by Lee Perry
The room’s ceiling was high and a massive, slated shelving unit full of paintings stood against the far wall. Turning to the left, Mattie led them past rows and rows of wooden crates, “You kept such good care of Helga’s art, Gary.” She pulled latex gloves on her hands while she spoke, “But you didn’t always crate everything right away, did you?”
Seemingly endless works of art sat crowded atop the crates; a hodgepodge of statuary, decorative wooden bowls, boxes and masks and Jordan muttered, “Jeez, Mattie, how did you manage to inventory all this stuff?”
Gary’s eyes grew wide, “How did she manage?”
She gave him a look, “You had twenty years to catalogue all this stuff, spare me.”
Mattie snorted, “If he had boxed it you be waiting a while for Mary’s team to unload all the crates in here to find it.” She motioned to one, its top crowded with sculpted works in bronze and marble, “You never deleted this work or its twin from your inventory, Gary.” She cocked her head to one side, “Is that because it was the murder weapon and you just couldn’t face those entries in your archive let alone delete them?” He was silent and she turned to Jordan, “Is that it?”
Jordan looked to where she pointed, seeing the bronze dancer in pirouette behind a cluster of other small sculptures of ballerinas in various poses, “I believe it is.” She grinned, “Excellent work, Agent Hargrove.”
Mattie carefully raised the statuette, “This is The Dancer in Pirouette, by an art deco sculptor, Anton Buell, created in 1933.” She hefted the artwork in her hand, “Made of bronze, the one that was in Helga’s bedroom was a numbered copy, the first of six official copies made by the artist.” She slowly crossed the room while she spoke, “I know because I catalogued everything in both Helga’s apartments, and not just in these storage rooms. And my notes for these statuettes said that the one down in the ninth floor bedroom was the original and it bears the artist’s initials, AB, and the year, 1933.” Mattie turned the dancer in her gloved hand upside down; “Well, what do you know.” She smiled and held it out so they could see the artist’s imprint, “This is the original.”
“So what’d you do with Helga’s copy, Gary?” Jordan murmured softly, “After you used it to kill Hannah Babcock?”
He remained silent, and staring at the floor shook his head from side to side.
She tapped open Mattie’s picture of Helga’s hearth and red area rug fullscreen on her tablet and swung it around on the tabletop, facing him, “You see, Gary, we have pictures of both apartments before you killed Hannah Babcock and after. This sequence of photos shows that red rug in the room before you killed her; in this one you see it…” She swept the screen to the next image, “And in this one; see the rug in this one? No, you don’t, because you rolled her dead body in that rug and stuffed her in the trunk of your car.” His eyes flicked from her and back to the tablet. “We know this because we found red carpet fibers in your car, stuck in the rim of your trunk.”
“I didn’t do it.”
“Yes, you did.” She exhaled heavily, “The jury will believe you did and confessing could go a long way in avoiding the death penalty.”
He shook his head from side to side, “No…” he rasped.
“The fiber and photographic evidence is all the DA will need for a conviction, and we have the original of the statuette, once it’s matched to the injuries you inflicted on Hannah Babcock’s skull, it’ll be over.” He mutely shook his head and she added, “You killed Hannah Babcock; you hit her in the head with that statue and rolled her body in that red rug from Helga’s bedroom… the one that used to lie in front of the fireplace. You shoved her into the trunk of your car, drove to Connecticut and dumped her body at Chateau Donjon.”
“I didn’t do it!” He insisted in a quiet voice, glaring down at the image on her tablet. “Claude did it. He killed her, I saw it.”
Jordan sat back in her seat, clearly disbelieving, “Oh, I can’t wait to hear this.”
“He did.”
“Why would Claude Babcock ever have a reason to be in Helga Lynch’s apartment?”
“I knew who he was. There were a few times, over the years, when he stopped by the hospital to see his mother while I was there reporting to Helga.” Jordan was silent and he continued, “To my knowledge he’d never been to Helga’s apartment nor would I have expected him to even know where it was. But…” he shook his head, closing his eyes for a moment, “one day I found him and Brenda… together in one of the storage rooms…”
Jordan clarified, “In Helga’s apartment?”
“Yes… it was awkward, but I think I was more embarrassed than they were. Brenda simply rearranged her clothing and got back to work and Claude…” His snort was derisive, “Claude waited for Brenda to leave then suggested we go into business together.”
“Selling off Helga’s art?”
“She was so old by then, and she had so much… So much of it she hadn’t even seen in years… decades.”
“And she wasn’t giving you checks on a daily basis,” Jordan said dryly, “not like she gave Hannah.”
“I sacrificed a lot working for her; my marriage, my…”
“It was difficult to hang onto the generous salary Helga paid you when your alimony payments were so high.”
“It’s not like we took that much, and I only got fifty percent of the proceeds.”
Yeah, Jordan pressed her lips together, and that makes everything okay, doesn’t it? “So you’re gonna’ tell me Hannah Babcock visited Helga’s apartment too?”
He shook his head, “She had never come there before… but she did that night. She either knew or suspected what Claude doing and I think she followed him. He came to pick up another piece… and suddenly she was there, ringing the bell. I opened it and she stormed inside, demanding to talk to him. When she saw him she began shrieking; how dare he steal from Madam…”
Jordan looked at the recording technician seated in the corner and sighed, “And then?”
“He threw up his hands and stormed off, down the hall… and she followed, still screaming…” He stared at the far wall, not seeing it, “and suddenly, they were in Miss Lynch’s bedroom and I followed.” He shook his head, “They should not have gone in there, they had no right, it was such an invasion of privacy… I said, ‘Now see here…’ just as she slapped Claude across the face and when she whirled and began shouting at me, Claude suddenly had that sculpture in his hand and he…” Gary raised his hand, mimicking the gesture but it trembled violently and he quickly lowered it to his lap, “He struck her.”
“And?”
“She just stopped… you know?” He turned brimming eyes to her, “She just stopped, and her arms fell to her sides like they were suddenly so heavy… And she just fell forward… like a tree… on that rug.”
“And then what happened?”
“Claude… he just stood there and laughed… He said that was sure easier than trying to figure out how to inject her without her noticing.” Gary sniffed, “I was… I… I-I couldn’t believe it… He just started rolling her up in the rug and told me to go get one of the wheeled garbage bins and bring it up in the utility elevator.”
“And you did.”
Tears spilled from his eyes, “What choice did I have?”
Unbelievable. Jordan bit her lip, “What was Claude going to inject her with?”
“I don’t know… But he scared me.”
She spoke softly, “Where’s the rug, Gary?”
“Which one?”
“From the ninth floor.”
“I put it one of storage the rooms.”
Millburn, NJ
Jordan finished her nightly security check of the house and unplugged her phone from the charger. She had filed a criminal BOLO for Claude Babcock before leaving work for the day and she checked her voice and email for notification alerts as she wandered to their bedroom.
Catherine was sitting on the bed, reading her journal, “Oh, my god, I did.”
Jordan
closed the door behind her, “Did what?”
“There was a night I dreamt I was talking to Helga Lynch and she told me she knew who killed Hannah Babcock.”
“You’re kidding.” Jordan set her phone on the nightstand and lay next to her, “Did she say Claude did it?”
“She wouldn’t tell me.” She sighed and slid the journal back in the drawer, “I hate it when people are unnecessarily cryptic.”
Jordan snickered, “Was that all she said?”
“She said I’d know too.”
“You did, you’re the one who found the murder scene.”
“Mmm…” Catherine turned out the light and slid under the covers, “The funny part is while she was telling me that we were watching her dance.”
“She was dancing?”
“No, I mean we were sitting there and watching her dance when she was young.”
“Okay…”
She snorted and stole a look at her, “She was executing pirouettes…”
Jordan’s brows rose high on her forehead, “Oh…”
“Yeah; oh…”
“Saying your special mantra every night before bed really works.”
“Yes,” she nodded; “the dead may speak to me in my dreams and not through me.”
Jordan pulled her close, “Amen.”
“And women.” Catherine snuggled against her and yawned, “So how did it go at Jeffers’s trial? I never got to ask.”
“He pleaded not guilty in this trial too, which is ridiculous given the mountain of evidence against him. It’s obvious he just wants attention; he must know once he disappears in the prison system no one will care about him anymore. His lawyer really has nothing to work with as a defense and decided… or maybe Jeffers made him accuse me of deliberately shooting him in his privates.”
Catherine snorted, “Oh jeez, really? What did you say?”
She shrugged, “The truth! I was tired; I didn’t mean to shoot him there, that’s not how I was trained.”
They were quiet for a long minute and Catherine asked, “Do you think Gary is telling the truth? That Claude Babcock killed his mother?”
“I do, I think money can ruin families… and people who just can’t cope with it. Having that much wealth really is an enormous responsibility, and I think there are damn few who can handle it.” She shrugged, “Look how the uber rich act around the world; most are just abject grubby, morally bankrupt, greedy little assholes.”
“Yeah,” Catherine sighed, “but Helga Lynch seemed nice.”
“Mmm-hmm,” Jordan agreed, closing her eyes, “no wonder she hid from the world.”
The ringtone was called Zen Water, and the sounds of a fountain and a bell-like melody gradually filled the room. Jordan rolled over and fumbled in the dark for her phone, squinting at the caller ID. It was a bureau number and she cleared her throat before answering, “Hawkins.”
Catherine emitted a huge yawn and sleepily checked the time on the small alarm clock on her nightstand.
“Great,” Jordan said quietly, “keep him in Holding, I’m on my way.”
“Holding what?” Catherine mumbled and rolled back to her, “It’s a quarter to six…”
She hung up and turned to plant a kiss on her lips, “Claude Babcock just got caught trying to leave the country.”
New York City, NY
He handed her the arrest paperwork and plastic evidence bag of Claude Babcock’s personal belongings, “His name came up on the no-fly list when he tried to board a flight to Paris.”
“Really…” Jordan listened while she quickly scanned the incident report, “Has he called a lawyer?”
“Yeah, some friend of his. He’s not here yet though, and he’s corporate, not criminal.”
“Okay, well, that takes care of his one phone call. Thanks for bringing him up.”
“Anytime,” he nodded, “no problem.”
He left and Jordan entered the interview room, “Claude,” she greeted the young man dressed in the orange jumpsuit, “that color suits you.”
He was seated; his right hand cuffed to the table and shook his head, “You’ve made a serious blunder, Agent...”
“Hawkins.” She reminded him. “So your art-dealer-partner confessed that you killed your mother…”
He waved impatiently, “I don’t know what you’re talking about and I don’t have to talk to you ‘til my lawyer gets here.”
“True, but you can listen while you wait for him.” She looked past him to the recording technician, “Are you recording?”
“Started when he entered the room.”
“Excellent.” She smiled, “So, Gary Tauscher has confessed and will testify in court that you hit your mother in the head once, with a statuette of a ballerina, killed her, then dumped her body over the wall of Helga Lynch’s estate in Westport, Connecticut.”
“Prove it.” He leered.
“We can do that.” He said nothing and she sighed, looking idly at the bag of his possessions that sat on the paperwork in front of her, “In fact, we can connect you to the murder of Brenda Jensen too.” Her eyes flicked to his, “She is the one who got you in the door of Helga’s apartment, right? Until Gary caught you in the storage room.” He licked his lips nervously and she opened the bag, pulling out his wallet, “You know, I’ve just had a look at your car, Claude, it’s a mess. It’s being processed as we speak, do you really think they won’t find any hair or blood or skin cells from Brenda before you dumped her body in that alley?” She noted the slight tremor that shook his narrow frame. Is that rage? She wondered, Or fear? “As for your mom; maybe you planned to kill her all along. Your dad was already dead, with her gone too that would leave you first in line to inherit… wouldn’t it?” She sat back in the chair and opening his wallet, began looking through the contents. “Although you probably intended to wait until after she got the additional fifteen million Helga left her in her will.” Brows arched high on his smooth forehead and her eyes flicked to his, “Oh, she didn’t tell you?” She cocked her head to one side, “Huh, too bad. You really jumped the gun on that one.” She pulled a stack of plastic cards from the wallet and began flipping through them, “And now you won’t get any of your mom’s money.”
“Have I no rights here at all?” He asked through clenched teeth, “Are you allowed to steal my money and credit cards too?”
She held up a gym membership card, “Platinum membership… nice.”
“So?”
A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth, “Such an expensive membership, you probably have your own locker there, huh?” He paled and she added, “I scheduled you for the last transport to Rikers tonight, so I have all day to clear out your locker for you.” She gave him a wink, “I’ll be sure to let you know what I find there.”
“You look happy.”
“I can’t help it,” Catherine whispered, snickering, “this place is so over the top.” She looked around her at the men’s locker room, “I’ve never been in such a posh gym, not to mention I never thought I’d ever see the inside of a men’s locker room…” She snorted, “If you can even call this a locker room.”
“I’ll say.” They stood in the small private room that included a shower and locker the size of a closet. “Screening room, hair salon, restaurant…” Jordan sounded incredulous, “where exactly do they workout?”
Stewart had rushed a warrant to access Claude Babcock’s locker at Club Elite, one of the most expensive health clubs in New York, and they watched as Special Agent Mary Fielding used the key provided by management to open the closet door and her assistant recorded the event with a small high definition camera.
“Huh… it’s a walk-in.” Mary stepped back and motioned for her assistant to enter, “Record everything in plain sight first.” She turned to them, grinning, “And I can plainly see a laptop on a shelf.”
Jordan made herself sit quietly until Mary had finished collecting fingerprints from it and handed it to Catherine. She powered it on and they stared as icons f
illed the desktop and Jordan muttered, “Oh my god, some people are so stupid.” Claude kept only folder icons on the left side of the screen, lined up in a neat row and she read their names aloud, “Art sales, personal purchases, valuable contacts…”
Catherine clicked open the art sales folder, “Lots of stuff in here, he was dumb enough to save his online chats of price negotiations… There’s a spreadsheet.” She shook her head, “Wow. I can print all this stuff for your next meeting with him.”
A bearded young man stood beside Claude’s chair, “My name is Josh Ketchum.” He introduced himself, “I’ve advised Mister Babcock not to say anything until I’ve gotten a criminal attorney to defend him against these scurrilous charges and I…”
“Have a seat.” She cut him off and dropped her stack of printouts and tablet on the table as she sat down.
Claude spoke in a quiet voice, “I won’t be saying anything to you.”
“I’m sorry I took so long, you had a lot of stuff to catalogue in that gym locker.” She began sorting through the stack of printouts, “Although your laptop, of course, kept us the busiest. Now let’s see…” She looked at him, “you are nothing if not a meticulous record-keeper, Claude.” She looked back down at the page, “You kept such careful track of your buyers… probably so you could sell them more of Helga’s art, huh?”
His lawyer friend whispered loudly, “Don’t say a word.”
“And in both your personal purchases and valuable contacts folders you had a brief entry for the guy you bought sux from. We’re arresting him too,” she flashed him a brilliant smile, “but the D.A. probably won’t need him since we also found the vial of succinylcholine and bag of syringes you hid wrapped in that towel.” She tapped open an image on her tablet and held it up for them, “See? Found it tucked behind a stack of towels on a shelf in your walk-in locker there. This would be the sux you injected Brenda Jensen with to make sure she was dead and probably intended to use on your mother.”