Lethal Legacy

by Linda Fairstein

  She flipped back to the copy in her book of reproductions and again unfolded it before us.

  “What are the chances that Mike’s find is a forgery?” Mercer asked.

  Bea Dutton frowned. “Because of what I told you about Father Fischer?”

  More likely Mercer had asked that question because of rumors about Tina Barr.

  “Yeah.”

  “The Vinland Map presented an entirely different issue. The Vikings were the greatest explorers of the Middle Ages-nobody disputes that. They just never made maps. Not a single one,” Bea said. “They didn’t have a concept of the world that encouraged any of them to draw diagrams, so lots of scholars were skeptical about its authenticity from the get-go. Then there’s the ink. You know how ink is made?”

  I’d never given it a thought. “Actually, I have no idea.”

  “It’s the reaction between iron in ferrous sulfate and tannin from oak trees. Together they oxidize on a page and literally burn the letters or drawings into the paper. Over centuries, the blackened mark starts to turn brown.”

  “And the Vinland Map ink?” Mercer asked.

  “Document examiners subjected it to microprobe spectroscopy, which yielded a synthetic substance-something called anatase-that was in the ink. And that wasn’t manufactured until World War One. Heave-ho to the Vikings.”

  “And this?”

  “Look closely at it, Mercer.” Bea pushed the tip of the antique panel closer to us and started to explain it to us. “This is exquisitely elaborate, do you see?”

  There was a masterfully drawn portrait of Vespucci, holding his navigational instruments, at the top of the large panel. Below him was the upper portion of the map, representing an area that was bordered by the Arctic Ocean, and below it a landmass with tiny writing that described interior regions and portrayed the topography of the area. Behind Vespucci was a chubby-cheeked figure-the northeast wind-blowing across the frigid waters.

  “The detail is astonishing,” I said.

  “See the inset?” Bea asked. On the upper-left quadrant of the panel was a small world map. “It’s actually different than the larger image, if you were to see them all assembled. As Vespucci completed more voyages, the latest descriptions were added to these smaller insets.”

  “Too detailed to forge?” I asked.

  “Not only that, Alex. The Vinland Map is just ink on parchment. This one is a woodcut. It’s truly a work of art, and I’d say impossible to re-create today. After all, we do have one original in Washington against which any discoveries like the one you made this morning can be compared.”

  Mike was poring over the reproduction that Bea had unfolded. “Every section of this map tells its own story, doesn’t it?”

  “That’s one of the things that’s so magical about it,” she said.

  The margins of the twelve panels were festooned with figures of the wind and sea, and cartouches that chronicled the most important features of these newly charted territories.

  “Could be the reason that this piece of the map was stored in that particular book might point us to whatever Tina Barr-or her killer-was looking for,” Mike said, nodding to Mercer. “Maybe something in one of these images, or a link to the part of the world that’s portrayed in the fragment we found, you know?”

  “The section of the map featuring Amerigo himself is stuck inside a book about American birds. Not a bad idea,” Mercer said. “Bea, is there any way to get a copy of the full map that’s reproduced here in your book?”

  “You want the four-by-eight-foot version, I guess.”

  Mike was right. If the stack of books deposited under the water tanks in the last twenty-four hours was connected to Tina Barr’s death, then this high-priced piece of a jigsaw puzzle might prove to be a clue.

  “We’ve got a photocopy machine behind the reference desk that duplicates folio-size pages,” Bea said. “Just give me a minute and you’ll each have one to go.”

  She disappeared around the corner just as there was a loud banging on the door.

  “Ignore it,” Jill said. “We don’t open to the public until ten.”

  “There’ll be no public today,” Mike said, checking his watch. “Crime scene techs will be swarming all over the library within the hour. Nobody’s getting in till the whole place is worked over.”

  The banging didn’t stop. “May I check?” Jill asked.

  Mike stood up as she walked to the door.

  “Goddammit!” a voice thundered at her. “Get your foot out of the way and let me in.”

  “I’ve got some police officers with me,” I heard her whisper to the man in the hallway. “Why don’t you wait in my office and I’ll meet you there shortly.”

  “The hell with the police,” he said, pushing open the door so that Jill tripped over herself getting out of his way. “I’m here to get what belongs to me.”

  There was no mistaking Talbot Hunt. The physical resemblance to his sister, Minerva, was striking, and the air of Hunt arrogance as he approached Mike Chapman was equally identifiable. He was tall and whippet thin, with straight dark hair and dark eyes.

  “Talbot, I’d like you to meet Detectives Chapman and Wallace,” Jill said, trying to catch up with Hunt. “And Assistant District Attorney Alexandra Cooper.”

  “I’ve already wasted two hours of my time yesterday with your colleagues,” Hunt said. “That business about my sister’s housekeeper-”

  “‘Business’? Oh, you mean the fact that she was murdered in an apartment your sister owns, dressed exactly like her,” Mike said. “And the idea that she might have been killed because she was carrying a book that belongs to you, or that you say belongs to you.”

  “Who says differently? Is it Minerva?” Hunt asked, talking to Mike but repeatedly glancing over at the map on the table.

  “I don’t remember anyone inviting you here this morning,” Mike said.

  “Some members of Ms. Gibson’s staff seem to place more value than she does on the library’s relationship with my family. Now I’d like to see the Audubon volume that you found,” Hunt said. “And my map.”

  “Your book of psalms, your birds, your map,” Mike said, shaking his head. “I just can’t imagine the commissioner is looking to turn these things back over to you until he’s damn sure nothing that has gone on involves your indictment, Mr. Hunt.”

  Hunt took a few steps toward the trestle table and Mercer stood to block his approach. Bea came back into the room with her arms full of copies of the map, and stopped short when she saw Talbot Hunt.

  “It’s a panel from the world map, isn’t it?” Hunt asked. “Am I right, Ms. Dutton?”

  “You are, Mr. Hunt.”

  “That is mine, Detective,” he said, each word separated by a dramatic pause, as though a nail had been driven between them as he spoke. “My father’s lawyers will want to speak to you as soon as I reach them.”

  “You’re telling me you knew about the existence of this particular map?” Mike asked. “That you knew it was here, at the library?”

  Hunt didn’t seem to want to answer that question.

  “Bea, I thought you said you’ve never seen one of these panels,” Mike said. “That the library never owned one.”

  “That’s true,” the petite woman said, holding her ground. “I haven’t, and we don’t.”

  “The world map of 1507,” Hunt said. “Martin Waldseemüller. The only known original is in the Library of Congress.”

  “Tell me something I don’t already know, Mr. Hunt.” Mike peeled back the wrapper on a pack of Life Savers and popped one into his mouth.

  “I can do that, Detective. I can tell you something almost nobody in the world knows,” Hunt said. “There’s another original of that 1507 map that survived. My grandfather bought it from the Grimaldis-the royal family of Monaco -more than a century ago.”

  Bea Dutton’s head practically snapped as she turned it to look at Talbot Hunt. “You have the other pieces to complete this map?”

 
; “We can race against each other to find the missing panels, Mr. Chapman, if you won’t agree to return this one to me,” Hunt said, choosing to ignore the earnest librarian. “I can leave you to your own devices.”

  “That’s how come they gave me a gold shield,” Mike said, crunching the mint between his teeth.

  “I can assure you that if you fail, someone else is bound to die.”

  TWENTY

  Talbot Hunt was seated at the head of the table, one leg crossed over the other and his hands touching at the fingertips. “For the moment, Detective, wouldn’t you say that I’m in the driver’s seat?”

  Mike was pacing, his back to Hunt as he walked away from us. “Coop?”

  “I’m not bargaining with possessions-no matter how valuable-in exchange for information connected to two murders, Mr. Hunt. Either you talk to us, or you tell it to the grand jury,” I said. “The decision about who owns these things will be made in a courtroom, not because you’re here to bully us. I assume the library can establish what belongs in this building and what doesn’t. Things that have been donated to the Hunt Collection-”

  “And all those other things they are desperately hoping will be left to them,” he said, glaring at Jill Gibson. “Fortunately, while my father is still breathing, everyone here is likely to be on his best behavior. It takes so little time to change a codicil these days.”

  “How did your grandfather get the map?” Mike asked. “And how come nobody knows he had it?”

  “There are a few people aware of the fact-some more dangerous, more desperate to find it than others.”

  “Your sister, Minerva? Is she one of them?”

  “Did you ever see a pig looking for truffles, Detective? My sister would have her carefully sculpted snout deep in the dirt if it would help her find the rest of the panels.”

  “Why would any of this cause someone to be desperate?” Mercer asked.

  “Because the more time that passes before the pieces of the map are reunited, the greater the likelihood they will never be found,” Hunt said.

  “And there’s much less value to the individual pieces than to the work as a whole,” Mike said. “But if your grandfather bought it intact, how did it get broken up?”

  “Because Jasper Hunt Jr. was mad.”

  “Your sister mentioned that.”

  “First honest thing I’ve heard out of her mouth in ages,” Hunt said. “We hardly knew him-he died when we were very young-but the stories about him are legion. He was all about games and pranks and tricks, Mr. Chapman. The older he got, the more difficult. Like many rich men, he wanted to take it all with him. Very torn about whether he should create a legacy that would outlive him or go out like a pharaoh, with all his worldly goods surrounding him for the long ride.”

  “How did he come to buy the map?” I asked.

  “According to my father, Grandpapa was thirty years old when the discovery of this map was made by Josef Fischer. The news spread worldwide, of course, and even though Jasper’s interest was primarily in books, like most collectors he was fascinated with the idea that one could still uncover such treasures, untouched over time, in a personal library. And so he made a plan.”

  “And what was that?” Mike asked.

  “Jasper asked his curator to study the small royal families of Europe, like the Waldburgs of Wolfegg Castle, where the map was found. Kingdoms, principalities, and duchies that had libraries in 1507, when the great map was printed, and had perhaps managed to hang on to those residences throughout the four intervening centuries. It was well known that royals were among the first to buy these documents at the time they were printed.”

  “Sounds reasonable,” Mercer said.

  “By the time they finished a careful survey of European history three years later, Jasper was surprised to see how few of the existing properties had not been pillaged or changed hands numerous times. So he and his curator-and his personal banker-decided to embark on a grand tour of the continent.”

  “Just to search for that map?” I asked.

  “The ostensible purpose was that the great American book collector Jasper Hunt Jr. was making a pilgrimage to Europe ’s oldest royal libraries in order to add to his own. But Grandpapa was also counting on the fact that while many of these princes had retained their titles, they had lost most of their riches and their long-gone feudal lifestyles. Some of them might be ready to offer to sell him valuable works-maybe even the great world map.”

  “But wouldn’t there already have been a feeding frenzy, after the announcement of the discovery of the one map?”

  “Actually not, Mr. Wallace,” Hunt said. “You see, Prince Waldburg had no intention of selling his. The great excitement at the time was that it existed at all, and in such perfect condition. Cartographers everywhere wanted to see and study it, but the prince made it clear that there was never to be a price tag placed on the map, so it was never assigned a commercial value in the marketplace. A century later-just a few years ago-we all learned that the Library of Congress had made known its interest in acquiring the map.”

  “So your grandfather never knew that it was worth millions of dollars?” I asked.

  “Grandpapa had a great eye for the rare and beautiful, but not even he could have guessed the price this would have ultimately been worth. No one could have.”

  “How did he find it?”

  “In 1905, they were traveling through Belgium and the Netherlands, actually making some magnificent purchases of incunabula and very old illustrated manuscripts, when Jasper was summoned by Prince Albert of Monaco-Albert the First,” Hunt said. “The two had known each other for quite some time because Albert had married a rich American girl from New Orleans whose family was well acquainted with the Hunts. It seems that Albert got word of Jasper’s search, and from Jasper’s perspective, the Grimaldi family was high on his list of prospects. They had ruled Monaco since the thirteenth century, and being in such an important strategic position on the Mediterranean seaport, would likely have been interested in a map of the New World at the time it first appeared.”

  “Yeah, but the Grimaldis had been chased out of town at least once,” Mike said. “They didn’t retain possession of their palace for that whole passage of time.”

  Talbot Hunt’s furrowed brow suggested his puzzlement at Mike’s display of knowledge, which was doubtless some factoid of military history. “You’re right, Detective. That, too, was part of Prince Albert ’s story.

  “Don’t forget that Monaco is built on top of a rock, Detective-literally, a fortress atop a great cliff above a strategic harbor, with ramparts constructed all around to reinforce it. Before the Grimaldis fled the palace during the French Revolution, they were able to stash many of their treasures-crown jewels, the art collection amassed by Prince Honoré, and a good portion of the royal library-inside a series of catacombs built into the rock in medieval times. Everything still high and dry when the next generation was restored to the palace thirty years later.”

  “Why did Albert contact your grandfather?”

  “Word had spread throughout these European principalities about the questions Jasper was asking during his travels. And Albert was an unusual prince for his time, far more interested in intellectual pursuits than most others. In fact, he is best remembered as an explorer-a very serious oceanographer-which explains his attachment to maps.”

  “There’s a great oceanographic museum in Monaco, isn’t there?” I asked.

  “Indeed. And it was founded by Albert-in 1906.”

  “One year after your grandfather met with him.”

  “And thanks to Grandpapa’s largesse,” Talbot Hunt said. “You see, Princess Alice-the rich American wife-left Albert a few years earlier, after he slapped her in the face during an evening at the opera, when he learned she was having an affair with a famous composer.”

  “Like you say, Coop”-Mike pointed at me-“nothing new about domestic violence.”

  “And when Alice walked out, she took her s
izable dowry with her. By selling the 1507 world map to my grandfather, Prince Albert pocketed a small fortune for himself and was able to establish the oceanographic museum and library, which is still thriving today.”

  “Nobody in the principality complained that he was deaccessioning such a rare document?”

  “Ms. Cooper, I daresay not many people knew of its existence. My father claims that Albert told Grandpapa that the panels of the great map had been protected because they were inside a series of books-books that had intrigued Albert from the time he was a young child.”

  “Do you know which books?” I asked.

  “Certainly. Some time after the Grimaldis returned to power in 1814, the royal library acquired the entire collection of the Description de l’Égypte. All twenty-four volumes. Where the pieces of the map had been stored for safekeeping during the revolution, I don’t suppose we’ll ever know. But whoever found them thereafter decided that the double elephant folios of the Napoleonic expedition would be just the right size to protect the panels.”

  “What are they?” Mike asked.

  “The Description of Egypt was the largest publication in the world at that time-in its physical size, not in the number of copies-and a very prized possession, too,” Jill Gibson explained. “Napoleon led a failed invasion of Egypt in 1798.”

  “I know that. The British defeated him in the Mediterranean and his troops were cut off from France,” Mike said. “He abandoned his army and went home.”

  “But a horde of civilians accompanied the military, and stayed on in Egypt to create an exhaustive and meticulously drawn catalog of everything from the obelisks and large statues along the Nile, to the great tombs, to the flora and fauna,” Jill said.

  “And the very last volume of the first edition of the Description of Egypt is an atlas-the book that captured the imagination of the young Prince Albert, and the one in which he found the even older map,” Talbot Hunt said. “The map he sold to Jasper.”

  “Do you know where your grandfather kept his panels?”

  “I wouldn’t be searching for them today if I knew where they were.” Hunt stood up and frowned at Mike.