Lethal Legacy

by Linda Fairstein

  “I’d appreciate that.”

  “ New York City came late to the idea of establishing a great library,” Jill said. “The French had the Bibliothèque nationale and in London the fabulous domed Reading Room was built at the British Museum.

  “These institutions were symbols of civilized societies and cultures, founded in ancient seats of national government, with documents and books descended from kings and noblemen over the centuries. Americans, on the other hand, were struggling to emerge from the shadows of colonialism, with no comparable government funding for these purposes. By the 1890s, our domestic rivals for intellectual prestige- Boston and Chicago -had already built central libraries, and in Washington, the Library of Congress moved out of its home in the Capitol to the first of its own buildings.”

  “We had no libraries here before that time?” Battaglia asked.

  “There are two very different kinds of facilities, Paul. One is what’s called a circulating system.”

  “Elevate the masses by giving the people books,” I said, recalling my nineteenth-century history. “Advancement through self-improvement. Weren’t they usually the work of well-to-do ladies in their communities, making sure that poor little girls had wholesome stories to read?”

  “Exactly. They’re what led to the branch libraries, here and all over the country. The other type is the well-endowed reference library. That’s how the NYPL developed-as a research facility, in which the books are never allowed to leave the building. We were a gift to the city from some of the richest men in America.”

  “Who founded it?” I asked.

  “It began with private collections. The largest was put together by the first American millionaire, John Jacob Astor,” Jill said.

  “Jasper Hunt’s business partner.”

  “In some ventures, Alex, that’s correct. Astor loved literature and had many literary friends. In fact, Washington Irving was the first president of the Astor Library. By the 1890s, the collection John Jacob had bequeathed to his younger son, William Black-house Astor, had more than a quarter of a million books.”

  “Where could they possibly have been housed?” Battaglia asked.

  “ Lafayette Street, Paul. That wonderful redbrick brownstone where the Public Theater is today. That was the Astor Library,” Jill said. “And the city’s other devoted bibliophile was James Lenox, who was also a real estate mogul and a merchant. He built himself a palatial marble library on the Upper East Side -today it’s the Frick. From Lenox we got the first Gutenberg Bible brought to America, the original autographed manuscript of George Washington’s Farewell Address, and the most complete first editions of Bunyan and Milton.”

  Jill Gibson was animated now, her eyes sparkling as she expressed her obvious joy for these treasures.

  “What brought the Astors and Lenoxes together?” I asked.

  “Samuel Tilden, actually, at the end of his life. A bachelor with an immense fortune that he wanted to leave for the public good.”

  “Nothing like a politician,” Battaglia said. “Tilden lost the presidential election to Rutherford Hayes, but he was one of the finest governors of this state.”

  “Tilden was also a leader of the civic movement bemoaning New York ’s lack of a great free public library and reading room. He formed a trust to establish one as his legacy to the city, consolidating the unique private collections already in existence and infusing them with fresh funding. The Tilden Trust and Astor and Lenox libraries joined in 1895 to form this new cultural entity-the New York Public Library.”

  “Public?” Battaglia asked.

  Jill Gibson smiled. “Open to the public, but a private, nonprofit corporation governed by a self-perpetuating board of trustees.”

  “Tight-lipped and tough-minded, that group is.”

  “Exactly, Paul. The power rests entirely in that board, to this day.”

  “And the building itself?” I asked.

  “The board asked the city to supply a site and maintain the building and grounds-the beginning of this public-private partnership. The city chose Reservoir Square -the huge, gloomy, and obsolete home of the Croton Reservoir, a central crossroads of Manhattan at the time, between Fifth Avenue and Bryant Park.”

  “Of course. The reservoir was demolished in order to create the library,” I said, remembering the process that led to the construction of the vast underground system of tunnels to bring water to the city so long ago.

  “You can still see the foundation of the reservoir in our basement,” Gibson said. “Sixteen years after the trust was set up-in 1911-at the cost of nine million dollars, close to two hundred million in today’s terms, the building was hailed as the greatest modern temple of education.”

  “What about the Hunts?” I asked. “Was their collection part of the original gift?”

  “Jasper Hunt the Second wasn’t so quick to get on board. He was skeptical about relinquishing his father’s precious books-and those he’d continued to acquire. That reluctance kept the original trustees from inviting him to join the board.”

  “Who were they?” Battaglia asked.

  “Best described, Paul, as twenty-one rich white men past their prime. Social status, gender, and economic standing were intentionally homogeneous, to encourage a harmony of action and purpose,” Gibson said. “Schuylers and Cadwaladers, Bigelows and Butlers. Jasper Hunt had the money, but not the class.”

  “Was it his eccentricity?” I asked.

  Jill Gibson laughed. “The library papers suggest that eccentricity was part of his charm. To this group of trustees the Hunts were practically outlaws.”

  “Even with the Astor business connection?”

  “Jasper Hunt the First started life shoeing horses for John Jacob Astor. You know the Astor quote about real estate?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “‘If I could live all over again, I would buy every square inch of Manhattan,’” Jill said. “And Astor came pretty close to doing just that. He took a liking to young Hunt. Brought him into the real estate company before Hunt was twenty years old, funded his first acquisitions, and introduced him to extravagances like the rare books that gave Astor such pleasure. Hunt was smart enough to follow in his master’s footsteps.”

  “Sounds brilliant for a kid who started by shoeing horses,” I said.

  “Then Astor withdrew from the fur trade and most of his other ventures to concentrate on purchasing land in Manhattan, investing all the proceeds in pushing north of the city limits. His genius was in never selling anything he bought, insisting that others could pay rent to use the properties. Jasper Hunt went along with him, but the younger man’s greed tempted him to go a bit too far.”

  “In what way?” Battaglia asked.

  Gibson sat back in her chair. “John Jacob Astor’s fur business took him all over the Pacific Northwest, and then to China, where he and his partners traded skins, as well as teas and exotic woods. Then he began to purchase tons of Turkish opium, shipping the contraband to China to smuggle into this country.”

  “I didn’t know Astor dealt in opium,” I said.

  “Wisely, on his part, he didn’t do it for very long. But there was such a fortune to be made that Jasper Hunt couldn’t bring himself to cut those ties, as Astor had. Even Junior kept his hand in smuggling for a time.”

  “And the book collection?” I asked.

  “The New York Public Library was a stunning success from the moment its doors opened. People like the Hunts who’d been uncertain about participating began to change their minds.”

  “Want to top off my coffee, Alex? It’s cold,” Battaglia said.

  I got up and waved a hand at Gibson, who’d raised her eyebrows at the command. “It’s not personal. He’d make any of the guys on the legal staff do the same thing.”

  “You’re good at this, Jill,” Battaglia said. “You probably know the first book a reader asked for opening day.”

  “A young émigré came in to request a Russian-language study of Tolstoy. Not
what anyone expected, but a sign of the changing culture of the community. This library is really the soul of the city,” Gibson said. “I just love it there.”

  “I take it that Jasper Hunt Jr. rose to the occasion,” I said.

  “Two things happened. Within a decade, the library had risen to the front ranks of research institutions, here and abroad. The collections grew in size to more than a million volumes.

  “Then, in 1917, the steel magnate Andrew Carnegie retired to embark on a massive philanthropic distribution-his ‘gospel of wealth.’ He wanted to give his money away in his lifetime, saw libraries as the best gift to any community, and in 1917 promised to build sixty-five branch libraries in New York, provided that the city would maintain them. Can you imagine?” Gibson asked. “Carnegie’s plan established more than twenty-five hundred libraries in the English-speaking world.”

  “So then Junior kicked in,” Battaglia said.

  “Yes, he did. With his father’s rare book collection as well as his own, which he continued to add to for the rest of his life. They’ve got good genes for longevity, those Hunts,” Jill said. “Junior died in 1958, well into his eighties. He hoped that his possessions would buy him a place on the board along the way. But that never happened.”

  “Jasper the Third finally made it,” Battaglia said. “The old boy is still kicking around.”

  “The family had divested themselves of the smuggling operation, contributed a few million dollars to the library, and become model citizens by the 1920s,” Jill said.

  “And Tally?” Battaglia asked. “Do he and his father get along?”

  “In the boardroom,” Jill said, “everyone’s on his best behavior. The real intrigue doesn’t happen inside the library walls.”

  I couldn’t take my eyes off the small color photograph on a document to the right of Battaglia’s hand as I refilled his mug. It was a copy of an employee identification tag from the New York Public Library, dated earlier in the year. The woman who’d posed for the camera to get her security clearance was the elusive Tina Barr.

  TEN

  “I’m going to step out and let you finish your business with Jill,” I said. “Why don’t you call me when she’s gone, Paul?”

  I was reeling from seeing Barr’s face on a library document just moments after Gibson told me she didn’t know the girl.

  “What’s the matter? You see a ghost?” Battaglia asked.

  “Yes, I did. The one I’ve been trying to channel since you told me to find her.”

  I was angry about being a pawn in the middle of their deal. Jill Gibson had lied to me, and the district attorney let her do it.

  Jill leaned over and tapped her finger on the table. “You’ve tipped your hand, Paul. It’s the photograph.”

  Battaglia wasn’t rattled. He had a reason for playing this the way he had chosen, and irking me was of no consequence to him.

  “Sit down, Alexandra. Pouting doesn’t become you.” He waved at me with the lighter that he held to the tip of the cigar. “Jill’s in the middle of some professional difficulties and I’d just agreed to open an investigation when the Barr girl got herself tied up the other night.”

  “Got herself what? Not exactly the way I’d describe that attack, Paul. What do you know that I don’t? I understand how sensitive the issues are at an institution like the library.”

  “We’ve spent so many decades dealing with the renovation and modernization of the building itself, Alex, that we’ve dropped the ball on most of the other problems,” Jill said. “They’ve festered and grown.”

  “Tell her why you were brought in,” Battaglia said, puffing on the cigar that was plugged into the middle of his mouth.

  “I spent the first twenty years of my career at the NYPL, so I know the collections-and the characters-quite well. In the century since we opened, there was never any relationship between the research library-this central building-and the branches. I’m heading the long-overdue consolidation of the two divisions. There are now ninety-three branches, so that’s a big enough undertaking of its own. But at the same time I’ve walked into a firestorm.”

  “Why?” I took my seat across from Jill Gibson.

  “There are personal issues involving some of our trustees that have spilled into the boardroom. Battles over family fortunes have us in and out of court. A century ago, Samuel Tilden’s nieces and nephews fought tooth and nail to break his testamentary trust so that the library would never be created, from the first day of probate. Brooke Astor’s estate wasn’t the first to be dragged through a court of law-by her own son, no less-and it won’t be the last.”

  “That can’t be unusual for museums or any other institutional beneficiaries, can it?”

  “Certainly not. But we aren’t a museum, Alex. That’s one of the things that makes our situation unique.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Very often, when trustees or benefactors of the library die, we inherit not only their manuscripts and books. We get other works of art, too. But we’re a library and a research institute. We can’t care for great art, nor can we curate it. Most of the time, we can’t even hang it on our walls. And yet, if we violate the wishes of the dearly departed, we’re likely to lose everything else bequeathed to us.”

  “So there’s been trouble in-house because you’ve been selling art that the library owns?”

  Jill looked to Battaglia before she answered.

  “That’s part of it. I think it’s what Paul refers to as our lack of transparency. One of the committees made the decision to deaccession a major painting a few years ago that had been left to us by one of our most famous donors, and after the full board learned about the transaction, some of the trustees really thought it was grounds for murder.”

  “Tell me more about it.”

  “Forget it, Alex,” Battaglia said, drawing back his lips around the cigar. “I’ve got someone on that.”

  “From the U.S. Attorney’s Office?” I asked. The feds had jurisdiction over matters involving culturally significant works of art, but it was unusual for Battaglia to want to share a major investigation with them.

  “Nobody mentioned the feds, did they?”

  “Who did you assign to it, Paul? I’ll work with him,” I said. “We’ll make it a joint investigation. Whatever has been going on might have something to do with Barr’s assault, or the murder of Karla Vastasi.”

  “Someone’s been stealing from the library, Alex,” Jill said. “That’s the reason I called Paul for help. Whoever it is-or they are-has got to be stopped. We’ve got treasures under our roof worth millions of dollars, some of them not even cataloged, and we’re starting to bleed from the losses.”

  Now I felt guilty for holding back the information about the jeweled book that had been found under Vastasi’s body.

  “What do you know about the Bay Psalm Book?” I asked.

  Battaglia’s eyes narrowed as he listened to Jill’s answer. “It’s a very rare piece of Americana. Interestingly enough, the Puritans considered Hebrew to be the ‘mother’ of spiritual languages and used it in many of their services. The book is a makeshift translation of David’s Psalms from the original Hebrew into English, printed in Massachusetts when the first presses were set up. It’s one of the most important items that came to the library with the Lenox collection.”

  Now Battaglia shifted his gaze to me. “I guess your memory’s improving, Alex. Is that the book the cops found last night?”

  “Can’t be the same. The one they vouchered came from the Hunt collection, not from Lenox. Minerva was quite emphatic about its history.”

  Jill Gibson’s elbows were on the table and she rested her head in her hands. “The police have it? Is it covered with precious stones?” she asked without looking up.

  “Yes.”

  “That will be another blow to Leland Porter,” Jill said, referring to the library’s president. “I don’t think anyone’s aware that the Hunt piece had gone missing.”

  �
��Stolen or deaccessioned?” Battaglia asked. “We’ve got to know that before we go looking for bad guys. You’ll check on that, Jill. Does it literally have jewels on the binding?”

  “Yes, it does. Jasper Hunt took a perfectly interesting piece of history-not important literature-and turned it into a garish little objet d’art, a personal vanity. It’s been locked away in a library vault for as long as I can remember,” Jill said. “The only one we display-the one that scholars work with-is the Lenox version of the Bay Psalm Book. Thank you, Alex, for letting me know about this.”

  I couldn’t tell whether my revelation would come back to bite me or not.

  “Do you know where Tina Barr is?” I asked Gibson.

  “No, I don’t.”

  “But you know her, don’t you?”

  Jill grimaced as she looked to Battaglia again. “I’m sorry I lied to you before. I, uh-I wasn’t sure Paul wanted me to tell you the story. Yes, she used to work in our library. She trained there as a conservator.”

  “What exactly do conservators do?” I asked.

  “It’s a field that requires great skill. They’re responsible for the preservation of all our rare documents and books. They’ve got to be knowledgeable about the history of the materials, and have enough scientific education to understand the structural stability and characteristics of whatever they’re working on. Tina’s young, but she’s one of the best.”

  “When did she stop working at the library?”

  “She was full-time with us until a year ago. Then she started working with Jasper Hunt,” Jill said. “But that isn’t unusual. All the private collections of that quality have conservators, and because we have our own lab, many of them-like Tina-do their work right in our facility.”

  “So it wasn’t a problem that she went to work for Hunt?”

  “Of course not. We viewed it as an advantage for Tina to catalog everything in his home. We expect to get the rest of his collection some day. It’s been promised to us.”