Lethal Legacy

by Linda Fairstein

“Do you still have the key?” I asked, thinking of the one I found on the floor in the stacks.

  “I do. It’s at home. You can have it if you like.”

  “Was the lock broken?”

  “Not at all. Picked, I’d say.”

  “Who knew about the drawer?”

  “Well, obviously, my wife.”

  Minerva crossed her arms and let out a long, low “moo.”

  “I’m not sure anyone else would know.”

  “The housekeeper?”

  “Certainly, she cleans in there, but I can’t imagine she’d be involved. She’s been with me for twenty years, Mr. Chapman.”

  “Anyone else?” Mike asked. “Workmen, guys doing construction or repairs, people in the building?”

  “It’s a Park Avenue building. Quite secure. And no one was doing any work for us inside the apartment.”

  “Who was helping you in the library?” Minerva asked, rearranging the French tulips in a vase near the sofa. “You’ve always had someone to watch out for the books. Who now, Tally?”

  “The same curator I’ve had for years. He’ll be happy to talk with you. He’s only there one day a week.”

  Minerva Hunt snapped the stem off one of the flowers and focused her attention on her brother. “That’s not what I mean, Tally. Who’s your book doctor these days, hmmm? Who’s been doing your preservation assessments? Mending your tears? Checking your clamshell boxes?”

  Talbot Hunt was trying to ignore Minerva, but she was like a steam engine picking up speed.

  “Now I see it,” she said. “Tell the nice detectives what they ought to know.”

  “It has nothing to do with this.”

  “Tina Barr was working for my father, Mr. Chapman. She was treated well here, as you might guess. Then all of a sudden she quit. Quite abruptly.”

  “And started working for Alger Herrick,” Talbot said.

  “Only part-time,” I said. That’s what Herrick had told us.

  “You hired her away from Father, didn’t you? You knew Tina had all the information about his collection that you weren’t able to get from him yourself. How far in did you let her, Tally?”

  His face was red and he looked like he was ready to spit at his sister.

  “She wanted the extra work. She didn’t enjoy it here. This is more like a mausoleum than a library. I was doing her a favor, Minerva. Can you understand that?”

  “How far did you go, Tally? That’s all I asked.”

  “It’s not what you think,” he said, gritting his teeth.

  “You were sleeping with her, weren’t you?”

  “Stop it!” he shouted at Minerva. “Don’t be such a fool.”

  “A fool to figure it out, or to say it in front of the detectives?”

  I’d only seen Tina Barr in the immediate aftermath of her first victimization. It was hard to think of the distraught young woman as anyone’s paramour.

  Talbot Hunt started toward the foyer.

  “Didn’t figure she was your type, Mr. Hunt,” Mike said, following him. “So what kind of favor did you do for her? How long did your affair go on?”

  Hunt stopped long enough to say, “Hardly an affair, Detective. Tina came on to me, that’s all it was. She was lonely-and, well…things happened.”

  “I get lonely myself, Mr. Hunt. Doesn’t mean I crawl into bed with the first weasel that comes along,” Mike said. “What kind of things? Did you and she have a sexual relationship?”

  He looked past Mike at Minerva, his teeth clenched.

  “I won’t tell Josie,” Minerva said. “You must understand, Mr. Chapman, he’s terrified of his wife. He’s already given her far too much stake in Hunt properties, and she dangles that over his head like a sword.”

  “Did you sleep with Tina Barr in the bedroom of your apartment?” Mercer asked. “Where you kept the book?”

  Hunt took too long to think. The answer must have been yes.

  “But where was your wife?” Mike asked.

  “One of the cats must have his tongue, Detective. Josie spends most of her weekends in Millbrook. Tally’s to the manor born, of course. And she’s to the barn born-but to the manor well-adjusted. Loves living the grand country life there.”

  Mercer stepped closer to Talbot Hunt, pressing Mike’s arm to encourage him to move away. “We need to have this information, sir. Did Tina Barr know about the psalm book?”

  “Of course she did. She’s a-she was a very accomplished conservator. It interested her as much as anyone else in our world.”

  “Were you intimate with her?”

  They were face-to-face, ten steps away from Minerva and me, in the darkened foyer.

  “Yes, Mr. Wallace, I was.”

  “We’re going to need to know when that relationship started and when it ended.”

  “I told you that it wasn’t a relationship. I’ll try to give you any specifics I remember.”

  “Did she spend time in the bedroom of your apartment?”

  “Yes, Mr. Wallace. Are you through humiliating me? Yes, she did.”

  “Did she have a key to your apartment?”

  “Of course. She was doing work there for me. I trusted her with my entire collection. Why wouldn’t I give her a key?”

  Mercer’s voice seemed to get lower with every question he asked. “Did she know where the drawer was, the one in which you locked the book when you left town?”

  Talbot Hunt paused for several seconds. “I-I guess she might have. It’s possible she saw me fetch it from the bureau after a weekend away.”

  Minerva turned away, reached for a small silver bell on one of the tables, and rang it. “I think I need a drink.”

  “My sister, the virgin queen. Hard to take criticism on this subject from you.”

  Mercer tried to keep Talbot focused on Tina Barr. “After you realized the book was missing, did you talk about it with Tina?”

  No wonder he hadn’t called the police. He’d first have to explain the probable suspect to his wife.

  “I’m really not sure. I must have mentioned it to her.”

  Minerva was more incredulous than I was. She didn’t let the appearance of the butler interfere with her response. He stood silently and waited for her order. “How could you not have known, Tally? I don’t even spend time at the library, but I know that she’d lost their trust, too.”

  At my first meeting in Battaglia’s office with Jill Gibson, Pat McKinney had called Tina Barr a forger-and a thief.

  “A vodka gimlet,” Minerva said.

  “Now, madam? At this hour?”

  “Now, Bailey. Right now,” Minerva said. “If you didn’t know it, Tally, then you’re the last one in town. The girl shared a bed with the master thief, too, before he got caught. Tina Barr used to run with Eddy Forbes.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  “If you don’t feed me,” Mike said, “I’m going to put some mustard on my shoe and eat it. Then I might start on your toes.”

  It was midafternoon, and the list of things we had to do and people we had to find and interview continued to grow.

  “That’s about as dysfunctional a family unit as I can imagine,” Mercer said, shaking his head. “All the money in the world and the two cats are probably the only living things Hunt can trust.”

  “Coop’s starving me. I can’t even think, man.”

  “Let’s not waste time on a meal. Pull up in front of P. J. Bernstein’s,” I said, referring to my favorite Upper East Side deli. “I’ll hop out and get sandwiches while you call the feds and get an address on Eddy Forbes.”

  “Make it two turkey clubs for me, a bag of chips, a cream soda, and you got a deal. Mercer?”

  “Ham and provolone on rye toast.”

  We were less than five minutes away from the Third Avenue classic deli. Mike double-parked while I ran in and placed my order with the counterman.

  “What do you know?” I asked as I climbed into the back seat.

  “The lieutenant just called. They had to let
Billy Schultz go. His alibi for last night held up just fine. Three other guys working late with him. That’s the bad news.”

  “What’s the good?”

  “His office is less than ten blocks away from the library. Think they need to work those alibi witnesses a little harder.”

  “I still don’t like his DNA in the mask from the first break-in at Barr’s apartment,” I said. “His explanation strikes me as weird.”

  “I told you the lab said it’s a mixture, Coop. Enough saliva there to get another profile-it just doesn’t match anyone in the databank.” Mike had spread a napkin across his lap, holding half a sandwich in his right hand as he navigated uptown again with his left.

  “Tell her what Peterson said about the phone call,” Mercer said.

  “Traces back to a booth on the corner of Sixth Avenue and the Deuce.”

  “So this creep lurked around the library and watched until Tina’s body was found-and about to be bagged-and then dialed up her cell?”

  “We’re dealing with a freaky-deaky guy, in case you hadn’t figured that,” Mike said, looking at me in the rearview mirror. “C’mon, girl, you still gotta eat.”

  “The whole damn crew is freaky,” Mercer said. “You got a sister-brother act that’s as ugly as anything in Greek mythology, a too-nosy neighbor whose DNA winds up in an important piece of crime scene evidence, a one-armed guy who lives in the chapel of an old cancer hospital, a library executive who lied to Alex the first time they met, the most successful map thief in recent times now on parole, and a young turk with books bound in human skin who was so anxious to be wheels-up that-”

  “I’ll be wheels-up his ass if he neglected to tell us about his visit to Jasper Hunt,” Mike said. “And this dead girl-may she rest in peace-gets more complicated by the hour. What was she doing in bed with Talbot Hunt? And Eddy Forbes?”

  “What did you learn about Forbes?”

  “Sentenced to only three years, over the objection of just about every library director in the galaxy. Got out seven months ago, with some time off for good behavior. Reports to his parole officer in Maine every week.”

  “Didn’t he ever live in the city?”

  “Yeah, in Chelsea, but he lost his lease when he went to jail. The feds seized all his books, maps, papers. They’re still in the process of trying to match up the stolen things with libraries that haven’t even missed them yet.”

  “Any family here?” I asked.

  “A younger brother on the West Side. Chow down and I’ll have you there in no time.”

  I nibbled at the corner of my sandwich. “Who’s his brother?”

  “Name is Travis Forbes. That’s all I know at the moment. Don’t get pushy.”

  “Well, where?”

  “First floor in a brownstone on West One Hundred and Fourth Street, off the park.”

  We had visited Alger Herrick in his opulent apartment only one block away. “That’s close to where Herrick lives.”

  “A universe apart, actually. This area’s still a run-down bunch of tenements.” Mike had devoured the first sandwich before we entered the transverse drive. He washed it down with a swig of soda and a handful of chips before starting on the second one.

  When we reached 104th Street, Mike turned in to the block. School had let out for the day, and kids, most of them black and Hispanic, had clustered on the sidewalk. The department Crown Vic-an obvious intrusion in the ’hood-caught the attention of most of them, who watched with interest as we got out of the unmarked car.

  I climbed the steps and opened the vestibule door. The name T. Forbes was next to a buzzer, and I pressed it. Several seconds later, I heard a voice through the intercom.

  Mike nudged me out of the way. “Travis Forbes?”

  A man answered. “Yes.”

  “Mike Chapman. NYPD. I’d like to talk with you.”

  There was no response.

  “You there, Forbes?”

  A dark-skinned kid who appeared to be about twelve years old had followed Mercer up the steps.

  “He don’t let nobody in, dude. He real shy or something.”

  “You know him?” Mercer asked.

  “I seed him around. Yo, you know his brother real famous. Got locked up. Got took away in handcuffs. His picture was in the paper and they even looks alike,” the kid said, totally animated. “You the man?”

  Mike pressed the intercom again. “I am. But I guess Mr. Forbes doesn’t think so.”

  “You give me ten dollars if I get you inside?”

  “Not by breaking in,” Mercer said. “You live here?”

  “Down the street.” The kid smiled and tsked at the suggestion he might do something illegal. “Naw. Hit four-C. Ms. Jenkins.”

  I pressed the buzzer.

  It must have taken almost a minute for her to get to the intercom. “Hello?”

  “Give me the ten,” the kid said to Mercer, who took a bill out of his pocket.

  “Yo, Ms. Jenkins? It’s Shalik. You need anything from the store?”

  “Milk. I need milk and a loaf of bread, dear.”

  “Let me in so’s I can get the money.”

  The buzzer sounded and Shalik opened the door for us. He pointed to a door behind the stairwell. “That his,” he said, starting the climb to the fourth floor.

  Mike went ahead of me and pounded on Travis Forbes’s door. The three of us waited in the hallway, and Shalik stopped in place.

  “Police,” Mike said, banging again.

  “Do you have a warrant?” the voice inside responded.

  “You watch too much television, Travis. Open up. I just need some information about Eddy.”

  “He’s not here.”

  “That’s a good start. Now open the door.”

  “You can’t come in. I’ve just got a robe on. I’m dressing to go out.”

  “As long as you’re not gonna expose yourself to me, crack the door.”

  I heard the lock disengage and the door opened several inches, coming to a sharp stop as it strained against the small chain that secured it. I could see a shock of brown hair, but the man’s face was shadowed.

  “We want to talk to you, and I’m not gonna do it in the hallway,” Mike said.

  “How many of you are there?”

  “Three of us.”

  Travis Forbes paused. “There isn’t room for you. It’s a very small apartment.”

  “I’ll send in my thinnest partner. She’d fit in a closet,” Mike said. “Put some clothes on. I’m not moving till you do.”

  “Give me a few minutes then,” Forbes said. He closed the door and walked away from it.

  Mercer backed up and turned around. “Let me check out the building. Wouldn’t want to spook him out the window. There a fire escape?” he asked Shalik.

  “Yeah. Go through the back alley. You could climb up it, see all the crazy shit he got piled in there.”

  Mercer left as the kid came down the steps and approached Forbes’s door, squeezing his wiry frame between Mike and me.

  “Whoa, Shalik. Where’re you going?” Mike asked.

  The kid turned the knob and gently pushed on the door till it caught against the chain. He slipped his skinny arm through the space-just several inches wide-twisting his body as he slid the metal catch out of place.

  “Future perps of America,” Mike said. “You can’t do that, Shalik.”

  “I be done,” he said, standing back from the door, which swung open. “You look, Mr. Detective.”

  From the floor to the ceiling of the entryway, with only enough room for a single individual to pass through, were stacks upon stacks of books, magazines, and yellowed newspapers, piled on top of one another and towering over my head. They were so densely packed together that although they gave the illusion of being about to tumble over, there wasn’t anywhere for them to fall.

  “Get on your way, Shalik. Scram,” Mike said. He had one foot in the hallway and one over the threshold. “You call the lieutenant, Coop. Tell him to stand
by. Tell him we’ve got a Collyer situation.”

  THIRTY

  I knew Mike well enough to do as he directed before I asked why. He was on his cell to Mercer, asking if he’d seen any sign of Travis Forbes from the alley behind the building.

  “Well, he hasn’t come back out yet. Call if you spot him.”

  “What’s a Collyer?” I asked as we waited in the quiet hallway, the door still ajar.

  “Cops, firemen-all 911 responders-that’s the designated expression for a house so full of junk it’s treacherous to get inside, or back out,” Mike said, reaching up to pull newspapers off the top of the nearest pile. “Look at this. Dated three years ago. You never heard of the Collyer brothers?”

  “No.”

  “Two very rich guys who lived in Harlem in the 1930s. Well educated, from a prominent family, but really eccentric. They saved every piece of junk they could find on the street. Hoarders, they were. Hermit hoarders,” he said, reaching up to the second pile. “Here you go, catalogs from rare book auctions in London.”

  Still no sign of Travis. Mike handed two of the catalogs to me. “ 2002,” I said. “A little late to put a bid in.”

  “Homer Collyer, the older brother, went blind. So the younger one began to save newspapers,” Mike said, sweeping his arm across the piles of Forbes’s out-of-date dailies.

  “Why?”

  “In case Homer ever regained his sight, Coop. Then he’d have all the news that he’d missed to read. They even booby-trapped the whole place against thieves. So the younger one got stuck in one of his own traps and buried in the rubble, while Homer starved to death. Rats took care of the rest of him.”

  “I get the point.”

  “You get a call to a Collyer, you don’t know what to expect to find under the debris. Junk? Stolen books? Maybe a body or two?”

  Mike’s phone rang. He listened and then repeated to me what Mercer told him. “Travis just peeped out the back. Made eye contact with Mercer. Maybe now he’ll move our way.”

  “Hey!” Forbes called out from the far end of the hallway. “You can’t come in here. You can’t just break the lock.”

  “I swear I didn’t,” Mike said. “I guess it just-just fell. What have you got here, Travis? You know how dangerous it is to keep paper jammed in here like this? A regular fire hazard.”