It was ridiculous. “No,” Val protested. When a few heads turned toward her, she lowered her voice. “You didn’t know Adrian.” How could she make this cop understand? “She had no dark history—”
“None you know about.”
Val repeated, this time more slowly, “She had no dark history.”
They stared hard at each other. “From what we can tell,” Cleary went on, “someone followed her inside, destroyed the security camera in that corridor, and shot Adrian Bale—” at that, Val winced, and Cleary’s mouth twisted as if to say, well, it’s the truth, “—from the threshold of her office.” She gave a little shrug. “And you say she had no enemies.”
All Val could do was shake her head. “None that I know of,” she finally admitted, weary. Val tried to picture Adrian’s office, the beautiful kilim rug, the horsehair sofa, the bookshelves filled with expensive art books. Like Adrian Bale’s apartment, a place of lively beauty and serene intelligence. Of taste and—happiness. Why would anyone want to kill her? Finally, she offered the only explanation that made sense. “She must have surprised somebody in the act of—”
Across from her, with a pinched expression, Cleary was shaking her head. “She was shot in her own office, Ms. Cameron, not out in one of the galleries.” It was a key point. “Besides,” Cleary went on, “Eva Toscano, the director, assures us no other security zones were breached.”
Folding her hands, she waited while Val let it sink in. Then, thumbing through some preliminary paperwork, she added quietly, “Adrian Bale did not surprise anyone in the act of stealing, because,” she regarded Val almost apologetically, “nothing has been stolen from the Coleman-Witt Museum.”
“All right…” said Val slowly.
“Failing all that, Ms. Cameron, no dark history catching up with her, no wrong place at the wrong time—it’s looking good that your friend Adrian Bale was killed for the Euphorbia milii.”
It seemed fantastic to Val, who suddenly felt argumentative. “Why do you say that?”
Cleary pitched the empty Diet Coke into a trash can across the aisle. “Because it’s nowhere at the crime scene,” she said. Then the detective in charge of the murder of Adrian Bale stretched her arms overhead. “Oh,” she went on breezily, “there’s a big gray urn on her desk, something she was working on, apparently.” Cleary added, “She had cut through a whole lot of bubble wrap. But…no crown of thorns plant.”
Then she narrowed her eyes, recalling the scene. “No plant of any sort in her office. Anywhere.”
Val felt her shoulders slump. She felt tired. Defeated, somehow. “So whatever it was she wanted me to come and see,” she murmured, “…is gone.”
The detective said softly, “She told you she couldn’t hang on to it very long.” With that, Lieutenant Cleary pushed herself back from her desk, shooting a wry look at Val. “I guess she was right.”
Greta kept her on the phone for a therapeutic half an hour—for both of them—during that afternoon. The last time Val could remember her aunt being quite that appalled was when the first plane hit tower number one. In those days, the Artifact Authentication Agency was housed in an old pre-war building on E. 38th Street, on the sixteenth floor. Greta described the billowing black smoke wafting east from the heights of the first tower, and her assistant was shouting over and over what a terrible accident, but Greta knew right away. Partly because she was older than her assistant. And partly because she had worked for many years by then in her half-forgotten branch of the Department of Commerce that dealt with evil ingenuity, if only—sometimes—when it came to what was being passed off as genuine artifacts from departed civilizations. For this reason, she was more easily able to recognize it in its more murderous guises.
Her staff pressed against the windows facing south, crying, screaming, helpless, all helpless, as it unfolded. One of them threw up her breakfast. Another one fainted. Throughout the colossal burning and disintegrating into obscene acres of dust and rubble thirty city blocks away from their safe little agency, Greta Bistritz was wordless, appalled.
As she was when Val told her in a voice that was finally choked nearly into silence about the murder of Adrian Bale. Greta, of course, knew Adrian, and for great, long minutes she was silent on the line—that one death this morning of the girl she had known and loved and spoken to about the value of using ion beams to detect art forgeries. “Well, then,” said Greta finally, responding to Val’s very small inventory of facts about the shooting. “Well, then.” Her voice was soft.
Val waited patiently while her aunt thought things over. Telling Greta had dried and hardened and cured the terrible crime that Val suspected was altering her own life for all time. She felt as though she was caught hiking alone at dusk on an unfamiliar mountain trail, when what’s apparent recedes in those final minutes before the world turns over and everything better suited to the night emerges. You can’t see their shape, you can’t smell their flesh, you can’t hear their footfalls—until it’s nearly too late—but they lurk out of reach in the thin and gauzy air. That’s how Val felt about Adrian’s murder. It was all those nighttime dwellers that were slowly surrounding her. How could she outwit it? How could she…solve it?
By the time Greta’s voice came over the line, Val had pretty much forgotten she was even holding her phone. “What are you going to do?” her aunt put it to her.
“I’m going to finish up some line edits, cry into my beer somewhere on the way home, and watch a string of inane movies until I fall asleep.”
“That sounds like a worthy plan,” said Greta, “and one I pretty much plan to pursue myself, but what I meant was,” her voice dropped as she bit off each word, “what are you going to do about Adrian’s murder?”
7
Val found herself staring over the lid of her laptop. A box from Bouchon Bakery at Rockefeller Center sat waiting her attention, where Ivy League Ivy had set it sometime after Val told her and a few key other players that she had lost a close friend that morning and would appreciate a quiet afternoon. Within an hour Ivy had knocked, given her a long, goopy look, and set the box on her desk. “Best chocolate chip cookies in the city,” was the whispered comment, whereupon the girl had slouched out and shut the door noiselessly behind her.
“Thank you, Ivy,” Val called to her. “I really appreciate your kindness.” It was entirely possible, thought Val, that she had somehow misjudged the assistant editor, but she would have to add that to her list of inquiries—third behind the murder of Adrian Bale and the possibility of transforming Killian’s Plumb Lines into something Val could put her name to publicly. For now, though, all Val could do was set her fingers on the cookies, then lay her head across her arms and try to cry.
But nothing came.
Nothing aside from a little frisson of what felt like shock.
At the end of the afternoon, Val shut down her computer and slipped into the charcoal mid-length jacket she kept at the office for days that turned out colder than she had thought. This was one of them, and she knew it had nothing to do with the temperature. She pulled the chain on her table lamp, grateful for the familiar rasp as her office lost light, then she walked through the deserted outer office. All she heard was the air forced through the vents. Pretty soon the cleaning crew would turn up for the night shift. The ding of the elevator, the heavy slide of the brass door, and down she went, alone, her hands thrust deep into her pockets. Adrian. Adrian was nowhere at all. And Val was left alone for the rest of her days to try to find themes in books where none truly existed.
She knew she was going to walk all the way home to her apartment on E. 51st Street. Not because the air might do her some good, but because it was the simplest thing to do. The thing that wouldn’t require digging around for her MTA card or raising an arm to hail a cab. Somewhere during the walk home, she would duck into a dark, quiet bar and knock back a couple of drinks. The elevator reached the lobby and seemed to rest
indecisively for a moment while it decided whether to open. The elevator, that old lusty clanging box, was wiser than Val. The door slid open and out she stepped, craning her neck to catch sight of the weather. Drizzle?
The lobby guard flashed her a quick grin from behind the Art Deco desk, where a tall man stood with his back to the elevator. “Night,” Val called, grateful for these small moments of normalcy.
“Ms. Cameron.” The guard slung her a quick salute, then eyed the man at the desk.
Now what?
Val slowed as the man in the long gray coat turned toward her. He had very short dark hair streaked with gray, brown eyes that seemed a little too intense, and he needed a shave. He was pale and lean, ready for something. The coat he wore hung open, pushed out of the way by his hands thrust into his pockets. His suit was dark gray, single-breasted, well cut. He looked Val over quickly without so much as moving his head. Then those intense eyes settled back on hers. “I’m Bale,” he said.
At that, Val shuddered, and covered her head with her arms.
And began to wail.
They didn’t get far. Half an hour later, Val and Antony Bale were sitting across from each other in one of the green flocked booths at the Old Town Bar. She was holding on to the stem of a wine glass, staring woodenly at what was left of the Pinot noir he had ordered. Without a word in the lobby of the Flatiron Building, he had grabbed her upper arm and guided them both to a bar five blocks away. Farther from her apartment on 51st, where at that point in time every step downtown felt like a doomed journey away from everything she wanted from the rest of the worst day of her life. Farther from the happy kingdom of her bed, where she could dig down under the light tent of her comforter.
As they skirted puddles and raced to beat the flashing Don’t Walk signs, all Bale murmured was that he’d put her in a cab later. She grunted. The topic of transportation was about all she could handle. When they reached Old Town Bar and he swung open one of the gleaming brass doors, Val stumbled, thinking how happy Adrian would have been that Val had finally broken down and met the beloved Antony.
Nothing could ever make any of it right.
Val had slid into the booth, exhausted, and propped her chin on her hands. Partly to keep from sobbing. Partly to steady her hands. Why couldn’t she control herself? The bottle of a Chilean Pinot noir showed up, and the silent waiter poured a sample. Bale breathed, swirled, sipped in a way that Val could tell was a matter of long custom. An imperceptible nod to the waiter, who then poured two glasses, set the bottle down, and left.
Bale folded his arms on the table and gave her a steady look. “It’s good to meet you, finally.”
She felt terrible. “Please don’t remind me.”
“If it helps,” he said with a small smile, “I wasn’t all that keen either.”
“Oh?” This possibility had never occurred to her.
“My sister had terrible taste in friends,” he said, settling back. “It was part of her charm.”
Now she was interested. “Who are you thinking about?”
“Denise from camp. Kathy from camp. Nina from dance squad.”
She could tell the list was longer. “I don’t know any of them.”
“Neither did Adrian, after a while.”
“No reason I’d be any different, is that it?”
He sipped. “Maybe we all just got busy.”
She took a noisy breath, wanting something kind to be true. “Maybe.” Something seemed called for. She raised her glass. “To Adrian,” she managed to say before her throat tightened up.
He eyed her. She knew she sounded shaky. Wordlessly, he pushed a clean white hanky across the table to her. As her fingers closed over it, she nodded a thanks. He raised his glass to his sister, and Val could tell he was working to control his expression. They drank in silence for a few minutes. It was a fine Pinot noir, but Val thought she had finally found the one thing an excellent wine couldn’t cure.
When Aunt Greta’s love, Ben Biderman, had died suddenly several years ago, she told Val that color left the world for a year. As if her vision had lost all the rods and cones and whatever else sets us apart from dogs. Color finally returned. And all it managed to do was underscore the fact that Ben himself would not. The world insisted on being beautiful despite the loss, which made it all the more painful. There’s a lot to be said, Greta concluded, for monochrome.
Settling into the corner of the booth, Val was aware that Adrian’s brother was composed. Not a restless sort. Not the kind of man who needed to rustle or utter half-sentences just to hear himself exist in the world. That first look at him in the lobby of the Flatiron, it was the same quality she noticed now. She wondered if Bale’s nature had been shaped by the monastery. Years of silent devotions—she swiped at her eyes with his handkerchief—whatever those were. But she had no energy to ask, even if she had any business asking. With no reserves of anything at all, she sank against the paneled wall. At the end of that particular day, Val needed something good or nothing at all.
As he slowly poured them each a second glass, she watched the play of light from the sconce on the deep red color filling her glass. It was a whole big firmament of absence inside her. She was in a place other than dead. Maybe an anteroom where not even grief could sit.
She studied his face, at his careful concentration with the bottle. She couldn’t imagine what he was feeling. Her face hurt when she whispered, “I’m so sorry.” For a moment those dark eyes settled on her, then he bit his lip and nodded. She held up the hanky, giving Antony Bale a shot at it. “I’m okay,” he said. Then: “I took the first flight when I heard.”
Val held her glass, not drinking.
“I went straight to the precinct house to hear firsthand from the homicide cop just what had happened to Adrian.”
“And that’s how you heard about me.”
He took a sip. “And about the voicemail from Adrian.” Bale perked up. “If it’s all right with you, Val, I’d like to hear it. Adrian had called me as well.” Antony Bale reached into the pocket of his suit jacket and pulled out his phone. Pressing through to his sister’s voicemail, which he put on speaker, he set the phone on the table and played her message: Listen, kiddo, I’ve got something of yours. Well, the abbey’s, at any rate. Did I tell you Prior Berthold gave me a Victorian urn for the museum? Her voice dropped. I discovered a stowaway, Antonio. Call me. Then, after a second: Love you.
Val sat staring at Bale’s phone as though it contained a miniaturized Adrian.
“The head of our abbey, Prior Berthold, had given Adrian a Victorian Jasperware urn for the Coleman-Witt. The lieutenant said the urn was found at the crime scene and entered into evidence.” At that, Antony Bale sighed. “We’ve had a death at the abbey,” he said finally, with a frown. “A young monk named Fintan. Smart kid, very devout. Hard to read. A secretive sort.” Then he took a long sip. “He fell to his death yesterday,” he said softly. As he rubbed his eyes she could tell how very tired he was. “Maybe the day before. We’ll know soon. His mate says the boy was distraught over the disappearance of the urn.” He looked Val straight in the eye. “That urn. The very one the Prior had given her.” Bale’s eyes slid off toward a stylish blond who passed the booth. “And then I got the call about Adrian’s murder.”
Val held her glass against her cheek, letting the information sink in. “The boy Fintan,” she asked Bale. “Was it suicide?”
Pressing his lips together, he held up both hands. “We don’t know. Was he that distraught? If so, why? How terrible could the loss of that urn be for a devout boy to commit that particular mortal sin?” Val must have looked unconvinced—and his comment reminded her that Antony Bale was, after all, a monk—because he exhaled and rested his hands on the table. “In the view of the Church, Val. That’s what it is. By me, in the pantheon of mortal sins,” he said, leaning toward her, “suicide would not make the cut.” When
she gave him a small smile, he called over the waiter and ordered a cheese plate. “The question is,” he spread out his fingers, as though he was measuring the table, “what did the boy Fintan have to do with this urn?”
“Maybe it wasn’t the urn,” she tried out, thinking about Adrian’s message. “She said she discovered a stowaway.”
“So what is she talking about?”
Val shook her head. “Here,” she said, pulling her phone out of her purse. She cued up the message from Adrian but said softly, “I can’t hear her voice again right now, if you don’t mind,” and without looking at him, added, “Antony.” All she could manage was a grim smile as she offered him her phone. As he took it, his hand briefly brushed hers. Suddenly so much contact after seventeen years of sheer avoidance. Maybe anytime now the world would go monochrome for both of them…
Frowning, he listened, his dark eyes darting around, landing only for a second on Val. He suddenly sat very still as he got to the end of Adrian’s message. Val felt her heart starting to race. Something had struck him, she could tell, and all she could do was wait while he teased it out. He set down the phone and stared at it. “Listen,” she said, her voice dropping, “it’s the Euphorbia milii, isn’t it?” Bale was giving nothing away. “It’s the thing Adrian wanted me to see, the thing she couldn’t hold on to for very long.”
Antony Bale grabbed her arm. “Did you see it?”
She pulled back a little. “No, I never made it inside the building. Why, what’s—”
“I’ve got to make a call,” he muttered, scraping his hand over his short, dark hair. “Excuse me—” He opened his hands wide as though he was trying to pat everything comfortably back into place. Suddenly everything—everything beyond the violent death of his sister—had gone completely wrong.
A Killer's Guide to Good Works Page 5