The Kills

by Linda Fairstein

  Mercer began the conversation. "We're struggling with an investigation. We thought maybe you could give us a little guidance, before we take a wrong turn and get too far off the scent."

  "We're quite willing to pay for your time, your expertise, Mr. Stark," I added.

  "Let me get an idea of what you need. Perhaps I can just point you in the right direction." He winked at me. "I don't charge for that."

  "I'm afraid there isn't that much to tell right now," Mercer said. "We're trying to solve a murder case. It appears that someone-or maybe several people-thought the deceased had some property of significant worth."

  "Was this person a collector?" Stark asked. "Is that why you've come to me?"

  "No, she wasn't a collector. We found a few things of some value in her home, but they were gifts given to her many years ago."

  "I see. Was she from a prominent family? Perhaps someone who was a client of my firm, or an obituary I read about in the newspaper."

  Not unless you subscribe to the Amsterdam News, I thought to myself. "No, her murder didn't even merit a mention."

  Mercer reached into his pocket and took out one of his plastic evidence bags, which he had labeled with information about where and when he had retrieved its contents. He handed the package to Bernard Stark.

  "May I empty this onto my desk to look them over?"

  "Certainly."

  Stark turned the bag upside down and gently slid the twenty coins onto his exquisitely tooled leather blotter. He spread them out with his forefinger, moving them around like checkers on a board, ordering them by size and color.

  "What do you see?" Mike asked.

  The dealer was slow to speak. "Most of these have some age on them. That's obvious from their dates."

  "But their value," the impatient detective asked, "are they worth anything?"

  "These over here," he said, pointing to a series of small coins that all appeared to be the same. "They're just proofs. Never actually put into circulation. Three-cent nickels are what they're called."

  "Can you give me an idea of what they'd bring in at an auction?" Mike asked.

  "This group, dated 1871, you might get a hundred dollars for each of them. Those from a decade later, maybe two hundred."

  Not exactly a king's ransom, but then we'd each had cases in which people had been murdered for pocket change, or for parking in the wrong space on the street.

  Mercer removed another bag of coins from his pocket.

  "Ah," Stark said, taking a jeweler's loop out of his drawer and holding it up to his eye.

  "I see you've got some foreign pieces, too. Romania, Sweden, Greece-none terribly valuable, but certainly interesting. You say these belonged to an amateur, not a collector?"

  I didn't need to tell him they were the property of a thief who had pilfered from a world-class collector. Bernard Stark was already intrigued.

  "My impression is that the deceased…well," I stalled momentarily, "she sort of inherited some of these from an old friend. Something like that, but we're not entirely sure yet."

  "Someone had a good eye here, Ms. Cooper. Transylvania, 1764."

  The three of us leaned in to look at the piece he was holding up to us.

  "A two-ducat piece. Last time I saw something like this," he said, "it went for almost a thousand dollars."

  Most of the local bodegas in Queenie's neighborhood didn't deal in two-ducat Transylvanian coins. She probably hadn't been able to tip her errand boys with it.

  "No offense, Mr. Stark, but can you tell just by eyeballing these things that they're real?" Mike asked.

  "You're not going to cut in on my business, are you, Detective?" the older man said, laughing. "That's why people come to me with their gold and silver. That's what I do, Mr. Chapman, the way you solve crime. And if my eye isn't good enough, there are, of course, ways to prove the contents of the coins."

  We watched him handle each piece, turning it over and examining both sides.

  "See this little fellow?" Stark asked. He seemed delighted to be poring over the dregs of Queenie's purloined collection. "Quite unusual. Don't come across these very often."

  "What is it?" Mike asked.

  "An 1844 dime. But Liberty's seated in this one. It's got its nice natural silver surface with what we like to call champagne toning. Come, come, Mr. Wallace-any more bags?"

  Mercer handed over the third plastic envelope. This one had several more proofs of little value, and then Stark's broad smile reappeared as he lifted a large silver medallion and studied its pale green patina. "Very choice, this. Very, very choice. Look at the date on this beauty."

  He held out the coin in his hand for each of us to study. The Latin inscription on the top border translated as "American Liberty." "July Fourth, 1776," I said.

  Mike kept looking for the bottom line. "It doesn't have any number on it. What kind of coin is it?"

  "It's a medal, actually, not a coin. On the rear you see the infant Hercules-that's the symbol for the American colonies-defending himself against the cowardly British leopard. Can you read the Latin on the back?"

  "Sorry, no."

  "'Not without divine aid is the infant bold.' From the Roman poet Horace," Stark said. "One of these silver medals was given to every member of the Continental Congress after the battles of Saratoga and Yorktown."

  Now Mike was thoroughly engaged. Warfare did it for him every time. "You've seen these before?"

  "Very few exist, Mr. Chapman. It was quite a magnificent strike, but small in quantity."

  "What would you expect to get for it on the street?"

  "Wrong question, Detective. It's got no street value at all-that's my point. It wasn't issued as a coin. But it's got major value in the auction market. The last of these fetched many thousands of dollars."

  Stark's secretary entered the room with a large tray. It was decoupaged, covered with coins of every size and color. On it she carried a coffeepot and an assortment of sodas.

  We each helped ourselves to something to drink.

  Stark held his cup and saucer, standing at the window now as rain slapped against it. "I don't mind giving you a hand with whatever you're doing, but I hope you plan to let me in on your little secret."

  "Secret?" Mike asked.

  "My family has been in this business for almost a century, and we know where most of the rarest coins in the world have been bought and sold over the years. The minute you walk out my door," Stark said, "I can check our records for Libertas Americana and probably figure out where this very piece has been hiding for the past half century."

  I wasn't planning to test him, but Queenie had been holding on to it for longer than that.

  "I can be much more useful to you if I know what I'm dealing with," Stark went on, turning his back to stare out at the view, and giving us the opportunity to signal each other in agreement. I nodded at Mike-Queenie's homicide was his case.

  "We don't know what we should be looking for, Mr. Stark. We don't know what the bad guys were looking for, either, and we have no idea whether they've found it. The woman who died," he said, after some deliberation, "was an eighty-two-year-old invalid who lived alone in an apartment in Harlem."

  "With these coins? Unsecured, in her home?"

  "Strewn about the floor of her closet and overlooked by whoever burglarized her place-and that person may, or may not, have been her killer."

  Mike paused before going on. "Nobody would have known it to see her now, but back when she was a kid, my victim had an affair with one of the richest men in the world. He was the collector-he was the one she got these babies from," he said, playing the coins back and forth on the green blotter.

  Stark was ready for the chase. He sat down at his desk and swiveled his chair to face his computer screen. "I'm sure I can check him in our database. There hasn't been an American in this game-auctions or private acquisitions-since the Starks have been in business that didn't get some of his coins from us."

  "That's part of the problem,"
Mike said. "This guy wasn't here in the States. He wasn't American."

  Mike looked to Mercer one more time, and got the nod to tell the dealer. "In fact, he was the King of Egypt."

  Bernard Stark pushed back from the keyboard and looked Mike Chapman in the eye. "This woman kept part of Farouk's collection in her bedroom closet? I'm not the least bit surprised that she's dead."

  27

  Bernard Stark pushed the pile of coins away and stood again, walking to close the door of his office. "No good has befallen anyone who's come into contact with Farouk's treasures. It's quite surprising the government never knocked on your victim's door, demanding a full accounting."

  Mike was ready to take Stark into his confidence. "Let's say Queenie didn't come by these ducats in the most honorable way. Let's say she thought the old boy owed her a few quid, and she grabbed some fists full of gold and silver."

  "That makes more sense. The feds wouldn't have known where to look, and a lot of this would have come back onto the market with your victim having no clue of the value of the things she had stolen," Stark said, thinking aloud.

  "You think the feds have time to be interested in rusted old medals and coins that are only worth a few thousand dollars?" Mike asked.

  "When you're talking about King Farouk, I'd say you'd have everyone from the Secret Service to the CIA on the hunt."

  Stark had just ignited the spark that had been smoldering in our pockets. Whatever made him bring the CIA into this conversation?

  Mercer took the lead, calm and easy, in his usual style. "I guess I'm just missing something, Mr. Stark. We're aware that the king collected royal jewels from monarchies all over the world, and that he had Fabergé eggs worth a good fortune. Ms. Ransome would have had to have carted off trunkloads of-of nickels and dimes, so to speak-to make it worth her while. We know that didn't happen."

  "You'll have to talk to someone in the rare jewel business to find out how many Fabergé designs existed and what they're worth on the open market. When it comes to this kind of thing, I can assure myself that she need only have taken the right coin, Detective. Just one single piece that Farouk owned, and I'd say I know a lot of people who would have killed for it."

  "Maybe she did take it," I said. "Maybe if you can describe-"

  "Queenie-is that what you call her? Queenie didn't get the particular coin I'm talking about," Stark said, smiling at me again. "That one actually wound its tortuous way back into our very own hands. I just mean that with objects as rare as the things Farouk bought for himself, one of them alone might be worth a fortune."

  "Well, go back to the piece you referred to-the one you wound up with. Maybe there was another just like it."

  "Ah, Ms. Cooper. That is the stuff that dreams are made of-sort of like a dirty old black falcon that a private eye set out to find. This coin- ourcoin-was an eagle, and I know for a fact there was only one in the entire world."

  "You mentioned the CIA and Secret Service, though," Mike said. "You want to explain what this is all about?"

  "I think you should know the story, Detective. Perhaps it will suggest some comparable avenue of investigation. Have any of you ever heard of a Double Eagle?"

  Stark walked to a glass display case that stood at the far end of the room. He took a small key out of his breast pocket and unlocked it, taking from the top shelf a black leather box with a hinged clasp.

  He sat down and opened the box, staring at the large coin inside before passing it across to us. "Mind you, this is just a proof-a copy of the actual gold piece. But it might be the most magnificent coin ever struck."

  I lifted the shining disk from its nest and rubbed my finger over its raised image.

  "She's quite gorgeous," I said.

  Stark took off a strip of paper that was affixed to the inner lid of the box. "This is a passage from the auction catalog when we sold the piece. It describes her better than I can."

  He paraphrased the copy. "Lady Liberty, striding forward in a loose gown, against the wind. Her left hand holds an olive branch while her right is extended with a lighted torch. There's a small representation of the Capitol Building on the bottom, with forty-eight stars circling the edge of the disc, and the rays of the sun emanating from beneath the feet of Liberty. The year of issue was 1933."

  Mike took her from me and flipped her over. On the back were a finely etched profile of an eagle in flight, and the designation of the amount of the piece in United States value: twenty dollars.

  "You sold one of these at auction?" Mike asked.

  "Correction, Mr. Chapman. Don't get your hopes up. We sold the only one of these that existed at auction. July 2002. It was the one Farouk owned."

  "You mean only one of these was ever made, that's how come you're so sure?"

  "Many were made, in fact, but the government never issued them. They were all destroyed."

  "I gotta ask you, sir, what this one went for. What price did you get for it?"

  Stark was only too pleased to answer Mike's question. "It was in all the newspapers, Mr. Chapman. I've got nothing to hide." Stark reached over and reclaimed his proof, holding it up between his thumb and middle finger.

  "The Double Eagle sold for more money than any other coin in history," Stark said proudly, puffing up as he gave the answer. "More than seven million dollars."

  I looked at Mercer's three plastic bags of supposedly rare coins, which together would only fetch a few thousand. It was impossible to conceive that a single piece of gold with a face value of twenty dollars could eventually sell for seven million dollars.

  Mike was incredulous, too. "So, just humor me, Mr. Stark. Suppose there was a second one. Just like that one you're holding, all solid and real. Suppose we found it mixed in with these others and brought it back to you. What'd you give me for it?"

  "Nothing, Mr. Chapman. Not a dime."

  Mike laughed. "At least I'd get twenty bucks' worth."

  "No, that isn't true. Your hypothetical piece wouldn't even be worth the twenty dollars engraved on its back side. The coin was literally illegal the very day it was made."

  Mike mimicked the position of Stark's fingers, which were still holding the coin. He had a goose egg instead of a gold proof. "Zilch. Zero. Bupkes."

  "I suppose if you melted it down you'd get the price of the gold weight, but that's about it."

  "How come?"

  "Very simple, Detective. After the Mint creates the coins-all coins-they have to be 'monetized.' That's the process the Treasury Department has to go through with every kind of currency, or else-like the Double Eagle-it never becomes legitimate money. It's the process of monetizing the coins that makes them legal tender." Stark sighed. "This particular value is all in the history of this piece, the uniqueness of it."

  "You wanna tell me about that?"

  "Certainly. If I entertain you enough, perhaps I can charm Ms. Cooper out of some of these other little treasures," Stark said, referring to Queenie's stash. "I'd like to see everything you found in the lady's closet."

  He started after the Gold Rush of the 1840s, which placed the young American nation among the wealthiest in the world. "The United States Mint needed a new denomination for the growing economy, something more than the original one-dollar gold piece. The highest value of currency that had been available until then was the ten-dollar coin. So a bill was introduced in Congress to create a twenty-dollar piece, cast with nearly a full ounce of gold."

  Stark went back to his glass étagère and brought several coins back to us. "Plenty of these twenty-dollar gold pieces to go around," he said. "They were minted almost every year between 1850 and 1933."

  I looked at the older version that he handed to me. "This one isn't nearly as elegant as yours, is it?"

  "You can thank Teddy Roosevelt for the improvement. While he was president, he had a chance encounter with the man most people considered America's greatest sculptor."

  "Who was that?" Mercer asked.

  "Saint-Gaudens. Augustus Saint-Gaudens.
Roosevelt complained to him that the U.S. coins lacked artistic qualities. Old Teddy wanted something to rival the ancient Greeks, with brilliant design and high relief. He had found the man capable of designing it. This new golden Double Eagle became the symbol of American wealth and power, a very desirable object from the first moment it went into circulation."

  "There's only one bird on this thing," Mike said. "Why call it a Double Eagle?"

  "Because it was twice the amount of the old ten-dollar piece, which had been nicknamed the Eagle."

  "What ended the Eagle's flight?" I asked.

  "Another Roosevelt, Ms. Cooper. Teddy's cousin, Franklin. By the time he was inaugurated in 1933, the country was in the depths of the Great Depression. You could buy a daily paper for two cents and a pack of cigarettes for a quarter. The only thing that held its value during this crisis was gold itself."

  "So there was a run on the banks, and people began to hoard gold coins," Mercer said.

  "And two days after he was sworn in, President Roosevelt closed all the banks, embargoed the export of the very precious metal, and took America off the gold standard. After March of 1933, never again was the United States Mint to issue gold coinage."

  "So Farouk's piece was made before FDR's proclamation?"

  "Ah, the heart of the matter, Mr. Chapman. The Treasury Department prohibited the Mint from monetizing, or legitimatizing, any gold coins from that point on. But it neglected to forbid the actual production of the coins themselves."

  "Farouk's Double Eagle was struck after we went off the gold standard?" I asked.

  Stark nodded his head. "The Mint was just a factory, after all. The engraving for the coin had already been completed, the bullion was prepared, and within a month after the embargo, one hundred thousand 1933 Double Eagles had been cast. The Treasury realized the gaffe and immediately told the Mint not to license this particular coin."

  "So the Double Eagles existed…"

  "Yes, Mr. Chapman," said Stark. "But they had only the value of a small gold medallion. They were never legitimized."

  Mike sat back in his chair. "That's an awful lot of gilded birds in the nest. How could anybody account for them all?"