The Bone Vault - Linda Fairstein (33 page)

"This is the arm, Detective, of a Scythian warlord, probably third centuryA.D . Somehow, they preserved these human hides, just like animals." He put the photograph down on the windowsill and pointed at the serpentine tattoos that covered the deep brown skin. "See the combat motif, Mr. Chapman? Two stags facing off, muscles taut and legs poised to leap. And there, an eagle swooping down to grab its prey in its beak."

The mere mention of the wordwarlord had caught Mike's attention. "This guy's got something to teach all these tattoo-crazy broads today. If I see one more shamrock or rose or heart on the cheeks of somebody's ass or hiding in their cleavage--I mean, so pedestrian."

Thibodaux glanced up at Mike. "I'm not talking romance or my personal life. I'm talking dead bodies I come across. This one's got style. So where was it?"

"It left the Met months ago. You ought to check with Mamdouba's people. Someone must have pinched it out of the exhibition stock to stir up trouble over at Natural History."

"Who knew it was there? Any of your people on the committee?"

"All of them, I would think. But all of Mamdouba's folks, too."

Thibodaux seemed to have charmed himself with his presentation of his knowledge of Scythian art and history. He was more at ease than when we had arrived.

Then Mike took another direction. "We found out an interesting little fact on Friday that we thought you could help us with."

The director tilted his head and nodded, confident he had gained Mike's respect.

"Katrina Grooten didn't exactly have a formal send- off. Nobody got to go to her apartment and pick out her favorite suit or little black dress to be laid out in. It was a kind of come-as-you-are deal, you know?" Thibodaux tensed again.

"She had on some cheap woolen slacks and dingy old underwear. But the odd thing is--and Ms. Cooper here is my expert on retail--she had on a cashmere sweater. Hand-knit, high-end, ritzy Madison Avenue label. So we check it out. Is this just a coincidence or do you know somebody named Penelope Thibodaux?"

"My late wife, Chapman. I assume you were smart enough to make that connection yourself." He was angry now, almost spitting out words in Mike's direction.

"So you didn't know the Grooten girl, but your wife did?"

"My wife never met her. Look, I didn't recognize that photograph you showed me the first day. Surely you understand that. That--that--death pallor and, how do you say, that morgue shot, it didn't look anything at all like the young woman who worked here. I swear to you I wasn't trying to mislead you. And even then, I didn't remember her name. The last time I saw Ms. Grooten, she looked so full of life, so--"

"When was that?"

"Believe me, I've tried very hard to recall the circumstances."

"The sweater, you wanna tell us about that?" "That would have been last summer. Late in August, perhaps. Eve can give you a date. It was at my apartment. Not what you're thinking, Detective. A cocktail party, a celebration for some of the trustees."

"And Katrina, why would she be at something like that?"

"We were courting donors for the Cloisters, trying to raise interest--and money--for some items coming on the market. Bellinger put the whole thing together. I'm sure it was his decision to include staff. And to decide which staff."

"Why at your place?"

He pointed out the window. "The apartment we live in --excuse me, I live in--is owned by the Met. It's a penthouse on Fifth Avenue. We do a lot of entertaining there. On this particular occasion it was a very warm night. I had the caterer set the bar up out on my terrace. The view is quite magnificent, looking over the museum and the entire park. I remember that a girl, an employee, that is, was cold. Actually shivering."

"But you said it was warm."

"That's what was so unusual. Everyone else was enjoying the chance to be outside. I noticed how uncomfortable she was."

I thought of the symptoms of post�traumatic stress. This would only have been two months after Katrina's brutal assault. I thought also of the signs of arsenic poisoning that Dr. Kestenbaum had described. Chills had been one of them.

"I offered her the opportunity to go inside, of course. But she felt that Hiram Bellinger very much wanted her to be part of the conversation with the trustees, since she was so knowledgeable about the pieces." He fidgeted a bit. "I told her that I still had some of Penelope's clothes in the apartment. I'm afraid I still hadn't absorbed the finality of my wife's death."

"So you took her into the bedroom?"

"Sorry to disappoint you, Detective. No. I went in and found this sweater in one of the drawers. Quite frankly, I didn't know what it was made of, if it's the value that concerns you. I brought it out to the young woman and told her I'd be pleased if she kept it. It would be a favor tome, since Penelope was--well--gone."

He thought for a moment and then went on, "I believe I inquired about whether she felt well enough to stay on, and if she had a way home. If I'm not mistaken, she lived near the Bellingers and told me that Hiram would see that she got home safely."

"You knew, of course, from Hiram that Katrina had been raped leaving the Cloisters one night last June?"

"That was the girl? But I never put that together." Thibodaux was agitated now. "I have a vague recollection that he told me about some incident in the park. That the employee in question didn't want the police involved, didn't want anyone to know what happened. What was I to do, Miss Cooper, violate her wishes? No, I had no idea that was Miss Grooten."

Mike was practically in the face of the director. "How about back at the Louvre? Want to tell us about your trysts with Katrina in Paris or Toulouse?"

"You've got a wonderful imagination, Chapman. But you're out of line. Dead wrong."

Mike opened his notepad and read the date, almost three years earlier, that Grooten had been hired at the Metropolitan. "That's exactly two months after you settled in here, isn't it?"

"There's always a turnover of staff with a new director. Check the numbers, you'll see that my predecessor took dozens of young scholars with him to his new posting. I'm sure there were many openings around the time of my arrival."

"And trustees who have told us they saw Katrina with you, at parties at the Louvre?"

"Fou!I would say to them in French. Completely mad."

"They would be wrong?"

"Look, Miss Cooper, can I tell you that Katrina Grooten was never at the Louvre, when you tell me she was working in France at the time? We had receptions there--two, sometimes three nights a week. Openings of exhibits, receptions for artists, historical celebrations. I had to be at every one of them. Was she ever there? I don't know. Was she with me? Certainly not. I would like to know who is telling you this rubbish. I've got enemies, for sure--"

"This information came from a supporter of yours, actually," I said. "That's one of the reasons I credited it."

Mike cut in, sensing Thibodaux was on the ropes. "Is that information more or less reliable than the fact that when you went to London in January, to the British Museum, you were seen there with Katrina Grooten?"

He reddened and shouted at Mike, "Seenthere, Detective? I seriously doubt that."

"I'll make it crystal clear for you. I can prove that you signed in. And I can prove that Hiram Bellinger signed in with you. And even though I think my favorite medical examiner is gonna tell me Katrina was all boxed up in her sarcophagus, I can prove that you were cavorting around that museum with someone who was using her name. Dead girl walking?"

Thibodaux circled around Mike and sat in the chair behind his desk. "Hiram Bellinger's plan. Foolish and quite unnecessary."

"Which was?"

"The pieces we had gone to examine were French. Medieval French. We had a similar problem with their provenance, so it was going to be a little dicey to bring them back. Bellinger figured that if we decided to buy the collection, it would be wise not to do so in either of our names. To protect our reputations, of course."

"The girl's reputation didn't matter, right?"

"Face it, Detective, she didn't have one. She was just a beginner in this business. In her case, it could have been the harmless mistake of a young graduate student. Wouldn't ruin her career, as it could ours."

"So you're telling us that Bellinger did this, knowing Katrina was dead?"

"Absolutely not. He assured me it was safe to do because she had just resigned from the Met and left the country a few weeks before our trip, at Christmas. She had mailed back her identification tag, as required, which was all we needed."

"And Eve Drexler used it, to get into the British Museum with you and Bellinger."

"Drexler's twice her age. Didn't anyone check the photograph?"

Thibodaux's arrogance was unquenchable. "Now who do you think would bother to look at her plastic tag once they recognized me? There I am, director of the Metropolitan Museum, bringing two members of my staff to an executive meeting." Chapman knew now that Thibodaux had been lying the first time we met him, when he looked at the photograph of Katrina but denied knowing who she was. "That title, director of the Met--the title you used to have--you think that cloaks you with the power to do whatever you want, say whatever suits you?"

Thibodaux ignored him. But what did his lies conceal? Some knowledge of Katrina's fate, or just a strategy to keep himself out of a brewing scandal?

I thought of Katrina's letter of resignation that Bellinger had showed to us when we were first in his office. The single initial of the signature had appeared to be so easy to imitate.

"Did anyone else impersonate Ms. Grooten after her disappearance last winter?"

"Her resignation, Miss Cooper. We believed that she had left us voluntarily. She hadn't gone missing, so far as we knew. And no, I'm not aware of any other instances."

"Her employee identification, what became of that?"

"Miss Drexler would know. Or perhaps Bellinger. I never gave any more thought to Katrina after that day."

Few people had, it seemed to me.

"Before we go, Mr. Thidobaux, we'd like to make arrangements to see the museum's private vaults this week."

"Ah, now I know the culprit, Mr. Chapman. You've given up your source. Madam Gerst? A pity how a little jealousy can stir up such a pot of trouble. Arthur Paglin's vault."

"That one, and the others."

He looked Mike straight in the eye. "Which others, in particular?"

"I'm expecting you to tell us that."

"I'll have to check with our patrons, of course. It is not our privilege to enter them."

"It'll be my privilege with a search warrant."

I'd need a lot more specificity about their location to get any judge to sign off on a warrant, but I didn't blame Mike for trying.

"I'll get to work on that first thing in the morning. There are only two that I know of presently, besides the Paglin estate."

"It's an interesting concept, these vaults. Didn't anyone ever try the same gimmick over at Natural History?" I asked. Thibodaux seemed delighted to point a finger across the park. "Every museum has its hiding places, Miss Cooper. Secret compartments, if you will. Elijah Mamdouba hasn't shown you the skeletons in his closet?"

27

Clem's flight had been delayed by thunderstorms west of London. When Mercer called to tell us that he had picked her up and was on his way to the hotel, Mike and I checked into her suite and directed security to bring them right up to the room.

Mike turned on the television in the living room and gnawed on an apple from an elegant arrangement of complimentary fruit and wine. He listened to a cycle of headline news then moved toJeopardy! Before going to commercial break, Trebek announced that the final category was "Patriotic Poems."

I put my twenty on the mahogany side table and Mike did the same. "You may be Ms. Iambic Pentameter, but I get the prize for patriotic."

Trebek read the final answer, printed in the cobalt blue box that was enlarged on the screen. "`Author of poem, regarded as our national hymn, composed while standing on Pike's Peak.'"

"Suck it up, Chapman. It's mine."

"Wait, blondie. It's not Key, 'cause he didn't say national anthem. What the hell's the one that Kate Smith used to sing?" I shook my head. "Hymn? Like `Mine eyes have seen--'"

I swept the money off the table. "Who is Katharine Lee Bates?"

"You're right, Mrs. Falkowicz," Trebek told the only one of the three contestants, a librarian from Boone, North Carolina. "She wrote `America the Beautiful' as a poem, and never even met the gentleman who set it to music, using a song found in a church hymnal."

"Wellesley College, class of 1880."

"So you had the alumni advantage this time. That's almost like cheating."

"And there's a street named after her in Falmouth, Massachusetts, which I drive by every time I take the ferry to the Vineyard. You've got to get around more, Mikey."

The door buzzer rang and I went to open it. Standing beside Mercer Wallace's six-foot-six frame was a woman barely five feet tall. Her dark brown skin and luminous green eyes were framed by a helmetlike shock of straight black hair. She stepped into the room and looked up at me as I introduced myself.

"I'm Clem. Clementine Qisukqut."

"Mike Chapman. I'm a homicide detective. I'm handling Katrina's case."

Mercer carried her small bag into the bedroom and placed it on the luggage rack.

"I'm sure you're exhausted. If at all possible, we'd really like to get started with some questions this evening."

"That's fine. All I did was sit the entire day. May I just clean up a bit?" She excused herself and went inside, returning to the living area ten minutes later.

We all settled into comfortable sofas and armchairs and let Clem begin. She seemed anxious to tell us about Katrina Grooten.

"I met Katrina a couple of years ago, not long after she started working at the museum. It was a year before we began to spend time together on the joint museum show."

"But you were at Natural History, is that right?"

"Yes. I had a friend who was in the last year of a postdoc here in the States. He worked at the Cloisters before he went back to Europe. I met Katrina at a party at his apartment. It was a regular thing he did, to get some of the foreign students together. It gets quite lonely here, as you can imagine, since most of us arrive without family or a network of friends."