Black Velvet

by Steven Henry

  Erin and Luke both leaned forward as the professor began to explain.

  Chapter 13

  “The brother of my mother was a dealer in rare antiquities. His name was Julius Mandelbaum. This name, it means nothing to you, but if you were a dealer in paintings, in the time between the wars, you would have heard it often. He was very well-to-do, very wealthy.

  “Many sellers of artworks are unable to part with their greatest treasures. As with them, so with mein Onkel. His home, in Vienna, was a palace of wonders. Often, when I was a young boy, my mother told me of this house. It was filled with paintings, statues, shelves of rare books.

  “His greatest treasure was a little painting, which he kept in a cabinet beside his bed. She came to him by a long and difficult road, from a dealer in Sienna who purchased her from a Florentine nobleman who… it is no matter. It is enough that she was thought to be a Raphael. Herr Mandelbaum never authenticated her, for he had no thought to sell her. He did not even show her to his guests. Only his close family knew of her.

  “My parents lived in Berlin when the Nazis came to power in 1933. Mein Vater always called Hitler ‘That second-rate painter.’ Hitler had aspirations of painting, did you know? But his works were derivative, puerile.

  “I will quickly gloss over the whole history of those years, how everything was taken from my family, as from so many others. Jews were forbidden to hold government positions. Then we could not serve in the military, though in the Great War more Jews, in proportion, fought for Germany than did any other group or sect. Then we could not marry non-Jews, and so on, and on.

  “My father was a wise man, and he took thought for the future. Before Jewish moneys were frozen, he took from the bank all his savings and used them to purchase gold and diamonds, small and portable valuables. These he hid in several places. He began to seek ways to escape, though he thought himself a German and the land had ever been his home.

  “It was not so easy as it seems. Other countries were not so willing to welcome refugee Jews. You must remember, Fräulein, it was the Great Depression. You think a country like America, with unemployment then of one in four, would open her doors to immigrants? You see how it is even today with your Mexicans? And my parents knew nothing, how could they know, of what was to come. Julius Mandelbaum was not afraid. After all, he was not even in Germany. But in 1938 came the Anschluss, when Austria was taken by Hitler. Hitler was Austrian himself, did you know?

  “Then came the Kristallnacht. You have heard of this, ja?”

  Erin shook her head. She’d found world history one of the most boring subjects in high school, and what she’d learned had wandered out of her head at the end of her last semester.

  Schenk rubbed his bony hands together, as if they were cold. “The pretext was the murder of the German ambassador to Poland, by a Jewish boy. But this was only the excuse, a way for the Nazis to see how far they might go, what the German people would accept. The ambassador was shot on the seventh of November, 1938, and died two days later. The Kristallnacht was the night following his death. So you see, it was all planned by the Nazis ahead of time, else how could so large a pogrom occur on such short notice?

  “It was humiliation, vandalism, murder. All of it planned by Hitler’s stormtroopers, across Germany and Austria, but in Vienna it was worst. The synagogues were burned and broken, Jewish businesses and homes looted.

  “Mein Onkel’s home was no refuge. The mob came, shattered the windows. Julius ran upstairs, to his bedroom, to save his most precious treasure. His wife, Tante Rachel, was there, with his two daughters, hiding beneath the bed. Julius went to the cabinet and unlocked it with the key he wore always about his neck. Even as he reached in to take the Madonna, a brownshirt, one of the Nazi barbarians, fired from the doorway with a revolver. You were correct, Fräulein. The bullet almost struck the Madonna. His blood spattered her breast. He fell before the painting and died there, before the eyes of his wife and children. Rachel held her hands over her daughters’ mouths so they would not scream. She still bore the marks of my cousins’ teeth upon her palms three days later, when she told the story to my mother.

  “The brownshirt cared nothing for the art of a great master, but he knew Julius had treasured the Madonna, so he thought her of some value. He took her from the cabinet and she disappeared into the charnel-house of the Shoah.”

  “The Holocaust,” Luke translated.

  “Ja,” Schenk said. “Rachel and my cousins remained hidden until the smoke drove them out. The mob had set a fire, and they were scorched and choked when they ran from the house. All the rest of the treasures, which Julius Mandelbaum had gathered all his life, went up in smoke, as did Julius himself. And that was the end of the palace of my dreams.”

  “Jesus,” Erin said quietly.

  Schenk’s eyes held hers with their dark, haunted intensity. “Nein, Fräulein. Quite the opposite.”

  “So you knew the Madonna was real, before you saw her,” she said, forcing herself to think like a twenty-first century cop.

  “Not quite,” Schenk said. “I knew she was the same painting that in mein Onkel’s collection held place of honor. He thought her genuine, but I could not know until I saw her myself, and heard the counsel of experts.”

  “Like Luke,” she said.

  “Like me,” Luke said agreeably.

  “So she really belongs to your aunt Rachel,” Erin said. Seeing the slight shake of Schenk’s head, she tried again. “Or your cousins?”

  “Nein, Fräulein. They came north, to Berlin, to seek aid from my parents. But things grew worse, and the war came. My family went into hiding, but there was not space enough for all together. My parents had a friend, a Christian priest, who was opposed to the Nazis. He hid them. Mein Vater found a place for Rachel and her children with another foe of the regime, but they were betrayed and arrested. All of them together, the Jews, the good man who helped them, and his family, finished in the camps. Like Julius, they turned to ash.”

  “And the rest of your family?” Erin asked in a small, hesitant voice.

  “I am the only one left,” Schenk said.

  Erin sat quietly for a moment, thinking. Under the weight of such a historic tragedy, the fate of a painting, no matter how valuable, was almost trivial. But people had died for the Madonna, both in 1938 and seventy-five years later. She couldn’t bring Julius Mandelbaum’s murderer to justice. His killer was an anonymous Nazi thug, probably dead for half a century. But his modern-day counterparts had killed a New York police officer, and that made them her business.

  She looked at the professor. “Why are you telling me this, Dr. Schenk?”

  “You seek the Madonna, Fräulein,” he replied. “I wish to help you. But you do not trust easily. Tell me, Officer O’Reilly. If you learned my story from another man, what would you think?”

  “I’d think you had an excellent motive to steal your old family treasure,” she said, meeting his straight talk with her own. “You’d be my number-one suspect.”

  “Exactly,” Schenk said, pointing a long finger at her. “So it is better you hear it from my mouth, so you know I have nothing to hide.”

  Erin wondered about that. She knew, from her years pounding the pavement, that most criminals were basically idiots. Many were hooked on drugs, drunk, or otherwise impaired. Outthinking them was pretty easy. But the trouble with dealing with clever criminals was that they knew how to act innocent. How could she know the difference between an intelligent crook and an innocent man? Schenk was plenty smart, but was he telling the truth, or throwing her off his trail?

  If he was blowing smoke, it meant Luke was probably in on it, too, she thought with a sudden shudder of paranoia. Otherwise Schenk wouldn’t be here. He’d be down at the station, talking to Lyons and Spinelli.

  She looked at Luke and saw him watching her with nothing but concern in his eyes. No, she couldn’t believe he was in with the thieves. It was too crazy. He’d brought her there on a date—brought a cop to a crime a
bout to happen! But then, what better alibi than to have a police officer on his arm all evening?

  Erin’s thoughts were tying themselves up in knots. She shook her head to clear it.

  “Erin? Are you okay?” Luke asked, leaning forward.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” she said. “Dr. Schenk?”

  “Ja?” The professor stared intently at her.

  “You know a lot about art, right?”

  “It is my life,” he said, with no hint of hyperbole.

  “Who do you think would pay to steal this painting?”

  Schenk tapped a bony finger against his lips. “Other than the obvious, you mean?”

  “Obvious?” Erin echoed.

  “Phineas Van Ormond, of course,” Schenk said.

  Chapter 14

  “No,” Luke said. “Absolutely not.”

  “Wait a minute,” Erin said, holding up a hand. “Professor, why do you say that?”

  Schenk looked like he was scowling, but it might have just been his normal facial expression. “He believes he has the right to possess works of art,” Schenk said. “He thinks that merely because he knows much on a subject, he is more deserving of such a possession.”

  Erin cleared her throat. “Professor, that’s not really a very compelling motive. You could say the same thing about any number of people at the gala. I mean, I know the painting’s worth a lot of money. Do you think he’s planning to sell the Madonna, or—”

  “Nein!” Schenk snapped, making an explosive gesture with his hands. “What does it matter, what he does with her? Whether he keeps her as a prisoner, or sells her as a slave, it makes no difference.”

  Erin sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “Professor, there must be dozens of guys like him in the art world.”

  “There aren’t many like Van,” Luke said. “He’s brilliant, Erin. And I’m sorry, Herr Doktor, but you’ve got him wrong. He’s not a killer, and he’s not the sort of guy who’d hire thugs to steal a painting. He’d be too afraid the work would be damaged or lost.” The art appraiser shook his head. “I don’t believe it.”

  Schenk abruptly stood. “I have wasted your time, Herr Devins, Fräulein O’Reilly. I apologize. I thought you wished to solve this mystery. Good day.” He began to walk toward the door.

  “Hold it,” Erin said sharply. “I’m not an art expert. I don’t tell you what to say in your lectures. You’re not a cop. You don’t get to decide who to arrest.”

  Schenk paused, his hand on the doorknob. Turning, he made eye contact with Erin. To her surprise, a smile spread across his gaunt and hollow face, slow and faint, but genuine. “I think, Fräulein, that your anger is both your weakness and your strength. I think you will not rest until you have found your thief. Good luck to you.”

  Then he was gone, the door swinging shut behind him. Erin, torn between bewilderment and irritation, clenched her fists and blew out a lungful of air through gritted teeth.

  “Erin?” Luke said hesitantly. “I’m sorry. I thought we might be able to help. I was trying—”

  “Yeah, I know,” she said, loosening her fingers. “It’s okay. It was a good thought, bringing him here.”

  “You still thinking about Van?” Luke asked.

  “Yeah,” she said. “He called me, you know. On my cell. Which I didn’t give him.”

  “Ah,” Luke said uncomfortably. “Right. Did he bother you? He wanted to pass on his condolences, on account of what happened.”

  “He was kind of an ass,” she said.

  “Really?” Luke said. “That’s hard to believe. He’s a nice guy, Erin. Honest. He’s just upset about this whole thing. Everyone is. All the dealers and historians who were there—”

  “Brunanski got killed!” Erin snapped. She took a deep breath, reminding herself that Luke wasn’t a police officer, hadn’t known Brunanski. “I’ve seen people die before, Luke. You work Patrol, you get called to accidents, shootings, domestics that go bad. But I never had an officer go down on my watch.”

  “Erin, you weren’t even on duty,” Luke said quietly. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “Of course it was!” she retorted. “I saw it, I knew what was happening. I should’ve had my gun with me. They never should’ve made it outside.”

  “Christ, Erin, there were four of them, all armed,” Luke said. “They’d have killed you, too.”

  Some of the anger seeped out of Erin. “Yeah, I know,” she sighed. “I’m just sick of people talking like the painting’s the only thing that matters. Anyone wearing a shield, they’re not after an art thief right now; they’re chasing cop-killers.”

  “Right, I get that,” Luke said. He put a gentle hand on her arm. “Just remember, I don’t always see things the way an officer does. I’m new at this whole police thing.”

  “Van Ormond’s still gotta be a suspect,” she said. “Doesn’t mean I think he did it. Means he might’ve.”

  It was Luke’s turn to sigh. “You do what you have to do,” he said. “Believe it or not, I do want to help.”

  “Do you have that list I asked for?” Erin asked, taking the opportunity to change the subject. “The guys you think might do this sort of thing?”

  “Uh huh,” Luke said, drawing a folded piece of paper out of the inside pocket of his sport coat and laying it on the coffee table. “But Erin, I’ve got to ask you. How far do you intend to go with this? Some of these people are powerful, with connections.”

  “All the way,” she said without flinching. “Jake Gallagher and his dirtbag friends killed a cop. John Brunanski was one of ours, and I promised him I’d get them. Those assholes Lyons and Spinelli may have tried to kick me off the case, but they can’t stop me. As long as I don’t work on the clock, and don’t involve other officers, they can’t do a damn thing to me.” This wasn’t quite true, but Erin didn’t particularly care.

  “So what are you going to do?” he asked.

  “First, I’m going to read your list of names. You’re going to tell me why each of them is on the list. And then I’m going to find out who was behind this mess and take him down.”

  “Can we crack open a bottle of wine while we talk?” Luke suggested.

  Erin couldn’t help a small smile. “Are you trying to turn a criminal investigation into a date?”

  He shrugged. “Sitting together and talking, sharing an activity, cooperating… sounds like a date to me. Anyway, you’re not on the clock. You said so yourself.”

  “We don’t give out many kisses in the interrogation room,” she said. Her anger was gone now.

  Luke grinned. “Then it’s a good thing we’re not at your precinct.”

  She snatched the folded note off the table. “Do you want to flirt, or do you want to catch the bad guys?”

  “I never claimed to be good at catching bad guys,” he said.

  * * *

  An hour and most of a bottle of wine later, Erin was ready to burn down the Metropolitan Museum of Art, on the condition that she could stuff it full of collectors and critics first. It wasn’t a lack of suspects that was bothering her, but the opposite. Luke had been as good as his word, giving her five names of art dealers who were known, or suspected, of dealing under the table, but he freely admitted there were probably ten times that many in Manhattan alone.

  “Let’s recap,” she said, looking down at her notepad, which was now full of scribbled information. “We’ve got five names: Philippe Clemenceau, Roy Atkins, Dominique de Vere, Omar Haddad, and Adlai Martin. Clemenceau likes Renaissance painters and is known to trade on the black market in Europe. Atkins is a wealthy playboy who thinks money lets him ignore the rules. De Vere is suspected of murdering her husband three years ago on Corsica and was arrested, but not convicted. Haddad comes from oil money, which isn’t a crime, but smuggled marble statues out of Italy, which is. If we want him, we’ll have to get in line behind the Italians, who are currently trying to extradite him. Then there’s Martin, who’s probably a sociopath and whose wife divorced him and is suing h
im for alimony and domestic abuse allegations. Did I miss anything?” She threw her arms up. “Luke, what the hell is the matter with these people? This is art. Paintings, beautiful things. Why is the market full of scumbags?”

  Luke smiled sadly. “Beautiful, expensive paintings, Erin. The only people who can afford to buy works like the Madonna are people who have an absurd amount of personal wealth. Unfortunately, that’s not exactly a random cross-section of society. Psychopaths congregate at the high end of the economic spectrum.”

  “So how do we narrow this down?” Erin asked. “They’re all guilty of something.”

  “Like I keep saying, I’m not a cop,” Luke said.

  “Okay,” she said, “We look for means, motive, and opportunity. All of them have motive. This painting is priceless, and they’re all art collectors and dealers. So we need to think of the other criteria.”

  “All of them have means, too,” he said. “They’re all millionaires.”

  “True, but they need contacts,” Erin said. “You can’t just throw money at something like this. The perp needed to get in touch with our local boys. It’s not exactly the sort of circle these high-rollers usually move in. We need a suspect who’d be willing to hire muscle, but wouldn’t already have any of their own.”

  Luke snapped his fingers. “Right. If they have their own crew, they wouldn’t need to hire these amateurs.”

  “Okay,” Erin said. “Did this de Vere chick kill her husband herself, or did she hire it out?”

  “She wasn’t convicted,” he dryly reminded her. “But the accusation was that she stabbed him through the throat with a toasting fork. She claimed it was housebreakers. The jury let her go, but only because the prosecution botched the case.”

  “So she’s someone who takes care of her own problems,” Erin said. “But on the other hand, that means she doesn’t have a hit man on retainer. Do you know if this crew is all in town?”