Lethal Legacy (47 page)

I rang Jasper Hunt the Third’s apartment, and
the butler answered.

“He’s asleep, madam. Do you know the hour?”

“I apologize for calling so late. I’m trying to
find out where his father is buried. Would you happen to know?”

“Certainly, madam. In Millbrook, on the family
estate. We shall all be in Millbrook one day, God willing.”

I thanked him and hung up.

We were back in Bea’s office. The helpful curators
were still searching for books, with a new emphasis on volumes related to
Shakespeare.

Mike was on Bea’s computer. He had Googled Jasper
Hunt’s obituary and was reading aloud to us. “Yeah, looks like Junior and his
father were laid to rest beside their wives—no mention of mistresses—and their
beloved pets. The reinterment took place in the 1980s, when Jasper Three
created a plot for them on the back forty of the horse farm—immediate family,
servants, and still plenty of room for Patience and Fortitude. Looks like the
Dutchess County society event of the season.”

“Does it say why there was a reinterment?” I
asked.

“Guess they had a layover someplace else, Coop. I
see a road trip up the Hudson in your future,” Mike said. “No mention of books,
Bea.”

“Bibliomaniacs have done it forever,” she said.
“Put their favorite books in their burial chambers with them. You’re the
military buff. You know the name Rush Hawkins?”

“Civil War general. Led a volunteer cavalry troop
called Hawkins’s Zouaves.”

“Well, he built himself a mausoleum in Providence
so he could be surrounded by all his books after he shuffled off his mortal
coil,” Bea said. “Elizabeth Rossetti, too.”

“The writer’s wife?” I asked.

“Yup. Dante Gabriel Rossetti placed his
unpublished poems in his young bride’s grave at Highgate Cemetery, along with a
Bible. The poet had a change of heart a year later and reclaimed his work for
publication—somewhat dampened by exposure. The vellum pages are at Harvard now.
It’s been done forever.”

“Worth considering,” I said.

“You’re good at exhumations, Coop.”

My only other experience like that had been the
sad task of reexamining the body of a teenage girl whose original autopsy had
missed the telling signs that motivated her killer.

“How long do you want to keep the staff going at
this tonight?” Bea asked.

“I think most of them are about to hit a wall,” I
said. “Maybe we should knock off and start them fresh in the morning.”

My cell phone vibrated and I reached for it to see
whether it was a call I wanted to take.

“We can secure everything right here,” Mike said.
“We’ll have a detail at this very door around the clock.”

Bea grimaced. It was obvious she didn’t like the
idea of entrusting all these treasures to outsiders who didn’t respect the
integrity of each book, atlas, map, and document the way these curators did.

“I promise you, they’ll be fine,” I said, pressing
the talk button as I recognized the number of Howard Browner, one of the senior
forensic biologists at the DNA lab. “Howard? It’s Alex.”

“Am I catching you at a bad time?”

“Still working, Howard. You, too?”

“Yeah.”

Browner—whom Mike called the Brainiac—was brilliant
and dedicated to his work, one of the first experts in DNA technology who had
trained many of us in this evolving science since its introduction in the
criminal justice system.

Mike spun his finger in a circle, telling me to
hurry the call so we could help Bea close up. I rolled my eyes at him.

“You have something for me?” I asked.

“I’ve been in the lab all day. Got handed this
assignment late afternoon. It’s kind of interesting, along the lines of what
Mattie’s been working on with you for the Griggs case.”

“Wrap it up, Coop,” Mike said.

“Thanks for thinking of me, Howard. I’m sort of
tied up with Mike right now.” Interesting was not what I needed at the moment.
“Can it wait till Monday?”

“Sure, Alex. It’s just a bench hunch.”

Browner wasn’t calling about a match in the
databank but something his gut instinct was feeding him as he looked at
profiles at his bench, as the lab workspaces were called.

“You mean a familial search?” I asked. “Is it
Wesley Griggs?

Despite Mike’s prodding, I was anxious for a development
that might impact Judge Moffett’s decision.

“No. Nothing new on that front.”

“I’ll call you first thing when I get to the
office, Howard. Okay? You know how Mike is. We’re trying to shut down for the
night.”

“Understood. Just make a note to tell me if the
father of one of your witnesses is still around. I’d like to get a swab from
him.”

“A witness in which murder case?” I asked. “Are
you talking Griggs?”

Mike stood still and put his hands on his waist,
staring at me as I listened to Browner.

“No, no, Alex. They’ve added me to the team on the
BarrVastasi homicides. I’m working on a cigarette butt Chapman submitted.”

“That’s got to be the one he picked up from the
floor of the squad. The smoker is a woman named Minerva Hunt,” I said. “What’s
so interesting about it?”

“I had it right on my bench when the fax came
through from London a few hours ago. I’m looking through all the profiles, and
I see that the smoker and this guy, the drunk driver from England—well, they’ve
got an allele in common at each one of thirteen loci we’ve tested. They match
perfectly,” Browner said, his normally flat delivery lifted a decibel with
excitement. “I know how you like this forensic stuff, Alex.”

My mind was racing to make the connection between
the players. “Tell me what it means, Howard.”

“I can’t be certain till I get a paternal swab,
but if I enjoyed betting as much as Mike does, I’d have to say I’m looking at a
half brother and sister here. Same father, different mothers. Isn’t that wild?”

Alger Herrick—the infant who’d been abandoned by
his teenage mother on the steps of an orphanage in England—was in all
likelihood the illegitimate child of Jasper Hunt III, the blood brother of
Talbot and Minerva Hunt.

FORTY-TWO

“You think old Jasper ever figured that out?”
Mike asked.

We had secured the map room, arranged for rides
home for Bea and her colleagues, and were walking from the side door of the
library to Mike’s car, shortly after midnight.

“Not back in Minerva’s college days, when he tried
to fix her up with Herrick,” I said, recalling his story. “And I’ve got no
sense that any of them realize it now.”

“This might be the most unwelcome familial search
since Dick Cheney found out he’s related to Barack Obama.”

“The only resemblance I see is greed,” Mercer
said.

“The genetic Hunt predisposition you mentioned
yesterday,” Mike said. “Meanwhile, they’re ready to rip each other’s throats
out over old books and maps. I say Coop charms some drool out of Jasper, we
firm this up, and sit them all down for a reality check.”

“Chapman!” a woman’s voice called from half a
block away.

We all stopped and turned, and saw Teresa Retlin,
a detective from the burglary squad, jogging after us.

“Don’t you answer your phone? Your voice mail box
is full,” she said. “I’m too old to be chasing you down in the middle of the
night.”

“Didn’t stop you ten years ago, Terry. I think the
phone’s out of juice,” Mike said. “And so am I. What’s up?”

He pivoted and moved forward while Retlin tried to
keep pace.

“Got a baby snitch for you.”

“For me? What’s he snitching about?”

“Name is Shalik Samson. Says you want what he’s
got.”

The three of us stopped short to listen to Terry
Retlin.

“That twelve-year-old?”

“Fourteen,” she said. “Just small for his age.
Neighbor saw him breaking in to the back window of an apartment an hour ago and
called 911. The kid starting throwing your name around before I could cuff
him.”

“Where is he now?” Mike asked.

“In my care, Chapman. I have to take him to a
juvenile facility till Monday morning,” she said, handing Mike a business card.
“Says he found this in the garbage. That you gave your card to a guy named
Travis Forbes—the vic in my burglary—and Forbes threw it out.”

Mike laughed and shook his head from side to side.
“Piece of work. Where’s your car?”

“My partner’s over there,” she said pointing
across Fortieth Street.

Mercer and I followed Mike to the parked RMP.
“Shalik, my man,” Mike said, bracing himself against the roof of the car and
leaning down to talk to the boy. “What brings you to the library tonight?”

“I got locked up for helping you, Detective. You
give me twenty bucks and I’ll tell you.”

“You got that wrong, Shalik. I don’t pay guys to
break the law.”

“I got you into that building, didn’t I? You paid
me yesterday.”

“Tell it to the judge, Shalik. We’re outta here,”
Mike said, tapping the car. “Take him away, Terry.”

“No! Mr. Mike!” Shalik shouted.

“What’s on your mind? It’s getting too late for
nonsense.”

“I was going in there tonight for you, Mr. Mike.
Tell you what he up to,” Shalik said. “Find out why he all dressed up like a
cop.”

“What? Let him out of the car, Terry,” Mike said,
as Mercer stepped up to open the door and stand beside the skinny kid to make
sure he didn’t try to run. “Tell me about that, Shalik.”

The boy knew he had the attention of all the
grown-ups. His jeans drooped so low, they barely covered his rear end; the pant
legs crumpled on top of his sneakers. He pushed them even lower when he shoved
his hands in his pockets as he considered what to say to us.

“You talk to the judge for me? It’s my third
time.”

“I’ll sing to the judge, Shalik. You tell me about
Travis.”

“I seen him before in all these different
clothes,” he said. “Dressin’ stupid and stuff sometimes when he go out. But he
always go out alone. And I never seen him in no police officer’s uniform. He
ain’t no cop.”

I thought of Tina Barr’s attacker and the fireman’s
gear. I remembered the man in a brown uniform who had broken in to Jane Eliot’s
apartment.

“Travis Forbes’s coatrack, Mike,” I said. “All
those jackets that were hanging in the hallway, remember? I’ll get a warrant to
see what kind of stuff he’s got there.”

“You know real cops, Shalik,” Mercer said. “Did
his uniform look real?”

“It do. It really do. Had a hat, too, and a shiny
silver badge.”

“Did he see you?” Mike asked. “Or did he just keep
on walking down the street?”

Shalik’s chest puffed up. “He didn’t walk
nowhere.”

“What did he do?”

“He had a chauffeur, Mr. Mike. Big fat guy gets
out of a limousine and opens the door for him. Travis, he like got in the back
with his date.”

“His date?” Mike said. “You’re doing real good for
me, Shalik. Tell me, did you see the woman?”

“Dark-haired lady. Skinny. Skinnier than her,” he
said, tipping his elbow toward me. “Older than her, too. Long red fingernails.
Smoking a cigarette.”

Travis Forbes dressed himself like an NYPD cop for
a night on the town with Minerva Hunt. Now all we had to do was figure out
where Carmine Rizzali had driven them.

FORTY-THREE