”

The thought of open country was bewildering to someone who’d only known the city, but Pascal had never had a friend like this,
someone who did not merely put up with him but actually seemed to like him unconditionally and as he was. The lure of that
friendship and the fear of losing it were irresistible and outweighed any nebulous fears about Louisiana’s alien landscape.

Pascal put out his hand and shyly touched Rick’s. “Okay,” he said.

When Sigrid got home at five-thirty, she was surprised to find Nauman and Elliott Buntrock wrestling with an eight-foot Christmas
tree in her living room.

“I thought you had a summit meeting at the gallery,” she said.

“You didn’t hear what happened with Thorvaldsen?” asked Nauman, holding the tree perpendicular while Buntrock crawled around
under the lower branches, tightening the screws of the stand.

“No,” said Sigrid. “One of his ships sailed today.”

She nodded. “I know. Two of my detectives rode out into the bay and then came back with him in his launch.”

“They should have stayed on a little longer,” said Nauman. With his foot he nudged aside a large, much-taped cardboard box
so that Buntrock would have more space for his flying elbows. “The Coast Guard was waiting for it just beyond the Verrazano
Bridge.”

“
What?
”

“They took down some of the bulkheads in the engine room and found over six million dollars in fifty-and hundred-dollar bills.
A lot of them marked so they could be traced, according to the news bulletins we heard at the gallery. Drug money. On its
way to buy a fresh shipment in the Caribbean.”

“They confiscate speedboats and fishing boats when they’re involved in drug deals,” said Buntrock from somewhere beneath the
tree. “Do you suppose they’ll confiscate the
Sea Dancer
?”

The telephone rang out in the kitchen and Roman Tramegra stuck his head around the corner a moment later. “Ah, Sigrid, my
dear. I
thought
I heard you come in. Telephone.”

“Lieutenant!” came Albee’s breathless voice. “Did you hear about Thorvaldsen? The feds have arrested him.”

“So I just heard,” said Sigrid. “This must be what he meant when he said he went back to the Breul House because he didn’t
want Shambley to cause any controversy right now. Wow!”

Sigrid waited until Albee ran out of steam, then observed, “It’s certainly interesting, but I don’t see that it affects Shambley’s
murder. Do you?”

There was a moment of silence, then Albee admitted that she was probably right and rang off.

As Sigrid hung up the kitchen phone, it finally registered on her that Roman was surrounded by take-out cartons, plastic containers,
and green-and-white grocery bags from Balducci’s. He seemed to be arranging a long snakelike creature on his largest platter.

“What in God’s name is that?” she asked. “Smoked eel. Neapolitans
always
have eel at Christmas, but I wasn’t sure what to do with a fresh one, so I got smoked. Isn’t it
sumptuous
? I know it should be skinned and cut, into perfect little ovals, but then we’d lose the
effect.
” He straightened the tail. “I thought a bed of red lettuce with strands of alfalfa sprouts for seaweed? What do you think?”

“Roman, are we having a party tonight?” she asked. “A tree-trimming party. Didn’t I
tell
you?”

“No,” she said mildly. “Oh, my dear!” he rumbled. “I’m
so
sorry. I was
certain
—” He curved the eel around a mound of tortellini salad and paused to consider the result. “It’s such a
little
party— hardly worth calling it a party at all—but we
do
want to celebrate our first Christmas tree, don’t we? I’m such a
child
about Christmas! See what you think of my wassail.”

He filled a glass from a nearby bowl and passed it to her across the cluttered counter. Sigrid sipped cautiously. Roman might
be a child about Christmas but this was no child’s drink. She tasted tart lemon juice tamed by sugar, rum, and some sort of
fruity flavor. “Peach brandy?”

“Do you like it?”

Sigrid nodded, beginning to feel slightly more festive. “Who’s coming?”

“Just family, so to speak. Oscar, of course. And, as you see, he brought along his friend. Amusing chap. A bit too fey though.”

Sigrid almost choked on her drink at this pot calling the kettle black.

“And Jill Gill and—”

“What about ornaments?” Sigrid interrupted. “I don’t have any. Do you?”

“I bought new lights and fresh tinsel.” He smeared two crackers with pâté and handed one to her. “Goose liver.”

“Umm.”

“And your mother sent down that
enormous
box out by the tree. She said it hadn’t been unpacked in her last eight moves, but she’s sure it’s tree ornaments.”

Since Anne Harald averaged three moves per every two years, no amount of unopened boxes would surprise Sigrid. She refilled
her glass and wandered back out to the living room, where Elliott Buntrock had emerged from the shrubbery. He wore black jeans
and a black shirt topped by a white sweatshirt that bore the picture of a large yellow bulldozer with the words “Heavy Equipment
Is My Life.”

“My glass is empty,” he complained and headed for the kitchen.

Roman had decked their halls with bayberry candles but he hadn’t yet lit them, so the woodsy smell of the fresh pine tree
filled the room as Nauman turned to her and, with a flat, deadpan Brooklyn accent, said, “Hey, lady, where’s yer mistletoe?”

She smiled and went into his arms.

Even without mistletoe, it was a very satisfactory kiss. “What happens to your show now that Thorvaldsen won’t be underwriting
it?” she asked.

“Elliott had already decided I’m not postmodern enough for the Breul House. He’s talking about using Blinky Palermo or someone
like that to put the place back on New York’s cultural map.”

“Blinky
who
?”

“Don’t ask.”

“But what about you?”

“I let Jacob and Elliott talk me into a three-gallery midtown extravaganza,” he admitted, “and Francesca’s going to line up
a new set of sponsors. It’s starting to sound like a cross between Busby Berkeley and
Pee-wee’s Playhouse
. I may go to Australia for the year. Want to come?”

She laughed as the buzzer went off in the entry hall announcing the arrival of Anne Harald and Jill Gill at her outer gate.

The next hour was a happy jumble of untangling light cords, testing bulbs, and running extension cords from badly placed outlets,
helped along with generous servings of Roman’s wassail.